The Teranis Stargate gets sucked into a super volcano (Photo from GateWorld.net)

Inferno

WRITTEN BY: Carl Binder
DIRECTED BY: Peter DeLuise
GUEST STARRING: Kevin McNulty (Chancellor Lycus), Brandy Ledford (Norina), David Nykl (Radek Zelenka), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
Sheppard’s team comes to the aid of a people who live in an Ancient facility built into a volcano that chooses their visit to erupt. Oh, and they have an Ancient warship.

General Impressions
First of all, I’ll just get this off my chest: I love Norina’s lavender dress. There, I said it. Her frock is adorable.

Nice frock! (Photo from GateWorld.net

This episode had a lot of strong science and a lot of McKay, which always makes for a good episode in my book, especially when the poor guy is trying to score with a hot woman who (like most of the women on this show) has the hots for Sheppard.

The Good
It’s so much fun when Rodney talks like a documentary. I’m fascinated (and frankly terrified) by the super volcano under Yellowstone National Park. If that thing goes, I can kiss my country—and my life—goodbye. So here’s hoping it stays quite for a few thousand years more.

Way to go with the science. I geeked out throughout this episode.

The conversation between Weir and Sheppard about Rodney’s attempts to hook up with the hot Taranan scientist lady is hilarious:

SHEPPARD: Uh, I’m gonna get back there now–uh, make sure he’s not distracted.

WEIR: Distracted?

SHEPPARD: Ah, well, the lead scientist, uh, she’s very, um…

WEIR: … hot?

SHEPPARD: I was gonna say attractive. But McKay is acting very, uh…

WEIR: … smitten?

SHEPPARD: I was gonna say pathetic.

WEIR: Wait. I should head back with you and begin negotiations with the Taranan leader. What’s he like?

SHEPPARD: Oh, you know. He’s a guy. Didn’t pay much attention. Sorry!

The Bad
Oh, another bull-headed leader who thinks the folks from the expedition have a devious plan to take his stuff, and a pack of ignorant natives who refuse to believe big earthquakes and the air full of ash can possibly hurt them. Maybe I’m spoiled by my own world, but are people really that stupid? At least the bull-headed leader apologized and let us borrow his snazzy Ancient warship.

As usual, I’m bothered by aliens speaking English and by the notion that our Earth tech can interface with any alien tech it comes across. I cringe every time I see Rodney plug his laptop into any Ancient or Wraith computer he comes across.

The Awesome

The special effects are amazing. The Stargate being consumed by lava looked so cool. And I loved the look of the Orion, especially the bit where it gets ejected from the planet by the eruption. It’s practically Steampunk. Oh, and that view of the super volcano from space is spectacular and demonstrates just how huge it is.

The super volcano from space (Photo from GateWorld.net)

The jeopardy just keeps getting ramped up with the Stargate getting buried, the groups getting cut off from each other, the volcano sending aftershocks throughout the base, the people in the Orion and the base being shielded from Deadalus’ transporters, the base sealing the doors, leaving the people trapped. Oh, and there’s a Wraith ship on its way to Atlantis. It just keeps going from bad to worse in classic Stargate fashion. Awesome!

Jules Verne designed this ship! (Photo from GateWorld.net)

Rating
8 out of 10. Rodney, fantastic special effects, and a Steampunky ship.

Y'all?! What the hell?! (Photo from GateWorld.net)

Michael

WRITTEN BY: Carl Binder
DIRECTED BY: Martin Wood
GUEST STARRING: Connor Trinneer (Michael Kenmore), Claire Rankin (Dr. Kate Heightmeyer), Doug Chapman (Sgt. Cole), James Lafazanos (Male Wraith)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
An amnesiac Lieutenant has dreams that he’s a Wraith, only to make a terrible discovery about his identity.

General Impressions

They even gave him a fake family. (Photo from GateWorld.net)

I’m of two minds about this episode. On the one hand, it’s really amazing. On the other hand, it’s moral dissonance from the word Go. Our so-called heroes are more like anti-heroes in this episode, and the worst part for me was that it was Beckett and Weir—usually the conscience of the expedition—who lead the charge on this one. When I realized what was really going on, it almost made me physically ill. If it had been the Wraith doing something similar to a human, our guys would have condemned them as the worst possible monsters.

It’s an amazing story with an awesome premise, but at the same time it’s so evil and so very cruel. I sympathized with Michael all along and continued to do so in almost all subsequent episodes he appears in until season four when the evil seed our team plants in this episode bears the most horrifying fruit.

The Good
It’s hard to call anything about this episode merely “good” when it’s really awesome from start to finish, so I’ll note the two bad things I noticed then move on.

The Bad
How did they get a former Wraith to have a Texas accent? And why does Sheppard think the Wraith want to kill all humans when that would mean starving themselves to death? And no one corrects him on this belief.

The Awesome
Connor Trinneer. He is simply amazing. His struggle to get his (invented) life back and his reaction when he learns the truth is pitch perfect. I feel everything Michael is feeling: His struggle to fit in, to make up with Ronon, and his outrage and betrayal when he learns the truth of what his so-called friends did to him. It’s simply horrifying, and when he confronts the people who turned him into another race and lied to him, I’m with him all the way.

Watching members of the team beginning to doubt their course of action and wavering in their resolve. The first scene Rodney has with Michael, he looks like he’s going to lose it…but then we see the research on Michael displayed on his notebook screen, and the main reason for his discomfort becomes clear. Tayla is the next to question the rightness of what they’ve done to Michael, and then there’s Ronon, who doesn’t even try to pretend Michael isn’t really a Wraith. Near the end, Michael thanks Ronon for being the only person who didn’t lie to him.

Looking back on the episode after I found out what Michael really was, and what the team did to him—right down to providing him with an imaginary family and friends, photos and all—I think the interesting thing for me was what each person Michael interacts with does to maintain the lie that he’s human and one of their own people, and how their facades broke down. Tayla tries to be his friend and make him feel more comfortable, but her conscience troubles her. Sheppard is standoffish and distrustful, but passes it off as something the Wraith did to Michael that makes him potentially dangerous. Sheppard feels no remorse at all, and even tries to justify what his people did to Michael. Rodney is always awkward socially, so it’s no surprise that his conversation with Michael is stiff and nervous. He’s on board with the idea of using the humanizing drug as a bio-weapon. Doctors Weir, Beckett and Heightmeyer are professional and reassuring, but where Beckett and Heightmeyer start to question whether what they did was right, Weir clings to her belief that they did nothing wrong.

Poor Michael thinks he has a home, friends, family, a place where he belongs and has just forgotten it because of something the Wraith did to him. In fact, as he tells Tayla, it wasn’t the Wraith who did the capturing, it was the humans. Michael voices my own feelings throughout the episodes and says all the things I wanted to say to the team (or rather shout at them then slap them around a bit). It’s really sickening the way they keep treating Michael like he’s just a thing, and being a Wraith like a disease that needs to be cured (as Michael puts it).

Make. My. Day. (Photo from GateWorld.net)

Beckett and Weir trying to justify themselves to Michael is sickening. They had no right to do what they did to him, and Michael tells them so to their faces. And then Sheppard talking about deploying it as a biological weapon, and everybody but Ronon thinking that sounds fantastic.

When even Tayla jumps on the “it’ll make your life better” bandwagon, Michael calls her on it. He’s right on all counts. His scene with Tayla, calling her and her comrades on just how morally wrong what they did is, is simply fantastic. It’s tense and heartbreaking and dead-on. In fact, I loved all of his scenes with Tayla, and it gets even better as the series progresses, right up until the bitter end between them. Oh, and Tayla gets to be awesome in this episode  when she dares Michael to feed on her when he starts turning back into a Wraith.

In the end, even Beckett seems to be having doubts, which I was happy to see. But it really, really bothered me that most of the team refused to even question that what they did was wrong. Oddly enough, the way it makes me so angry and frustrated is part of what made it a good episode.

The shot directly after the scene in which Michael discovers he’s really a Wraith says it all: Atlantis is shrouded in the same kind of mist that haunts hive ships. It’s a subtle way of showing that our heroes have become like the Wraith, treating their enemy like an animal and feeling no remorse for it. I don’t even feel bad when Michael takes what he knows about Atlantis straight to the Wraith. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?

Atlantis as hive. (Photo from GateWorld.net)

Rating
10 out of 10. Connor Trinneer and buckets of moral dissonance for the win.

No, no, no. That’s too boring. Let’s see… um… I haven’t been posting because I solved a complex puzzle in a video game, and then an Air Force General and a brilliant but troubled scientist showed up on my doorstep to offer me a job in space. I thought it was a joke, but when I shut the door on them they beamed me up to their spaceship full of pretty people where I wandered around in my jammies for a while and provided comic relief. And math. They wanted me to do a lot of math, but when they discovered that I’m more a language person than a numbers person (and they already have a perfectly good language person–some hot nerdboy named Daniel something-or-other), they beamed me back down.

As a consolation prize, they got me a great job at a big corporation, writing manuals and going to wine tastings. All-in-all, not a bad gig (especially the wine tasting part), but I miss the spaceship and the pretty people, particularly that cute linguistics expert who did the training videos. He seemed like a nice guy, very well-informed. They should have given him more time to make those tutorials, though; he seemed to be talking awfully fast. Or maybe he’d had too much coffee.

Yeah, that’s way better than me just being tired and desperately seeking work to the point of having zero brain energy left for blogging (and yet, plenty for Twitter…go figure).

I’m on Atlantis disc 5 of season 2, but I’m doing things differently than I was before (mostly because I’ve come to my senses). This time, instead of watching and reviewing all four episodes and all of the special features on a disc and posting the reviews at the same time, I’m going to watch one episode per night and post a review and then end the week with the special features review.

I’ll put up non-Stargate content, too, probably on the weekends. I’m a nighttime poster, so I’ll put up my little posts in the evening.

I promise not to drop off the face of the planet for this long again. Unless that hot nerd-boy linguistics guy in the leather jacket wants to beam me up to his spaceship for a private tutorial and wine tasting (I’m finding it hard to part with the wine tastings). If that happens, just write me off. I’m on the other side of the galaxy living happily ever after with the nerd of my dreams.

It's Chief O'Brien & Henry the werewolf! (Photo from Gateworld.net)

Coup D’etat

WRITTEN BY: Martin Gero
DIRECTED BY: Martin Wood
GUEST STARRING: Ryan Robbins (Ladon Radim), Kavan Smith (Lorne), Sonja Bennett (Dahlia Radim), Colm Meaney (Cowen), Penelope Corrin (Dr. Lindsay)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
After an SG team goes missing, the Atlantis expedition finds itself in the middle of a Genii coup.

General Impressions
The Genii are back. We have about a season and a half to go before they become nameless, expendable enemy mooks, but for now they’re still a cunning, dangerous enemy who actually have names, motivations and backstories and such. Oh, but these aren’t just any Genii in this episode, either: It’s Chief O’Brien from Star Trek and Henry the woobie werewolf from Sanctuary!

I love how this episode opens up: The nighttime village is creepy, and the dialog builds up tension until Sheppard finds a burned corpse with dog tags around its neck. The first time I saw this episode, I got a knot in my stomach, thinking they might actually have killed off Major Lorne (and I’ve mentioned in previous reviews how much I love Major Lorne).

The tension and jeopardy in the rest of the episode kept me on the edge of my seat most of the time, except for the part where I knew there was no way they were going to kill off Sheppard after they went to so much trouble to make him our point of view character in the pilot episode. I also liked the episode’s resolution, with the expedition saving Laden’s sister’s life and winning over the new Genii leader. And of course, I was relieved that Lorne hadn’t been killed off.

The Good
The opening scene with Sheppard’s team searching for Lorne’s team through a creepy, deserted nighttime village, only to find a burned corpse wearing dog tags. It was visually very striking and tense. I liked the shot right into the beam of Ronon’s flashlight as he shines it onto the corpse. Very horror movie. Or CSI, perhaps? No, no one’s wearing sunglasses.

And when we find out who they really are, it's even sadder. (Photo from Gateworld.net)

I like the pre-mookified Genii. They’re a real threat who aren’t above using our guys in their internal political struggles. Also, they’re clever enough to realize how the jumpers work, who in the Atlantis expedition can fly them, and why. Ladon is even working on his own version of the ATA gene therapy that Dr. Beckett came up with. Sadly, we never hear another peep about it for the rest of the series, and the Genii suffer severe reduced monster difficulty by season four.

I also liked Tayla and Ronon getting some independent screen time, investigating that business with Lorne and his team and figuring out what might really have happened to them. Tayla even gets to sound like someone who is the leader of her people, trained in martial arts and strategy. Pity they don’t let her do that too often. I’ve never liked how Tayla got demoted from leader of her people to the afterthought on Sheppard’s team.

They signed them for me at Comic Con! (Photo from Gateworld.net)

The Bad
Again with the aliens having alien writing but speaking fluent English (see photo, above). You’d think I’d be over that by now, but I’m not. It bugs me. But then, I’m kind of a language geek and love it every time the aliens in Stargate don’t speak English. Like in The Gift when Tayla is inside a Wraith’s head, and we hear Wraith language for a bit. That was great. Or when Hermiod mutters to himself in Asgard (even if all it is, is English run backward), or the Jaffa and Goa’uld speaking that evolved ancient Egyptian from the first Stargate movie.

I really need to let the language thing go.

The Awesome
A compelling mystery, political intrigue, and a cunning, ruthless enemy. And Colm Meaney and Ryan Robbins are in this episode! I loved Colm Meaney in Star Trek, and love Ryan Robbins in Sanctuary. I have a serious crush on Henry the werewolf. As Ladon Radim, we never really know for sure if we can trust him, and we’re not really sure until nearly the end of the episode which Genii leader is the good guy and which isn’t. I really loved the twist with Ladon at the end, even if it meant nuking a guy.

Don't mess with Ladon Radim, or he'll nuke your ass. (Photo from Gateworld.net)

Colm Meaney is, as always, amazing as the diabolical, utterly cold-blooded Cowen. His absolute disregard of his people’s lives in favor of technology and power is chilling. No wonder Ladon had no qualms about nuking this guy. Of course, Ladon was going to leave Sheppard and his men to get nuked with Cowen, so maybe he’s no better than Cowen in the ruthlessness department.

Rating
10 out of 10. I really loved this episode.

“That’s Lieutenant Colonel Errand Boy to you.” (Photo from Gateworld.net)

The cast of Stargate: Universe

Syfy’s latest product from the Stargate brand looks promising even if the two-part premier Air seemed to be trying to do more than it had to–or should have tried to do. Great stories don’t do a data dump about the characters in the first two chapters. The people, their back stories and their motivation are doled out in pieces, bit by bit, over the course of several chapters. I think the only characters I really needed to know much about from the start were Eli, who is clearly supposed to be the viewer’s point of view character; Dr. Rush who seems to be the mastermind behind what goes on; and possibly Col. Young, the military leader of the refugees on the Ancient ship Destiny. I suppose we did need to develop an attachment to the Senator and his daughter, as well, but to tell you why would mean spoilers and for once I’m avoiding those in a review. As it was, I felt overwhelmed by having to learn too much about the characters too soon. For the premier, I don’t know if that much back story was necessary to make the story or characters more interesting at this point.

For example, I wish they’d done more of what they did to introduce Rush: We don’t learn much about him as a person, but we do learn from the action and what other characters say about him that he’s not well liked. From a single scene we learn that something painful happened between him and woman in a picture he keeps in the drawer of his bedside table, something that’s hinted at in later dialog between Rush and the Senator’s daughter, Cloe. That’s how it should be done early on. In Col. Young’s case, we get a little bit of his back story in the form of a dream he has when he’s knocked unconscious. I liked that way of getting information, too.

Eli is introduced through an important bit of action, and the issue with his mother is introduced through dialog. We’re not hit over the head with it. I could have lived without the way Lt. Scott was introduced. I’ll spoil just this one thing: He was having sex with a comrade, but it really did seem gratuitous. Perhaps his relationship to her will become important in future, since I think he may have been breaking a regulation. Still, the sex seemed like a gratuitous attempt to distance this Stargate from its more lighthearted predecessors and align it more closely with Battlestar Galactica with all of its frakking and talk of frakking and its through the roof ratings. This could also explain the shaky camera which was thankfully used less than I feared it would before I actually got to see the show.

I also had trouble following the story when I watched it the night of the premier. This was due to a number of factors, not the least of which was the ridiculous number of commercial breaks and Syfy promos throughout. Syfy oversold the show, then to add insult to injury they also ran at least one to two minutes of Syfy promos on top of the commercials and chose some very awkward points in the story to break.  It wasn’t until I downloaded the show from iTunes and watched it again, commercial-free, that I was able to follow it better. Of course, it didn’t help that I was taking part in the Twitter-palooza that went along with the premier. So, watching it without commercials and giving it my full attention, I realized it boiled down to just a few important points: They’re on a ship bajillions of light years from Earth and it’s life support system is going kaput (which makes sense since it’s many thousands of years old and hasn’t been maintained since the ship was sent out unmanned). Also, it’s a mix of military and civilians, they brought very little provisions with them, many of them are injured–some severely–and so far none of them seems to like Dr. Rush who got them there in the first place instead of evacuating them to Earth. Right. Got it. On a ship, far from home, low on supplies and air, and the ship sometimes stops at planets with stargates on them, so maybe food can be found there.

Joel Goldsmith, who scored the other two shows, delivers a tremendous score for this one. The acting is superb, but what else can you expect from people like Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Carlyle, David Blue and Ming-Na? We even get some old favorites–bones thrown to long-time gaters–Richard Dean Anderson (General O’Neill), Amanda Tapping (Col. Carter), Michael Shanks (Dr. Jackson), Gary Jones (Chief Master Sgt. Harriman) and Bill Dow (Dr. Lee).

Console aboard the Destiny (photo from Gateworld.net)

The special effects are feature film quality with the Destiny really standing out from everything else. The ship is obviously old, corroded and deteriorated and seems to have endured some kind of attack. There are holes in it that the ship’s force shield is trying to keep plugged, but it’s mostly air tight bulkhead doors that are keeping airless space out and breathable air in. The ship was meant to be manned, as Dr. Rush discovers in the database, but the Ancients never followed through. They never recalled the ship, either, in typical Ancient fashion (we’ve discovered all sorts of things in the other two shows that the Ancients left lying about when they ascended and left this plane of existence). The tech aboard Destiny looks amazing, though it seems to be from the same family as the stuff used on Syfy’s big Summer hit Warehouse 13. Then there are the Kinos, the flying camera orbs that Eli finds and deploys (and uses for his personal vlog). It makes me look forward to the refugees exploring the ship in future episodes and figuring out how all the cool tech works.

Eli shows Lt. Scott the Kino (photo from Gateworld.net)

I need to see more episodes before making up my mind about this show. It really is a far cry from SG1 and Atlantis in look, tone, and theme, but that’s actually more refreshing than off putting. It’s Stargate, so for the love of Stargate and the chance to explore that cool ship every week, I’ll keep watching.

Next week on SG:U Air part 3, we check out that planet the team from Destiny went through the gate to explore and see if they can solve the problem of the gunked up CO2 scrubbers on the ship. SG:U back-to-back with Amanda Tapping’s Sanctuary means Fridays are geeky once again!

That, my friends, is the image The Creeping Crud conjured in my fertile imagination, and I’ve lived in dread of it ever since. Rarely does it come with a fever, sore throat, swollen glands, or discolored boogers…nothing that a doctor would look at and say, “Aha! You have______!” and prescribe you something to make it all better (although this time I do have swollen glands). No, The Creeping Crud just makes you feel icky for no apparent reason, and the only thing for it is sleep, soup, and hot tea with plenty of lemon and honey. Oh, and sympathy if you can get it. In general, not in your tea. I also found watching Hellboy II: The Golden Army on HBO the other night helped, as did Ken Burns’ fabulous documentary series about America’s National Parks, which started last night on PBS. (I believe I have previously mentioned my eclectic tastes.)

But you know what really makes a Creeping Crud even cruddier? Getting your period at the same time. Yup, that’s the tag team that has laid me low these past few days, sucking the energy out of me, and depriving me of the ability to actually think about whatever it is I might be watching on the TV machine. That, of course, means I’m not doing reviews until The Crud has left me, and Aunt Martha has gone home because my brain refuses to analyze things (which hurts me at work because, you know, I’m a Business ANALYST and all). Fortunately, I’ve started feeling better this evening, though the cough and congestion (and my period) are still with me. And, hey, The Big Bang Theory’s on tonight, along with part two of that Ken Burns documentary. Pretty scenery…always good for the constitution, even if it’s only in pictures.

Atlantis reviews return in a few days.

Update: LOL! No sooner did I post this then I read Neil Gaiman’s latest post, and he has the crud, too. I’m in good company.

Tayla says goodbye (photo from GateWorld.net)

Critical Mass

Story by – Brad Wright & Carl Binder
Teleplay by – Carl Binder
Directed by – Andy Mikita
Guest starring – Beau Bridges (General Hank Landry), Jaime Ray Newman (Lt. Laura Cadman), Ellie Harvie (Dr. Lindsey Novak), Ben Cotton (Kavanagh), David Nykl (Dr. Radek Zelenka), Bill Dow (Dr. Lee), Peter Flemming (Agent Malcolm Barrett), Gary Jones (Sergeant Harriman), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Steven Caldwell)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
The team must race against time to disarm a Goa’uld bomb and find out who planted it before it destroys Atlantis.

General Impressions
I love Beau Bridges as General Landry. It was good to see him in this episode. And OMG, its Jaime Ray Newman (Lt. Cadman) who now plays Dr. Tess Fontana on Eureka! Now I know where I saw the actress who played Tess before.

OK, now that I got that off my chest, I’ll say I really liked this episode. It’s got great suspense and that thing Stargate is so good at where they solve a problem only to have a bigger one appear in its place. The B story of the old Athosian woman dying was good, too, and very moving. And boy can that Rachel Luttrell sing.

The Good
It’s so sad that Tayla’s people have a ceremony to celebrate someone dying of natural causes because of how rare an occurrence it is due to the Wraith. I wonder how many other cultures in the Pegasus galaxy have similar customs. Good for Rachel Luttrell being able to cry on demand. So many actors do the sobbing thing, the twisting up the face thing, but there are no actual tears. When Tayla is trying to convince the old woman to prolong her life with a pace maker, she starts to cry and there are tears. She really turns on the waterworks when the old woman dies.

I loved the scene where Dr. Lee is explaining how to relay a message to Atlantis. When he uses a 101 Dalmatians analogy he gets blank looks, but then he uses a Lord of the Rings analogy, and everyone nods and smiles with enlightenment…and so did I. I’m such a nerd.

It was also funny when Cavanaugh fainted dead away when Ronon stepped into the room to interrogate him. Cavanaugh is such a jerk. I can’t stand that guy. Just once I’d like to see Weir punch him. Just once. We, like Weir, are sure he’s the bad guy. He has motive, opportunity and know-how. Nobody likes him, and he doesn’t like anybody. He’s antagonized everyone and made himself easy to suspect. So naturally it can’t be him, right? Right. It’s not.

I also liked the way Weir bookends the idea of infighting. At the beginning of the episode, they’re all gloating over how cool it is that the Wraith are fighting each other. At the end of the episode, after foiling a plot that came from Earth, Weir wonders if we’re any better than the Wraith when it comes to infighting.

The Bad
I guess it was kind of obvious that it wasn’t Cavanaugh or Cadman who set the bomb, despite the focus given to them by Rodney and Weir.

The Awesome
Although I knew it wasn’t Cavanaugh or Cadman, I did not expect it to be Caldwell when I saw this episode when it first aired. That totally blindsided me, as did him having a Goa’uld symbiote. Nice job.

All that ramping up makes for great tension and drama. They solve one problem only to have a deadlier one appear in its place. And of course they take it right up to the last second before the day is, at last, saved. Meanwhile, Tayla is singing about death and rebirth in the voice of an angel.

Rachel Luttrell has the most gorgeous voice. She’s gorgeous, has a perfect figure, and a beautiful voice. No fair. Tayla singing over her dead surrogate mother, her people determined to go forward with the ceremony, is an almost surreal counterpoint to the imminent destruction of the city. I loved her sad song playing under the “we are all going to die” montage. Oh, and that dress she wears for the ceremony is so pretty.

Wonderful SFX with the Athosian village (exterior establishing shot and the interior of the old woman’s yurt). I love how it looks. I love it when they take the time to create civilizations that aren’t cookie cutter versions of Earth cultures, especially since this is in another galaxy. The matte extensions inside the city are really great shots, too. For an episode that mostly just takes place inside the city, there are a lot of great SFX shots.

Rating
9 out of 10 for great tension and Rachel Luttrell’s singing voice.

Rodney and his dream girl in a sinking puddle jumper (photo from GateWorld.net)

Grace Under Pressure

Written by – Martin Gero
Directed by – Martin Wood
Guest starring – Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter), David Nykl (Radek Zelenka), William MacDonald (Capt. Griffin), Peter Abrams (Donaldson), Nimet Kanji (Dr. Bryce)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
McKay is trapped in a puddle jumper at the bottom of the ocean and gets help from his fantasy girl.

General Impressions
A whole episode with McKay and Carter. Bliss. It was their dynamic that I loved in the SG1 episodes McKay was in. Sure, Carter’s just a figment of Rodney’s imagination in this episode, but it’s still awesome. Of course he dresses her in tight jeans and a low cut top with a half-unzipped hoodie and more makeup than she usually wears (and yet he complains that she had the audacity to not be provocatively dressed—until she strips down to her underwear). Oddly enough, she even acts and talks like the real Carter, right down to the digs at his ego.

And I’m always happy when they give Zalenka a lot of screen time and let him be a hero.

The Good
Rodney talking to himself is pretty funny. I believe Gandalf called that speaking to the most intelligent person in the room (to paraphrase). Of course, he also talks to the puddle jumper, which is hilarious. If we ever doubted that Rodney loves the sound of his own voice, we no longer do. He talks to himself, his computer, the puddle jumper, a passing “whale” and a Samantha Carter-shaped figment of his imagination.

I really like that Sheppard is more than just dumb jock guy. He helps get the rescue jumper ready, and even demonstrates that he’s good at math (again).

Here’s the cool thing about the whale: In a later episode we learn that the whale was circling Rodney’s jumper out of more than mere curiosity or hunger. That’s all I’m saying for now.

The Bad
Red Shirt without enough time to develop enough sympathy for him to care when he sacrifices himself.

The Awesome
Rodney. Rodney, Rodney, Rodney. And Carter. OK, I’m sure you’re all sick and tired of me going all David Hewlett fangirl on you, but he’s really a terrific, versatile and very entertaining actor, and the best thing about this episode, which is a very good episode.

The shots of the jumpers going down under water and from above while under water, and the shot of the whale swimming up over the two parked jumpers were really cool.

Rating
10 out of 10. Rodney and Carter are so much fun together.

Looks vaguely familiar... (photo from GateWorld.net)

The Tower

Written by – Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
Directed by – Andy Mikita
Guest starring – Peter Woodward (Otho), Jay Brazeau (Lord Protector), David Bloom (Eldred), Richard Kahan (Baldric), Brendan Beiser (Tavius), Chelan Simmons (Mara), Mark Gibbon (Constable), Anna Cummer (Petra)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
The team finds a city like Atlantis and must wade through feudal politics in hopes of getting a ZPM.

General Impressions
I thought this episode was weak when it first aired, and my opinion hasn’t changed. Not one of my favorite episodes.

The Good
I actually liked the village set. Where the tower was a Renaissance festival, the village seemed a little more authentically period, right down to everybody being dirty, and their clothes looking homespun. I also like the uniforms of the tower soldiers. You can see a clear difference between the villagers and the people from the tower. I imagine that’s exactly the difference one would have seen in feudal societies on Earth: The ones doing the lording over would have been all clean and have the advanced technology. The ones being lorded over would be visibly disadvantaged. Nice redressing of the Atlantis gate room set, too. The costuming in the tower was a bit of a mish-mash. Some Renaissance, some Jane Austen, some Shakespeare, some Kaiser Wilhelm. Nice costumes, but…inconsistent.

Joe Flannigan looks cool in aviator shades. Just saying.

The Bad
OK. The tower folk are supposedly sophisticated, but they don’t have eating utensils? No knives? No forks?

Oh boy! Sheppard gets another temporary girlfriend! He’s freaked out when she tells him that he’ll be Lord Protector if he marries her, but I notice he didn’t kick her out of his bedchamber.

The Awesome
Not much, though I liked the exploration of what happened to Lantean constructions that weren’t under water, like Atlantis was. How many other such cities and other buildings the Lanteans built are buried throughout the galaxy?

The redressing of the Atlantis set was done pretty convincingly, especially the deteriorated underground parts of the city.

Rating
4 out of 10. I just couldn’t get into this one.

If John Woo directed an SGA episode...No wait: No doves. (photo from GateWorld.net)

The Long Goodbye

Written by – Damian Kindler
Directed by – Andy Mikita
Guest starring – Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Steven Caldwell)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Summary
Atlantis is in peril when Sheppard and Weir are taken over by the minds of ancient enemies bent on settling an old score.

General Impressions
Torri Higginson must have been thrilled to pieces over this episode. She gets to do a lot, including kicking butt. She looks like she’s really enjoying herself. This episode is a lot of fun with Sheppard and Weir getting possessed by warring entities and chasing each other around the city trying to kill each other.

The Good
The premise is really interesting: Two enemies in stasis pods with a failsafe that implants the occupant’s consciousness into a host body in order to transmit their knowledge should they be unable to do it themselves. That’s pretty sophisticated.

Once again we’re shown that Tayla is smarter than Ronon. Ronon gets suckered by Thalen, but Tayla isn’t fooled by Phebus or Thalen. I didn’t really realize how smart Tayla is when Atlantis was on the air, but I’m really seeing it during this rewatch. Tayla is awesome.

And the Weir/Sheppard shippers get a bone thrown to them when Weir and Sheppard kiss.

The Bad
The cool, consciousness implantation technology never appears again. Like the darts, the expedition never tries to reverse engineer this cool piece of tech and put it to use for their own purposes.

They use the same head bowing convention used when switching between human and Tok’ra consciousness to switch between Weir and Phebus. I just never thought we needed a physical queue to know we were speaking to a different person. I always thought the change in speaking style would be sufficient. I hate being hit over the head with stuff.

The Awesome
Weir and Sheppard chasing each other around the city trying to kill one another. Two people who know the city inside and out and have all the security codes possessed by entities with no attachment to anyone in the city and a willingness to do anything—even kill everybody in Atlantis—to destroy the other one. We get more than just Weir and Sheppard running around carrying out an alien vendetta, we get ramped up peril as Ronin gets stabbed by Sheppard, and Weir threatens to gas most of the people in the city. The aliens are on the clock because their consciousnesses will fade in a matter of hours. The people in the city are on the clock because Weir will gas everybody if they can’t override her codes in time and counter what she’s done. This episode is just a lot of fun.

The city looks great in this episode. The interior shots are wonderful, and the exterior swooping shot showing that we’re now going to see what the others are doing elsewhere is really cool. It was reused from the episode The Seige.

Rating
10 out of 10. This is one of my favorite episodes.