Stargate Atlantis Season 5
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
---
501: Search and Rescue 2008 July 11
(First watched 2008-07-13) FORD! I trust they didn't contract him for only 5 seconds, so I suppose we'll finally get back to him sometime this season.
So Sam called back partially because of the Tok'ra finding the last Baal clone and wanting SG-1 around. I suppose that's the Stargate: Continuum-related reason for her to be going that was talked about. Though, what with the IOA ripping her from command when she arrived back at the SGC, the net effect I suppose is preventing some tearful farewell scene on Atlantis.
So Teyla's back, her son is born, Michael apparently stopped, but as we know from experience if someone doesn't die on screen it didn't really happen. And even sometimes then.
---
(First watched 2008-07-18) Frankly, my full attention wasn't on the episode, since there was (good-intentioned) frequent interruption from someone nearby. So a lot of moments I'm sure I missed altogether.
Carson... looked different. I know that's the reality of actors not being statues, but considering he was just supposed to have come out of stasis it seemed especially off. I'm not sure if it was just the different hairstyle causing things to seem off, or if his face really was puffy.
I wish I'd gotten to pay more attention to Woolsey's scenes, but what was there was interesting. Due to extraordinary circumstances he was forced to bend the rules, but at the end of the day rather than being glad that rule-breaking allowed everything to turn out alright, it's put him in a kind of crisis of faith. We've seen characters married to their beliefs or worried about meeting their personal standards before, but it's something different and both sad and funny to see Woolsey's being about whether he can really make it in a place where following the rules isn't always the correct solution.
Considering his predecessors were so well-liked, I'm surprised there wasn't more apparent backlash to Woolsey's presence in place of someone better-suited to the position.
The concept of a plant taking over the base while a new commander is trying to settle in reminded me of SG-1's Zero Hour.
---
(First watched 2008-07-26) A good old-fashioned role reversal. Not exactly a unique thing, but it does create an interesting situation for Ronon. His old friends turned "traitor"... well, he learned how little control they had over the situation. And Ronon himself is made out to be less than perfect, which is probably a Good Thing. I believe it was sometime in SG-1 Season 10 that Teal'c was thought to have been turned pro-Goa'uld by fancy torture techniques, but of course he was too perfect and just used his newfound unchainedness to attack those who tried. The only time I recall him "going bad" was when he was brainwashed.
---
504: Daedalus Variations 2008 August 1
(First watched 2008-08-02) Classic "Atlantis team gets in deep shit, keeps getting in more shit as McKay rushes to find solutions to new problems" episode. This time on an alternate Daedalus they get stuck on that hops from reality to reality. I suppose "our" Atlantis will soon enough run into those tough aliens that one of the alternate Atlantises was having it out with?
I wonder what happened to that previous team they found dead on the ship. They spoke as if they just ran out of supplies, but... if they'd been there that long, and were near enough death, they could've abandoned ship on their Jumper while passing through a survivable reality.
---
505: Ghost in the Machine 2008 August 15
(First watched 2008-08-16) Ha. So they worked around pissing Torri Higginson off by putting Elizabeth's consciousness into a Fran body. Which is a decent solution, given Stargate rules and what they've done to Elizabeth over the last season and a half.
But... lying to the remaining not-yet-violent Replicators and tricking them to go through to a space gate? Does that not seem an Awful Idea? Remember what happened when SG-1 lied to and abandoned Fifth? Once free, what was an ally became someone with a legitimate reason to be pissed off at the good guys. It's basically inevitable that these people will be found and thawed, and now they hold a grudge against the people of Atlantis.
On the positive side, when the disembodied Replicators were causing the city to sink, Woolsey's response... well, I knew the guy was by-the-books and wouldn't want to put up with threats, but I didn't think he had the balls to call their bluff like that.
---
506: The Shrine 2008 August 22
(First watched 2008-08-23) The end solution seemed really simple. After all that fretting about whether they can successfully perform surgery ("My brain isn't a deck off the back of your house!")... they put a hole in his skull and this thing just pops on out?
So even in this non-crazy future McKay has fallen for Keller, eh?
First episode aired since the cancellation announcement.
---
507: Whispers 2008 September 5
(First watched 2008-09-07) Pretty boring, really. Another bunch of messed-up Michael hybrids they're stuck dealing with offworld, with the difference being that most of the cast isn't in the episode. Sheppard's there, McKay for a couple minutes, and ex-regular Carson.
The things felt very "fast zombie"-ish. I thought it was an interesting twist that they were blind, though, and thus were free to have the ability to excrete fog and take away everyone else's ability to see, too.
---
508: The Queen 2008 September 12
(First watched 2008-09-13) Todd! Using Teyla for their mutual (?) benefit in taking over an alliance to allow them to not necessarily need to suck the life out of humans. And now also... Kenny. "Seriously, the next time we have to name one of these guys, we should take a vote." Right on that one, Rodney.
---
509: Tracker 2008 September 19
(First watched 2008-09-23) So this time Keller gets her chance to un-runner a runner offworld using what's at hand.
McKay and Ronon have long made for an unlikely pair of friends, but now an unlikely pair of romantic rivals too? Ahahaha.
---
510: First Contact 2008 September 27
(First watched 2008-09-28) McKay and Jackson may be great characters on their own shows, but the chemistry between them is a bit weird. Jackson's natural benevolence and McKay's natural snideness is a weird mix, but they can both be snippy to each other.
---
511: The Lost Tribe 2008 October 10
(First watched 2008-10-11) Wow, what a packed episode. McKay, Jackson, Travelers, Wraith, Asgard!?
---
512: Outsiders 2008 October 18
(First watched 2008-10-18) Ehh, I feel like I've seen this episode before. Team goes to a town that can't defend itself, bad guys come and leave team unable to call for help, team must hide the people and find some way to scare off, defeat, or trick the bad guys.
Glad to see Beckett is back to regular service, even if it's not on Atlantis. As a permanent off-world doctor he seems to be happy and doing good.
The trick that ultimately gets rid of the Wraith ground force... yeesh. I mean, the whole point of resisting was that they didn't want to just give the Wraith some of the townspeople. So instead they trick some of the townspeople into becoming bait that gets blown up along with the Wraith!? Sure, they were the asshole townspeople who were the first to want to do as the Wraith said, but that's just not right.
---
513: Inquisition 2008 October 25
(First watched 2008-10-26) I guess it took a clip show to get Robert Picardo, Connor Trinneer, and Colm Meaney into the same episode of Stargate.
---
514:
---
515:
---
516: Brain Storm 2008 November 21
(First watched 2008-11-23) Ahahaha. It was great enough when McKay referenced Neil deGrasse Tyson last year, but I wasn't expecting to actually see him in an episode. Also Bill Nye! Not that having Dave Foley around is nothing, but he wasn't playing himself.
---
517:
---
518:
---
(First watched 2009-01-04) Wow. A very nonstandard episode, but well done. I'm not a big follower, but I've seen just enough of the modern crime television show to appreciate the style parody. Certainly beats another trip to the generic village set and a firefight against the most recently discovered Michael creation.
So even though it took place entirely in an alternate reality, it hinted an obvious link to "our" reality at the end. The transmission would for some reason be more powerful in other realities that were briefly connected to, meaning "our" Wraith have probably learned the location of Earth.
---
520: Enemy At the Gate 2008 January 9
(First watched 2009-01-09) Wow. As a whole, Atlantis's end leaves many more loose ends than SG-1 did. Sure, there was the Ori thing still going on, but Season 8 was really like a finale season and gave fairly satisfying ends to a lot of long-term things. For Atlantis, these balls are all really still in the air. However, that accepted, this was a pretty cool episode.
Characters in from all over the place. A few familiar Earth faces, the commanders of Daedalus-class vessels we haven't seen in a while, even Kavanaugh. Todd, of course.
A major Wraith threat to Earth that takes everybody risking all, and succeeding. However, the landing next to California... well, I wonder if they'd have gone that way if there was going to be a Season 6. As I said before, a lot of balls are left in the air in Pegasus. As Ronon brings up at the end, will the powers that be on Earth really want to send Atlantis back?
The closing image threw me a bit. They had a lineup of the major characters admiring the view... along with a woman I didn't even recognize? Seemed a bit out of place.
Awww, Carter's Phoenix being renamed the General Hammond in his memory. *sniff*
---