IvanF's Uninformed Reviews of the First Season of Stargate Atlantis (2004-2005)......

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- IvanF's Archived, Cut & Paste, No-Name Reviews of
The First Season of Stargate Atlantis (2004 - 2005) -
(The Ancient City of Atlantis is discovered, the Wraith are first encountered, the Genii become pissants, Dr. Weir goes all starry crossed eyed, Major John Sheppard becomes the new Captain Kirk, Dr. MacKay becomes THE BES T CHARACTER EVAR, Lt. Ford becomes the new Mayweather, Teyla rehearses for Star Wars: Episode I, and the Wraith siege Atlantis in the season finale...)

It's been a long while since the season finale of Stargate Atlantis last aired...

... and yet still I can't believe just how amazing the first season of the show has been as a whole...

For every single deficiency that Stargate SG-1 had in its eighth season, Stargate Atlantis was there to make the save. Just take a look at my list of notable episodes of the year, and you'll see that pretty much every single frickin' episode of the first Atlantis season was nominated as great entertainment by me... even compared to my precious Enterprise that aired later in the year...

I mean, just run down the list of Atlantis episodes yourself, and you'll be hard pressed not to argue that the first season of Atlantis alone, may be already be up there with the second and third seasons of SG-1 as the best seasons of Stargate ever made... And I can only imagine, and only hope, that the series will become that much better in its sophomore season, as SG-1 managed to achieve in theirs...

A lot of fans were against the series when it started. They claimed Rising was boring, with half the show dedicated to showing off a city that didn't even look Ancient, with a second half dealing with space vampires from, well, space... There were literally fan mail volleys and maybe even a few violent petitions against signing David Hewlett to return as Dr. MacKay. His character was just hated so damn much by the Carter fanatics in SG-1, that I'm surprised that his name even made it to the final cast ballot sheet... And of course, you still had the haters halfway through the season. They all claimed that Dr. Weir was one dimensional, that John Sheppard was an O'Neill clone, that Teyla had less lines than Teal'c, and that Lt. Ford was seriously (and sadly) a poor man's Mayweather...

... yet nothing there can refute the simple fact, that most of the Atlantis episodes this season simply kicked all sorts of ass...

Rising had brilliant cameos by Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and everyone's favourite T-1000. And hell, I even think RDA did a better job in Rising than he did in every episode he was in back on SG-1 this season... Hide and Seek wasn't anything truly majestic, but it gave some great backstory to the Ancients and ascension, and even gave us a possible threat for future stories... The Genii aren't the most terribly original villains that the writers could've came up with. But their determination to wipe out the Wraith their own way is almost fanatically terrifying at moments, and they really did provide some decent fight scenes in The Storm and The Eye...

Those two episodes had some of the best hurricane rain effects I've seen outside of the movies. And hell, so many episodes of the season had just simply stunning CG moments, with the weapons array in The Defiant One quickly coming to mind... The Wraith may not seem like the most threatening of foes, and definitely not ones powerful enough to wipe out the Ancients we knew in the Milky Way (although perhaps the Ancient refugees in the Pegasus Galaxy were much weaker than their ancestors). Still, Before I Sleep helped make the Wraith feel like a much greater foe than they were before, if only because of the magic of everyone's favourite Gideon. And episodes like The Brotherhood not only had some of the hottest damn women on the face of the planet, but it truly showed that the Genii are not alone in their fanatical determination to free themselves from the Wraith...

And oh, did I mention the hot women on the show? Hot, HAWT women, in literally every single frickin' episode?... The Brotherhood had absolutely the sexiest 'brotherhood' that I've ever seen. Where the fuck do I sign up?...Where the fuck do the Atlantis casters get all these actresses?... with 'fuck' definitely being the key word here...

And you know a series is doing something right, when even their clip show ends up being some startling, bloody hell decent television. The combination of character development behind the camera, and the sight of the Wraith going all ID4 on some poor planet's ass, made Letters from Pegasus into quite possibly the best clip show I've ever seen from any show... And the season finales of The Siege (Parts 1 and 2)? Sure, Part 1 was a bit too slow moving for my tastes at the time. But combine it with the second half of the two parter, and you got yourself probably the best sci-fi television action that I have seen since? Well?... SG-1's season seven Lost City, but I digress...

I admit though, that the characters of Atlantis weren't nearly as well developed as SG-1's were at the end of its first freshman season...

Dr. Weir was purely useless in season one. She just paced around her office, bitching to everyone in the room, while making starry crossed eyed stares at John Sheppard's gruffy five o'clock shadow... Still, she did a decent job in trying to act out her philosophical Matrix bullshit lines in Before I Sleep. She does definitely have some chemistry with Major Sheppard... And if only because of how damn hot she looked in a white T-shirt in Hide and Seek, she was definitely a better choice than the Weir actress from Lost City, in retrospect... Her decisiveness did annoy the hell out of me this season. But really, when you're being compared to such legends as General John Hammond and Colonel O'Neill in charge? Then I guess you always do end up looking like a freshman fresh out of water and college...

... sigh... I miss her endless, Voyager-esque wardrobe from the first half of the season though, but I digress...

Teyla was quite a waste of time for most of the season. She stood silent in the background, not being useful for anything really, except as eye candy when it came to the Ray Park kind of Jedi fighting... But she started to find her identity in The Gift, when she learned of the Wraith DNA in her body. And while she didn't really get to do much with it in The Siege, except look like an idiot when she was trying to infiltrate a Wraith's mind? Still, I'm willing to give the actress the benefit of the doubt... Her character has a lot of potential. She's a great scrappy fighter... And yes, if only she would just wear goddam glasses, she would turn me on in that little mini-skirt training gear she always has on...

Lt. Ford had about three lines throughout the season. He's got "a little what?", and that's about it... 'Nuff said, pretty much... Still, I did like Rainbow Francks' comedic moments most of the time. As a former Muchmusic VG, he does bring a bit of a natural kind of energy to the show, even if he doesn't get to show it through the script... Still, he is considered the Travis Mayweather of a the series for a reason. Whenever he gets a serious line, it's obvious that he just doesn't have the acting skills to back it up... I would've much preferred if his character was simply developed and allowed to grow in season two though. If there's any real blemish for the upcoming season, it's that Ford is being replaced by some goddam Baywatch bimbo of a bastard... but we'll see how that goes...

Now, the critics may be right, that Dr. Weird, Teyla, and Ford just didn't live up to their potential in the first season of Atlantis... Then again, looking back at the first season of SG-1, neither did General Hammond, Captain Carter, or Teal'c for that matter...

But why the hell would the former three characters matter, when the Atlantis show is really all about Major Sheppard and Dr. Rodney MacKay? And only needs to be about these two, to be the best it can be?...

Seriously, the two are pure comedic genius. And if only every sci-fi show had chemistry between two lead stars like these two have, then goddam reality shows wouldn't be putting my precious Enterprise out of business, now would they be?...

Joe Flannigan has that perfect kind of swuave, laid back charm to him, that makes him the perfect successor to Jack O'Neill, yet a whole different character altogether at the same time... I've lost count of how many times this guy has made me laugh. He had such classic moments in Hide and Seek with the football and the popcorn, brilliant interaction with the Genii in Underground, had a ton of fun with the Wraith in Poisoning the Well and The Defiant One, and even got to play the good ol' Captain Kirk in Sanctuary... He had some great chemistry with Dr. Weir, as he showed right from the get-go in Rising, to smiling happy birthday in Before I Sleep, all the way to his big ol' space opera stare before his suicidal run in The Siege... He showed amazing loyalty to Teyla throughout the season, and brought out most of the only good jokes from Ford... And with Rodney MacKay? God, if only Atlantis wasn't a sci-fi show, then Flannigan and David Hewlett would really earn some Emmy's for their work... or at least get to sleep with some behind the scenes...

The true key to Major Sheppard in season one, was that unlike the modern day RDA, Flannigan didn't just nail the comedic moments down pat. Sheppard could be funny one moment, serious the next, and absolutely, seriously kick ass the very moment after... The Storm and the Eye proved how far he was willing to go to save his precious Elizabeth Weir. The Defiant One had some kickass one on one action, as Sheppard went die hard on the poor bastard's vampire ass... And the Siege had pretty much every single facet of Sheppard nailed down to the core. The events of Rising were brought back to haunt him, his Ancient abilities came to play with the kickass chair and Ancient drone effects, and he proved his true worth when he willingly went up to take one for the team in the Puddle Jumper... As soon as I watched the first scenes of Rising, and saw just how natural the comedic banter flowed between O'Neill and Sheppard in that Antarctic helicopter ride? Then I knew right then and there, that this actor was truly the man for the job... and quite honestly, I'll be succinct as possible - I've never looked back...

Atlantis is a two man show, and David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney MacKay was truly the man of every hour... Contrary to all the haters on the net, I loved him in SG-1. He was a character who was meant to look dumb compared to Carter, but just managed to shine in comparison anyhew against all odds...

And look who's eating crow now? Suddenly the whole internet finally agrees with me, that David Hewlett was absolutely the smartest move that the Atlantis writers could've ever made... I can't blame the internet fanboys for changing their opinions though. After seeing David Hewlett play with Ancient toys in Hide and Seek, get his ass kicked by kids for chocolate in Childhood's End, ask "what secret, giant underground bunker?" in Underground (a good question, mind you...), give his unified theory speech in Hot Zone, and be utterly clueless to absolutely the hottest Atlantis babe ever in The Brotherhood, how the hell could you not fall in love with this guy?... Every single episode in the season, no matter how bad in premise and principle, was made not just bearable thanks to the banter between Sheppard and MacKay throughout the show, but made purely enjoyable as well... Atlantis always left a smirk on my cheek. Not a single episode was boring, as long as those two had something to say about it. And I wouldn't have had it any other way...

And one of the true beauties of Atlantis as a show, is that its guest stars are just so strong and connected to the series, that Atlantis really feels like a heartfelt city of closely knitted people as a whole... Dr. Beckett was probably the coolest Scottish character I've ever seen on television. And he's really grown over the series, from a mad naked scientist in the 50's (don't ask), to a terrified medic in Rising, to only a half terrified medical genius in the finale... Dr. Zelenka started out as just an extra face in the series pilot. And yet look at him in The Storm, stealing the lightning and thunder from MacKay's big speech, and lecturing Dr. Weir on "redundancy" in The Siege?... And hell, even if I never liked the Athosians, even their scenes on the mainland aren't bad. Better than any crap SG-1 Jaffa episodes were in the early Stargate seasons, at least...

Stargate Atlantis has some of the best damn comedic moments in any show in television, period. Sheppard and MacKay alone are proof of that... Stargate Atlantis has some of the best damn ground combat scenes I've ever seen. All the P90s firing everywhere, and Teyla alone in Suspicion are proof enough of that... And Stargate Atlantis not only has some of the best damn plotlines ever made for a sci-fi series in history, but it also has some of the best special effects and action scenes I've ever seen, even inside of movies. I mean, I still can't get enough of The Siege, with all the railguns firing up the geek fanboy within my heart...

Notable Episodes: Rising (Parts 1 and 2), Hide and Seek, Underground, The Storm, The Eye, The Defiant One, Before I Sleep, The Brotherhood, Letters from Pegasus, The Siege (Part 1)
Best Episode of the Season: The Siege (Part 2)

The two-part series premiere of Stargate Atlantis wasn't a perfect episode, but it was still a far better experience than the two-part season premiere of Stargate SG-1 was this year... I personally loved the first half of Rising. And I can personally vouch that as an episode of its own, it was a far better showing than Stargate SG-1 ever had in its series premiere... While obviously Atlantis was missing some things (notably full frontal nudity of Daniel Jackson's wife... wish they got Lexa Doig in for that, but that's besides the point). And while I personally thought the latter half of the episode waned in terms of anything but character development for Major John Sheppard, I must admit that Rising, New Order, and The Lost City from SG-1 last season, truly make up the best six straight hours of Stargate television ever produced...

... and with two hours of Stargate coming each and every week from now on?... excuse me while I froth...

Stargate Atlantis' premiere had a bit of a disadvantage in the character development aspect compared to the Stargate SG-1 premiere... Eight years ago, Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill were already interesting to viewers, thanks to the series being based on a movie. And everyone else seems to forget just how badly out of character Carter was portrayed, or how one-dimensional Teal'c felt at first... So for what it's worth, in a fair comparison, I gotta admit that I liked the Stargate Atlantis characters must quicker than I ever embraced the SG-1 cast. Although what was up with the choice of having no Chevron Guy? Wasupwidat?...

Major John Sheppard was perhaps the only character developed in this episode... He had a bit too much of a O'Neill thing going on with his sarcasm, and even seemed to have too much lip towards a general (while Jack barely had any during his first run at the SGC). And considering Sheppard and his mannerisms somehow remind me so damn much of Lindsay from Angel, I just couldn't take him seriously with a P90 (and where were their frickin' zats?)... With that said, I gotta admit that Sheppard really shined where it counted the most: in his interactions with the Ancient technology... The ever classic "did I do that?" worked perfectly with his absolutely clueless bewilderment at being the only person known to humanity to be able to do what Jack did as an Ancient. I also thought he handled himself extremely well in the dogfight to close the episode, not even knowing that he launched a weapon... And the early scenes with Lt. Ford in the "puddle jumper"?...

I gotta admit, I'm scared that Lt. Ford is going to just become the next Enterprise Mayweather or some crap like that. Sure, Ford got a couple of great scenes, laughing and falling into the Stargate, going on a naming binge when it came to new technology, and hoping for a turkey sandwich from the "gateship" (although that was obviously more of Sheppard's doing). But then again, Mayweather had some pretty damn good scenes in the Enterprise series premiere too, so... be afraid, Ford... especially with a name like "Rainbow", be very afraid...

Sheppard had some real chemistry with every character, to be honest. He was great in every scene with Ford (and Ford certainly did nothing without the Major in the camera's view). And Dr. Carson Beckett, while pretty one dimensional (although you gotta love a doctor who's afraid of breaking million year old things), at least got to look envious of Sheppard in a hell of a lot of cool ways (the Teyla balcony scene for one)... Teyla herself was the weakest link of the episode. I personally found all her scenes boring, as her acting and voice just somehow reminded me too damn much of J-Lo for my own good... But somehow, I just gotta admit that she did have a bit of romantic chemistry with Sheppard. I don't know how or why, but I guess the mere look in her eyes helped make me forgive all those whiny, grating moments with the Teal'c-type speeches her actress just can't handle...

The two characters in the episode that needed no introduction were Doctor McKay and Torri Higginson as Dr. Weir... First up, I gotta admit that I was disappointed in McKay this episode. Sure, he had some ever classic lines ("using power, using power!", and "I knew that... I'm just surprised you did" when it came to the 6-factorial math stuff...), but on the most part, he just didn't feel like the same Dr. McKay we've always known and loved to loathe... I really feel the Atlantis writers should've connected him more to his SG-1 roots, even though I knew the writers were afraid that no-one remembers the episodes he was in... I just don't know though. McKay was sarcastic, but not nearly as endearingly annoying as he was in Redemption. And for the most part, all he did was stand beside Dr. Weir, as if he had a crush on her. Which makes sense of course, considering Weir was originally casted as a Samantha Carter clone. Rodney has always had a weakness for dumb blondes, even if they weren't blondes anymore...

While I was disappointed in McKay (except for perhaps his perfectly wasted explanation of a "Zed-PM"), I gotta admit that I was impressed with Dr. Weir... She didn't strike me as anything special, but at least Torri did a hell of a lot better in an Atlantis uniform than she did in a suit on SG-1... While I'm still disappointed that Jessica Steen was booted off of the show, I must admit that Torri plays a scientist/action star much better than Steen ever would have (thought definitely not a dipolomat... but that's not what this show needs)... I personally thought Torri had a lot of chemistry with McKay and Sheppard as well. Rodney actually seemed to shut up whenever she gave him "the look" (but I thought the foobar Chevron Guy act was cool, though!). And Sheppard actually seemed to respect her, admitting at the end of the episode that perhaps her advice was right in the end... But really, there's only one real reason why I really enjoyed Weir this episode... Her body and face aren't really attractive to me, but I just don't know... it's just that, whenever she talked to Jack O'Neill or John Sheppard, there was just something in the way she furled her brow, pouted her lips, and grinned her smile... almost as if she constantly had some sort of "come hither" look to her... If I didn't know better, I'd say she was auditioning for a part in a MacGyver porn movie or some crap like that... But a tasty, 'professional' porn movie about alien politics, of course...

While the central characters of Atlantis were developed decently, there's just one problem... I think they were all overshadowed by the great guest characters on the show... Jack O'Neill had absolutely his best lines since The Lost City (not that that was long ago...). I loved his reaction to the squid weapon. I loved his "succint"ness when it came to the flight back home. And even his little lines, like congratulating Sheppard on a flight well done, then ragging on him for liking it in Antarctica, all flowed with the kind of natural wit and passion that has been sorely missing from Jack O'Neill's repertoire since even Redemption, perhaps... Daniel Jackson also got to really shine. Cutting to the part where he speaks "really fast" is always a mind boggler. I loved his banter with Jack when it came to wanting to join the Atlantis team. And while it never explained how he figured it out, you gotta admire a man for figuring out our first ever eight chevron address (although I still don't really agree with the idea of using our only ZPM on anything but the Ancient weapons on earth)... And Robert Patrick's Colonel Sumner? His scruffy exterior was a perfect contrast to Dr. Beckett's over-enthusiasm on the Ancient hologram platform. Nobody can ever beat out the T-1000 when it comes to ever classic one-liners like, "I don't like the fact they got their asses kicked". And you gotta appreciate the poor X-Files exiled bastard, for putting on such a strong Mr. Face when meeting a vampire alien for the first time on the show (guess he gets much more ET contact in the military than he did in the FBI...)... It was a shame that his character was killed off though, just like I still don't like how early Kawalski was whacked back in the series premiere of SG-1. But still, I think Robert Patrick did his part... By not liking Sheppard, he made the Major more important in our eyes somehow (or at least, more memorable). And besides, with his liquid metal reforming ways, it's only a matter of time until Robert Patrick finally gets to say, "I'll be back"...

I've said a lot of positive things about the new series so far, because each and every character does seem promising for now (well, maybe not Teyla... or Ford... but you just gotta love the Scotty-like scottsman)... And I absolutely loved the first half of the episode, thanks to the raw feeling of discovery in Atlantis (lights coming on by themselves, the holographic recording, and nice little touches like the newfound iris). And some of the best scenes in the episode came from the helicopter ride above Antarctica, and the rising of Atlantis for target practice at the surface. And hell, even the musical score was good in this episode. Perhaps a bit too similar to SG-1, but different enough to truly stand out... But the second half of the episode just really felt weak to me in comparison. I was bored for every single scene on the alien planet with Teyla's people, as it had nothing we haven't witnessed in God knows how many episodes on SG-1 (and it's not like there was a cultural or mythological significance to the people either). And the Wraith? I see them as being decent villains, I suppose... Eating people alive makes them dangerous, and it was refreshing that they didn't talk their opponents to death (at first) like some Goa'uld do. But overall, they just didn't seem very threatening... These are the aliens that took out the Ancients? Considering our stinger missiles could even take out their Naboo fighters, I have a hard time accepting that... I know that the Ancients were caught unprepared, outnumbered and off-guard. And I remember that the Ancient hologram woman mentioned a "sleeping enemy" (which by the way, was a really cool design, ship-with-trees-on-top wise at least)... But I'm still not convinced the Wraith are the ones who did it all. They seem more like scavengers, and not the real deal. But we'll see what happens next, considering I at least like the fact that the Wraith woman had a pretty cool shriek...

.. and what the hell was with Narim in Weir's apartment?... oh wait, I get it... he got amnesia after getting shot out of a Tollan ship, landed on earth, and went for the first damn Carter clone he could find on our planet... guess he's going to have some rather nerdy fist fights with MacKay later on in the years...

Overall, Stargate Atlantis pretty much delivered what it promised... It had a fresh kind of feel to it, sort of like a cool ocean breeze that quite frankly, was rather... umm... refreshing, I guess... compared to the tried and true formula of Stargate SG-1, at least... even if it did use basically the same formula...

But I'm sure that the new car smell feeling won't last long, for better and for worse... Already I'm seeing weaknesses in some of the characters. I know the fact that the Atlantis team is international will be forgotten sooner than later. I don't know whether I like the fact that the team is stranded in the Pegasus Galaxy (~3 million light years from the Milky Way, just for record's sake...), without help from the Asgard, until SG-1 moves away from the SGC at least. And I don't know if I liked that final scene in the episode, with Dr. Weir going into a porn drunk phase and opening the bottle of champagne far too early in the show to be a good capper...

But Stargate Atlantis does indeed have promise. My hopes are indeed rising for it, as the winds softly billow in the tides... I doubt the show will ever replace Stargate SG-1 in my heart and mind. But that doesn't mean there isn't any room leftover for another show to clog yet another artery I know and love...

... couch potatoeness, here I come... my hopes are still rising with a new hope... in a galaxy far, far away..."

"Stargate SG-1's Lockdown suffered from perhaps taking its own "possession" kind of story too seriously. Being on a military base, it's understandable why the episode would be so by the book sci-fi... But you see? That's what's fresh about Stargate Atlantis. While it is a sci-fi show, it takes itself to be much more of a fantasy driven sort of dribble than Stargate ever was... Now I personally enjoy straight out sci-fi over fantasy, but if Hide and Seek is any indication of the strong and clever writing to come? Then I really think Atlantis has somehow found that fine tipped balance between sci-fi and fantasy that I've always yearned for in the Star Trek series...

Hide and Seek obviously suffered from having almost exactly the same plotline as Lockdown did before it. And hell, I think to save money, both shows even used the exact same "blob view" effect thingy... But where the two episodes differed was definitely in the writing. While Stargate chose to portray the entity as just Anubis being his evil self, I enjoyed the twist in Hide and Seek, where the Athosians were convinced it was the Ancient ancestors looking down at them with angry old man fists... I personally thought all the little touches in this episode, from Weir telling the kids to play safely in the hallways, to even the look of the 10000 year old dead plants, really made this episode feel like something fresh and invigorating. Which is sure as hell a compliment from me, considering this episode wasn't just a predictable rehash of a thousand sci-fi episodes before it, but also a complete rehash of the SG-1 episode that aired just an hour beforehand...

Stargate Atlantis is really shining right now, thanks to its amazing characterizations so far... The only character that's suffering for the moment is Mayweather 2 (aka Lt. Ford), and even he at least got one decent scene with Jinto about "stuff happens" (but it's "shit happens", you dumbass! Get it right next time, and teach those Athosians how to cuss...)... But hell, even the recurring characters all had marvelous moments in the episode. Doctor Beckett is turning into a character just as fresh as Doctor Phlox was on Enterprise. I loved his sheer giddiness at the fact that there wasn't any FDA approval in the Pegasus Galaxy. And I personally thought his "Captain Invulnerable" title was pretty damn clever... As for the other cast members of Atlantis, John Sheppard didn't have the greatest moments in this episode. But even though he sort of pales as a character compared to O'Neill's early shadow, you gotta love him for being so damn giddy at knocking MacKay off the top of a balcony... I did feel however that he lacked any real chemistry with Teyla this episode. I loved the hockey references though (FUCK HIM for saying we Canadians are touchy about our fucking hockey...). And although the "Hail Mary" reference at the end of the episode was too damn predictable, I personally did enjoy the football scene earlier about Toronto's former Doug Flutie (dammit - why must they taunt me with their goddam better-than-plasma screens? And how the hell did they interface a DVD player with an Ancient viewscreen in two damn days?...)... Speaking of two damn days, why the hell did Dr. Weir get a new hairstyle just a couple of days into a new apocalypse for the Pegasus galaxy? Well, despite my complaints, I gotta admit that I now understand why the Stargate writers chose Torri Higginson over Jessica Steen... With permed hair and the most adorable white T-shirt I've ever seen, Elizabeth Weir was HOT this episode. And oh yeah, I guess she had some good lines too... Though I hated how forced her lines were when lying to Teyla about her people, I do admit that I absolutely loved the smug "smarter than MacKay" look on her face when she tricked MacKay into subconsciously slipping the Ancient shield device off...

Hide and Seek was truly a story about MacKay though. It was his version of Emancipation, without all that "I am woman, here me roar" crap that plagued Carter in her early proving-myself days... And you see? That's the true beauty of this episode. It made MacKay into a desirable hero in our eyes, without ever feeling pretentious or overdramatic in any sort of usual crap like that... Sure, the plotline in this episode was predictable. And hell, I even may have rolled my eyes at MacKay diving headfirst into the darkness monster at the end... But what made Hide and Seek truly enjoyable, was that even with the obvious "make me into a hero" cliche stuff, MacKay had some of the best lines that I've ever heard in sci-fi for a very long time... The whole episode had brilliant moments where he was trying to prove his worth, yet all were in the geeky way that I've always loved about his character... At the start of the episode, to feel equal to Beckett, he chose to undergo experimental gene therapy. And calling medicine the equivalent of voodoo was one his best comments ever, considering I quite agree with his sentiments... And throughout the episode, MacKay had simply brilliant lines hiding his wannabe bravado underneath even more wannabe bravado... The shield failing scene still has me snickering to this day (guess like Beckett, he can't consciously control Ancient technology either...). And I can't get enough of lines like, "I passed out from manly hunger", and "size doesn't matter!... That's a myth" sort of stuff... I mean, sure everything in this episode was predictable. Even the personal shield thing has been done to death on other sci-fi shows (although food and fainting were never nearly as interesting as they were in Atlantis)... But just the way that MacKay sings, "invulnerable". Or just the way he snuggly hugs his flashlight, even when he was supposed to be starving to death... all of this makes me proud that MacKay was chosen as a last minute replacement for whoever didn't make the Atlantis cast and crew in the end. It makes me proud that he's Canadian, even if he didn't stand up for our goddam hockey... Because without him and Sheppard, for now at least... there wouldn't be any show...

... we'd be stuck with just Mayweather 2... and a really, really, ridiculously hot Dr. Weir who can't act, but that's a story for another day..."

"Stargate Atlantis aired the episode, Thirty Eight Minutes, this week. And while it wasn't a bad episode, it surely suffered from the one thing I despise most in fantasy and fanboy sci-fi shows: the error of taking themselves too seriously... I mean, for Christ's sakes, this isn't the original Star Trek series, despite the lovely reference to "Cling-ons". So when I see a little parasite bug attached to some actor's neck, I'm going to laugh like a lunatic, alright?...

... and because I'm going to laugh, it made Thirty Eight Minutes a lot more laughable than it would've been if only at moments, the episode didn't take itself so seriously... Because against my better wishes, nearly every single cast member acted like the episode was the most dire moment in their lives to be... While I found some of his rants of "certain doom" to be amusing, MacKay was simply not endearing to me for the first time in the history of the show. I already forget most of what he said, simply because it was mostly generic for a geek on a show with an impending crisis. Although at least, we found out that he hasn't really mellowed out since becoming the hero last week... Rainbow Sun Francks or however you spell his name did a superb job in his role this episode, acting all concerned for Major Sheppard. But the problem is, he may have had tons of anti-Mayweather lines, but he had no backstory. He had no character development, besides showing he had a backbone at least... All he did was keep repeating "are you alright?" and then got to play the hatchback hero at the end. He really didn't have any memorable lines or actions, which kind of sucks (out of the airlock Archer) for him, considering how much air time he got... And Dr. Beckett? At least, he was once again the saving grace of the episode. Sure, he acted all serious himself. But he had probably the only clever lines in the episode, from the "Cling-on" comment, to merely the look in his eyes when he said you aren't supposed to try cutting leeches off... (and oh yes, just for reference, it makes a lot of sense now why Atlantis was submerged, if the Wraith truly can't take saltwater like this episode suggests... too bad it all reminds me a bit too much of god-awful Signs...).

Now, Dr. Weir was quite a weird enigma for me... Can Torri Higginson act at all? I say that with disdain this episode, not with the lovely prose I had for her last episode. Why? Because she changed her hair back, that's why!... So let me get this straight. In the midst of the Pegasus Galaxy, our Dr. Elizabeth Weir not only changes her hair every episode, but seems compelled to wear bad zipper shirts to work as well? Eh? WTF?... Either way, I didn't like any scene she was in. I hated her moment with the Aragon-clone where once again, the actress couldn't seem to relate or bash or whatever the Athosians properly at all. And while she did a good job of embarrassing the embarrassed ass of a scientist later on, she simply couldn't pull off her lines without sounding like a fool herself. Even her question to the Czech doctor of a weird name, of what she could do to help, sounded completely forced and fruitless and futile and lacking in emotion. Torri still sounded horny this episode, but dammit, after changing her hair, she just didn't look hot anymore... Teyla had a lot of lines like Lt. Ford. But she didn't really do anything, except get the medical kit way too late, all things considered. I did see some chemistry with Lt. Ford though. But besides her generic concern for the ship and crew, Teyla really didn't offer anything to the show. Hell, she didn't even look good in a uniform for some strange reason... And Major John Sheppard? Well, the episode probably failed in my eyes because he just wasn't really there. He never really got to pull of a joke, and all the flashback scenes of the Wraith planet just didn't have the oomph and power that I thought they would have on me. Plus, he had a stupid looking bug on his neck, which definitely didn't help make the episode seem serious in my eyes... I liked the idea of fooling the bug into thinking he was dead though. And I actually felt some chemistry between Sheppard and Weir for once, even though she technically wasn't there. But this was the first episode that Sheppard really didn't help the episode at all. I guess every character gets at least a week off from the show, you know...

Technical wise, I did love this episode. The simplistic special effect of the event horizon just sitting in the shuttle was amazing. And the idea of being lodged in the Stargate was a great 24 way of making an episode feel tense for 38 minutes... I loved all the little timbits of info we got about Stargate knowledge in this episode, from MacKay's "relativistic" reminder, to confirmation that the Stargate only transfers discrete bodies of matter through the wormhole (although that contrasts some things in SG-1, like staff weapons getting cut in half by the Stargate, but I digress)...

But even with all the fine technical details in this episode, I still didn't find it decent whatsoever. Why? Because it took itself too damn seriously, when it had a goddam tick attached to an actor's neck for Christ's sakes!... I needed some sort of comic relief in an episode like this. Even O'Neill turning into a viral alien had "undomesticated equines" to back the episode up... Thirty Eight Minutes was definitely not a bad 43 minutes of Stargate Atlantis allotted air time. It's just that, it was definitely the weakest of the episodes so far. And for the first time this season so far, Atlantis conceded the throne of the week to Big Brother, Stargate SG-1... a Zero Hero at the Zero Hour indeed..."

"... or are they simply keeping all of their good ideas for Stargate Atlantis these days?...

Suspicion wasn't a great episode. And hell, the first half of it was boring as hell... I've never minded bottle episodes, but I certainly do mind episodes with boring interviews with an extremely boring set of alien cast members... and Teyla's speeches to her people? I know this episode was meant to be her character's inauguration, but really, her speecifying was just downright nauseating to me...

But the second half of the episode definitely picked up, and once again proved that the newer, fresher feel of Atlantis was definitely outpacing its bigger brother of Stargate SG-1 this year... The Wraith are still not very threatening, considering their weapons are non-lethal, and they use some of the stupidest tactics known to man... But their T2 or "Kane" kind of regenerative sitting-up does make their minions more interesting than Jaffa are more times than not. And I personally did enjoy the final fire fight of this episode, if only because Teyla actually looked pretty damn sharp with those little fighting sticks of hers... She pretty much sucked when it came to acting in Suspicion. She just couldn't suspend my belief... but her fighting skills made up for her lack of anything else. And of course, having P90s pumping lead into everything that moved is always on my plus list of the light side of the force... Although if frickin' taser guns actually work on the Wraith, then WHY DIDN'T THEY FUCKING BRING ZAT GUNS FOR FUCKING CHRIST'S SAKES!... sometimes, the Atlantis crew can really be stupider than anyone ever thought possible...

Suspicion was Teyla's first real episode, and unfortunately for her, her acting abilities were suspiciously absent... Her speeches to her people were grating on the ears. And it was kind of strange actually, why she would so readily choose to stick with Dr. Weir than with her own people (lesbianism, maybe?... hopefully?...). At least her fighting skills made up for her lack of character, but damn, she really has to start wearing some better outfits... As for Dr. Weir, she frickin' changed her hair again! Every single episode, she decides to just keep bouncing back and forth between straight and curled, even with the Wraith showing up at the door five times out of nine... But at least, the return of her sexy curled hair and furled brow hid the fact that she was just completely awful this episode. Not only did she completely treat the Athosians undiplomatically like her character was always meant to be, not only did she look like a complete dumbass whenever she was pressured by that Sergeant Bates guy, but I just can't stand how the actress keeps talking to people as if they were five year old idiots! If only it wasn't for the sexy hair, I'm sure she would've been voted off of the Atlantis island a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

And as for the rest of the crew? Sheppard had a few moments of shooting Wraith in the nuts, and eating his beloved turkey sandwiches in Puddle Jumper cockpits. He got to show trust in Teyla, but that was nothing new, so I didn't really care... Lt. Ford once again got back to his god-awful naming ways. He didn't grow much as a character, but at least he's starting to get more decent lines... Dr. Beckett was only there for one scene, but I always just love how smugly arrogant he looks whenever someone else gets the short stick of a blast to the face. And MacKay? Well, he had the least amount of amusing lines of any of his episodes so far. But I still loved his cotton mouth bit at the start, and his snip of a snap was definitely back by the time the secret to Teyla's necklace was found... I mean, besides the final fire fight, the only thing I did enjoy in this episode was the fact that I was pleasantly surprised at the "spy" amongst the ranks. I knew that Sheppard's team was accidentally giving away their position somehow, but I was most impressed by the idea of the first episode's necklace coming back to haunt them (although I don't really get how the Wraith detected it in Rising if it has such a short range, but I digress)...

So what is that now? Stargate Atlantis has been better than Stargate SG-1 four out of five episodes by now or something? That's pretty damn embarrassing for the nine o'clock home team then... and very suspicious of the writers, indeed..."

"Atlantis has unquestionably been the better of the Stargate shows this season, and in my honest opinion, Childhood's End really showed why... I mean, sure the episode would've been one I probably would've hated back when Stargate SG-1 was new and I couldn't stand all the low budget cultures out in space. But now that I care more for the writing than for the plotlines of a show?... Childhood's End was really the childhood beginning for me of a rich and bright universe for the Stargate Atlantis crew.

The plot had been done to death on Stargate before, with a messed up culture needing help from us to turn back to agnostic common sense... I would've hated this kind of plotline just a few years back, but after all these years of Stargate SG-1 ignoring the effect technology has on religion? I personally got a whole nostalgic buzz about it all, actually... And plot wise, the episode wasn't really bad at all. The villagers may have been as two dimensional as anybody was in The Village, but at least they looked decent with their CG bows and arrows... It was jarring to see Lt. Elliot back, willing to sacrifice himself for the third bloody hell time (though unfortunately, not to save Lt. Haley this time around... I thought the two had chemistry...). But actor reusing aside, I thought he did a very good job as a wise man willing to do what's best for his people. He had good acting skills, strong delivery, and took an arrow to the chest pretty damn decently, so why wouldn't the writers bring him back from the grave?... And the whole idea of the EMP generator on the planet? Sure, it bugs me that Ancient technology is so susceptible to little Jackism magnets, especially when Goa'uld technology seemed like it was immune to EMP back in SG-1's season two. But I actually thought the whole general premise of the episode was pretty damn well thought out... Ritual suicide as population control, I mean? Not only was the idea of heaven vs the Wraiths used well, but I actually thought the population control idea was a rather nice and indirect commentary on human politics as they are today... me being Chinese and all, at least...

But what's always been the best part of Atlantis has been the characters, even Lt. Ford (who's still Mayweather Jr. as far as I'm concerned)... Ford still hasn't gotten any character development. But I still loved his moment with the kids and the chocolate... Weir didn't do much this episode either. But at least she got to be a bitch again, got to pretend like she cared about other cultures (unlike other episodes), and at least she didn't change her hair and don a completely new wardrobe yet again (what? So all those boxes of things the scientists brought to Atlantis weren't her selection of clothes?)... Teyla didn't get to do much herself, and that was probably what made Ms. J-Lo-faux tolerable this episode. She only seemed like an advisor, and thus didn't force me to hear a ton of alien lines that just don't work with the actress. And heck, I even thought her confidence in her lovely P90 was darling at the end as well (although she's becoming too technologically sound for her own character's good, I think...)... Sheppard got to crash a Puddle Jumper, and besides that? He didn't have much to do except talk with Lt. Elliot, climb trees like an Ewok, make questionable decisions about stealing the "ZED"-PM, and get his ass handed to him by two lowly twenty year olds... so all in all, a decent day for Sheppard I think...

And speaking of kids, I gotta admit that MacKay really felt look a fun father this episode. Because for the umpteenth time in Atlantis already, Sir Rodney MacKay stole the show... He had so many great lines that I can't even remember them all. I mean, anyone who's watched SG-1's Redemption would just fall in love with MacKay's love for Carter this episode. And I loved his distaste for Ford's compass at first, even after realizing how useful it was... I loved his snippiness with Weir, not even pretending about respecting other cultures as long as they're stupid... And his chemistry with the kids? For the first time in a long television while, I actually liked little kids!... I'm sure MacKay would've lost the fight against three-foot what's-his-name, and the hope of a "quiet competition" between the kids still has me chuckling... And I don't know why, but just the little touches to MacKay's character worked really well as well. I mean, especially considering he was absolutely clueless about giving up his chocolate just one moment before, it was actually surprising to me that MacKay would protect the two children from the probe before getting back to his work. It showed some real class, you know?... Plus, I'm hooked on counting the number of times he pronounces "ZED"-PM just to annoy all the Americans watching the show... MacKay's my goddam hero. You're damn right, skippy...

Plotwise, Childhood's End was definitely not the beginning and definitely not the end of a long line of rehashes in the Stargateverse... Fixing an alien device the stars mess up is nothing new. And hell, I'm pretty sure I've seen ritualistic suicide somewhere in sci-fi a dozen times before... But the strong characters and writing of Stargate Atlantis continue to push the show far past whatever its older brother has ever managed to achieve this season. And hell, it's sort of like Alien vs Predator in a sense... because the side that I thought was going to win, in both cases? I mean, I was so sure about SG-1... and so sure about Atlantis... and so damn sure about Summerslam... and, yet?... um...

"Affinity was good this week... but for the umpteenth week in a row, Atlantis was better... The good thing was, Affinity was decent enough that Atlantis' Poisoning the Well wasn't that much better than its Big Brother. Or was it that simply because Poisoning the Well wasn't really good in the first place?... It's quite often that I end up hating one half of an episode, and liking the other. But Poisoning the Well broke hell with all rules, segregating itself into something likable for five minutes, then something to hate for another five minutes, then vice versa... and the cycle repeats... I literally sat through this episode, wondering how the hell some scenes could be so damn good, followed by yet another scene that just grated the eyes at best...

Both the best and worst part of Poisoning the Well was definitely the moral dilemma... On the one hand, I enjoyed at first all the talks about what it means to "defend" against the Wraith. I saw both sides of that argument at least, of the new wonder drug potentially being a reason for the Wraith to kill off their entire population... But then the show just had to drive the wedge even further, didn't it? One by one sequentially, the show just kept pilling on the moral dilemmas, until there were simply far too many, and not all of them were good... Should we risk a terminally ill patient as a test, even if he's willing to die for a cause? Is it right to mass produce the medicine, without all the hundreds of trials required by the FDA? Is it right to inoculate the people, when half of them will die?... Sure, each and every one of these dilemmas has a place in the modern world. But they were all shoved together, like one bad omelet, into this one episode alone... and it just didn't work... Especially considering it was so one-sided per team. The 1918 aliens wanted one thing, and the SGA team wanted another... I was hoping that maybe Teyla would be the Daniel Jackson, taking the opposite perspective of her leader. But instead, she was just a useless sheep in this episode, sucking up to the boss... even though out of all people, I'd figure she'd be the one to want to take the fight back to the Wraith...

Actually, that was another problem with Poisoning the Well. None of the character particularly came off well... Ford became even more Mayweather than usual, except for his one badass "bye, Steve" line... Now, I was happy that Dr. Weir kept her hair and warddrobe. But the scene where she's deciding about the fate of the terminally ill test? It just dragged on and on, to the point where I wished she would change her hair for some variety... MacKay had his worst episode of the season as well. Besides his Geothermal remarks, he had nothing to contribute at all... And while Sheppard definitely had his moments with "Steve", the montador of a captured Wraith, he just didn't have enough witty lines to really make me care... Now, I enjoyed most of the Wraith scenes. The poor bastard was starving to death, and Sheppard teasing him about his food "just being out of reach" was great. And the idea of experimentation? Always a good thing. Although I wish they would've implanted a chip in his brain so he couldn't feed on humans, and make him a champion, but I digress... But besides pointing P90s everywhere without a single shot fired, did Sheppard really do anything? I loved his rivalry with the poor Wraith bastard. But I was hoping the Wraith would survive, you know?... instead, the rivalry just died, with no real "humanized" villain on the series any longer...

But the episode belonged to Dr. Beckett, the one truly defined character of the show (who ironically isn't even part of the cast). And those were the few moments that I truly did enjoy the episode... Now, it annoyed me that the SGA writers once again recasted a SG-1 character. And it was just ironic that Perna would come back in yet another episode about a wonder drug (and she'll probably find a way to come back again, now that she's dead)... But the cuteness between her and Dr. Beckett was undeniable... I loved just how adorable she was every time she was amazed at our technology. And the talk of us being "spoiled rich" back home where the Wraith don't show, actually gave me good remembrances of Affinity the hour before... Now, if any scene should've been cut, it was the drawn out scene where Beckett lectures Perna on the ethics of being a doctor. The entire episode was about ethics, so we didn't really need to be hit over the head with an ugly stick about it all... But still, it was touching at the end of the episode. 96% of the people voted to make themselves weapons against The Wraith, and Perna was amongst the first. The contrast between her dying happy, and Beckett believing she died needlessly, was perhaps the only strong thing the episode did morally...

Poisoning the Well was not the finest hour of the series, especially considering every character but Sheppard and Beckett was shunned... and if only because nobody ever realized that this protein vaccine could be turned into some sort of bioweapon bomb... But still, Poisoning the Well was definitely a memorable episode. If only because poor damn Steve bit off quite more than he could chew... and if only because Stargate is really starting to pull a Smallville, by hiring as many cute actresses as they can find these days...

... mmm... I'd sure like to poison Lois Lane's well... but, umm... that's a small Smallville week in review for another day..."

"For the first time in a very long time, Stargate Atlantis was secondary to its big brother in arms, in both timeslot and IvanFian favoritism at least. But that's not to say that Underground wasn't a good episode in the end... It wasn't the most exciting of hours gone by, but knowing that the Genii are going to become villains in the near future, I really did feel a sense of urgency and dread in this episode. And the Wraith ship?... While the Wraith themselves are just meaningless threats, their ships themselves have a real Aliens-type vibe to them, neural peptide controls and all. I've always had a thing for biological ships, and combine that with the Species 8472 feel of the Hive ship's lighting? Add in all the cocooned humans, ala Aliens?... then you have one damn fine action scene for an episode, even without much action in the end...

Plotwise, I really was absorbed into the whole Atlantis universe this week. But character wise? Not so much... Ford was the most pathetic of all characters. He was truly the token black guy, where his only chemistry was with Teyla in that one instance she actually made a joke. Teyla herself was a joke, except whenever dealing with former Harvest ceremonies and her childhood friend Sora (who was damn cute, by the way... why couldn't they have chosen that actress for Telya's role, dammit?)... Elizabeth Weir was completely at her most annoying this episode. All she ever does is condemn Sheppard on the decisions he makes, and then just goes along with them, even to the point of offering C4 and nuclear weapons. The only time her character was ever decent, was when she was mocking Sheppard about his rivalry with Bates. And it certainly didn't hurt that she looked damn fine in that white tank top of hers, but I digress... Sheppard himself may have had a lot of classic lines. I especially loved the fact that his food negotiations turned him into a nuclear arms dealership, and that he didn't particularly care. But for the most part? Except for perhaps his stand-off against The Genii at the end, he really wasn't serious enough for the feel of the episode. I mean, showing off C4 to farmers?... MacKay was the only character I truly loved in Underground. Because he made me envious, dammit!... I've always loved how arrogant he is, and I sincerely hope he never changes. I loved how he kept ranting off about his grade sixth science bomb, his fondness of being fondled by the CIA, and the fact that he didn't even win the science fair that year (serves him right, considering A-bombs are damn primitive, even for us Canadians...)... I loved the fact that everything he gloated about his A-bomb knowledge was actually real, and I understood it all. And I'm sure one day it'll come back to haunt him, that all his arrogant revelations about weapons of mass destruction, will help the Genii nuke the hell out of some innocent planet...

... now, if only more races would just keep their secret, hidden, underground-lair hatches locked, then this could've all been avoided...

I loved MacKay's interactions with all the Genii. He was their hero, being the beloved geek and all... But the Genii themselves weren't exactly the villains I was hoping them to be. With just WW2 weapons, they didn't seem so threatening... But I personally was surprised that they somehow made a primitive interface to the alien Wraith computer data device... Colm Meaney, yet another actor making the Trek from the Star Trek universe, was at his absolute Irish meanest. And hell, I'll love to see Sora back one of these days, with that pretty little face of hers... And while Underground may not have been the best episode ever, it certainly set things up well for the rest of the season... We saw yet another example of a race so desperate to fight off the Wraith, that it really makes the threat seem that much more imminent... Sora now blames Teyla for her father's death. The Genii are desperate to get their hands on some Puddle Jumper ships. Sheppard got to have some chemistry with Weir again. And we figured out there's more than 60 Hive ships out there, a threat that suddenly feels so much more real after this onr episode alone... afterall, the build up now is really, umm... building...

Unfortunately for Underground, I enjoyed SG-1's Covenant episode a lot more than I did Stargate Atlantis. But I gotta give props to Underground for one thing at least... it was damn funny to see Amish farmers carrying machine guns out of nowhere... and damn, Weir in a white tank top?... count me in then for the rest of the series..."

"It feels odd really, that I'm not giving the better deal to Home this week. Because from the promos, I thought I'd really like it... The problem was, even if I do normally like the average non-corporeal alien episode of the week on Star Trek, the truth of the matter is, this kind of crap has been done to death in sci-fi. On god-awful Star Trek Voyager, no less... and the whole ordeal was just too damn predictable on Atlantis to bear this week... I knew just from George Hammond being there, with Dr. Weir alone with him, that the whole world was fake. And I guess the writers knew that anyone who's watched a single season of Stargate or more would realize this right away, considering John Sheppard figured it out pretty soon himself... although the only decent dead giveaway in the episode, was actually the dead people... and the sadly hot sixth grade teacher, but I digress...

... Grade Six, I mean... grade fucking six... You see? American TV made in Canada is really fucking over my ventral vernacular over here...

I guess I was hoping that Home would really feel like Home when it came to character development. Nothing has really felt right about the Atlantis characters since maybe even Suspicion, suspiciously enough... Dr. Weir was probably disappointed this episode that she didn't get to truck back a boatload of new wardrobes. All she did do in Home, was wear an ugly pink T-shirt, look decently cute when curled up in a chair, and make out with Narim from the Tollan homeworld (to the ghastly sound of Jack and Sam 'shipper music, no less)... Her only decent moment was her one bit of chemistry with John Sheppard, reading the 17th page of War and Peace. The Major did have his fair share of other moments though. The party was funny at times, and it was always nice to know he enjoys sipping his beer while shooting his friends. But it just felt weird at times, to see him ignore Teyla so much in the background... I was hoping that Home would highlight Teyla's newness to earth much. But while I loved her newfound obsession with clothing shopping, she just wasn't featured enough in this episode to work. She didn't seem wondered or surprised enough with earth to truly get my attention. Instead, we got a bachelor pad scene with bikini girls who I oddly didn't care about... And I really didn't care about Ford either. He was strangely better as the token pizza black guy, than he was as the bitter whiner about being shipped off to Afghanistan. I mean, you know his character is just completely pointless when he barely even gets two minutes of air time of his own tricked-out universe...

The only real highlights of Home, were Rodney McKay and the return of Don Davis as George Hammond... McKay isn't just great because he probably collects Canadian Tire money. It's because he honestly gets literally all the good lines on the show... I mean, where can I get a "I'm with Genius" shirt like his? And you gotta feel bad for the poor slob of a bastard, not getting any messages even in his own fantasy personal dream world. And boy, does he get testy when the laws of physics no longer apply. So he finally noticed the thousand dancing hamsters at my university, eh?... And George Hammond obviously wasn't himself. But the lovable teddy bear of an actor was enjoyable as ever to see again, even if he did act like a complete zombie most of the time... And that was the only thing that did save this episode. The only real humour came from watching the fake McKay smile like a retard, or seeing what kind of outfit the fake Dr. Weir would put on next (pink T-shirts don't turn me on, but white ones do for some odd reason...). And the fake Lt. Ford?... umm... oddly enough... he was more lively than the real version... go figure... although that's obviously not saying much...

Home just didn't feel like Home to me. I was hoping for some Teyla hope, or Elizabeth Weir in a tight ass dress or something. Or at least the second death of Narim again... But we didn't get that. Instead, we just got an ever predictable story, about incorporeal aliens who get sucked into the Stargate as pure energy, whenever an intergalactic wormhole is established...

Now, that may not sound predictable the way I said it... but trust me, it is... because hell yes, I've watched way too much sci-fi for one lifetime...

"Now once again, Stargate Atlantis had clearly the stronger of the two episodes. It never once got boring, and it never once felt completely ridiculous. If only because MacKay is the best damn technobabbler since the days of Data on TNG... I do wish that the episode wasn't so openly-ended as a two-parter though. It's not that I hate two-parters... it's just that... does the second part really have to be something like six months away? Kind of cruel to make the fans sit through all that, just to see Sheppard go all die hard on Sora's sore ass...

I wish I could say that every single character had a memorable role in The Storm, Part 1. But that's rarely ever true for any series, so... Lt. Ford was once again the token black guy. He got a few decent "yes, sir" jokes in. But when "yes, sir" is the only decent lines a character has? That's a cause for concern... Dr. Beckett was wasted for the first time in the series. It's nice to know he can fly a puddle jumper, but he really didn't have any jokes. And it was just odd that he didn't want to take off in the storm, considering he could of gotten to orbit and stayed safe that way?... And Teyla? Well, I did like her earlier scenes, watching Hurricane Ivan take out a North America on another planet. Guess that guarantees my insurance premiums are going up... I liked her sense of discovery, of seeing a storm from space for the very first time. But after that? She just sort of sat there, whining about hunters and complaining about little children... But I'm sure Part 2 will have a nice showdown between her and Sora. And Sora better be in her tank top gear again, otherwise the six month wait will not be worth it...

The series once again fell into the hands of the more than capable three: Weir, Sheppard, and MacKay... Weir was pretty useless. She has been ever since her wardrobe and popcorn supplies ran dry. But hey, she looked pretty decent at gun-point. And at least she didn't succumb to pressure... MacKay was obviously the best character in the episode, the best character in the series, and one of the best characters on sci-fi of all time. His rapid fire spitting of his strategy out to Weir, about the lightning rods all around Atlantis, was simply the highlight of this week of Stargate. His mutual distaste of the Czech scientist made for all the good scenes in this episode. And yes, I would've cut off the bastard too after his "El Nino" boring remark... And it's nice to know that some heroes out there still submit to torture like any real boy would do. Poor MacKay cried like a baby after just one slice, and his embarrassment later on definitely worked. Hell, I was even entertained by the stutter in his voice as he feared what was going to happen to him... And hell, we Canadians actually had a hurricane? WTF?... And Sheppard? Well, I loved the roll in his eyes when he realized he was given the running man's job in the grounding stations work. And it was a nice Die Hard touch of his, to leave the radio communicator where the C4 was... He wasn't in a lot of scenes. But the Major is always effective when he's there in full P90 force. I just didn't like how "caring" I guess he was, about Weir being the first to die and blah blah blah. I mean, the actor played the part just fine... but it sort of dragged on, the way that the end of the first half of a two-parter always does...

Overall, while SG-1 has been left in the bitter dust this season (and I'm the guy who liked seasons 4, 6 and 7... although 5 was just bleh...), Stargate Atlantis has really shined... I love the sense of exploration and discovery that's back in the series. Seeing two massive storms collide from space sent a hurricane of a chill through my IvanFian spine, actually. And all the technobabble talk of how the Atlantians survived the storms in the past, actually was interesting to me. Just don't ask me why... Now, I could've done with more Colm Meaney (Ha! He's back to being a TNG Chief!). And I could've done without that annoying Nazi-like commander in charge... And I really could've done with more supple Sora in sweaty battle gear. How they chose Teyla over this actress, I'll never know... And I love the desperation of the Pegasus Galaxy. The Genii, like everyone else, is willing to do anything in their battle against the Wraith... And the firefight battles, while short and swift, still kick the ass out of anything that SG-1 has produced since its season premiere...

I will never like two-parters, especially those with months and months of waiting inbetween... But MacKay has provided more than enough replay value for the first half of the season to keep me company. And Stargate Atlantis as a whole, while weaker than SG-1's flagship second series, is still worlds ahead of probably any other season in Stargate in history... I really do like the show, even if some characters are stiff. I just wish it wasn't sucking the life out of SG-1 like a Steveweiser Wraith, that's all...

... and I just wish the finale of the two-parter was next week... but since it's not, here's to January... and the longest Hurricane Ivan in history then, I suppose..."

On Tuesday, I bought Halo 2 on what was arguably the biggest day in the entertainment industry of all time... Wednesday, I got to laugh at just how goddam bad Smallville was for the week (it had a nice nostalgic feel to its mediocrity...)... Friday, not only did I get to watch one of the best Star Trek Enterprise episodes ever made, but I also saw in theatres The Incredibles, which will probably end up as my favourite movie of the entire damn year... Saturday, I picked up Mario Power Tennis for the Gamecube, since I loved the original so much... And coming next week, I'll probably be watching The Polar Express around Monday or something, and I'm hoping to pick up Metroid Prime 2 on Tuesday, exactly one week after this Halo 2 week of madness all started...

Sure, I had two midterms and three assignments due this week as well. Probably failed at least a couple of things I handed in... But why the fuck should I care? All that matters is the fact, that if you ask me? This past week, has definitely been a pretty damn good week of entertainment...

I was absolutely caught by surprise, I really was... up here in Canada, eh. No doot aboot it... I mean, we just got Stargate SG-1 season seven up here. And normally, we'd actually be two seasons late... Stargate Atlantis was being aired on TMN two months later than it was on the sci-fi channel in America. I seriously never expected, that for once... just for once... we'd actually get Stargate early... for once... for real... Is this a dream?... in this week of endless entertainment, no less...

And to add on yet another checkmark and huge smile to the November sweeps checklist, Stargate Atlantis' The Eye was perhaps the absolute best episode that Stargate has produced since the series premiere of the Atlantis series itself... It wasn't good enough to take the episode of the week crown from Star Trek Enterprise, but it was damn fine enough to take just about all my other praises away...

The Eye was filled with a kind of suspense and imminent urgency, that Stargate has definitely been lacking the past few seasons or so... The special effects were amazing for such a low budget show, with that tsunami crashing against the Atlantis shield being absolutely the best of the crop. But just the little touches in this episode, like the lightning stikes pulling a Torment of Tantalus, the endless wind on Weir's pretty little face, to the fact that McKay was complaining about getting a cold from all the bad weather, just somehow produced such a great atmosphere to this episode, that I just can't how it can ever be topped... not anytime soon by the Stargate writers, at least...

Major Sheppard was absolutely ruthless this episode, and I loved it. Even with McKay still as a hostage, Sheppard took no prisoners, wiping out three men without even blinking, and massacring the 60 or so Genii that were coming through the Stargate. He showed no mercy for Koyla (or however you spell his name) after the Nazi clone claimed that he had killed Dr. Weir. And if you couldn't see the "shippiness" between John and Elizabeth when he asked her if she was alright at the end, then I guess you're just not watching the same series as I am... And to be honest, for a while I too was second guessing myself over what series I was watching. Because was it me, or was Dr. Weir actually smart, sexy, and interesting for once this episode? A first for the actress, I know... I loved her stalling tactics and routines, bluffing out Koyla and spouting out endless code numbers that really led to nowhere. And the poor girl looked like she cared more for Sheppard than she did for herself as she was being taken hostage... I personally don't care or want the two to hook up in the series together. But out of all characters on the show, they're the only ones who seem to even have a flare of a glare between the two of them. And Sheppard definitely proved it with his Die Hard techniques, not giving a damn about the naquada generators when McKay was the only hostage, but readily giving his own life up as soon as he heard Weir was about to die "again"...

The weird thing about The Eye, is that like the calm of the storm, everything seemed so perfect when you know it really shouldn't be... Now, I know that Atlantis will go back to ignoring all its other actors in due time. But in this episode at least, everyone had a huge part and played it brilliantly... Dr. Beckett looked so damn awkward carrying a P90, that you'd think he was about to drop it and cause some friendly fire or some crap like that... But he did provide brilliant comedy with Lt. Ford, who absolutely surprised me with his non-token blackness this episode. I loved how he took charge for once, and spent the whole time basically telling Beckett to shut the hell up. His one-time commandoness really contrasted well with the poor doctor not even willing to fly straight up into space, and it gave The Eye the very strange feeling, that maybe, just maybe, Lt. Ford ain't such a worthless character afterall... And Teyla? Sure, I normally find her character tiresome and pointless, but she definitely made her mark with that blade in the ground this episode. I didn't care about the rest of her lines in The Eye - all that mattered was the hot, sweaty chemistry she had with that uber-beautiful Sora... Now, I still wish that the actress who plays Sora had been cast as Teyla instead. But damn, at least we got that luscious girl on girl fight sequence between the two gals, which sounded more like something out of a amateur porn flick than anything else... Sora did look damn fine in that tight black shirt of hers. And Teyla's actress (forget her name now... dammit...) actually really pulled off the fighting moves well. She actually did seem like a warrior princess for once, with that most excellent elbow jab to the spine... and I especially liked how Sora may end up being a reoccurring character, now that she's behind Ancient bars. I'll take another girl on girl scuffle between the two gal pals anyday...

Rodney McKay was once again the absolute best reason to watch Stargate Atlantis. He had so many classic lines, that it's almost impossible to name or remember them all... I always love curt he is, telling Koyla right to his face that he's not brave enough to lie (and yet he was lying). Even if I knew his plan, his acting when he pretended the shield wouldn't go up sure seemed convincing to me ("...that's why they call it... acting...", Team America). And he had just wondrous panicked contrast with the always calm (and always wet...) Elizabeth Weir. I just absolutely adore it whenever Rodney screams out that he's an "arrogant man" who always thinks his plans will work, while Weir just looks on and basically nods her head in agreement... There is really one reason and one reason alone to watch the Atlantis series: Rodney McKay... I can't honestly believe that I didn't want him on the show when he was first announced. What the fuck was I thinking?...

And hell, even the villains of The Eye didn't feel so one dimensional this time around... Koyla looked so confused as he didn't know who or what to believe. But that was still great acting - he knew that McKay was probably lying, but he just couldn't take the risk to defy him. He was a smart villain, who's only real flaw was the greed of wanting to take over Atlantis. He lost a lot of men in the process, but even he had some good ideas in the end, taking Weir and McKay as hostages... I didn't care for many of the other Genii, since their American accents didn't make them seem like evil alien nazis enough. But Sora was just so damn hot as she was playing hard to get with Teyla... And if the two of them ever do hook up?... Well, maybe there'll be more than one reason to watch Stargate Atlantis afterall...

"You know, I love November sweeps... I just never thought I'd be saying that for a Stargate series, considering their whacked out schedule...

But The Defiant One aired today in Canada, and I gotta say, the Stargate writers have really done a great job in making individual Wraiths seem like a threat... The Defiant One was just the usual one on one, Predator kind of tried and true story, that all guys seem to love. The only thing that truly makes or breaks an episode like this one, is whether the villain turns out menacing or not... And considering basically the first Atlantis team people since the pilot died here against the one lone Wraith, it did make him into quite a formidable threat... The guy wasn't very stupid either, figuring out hand guns in a few seconds and setting up shields around the jumper just for good merit... And of course, you gotta love a villain who's tough as nails. Sheppard really should've just shot him in the head a dozen times, but you still gotta admire a guy who can take on a Wraith grenade explosion to the face and still keep on ticking...

Sheppard was pretty much the lone star in this episode. And while he didn't have his usual array of sarcastic jokes, he did certainly have his moments... It was completely Scary Movie stupid of him just to abandon his scientists like that in the Wraith ship, but besides that, he played the game pretty well. The grenade trap was a nice touch, and although I saw it coming a mile away, the return of the Stargate zap bugs as the final coup de grace was pretty interesting... And you gotta love his Die Hard tactics, always using the radio to the best of advantages. You'd think the Atlantis team would run out of those things, considering how many Sheppard keeps going through, but I digress... Joe Flannigan didn't have much great acting to do. But he put a bandage around his arm just fine, and he certainly acted through the episode with a feeling of suspenseful confidence and seriousness, something the SG-1 team seems to lack after so many years in sci-fi. And that's all I care about for now...

McKay was the only other character really used in The Defiant One, and most of his time was babysitting the lost Nyan from whatever planet he was from... Now, of course I didn't care much for Nyan, except you did somewhat feel sorry for the guy as he looked in the mirror... McKay on the other hand, really played off of Nyan well. This was an episode that showed just how much he changed since the pilot... At the start of the episode, he was his usual cruel self, taunting his other scientists in his usual non-friendly ways. But as soon as matters got tough, he wanted to help Sheppard out, even though he obviously can't aim for shit with his pistol (how can he use up two magazines up just like that?...)... He showed great concern for his fallen red shirt, and even got in a good Captain Kirk reference... If there's any jewel of a character on Atlantis, it's Rodney McKay. He has a great rapport with every character on the cast, and with his eternal sarcasm, acts as a perfect supporting character to John Sheppard. Plus, you gotta love the look on his face when he realizes he's wrong... It was completely dumb of him to assume that no Wraith were just hibernating on the ship, but I digress... at least it made for good red shirt action...

Dr. Weir was a bit weird this episode... Now, with her passionate T-shirt on and her hair all nice and curly, Elizabeth looked absolutely beautiful, which is all I need from the Canadian actress. But she also gave these weird looks while talking to Sheppard, and while convincing Ford to go on the rescue mission. She just seemed like she cared so much for Sheppard, that she really looked like she was desperate, and that really made me horny... nice... Lt. Ford didn't do much, except fire a nice squid missile for good measure. And Teyla was just there for the ride as well, literally, but even she got to look decent in some decent civies clothes... I didn't care that any of these characters didn't have much more of a role than Marco did, whoever Marco may be. Sheppard and McKay are the two spotlights of Atlantis, and they proved it once again by making an hour of my day go by in the blink of an eye...

The Defiant One wasn't a great episode, but it had a lot of great moments, and a lot of great quotes (with Sheppard noting that the 10,000+ year old Wraith would probably win a waiting game against them...). It had some spectacular effects with the Midas Array, which may come in handy one day... It brought to life some nice new aspects about the Wraith, how they cannibalize each other and seem to kick ass as soon as they're full. And oh, did I mention Dr. Weir looked damn hot in that T-shirt of hers?... The Atlantis writers should take a note: whenever she gets captured or anything, make sure she's both wet and in her T-shirt.

Because then I'd really, really love November sweeps, but that's besides the point..."

"Once again, it's been a good week for television... because thank God Smallville didn't air a new episode, to continue their streak of November sweep abominations...

Sigh... I just wish I was able to enjoy this week more than I did... I haven't been able to write or review anything, since I've been too bogged down by all the damn projects I have before the end of the university term... And the situation isn't going to get much better next week, considering I have something like another five projects all due and fucking me up the ass at the same time... sigh indeed...

But while it pains me that I can't write for those two fans out there who actually do read this website, I can still enjoy the episodes I watch, now can't I?... doesn't matter what kind of homework I have. Television always takes precedence. It's truly television without pity...

... 'cause keeping our word, is standard... whatever the hell that's supposed to mean...

I watched Stargate Atlantis' Hot Zone episode this week, and while I really did like the writing, the episode did feel a bit too closed off for me... We sort of had a bottle episode last week, with the Defiant One taking place in basically just two locations. Same goes for Hot Zone, although at least in this episode, everyone had a chance to do something... Teyla got to look hot for once in that dress she was wearing. And it was nice that the show proved she could kick Sheppard's ass (although I would've just shot her first...). But besides that? She felt just out of place, oddly knowing about outbreak prevention far more than you'd expect from a villager... Lt. Ford got some great jokes in at the start of the episode with the poor Prime number game (which even as a geek, I really do suck at). But then later on in the episode, it became apparent that the actor just can't act. He was trying to sound panicked about his impending doom, but all that seemed to come out was bitter whininess... didn't seem to work for me...

I've never been a big fan of episodes with outbreaks. I did like some of the touches in Hot Zone though... Nanites being the cause of the disease was a nice sci-fi twist (although it's kinda been done before on Stargate). And I really liked how intelligent the city of Atlantis was, going into lockdown mode as soon as the disease was discovered, and even letting Sheppard through the doors since he was in a Hazard suit... And I did like the solution to the problem. Who wouldn't like a nice nuclear naquaada explosion to lighten up the day?... But the episode did feel a bit slow at times, simply because of the nature of a lockdown. It was nice to finally see Peter back, but for the most part, I didn't really like the character development very much...

MacKay provided a nice mix of his bold self from last episode, and his terrified self from earlier in the season. His final speech of being real damn close to finding a theory of unification was exactly what I planned to say at my own deathbed, but I can't say he had many other jokes besides that one... He was mostly too serious this episode, although it's understandable why, considering his scientists were dying all around him. Still, MacKay normally provides the comic relief in episodes, and it just kind of felt lacking when he was in full scientist soldier mode this episode... Dr. Beckett usually provides some comic relief as well. But besides his close rapport with MacKay, he didn't really offer much of use of anything in Hot Zone. He did the cliche thing of caring about his patients and telling them they're going to be fine, only to have another human just die next to him on his watch... I'm surprised that the nanites couldn't go through the Hazard suits. And I'm also surprised that Beckett was a little slow in his explanation of nanites to the even more slow Dr. Weir... It's interesting to think of who designed the Nanites (Ancients who wanted to kill off humans? Furlings who wanted to starve the Wraith? Someone else? We'll see...), but I certainly cringed at how dumbfounded Dr. Weir looked as MacKay and Beckett were explaining science to her like she was a child... Hasn't she ever watched sci-fi?...

I guess the real story of the episode was between Dr. Weir and Sheppard, since this was their first Voyager "Scorpion"... I loved Scorpion back in the day for its action, but I didn't really like the forcing of conflict between the main man and woman who obviously had a thing for each other... Same goes for Weir and Sheppard today. Weir was being pissy again, keeping everyone under lockdown like any good civilian would do. But Sheppard had a good point as well - with Hazard suits, he could make a difference... It doesn't really matter who's right or wrong. It just matters that Weir went completely stupid somewhere in the middle, opening the doors for Sheppard to go through, yet forgetting to turn off the transporter after power was restored... She couldn't stop Peterson from getting to the Atlantis city, yet she was blaming Sheppard near the end for once again disobeying orders?... He didn't do the right thing, and he knew it. So he tried to save his own ass, by reminding her that he saved her ass... how romantic... But I didn't really like anything about their forced mutual distaste for each other in Hot Zone. It just didn't feel "hot" between the two of them, either romantically or furiously... I did enjoy Sargeant Bates though for once. He chose Sheppard over Weir, which military wise, I would've done the same... 'cause Weir sucks...

Hot Zone wasn't really the hottest of episodes to watch. But once again, thanks to some great delivery of lines by MacKay and Sheppard, the hour did go by extremely quickly. And if only Stargate Atlantis hasn't had so many great episodes already to set the bar so high, then maybe I would think that Hot Zone really was the hot stuff of the week afterall..."

"... sigh... well, it's the end of November... which in my opinion, was one of the greatest months in the history of entertainment as we know it...

In the video gaming world (the only world I do care about), I picked up Halo 2, Mario Power Tennis, and Metroid Prime 2 the first days they came out... And if only I had a decent PC, PS2, and a hell of a lot more money, I probably would've picked up Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, GTA: San Andreas, Dragon Quest VIII, and Metal Gear Solid 3 as well (and bleh... maybe even the god-awful Killzone), just for the hell's bells fun of it all...

In the movie world, I may not have seen much, but Sideways (well... that's actually October...), National Treasure, and especially The Incredibles will all go down as some of my favourite movies of the entire year of 2004... And I still have to see Kinsey as well, which still counts as a November film as far as I'm concerned...

And in the world of television?... Well, Smallville has royally sucked. And I'm still bitter that Joss Whedon is too still bitter at Fox to ever come back to television as we know it... But Charmed has actually been decent thanks to Charisma Carpenter and their Angel-season four "peaceful" apocalypse. Enterprise has shown just how damn good the series can be without Berman and Braga, with the Augment and Vulcan Civil War arcs...

And Stargate Atlantis? Now there was the wildcard... Whoever thought that Stargate Atlantis would start airing during November sweeps up here in Canada, months ahead of its scheduled dates in America?... and while yes, I have been quite critically harsh on the episodes that have come out in November, the truth of the matter is... I love Stargate, and being able to watch new episodes in November reminded me just how much I missed the series in the first place...

Sanctuary gets the not-so-desired rights of being the absolute last thing I review in the hallowed and Halo'ed months of November... and truth be told, it won't be a negative review, but rather a positively glowing one, actually...

The thing is, yes as a long time Stargate watcher, I did have my complaints about this episode, mostly with Athar... I gotta admit that the actress/model was very beautiful, and actually quite good as the omnipotent, mother-like being of the episode. But in a sense, Sanctuary was too predictable for a longtime Stargate veteran. It was simply a combination of Maternal Instinct and that episode with Orlin, whatever it was called, and it did kind of bug me that nobody but MacKay (not even Beckett) seemed to think of the whole ascension thing. Hell, they were still clueless, even after the doctor mentioned it... I also didn't like how rare the comic relief was in this episode. It maybe took itself too seriously at times, which is never good for a sci-fi show... but that's about where the complaints pretty much end...

Sanctuary just had a solid feeling of writing to it, and a positive glow about it that just somehow worked... Like I said, the actress who played Athar was very good at what she did. She perfectly acted like an Ancient, with all her vagueness and mystical telepathy. And hell, she didn't even try to hide who she was to the audience (thankfully), even giving weird looks behind Beckett's back when he mentioned ascension (guess she didn't think we'd know about that)... I would say she was the best Ancient we've seen so far, except that that hologram girl from the Atlantis pilot was a bit hotter... Still, I also liked how the mother nature thing was much better done in this episode than it was in Maternal Instinct. The idea of a "weapon" instead of just weather and lightning, was much more bearable to me at least. And to be honest, I liked her punishment... It sounds completely dumb that as punishment, the Ancients would allow her to save one world and not all the others. Isn't that unfair to so many, and completely interfering in corporeal matters still then?... But the actress wonderfully pulled off that sense of pain and longing on her face to leave. She was actually good at seeming a) lonely, b) tired, and c) very damn horny, which I couldn't agree with more, mind you...

Another decent thing about Sanctuary, was that it provided a safe haven for almost all characters to shine... Lt. Ford only had a few words, but at least he got to show some guts during the Wraith dart firefight. And Teyla may not have had much to do either, but even she got to tease Sheppard about the whole seaside picnic thing... Dr. Beckett didn't have any comical moments to himself, but he was back to being his jolly ol' self with that MRI machine. And his enthusiasm over Athar's perfect health, was perfectly healthy for a scientist like him... Dr. Weir was a bit off this episode, completely ignoring what Sheppard did last episode, by seeming so damn concerned for him yet again as he left in the Jumper at the end. Still, I loved the T-shirt she was wearing, and I just somehow felt more chemistry between her and Athar than I did with Sheppard. And I certainly liked the feeling of that... And MacKay? MacKay got a bit annoying in the end, being completely tactless in his jealous attempts to prove that Sheppard's new girlfriend was an Ancient. I've always loved the bratty MacKay, but he was a bit too overbearing with his complete lack of diplomacy this episode... Still, he had the absolute best lines in the entire episode. Calling Sheppard "Captain Kirk", and claiming that doing it with the alien lady is so "1967", absolutely had me rolling on the floor in laughter! I see now who on the Atlantis squad worships at the altar of Roddenberry...

This was a John Sheppard episode. And I admit, he did have some chemistry with Athar, if only because their two opposite personalities seemed to click really well (and because she was damn hot...)... It was weird near the start when he was telling MacKay to shut up though. Sure, the doctor was being completely undiplomatic, but it seemed more like Sheppard was under an alien influence at the time, than just the influence of his libido... Still, I may not have liked how the episode revolved around Sheppard, but I did love how the script revolved around everyone else's jealousy. Teyla mocked him, but made a few looks in their conversation that showed she wished she was getting some herself... MacKay's jealousy was completely rampant, and I couldn't have laughed more when he finally sighed, "he is Captain Kirk..."... And Dr. Weir? There weren't many Sheppard and Weir moments this episode, but Elizabeth did certainly seem a bit bitchy towards Athar at times (probably due more to MacKay's warnings about her than what Sheppard was doing with her, but still...)... And c'mon, who doesn't like John Sheppard playing the romantic sweetheart asshole one moment by the sea side, and then kicking ass and taking Wraith names with a Puddle Jumper the next?...

My only complaint about Sanctuary, was that it was a bit too predictable for me, and that Dr. Weir and Athar never really got it on... But still, thanks to the strong writing, the return of almost the entire cast (hell, even Peter and his accent got something cool to do), and just from the surprising effectiveness alone of the actress who played Athar, it was nice to see that November ended off on exactly the same, positively glowing note as it started on...

... actually, it's going to be my last television episode review for quite some time, now that both Smallville and Star Trek Enterprise have gone on hiatus until the new year of 2005... Which means what for me?... which means, I don't know what...

Half of that is obviously from exam time. I always feel so damn bitter at this time of year, especially at times like this where I fucking actually learn that I failed my last assignments... again... just like every other fucking year... I'm dead in the water...

The only thing that could ever give me shelter from all of these horrid things in my life, was television... Star Trek Enterprise and Stargate Atlantis have been my best friends these past few weeks, sad enough to say. It's only when I watch these two shows that the rest of the world melts away, and for a moment... if only for a moment... I actually do escape reality, like the old adage of a cliche seems to say...

But I guess every show has its limits... or its outer limits, at least... I can't expect miracles afterall, now can I?...

The thing is, I watched Before I Sleep pretty much right after I completely bombed one of my final exams this week... and suffice to say, out of my own bitter disappointment at myself, the episode kinda put me to sleep... Now, I'm sure it was a good episode. Or at least, it would've been, if I was in the right mindframe... or timeframe, in this case... And it definitely had its moments, which I'll get to in a minute... But for a Dr. Weir episode, I can't believe just how stale and stagnant it felt. Torri Higginson may look adorable, and it was nice to see her with her old hair back, but... She just can't act interesting!... Her old self was alright I suppose, except a few times her voice was a bit too youthful. But it was her regular self that bugged the hell out of me. She didn't seem like she had anything to say but cliche statements about 'connecting' with her older self. She spouted off a bunch of rhetoric that was trying to be meaningful, but just felt empty and ultimately misplaced in the end... I liked the touch that the end of the episode was pretty much exactly as it started, with the urn and the birthday thing on the balcony and all. But even then, Weir felt more angry than she seemed sad as she basically told Sheppard to shove her ashes up his ass... Her character just felt off this whole episode. She just felt so one-dimensional, that it really made this Dr. Weir episode feel like a clip show episode at times...

Now, as the no-name nostalgic, I absolutely loved the redoing of the initial arrival at Atlantis. It was funny how Colonel Sumner was once again the first to die, and I was just as puzzled as Rodney was when I started noticing the small things different in how the characters were acting... I liked the 'alternate reality' that the old Weir was presenting us. I thought it flowed well together, with the time ship being destroyed (twice...) while Sheppard was learning how to drive. And Rodney even got to play the hero again, showing us that even at the start of the series, he was completely different than he was in SG-1...

If there's one damn nitpick of a timbit that I have with this episode, it's that once again, sci-fi goes the route of the god-awful "parallel universe" time travel paradox crap. I mean, I loved 1969 not just for its zany humour, but because it followed my personal preferred taste of time travel - the self fulfilling prophecy... But then the SG-1 writers lost all their guts and guns, and went for the easy time change paradoxes in 2010 and Before I Sleep... I may have enjoyed the redone scenes in this episode. Hell, I even enjoyed seeing Lt. Ford back in his Marines outfit... I may have liked the whole idea that Atlantis, being prepared for the arrival of the expedition team, was not a fluke... The time travel all worked out well, in terms of the parallel universes theory at least. I just don't like how just like The Back to the Future films, time travel creates and destroys entire universes in order to just make some fucking sense...

Before I Sleep was mainly a Dr. Weir episode, and ironically enough, that was the weakest point... I mean, she pretty much mumbled more as a young lady than she did as her older self... I respect that the actress pulled off the double feature so well, but I can't believe just how damn boring she was as she was living with the Ancients and all... She had almost no rapport with Janus or Gideon or whatever you want to call that goddam traitor of an Elder. There was a small kiss on the cheek there, but really, the episode just wasn't fun watching her follow him with absolutely nothing to do (where's dark and disturbed Leo when you need him? Or the demon of hope?... nevermind...)... And if there's any real complaint I have about this episode besides the time travel, it's that it ruined all the remaining air of mystery surrounding the Ancients... I mean honestly, they sucked and idled as much as the Tok'ra do! They sat around with bad fashion sense, acting all arrogant, bantering about with no real intellect there that we humans don't seem to have... It was confirmed (sadly) that the Wraith were the enemy that defeated the Ancients. And now we know why... so let me get this straight... The Ancients have an entire array of Stargates to travel through, yet they still try to breach an entire armada of Wraith ships with ONE damn transport vessel?... WTF?!... uggh...

This was a bad Dr. Weir episode, that thankfully featured a hell of a lot of great moments from the rest of the cast... Lt. Ford didn't have much to do, but at least his regular stunned and confounded look worked charms when he learned that he died... Dr. Carson was his usual self, without much comedy however. It's great though that he was officially announced today as joining the cast as a regular. Because if this episode was any indication, then he may be the greatest actor at feigning care for patients since the original Dr. McCoy. And I mean that in a good way... Teyla only got to blankly stare at the camera as she was pretending to understand what McKay was mentioning about Black Holes. Poor lass couldn't even get a moment in the flashback scenes. At the very least, she could've used some hot lesbian action with that Sora girl stuck and forgotten in the brig. I'm sure she's getting looking for a release after her long incarceration, but I digress...

Still, even lesbian sexcraft wasn't needed thanks to the brilliant Jack-Daniel-like banter between McKay and Sheppard. I absolutely loved their opinions on Back to the Future... And honestly? Who doesn't get a kick out of watching too ego maniacs argue over who's death was more heroic and less of a failure?... McKay was absolutely the best, looking genuinely morbid one moment after learning of his death by H20, and then the next moment making me snicker at the thought that he could've finished the job if he only had a few more seconds... Sheppard had a nice "shipper" scene with the birthday gift to Dr. Weir. I don't think the actor played the flashback scenes with the right mentality (he was a lot more rough and "n00bish" in the actual pilot episode), but it was still kickass fun to watch him being absolutely clueless at the Puddle Jumper console yet again...

I loved the characterizations of every character but Dr. Weir this episode. And with the new set of gate coordinates that they found, I'm sure that the Atlantis team will be making contact with earth soon (although which address was the one they already visited? The 25-year old sacrificial one?)... I am bitterly disappointed that this episode a) was no better than Time Cop in their goddam time paradoxes, b) made Dr. Weir into even more of a boring of a philosophical character than she was before, and c) made the Ancients look like complete morons in the end... But at least even after my dismal failure of an exam, I still couldn't help but find that holographic/Ancient council member chick to be pretty damn, morosely hot... loved the accent too... hell, I even loved that old woman skirt she had on...

... and it's gonna be a long wait 'till I get to watch anything I like again, I see...

"Wow... what a weird day... First, I get some first term marks back from university, which surprisingly enough, were pretty damn decent... but I'll talk about that eventually on my download site...

Then I come home to watch The Raptors actually win against the Sacramento Kings somehow... Sure, the Kings somehow imploded and gave up the game by default, with Webber shooting 6 for 21. But still, very weird indeed...

Yesterday, the Canadian World Junior Hockey Team absolutely dominated the Russians to pit our country at the top of the entire hockey world... Now, normally I wouldn't consider that weird, but considering we outscored Russia 6-1?... wow... talk about a weird, but very interesting, past two days...

And yesterday and today, I watched Stargate Atlantis' The Brotherhood, and Stargate SG-1's It's Good to be King episodes... and while Atlantis did disappoint me a bit, I still must admit that both episodes were rather well done. Which may not be weird in itself, but it truly does feel strange anyhew - that everything entertainment wise, seems to be going just great for me now...

... hell, Smallville is still in reruns... See? Everything is perfect right now. The only thing missing is Enterprise, but I digress...

Atlantis' The Brotherhood was an episode that started out really slowly... I hated the opening sequence, where Rodney McKay was way overserious considering his usual self. And the acting from Elena and her 'partner' (who I think I recognize as one of the damn hot chicks of the week last year from Andromeda), was just stiff right off the bat... But 'stiff' may be the key word here, because damn was Elena ever hot. I didn't feel any chemistry between her and Rodney (her inability to use conjunctions, despite her perfect American accent, was quite a factor...), but damn - if that's the kind of outfits girls wore during the Renaissance? Then sign me up as the Renaissance Man... Sure, she ended up being a total religious bitch in the end. It just boggles the mind how dumb she suddenly sounded, believing that the dead Ancients would somehow return to "reward" her people greatly... But hey, we all know that all women are bitches. And poor Rodney, in his one chance to actually be Captain Kirk, got truly the short end of the stiff stick in this case...

One of the problems with The Brotherhood, was that it felt like too much of a standard fare, "oh shit" episode. Because I think after SG-1, I've gotten quite sick of the camera staring at blips on screen as cliffhangers... It bugged me to hell that a puddle jumper was killed without even seeing the enemy. Because for Christ's sakes, modern fighter jets can fire at enemies long before they ever enter visual range. Couldn't Beckett at least have fired a few cover shots into the sky or something?... The Genii didn't help things out either. Kolya still has the great evil accent, but the poor man was just clueless the whole episode through. And the fugly Genii weapons certainly weren't high up on my priority list either...

But the real problem with the episode, was that it tried to be National Treasure with all its puzzles and clues, but just didn't put enough tension of emphasis into anything but the final 'sum to fifteen' one... Sure, it was clever to place the final stone behind the map itself, but not very bright, considering any thief could've taken the map and the stone sometime... And for the most part, I just hated all the puzzle solving. Montage scenes with pointless digging, replaced any sort of action, characterization, and dialogue. The only good thing the episode did provide with its puzzles, was more up and close shots of Elena and her... ahem... up and front and quite frontal, Renaissance fair skin...

Still, I did end up enjoying The Brotherhood, for the moments where the characters really did manage to shine in their dialogue... Lt. Ford didn't get much to say as always, but for once he almost got to be the hero. I was surprised when he got up to fight, even after being tranqed. He may not have lasted long, but hey, it was worth points anyhew (the wrestling arm bar was pretty nice too...)... Teyla was pretty much in the background, but I liked her teasing of Elena's crush on McKay. And I also enjoyed that she didn't know what flash bang grenades were - I've never liked how intelligent she suddenly became with our technology after just joining the SGA group... I found Beckett to be annoying, if only because Sergeant Bates was way too overemphatic when it came to the big Wraith Scout chase scene. Still, I love the Scottish accent, and can't wait until Beckett becomes a regular next year... Now Weir didn't have much to do, as always. But Dr. Zelenka's reaction to Weir's lovely reply to "you are the loop", was all I needed to actually start enjoying the episode... and heh, I read on the net that Dr. Zelenka actually said in his language, "I can't work with these actors!"...

The stars of Atlantis are obviously Sheppard and McKay though... Sheppard didn't have much to do until the end of the episode, but I just loved his banter with Rodney over the MENSA test. I mean, the writers long forgot that Jack O'Neill was an astronomy genius, so I guess I was relieved that they didn't forget about Sheppard's mathematical abilities just quite yet... But the scene was truly made by McKay, just like pretty much every scene in the entire series of the show... I just loved how he cared more for the MENSA test, than he did about the flash bang grenade, or the fact that they were all going to die. And I also loved his bitterness towards the flash bang itself, sarcastically and constantly referring back to his eyes... I didn't like his chemistry with Elena though, no matter how hot she was. And I can't say I liked his performances for any puzzle but for the final, killer one... But Rodney McKay as a whole is the single greatest reason to watch Stargate Atlantis. I loved him back in SG-1, and just the way David Hewlett tried to convince Elena to let them keep the ZPM, was reason enough to watch Atlantis...

... not to mention all the hot Andromeda chicks of the week... Now, if Elena really is the new 'head master' of the Brotherhood? Then sign me up brother, for the fraternity right away..."

"You know, I never thought I'd ever like a clip show... not outside of the early, classic Simpsons seasons, at least...

Season one of SG-1 had a clip show that introduced Kinsey, which wasn't bad, but... it just wasn't my thing... And since then? SG-1 produced a horrible clip show in the form of the second season finale, followed by a bunch of decent political ones (Disclosure, Inauguration) that had their moments, but... well... they were clip shows. They were decently good for clip shows, but they were clip shows nonetheless...

Must Stargate Atlantis really buck every single trend, and always manage to exceed my expectations? It's really getting annoying after all these times, you know...

I mean, I'm even hard pressed to call Letters from Pegasus a clip show. There were literally only two to three minutes of clips throughout the entire episode, when I swear Buffy the Vampire Slayer used to have 5 minutes or more just dedicated to memory flashbacks from time to time... Letters from Pegasus was a "reflection" episode, with really strong characterization for all actors and actresses on the show. Hell, even for Ford and Teyla... I can't even call Letters from Pegasus a bottle episode. Sure, most of the dialogue took place on Atlantis in front of a single camera, but that was all brilliantly balanced out by possibly the most impressive alien attack I've ever seen from a Stargate series in my life, period...

Letters from Pegasus was truly the first ever episode where The Wraith felt like a threat. Because now we can finally see how the Ancients could've lost to these vampiric sort of war mongers... While the Asgard and Goa'uld have always built motherships that are meant to flash and bang and impress with heavy weapons, shields, and loud speakers, the Wraith definitely designed their vessels for war. I mean, I was literally in awe at the sight of three Wraith support cruisers detaching themselves from each of the Hive ships, with dozens of Wraith darts to follow... Sheppard described it best as a "carrier group", because really, how the hell could even the Asgard defend against that many vessels all at once?... While I just rolled my eyes at the sight of the three Hive ships as dots on the screen at the start, I really was impressed with just the whole feel of the culling that happened later on. Not only did I find the Hyperspace cloud effect to be damn cool, but the episode even made a mystery with that huge beam of light in the middle (sucking the life out of the planet, perhaps? Or a way to transport victims from the darts back to the Hive ship?)... For once, the Wraith were a real threat. And for a clip show, that's a damn good feat to accomplish...

But Stargate Atlantis' greatest strength by far this season, has been the banter, dialogue, and characterizations of its characters... While Lt. Ford obviously hasn't been developed much (especially with his annoying attachment to his grandparents...), at least he put on a decent act this episode. Leaving that ponytail guy to whine in private was a nice comedic moment, and Ford didn't do a bad job of playing off of Carson's and Zelenka's weird moments in front of the camera either... Now, Teyla hasn't been developed well in the series either. And to be honest? I hated her this episode. As a scrappy fighter, she should know that not everyone can be saved from the Wraith. Not every battle can be won. Even if she was helping "family", her naivete at times did make me roll my eyes, but... still, her points about honour and dignity were valid. And when it came to the sheer awe and shock and horror of the culling, I think the actress did a pretty decent job of being wide eyed... Dr. Weir hasn't grown very much during the season either, and I really hate her infatuation with Simon the Tollan back home (the actress seems so over-obsessive whenever she talks about him...). But she had a certain poise and regretful dignity when she was giving the eulogies over the dead, one that I thought definitely worked for the scenes she was in. It reminded me a lot of Heroes because of that, which was both a good and a bad thing, if you ever check back my review for that episode...

Dr. MacKay wasn't his greatest in Letters from Pegasus, as a lot of his jokes ran on much longer than they should've. The "leadership" thing was barely funny the first time, and I just can't agree with him on his damn opinion on cats... I may not have totally enjoyed his "therapeutic" moments in front of the camera. But I can't ignore the fact that I was balling out in laughter at his comments about Carter. And the poor bastard did finally show a real sign of honesty when it came to his sister, which definitely felt heartfelt enough to work on the camera... MacKay had to share the spotlight this episode with his other scientists. Dr. Beckett shed a tear over his beloved mother's fungus. I chuckled at the leg cramp thing while the Japanese scientist was showering him with praise. And Dr. Zelenka kinda didn't listen to the security clearance rules, now did he?... Actually, MacKay had to share the spotlight with a lot of other characters this episode too. Hell, even Sergeant Bates got a momentary lapse of sympathy from me. I mean, not only do I feel sorry for the guy because he's never going to see his brother again... but I really, really, ridiculously felt sorry for the bastard, because a) he still thinks Kobe and Shaq are together, and b) he liked the Lakers in the first place?... now I hate him even more... grr argghh...

The episode definitely did have its faults... I actually would've preferred if we were just given more actor time in front of the camera, than splicing in two jarring minutes of flashbacks. And I was disappointed in both Teyla and Sheppard, as both had that kind of one-dimensional sort of debate kind of feel to them. Sheppard especially, since he rarely ever seems to get so pissy about saving people. But I digress... Letters from Pegasus was not Atlantis' finest moment. But it made a real threat out of the Wraith for once, it had more comedy that SG-1 has had all year so far I think, and it just shocked the hell out of me, that a clip show could be this damn good...

... it didn't even feel like a clip show... and hell, it sure as hell felt a lot more fun to watch, than SG-1 did this week..."

"Well, the first ever season for Stargate Atlantis is finally winding down... and the thing is, even if I said it before, I'll say it again...

The first season of Stargate Atlantis, has been absolutely the best year of Stargate that I've ever seen, since at least the second season of SG-1...

I mean, even when the episodes aren't great, SGA still manages to pull through, in ways that almost no sci-fi series can... Now, The Gift certainly wasn't the best of Stargate Atlantis episodes. And hell, maybe in my honest opinion at least, it was one of the worst... But the worst for SGA, is still way better than pretty much everything that SG-1 has produced all season long. And it definitely proved to be an entertaining episode for me, on more than one front...

So, they finally threw Teyla a bone and devoted to her an entire episode? Makes sense, since The Gift actually did make her character rather interesting for once... It was a story about her past, her lineage, and what it means to know that there's evil inside of you... Sheppard is our manifestation of "good", having a perfect version of the Ancient gene and all. And Teyla turns out (ironically, considering their argument last week) to be our manifestation of inner evil, with Wraith DNA inside her, and a new reason to fear her and all... It made for some interesting moments, with Sheppard feeling a bit inadequate that he's now not the only one with the fancy mind technology powers anymore. And Teyla?... well, I found her nightmares to be a complete bore. Any dream outside of the Joss Whedon universe is too straight forward for me... But her talks with Dr. Heightmeyer certainly weren't bad. The actress really showed a nice sense of vulnerability there, while reverting back to her complete badass bitchiness when it came to being Wraith possessed... not bad for one day's work...

... plus, I loved the look on Sergeant Bates' face, when he took that bitch down... and speaking of bitches that I want to take down....

... as for the aptly named Dr. Kate Heightmeyer (who definitely gives my Oscar Meyer a high rise for the hills...)... I don't understand how the hell Stargate Atlantis can keep getting so many attractive women on their sets. They just do somehow, with Sheppard having a Kirk effect or something... Though to be honest, I really did hate Kate. As a psychologist, she always finished her sentences with those annoying questions a psychologist must ask. And her hair and clothes were just too damn perfect and attractive, considering evil life sucking aliens were on their way to eat her brains out... Still, I never really felt like any of her scenes with Teyla were forced. And the doc certainly did put me to sleep (in a good way... with sexy results...) with her sexcraft hypnosis as well... And was it me, or was it that whenever Kate and Weir were in the same room, the doctor would stare at Elizabeth with burning, lesbian intent in her eyes? Or, well, maybe it was just me... and that definitely gets three high thumbs up from me...

Teyla was alright this episode. Her character did become a lot more important to the story, and her "oh shit" looks at the end (about the Wraith's master Earth plans) did send a chill or two down my spine... But what really kept the story together, were all the little parts done down the stretch by every other character on the show... Now, Dr. Weir was her annoying self, when it came to caring about Teyla's safety. But hey, she translated Wraith in a few hours somehow. And you gotta love how the actress seems to have lesbian chemistry, with pretty much any hot woman the SGA writers get on set... Lt. Ford was only in a few scenes, but I still chuckled at his "a litttle what?" moments on that alien, ominous, evil planet... And Dr. Beckett? Finally, he gets a good episode for himself again, even if his only decent comedy came from babbling technobabble to a farm girl... I guess his theory did make sense (although it's a far cry from canon so far). Life sucking bugs would eventually suck the DNA from humans or Ancients, evolve into sentient beings over the 30 million or so years that the Ancients were in Pegasus, and then learn their writing and technology from the Ancients using their telepathic interrogation methods or whatever... I'm sure there will be more to the story eventually, but finally the Wraith are starting to make much more sense on the series...

Because once again, MacKay made me laugh every single scene he was in... Zelenka kicked his ass in Wraith ProLine. And is MacKay really going out with Dr. Heightmeyer? Because if he wasn't bluffing, then she really must not be interested in him, considering she didn't even look in his direction when he left... And Major Sheppard? Well, in the latter half of the episode, he became his boring self of trying to get Teyla to keep going through the hypnosis process. But before all that happened, he certainly had a few decent lines of his own. I almost felt bad for poor Teyla, as she was ordered to take a "nap". Although I certainly didn't feel bad for her, as she literally got her butt kicked and her ass spanked in sexy, sexcraft fighting... with sexy results...

The Gift was maybe one of the worst episodes of SGA so far, but that's not saying much, considering it was still one of the best episodes that Stargate has produced in years... It may have been a bottle episode, but it definitely wasn't filler. We learned about the Ancient weapons chair at Atlantis, we learned about Teyla's Wraith abilities, we learned that the Alpha site has been compromised already, and we learned that Dr. Heightmeyer and Dr. Weir will definitely get it on one day... with sexy results... or at least, that's what I learned..."

"Well, I probably failed my test miserably today... so as Rodney MacKay might say, "one down, two to go"... or actually, that would be three or four for me, but that's besides the point...

The point is, I've been looking forward to Stargate Atlantis' The Siege for a very long time. The episodes ever since The Brotherhood have been pretty much all a major hype-fest setup for the big, bad show down with the Wraith Hive ships down the stretch... the only thing is, if only because of my enormous expectations, The Siege (Part 1) ended up as quite a bit of a letdown for me. Because while I was expecting a final, huge reckoning against the Wraith or something, I got pretty much yet another filler of a set-up episode... to get our taste buds even more riled up for the season finale, I suppose...

I don't know, I guess the episode itself was strong. But considering I just wanted things to blow up, the pace of the episode just felt too damn slow for its own good... The A storyline featured MacKay and Grodin, in what provided the only real comic relief of the episode... Rodney was great as always. His panic in the space suit was just perfect, I loved his hesitation when it came to his "one small step", and you gotta love the fact that he banged his own head on the glass to boot. But still, if there's one thing that the actor can't really do well, it's the patented "oh shit" look that's been going around for weeks. He just didn't seem to care that much when Grodin was left all alone on that space station, with two Hive ships still intact. And to be honest? I really didn't feel much worker bee chemistry between him and Peter, which was a complete contrast to the lovely banter thingy he has going with Zelenka, who actually admitted Rodney was smarter than he was... wish someone would do that to me (preferably, a hot horny scientist girl, but I digress)...

And as for Grodin? Well, I'm pretty 99% sure the Brit ain't quite dead just yet... If he is gone, then this episode was just a terrible send-off. Sure, he got to look like a hero. But where was the characterization, or the spotlight in the camera that every character who has been killed off in the past (Major Kawalsky, Doc Frasier) has gotten at least in the episode before their demise?... And just take a closer look at the moment where the Hive ships blast apart the Ancient satellite. Note that the center module actually remains intact and slips away in the explosion, like an escape pod or some sort of crap like that... Now, there's no explanation why Rodney in the puddle jumper wouldn't just notice a huge, honkin' escape pod in the middle of space. But hey, it's a TV show - if it ain't on camera, then the actors don't see it...

I didn't mind the A storyline. Seeing the Wraith Hive ship being carved up by an Ancient beam weapon was the highlight of the show (although how a single naquada generator could do all that, I will never know...)... It was the B storyline that really felt forced and out of place, with all its flashbacks and overly slow use of continuity (Wraith beaming down, playing Clue over Bates, etc...) considering the torrid pace of the second half of the season so far...

Teyla was featured again, getting into a fistfight with Bates over Wraith semantics. The thing was, even if she's become a more interesting, darker character since The Gift, she still feels useless to the team. As soon as she tried to actually read the Wraith's mind, what does she get in return? A big fat ice cream headache and yet another pointless trip to sickbay... Lt. Ford didn't have much to do either. He seemed to be genuinely on Teyla's side all the time (while Sheppard kept switching loyalties), but for the most part, Ford pulled yet another Mayweather as the background guy pushing invisible buttons on his P90... Sheppard was probably the biggest disappointment of the episode. Besides having some fun with "Bob", did he really do anything? Sure, he got chased around by a T-rex, but we didn't see that on camera. Sure, he tried to take on a Wraith who somehow managed to hide himself in the base for two weeks, but he sure looked like an idiot when his whole team got compromised in a single second...

And Dr. Weir? Dear God, has she become the Lana Lang of the series already or something? Sure, the actress has beautiful hair, but she's already been completely outclassed by all the other voluptuous women who have guest starred on the show. Bring back Sora, goddammit!... Meanwhile, Dr. Weir makes horrible corny speeches about hope and dreams, and absolutely ruined her lines whenever it came to the importance of the Ancient repository... Her lines were all filler, and they certainly sounded like filler coming from her... The only people that saved her scenes was Dr. Beckett and his jokes, and Dr. Zelenka's Independence Day computer virus. And even in those scenes, the episode just felt oddly paced... with us watching a simulation of Atlantis ever slowly sinking to the ground, instead of actually seeing real things blow up on screen...

... bah... sure, I'm just bitter that we got yet another set-up episode for the big finish, instead of the raw real deal that I was hoping for... But even so, except for MacKay and perhaps Teyla, The Siege still didn't even have the kind of great characterization and dialogue that most of the rest of the season has had... but hey, at least Microsoft Bob was cool...

"It's such a goddam Greek tragedy, that this week was absolutely tainted by the announced (though quite expected) demise of my ever beloved, Star Trek Enterprise... it was pretty much the only damper, on what was possibly the greatest week of sci-fi I've ever seen in years...

And what made this week so great?... probably because of the best overall week of Stargate episodes, period...

Atlantis has exceeded all my expectations from its first season alone, which is why I was so disappointed at how stretched out and sloth moving the first part of The Siege was... But even though the second half of the two parter was not much more than a popcorn flick, it still provided possibly the best damn action I have ever seen from Stargate, period. And possibly one of the best damn fight scenes I've ever seen, in pretty much all my recent years of science fiction watching...

The only problem with The Siege (Part 2) was the fact that it didn't feel exactly like an Atlantis episode should. Instead of focusing on its main characters and developing them throughout the course of the hour, the episode honed in on Col. Everett, who quite possibly was the most annoying and cocky Hick that Stargate as a series has ever seen (though Kinsey comes close)... His introduction completely made me roll my eyes, as he treated Weir and everyone else not just with disrespect, but with a childish sort of wife-beating snide...

There were obviously some dumb moments in The Siege (Part 2), with Everett filling in most of them... Why the hell didn't they drop the space mines with Puddle Jumpers after the Hive Ships were already too close to do anything about it? Or why not use Naquada Generators instead of piss poor Genii nukes, pulling a Hot Zone and exploding them in orbit rather than having to go all suicidal for a fucking cliffhanger... And why the hell does Earth care so much about defending Atlantis anyways? You'd think they'd just cut their losses and keep the ZPM to fight the Goa'uld and Replicators, but no... guess General O'Neill really does love those Ancient databases, now doesn't he?...

I understand that Everett was trying to quickly take command and show who was boss, but did the writers really have to mix that kind of ugly dialogue in with quite possibly the weirdest colonel voice I have heard since the American Civil War?... Still, I guess it's a true testament to the strength of the writing, when I actually felt horrible for Everett when he was staring down a Wraith at the end (why the hell he didn't bring a Zat gun, I will never know... even if Wraith are resistant to electricity, at least his sidearm wouldn't run out of damn ammo...)... It was about the time that Everett became honest, about how he felt about Sheppard and how he fired the shot that killed Col. Sumner, that for some damn reason, I started to feel sorry for the cocky bastard of a guy. From that point on, Everett felt like a real character, and not just an extra red shirt ready to die... hell, he even felt like quite a softy, with his offering of drinks and cuddling of Weir as Wraith Darts blew up in the night sky...

Sure, one can argue that all that really happened, was a bunch of idiot Marines wasting machine gun ammo on Darts that couldn't possibly be downed by anything other than a Stinger missile... But damn, was the atmosphere and intensity of the scene just amazing. Not only did The Siege prey on my obsession with electromagnetic rail guns (that had turret controls that looked like they were ripped right off of the Star Wars Death Star or something, but I digress...), but just the beautiful CG effect of seeing the city power down and then light up the night sky with flares and firepower, just somehow brought out the giddy fanboy in me... The Wraith were everywhere. Hundreds of them. Literally, on screen at once... And while I don't get why there were Ancient drone missiles in the air before MacKay got the chair working (unless there were Puddle Jumpers somewhere in the battle), I simply cannot deny the fact... that the Atlantis city CG model looks so damn cool, with Darts soaring everywhere, and Wraith beaming onto balconies, that it really does put to shame even my beloved Enterprise these days... I may not have found the second battle nearly as amazing (thanks to the daylight setting, perhaps), but even so...

... damn, I want a rail gun... 10 000 round magazines?... wow... size does matter...

And while I obviously adored The Siege (Part 2) as an action whore, it's not like any characters were pretty much ignored either... Lt. Ford may not have gotten many lines. But he pulled off a nice Cuba Gooding Jr. when it came to his Pearl Harbor-like, taking over of the turret controls (but WTF was Ford doing in the base at the start of the attack then?...). It also seems that he was captured at the end of the episode - chances are, he'll find a way to escape and destroy the Wraith Hive ships from the inside or something, but I'll save that speculation for another day... Teyla actually got to look pretty for once in her battle training (ponytails do help the actress, I guess). And as cheesy as it was, earning Everett's respect and all did somehow feel appropriate... and it seems she was captured by the Wraith without putting up much of a fight as well at the end... poor gal just can't catch a break, now can she?...

Both parts of The Siege may not have had nearly as much comedy as I had hoped they would bring, but there's no denying that MacKay and his fellow scientists had a ton of brilliant lines throughout the whole damn episode... Beckett got to revert back to his fear of musical chairs. I laughed out loud when MacKay said he couldn't even do any damage if he tried, since all the drones were depleted. And yet still Beckett seemed hesitant to get in the glowing chair... Dr. Zelenka didn't get any great scenes to himself. But hey, as the sidekick nemesis to MacKay, his presence was more than welcome... And Dr. MacKay himself? I just loved the way he completely ignored Everett for half the episode. And he brought up some techie facts that just brought out the whore in me, like the Mark 2 Naquada Generator and the USAF Daedulus Battlecruiser on its way to Pegasus... But really, every single scene he was in just felt great, even without the techie speeches and slurs. His raw, sleep deprived anger as he was fixing atomic bombs was just priceless. And c'mon, even if I criticized him last week for his generic "oh shit" looks, he really did look concerned for Sheppard as he just sped away to a suicidal puddle jumper...

Now, Dr. Weir wasn't nearly as annoying as she normally is, half because she wasn't really in command anymore, and half because there weren't any super-sexy guest star women on the show to supplant her (although that ultra cute Atlantis worker in the background did come close...). I obviously felt her scenes with the Genii were the only real flaws in the formula of the episode, but even they didn't feel like much of a waste of time, considering I got a real kicker of a laugh at how 1950s sci-fi their prototype A-bombs looked... Dr. Weir did get her one shippy look of the episode quota in with Sheppard, as he was leaving for the Puddle Jumper. Poor gal keeps giving moon eyes to the rough and tumble guy... Sheppard himself certainly felt different this episode, considering he was no longer in charge. And somehow, I liked the change - his disrespect for the chain of command finally felt real, rather than forced whenever it came to Weir... His actions when it came to Col. Sumner were finally challenged in full, and I think the actor did an even better job of making the telepathic chair seem real, than even O'Neill did last season... but as for that ending...

We all know that Sheppard will survive somehow (Daedulus or the Asgard arrive in time?). We all know Teyla will be fine, considering her acting contract is secure... as for Everett, I don't really know his fate, but I think he's already been casted for the start of season two... and, well... the only real question mark is Lt. Ford, yet even for him, we know he'll return in some fashion next season (though not as a regular)...

SO WHY THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE TO GIVE US A CLIFFHANGER?!?... fucking son of a bitch...

The Siege (Part 2) may not have been a perfect episode, if only because of an obnoxious Everett and a lack of comedy and characterization from pretty much half of the cast and crew... But seriously, it was one of the most exciting and most suspenseful Stargate episodes that I have ever seen in my fucking life, ranking it right up there with the absolute best of The Serpent's Lair, The Fifth Race, Nemesis, and last year's The Lost City... Hell, if it wasn't for the first half of The Siege feeling so damn slow, I'd probably rate this year's two parter as even being better than The Lost City, which I dearly loved with all my fanboy heart...

The Siege had great acting, a strong script, a superb soundtrack, perfect pacing, a truly epic flow, and some of the best fucking military action that I have ever seen from a sci-fi series in my entire damn life... or any series or movie, for that matter..."