Poll: Stargate: Atlantis - 1x08 - Underground [Spoilers]

Fenster

Well it was an interesting episode as it leads on more or less directly to the coming two parter. It was great to see Colm Meaney on screen, although he was fairly neutered by the standard wooden dialouge that Wright and Cooper give to everyone who plays aliens.

ixoy

Huzzah! It's Colm Meaney! Finally Ireland establishes itself in the Pegasus Galaxy

This episode was mostly setup and, as in all such epsidoes, somewhat suffered because of it. Pieces are being pushed into place and we don't really glimpse yet as to where it's going. Still we got to see yet how another race deals with the Wraith. In general this is becoming an interesting difference to the Goa'uld. With the Goa'uld, the team would often have to convince the planet they arrive on that their Gods were false. The cultures often were actively built around worshipping the Goa'uld. With the Wraith, we see the cultures being built around surviving and counteracting the Wraith attacks - by committing suicide at 25, by a concerted effort to infect an entire population, by forcefully building nuclear weapons at the expense of allies. It at least gives the show its own feel, to some degree, even if the structure of episodes is the same as SG1.

I enjoyed this episode mostly because of Meaney and its potential to go somewhere interesting. As Fenster says, it doesn't help sometimes with the stilted dialogue but thats often par of the course in sci-fi. Oh and nice to see Tey-Lo have a bit more of an active role and how can anyone not love McKay now? Love the way he mentioned his Science Fair project with just the right egotistical note

Fenster

You put it more elegantly that I could. Colm Meaney is an incredibly good actor. If they dropped the stilted dialouge and let him just act, he'd probably be the greatest bad guy on Stargate.

EDIT: BTW, your sig: G'kar, right?

ixoy

Fenster wrote:

EDIT: BTW, your sig: G'kar, right?

Nope. It's too abstact for G'Kar - it's Kosh instead (from Season 1's "Believers"). He's got a load of great lines but I almost went for one from Londo. Might yet still.

[Edit]Threads merged. I used my own thread title to indicate there's a poll already here, in case people don't know. Hope you don't mind Fenster[/Edit]

User45701

Very good episode the person on the wrqith ship had to be killed it was the only way.
I liked this episod eallot ive been very impressed with both SG1 and SGA so far these seasons out of the 16 episodes so far 3/4 of them where very good.

mr_angry

I've not been reading ahead, so I'm not quite sure yet where it all fits in. I thought it was an alright episode - nothing special. Its an interesting departure though, to see SGA openly discussing weapons dealing and the use of nukes, which was generally balked at in SG-1. Survival seems to be a higher priority than ethics at the moment.

Most of the civilisations we're seeing so far seem to be at an industrial level aswell. I wonder if that will be a recurring theme for the rest of the series?

ixoy

mr_angry wrote:

Its an interesting departure though, to see SGA openly discussing weapons dealing and the use of nukes, which was generally balked at in SG-1. Survival seems to be a higher priority than ethics at the moment.

Yup. Their ability to be PC and play along earth's typical morality stance is limited here. This week we saw them discussing nukes. Last week we had the ethical issues generated by using a man as bait for 'Steve'. It's the sort of thinking that needs to be adopted in a frontier outpost, if they're going to survive. Given that they now know the odds are stacked against them - 60 hive ships ready to pounce - they may have to make some real devils with the devil (ok, not with Sokar) in order to survive. Maybe it's time to give Chief Engineer O'Brien what he wants?

Most of the civilisations we're seeing so far seem to be at an industrial level aswell. I wonder if that will be a recurring theme for the rest of the series?

Well it sort of makes sense. If they go much beyond industrial level, they'll be a threat and the Wraith will wipe them out. If they're much below it limits the type of storyline they could do perhaps?
One of the problems that may arise is the different culture aspects. In our galaxy, the planets visited by the SGC are influenced by the Goa'uld that took them. So we could have a Mayan, Norse, Celtic, etc. derived society. Here there's less influence. Now theoretically it should allow more creativity but it could just be an excuse to keep going for the Industrial look.