Great cliffhanger episode, much better than last year's (though without the gigatons of explosives). Everythign from the season comes together in this one, with some good character moments, a questionable alliance, and now five more months to wait for the conclusion. Awesome.
-Didn't notice it before, but some of Atlantis' floors are made of hardwood.
-The Orion seems to have lost some of its red lustre. She doesn't do much in this episode though, and her weapons don't exactly work yet. Better than nothing, though, and they've brought her home to Atlantis, hiding just out of Wraith sensor range as the hive ship appears. There she stays, with an unseen Major Lorne at the helm. Note how in the flashback they have a different take of the "seatbacks and table trays" line, with more of Dr. Beckett stumbling around teh bridge.
-We FINALLY get some real good beauty shots of the hive ships. Man, it's big...
-The Deadalus bridge is located snugly on the dorsal centerline amidships, and not in the tower on the portside platform superstructure. There was a nice shot out the window, overlooking the forward missile silos. See this:
-Wow, Brent Stait looks a whole lot like ol' Trip, eh? Brent was last seen in the franchise as Major Feretti in the first season of SG-1, and is probably better known as Rev Bem from Andromeda. Oddly, Brent reportedly left that show because he couldn't take the constant makeup, which was damaging his skin. A recurring role here would likely be less harmful, and I hope that it does become one - it's a much more charismatically evil side to the Wraith than we've seen before.
-Let's think about the morality of what the Expedition is doing for a second here. They're helping an enemy essentially commit cannibalism upon THEMSELVES. Also, they neatly skip over the notion that all the time they were on Mike's ship, there must be hundreds of captured humans there too that are being fed upon. Yum.
-New Wraith ship! Al'kesh-ish in size, used to transport our new Wraith queen to Atlantis. It arrives escorted by what must be some of Atlantis' complement of F-302s.
-And on the new Queen - she's downright human in complexion. Makeup? The first queen we saw also had red hair (the other one from earlier this year had white hair and the usual skin tone). Wraith society seems to place distinction only on the queens to have physical and wardrobe distinction aside from the tattoos. However, Michael does look a little mottled.
-Great banter between McKay and Hermiod - the latter shows a remarkable amount of restraint against Rodney's arrogance, compared with Kavanaugh.
-Equally cool banter with Beckett and Zelenka. SG1 and SGA have found an uncharacteristic genre success with quirky science nerds, which is great.
-"I've seen enough", Michael says disgustedly as his queen feeds upon the converted Wraith. He leaves - and isn't seen again in the episode, including as a part of the inevitable betrayal. What's up with that? Where is he in all this?
-Daedalus has a holographic HUD not unlike the ones on the puddle jumpers, built into the forward windows. Another supposed advantage over Prometheus, which uses a bank of generic monitors just above thier viewports. Daedalus has "Jumper 8" assigned to it.
-Unfortunately, the Wraith ship falls to the cliche that despite being enormous, it has a single exhaust port / vinculum / CO2 scrubber / Achilles Heel that would be its downfall. No multiply redundant systems? Please...
-To help buy the Daedalus some time, Shep jumps into an F-302 to keep the incoming darts at bay. Not only that, but he does it alone, without a RIO! Where's the regular crew? Are they strecthed thin for some reason? Maybe some of them are on the Orion?
-And we see that the two Wraith hive ships are now on their way to.. Earth. They don't really explain how they sped up their hyperdrives (or even if they have done so), but it's been a salient point since the beginning, so an explanation will come early.
This is something else I like vs. Trekkian cliffhangers. In Trek, they often introduce the new threatening cliffhangy danger and EXPLAIN why we should be all worried. Here, they simply IMPLY that the Wraith have found a faster FTL technology, but they don't explain how. This leaves the audience with two conundrums (how the heck they'll get out of THIS one, and WHY they're now in their predicament). I'm reminded of the first SG-1 season finale, where they realize Earth is doomed, then do a classic pan away... To reveal at the very last second that there is a second ship! Dun-dun-DUN!!
Mark
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I spent half the episode wondering at how full-Wraith makeup and voice distortion made Connor Trinneer totally unrecognizable, until I realized he'd also gotten significantly shorter.
Why did they put his name in the credits, when he wasn't actually in the episode?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Re-reading the old reviews... To answer your question, Connor Trineer is not seen, but HEARD in this episode - it's his voice there dubbed over Brent, that he dubbed while in LA. His daughter was busy being born at the time, so he had to opt out of reprising his role for the finale - though he wanted to do it, and in fact will be back this season as Michael in a recurring role.
Mark
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Sorry I missed this thread six months ago, but to answer a very old question: the Wraith downloaded the Aurora mission logs from Atlantis' computer. If you recall the episode with the Aurora, that ship was trying to modify its slower hyperdrive to be the faster kind, for a one-shot trip to deliver vital intelligence. The wraith get those logs, they get the faster hyperdrives.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Saw the new episode- it was pretty good overall but ends kinda weak.
$$$$SPOILERS$$$$
Looks (to me) like Conner Trineer will be a semi regular, but I avoid spoilers far in advance whenever possible so I ould be wrong.
Oly one thing really bugs me on this episode- it seems to take place in a seperate timeframe from SG1. NO mention of the Ori is made at all and everything seems quiet and peaceful around SGC- it watches like this episode happens maybe a few weeks prior to last season's SG1 finalle.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
That picture of the Daedelus is awesome - anymore like that?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I was pretty suprised they just...offed the Orion that way. No dramatic sendoff...just an explosion on the screen.
I thought they wrote themselves into a corner by having that Aincent ship at their relative disposal (or they could have done a storyline where the ship was used against Atlantis, I guess), and now that's taken care of nicely.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There is one mention of the Ori.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Was there? During the debriefing maybe? I missed it- and considering the serious tone of the SG1 episode, I tought there would have been more of a "you picked a really bad time to screw up" vibe, but the general is all pep talk.
Hmmm...I thought they might lead up to a nice Wraith vs. Ori conflict, but it seems not to be.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"...it seems to take place in a seperate timeframe from SG1."
SG1's eps have been set about three to four weeks ahead of SGA's since around the halfway point of season 8, so there's no overlap between the two finales/premieres.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
CRAP - you just spoilt the start of season THREE - with the destruction of the Orion... GREAT. This is a thread for Season 2's finale. GRRRRRR!
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Um...I DID say "SPOILERS", but apologize for posting that here in my haste- no thread exists currently for the SGA premire and I am far too lazy to start one, you know.
Fuck Andrew- just move to the States so we dont have to keep secrets from you- It's gonna be like a year before we can talk about O'Neill being taken over by the Ori.... Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I do have net access obviously!! I'm downloading both episodes as we... type...
Just didn't expect spoilers for season 3/10 in here.
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