And what was with that horribly forced shower scene?
On the plus side, ..errrr... Well, I'm liking the... Hmm. Nope. Crappy episode all round.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Just watched it, and I kinda liked it. Yes, it was forced. But consider this part of an "extended pilot" episode. After all, in the first episodes no one had any chance to stop and think about anything but survival; now they can catch their breath (pun not intended).
I enjoyed the little rambling about comparing Rush to great composers. Yeah, it was clichéd and forced, but it still made a good point. Not everyone is going to be a McKay or a Carter. And if they were, this show would get a little boring.
The scene where the "lower decks" people called Eli in seemed out of place, despite the desperate nature of the whole situation, because there were a lot of military people there. But I'm willing to give it a pass for now.
As far as the ship heading into the sun... I have a feeling that's no accident. After someone pointed out the chances of dropping out of hyperspace FTL inside a solar system, you also have to consider the chance of any vector intersecting a tiny object millions of miles away. If you're off by just half of a degree at a distance of 100 million kilometers, that translates to missing the target by almost a million kilometers. (Wow, I remember some trig!) And that's enough to miss the Sun (accounting for the Sun's radius), much less a smaller red dwarf. So I think the ship is heading exactly where it wants to.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well what better power source is there than a star?
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
I thought they did a really nice job with the aero-braking. Like, I loved the CG shot of this little needle streaking across the atmosphere. Thought for sure the ship would scoop up some of the gas to use as raw material or whatever. But yeah, looks like it's gonna be solar power.
Grrr, mad at where they left the ep. Wanted to see how they worked that out.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Yeah, I just meant, how many times in scifi has someone looked out the forward screen, horrified, as the local sun loomed?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, I suppose they could stare horrified as a flock of geese left their shit all over the forward hull, but that would be highly improbable at best. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I have to admit I was left a little disappointed since after the flurry of activity and back story that was 'Air', nothing seamed to happen at all besides aero breaking and Rush's tantrum. However I suppose it's the nature of the beast when you switch over from an episodic to a serial format you get episodes like this that are mostly transitional getting from the CO2 problem to the power problem, padded out with some characterisation scenes and some foreshadowing divisions. It also re-enforced just how little control they have of their circumstances and how they're totally at the mercy of Destiny's AI (I'm assuming that's what's piloting the thing.)
As for the sun, yeah my first thought was a solar charge up, but then I wondered just how much power it could get from that, compared to say, a fully charged ZPM? Wouldn't it be fun if to everyone's astonishment, instead of crashing headlong into the thing, Destiny compresses it down to a singularity and hoovers it up?!
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Interesting tidbit that I discovered, which explains a lot: according to the Stargate wiki page, this episode and next week's were supposed to be one story, that ended up running way too long. So that explains the padded feel of the show this week.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Oh, absolutely. It's not the only time they've done this; in a couple instances in the first season plotlines were dragged into a two-parter. I think it will work overall in this case as it allows for a lot of claustrophobia and atmosphere to be established on the Destiny. Yes, it was slow, but I think we'll find that they would have packed everything into a rather rushed one-shot if they did what they wanted. My notes:
- Directed by Peter Deluise! He's usually good on SG-1 when they needed character-driven episodes. I suppose he does a decent job here.
- And as ever, he makes a cameo in every episode he directs, this time as "Peter", the guy Telford replaces in the "swap room" at the Pentagon, just in time to swap out to the Destiny.
- Although I was a little put off by the extra in an Icarus military uniform who casually walks down a corridor while Rush storms past Riley, in a very Trek-like manner. Dude, we're on a wrecked space ship with waning hops of survival. You don't casually walk down a corridor with nothing to do. Too soon! You REACT to the angry Scotsman as he walks by!
- The ancients have a mess hall, complete with funky water dispenser, and are those Ancient dishware, utensils and cups? Doesn't look USAF standard, though I could be mistaken. No food either, though it would make sense that the Ancients would bring their own when it was time to populate the ship.
- What happened to Franklin, the guy Greer shot last week (or yesterday in series time)?
- Everyone was still sunburned from the desert planet, which is a pretty nice bit of continuity.
- Amazing detail in the shuttle as Scott (who's only flown F-302 in simulation) looks to learn to fly it. Each button does have Ancient language labels on or next to them.
- Young is doing paperwork when Volker comes whining. Really, paperwork? Isn't there more pressing stuff to do on the ship?
- The power goes out on everything BUT gravity and the shielding. They mention the shielding.
- When Telford replaces Peter in the swap room, Peter presses a little switch before he gets up. When Telford sits, he briefly touches the stone before starting to read the paper. Presumably Pete resets the stone, and then Telford synchronizes with it by touching it. Nice little detail there.
- The stream of technobabble that the asian tech babbles out regarding the planetary configuration is surprisingly logical and accurate, if somewhat misplaced. I find it funny that real-life science simply wouldn't consider planetary configuration, roles as comet catchers, and possible climate a mere twelve years ago before we started detecting actual planets out there. The things we know now since Stargate started on TV...
- Young asks everyone to stay away from the walls during turbulence. Someone obviously put some thought into that statement during writing, but I'm unsure about this. If you're away from the wall, does this not mean that turbulence would give you more time to accelerate to a bone-breaking velocity before you hit the wall, instead of already being connected with it?
- I agree that the ship knows what it's doing, and will scoop up hydrogen or something from the star to repower itself before continuing on. I guess whatever was in the gas giant's atmosphere wasn't cool enough for the ship, even though Helium tends to be better for fusion as we know it...
More next week!
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
^Small point of nit-pickery (new word?): If a statement is "logical and accurate" then it's not technobabble. It's just technical dialogue or exposition.
Speaking of tidally locked planets, I've often wandered what the best settlement site would be on an otherwise habitable tidally locked planet. Close to the 90th Meridian (assuming Prime is sun facing)? I can certainly see advantages if you have access to efficient solar cell technology, though crops and irrigation might be a problem.
As for why it didn't scoop the gas giant, I con only imagine the star is by far a more efficient source of whatever it's after.
Interesting that the ship pre-dates the ATA gene recognition technology, since it means it pre-dates Atlantis (the fact that it stopped off in Pegasus after leaving Earth could indicate that was how the ancients knew to retreat there in the first place.) So that would make the ship not just hundreds of thousands, but millions of years old. No wonder the CO2 scrubbers decomposed!
I liked that they mentioned the Senator's body since, yes of course it hasn't gone anywhere and will be a meat popsicle by the time they come to dealing with it. I wondered when he died if it will ever be acknowledged again. This is what I really like about serials and the sort of thing that was sorely missing back in the Voyager days.
As for the episode itself, while as I said I was a little disappointed, I wouldn't say that it felt "slow" at all. It felt like it was over surprising fast, though that may just be a result of coming right off of a three parter. In all honesty it's probably best to have a "breather" at this stage. You don't want them to burn out before they even get a quarter of the way through the first season.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I thought that was the Pete that Carter used to date. Didn't he play him as well?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
No, Deluise is the guy that used to play the tattooed gelf on Seaquest. He's only made small cameos on Stargate.
Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
Pete was played by David Deluise. There's like 4 Deluise's that appeared on SG1
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Dom DeLuise - Urgo Michael DeLuise - Colonel Danning/Tony Piccolo Peter DeLuise - director, cameo-extraordinaire/Dagwood David DeLuise - Pete Shanahan
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Dom DeLuise - Urgo/Captain Chaos (Dun dun DUNNN!) Michael DeLuise - Colonel Danning/Tony Piccolo Peter DeLuise - director, cameo-extraordinaire/Dagwood David DeLuise - Pete Shanahan
^Corrected a noticeable absence of Him. Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
"- Although I was a little put off by the extra in an Icarus military uniform who casually walks down a corridor while Rush storms past Riley, in a very Trek-like manner. Dude, we're on a wrecked space ship with waning hops of survival. You don't casually walk down a corridor with nothing to do. Too soon! You REACT to the angry Scotsman as he walks by!"
AGREED! That really was jarring! Didn't like that. Casually strolling down the corridor. There should have been a sense of urgency about him.
The think guy who keeps wanting to talk to Rush in the corridor reminds me of Ozymandias from the Watchmen movie.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Perhaps he was one of those in caffeine/nicotine withdrawal? I've seen the latter in action and they can go from hyperactivity to total lethargy rather fast. Add hunger and mild dehydration to the mix and I really don't think anyone will be running around unless they had to. Plus of course as we saw, not everyone is on the "vitally important" job roster. I could probably come up with another two or three justifications, but there's no point as I honestly didn't notice anything off about it.
Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :
I liked the idea of almost a pure character envelopment episode where the overarching plot took a back seat. It was executed only semi-well, but we are really getting a feel for these characters who already seem deeper than any other Stargate character.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I agree, but I think "Air" was doing that OK too even with the immediate plot in the way.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think it's one of those episodes that will work better when viewed back to back with the next one on DVD. Which let's be honest, in this day and age is probably the way most people are going to see it, in the long run.
As for comparisons to Air, it's really not a good idea to maintain that level of intensity over an extended period, otherwise the audience will get fatigued and loose all track of what's going on. *cough*Lost*cough* Plus of course they'd run the risk of burning out too soon, leaving nothing for the season finale. *cough*Heroes*cough*
Hmm, better watch that cough, might be coming down with something. Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
I enjoyed the episode as such, but then again I'm not that hard to please. I'm happy to have a new SG show on the air and one that looks this promising. Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: I As for comparisons to Air, it's really not a good idea to maintain that level of intensity over an extended period, otherwise the audience will get fatigued and loose all track of what's going on. *cough*Lost*cough*
Yeah, just look at 24. The show is entertaining when you watch it week to week, but the premise becomes absolutely absurd when you watch it on DVD and what little suspension of disbelief there is evaporates.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Blah. For my part, I hope it gets better. Promising is not a word I'd choose atm.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Dom DeLuise - Urgo/Captain Chaos (Dun dun DUNNN!) ...
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