posted
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
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.
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
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posted
Yeah, I just meant, how many times in scifi has someone looked out the forward screen, horrified, as the local sun loomed?
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posted
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
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
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
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...
posted
^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
Dom DeLuise - Urgo Michael DeLuise - Colonel Danning/Tony Piccolo Peter DeLuise - director, cameo-extraordinaire/Dagwood David DeLuise - Pete Shanahan
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
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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
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