Seriously late SGA meta
Jul. 5th, 2009 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI’ve been watching the final season of Stargate Atlantis (it just came out on DVD). It has not been sucking as much as I’d expected. I’d even rate it higher than season four. Since the last episode I watched while it aired was “Whispers” (still one of the most offensive, badly written hours of television I have ever seen) I did not have high hopes.
“The Queen” was kind of fun, and I liked Teyla’s makeup. The plot had no more holes than I’ve come to expect from this show, which is to say a ton.
“Tracker”--Keller, blah, blah, I think I was doing a crossword while watching this one. At least they finally acknowledged they have a love triangle, rather than ignoring Ronon completely. Even if I do find it asinine.
I loved the Daniel episodes, I have to say. They were way too expositiony, and they brought back an alien race from SG1 again (you’ve got like five races--can we invent a new one? Next up--the Unas take over Pegasus!). Ronon was an ass in this episode, too. Keller shouldn’t have been thanking him at the end, she should have been pointing out that if he hadn’t shot up the control crystals, Todd wouldn’t have been forced to try to kill them. Also--you damage a ship in interstellar space? That’s like punching a hole in the hull of a sailboat to try to mutiny. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge if you all die. But Daniel and McKay are fantastic together, with Daniel’s whole hohum, another kidnapping, more threats, *sigh* attitude he perfected in the late seasons of SG1. I felt sorry for the cancelation of the series for the first time when, on the commentary, one of the producers said they were planning to bring Daniel in full-time next season. True, it wouldn’t really be SGA anymore, but it hasn’t been for a while, and I like Daniel.
“The Outsiders” has one of the best lines in SGA history: “The Atlanteans have NO IDEA what they’re doing.” Too true.
Then I came to “Inquisition.” For a clip show, they do manage to dig out a lot of dirty laundry. As soon as the episode started, I thought, good. Pegasus should put the Atlanteans on trial. The Atlanteans have fucked up the galaxy. The lines put in the mouths of the council, I completely agreed with. “You have made unilateral decisions that affect millions of lives without input or consultation.” Damn straight. They did wake the Wraith. They did do highly unethical experiments on the Wraith with disastrous consequences. Sheppard’s defense of this was feeble at best--well, we didn’t intend to let Michael loose. That doesn’t excuse anything. Though it does fit with Sheppard’s general soldier’s view of things.
Then there’s the Replicators. I love the point about them setting the detonator and then trying to dodge responsibility. Damn right. The debacle with the Replicators is entirely the Atlanteans fault. They completely failed to reach an accord with the Genii. They have, in fact, collaborated with, and shared information with, the Wraith. I was surprised they didn’t bring up that they also helped engineer the Hoffan plague. Meaning that, not only did they create the psychopath that loosed it, then failed to keep him in custody, they also engineered the plague in the first place. The Earth expedition has done serious damage to Pegasus, killed millions, changed the lives of millions more, all without any input from the peoples of Pegasus.
The irony, of course, is that the writers are writing this as if these points aren’t valid. As soon as we find out the woman (of course it’s a woman) lost her family to the Replicators, they act like that suddenly invalidates all of her arguments about the role of the Atlanteans in that. Uh… Impartial or not, she was still right.
What I appreciated was Woolsey. They actually gave him a chance to be intelligent and brave in this. And he made the only argument he could take. In the end, he didn’t argue against the charges. He just said that, given Atlantis’s superior military, no one in Pegasus could afford to cross them. And he’s right.
It’s even trickier in this case since Atlantis’s military superiority is stolen. They didn’t bring this technology with them, they just took what was already there. In Pegasus. There were some grumblings in season one from Pegasus people that these outsiders shouldn’t be the ones using the technology of the Ancients. The Earth team has always treated it like their god-given right. Since the military power of Atlantis could just as easily have been harnassed by the Genii, the Atlanteans barely have an ethical leg to stand on. Especially since much of what they have done has been for the benefit of Earth, to the detriment of Pegasus. I think the Pegasus natives should impose trade sanctions, try to limit them that way, since they can’t exert control over them any other way, and Atlantis has proven to be spectacularly unwilling to listen to the opinions of native governments.
It boggles my mind that an episode like this, which openly acknowledges and ultimately doesn’t deny Atlantis’s imperial aims in the Pegasus, could come from a creative team that has claimed that the Atlanteans aren’t being imperial because look--they’re always showing the natives of Pegasus what is best.
Now I am watching “Remnants,” and the only thing I can pay attention to is that JFlan’s sideburns are seriously going gray.
“The Queen” was kind of fun, and I liked Teyla’s makeup. The plot had no more holes than I’ve come to expect from this show, which is to say a ton.
“Tracker”--Keller, blah, blah, I think I was doing a crossword while watching this one. At least they finally acknowledged they have a love triangle, rather than ignoring Ronon completely. Even if I do find it asinine.
I loved the Daniel episodes, I have to say. They were way too expositiony, and they brought back an alien race from SG1 again (you’ve got like five races--can we invent a new one? Next up--the Unas take over Pegasus!). Ronon was an ass in this episode, too. Keller shouldn’t have been thanking him at the end, she should have been pointing out that if he hadn’t shot up the control crystals, Todd wouldn’t have been forced to try to kill them. Also--you damage a ship in interstellar space? That’s like punching a hole in the hull of a sailboat to try to mutiny. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge if you all die. But Daniel and McKay are fantastic together, with Daniel’s whole hohum, another kidnapping, more threats, *sigh* attitude he perfected in the late seasons of SG1. I felt sorry for the cancelation of the series for the first time when, on the commentary, one of the producers said they were planning to bring Daniel in full-time next season. True, it wouldn’t really be SGA anymore, but it hasn’t been for a while, and I like Daniel.
“The Outsiders” has one of the best lines in SGA history: “The Atlanteans have NO IDEA what they’re doing.” Too true.
Then I came to “Inquisition.” For a clip show, they do manage to dig out a lot of dirty laundry. As soon as the episode started, I thought, good. Pegasus should put the Atlanteans on trial. The Atlanteans have fucked up the galaxy. The lines put in the mouths of the council, I completely agreed with. “You have made unilateral decisions that affect millions of lives without input or consultation.” Damn straight. They did wake the Wraith. They did do highly unethical experiments on the Wraith with disastrous consequences. Sheppard’s defense of this was feeble at best--well, we didn’t intend to let Michael loose. That doesn’t excuse anything. Though it does fit with Sheppard’s general soldier’s view of things.
Then there’s the Replicators. I love the point about them setting the detonator and then trying to dodge responsibility. Damn right. The debacle with the Replicators is entirely the Atlanteans fault. They completely failed to reach an accord with the Genii. They have, in fact, collaborated with, and shared information with, the Wraith. I was surprised they didn’t bring up that they also helped engineer the Hoffan plague. Meaning that, not only did they create the psychopath that loosed it, then failed to keep him in custody, they also engineered the plague in the first place. The Earth expedition has done serious damage to Pegasus, killed millions, changed the lives of millions more, all without any input from the peoples of Pegasus.
The irony, of course, is that the writers are writing this as if these points aren’t valid. As soon as we find out the woman (of course it’s a woman) lost her family to the Replicators, they act like that suddenly invalidates all of her arguments about the role of the Atlanteans in that. Uh… Impartial or not, she was still right.
What I appreciated was Woolsey. They actually gave him a chance to be intelligent and brave in this. And he made the only argument he could take. In the end, he didn’t argue against the charges. He just said that, given Atlantis’s superior military, no one in Pegasus could afford to cross them. And he’s right.
It’s even trickier in this case since Atlantis’s military superiority is stolen. They didn’t bring this technology with them, they just took what was already there. In Pegasus. There were some grumblings in season one from Pegasus people that these outsiders shouldn’t be the ones using the technology of the Ancients. The Earth team has always treated it like their god-given right. Since the military power of Atlantis could just as easily have been harnassed by the Genii, the Atlanteans barely have an ethical leg to stand on. Especially since much of what they have done has been for the benefit of Earth, to the detriment of Pegasus. I think the Pegasus natives should impose trade sanctions, try to limit them that way, since they can’t exert control over them any other way, and Atlantis has proven to be spectacularly unwilling to listen to the opinions of native governments.
It boggles my mind that an episode like this, which openly acknowledges and ultimately doesn’t deny Atlantis’s imperial aims in the Pegasus, could come from a creative team that has claimed that the Atlanteans aren’t being imperial because look--they’re always showing the natives of Pegasus what is best.
Now I am watching “Remnants,” and the only thing I can pay attention to is that JFlan’s sideburns are seriously going gray.