SGA Rewatch: Hide and Seek

Hello and welcome back to my Stargate Atlantis rewatch! Today we'll be talking about the second episode in season one, "Hide and Seek."

As always, spoilers for the episode and any that came before, with mild references (but theoretically no spoilers) to Stargate SG-1 from time to time. Now, on to the episode!

What Happened

Everyone is starting to get settled in to the Ancient city of Atlantis, Earthling and Athosian alike. Things are not completely gelling between the two groups (more on that in a bit), but mostly all is well. They have been in the city for about three days, and Rodney McKay has volunteered to act as the first human trial of Dr. Carson Beckett's ATA gene therapy. This therapy, if successful, will activate the ATA gene in Rodney, allowing him to access the technology in the city coded exclusively to the Ancients. Between Beckett and Grodin (the head gate technician for the city, think Walter, SG-1 fans) we get a bit of a primer about the Ancient technology. Almost all of it is coded so that it has to be activated by someone with the gene, but once initialized, most of the tech can be used by anyone. Since the gene is so rare naturally, this will be a great help to the expedition.

The therapy does work on Rodney and before long he is testing out his first piece of Ancient tech, a personal shield device he discovered in the city. He is, in fact, testing it by having Major Sheppard throw him off the balcony from the control room into the gate room. Weir and Grodin come upon this just as Rodney goes flying over the edge and race to the gate room only to find Rodney bouncing back up, unhurt, and declaring his invulnerability. Weir is understandably outraged at the careless way in which Rodney has decided to test this advice, and he reassures her that this isn't the first thing they tried. "I shot him!" Sheppard declares, grinning widely, only to amend, "In the leg!" when Weir shoots him a withering look. That bit right there is just absolutely positively 100% classic Stargate Atlantis. If that scene doesn't have you at least chuckling a little bit, well, this series really isn't for you. In fact, I am not sure I want to know you anymore if that is the case...

At any rate, Rodney is fine and Weir is glad to see that Carson's gene therapy seems to be working. She tells Rodney to take the shield off so they can have their meeting and...Rodney utterly fails to remove the shield. He tries and cannot get through the shield to remove the device (attached to his chest). Uh oh.

Weir sends Rodney to the infirmary to see if Carson might have some luck getting the device off, and she proceeds to the meeting with Sheppard and Teyla. We learn that the expedition and Athosians are only occupying a small central section of the city, mostly to minimize the power-strain on their generators. Sheppard is organizing teams to explore the rest of the city as well as security patrols around the inhabited sections, just in case. Teyla offers the help of the Athosians for this but Weir quickly turns down the offer (though graciously), saying they will find other ways for Teyla's people to contribute. Teyla is concerned that Weir does not trust her people, but Sheppard and Weir quickly assure her that it is a matter of training her people in the Earth weaponry and not a matter of distrust. (We learn a little later though, that Weir thinks it was probably one of the Athosians who alerted the Wraith to the Earthlings' presence on Athos in the last episode, so she is playing her cards as close to the chest as possible when it comes to the Athosians. She does trust Teyla, but she knows that Teyla also trusts her people and would be offended to learn of Weir's suspicions. To which I say, "duh.")

After the meeting Weir heads down to speak with Carson about McKay's situation. We have learned that Rodney can't eat or drink anything while the shield is active, so he is engaged in full Rodney-panic mode, freaking out that he will starve to death. Carson is worried that the device won't shut down because Rodney's gene is artificial, but Weir thinks it may just be Rodney subconsciously wanting the protection the shield offers, given the expedition's precarious situation. Most Ancient technology has a mental component and Weir truly believes that the Ancients would not have made a personal shield that could kill its wearer. She thinks that once he finally gets hungry enough, the device will shut down. Her faith in the Ancients makes me want to smack her, but that is probably due to the benefit of hindsight and is neither here nor there.

We get a bit more exposition as the senior staff gathers around the control room, putting a self-destruct in place for the city. As far as the expedition team is aware, Atlantis is the only city in the galaxy that is capable of dialing Earth, so if the Wraith do decide to attack or use the city to get to Earth (because they want that new rich feeding ground), they can/will destroy the city to protect home.

Cut to Sheppard telling a story to a bunch of Athosian kids. Before long it is clear that he is telling them the story of Halloween, but as he gets to the scary reveal about the hockey mask, he is derailed by the kids asking what a hockey mask is, then wanting an explanation of the game. Sheppard gets a little grumpy and says that hockey isn't really his thing and they would like football much better instead. Teyla and Halling come in during this and usher the kids off to bed. Sheppard remarks that he hopes he didn't scare them too much and Halling just kind of rolls his eyes, saying he doubts it. Teyla then asks Sheppard to tell her more about this game football that he loves so much and he does her one better. He brought a video of a famous game as his "one personal item" (I call shenanigans on this "one personal item" rule, because Sheppard also brought a book along and it is never clearly defined what qualifies as a personal item, but whatever). Sheppard gathers up the team (Ford, Teyla, and Rodney) and they make some popcorn and kick back with the game. If I actually cared about football, I might know what game it was, but I don't, so I don't. In the game the team wins with a Hail Mary pass and Sheppard is trying to explain the whole concept of a Hail Mary to Teyla, and failing miserably, which in and of itself was pretty amusing. He does refer to the whole expedition as one big Hail Mary though.

Meanwhile, Jinto and Wex have snuck out of their quarters after bed time to play (Wraith and Major Sheppard) and Jinto has disappeared. Sheppard organizes teams to search for him, and the city starts experiencing strange power fluctuations. An Athosian girl comes forward and states that she saw a "shadow" (one of the illusions that Wraith create while culling humans in order to distract and disorient them) in the city. Teyla cannot sense any Wraith in the city though (Teyla can sense the presence of Wraith, I don't think I mentioned that last week, but it is important). 

Some of the more superstitious Athosians (*cough*Halling*cough*) are worried that they have upset the spirits of the Ancestors (which is what they call the Ancients) by inhabiting their city. It turns out that Jinto, hiding in what he thought was a storage closet, managed to activate one of the city's transporters that no one realized existed and found himself in a lab. Where of course he touched the one thing he definitely should not have touched and managed to release an energy being the Ancients had been studying way back before they left the galaxy. 

The entity is not only made up of energy, it also feeds on it. The power fluctuations the city was experiencing were due to the entity feeding on the generators. Once the scientists figure this out, Grodin sets up the sensors to track the being and remotely shuts down the generators as it approaches them, keeping it going in circles while they figure out how to get rid of it. Unfortunately, Ford finds out the hard way that the being is definitely harmful to humans when he encounters it in a corridor. He gets knocked out and it is as if he has been hit by lightning. So they definitely need to get rid of the thing. Rodney goes through the data in the lab where Jinto found the entity and realizes that the Ancients had captured it as part of their studies on Ascension (the entire race eventually evolved into higher forms made entirely of energy, it's a whole thing). The "box" that the entity had been trapped in was actually the Ancient equivalent of a raccoon trap, designed to attract the being and then keep it there for study.

It should be a simple matter to just turn off all of the power in the city and turn the trap back on to get the entity contained once more. Someone has to stay to press the button, however, and Sheppard volunteers. Weir suggests that McKay should do it, since he still has the shield on, and the shield immediately shuts off. There is mocking and then they get back to business. Sadly, once Rodney initialized the shield it became encoded specifically for him, so no one else, like, say, Sheppard, can use it at this point. Unfortunately, the entity doesn't fall for the trick a second time and refuses to get in the box. Teyla then suggests that maybe the thing wants to leave. So they attach a generator to a MALP (a remote controlled probe vehicle that they send through the gate ahead of time to make sure it is safe for exploration) and try to get the entity to follow the generator through the gate. Unfortunately, the entity catches up just before it goes through and the power in the MALP is drained, so the being just sits in the gate room, draining the generator, getting bigger. There is some panic here, because once the generator has been drained, the entity could start feeding off the energy from the gate itself and that would be catastrophic for everyone in the city. 

Realizing that there's really no option left at this point, Rodney puts the shield back on and walks into the mass of the entity, grabbing the generator off of the MALP and tossing it through the gate. The entity thankfully follows and the gate shuts down to reveal a passed out Rodney on the floor of the gate room. His shield was drained by the entity but he is otherwise unharmed. All's well that ends well.

Commentary

As I said, this episode is pretty much classic Stargate Atlantis. Our heroes are in way over their heads and they can only get out with the cooperation of the whole team. There is also the banter between McKay and Sheppard falling into place almost without effort. A lot of fans will argue that their friendship is the heart of the show, and here you can really see it solidifying.

Still being early days, there is also a lot of exposition to get across some of the ideas from SG-1 that carried over into Atlantis, such as ascension.

As minor as it is, I still giggle at Weir's comment about the 10,000 year old dead plants, and then Jinto and Wex using one of those plants to play with later on. It's a weird little bit of detail that adds a nice touch to the setting, I think. Upon watching this for the umpteenth time, I also noticed quite a few details that I never caught in previous viewings.  We get a really nice look at how the Athosians live within the city, for example. I also finally, finally, caught a glimpse of the point-of-origin symbol for Atlantis when we are shown the dialing sequence to let the entity out of the city. Seriously, I have been wondering what that symbol is for years, since it wasn't exactly incorporated into the expedition's uniforms the way Earth's point-of-origin symbol was at the SGC. (If you're curious, you can see it on this screen capture. It's in the third row from the top, eighth from the left.)

Something that this episode made me think about this time around was also the fact that Jinto managed to use a piece of Ancient tech, the transporter, that the ATA-positive members of the expedition had not yet initialized, not realizing what it was. He also managed to release the energy being, and I have a hard time believing that particular device would not have been coded for the Ancients only. So that brings up the question, does Jinto have the gene? It is never addressed in the show, but now I have to wonder. It also reminded me that mentions of people actually native to the Pegasus galaxy with the ATA gene are few and far in between and I wonder if that was intentional on the part of the writers or just an oversight. That could have made for some very compelling episodes, certainly. I may have to cave in and send a question to Mallozzi about that...

Also, I love the way Sheppard is getting a crash course in anthropology. The Athosian kids aren't even remotely scared by Earth's horror stories because they've been facing the Wraith all of their lives. Trying to explain something as simple as a football play to Teyla gets exponentially complicated because she has no familiarity with the game, with our predominant religions, with our expressions, etc. These are wonderful details that help to make this show so much fun.

I was quite impressed with how much groundwork is laid out for things to come later in the season (and series). Little asides here, a quick mention of something there. It's all important and easy to miss if you're not paying attention, although it doesn't lessen your enjoyment later if you missed it. I love that kind of storytelling! 

Favorite Quotes

"We've got to trade on that while we can, before they discover that we're actually not cool." (Rodney, talking about hitting on the Athosian women.)

"I wouldn't have thought you'd believe in ghosts." (Weir)

"I never used to. Then I learned about things called Wraith that can suck the life out of you with their hands. What the hell is that?" (McKay)

"I passed out...from manly hunger." (McKay, after fainting, and arguing over terminology.)

"I only know one thing for sure and that is Flying Darkness That Eats Energy can only be very, very bad." (McKay)

"Must be a transporter." (McKay)

"We can name it later." (Sheppard)

"I think we're gonna need a bigger boat." (Sheppard)

"Size doesn't matter." (McKay)

"That's a myth." (Sheppard)

"You must have passed out." (Sheppard)

"Thanks for not saying the other thing." (McKay)

"That was a Hail Mary!" (Sheppard to Teyla about McKay's "play.")

That's it for this installment. See you back here on Wednesday for "Thirty-Eight Minutes."

Stargate Tuesday: Gauntlet

Farewell Stargate. I will miss you more than I can even begin to say. But I will not lose hope. Perhaps you will be back on my television one day. Until then I've got DVDs and books and even fan fiction to fill the void you have left...

Spoilers ahead folks. Consider any and all filmed Stargate anything fair game, but specifically last night's episode of Stargate Universe, of course.

Greg Dean of Real Life Comics summed it up pretty well with yesterday's strip.

I dunno, I kind of feel like Joe Mallozzi lied to us when he said the season ended on a huge cliff-hanger along the lines of the season nine SG-1 finale. I mean, don't get me wrong, the end of the episode left a lot of questions open and would have made for a tense wait for season three had we been lucky enough to receive one. But as it stands, as the series (and franchise) finale, well, I have to say, it felt like a solid goodbye. This particular series as a whole has been about facing the unknown, and with that in mind, it was a fitting ending I think.

We start off the episode in the infirmary and learn, sadly, that Park's vision hasn't even begun to restore itself. T.J. is worried that the blindness may be permanent. She and Chloe have a discussion about the topic and it comes out that the whole thing just reminds T.J. that she has no way to save herself from her ALS. The disease is just lurking there in the shadows, preying on her mind whenever it isn't otherwise occupied. But she is trying, she tells Chloe, to just play the hand she's been dealt.

Team Science has managed to figure out a way to detect the drone command ships so they can avoid dropping out at gated planets where the enemy is waiting for them. That's the theory anyway. The problem is that the drones are waiting at every planet with a gate between Destiny's current position and the edge of the galaxy. They can't go off the plotted course and search out planets without gates because that will only be spending their very limited resources on a huge gamble (that they can locate planets with the supplies they need), one that is unlikely to pay off.

They have about a month of supplies on board, but don't want to delay the inevitable. Rush puts forward that they are just going to have to fight the ships. I know, right. Rush! Team Science explains to Young that the ship's shields normally run a constant pattern of changing frequencies. Each frequency is best suited to blocking out specific types of weapons, and while the cycling pattern allows for the ship to take many different kinds of hits during a battle, it means that at least part of any attack is going to get through when the cycle is not on the frequency that specifically keeps it out. But they know the exact frequency of the drones' weapons. So they fine-tune the shields so that it will stay on the frequency that repels the drones and drop out of FTL right on top of one of the command ships (literally). With the element of surprise and their enhanced shields, they are able to take out the ship and send shuttles down to the planet to resupply.

Unfortunately this gambit cost quite a bit of power and they still took on a fair amount of damage from drones that just plowed straight into Destiny. Apparently the shields weren't fine-tuned enough to deal with that. They quickly realize that the ship cannot afford to keep doing this all the way to through the galaxy, especially since they are only about a third of the way through.

So Eli decides they should just skip it.

He comes up with a plan that will allow them to jump Destiny out of the galaxy sideways and then across the void between it and the next galaxy, which everyone hopes will be a bit more hospitable. Only catch is that it will take them about three years. Young points out the obvious fact that they don't have the kind of supplies for that. Eli then reveals the part of his plan where the crew uses the ship's stasis pods while they make the jump to the next galaxy. With everyone in stasis, there is no need for supplies and they can put everything in energy-saver mode, leaving them just about enough power to get where they are going and wake up somewhere (hopefully) drone-free.

Rush futzes and objects to this plan. Young asks Eli how long it will take to get the pods ready and Eli tells him about twenty-four hours. Young tells Rush that he has that long to come up with a better idea. Chloe goes to talk to him (she is apparently turning into the crew's shrink as well as math-girl) and we learn that he objects to the plan because he doesn't want to miss anything they might discover about the ship's mission to find the source of the pre-Big Bang signal. He says he just doesn't want everything they have been through to be for nothing. Chloe points out that if they stay on their current course they are going to get killed by the drones, and Destiny will be destroyed right along with them. Then it all definitely would be for nothing. With Eli's plan, even if they never wake up, the ship itself will still go on. It will still be out there searching. So Rush acquiesces and gets on board with Eli's plan.

The crew takes the opportunity to each take a brief visit home via the communication stones and say goodbye to loved ones. Eli's visit with his mother was particularly touching. As was Park's visit--in her borrowed body she can once more see and she drinks in the sights for all she's worth.

The air on the ship is amazingly one of general cooperation and acceptance. So of course something goes wrong. Turns out the last bank of stasis pods have been damaged, probably since before the crew even boarded the ship. They can be fixed but it will require using the gates to get to a planet with the necessary materials. Otherwise they are gonna be eight pods short, and there will be no way for those eight crew members not in stasis to survive for three years if the ship is to make it to the next galaxy.

Then Park has an absolutely brilliant idea (while having a very sweet and slightly heartbreaking conversation with Greer--seriously, I love these two together). They drop off one of their shuttles a short FTL hop away from the planet they need to get to, and it sends out a sub-space signal emulating an opening stargate. This will cause the command ship at the planet to go check it out, and while it is gone they can gate to the planet and get what they need then bug out. To keep the command ship distracted they use an autopilot program and reconfigure the shields to withstand the drones' attacks, the more time to buy before the command ship can go back to the planet. Eli even figures out how they can wire the shuttle to go critical, taking out the command ship with it when it blows. That was pretty groovy. Too bad they didn't just have a whole fleet of shuttles, eh?

So the pods get fixed and everyone starts to go into stasis. We get some sweet goodbyes from the various couples--T.J. and Varro, Scott and Chloe, Greer and Park (with a really interesting shot from Park's perspective of her saying goodbye to Greer with Volker in the background looking on as he goes into the pod across from her). Finally it is down to Eli, Rush, and Young to make the final preparations. Then the other shoe drops.

The very last stasis pod was more damaged than they realized until it was fully initialized. Uh oh. The calculations show they have about two weeks worth of minimal life support, enough for one person, before cutting into the reserves needed to ensure that Destiny can power itself to the next galaxy. (If it runs out of power, it will drift and they won't wake up for a thousand years, as opposed to three.) Rush volunteers to be the odd man out. He will try to fix the pod within the two weeks so he too can go into stasis. Young still doesn't trust him though. He can't quite make himself believe that if Rush can't fix the pod within the two weeks that he will sacrifice himself so that the rest of the crew can make it. So Young decides to be the one to stay out. Eli realizes, however, that this means that Young will definitely die, because he can't fix the pod. So Eli volunteers to stay out instead. He has a better chance of fixing the pod, and should he fail, he is willing to sacrifice himself for the lives of everyone else.

So there we end, with Young and Rush in stasis and Eli the lone caretaker of the crew. The final shot is of Eli alone on the observation deck, looking out at the universe, smiling a small smile to himself. And then...the end.

The obvious "cliff-hanger" here is the question of whether or not Eli was able to fix the pod in time, and if the ship did indeed have enough power to make it across the void to the next harbor. But as I said, this whole series has been about facing the unknown, and I feel like the way we leave the crew of Destiny is fitting. Granted, I would be absolutely the last person to complain if we do ever get to find out what happens next. I am really truly hoping that Fandemonium does a set of novels for SGU similar to what they are now doing for Atlantis. But if they don't, that's okay. My imagination is sailing through that void with Eli, hoping he makes it and picturing what might be next.

Sure there were quite a few unresolved plot lines, but that just makes this series feel all the more real to me. They were the kind of questions we all have to face in life--unresolved romance, health concerns, basic questions of survival. The "great mystery" of the show, that of the signal for which Destiny searched, never really called to me. That was Rush's white whale, not mine. I was with the rest of the crew, hoping they could survive until they found a way back home, or barring that, could make a life for themselves on the ship they were forced to call home.

I do have to say that as much as this was an ensemble cast, and as much as this show was about all of its characters...well, it really was Eli's story, wasn't it? We start with him and we end with him, and all is perhaps as it should be. David Blue did an absolutely amazing job of playing the everyman in Eli Wallace, and it was a real pleasure to watch him spread his acting wings as Eli's character grew over the two all too short seasons.

So there you have it folks. The end of Stargate. The end of an era. I wish I had discovered it earlier, but if that is my only regret then it is a pale one indeed.

I believe that starting in June, I am going to do a rewatch of Stargate Atlantis here on this blog for you. One or two episodes a week. I'll throw out more details as I decide on them, but I do believe that is the course I am going to take. Gotta keep the love alive, and that is how I plan to do so. I hope you'll join me.

Stargate Tuesday: Epilogue

So now that we are nearing the end of the third Stargate series, I think I need to change up my official ranking of the shows. Starting with my most favorite, here is how they now fall:

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate Universe

Stargate SG-1

Now before all of you old-school fans start freaking out and calling sacrilege, I will clarify that, in my opinion, Atlantis totally blows Universe and SG-1 out of the water. It was my first love in this 'verse and I will probably always consider it the best. That being said, the other two are very, very close to each other (and still right up there at the top of all of the other television I watch). But yeah, I have come to realize that I definitely like Universe at least a little bit better than SG-1. This could be because like Atlantis, this is one that I have watched from the beginning, rather than stumbling across it late and then going back to catch up. That is in no way an invalid way of falling in love with a series, but when comparing similar shows, it can make a difference, methinks.

As much as I adore the core cast of the original show, the ensemble cast of Universe has never stopped blowing me away, not since the very first episode. The range of talent here is only a part of the equation. The characters are varied and feel in many ways much more real than O'Neill, Carter, Jackson, or Teal'c ever felt. One of the changes the show runners made with Universe was to make it actually about the characters themselves, and not just the idea of traveling through the stars. I think there are a lot of people who are going to look back and blame the show's downfall on that change. But for me, it was nothing short of magical.

Last night's episode was an absolutely outstanding example of this (and yes, there are spoilers ahead, run away now if you haven't seen the episode). 

Following straight from last week's "Common Descent" we now find the crew of Destiny exploring the city/nation on Novus that is the legacy of their alternate-timeline selves. Due to the seismic activity that sent the already encountered expedition off-world in the first place, the city is now a ghost town. It is sadly devoid of life, but the expedition members and crew hold out hope. They discover a sealed underground bunker complex and get Destiny to blow open the doors from orbit (that was a pretty neat scene, actually) since they can't get in on their own. Sadly, they still find no survivors inside, but they do find the planet's archives--ALL of the records and knowledge that the people of Novus amassed over their two thousand years of existence. This includes all of the Kino footage and many diaries from the original settlers--the alternate versions of the crew.

"Epilogue" is a lovely exercise in "what if," showing us (and the crew) how life could have played out had they been forced to abandon Destiny. Not only did they manage to survive, but they managed to thrive. They built a society that, while not perfect, grew into the millions and made exceptional advances in science and medicine. Yet they still had muzak in their elevators. Awesome. In addition to the vast stores of knowledge, they also discover many supplies in the bunker complex that will serve useful to them in their travels (especially since they are now cut off from using the stargates as supply lines for the foreseeable future due to the drones on their tail). While they work on getting that loaded up, they peruse the database, finding out what happened to their alternate selves and also trying to find out what happened on Novus to bring it to its current state. 

It turns out that a black hole had wandered into their solar system and the resulting gravitational forces had been working to tear Novus apart. The people had enough warning of this to send their people off-world to several other planets via the gate network. Once they gate was destroyed, the two nations (remember, Brody led a group that split off not too long after the founding of Novus that believe Rush would return with the ship to rescue them) got their acts together and joined forces. They pooled their research and built enough space ships to transport the rest of the planet's population to one of their expeditionary worlds. Unfortunately they didn't have time to develop faster-than-light travel, so it would take them about two hundred years to get to their destination, but that's better than remaining behind and watching your civilization (and planet) get completely torn apart by a black hole, amiright? 

Unfortunately, Destiny arrived on Novus about 37 hours before it would become completely uninhabitable. So while they are trying to load up their ship with supplies and figure out a way to copy the archives, the city (and bunker) literally starts to fall apart around them. They manage to make it out just in time, but only get about a third of the archival database. The planet the refugees were headed for is only a ten day travel by FTL, so Young decides to take the survivors of the expedition there and drop them off. They can meet up with the people who went there from Novus through the stargate and prepare them for those that are coming by ship sometime in the next few centuries.

It was actually a pretty straightforward plot, but it was imbued with so many wonderful character moments that this episode shined brightly. The present day antics on Novus were interspersed with Kino footage from the alternate crew, as well as scenes that played out as diary entries were read by our Destiny crew. We got to see all of the different couples pair off, as well as get a few glimpses of how the people in the present reacted to said pairings. Since T.J. ended up back with Young, Varro and James ended up together. This bummed me out a bit, because I have secretly been rooting for James and Eli since season one. I don't know where it came from, but, well, that's my ship I guess. Eli ended up with random consolation prize chick. I thought his reaction to that was pretty spot on. (Okay, okay, she has a name, yes, Corporal Barnes. I am sure she is quite lovely and worthy of our Eli, really. She's certainly never done anything bad on this show that I can remember. But every time I see her, I will always remember her as the random psycho oddly feminist baddie from that weird trapped-in-the-hospital episode of The 4400, sue me.) I was amused at Chloe's quip to Eli about Barnes though. "Something to consider?" Oh dear. Greer and Park do end up together in the alternate timeline of course. I wonder how Volker will feel when he hears their first kid was named after him? Sadly, he was the first death on Novus, since they got booted off Destiny before T.J. had diagnosed his kidney failure, and without access to the ship's medical equipment she wasn't able to save him. Boo.

Speaking of deaths in the alternate timeline, we also learned from the Kino footage and diaries that T.J. has ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), yipes. She first started showing symptoms about five years after settling on Novus and didn't last too much longer than that. Our T.J. was, needless to say, a bit freaked out to learn about this. Then we learn from one of the expedition members that their people actually found a cure for ALS about two hundred years ago and the information is all in the archive. Hurray! Hope! Of course, this is about when things go pear shaped and they have to bug out, and unfortunately the info they downloaded didn't include the cure. Bummer. (If anything, I am glad I am not going to have to watch this plot line play out, because it would completely break my heart to watch what T.J. is going to have to go through because of this knowledge, regardless of the outcome.) Also, as they are making their nick-of-time escape, Varro is extremely very badly wounded. He survives (barely), but is not in good shape at the end of the hour. All in all, not a good episode for poor T.J. 

A few random thoughts:

I love that Brody, father of the "enemy nation" was shown in a bit of Kino footage being the cantankerous "get off my lawn" guy. That almost reduced me to giggles.

Volker's analysis of Rush's taciturn attitude toward the whole descendants-of-the-alternate-crew situation was interesting, and I think pretty accurate. Rush would be rankled to see how the group thrived not only away from Destiny, but also away from him.

I will be curious, when everything is said and done, to find out what kind of plans the show runners had for this story line to play out. I think it is something that could easily be an incredible game changer, but fear that more likely it would have just ended up being an awesome possibility that was picked up and played with briefly before being tossed aside and forgotten. Joe Mallozzi is planning to do a bit of a reveal-all entry (or entries) on his blog once the show wraps up, since the movies have officially been killed. I will definitely be checking it to see what he has to say on this front.

Two more episodes to go, folks. Damn.

See you next week.

Stargate Tuesday: Common Descent

Be warned, there are spoilers ahead. For the story and the mood, unfortunately.

So, first things first. Word came down over the weekend, from the mouth of Brad Wright that with the end of Stargate Universe's second season, the Stargate franchise as we know it will officially be dead. All plans for direct to DVD movies across the franchise (the already written scripts for Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis as well as a Stargate Universe movie to conclude the story arc) have permanently been shelved. Even the eleventh hour story idea combining all three shows in one movie has been scrapped. Joseph Mallozzi confirmed it in his blog as well.

Bummer doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about this. It sucks, to be quite frank. We have three more episode of Stargate Universe and then that's all she wrote, folks.

Fandemonium has already embarked upon their own attempt to tie up loose ends with the recently begun post-series finale set of Stargate Atlantis books. I can only hope they continue the venture for many years to come, possibly giving us some closure for the Stargate Universe story as well. Perhaps these books will stand to broaden and expand the world of Stargate in much the same way the Star Wars expanded universe books have done. I dearly hope they do so.*

There is always the chance that a few years down the road MGM will license the rights to someone else and we'll get a reboot. That is, after all, what happened from the original motion picture to Stargate SG-1. It might be awesome. It won't be the same though. So farewell to my beloved Stargate. I will miss you more than I can even begin to say. But I will never forget. Don't for one second believe those DVDs sitting in my front room will not continue to be viewed over and over again.

But on to last night's episode.

This Stargate fan will never stop showing
off her love of the franchise.

"Common Descent" hearkened back to earlier in the series when the crew of Destiny attempted to dial Earth from within a star and all sorts of time-traveling complications ensued. The general assumption was that the crew died in the unstable wormhole, but we learned last night that this was not so. Instead, they were sent back in time about two thousand years and, since there was no Destiny at that location two thousand years previous, the wormhole jumped to connect with the nearest gate.

The crew (all except for Rush and Telford) was deposited on a planet they ended up naming Novus. Against all adversity they managed to thrive (eventually splitting into two distinct cultures, which over time rose into two different nations). About thirty years prior to present day, worrying seismic activity on Novus caused the people of at least one of the nations to send out expeditions in search of a new habitable planet.

So, present day. Destiny is plugging along and we learn that a lot of people are suffering from headaches and nausea. Seems like the CO2 scrubbers are running low on lime once more and the air is getting yucky. The ship drops out of hyperspace and there seem to be two planets within range, only one with a gate they can access. They send a kino through and preliminary surveys suggest that they should be able to replenish many of their supplies (as well as lime) there. Eli tells this to Chloe and Wray, and they remark that they hope the team finds some more of a purple fruit they had previously found. Eli remarks that those tasted terrible and they agree and start giggling. They are in the midst of refusing to tell him why they would want more in that case (I suspect that perhaps they were cucumber shaped) when out the window they see quickly approaching lights.

It turns out that the drones from the mid-season premiere have been tracking them across the system somehow and have finally caught up. The ship is able to take out several of the drones but not before the command ship appears and also attacks. Young wonders if the drones tracked them by the drone they have been studying aboard Destiny and orders it to be jettisoned and destroyed. Then he orders them to force a jump into FTL and get the heck out of there, hoping they can lose the drones for good this time.

En route, the ship wants to stop as soon as it gets in range of more planets. The scientists convince Young to let this happen, because they do desperately need more lime at least, not to mention other supplies. Scott and Greer take a team to the planet to scout it out and run into a couple of kids around Scott's age or younger who recognize the pair of them and claim that they are the descendants of the crew.

After the initial WTF moments, there is a lot of exposition learning the history of the colonists and of the original Destiny crew that founded their civilization. The colonists explain that shortly after arriving on the planet they lost contact with Novus and have not been able to make a connection since then. They ask the crew of Destiny to take them back to their planet so they can learn what happened to their civilization.

Young is reluctant to do this (as is Rush), due to the lack of resources available and the strain that many extra people will put on the ship. His hand is forced, however, when the drones show up and launch simultaneous attacks on the planet and on the ship. Most of the colonists are evacuated to the ship, but then a drone takes out the gate, stranding Eli, Wray, Scott, and Greer on the planet, along with the remaining survivors of the attack. It looks pretty certain that the crew is stranded until Eli figures out a way to use the gate's sub-space network connection to send a message to Destiny. He can't figure out how to do more than turn the thing on and off, but Scott realizes this is a perfect way to send a message via morse code. Destiny gets the message and returns to the planet to pick up the survivors, then decides to head on to Novus to check things out, since there's really no way the ship can hold that many people for very long.

Along the way, Rush and Eli figure out that the drones must have been tracking them using the stargates themselves--activation of a stargate is a major sub-space event, apparently, and would stand out like a beacon to anyone looking for it. This means no using gates until team science figures out a way around that problem.

On Novus Scott takes a shuttle down and finds a massive modern looking city, completely intact and completely empty. The atmosphere of the planet is filled with smoke/dust/ash and it is crazy cold. They fear that nuclear winter has set in, meaning the two nations had finally gone to war with each other, but there is no sign of radiation or any electronic signals at all. They deduce that the seismic activity likely caused a super-volcano to erupt, which caused an extinction level event and explains the ash cloud and winter conditions, as well as the lack of any and all life signs.

Next week, the crew investigates the city of their descendants.

This was, once more, a completely awesome episode. There were so many little details that were wonderful touches and made the story work quite well. The two nations the crew split into? One was led by Young and another was led by Brody, who claimed that Rush was still on the ship and would figure out a way to come back and save them all one day. This resulted in one nation that over two thousand years came to believe in Rush as some sort of deity (and was named after a font), and one that saw him as some sort of demon, hell-bent on stealing people's souls. This led for some wonderfully awkward moments when some of the colonists (all from the Team Young country) met the real live Rush. I did find it interesting, and a little odd, that the first baby born on Novus (we got to see the kino footage of it) was the child of T.J. and Young. I guess getting stranded on a planet thousands of years in the past rekindled their relationship? It was a good contrast to now, when T.J. and Varro are just starting to build a relationship, and had a very interesting "road not taken" perspective to add to the episode.

I do have to wonder how Wray had descendants, seeing as how she is not interested in the guys. I guess she decided it was her duty to help perpetuate the species? Hmm. I dunno.  I am still not sure there were enough people on the ship to create a sustained population, but to find out would require research I don't feel like doing.

It was amusing when Greer got all chuffed by the old lady telling him how handsome he is. I love Greer.

I'll be very curious indeed to see how this story plays out/wraps up next week, to be sure.

Sigh, only three more to go folks, and I have a feeling they are just getting started.

As I said, bummer doesn't even begin to describe it.

Until next time.

*Of course, you know that fan fiction isn't going anywhere.

Stargate Tuesday: The Hunt (2.16)

Here there be spoilers folks. Run away if ye be shy, or if, you know, you haven't seen the episode yet.

Right, so, to business. Executive Producer and show writer Joseph Mallozzi promised that there would be a lot going on in this episode (one of his), and man, did he deliver!

This week started out with a group of our intrepid crew out and about on a planet. Some of the scientists are running tests on the local flora, checking it out to see if it can be of any use aboard Destiny. You know T.J. wants to stock up on whatever medicinal herbs they can find, the way people keep getting shot up on this ship. Meanwhile, the soldiers, primarily Scott, Greer, and James, are excited about some deer-like beings that have also been discovered on the planet and want to do a little hunting so that they can finally have some fresh meat to chow down on. As James points out to Park when she gripes that she is a vegetarian and wouldn't eat the meat regardless, they have actually all been vegetarians for the last several months or so.

When Scott and Greer find a likely target, Greer lines up his shot and...hesitates. Before he can recover and bag the game, the deer are startled by a noise from deeper within the forest and run off. Greer has just enough time to start to get pissed about this when whatever it was that startled the deer then charges out and barrels through both him and Scott, making its way through the camp and injuring several of the scientists. We also learn, in the wake of its attack, that T.J. and a corporal are missing. Oh dear.

Here is where the story starts to split up. We've got Young, Greer, and James on the planet hunting for the missing crew members. A banged up Park is stuck in the infirmary, being tended to by Chloe, Destiny's jack-of-all-trades, since T.J. is well, you know, missing. We quickly learn that T.J. and the corporal are alive, if a bit banged up, and stuck in the cave serving as the beast's lair, which is inconveniently located halfway up a mountain overlooking a ravine and being determinedly protected by said beast. Then of course, there's the actual B-plot proper, in which Brody, Eli, and Rush open up a newly repaired section of the ship and discover several chambers filled with stasis pods (empty). Eli wants to check out this new discovery, but Rush wants to exercise caution and advises they do some research up on the bridge first.

Varro, the handsome good-hearted Lucian Alliance member with a crush on T.J. convinces Scott to let him go down the planet and help out with the search party, as he and his people have extensive hunting and tracking experience. Varro and a random leather-clad LA chick take the lead and they quickly realize that the beast they are hunting has, in return, been hunting them. Oh goody. They fall into an ambush and Young is badly injured and sent back to the ship. They keep tracking the beast and finally do manage to take it out with an ambush of their own--only to discover that there is more than one of the creatures out there. Double goody. Eventually we are left with just Greer and Varro together. Varro decides this is a good time to talk Greer through his issues (i.e., his hesitation of earlier, he also got a heart-to-heart with James a bit before this in which we learned that he thinks he died momentarily while undergoing the kidney transplant surgery and has kind of become afraid of death). It...kind of works? Greer seems to be back to himself by the end of the episode at any rate.

While all of this has been going on, T.J. has not been sitting around being an idle damsel in distress. Oh no, the corporal decides to fill that role, so T.J. gets to be the hardass "we're gonna get through this" soldier. It's kind of awesome. So much of her character development has been about her emotional moments or about her medical skills, it is easy to forget that T.J. actually is a soldier, and a pretty accomplished one at that. She gets the corporal to stop feeling sorry for himself and also manages to repair their damaged radio and make contact with Greer to let him know where they are. When Greer does manage to find the lair (Varro has been causing a distraction to lure the beasts away), one of the beasts has just returned and T.J. is the one to realize that it is sentient. The beast hesitates when it sees that she has made a fire, recognizing intelligence in the humans. It holds off on its attack when they indicate that they do not mean it any harm and T.J., the corporal, and Greer are allowed to skedaddle, meeting up with Varro on the way back to the gate. They stop briefly when they run into one of the deer-like animals and Greer decides they need to take something home for all of their troubles. Yay! Meat for everyone! Well, except Park, apparently.

Afterward, back on the Destiny, T.J. goes to visit Varro and apologize to him for the loss of his people. He is the only Lucian Alliance member left standing from the original invasion force at this point. This and the fact that he has been nothing but cooperative and helped retrieve T.J. has finally earned him the freedom of the ship from Young. T.J. also tells Varro that even though she knows he may feel like he's all alone now, he really isn't. They share a nice poignant almost-kiss before they are interrupted by a knock at the door (grr, argh), of course. And (of course) it is Young at the door. He seems to grasp something of the situation at hand and there is a momentary look on his face that is regret for how things have played out. But it also seems to be a look of letting go. I will be very interested to see how that progresses in the remaining episodes. Also, huzzah for there finally being progression on the T.J./Varro front!!!

In the B-plot, Eli is still pissy about Rush and has decided to express this by rebuking Rush's self-nominated authority among the science crew. He's kind of acting like a brat. I kind of don't blame him. Still. I hope that his attitude gets a little bit of an adjustment before the end of the season (series). Anyway, Eli decides that he doesn't care what Rush says, he wants to check out the stasis pod chambers, and he manages to talk Brody into going with him. Up in the bridge, Rush realizes what Eli is up to and activates one of the stasis pods, with Brody inside of it. Eli spends the rest of the episode freaking out and trying to unfreeze Brody without telling Rush what happened (he thinks he or Brody pushed the wrong button whilst exploring). Eli even tries to get Chloe to help, using some of her remaining "alien knowledge," but all to no avail. Eventually Rush decides enough is enough and unfreezes Brody, hoping the two have learned their lesson. Eli and Brody think they've gotten away with their adventure, and when Rush suggests checking out the new area, they both jump to suggest that no, maybe they should wait until the database has been further investigated. Rush smiles a self-satisfied smirk and wanders off, still believing himself to the be the supreme being aboard Destiny. Sigh.

That whole subplot was kind of meh, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I am really glad to see Eli bucking Rush's self-proclaimed authority over the science staff. It needs to be done. Rush rarely ever makes decisions that are truly for the good of the whole, unless they happen to align with whatever his own agenda is. He does not need to be the scientist in charge. Neither does Eli, though thankfully he does seem to realize as much. I just hope he can bring about the more communal running of the scientific duties on the ship by acting more, you know, mature. Not by being an idiot and running off almost getting people killed (or at least made completely unavailable). Also, his little stunt only served to confirm to Rush that he knows better than anyone else, which in the end means he did more harm than good in my opinion.

In one last little subplot, Volker seems to be recovering well from his kidney transplant. He is up and about now. He spent most of this episode running back and forth between working with Rush and checking on Park in the infirmary. Two episodes ago it seemed like the writers were hinting at a little bit of a growing romance there, and I have to admit, it made me a bit nervous. You guys know I am rooting for Park/Greer all the way. But still, Volker's clear crush and awkward attempts at being there for Park were very well done. As were the even more awkward conversations with Chloe and Rush about his feelings, which he kept trying to convince everyone (and failing fantastically) were strictly platonic. At the end he takes a little bouquet of something (presumably from the hydroponics lab) to visit Park, only to find that Greer is already there and the two are looking rather cozy. Poor Volker. The look on his face was absolutely heartbreaking. As much as I didn't like the thought of him coming between Park and Greer, it made me very sad for him nonetheless. I will be very curious to see how this little triangle progresses, especially with the debt Volker must feel toward Greer due to the whole kidney situation.

All in all I think this was a fantastic episode. There was a ton of extremely well done character development, and the main story, even with all of its little fractals, was very engaging. I feel like I am saying this every week, but dang, I am so mad that we are almost out of episodes for this show! Stargate Universe has really found its legs this season and it is just such a shame that we are not gonna get to see it run for any more seasons. Boo.

The preview for next week's episode was pretty tantalizing. Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey! Huzzah!

Until then, I think I am gonna go have to read some Stargate novels to keep the withdrawal at bay...

(...or maybe play some Dragon Age.)

Confetti!

By which I mean several small bits and pieces...

Realized that yesterday's blog was my 100th entry on Searching For Me. That's pretty spiffy, I would say. So, maybe some literal confetti is in order as well as the figurative kind. I started this blog mostly as a writing exercise--mainly to make myself write at least five days a week so as to keep in practice and hone my craft. I would say I have mostly done pretty okay so far. To those of you who are reading, thanks.

In other quasi-writing news, I am through chapter twelve of the read through of my first draft of Living Legend and still really enjoying it. I have also found one glaring contradiction that definitely needs to be addressed (it came about due to my frenzied writing schedule, I think, just a throwaway line that makes something that happens later a little fishy if I leave it as is). I also found a few instances of characters acting very unlike who they are in my head, so I need to try to establish valid reasons for the behavior or do some rewrites there. Of course, there is also the fact that about two-thirds of the way through writing I decided that one of my mains shouldn't speak in contractions. I am finding lots of early (and not so early) places of her using contractions though so my Big Pink Pen of Doom (it was going to be red, but I couldn't find my red pen) has been going nuts circling. That is probably something I will be continuing to search for through my next two drafts, I am sure. But it is progressing well, I think.

In a recent blog entry, Stargate writer Joseph Mallozzi listed what would be his dream team composed of characters from all three shows of the franchise. It consisted of Ronald Greer, Vala Mal Doran, Rodney McKay, and Ronon Dex, with Richard Woolsey holding down the fort at the base of operations. I have to say, I loved this team! I do think a few more additions would be necessary though: Daniel Jackson (mostly to keep Vala in check, but also because his linguistic and anthropological skills are good for first contact), Major Lorne as the team leader (Greer is awesome but he's got a temper and needs to be taking orders from someone a with a cooler head), and T.J. as the medic (because with Rodney and Ronon and Greer, they will need a medic available). It was a fun little thing to picture in my head this group of adventurers, all very different, and try to conceive of how their team dynamic would develop. I started wondering how I would get them all together, what with Greer and T.J. being stuck on the other side of the universe and all. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really want to write a story with these characters. So, unless I succumb to the urge to write this before November, this is going to be my fan fiction NaNoWriMo novel this year.

Watched the season finale of Human Target last night and absolutely loved it. Though I have to say it raised a lot more questions than it provided answers for me. I have my fingers and toes crossed that this show gets picked up for a third season. I really do enjoy it so very much, and the cast is just clicking like it is nobody's business. I really hope to get to see them work together for a long time to come.

I am still working my way through getting caught up on Questionable Content. I am now past strip 1,000, so I would say that is progressing nicely. I did finally catch up to where I started reading it (I was surprised that I have been reading it for so long), and now I am enjoying getting to read those strips all over again and getting the inside jokes and references to previous story lines. My poor husband is getting drowned in emailed links to strips I think he'd find amusing. He also has to listen to me giggle maniacally while I read them, since we share an office. But the guy's a trooper, and I am reminded once more how lucky I am that he loves me!

I took the Jeopardy! Online Test last night. I think I got maybe a third to half of the questions right. That's not great, but it's better than last  year, which is at the very least encouragement to keep trying. There were a few questions that I clearly had no clue about, a few that I think I knew the answer to, and at least three that I did know the answer to but couldn't pull it out of my brain in time. Grr. Still, I am glad I did it. As unrealistic as it is to think that I'll end up going on Jeopardy! and winning big, it is a quite lovely little daydream nonetheless.

Now, if only we can get Wheel of Fortune to come back and hold their next round of auditions when I am actually in town...

Reports of the Death of Stargate Could Be Exaggerated

Well, maybe.  Possibly.  Joe Mallozzi says he won't say it's dead until he can for sure say that it is dead.  Brad Wright is fighting for the franchise as well from the reports that are making the rounds.  So rather than considering Syfy's cancellation of Stargate Universe (and the horrible, horrible way it was announced to the public--if ever I needed further reason to dislike Twitter, this was it) as an early and rather unthoughtful Christmas present, I am instead accepting the hope granted to us 'Gaters from Mallozzi and Wright.  It may be a slim hope, and it may be that nothing will pan out, but I'll take it nonetheless.

Already the internet is rife with gloating that such a supposedly awful show was finally canceled (just check the comment threads on any of Gateworld's stories regarding the matter).  What a lot of Stargate Atlantis fans (those who oh so vocally detested poor SGU) either fail to understand or just flatly refuse to believe is that if SGU is really and truly dead, so is Stargate in all of the forms that have come before.  That means SG-1.  And Atlantis.  Mallozzi has flat out said that all progress on the Atlantis movie (which was finally starting to gain a little bit of headway with MGM's recent resolution of its financial issues) has now been halted, specifically because of the cancellation of SGU.  If there is a third Stargate movie at this point, it will be for SGU, not Atlantis or SG-1.

But why?!?!  This is the collective cry going up wherever I look. But I have pieced together bits picked up here and there from Mallozzi, as well as from stories on Gateworld and other venues and think I have sussed out a reasonable answer to this question.  Ah, reason.  Something we fans seem to forget about completely when it comes to our franchise of choice.  I digress.  Right, answer.  So.  Here's the thing, or, things, I guess:

1.  SG-1 has already been given closure in the form of The Ark of Truth.  The story that the writers wanted to tell has been told.

2.  Atlantis's storyline may not have official closure, but Fandemonium just recently released the first book in their new Legacy series, which picks up where season five of the show left off.  It is a multi-novel arc intended to close out the story.  While true that it is not considered canon by the show writers, it is still one avenue of closure.  The first book, Homecoming, is available now.  Also, and canonically, in the yet-to-air back half of season two of SGU, we do get some explanation of what is going on with Atlantis beyond season five with the episode that will feature McKay and Woolsey.

3.  This is the most important one:  Stargate Universe is the most recently aired series in the franchise.  People are still grumbling that we didn't get closure to Atlantis, sure, but it has been a few years now.  More people are screaming that they want to find out how SGU wraps up.  Simple truth, whatever the internet would have you believe.  More significantly, the writers have written the story of closure for Atlantis already.  They haven't done so for SGU, so that's the story they are going to fight to get to tell.  People may be pissed about that, but, well, if there's any chance we get a movie, it will be because the people who are going to make it want to make it hard enough to fight for it.  So let's let them get on with that and keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

If we get an SGU movie (and Wright and Mallozzi seem to be first and foremost fighting to get a full third season before shooting for a movie), and if it does well, then we have a chance at the Atlantis movie, and possibly that SG-1 film as well.  But.  If we don't get that movie.  If whatever Wright is working on fails, and this truly is the end of SGU, then we are not going to get any more SG-1, Atlantis, or SGU.  MGM, while doing better, is just now starting to move forward.  If they are going to invest in a new straight-to-DVD movie, they are going to do it for the one that is freshest in the consumers' minds.  The more time that passes, the lower the chances get.  MGM is going to be taking very few risks in the coming years, you can count on that.  It sucks, but there it is.

Sigh.  I could get on a soap box and rant for hours about this, I really could.  I have already gone on at more length on the topic than I really intended to.  Here's what it comes down to:  If SGU is truly dead, then so is Stargate, at least in the terms that we know it today.  There is always the possibility that down the road somebody, whether it is Wright and Cooper or someone new entirely, will come up with a new spin on the franchise and we'll get a new series or a reboot.  But that will not be any time soon.  No one currently working on Stargate has been working on a fourth series, there isn't one in any state of development, because they were hoping and planning for at least a five season run for Universe, and wanted to get that story told before they moved on to a new idea.  Honestly, if Stargate does end here, I am okay with it.  I will be really surprised to see anyone currently involved in it become part of any future iterations--because let's face it, seventeen years on one franchise is a long, long time, especially in the world of television.

I truly honestly and fervently hope that this is not the end of Stargate as we know it, but I am okay if it is.  I have all of all three series on DVD to watch over and over at my leisure.  I have many, many books from Fandemonium to read whenever I want.  I probably won't ever have Stargate Worlds, but I've already come to terms with that.  If I need more than what I already have, I also have fan fiction.  There is a slew of it out there, beyond the ridiculously enormous amount I already have saved away for a rainy day.  The fans aren't going to stop writing it just because the shows aren't on the air any more.  So if this is the end, I will say a tearful goodbye and then move on with my life.  But, God, I hope this isn't the end.

A few quick words of advice (from people who actually know about these things, not me), if you do want to get involved with a save our show campaign.

1.  If you are going to write in to Syfy, be polite, be clear, make sure your spelling and grammar are exemplary.  Give logical, and fiscal, reasons to keep the show alive, not emotional pleas.

2.  Don't start your own campaign, join the biggest one you can find that already exists.  Lots of small campaigns have a much slimmer chance of being heard or noticed by the right people than one massively huge one.

3.  For Pete's sake, watch the rest of season two live when it airs!!  Figure out who the advertisers are and go buy their products, then write in to those advertisers and let them know how much you love the show and appreciate their support (and that you are giving them money).

So that's all I've got.  I will say that Stargate Wednesday will not be disappearing on this blog once SGU ends its run (be that this year or five years from now).  It may move to another day of the week, but once season two has ended, I am going to start a rewatch of Atlantis for you guys.  I'll probably then do a rewatch of SG-1 (starting with the movie).  After that, heck, I may move on to the books.  I am a Stargate fan.  I always will be.  So as long as I am blogging, I will be sharing that love with anyone who cares to read about it.

Can Spoilers Go Too Far?

Don't forget to watch the all new episode of Stargate Universe, tonight on Syfy at 8 pm CST!!!!!

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Also, check out the newest episode of Riese:  Kingdom Falling right here!

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Warning:  This post is about spoilers.  It might therefore be reasonable to assume that it contains spoilers.  

 (Mostly for Stargate Universe, but also a little bit for the BBC show Luther.)

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Spoilers, you say?

So, remember last week in my review of the SGU episode The Greater Good I said it pretty much looked like Ginn and Perry had been killed by Creepy Lucian Alliance guy? Then, the day after the episode aired, a bunch of people from the show (most notably David Blue and Joseph Mallozzi) went on the record telling us not to jump to conclusions, and we didn't know what we thought we know?

Sure, a couple of the trailers for tonight's episode have made it look pretty convincing that those characters are now ex-characters, but that could all just be down to editing.  Then, yesterday, I am perusing the weekly What to Watch article on io9, and imagine my surprise to find that this is the synopsis for tonight's episode:

Simeon makes his escape from Destiny after killing Ginn/Amanda Perry, sending Nicholas Rush on a vengeful mission. But Young and Greer attempt to retrieve Simeon unharmed.

Well.  That seems pretty darn definitive.  

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was catching up on Sunday's episode of Luther, which is a really fantastic miniseries that has been airing on BBC America for the last few weeks.  I was fast forwarding through the last commercial break of the episode and stopped when I got to what looked like the return of the show.

Except, that's not what it was. 

It was a preview for next week's episode, which for some reason BBCA decided to air before the episode was actually over.  In this preview, we see that Luther's wife Zoe has been murdered by his crooked cop pal and framed for the crime, and now Luther is on the run trying to prove his innocence.  My brain exploded a little bit.  When last I saw Zoe, before the break, she was alive and well.  After the preview, the episode wrapped up, giving us the big climactic scene wherein the crooked cop kills Zoe.  But the scene had lost all of the tension that the show had worked so carefully to create, because I had just seen an ad for next week and knew that Zoe didn't make it.  It really killed the end of the episode for me.  At least next week's ending won't be spoiled in the same way, since it's the final part of the series and there won't be any previews to show.  But still.

All of this got me thinking about spoilers and how they have wormed their way into the mainstream in the last few years.  Do television viewers truly not want any more mystery in their shows?  Is it just that the people who make the preview trailers aren't paying attention and put in something they think will grab viewers without realizing it gives away the ending of the episode?  

I really don't understand the thought process that went behind the programming decision to air the preview for the next week's episode before the episode had actually ended.  Granted, this series had already aired in its entirety across the pond in Britain earlier in the year.  Maybe somebody just figured that it was technically a rerun and spoilers were off the table? 

Then again, BBCA isn't the only network doing that, now that I think about it.  Psych on USA usually had their ad for next week before the last bit of the show as well.  Although usually the bit after the last break for that show is a wrap-up and all of the big reveals in the episode have happened already.

As far as preview trailers go, I know I've seen quite a few that have raised the ire of actors or writers from a given show.  They feel like they worked hard to make a really cool episode that would keep you guessing, and then someone with some editing tools somewhere went and cut together a teaser that doesn't tease but in fact totally gives it all away!  (The return of Carson Beckett in season four of Stargate Atlantis, anyone?)  What, then, is the point of bothering to watch the show?

The really good teasers do just that.  They hint at what the twist might be, and the best make you think it is something completely different from what it actually is, so that when you watch, you really get the full effect of the reveal.

I mean, I am all for spoilers for the most part.  I tend to see them as harmless fun that gets me excited for the new show.  I mean, heck, I read a daily article on io9 called Morning Spoilers after all.  But I very rarely read the whole thing.  I tend to skim, and only check out the entries for shows or movies that I like or am anticipating.  But if it's just an episode synopsis of, say, the sixth episode of the season that hasn't started airing yet, or an actual reveal about a big plot point, I try to skip it.  The spoilers I am usually looking for are casting scoops, or a general idea of where a show is headed for a season (as in, the vague overarching plot).

So, I guess when I say I like spoilers, I mean I like hints.  The problem is that the hints tend to get roped in with the really big ruiners and it can be hard to separate them without stumbling across some of the latter.  Sure, it's my own fault for reading the spoilers page in the first place, or the comments on a discussion thread or whatnot, but I do like to have a general idea of what could happen.  It's knowing that something is probably coming, but not knowing how it's gonna end up happening that makes it worth watching.

I have this problem with books a lot too, actually, because I read so many series.  I remember one of the first fantasy series I really dug into in college, I had read the first two books (out of six) and went to the store to pick up the rest of the series before I went out of town on a trip.  I read the back jacket of the fourth or fifth book, and it totally gave away the ending of the book I was reading at the time.  I was so appalled!  What made it worse was that it was a plot development I had seen coming and was really hoping would end up not happening.  So I was grumpy reading the whole rest of that book.  Now, I don't even look at the back cover (or inside flap) of books in a series unless it is the first book and I am trying to decide whether to pick up the series or not.  I realized the other day when putting away a book I had read multiple times that I had never read the story blurb on it.

But sometimes, even if you're someone who goes out of your way to avoid spoilers, you can't escape them.  Like when it's right there in the commercial before the show is over (and the networks are pushing you to watch things live), or when the usually spoiler free preview for next week instead gives away the big reveal at the end of the episode.  Heck, I love the author Jim Butcher, and as much as I enjoy The Dresden Files series, I completely adore his Codex Alera series so much more.  But once I read the first couple of books, and looked at the titles for the next few books, I realized that the actual titles of the books themselves are kind of a spoiler.  It's crazy!

I have really struggled with this in my reviews of the Star Wars Republic Commando series that I have been doing on this blog.  I've tried to discuss the primary plot of each book without giving away any of the really cool stuff that actually happens in the story.  For example, there's one plot line throughout the series which I totally left out of my review, as much as I wanted to expand upon it, because I just felt it would not be doing right by the readers to tell them that it happened before they read the book. 

I'm just left wondering, can spoilers actually go too far?  It's right there in the name, isn't it?  Spoilers.  If you're looking at something labeled "spoilers" aren't you asking to find more than you're probably looking for?  I do know that it's not fair to inflict spoilers on someone who isn't suspecting them.

I know, I know, life isn't fair.  Sigh.  But don't you kind of wish it was?

Anyway, I don't really have any answers on this topic, it has just been on my mind, and I wondered if anyone else hangs out in the middle of spoiler-land like I do.  I'll just be floating around, trying to figure out the best way to cope without letting all of my fun get ruined, I suppose.

No word count update today.  I did a lot of world-building yesterday but no actual writing, sadly.  On the other hand, I now know exactly what the paper is made of in the various countries in my story.  I also know what kind of fabric they use and what they eat, and how their language evolved.  Whee!  In that sense, my word count from yesterday is huge, because I added to my notes like crazy, but nothing in the story sad to stay.  Still, I am right about on track, and I think at this point it's very important to get my ducks all in a row in the notes so that I don't have to stop to look things up when I really get into the wrapping-up part of things.

Ta ta for now, folks.  Join me tomorrow, when we'll find out if Ginn and Perry really are dead or not.  (And you'll get to see me express my rage or amazement about how it was pulled off if they really are still alive.)

Stargate Thursday: The Greater Good (Revisited)

I know, I know.  Two days about the same episode of Stargate?  Really?  But, I want to take a few minutes to "update" yesterday's SGU review based on some links I stumbled across on the webs.  Notably here and here.

Apparently, I may have jumped the gun in calling Perry's (and by extension Ginn's) death.

In the Q & A section of his blog, SGU writer and executive producer Joe Mallozzi had this tidbit:

Kassian writes: “Please, please can you tell me something regarding her story arc, because I love Julies charakter Ginn and it´s just heartbreaking what happened to her.”

Answer: What happened to her?  If you think you know, think again because this is science fiction, after all.  Anything can happen.  And will.

And also this one:

Nathan writes: “Those guards should’ve been completely focused. Any thoughts as to why there was no guard with him???”

Answer: Now that you mention it, that IS strange.  After all, we did establish the fact that all Lucian Alliance prisoners are only been permitted out of their quarters with an armed escort.  What happened to Simeon’s guard?  Hope he’s okay.  Well, guess we’ll find out next week.  I mean

On his Facebook page David Blue (who is notoriously anti-spoilers of any kind, which is totally his prerogative but bears mentioning here) had this to say:

David Blue BTW guys, avoid teasers/trailers/sneak-peeks of next week's all-new SGU ("Malice"). It'll just ruin things for you, or make you think things that aren't true. Watching it clean is always best. And, can I just tell you, Robert Carlyle gives an amazing performance in this one. ;)

All of this seems to be trying to say that Creepy LA Guy did not, in fact kill Perry/Ginn.  Now, as I said yesterday, while the end of the episode is a fade-to-black so we don't know exactly what happened, the teaser trailer for next week's episode seemed to pretty much explicitly state that they died at the end of this episode. I do acknowledge it has been a method long in use to tweak the scenes in trailers to make it seem like something happens that really doesn't at all, just to get potential viewers to tune in and find out.  I will give you that.  Maybe that's the case here, and I, like many many other people jumped the gun in making an assumption.  BUT, I can't imagine what other way it could have gone down from the ending where Creepy LA Guy is advancing on Perry.  In that situation, his only recourse to stop Ginn from spilling her guts to Homeworld Security is to kill Perry in Ginn's body, therefore killing both women.

I included the bit from Mallozzi's blog about Creepy LA Guy's guards because I wonder if maybe that isn't the answer and Mallozzi was trying to give us a clue.  Maybe right after the scene cuts away, the guard(s) catch up to him and save Perry, and it's some other "she" entirely who is dead next week.  But that all seems a bit eleventh hour to me.  Don't get me wrong, I like Ginn.  A lot, actually.  And I hope for Eli's sake that she's alright.  But if she is, there had better be a damn good explanation for how she and Perry survived the confrontation with Creepy LA Guy.

It is entirely possible, of course, that Mallozzi and Blue are just trying to throw us off the scent.  Mallozzi certainly doesn't deny that they died.  He just says that it's unlikely that what we think happened is what actually happened--which could mean anything.  And as I've mentioned already, Blue really really really hates spoilers.  I wouldn't put it past him to deny a story element right up until it airs if he believes that people thinking they know what's going to happen will cause them not to tune in.  Again, totally his right to feel that way, I am not judging.  It is just a plausible explanation for the comments above if Creepy LA Guy turns out to have really killed those women.

I said yesterday I couldn't wait for next week's episode, and now that is even more the case.  On a positive note, this week's viewership saw an increase (huzzah!), which hopefully means that next week will stay strong or (knock on wood) rise again, considering this episode left us hanging in a rather artfully suspenseful manner.

Nerds in love (and leather). 

In other news, as it is Thursday, there is a new episode of Riese up to watch, yay!  I forgot to link to Tuesday's episode (bad Cori).  So, here are the links to both:

Riese Episode 5

Riese Episode 6

I am really enjoying this web series so far.  Though, I do think the addition of the narrator, as much as I love Amanda Tapping, is way too intrusive.  It feels like they are trying to dumb it down for an everyman audience or something.  This is, by the way, just one more example of how Syfy doesn't actually understand its audience (or even try to, really).  I think it's a pretty safe bet that anyone who is going to go to the Syfy website twice a week to watch a web series is intelligent enough to infer some things that are shown on the screen without dialogue to explain them in detail.  In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that a lot of us prefer to work some of these things out on our own, as it makes the show more interesting.  Some people have been griping about the addition of the map, to show where each character is, but I kind of like that.  Granted, I am one of those people who gets super happy when I crack open a new book and see a map inside of it.  I think maps are pretty spiffy as a general rule.  Sigh.  But still, I wholeheartedly support this endeavor, and would love to see it have enough online popularity to go the full television series route like Sanctuary did.  Riese would be an excellent addition to Syfy's scant genre lineup.

On the plus side, however, it is great to see Alessandro Juliani play someone awesome again (so far at least).  His character was hands down my favorite on the recent Battlestar Galactica series until his character took an unfortunate (understandable, but still one I couldn't get on board with) turn in the last season.  In fact, if they make Riese a television series, they could make it all about Alessandro Juliani, and I would be a happy Cori. 


Word Count Update:  21,054 out of 50,000