The Stargate Franchise - A First Timer's Watchthrough

Harmony

That episode was hysterical. I was almost rolling my eyes with another child actor, but she did a great job. I loved how bratty she was, and she and McKay were pretty much equals in arrogance. I loved their conversations together. I thought it was a little cliche that the middle sister was the betrayer, but then the ending with the painting was awesome, and McKay got the last laugh. I also loved John answering the radio to the Genii with the whole "good, real good" scene. It's not my favorite episode of the season but it's nowhere near the worst (Still Doppelganger).

I also looked it up, Sam was in 14 episodes this season, so they got one extra one from her.

 

Outcast

It was ok, but I was a little bored. It was nice to get some background on Sheppard and his family, but then it really turned into Stargate meets Terminator 2 with a TNG's Ship in a Bottle ending. I guess after the conclusion of the Replicator arc earlier in the season, I'm pretty much done with them and any other time they appear will just be diminishing returns. They were that way in Ark of Truth.

 

Teyla... remember when I said season 4 was aired WAY out of production order? This was a big tell of that. Obviously, they were working around Rachel's pregnancy, but in the end with the out of order airing, I don't think it hurt the overall season because it was such a great season.

 

I'm in that part of the season where Luttrell hasn't been in these episodes. I'm surprised how much she has been in though despite the pregnancy.

Trio

This was a very good character episode. I'm becoming even more impressed with Keller with each episode this season. She may not be social, and she may have been nervous at the survival thing, but I do think she is resourceful and her development this season has been really good. I also liked that we got probably the most Sam in this single episode than most of the season so far. Nice to finally get her off world, other than her on the Apollo as part of the fleet to take out the replicators. I'm surprised though she only broke her leg in this episode. She took three nasty falls, I was surprised she was ok after the second one.

I do have one qualm and that is I don't really like where this is heading with McKay and Keller. That proposal/break up still kinda bothered me but now it looks like McKay is hitching up with someone else so very quickly. Also, I think it would have been rather interesting if Keller and Ronon had actually become a couple, as what we saw in Quarantine. It would have been new and I thought Strait and Momoa had pretty good chemistry. It also would have given Ronon more depth rather than the tortured soul who fought a war on his home planet.

Midway

Goodbye Intergalactic Bridge. It was a good idea but the series is almost over so I guess it was time for you to go.

This was basically Season 4's version of Sateda, all action all the time. Loved seeing Teal'c, even though I'm not entirely sure of his new look. It was like he soaked his hair in a pool of black ink and it doubled in size. I mean he had his Arc of Truth hair in the premiere episode this season and now he has this new look. That was a hell of a fight scene between Teal'c and Ronon. This was basically the what if the Muscle of SG-1 teamed up with the Muscle of Atlantis and kicked a whole bunch of Wraith ass. Other than Kavenaugh being there and being a stupid idiot, this was a great episode. I do wonder where was the rest of SG-1 though, and where was General Landry.

The Indeed in-joke was everything I could have hoped for.

 

Do you already know where it's been filmed? I met the guy who is responsible for this on a convention.

"Trio", I remember that episode title for all the shippers talk about what could have been confirmation of Jack and Sam being together, but ended up on the cutting floor:

"When Carter joins the Atlantis expedition as commanding officer, a framed photo of O'Neill is seen on top of a box of her personal effects. A scene was cut from the Stargate Atlantis season 4 episode "Trio" in which Carter and Dr. Jennifer Keller discuss their love lives. When asked by Keller if she's seeing anyone, Carter initially avoids the question before admitting that "it's complicated" and that the man in question is in Washington D.C. but is going to retire soon."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Carter

 

I don't know where it was filmed. I know I'm supposed to see it after the Season 5 premiere.

 

Joe Flanigan reportedly objected to the idea that Sheppard came from a family with money, saying he always viewed the character as having an average humble background. Though personally, I find the idea of him being the black sheep of a wealthy family helps explain why he enjoys assignments to remote military bases like Antarctica or a whole other galaxy, and adds an interesting angle on his laid back attitude towards military life and authority.

It is interesting to note in the scene where Ronon and Teal'c have their fight and everyone is surrounding them making bets, we see a lot of Canadian money being passed around. Likely a matter of convenience since the show filmed in Vancouver, but I like a joke I heard a while back that Canadian money probably is the most prominent currency among the Atlantis personnel on account of McKay always losing bets with people.

Don't know anything special about where Continuum was filmed,

Spoiler

unless we're talking about the fact some scenes were filmed aboard an actual US submarine with the actual officers and crew playing themselves.

As for watching it after the season 5 premiere, not strictly necessary as its placement there is a result of a last minute retcon inserted into the season 5 premiere when someone realized it would be airing mere days prior to Continuum's release date. Indeed, when you watch Continuum you can tell that was never the intent when it was filmed or written since Teal'c is back to having his Ark of Truth haircut and Carter is back to being a Lt. Colonel.

 

Spoiler

Well there's also the North Pole scenes. My problem with Continuum is that it feels like it was all written around stuff they got free access to.

 

They were handed 7-8 million dollars to make the movie, so I feel like they wanted to do as much as possible with that money and didn't care about plot.

 

I liked the idea of Sheppard coming from wealth, too. It frankly puts him in an even better light, as most people with that kind of money wouldn't bother with a profession of serving a greater good like the Air Force. Makes him an even more likeable guy.

 

The intergalactic bridge was a very clever idea. I loved it. Too bad they had to blow it up.

Also the fact that the Wraith were able to hack a stargate to access the Midway Station shows that they are very ingenious and intelligent. They are not just mindless space vampires. I appreciated that.

I do wonder why the Midway Station did not have an iris or shield. I know McKay says that they built in a lot of security protocols and the stargates require a special macro but those can be hacked. You would think that an iris would still be useful. After all, the iris with the IDC code has proven to be a very effective security measure since season 1 of SG1.

Nitpick: Walter should have closed the iris as soon as he saw the sphere come through the gate instead of just standing there for a few seconds staring at it. I would think it would be standard protocol that if a weird glowing ball comes through the gate, you close the iris. But then, Tealc and Ronon would have gone splat when they followed the Wraith and also, we never would have gotten all the cool action scenes in the SGC.

 

I'm going to keep harping, but it's simply piss poor writing. Same reason they keep returning to the same tired and warn out storylines in the late franchise years. There is no damn reason for not having an iris besides to fit the storyline.

I'm pretty sure the not having an iris is when I ditched the show because I simply had enough. It's just too stupid. It's a show that has space vampires and insane things, but not having an iris is too unbelievable to me.

 

I was surprised by this too, and why wouldn't there be an Iris on the Midway station? It seems like it would be a great security risk and being this important base to earth, more security isn't a bad thing. In fact, it seems like a lot of Rodney's security precautions don't seem to work. That's not good when you have space vampires trying to get to earth from as early as Season 1.

 

I can think of a good reason not to have an iris; say, "the gate buffer trick doesn't work with radio waves, so it'd be impossible to send an identification code through," but they immediately established it does forward radio in "The Return" when Landry sent a message to the Atlantis team telling them not to go on their illegal, unauthorized rescue mission.

I can also think of ways they could've had the Wraith get defeat the iris, but I guess making the episode faster-paced took precedence.

 

They could have done a lot, they did nothing. Literally just had to go 'The iris is malfunctioning!'. That's what 1.5 seconds?

 

The irony is they actually put more effort into establishing in that episode there was no iris. The bit in the Previously On recap where we hear McKay say there's no iris was newly recorded for this episode and insert into the recap.

 

Kindred

I think Season 4 is the best season of this series. It just feels like the entire mythology came into focus this season and these two episodes were a big part of that. We start with Teyla having visions of the father of her baby, leading her on a search for the Athosan people and she ends up being captured by Michael. We also have the shocking return of Carson, who was cloned by Michael in "Misbegotten," and the episode ends in a very sad way. I'm actually surprised Teyla was not rescued by the end of this two parter. The fact that they are extending this part of the arc to at least four episodes, one of which ends the season, is pretty daring. The scenes between Michael and Teyla were great and I think Michael might be the best villain of this series.

I liked the way Carson came back too. I kind of had an inkling he would come back, but they didn't waste it and they left it open for his possible return. I liked how they even used the stasis pods we saw that brought back Older Weir in Before I Sleep. I'm hoping they might actually find a way to cure Carson from the degredation in his body and he can actually be Carson again. Paul McGuillian reminded me what a great actor he was at playing to the emotional heart. All his scenes, especially those with McKay were really emotional.

I know there is one episode left, but I think I know what you guys will say regarding Sam. The writers turned her from a major, popular character, into a side afterthought this season. The only two episodes where she had an impact was BAMSR and Trio. Other than that, she was that "admin" character who didn't really factor into anything. That's really sad because she deserved better. In fact, if this season was just as good as Season 3, I would have been really bothered with how Sam was used here. Fortunately for the series, I think they were firing on all cylinders tying a lot of the mythology together and really expanding the replicators, Michael, Teyla, and even bringing back Halling that it was easy not to notice.

 

Thanks to season 3 and 4 of Atlantis being broadcast in Canada significantly before their US airdates, I remember being nonplussed that not only was I spoiled on Beckett being killed off, I was spoiled on Beckett coming back to life still prior to seeing the episode where he died.

I remember there was some irritation among the fanbase about how Beckett came back. At some point prior to the episode airing, when it was first announced he'd be returning, one of the writers addressed a fan concern that it'd be some kind of cheap, fake resurrection, like an alternate universe Beckett, or Beckett from the past, or a shapeshifter impersonating Beckett, and the writer said (in what I recall is precise words that, in retrospect, did not rule out that he would be cloned) it would be our Beckett and not some kind of fake.

Again, it feels like the easy way around this would be to say Michael kept the original and the clone is the one who blew up, but what do I know about writing TV?

 

I think the problem with the leader of Atlantis is that needed a General Hammond type in that position.

With Weir...she should have been the leader, guiding with diplomacy. Sheppard would have led the military part, with Ford helping both adapt to space missions.

For Sam... she is someone who wants to do the work and learn the new science and use the newly acquired. She has the skillset to be a leader...but would she be happy with this position?

 

The Last Man & Search and Rescue

Well, that's the end of season 4 and that's the end of the Teyla kidnapped by Michael and ends up having a baby arc. Some thoughts on both episodes:

1) Last Man was a hell of a finale, but it felt really different. John comes back to Atlantis but it was 48,000 years into the future and most of the episode dealt with the alternate universe recap of Michael conquaring most of the Galaxy

2) Watching how each of the crew sacrificed themselves was incredibly sad. Carter probably had the best though, ramming her ship and taking out 3 of Michael's hive ships in the process. I loved the scenes of Ronon and Todd working together, considering Ronon hates the Wraith so much. The scene with Jennifer becoming infected by the Hoff Plague was incredibly sad

3) I'm glad my fears on McKay and Jennifer ended up not being realized. I mean they were in the alternate universe, but Sheppard changed all that by coming back through the gate.

4) That was a hell of an ending to the season, with the building being booby trapped and imploding. Yeah it felt a little tacked on, but it's the season ender and Stargate does cliffhangers. I'm glad I didn't need to wait a few months to see the conclusion.

5) Search and Rescue was basically what the episode title says. They rescue everyone from the building implosion and go and get Teyla back.

6) The Teyla birth of her boy scene was so great. Rodney being all nervous about giving birth and just that lovely smile. I love how sci fi series decide to do birth scenes in the middle of absolute chaos. I still think the birth of Little D in Farscape was my favorite though in sci fi, followed by Helana's birth scene in Orphan Black. What other great sci fi births have there been.

7) The ending was basically a wink that Amanda Tapping is indeed off the show. I mean they couldn't get more obvious than that. Also, Continuum is about the last of the Ba'al clones. That's exciting.

8) More Robert Picardo on Atlantis is I think a good thing. Woosley is still a bit of a dick, but maybe him heading the administrative position might change my mind. Speaking of:

Yeah it seemed like Atlantis had an administrative problem. I think it goes back to me saying that Weir was a tragic character. They could have done so much with her but there were times when it felt like they didn't even try.

9) Another awesome space battle. I think I like the BSG space battles more, but Sci Fi series in the 90s/00s really did put DS9's space battles to shame, unfortunately. I would have loved to see the full and complete Sacrifice of Angels space battle instead of going back and forth to DS9. They did the best they could, but BSG and SG-1 were so much better in that department. Hell, I really wish the current Star Trek writers would go watch some of these space battles because the ones in Discovery and Picard feel more overkill than exciting. Hell, the entire Season 2 Discovery finale felt like overkill. Too much CGI is not a good thing.

Overall, like I said for Kindred, Season 4 was an amazing year and Season 5 is off to a fine start. I really loved the arcs in Season 4, from the Replicators to Michael returning and making human/wraith hybrids to Teyla playing a much more pivitol role. I think the only character who really suffered was Sam, but we all know why now (And my all, I mean I'm finally caught up to have this conversation ).

Favorite episodes in Season 4:

Lifeline
Tabula Rasa
Miller's Crossing
By All My Sins Remember'd
Midway
The Last Man

One more Atlantis season to go. Then I can do universe, and I think I'm going to pass on Origins. I might feel all Stargated out by the time I end universe, and I found out I get free HBO Max with my AT&T Internet subscription so maybe I might go see Westworld. I do think I need to do a Discovery rewatch though, and I will probably see Marvel's Agents of Shield eventually. It will depend on how I feel.