Average and typical. Way too many plot-holes to enjoy it the whole way through. SGA is getting very Voyager-esque with people constantly, and with great ease, commandeering the Daedalus. The Asgard were extremely unappealing. They were never very appealing, actually. Noble, yes. But about as exciting as wallpaper. Their draw for me came from their unique relationship (Thor's in particular) with SG1.
That element, and thus the true depth of Asgard presence, was totally absent here. It's another Voyager neuters the Borg scenario, with all the expected anti-climax that entails. It's trite and uninspired. All the effects that went into it would have been better served either A) giving some more meat to an existing SGA race (like maybe the Travelers, imagine if it were them in those suits), or B) creating a new, compelling final villain.
As it is, we end up with empty suits after all.
SGA needed to grow up and become its own show, but it shows with moves like these that they are intimidated at the thought of standing on their own. As others have mentioned, I enjoyed seeing Daniel again, but it was all pretty bland. The interplay between he and McKay was, at best, cutesy. Daniel is not the purely comic relief character (or at least, far less so) that McKay is and has never excelled in that space without O'Neill or Vala. Him calling out the Asgard on their shit was the only genuine Daniel moment.
The Travelers (aka Hot Plot-Device Alien Chicks) are an utter waste of space and constantly end up looking like space faring Genii, only even more cardboard-like. Can anyone tell me what exactly do Travelers do (and I'll smack the first one who says "travel"), other than show up just in the nick of time™? Have we ever had any serious political and dramatic tension built up with that faction?
This worked so much better with the [real]Asgard because of said dramatic cues and because we, in essence, could value their presence. Same with the Tok'ra or Nox. Hell, even Todd's occasional bouts of seeming altruism have more meat. We knew they were making real sacrifices to help us because we knew them.
So when they come to the rescue, it's like "YES!!!". With the Travelers, it's more like "Who?". They'd have done better to just make them space Genii.
The resolution seems like a DEM and cop-out, to me. Nothing surprising, considering. But with all the shit that was thrown at the fan, you'd think they'd at least try to make it a little grittier. It's a deus ex machina because the only way for our heroes to win is to arbitrarily weaken the villains. It's a cop-out because it makes everything the protagonists did "right", so their actions have no consequences.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
