Letters from Pegasus (SG: A)
Was this a clip show or a show with clips? Stargate has a reputation of doing these clip show episodes and some of them work (Citizen Joe and Disclosure) and some of them don't (Politics). I was watching this episode and I wonder what the definition of the term "Clip Show" was. Now this episode had a ton of clips from the past on it, but they were more flashes than actual scenes. When Stargate did it's clip show, they were scenes and the focus of the episode was more on the clips themselves than an actual plot. That's where I really draw the line here and why I thought episodes like Citizen Joe and Disclosure were effective. They were used either to advance the plot (Disclosure, and lets face it, the world had to get more involved in the Stargate program anyway) or Advance character (Joe finding the ancient stone that connected him with Jack, who already had the ancient gene). I guess what I'm saying is I don't really consider Letters from Pegasus a clip show.
With that said, I liked the episode, but there were things where I wish were cut so we could have a bit longer at the SGC. I mean they bring Walter and Carter in for the final 30 seconds (And I've seen the complete season 8 of SG-1 to know that nothing about these letters will be expanded upon, or at least I don't remember them mentioning it other than saying Pegasus Galaxy) when I think they should have gotten at least 5 minutes. I think everything with Kavanagh should have been deleted from this episode, mainly because we've only seen him once and I wouldn't shed a tear if he was captured by the Wraith. I also think some of the stuff with Rodney lasted a bit too long, and the beginning of the episode where they are planning to record messages could have been cut a little too. What I did like though was Teyla having a conscience (I really liked her in this episode) even though I have a hard time believing that the military would condone stealing from children or not having humanitarian Aid. In fact I didn't like Sheppard in this episode that much. I also liked some of the messages, like Zalenka (I'm really starting to like him a lot) talking about Atlantis Rising in Russian and reacting to Security Clearence, or McKay's deal with Carter (I did laugh a few times) and the very poignant stuff from Weir. If this was a clip show, it was one of the better ones.
Also, I love the Wraith technology. I'm not as technology obsessed in these shows as some other people are (And that's perfectly fine) but those dart ships are really cool and the fleet that was shown at the beginning looked so horrifying. Also, the beams they use for the Culling is a really sweet effect.
