Mostly Stargate ep stuff...

[newnumber6]

So today I had work. Nothing of note to report about work itself, but before work I was lying in bed thinking about a dream I had (it was about Veronica Mars. All I can remember of it _now_ was that Veronica borrowed my keys for a second and then when she gave them back I made sure to ask for the wax imprint she made off them so she could make a copy just in case, and then when she gave that up, to ask for the backup wax imprint she made in case I busted her on the first one, and she gave that up too). Anyway, I turned over to look at the clock to see how long I had before I had to get up, figuring it was probably about a half hour or so and I couldn't get back to sleep too deeply unfortunately. I noticed it was 5 minutes _after_ I should have left. Somehow my alarm (the TV) either didn't turn on, or it turned on and somehow in my sleep I shut it right off again. Anyway, I had to bolt out of bed, get dressed, brush my teeth and comb my hair quickly, then leave and run as much as I could on the way to work. Made it without being too late.

Also went to see my grandma today, she made roast beef and greek potatoes and rice. Mmmmmmmmm. + garden fresh salad.

Thoughts on Stargate SG1's 200th episode and the new Atlantis ep behind the cut. Big spoilers. Also a couple icons, cause I couldn't resist.


Stargate was '200', the 200th episode, and they went with humor. Now, normally I'm not too fond of it when a SF show that has its fair share of funny moments in _every_ episode, goes deliberately for an all humor episode. Often it winds up being painful (see any Ferengi episode in DS9). But I figured, it's their 200th episode, I'll indulge them. But it turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun, poking fun at itself, and showing lots of little 'alternate takes' on Stargate.

Oh, and I had to admit, they totally got me with the Furlings bit. I was thinking, 'What? Did they skip an episode or something? Or was it so bad I blanked it out?". The shoutout to Farscape was great too, and the 'missing episode' they referred to where Jack was invisible was a hoot. I thought the Thunderbirds SG1 went on a little too long, but it was all worth it for the gag at the end.

Finally, although it was great to see Walter get to go through the gate for this one, why not Siler? The actor gets to be fake-electrocuted (again) but doesn't get invited through the gate?

Some quick Icons!:


Atlantis was 'The Real World', using the hoary old SFTV plot of 'everything in the series has just been a delusion!... or HAS IT?'

I've seen it too many times to really be impressed. Now, a lot of times when Stargate does this kind of plot, they manage to put a new twist on it or otherwise make it a very good episode despite the reused plot (like with the Time Loop ep).

This one, though? Gah. Nothing really new or inventive (I mean, sure, seeing General O'Neill was cool, but beyond that), not even really all that interesting, and some of my worst fears about the new replicator threat confirmed - they've already dumbed down the threat. Remember how I said they were hard to keep up as an ongoing threat, because you can only defeat them so many times before it starts looking stupid? Well, here we are, at the stupid. Dr. Weir defeats an infestation of replicating nanites... by WILLPOWER ALONE! Woo. Oh, and the power of positive thinking, too. 'You can't defeat me!' 'Oh well I'll just walk right through you and once I hit the Stargate, I win!' WTF? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

One of the few episodes of the series that I actually AM just going to try to forget entirely.

Comments

[fiddlersgreen.livejournal.com]

I've kind of lost track of both series since I no longer have cable, but...gah. They brought the Replicators back *again*?

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Well... sort of. The regular replicators, the ones that plagued the Asgard, are pretty much done with. But in the Pegasus galaxy (with Atlantis) they discovered a group of seeming Ancients, that turned out to actually be, basically, humanform replicators. They were created by the ancients as weapons against the Wraith, and although the exact connection hasn't been stated, it's suggested they may have been precursors to the original replicators. Now these Atlantis-ones (I think they're called Asurians) are somewhat different - so far they seem to have have no innate urge to replicate throughout the galaxy as quickly as possible. They have spaceflight but for the most part have been hunkering down on their little world, and some of them are even interested in Ascension, although others are all hate-on for anything Ancient (hence the conflict). So at least there's a little bit of room for differing motivations hurting their effectiveness as an overwhelming villain. But the ending of the threat in this episode was still dumb.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

and by 'original replicators' I mean the ones that appeared originally on SG1, since obviously these ones would have been the 'original' ones if anyone is.

[fiddlersgreen.livejournal.com]

That's...interesting. Since I thought the Replicators already *had* an origin. (Created by that robot girl and got hideously out of control.)

Then again, I never much liked the human-form replicators anyway. They were a whole hell of a lot scarier when they were inscrutable seemingly non-sentient spider-things.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they did have some sort of origin, which is another reason it kinda bugs me. I mean, I suppose they _could_ work around it by saying the technology to create robogirl was looted from an ancient database or something (remember, they say the directive to 'replicate at all costs' came from Robo-girl, rather than from the ancients. Ancient tech might also explain how they got from Robo-Girl's home to the Asgard galaxy, instead of just eating up the Milky Way, which IIRC has never been satisfactorily explained). They also theoretically _could_ say that they're just sort of parallel evolution of the same idea (we never saw any of the spidery replicators with the new ones IIRC), but that would be ultra lame IMHO because they both did the 'stick your hand into people's brain to read their mind' trick in the exact same way.

And I agree on the humanform replicators too. It was nice to see an ongoing alien threat that was truly _alien_ both in form and mind (they were certainly intelligent, but it was a completely goal-driven intelligence). But then they ran out of ideas and had to make them humanlike. But at least for the most part after the first episode with that they just used it to have a human 'king' or 'queen', rather than whole teams of humanform replicators hanging about.

[lizrocks.livejournal.com]

Haha. I'm *totally* snagging the first icon. I watched the ep. about 2 minutes ago and the entire Furlings 'previously' just about killed me. I was just waiting for it to end so I could look it up on Wiki to find out what episode it was and download it.

Haven't seen the Atlantis ep. yet but I can't say I'm too surprised it didn't turn out well. The best on I've seen was the BtVS episode 'Normal Again' but that's mostly because it created a new AU to write about.