Instinct (207)

[GateWorld]

ATLANTIS SEASON TWO INSTINCT EPISODE NUMBER - 207 The team discovers a young Wraith girl who has been raised by a human, and is in hiding from the people of her human village in fear of her life. VISIT THE EPISODE GUIDE >> SPOILERS! PHOTOS! AND MORE!

[Yashiv]

This episode was great, but so sad...BSG is such a chore to watch these days. Think I'll catch up on some zzzzz's

[Shivan]

My impressions on Instinct -

Stargate SG:1 left a bad taste in my mouth, I was watching SG:1 and the commercials to Atlantis while watching SG:1 had me more than psyched. For one, this is the first time I have been able to catch anything this season. I have been unable to watch the other episodes this season because we didn't have Sci-fi in the dorm room. But now I do. And Atlantis has grown on me, and it is still the same Atlantis. SG:1 is not the same SG:1.

So yeah, I was already psyched to return to the familiar faces of Atlantis, and wow. Was it worth it!

I was glued to the screen from start to finish, literally.

And the ending, what a cliffhanger.

I loved this episode!!!

[Yashiv]

Is it me or is the forums moving exceptionally slow these days?

[Shivan]

It's the forums... Or it might be ME AND YOU...

[Whatshername]

I didn't like this episode at all. It seemed...choppy, maybe? I guess it just didn't click. "Conversion" looks really interesting though.

[Shivan]

I don't understand why you didn't like it. It was somewhat predictable, until the last bit happened. But still, it was interesting and had me on the edge of my seat. And I just love every character on Atlantis.

What do you mean by choppy?

[not so ancient]

This ep was amazing to me. I'll certainly be watching it again, maybe even tonight if I can stay up late considering the insane hour I must get up.

Thoughts:

- I'm hungry to see some Weir development this season.
- Good moments for Teyla in this ep.
- Jewel Staite is amazing.
- If I were the villagers I would not be placated by Sheppard saying "Let us handle this."
- Is a little air out of McKay's balloon?
- I wish to God Carson would stop experimenting with retroviruses, enzymes, and other stuff. With the exception of the ancient gene innoculation, it doesn't end well. Granted what happened here was not his fault at all - I'm sure he brought the samples to test on freshly drawn blood or tissue, but really, it's just awful.
- Speaking of awful, the awful truth of Elia's diet was something I sort of suspected, but I liked the way it was unveiled.
- The relationship between the village elder and Elia's father - I suppose if I had been paying attention I would see that that line was dangled out there for a reason, but I was so caught up in the action that that revelation caught me by surprise.
- The tenderness of the relationship between Elia and her father was handled very well, which made the anguish all the more poignant.
- God - 2 weeks from now will be SO long to wait for what happens with Sheppard.

[GhostPoet]

This episode was sad... But I really enjoyed it. It felt like a very solid episode...great story, great characters. Man...I love Stargate

[AGateFan]

This was a good episode.

Sheppard was good.
Rodney was funny and good (not as slappable as last week)
Beckett was good
Teyla was good, and had a good explanation to Dex.
Dex was good, and its good that he wants to follow orders.
I actually liked the villagers, not sure why, just had a good feeling about them. Even after they talked about slaughtering the defenseless wraith (are there defensless wraith?)
The wraith girls fate was sad.
This was just part one of a 2 parter, so why didnt they just play it that way? It felt like a setup ep to me. Hope the payoff is good.
I thought for a few minutes we were going to get the solient green for wraith but they went a different way. Hmmm bilogical weapon, you set it off and all of the wraith turn into humans. Well unless it backfires and then they all turn into superwriath.

Good ep. B.

[Dr Weir]

Ooooh this is an ep I really want to see, but can't yet. Reading the posts here helps me cope! What happens to the girl? I was worried from spoilers that she dies, she doesn't does she?!!!

[Bobthespirit]

Hmm..not a bad episode, but a leeeetle too predictable.

You know, if the wraithe can only feed on humans, there must be something in human bodies that wraithe specifically need. I don't see why they don't just put massive amount of efforts into finding a way to synthesize that and just give it to the wraithe to reduce their motives to cull. They'd probably still do it because they're evil and monstrous, but they'd be less committed to doing it because they wouldn't need to.

It was a little unclear on whether Elia survived being shot.

[Dr Weir]

Originally Posted by Bobthespirit

Hmm..not a bad episode, but a leeeetle too predictable.

You know, if the wraithe can only feed on humans, there must be something in human bodies that wraithe specifically need. I don't see why they don't just put massive amount of efforts into finding a way to synthesize that and just give it to the wraithe to reduce their motives to cull. They'd probably still do it because they're evil and monstrous, but they'd be less committed to doing it because they wouldn't need to.

It was a little unclear on whether Elia survived being shot.

If she fed on a human (I hope she didn't!!!) then she probably would. That didn't happen did it?

[Shivan]

I was going to make a post asking that soon... I mean... I hope she didn't die. I'm a sap and want everything sincerely good to live. And she was, all up until the virus starting having that effect on her...

[prion]

I liked it, had some interesting twists and turns. Shep smacking McKay up the side of the head. Priceless! Dex talking to Teyla about Elia's table manners? Pot calling the kettle black!

Some good snatches of dialogue - sorry, exact dialogue escapes me right now except the hilarious Wraith puberty analogy that Sheppard made.

Nice setup for "Conversion." Darn, gotta wait two weeks.

McKay seemed out of it (as it not a single smile) throughout the episode. Wonder if he's still recovering from the monumental disaster he created in "Trinity."

[Dr Weir]

Originally Posted by Shivan

I was going to make a post asking that soon... I mean... I hope she didn't die. I'm a sap and want everything sincerely good to live. And she was, all up until the virus starting having that effect on her...

I want that too!! But she didn't hurt any1 did she?

[starfox]

When Carson and Elia's father were talking about the retrovirus, I couldn't help but think of Pinocchio: "I'm gonna be a real boy!"

I could see that the team hasn't forgotten the whole blowing up 5/6 of a solar system thing yet. There was a slight tension there. He had much less dialogue than usual, and I felt like Sheppard telling him to stay with Carson was a way of showing that McKay is nowhere near having Shep's trust back yet.
Considering that, oddly enough it was the moment where Sheppard smacked Rodney upside the head that seemed the most reminiscent of their old relationship. After all, you don't make a move like that with someone you don't know. It's the fact that Rodney didn't complain about it that showed that the relationship is still strained. I give the writers points there for realizing that less is more in this episode.

There was a scene where Rodney and Teyla were talking. They had dialouge! I never see that, and it made me happy. It made it feel like there was an actual team, not just Rodney and Sheppard, Sheppard and Teyla, Teyla and Ronan, and Sheppard and Ronon, if that makes any sense.

I wonder if Teyla is listed as Sheppard's official 2IC on the team. Probably not, since she's not technically military, but she's definitely fallen into the role.

I love how Sheppard made it an order for Ronon to stay with Teyla, and Ronon followed it. That little part made Ronon's military history seem more real to me. As we were shown in "Condemned", the man may be a loose canon, but he will follow a direct order. At least, he will until Teyla implies that orders don't always have to be followed. I wonder if that will come back to bite the team in the butt later on.

Okay, who else guessed that Elia had been feeding off of her father?
And that whole relationship...a shrink's field day.

Carson Beckett shooting Elia may very well have been my absolute favorite moment of the show. Oh, how I loved that. Someone obviously passed his field training with flying colors.
And him asking to go off-world. It just shows how important the discovery of Elia was to Atlantis, but it also showed a bit of character evolution, in my opinion. Carson used to be a bit of a scaredy-cat, but this shows that he's becoming more comfortable in his surroundings and more able to do what is necessary to further his research (going off-world) and to save lives (he saved Rodney by shooting Elia, although that was probably more of a reactionary thing).

Rodney McKay continues to be crappy with children.

Ronon and Sheppard taking out Elia together was a relationship-building moment for them, somewhat reminiscent of McKay and Sheppard in "The Defiant One." He's finding his place.

When Ronon knocked the platter out of Elia's hand and pulled the gun on her, and Teyla was the one who spoke to him about it, the whole battered woman discussion from the "Trinity" thread came back to me. Someone beat that idea out of my brain, please. I don't want it there, I could have analyzed that moment as a show of Teyla's people skills, but the ghosts of last weeks conversation were floating in my head. Help, please.

Some of the lines written for Sheppard fell rather flat, but I still like his character and the way Flanigan plays him, so I'm gonna blame the writers for that one.

And...that's all for now.

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

One of the best episode of the season.
You know McKay isn't really nice to children.
I don't really like Ronon, I noticed that when he pulled his weapon on Ellia.

[Shivan]

Starfox is one of those good, dedicated, and loyal Stargate fans who takes notes while watching.

Let's give him a pat on the back.

[MarshAngel]

This episode was simply OK. It wasn't thrilling but it was nice knowing a bit more about the Wraith.
It was a little difficult for me to accept that Beckett had already come so far in his knowledge of Wraith and their makeup that he could create a virus that could do so much in such a short time and it seemed rather convenient that he'd have someone to test it on who'd let him do his work. This idea could have been set back further on into the series.
McKay was so much easier to handle this time around. He didn't annoy me for even a fraction of a second.
It's amusing that Ronan is so obedient; apparently he's got the whole 'follow orders' bit down much more than Shephard ever has.

What I did appreciate about this episode though is its ultimate point; A Wraith can't stop being a Wraith even if they wanted to. I don't know that they needed to stress the point that there is no peaceful easy solution but it certainly didn't hurt to have it confirmed again.