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    Who else hated this episode? Supremely badly written?

    NOTE: For those who aren't aware, "OK" means "Neutral", neither good nor bad.

    Hear me out before flaming me and neg-repping me. I didn't really mind it too much after having just finished watching the episode, I just had a few things bothering me. But as I mulled them over (and discussed them here on the boards), the small things grew into big things and more things were added up.

    I personally find this one to be a supremely badly written (and finalized) episode. You heard me, PTB, it was shoddily written.

    The most glaring stupidities were (in chronological order).
    The Fist Bump: Yes, the fist bump. Yes, I know some of you guys don't find it objectionable, but think it over. First, what was the fist bump for? It was obviously an "Alright! 4 hot ladies!"-fist bump. They wouldn't have done that had that been 4 men. Or 4 ugly women. Yes, fraternization was out of the question for John, but for him (and I'd guess Carson), it was probably just a "Ouh, I'll get to oogle hot chicks all day!"-thing.

    Now, according to Joe Mallozzi's blog, it was not in the script. Joe Flanigan (John) and Paul McGillion (Carson) ad libbed it. So boo them, I guess. But that doesn't absolve the PTB. The writer(s), producer(s) and everyone else involved in post... apparently none of them found it objectionable enough to remove.

    It's not like it wasn't noticeable. You saw it right away. Why did it slip through? Let's see... a bunch of straight, white middle-agish men. It's no wonder the women on the show come in mostly 3 flavours; Man in women's clothing (Written just like any male character), Damsel in distress (self-explanatory) or Tough Warrior Chick (also self-explanatory).

    In other words, IMO, the staff needs more diversity, more people to tell them "Wait, that won't fly" and "Wait, these and these people will find that objectionable" and stuff.

    The Chest Pounding: At the end there, John went all chauvinistic (in my eyes). Suddenly, he had a brilliant plan. And it was brilliant, no matter what anyone else had to say! Major Teldy tried helping by pointing out that plan could've gone wrong and that they should work out a backup plan or a "just-in-case" scenario but John was awfully snippy all of a sudden.

    He wouldn't even let her finish her sentence. No, his plan was perfect. Nothing could go wrong! He's the man, he's in charge and the womenfolk should shut the hell up and be nice like women and hang back.

    What happens? He ends up almost dying and only surviving because Carson happened to wander by and help him. Nice going there, John.

    This fails because even the John fans will dislike his behavior this episode. All of a sudden he's as immature as a teenager despite having turned 40 (we're assuming).

    The Stupidity: And then there's the blatant stupidity. OK, what did Dr. Porter tell John? "[It]'ll draw them right to you".

    What would anyone with half a brain do if they had a tablet which would emit an ultrasonic burst which would immediately start drawing 9 crazed killers to them? They'd friggin' set the charge of C4 before activating that damn tablet.

    No, really, there was no good reason for him to activate that tablet first! None. Unless he, somehow though the creatures wouldn't get there within 5 minutes (which would be a BS reason since it'd buy him only a few seconds).

    Let's see, creaky well with a creaky crank. What do I do? Well, first, I crank the bucket all the friggin' way up, making as much noise as I can just for the sake of it (you not just get it within reach so you easily grab it by reaching for a bit or gently drop the tablet, nooooo, that's not enough. Waste as much time and make as much noise as possible.

    Then, you activate the thing that'll immediately start drawing the enemy to you (and you're friggin' dead if an enemy is close by). Then you set the charge. No, John. That's what someone with an IQ which strives to be three digit would do. You're supposedly the military commander of Atlantis, has 4 and a half years of field experience in Pegasus and was smart enough to get into MENSA.

    (Minor stupidities:
    "Oh, you look pretty harmless, you can go." - So he behaved suspiciously by following you guys around, sneaking around in the shadows and seemed jumpy. But you'll just let him go, no questions asked. Hmmmm...)

    IrishPaisano has compiled a list of minor to major stupidities for you here.


    Horrendous writing all in all. The small things add up and all of the sudden, the episode sunk in my eyes from a pretty good episode to below "good". It's not as bad as "Irresistible"... don't get me wrong. But it's bad.

    So what do you guys think? BTW, poll requested.
    164
    Very Good
    12.80%
    21
    Good
    17.07%
    28
    OK
    23.17%
    38
    Bad
    18.29%
    30
    Horrendous
    28.66%
    47
    Last edited by FallenAngelII; 08 September 2008, 06:09 PM.




    #2
    here are my running thoughts from the episode

    1. Another one of Michael's labs... with another of Michael's human-hybrid experiments that's gone awry.... Snooze... reminds me of that episode a while back, season 2 maybe, that had creatures that looked like Samiel from Hellboy

    2. An all female team? i'll buy it...

    3. The commander of all military forces in Atlantis does not know there's an all female team? yeah, uhm, that's total BS... there's no conceivable way in hell that a team would be assembled under Sheppard's command without him knowing about it.

    4. Since when do they salute in the field? last i checked with the military, you don't salute in the field... that way you don't give away to your enemy who the people in charge are...

    5. Sheppard is brought into a situation without being fully briefed on it? no knowledge of the village, lack of functionality of a jumper? again, bs... unless they found the village whilst sheppard was in transport...

    6. they find one of Michael's labs, and given their past history, Sheppard does not bring his lead scientist with him, nor an assault team as backup?

    7. Beckett learns that the ppl in pods are hybrids of humans, iratus bugs, and several other creatures, and they do not call for backup... given SGA's history of events in Michael's labs.... just in case?

    8. Vega scoffs at Merillus's claim about demons in the mist... and yet she travelled through an intergalactic wormhole to Atlantis and has had contact or knowledge of the wraith? hmm...

    9. Merillus lets loose ALL of the hybirds, and Sheppard and the Major leave him behind... UNATTENDED?

    10. Beckett running, albeit breifly, was chock full of bad cinematography...

    11. missing a person........ and no Life Signs Detector? you figure those would be standard equipment for each team by now...

    12. seemed like a very watered down version of one of the crappy "horror" films of the last 8 yrs...
    Colonel Jack O'Neill: So what's your impression of Alar?
    Teal'c: That he is concealing something.
    Colonel Jack O'Neill: Like what?
    Teal'c: I am unsure. He is concealing it.

    Comment


      #3
      All the badly written stuff outweighs the good. Horrendous.

      EDIT: I love JF and PM too much to give them bad marks. Still, it should have been edited out in post.

      Comment


        #4
        Feel free to vote in the poll I've got up about the writing of the this episode. I'll link to this thread in the OP since these were all minor stupidities that together add to form a suckfest.



        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by FallenAngelII View Post
          Feel free to vote in the poll I've got up about the writing of the this episode. I'll link to this thread in the OP since these were all minor stupidities that together add to form a suckfest.
          yeah, they were minor, and one or two i can ignore like the lack of backup, bc... well... SG1 always ran into trouble headfirst without backup...

          but the bad cinematography after a sum total of 14 season of SG is inexcusable...

          and the all female team... they took specific note of it being all female, and then failed to tie it into the plot at all... failed to explain it beyond having the Major simply being passively sexist... i would have preferred had they not pointed it out at all and just let them be like any other SG team...

          i mean you never heard anyone in season 1 say, "my god, sheppard, your team is all men..."

          why draw attention to something that shouldn't have attention drawn to it? are the writers stil so antiquated and steeped in 1960s civil rights that they need to say, "look at us, we're politically correct" ?

          that's like saying on September 18, 2001, "my god, the Twin Towers are gone!"

          wtf is with some ppl?
          Colonel Jack O'Neill: So what's your impression of Alar?
          Teal'c: That he is concealing something.
          Colonel Jack O'Neill: Like what?
          Teal'c: I am unsure. He is concealing it.

          Comment


            #6
            no flaming...ITA.
            Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by IrishPisano View Post
              yeah, they were minor, and one or two i can ignore like the lack of backup, bc... well... SG1 always ran into trouble headfirst without backup...
              I only meant they were minor and thus I didn't feel like blowing them up as huge bulletin points among my major BS-points of the episode (you will see that I've made 3 major points and one minor).

              Originally posted by IrishPisano View Post
              but the bad cinematography after a sum total of 14 season of SG is inexcusable...
              And two movies.

              Originally posted by IrishPisano View Post
              and the all female team... they took specific note of it being all female, and then failed to tie it into the plot at all... failed to explain it beyond having the Major simply being passively sexist... i would have preferred had they not pointed it out at all and just let them be like any other SG team...
              Yeah, that was just stupid. And then they had Vargas randomly die because she was just looking the wrong way. I mean, she didn't get to actually do anything.

              Originally posted by IrishPisano View Post
              i mean you never heard anyone in season 1 say, "my god, sheppard, your team is all men..."
              Well, he had Teyla. But Lorne's team has always been all male, IIRC.

              Originally posted by IrishPisano View Post
              why draw attention to something that shouldn't have attention drawn to it? are the writers stil so antiquated and steeped in 1960s civil rights that they need to say, "look at us, we're politically correct" ?
              Because the writers like to remind us of what kind of a teenage quasi-sexist frat boy type John is once in a while.



              Comment


                #8
                I have to disagree, the episode was far from bad. It was not the greatest, but it was entertaining for what it was.
                sigpic

                Comment


                  #9
                  P.O.D. Piece of DooDoo (IMO)

                  I was thinking, I missed "PSYCH" for this???
                  Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    i didn't notice the Obama-bump... oh well...


                    2. Sheppard having the grand plan, to me, was not chauvinistic... but rather it was indicative of his being the tip of the spear against the wraith in Pegasus continually for almost 5 years now... he is THE military field commander of Atlantis Command, so for him to have the grand plan makes sense...

                    and he SHOULD have the plan, bc, as pointed out, he's the Commanding Officer of all military personnel on assignment in Atlantis...

                    to have him NOT come up with the plan... is like having General Patton not come up with a plan of attack for Sicily in WW2... or not having Petraeus be the planner for actual on-the-ground operations in Iraq...


                    what SHOULD have happened, was that whoever was in charge of the field team at that point should have had some input, or at least an idea... hell the SERGEANT should have said SOMETHING... sergeants are not called "non commissioned OFFICERS" for nohting...


                    i guess the reason they didn't bring Ronon along was that between him and Sheppard they could have taken every single hybird out of commission in 20 minutes... i mean if Ronon and Teal'C can overrun an already overrun Stargate Command, then Ronon can handle 20 hybrids....

                    but alas, there was a backfiring sexist agenda at play here...

                    seriously, how does everyone feel about seeing a specifically sexist team assembled of seemingly strong capable women and then watch them completely fall apart towards the end?

                    i'm a guy, and quite frankly, i despise the writers for how they handled the sexist aspects of the episode... no need to draw specific attention to them being all women... and no need to make any Stargate Military team completely inept in the field... my god, they do not get chosen for THE MOST TOP SECRET assignment in the entire world like they're deploying to Iraq... the ppl being chosen for the Stargate program should be the most capable and elite personnel in the world - save for Navy SEALs and Delta, we need them on earth fighting bad guys here... but everyone else really should be elite... and more than capable of handling 20 some odd blind creatures...

                    SGA completely lost "writing for military" credibility in my eyes a long time ago, and the complete travesty that was Samantha Carter in SGA, and then this episode pretty much locked it up for me...


                    at least next week when
                    Spoiler:
                    Teyla becomes a queen
                    is back on track with the storyarc for SGA

                    granted it IS a ripoff of when Daniel became a prior...
                    Colonel Jack O'Neill: So what's your impression of Alar?
                    Teal'c: That he is concealing something.
                    Colonel Jack O'Neill: Like what?
                    Teal'c: I am unsure. He is concealing it.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Briangate78 View Post
                      I have to disagree, the episode was far from bad. It was not the greatest, but it was entertaining for what it was.
                      +1 seeing hot girls I found that to be entertaining

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Chevron Atlantis View Post
                        +1 seeing hot girls I found that to be entertaining
                        So guys... you know when I talk about the female team being there for sex appeal?


                        Case and point.


                        "Five Rounds Rapid"

                        sigpic

                        Comment


                          #13
                          This was in my opinion the WORST episodes of SGA! It was mostly NEW characters...Definitely sexist, I missed the fist bump, but still... Can you say FILLER EPISODE? It was hardy Stargate Atlantis at all. Just crappy horror show!

                          "Yes Rodney, I shot you, and I said I was sorry!" ~Sheppard
                          (one of my favourite lines)

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by lacka1986 View Post
                            This was in my opinion the WORST episodes of SGA! It was mostly NEW characters...Definitely sexist, I missed the fist bump, but still... Can you say FILLER EPISODE? It was hardy Stargate Atlantis at all. Just crappy horror show!
                            Now, now, I wouldn't say the worst. Among the worst quite possibly and probably...



                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by FallenAngelII View Post
                              Now, now, I wouldn't say the worst. Among the worst quite possibly and probably...
                              You're right but still terrible. I was all excited to watch it and it was a complete letdown!

                              "Yes Rodney, I shot you, and I said I was sorry!" ~Sheppard
                              (one of my favourite lines)

                              Comment

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