Underground (108)

[Ugly Pig]

I forgot to mention this earlier, but this ep had new establishing shots of Atlantis. Yay! Now if only someone would go and shoot some new stuff at Cheyenne Mountain...

[ShadowMaat]

I forgot to mention this earlier, but this ep had new establishing shots of Atlantis. Yay! Now if only someone would go and shoot some new stuff at Cheyenne Mountain...

Establishing new shots of Cheyenne Mountain is tricky 'cause of national security. New shots of Atlantis pose no such problems.

[Ugly Pig]

Establishing new shots of Cheyenne Mountain is tricky 'cause of national security.

Well, they were able to do it once...

[ShadowMaat]

Well, they were able to do it once...

Yeah, and the Air Force FREAKED OUT, MAN! hehehe. Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Gary Jones is a terrible influence.

[Mio]

Yeah, and the Air Force FREAKED OUT, MAN! hehehe. Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Gary Jones is a terrible influence.

Yes, being able to just click the 'render' button does have a few advantages....

[Major Fischer]

As has been pointed out, filming establishing shots of NORAD's headquarters in the current national security enviroment isn't likely. They arrested a kid around here for taking photographs of a nuclear plant from a distence for a school photography project.

Does remind me though of 1963's Seven Days in May (which has to be one of my favorite movies of all time), where they needed a shot of one of the characters entering the Pentagon. The DoD doesn't let film crews shot at that building (not than, not now, not likely ever), so to get it they had the film cameras set up in a station wagen and had Burt Lancaster dressed in a Marine uniform walk on up and into the building.

Thus the guards saluting were real marines thinking they were saluting a real colonel.

[jbrd79]

not sure if this was addressed i noticed it and not sure if anyone else did

before shepard and the others left teyla and the father of the blond (that genni fella who got shot by the wraith)
it looked to me as if he gave Colm Meaney. (Chief Miles Edward O'Brien)
the old Wraith memory stick thing,then while in the puddle jumper Colm Meaney switched it for the new one so the one the SGA team has is the old one that the genni already looked at so the genni do have the new memory stick thing

did any one else see that?

[jayeffaar]

not sure if this was addressed i noticed it and not sure if anyone else did

before shepard and the others left teyla and the father of the blond (that genni fella who got shot by the wraith)
it looked to me as if he gave Colm Meaney. (Chief Miles Edward O'Brien)
the old Wraith memory stick thing,then while in the puddle jumper Colm Meaney switched it for the new one so the one the SGA team has is the old one that the genni already looked at so the genni do have the new memory stick thing

did any one else see that?

There was no new memory stick. They brought the one they had with them so they could download the data from the wraith ship's computer into it. There was only one memory stick.

BTW, the wraith should have a chat with Sony engineers about making those memory sticks more compact...

[AsgardCarnage]

great ep, it still brings up the question how much stuff can u bring in 38minutes. obviusly food is the first limiting resource. i'm sure the acients would have something to make food. we need to see more of the city.

as to why didn't they hide the enterance better, the head genii guy said "our scientists said the radiation isn't harmfull at these levels" and i tend to belive mckay, so while they may be on the right track to makeing a A-bomb they jumped a few steps it seems like they missed the background work. they probebly couldn't detect the radiation so they thought the wraith could either.

they are going to fast for safty they just want a-bombs and quick they dont care about the other advantages that come with it

[ShadowMaat]

They didn't think they HAD to hide the entrance better. The barn was not on the proscribed route to the village, it was far off the path. I assume that a Genii usually accompanies new visitors until they're familiar enough with the route to make their own way to/from town. If Shep hadn't gotten them lost, Rodney would never have had to dig out his Everything Detector and picked up the radiation "leakage" which led them to the hatch.

[AlphaBlu]

Best. Episode. Of. Atlantis. Since. The. Pilot.

Hell this episode was better than most of Season 7 (again, not that that'd be hard, nearly half of Season 7 was just recycled Season 3 episodes).

I'm glad the writers are taking risks with Atlantis. The writers on SG1 spent most of the first season doing one-off stories. There weren't many over-riding arcs other than the Goa'uld and Pops' iminent attack, but most of the episodes were one-offs, mostly there to explain the universal constants, showcase each of the characters, and establish the mythos of the show. It wasn't until Season 2 where they really started introducing the running themes, such as the Tok'ra, the Asgard, more Goa'uld System Lords and so on.

Here, right away, not even half way through Season 1, we've already set up our next enemy beyond the Wraith, and we've established what a clear threat the Wraith present (60 ships, maybe more). Now there is a chance, with the upcomming Atlantis 2-Parter (The Storm & The Eye), that they could kill off this story line too quickly, but I'm hoping the Jeni will become a permanant fixture as running bad guys, especially with Colm Meany involved.

In case you didn't notice the none-too-subtle directing, Teyla is set up for a major fight with Sora.

Anyway, back to this episode. Everything about it was great. Every character got to do something, with only Ford dissapearing into the background occasionally. Weir was consistant, Sheppard was great, Teyla had lots to do and McKay... well, McKay was McKay. You can't fault McKay.

Also, this episode has the best one-liner yet from, yes, McKay:

"It's atomic readings in Amish-Land; your call!"

I think that tops "Listen, kiddies, everything you believe to be true is wrong and trust us because oh we've been here almost an hour!" from two weeks ago. I mean, McKay had a lot of good lines in that particular episode ("Of course it's different - veal is delicious" and "That's not quiet, that's talking!"), but the one from this episode wins out over those.

McKay was an absolute riot this week. If anyone's wondering why, when faced with guns and execution, McKay starts helping them it's because McKay never passes up an opportunity to show people how smart he is ("Did I mention that I know almost everything about almost everything?"). He'll help anyone if he can show them just how much smarter he is than everyone around him.

McKay rocks, and I still praise the writers for dumping the Ingram character and deciding to go with McKay instead.

Other than that it's hard to describe just how much I loved this episode. I REALLY hope that they don't destroy the plotline they've set up in The Storm & The Eye.

Anyway, I'll wrap this up. This gets 5.5/5. How is that possible? Simple, it's a 5/5 episode any episode that McKay is in (even if it's just the opening titles) gets +.5 points, so, again, 5.5/5 for that one.
BYE

[DarkQuee1]

'Fraid this was only OK for me again. Was there any real doubt that these 'allies" would prove unreliable? That the plan was useless? That someone else would get annoyed with us for waking the Wraith early?


Liked Sheppard and Weir. Ford is still a nonentity. Teyla was OK, but they haven't done enough with her.

McKay was a major annoyance. In SG-1, he was arrogant, sarcastic and really impressed with his own smarts (though we saw cracks in that in Redemption). Which made him minorly annoying. Here, he was downright stupid. Which made him majorly annoying. Does gate travel cause diarrhea of the mouth??I could not believe some of the things that said, apparently without thinking at all.

Liked the appearance of the two puddle jumpers at the end.

I still can't figure out what the Wraith are supposed to be. On an individual level, they are so powerful that defeating them seems impossible: they don't seem to age, when they feed they are practically unkillable and so on. But their tech doesn't seem that incredible: the puddle jumper could take the ships out, even an Earth ground weapon could take out a ship, we walk right onto a hive ship--no problems. I still can't see why they ever got close enough to the Ancients to "feed" on them; the Ancients tech seems way superior, and they should have been able to get onto everyone of the hive ships and take them out.

It seems very inconsistent at this point.

J.

[HIj'Qa]

My two cents here:

The bad--
1. Food shortage: Can anyone else picture the Ancients in overalls and driving a tractor to raise food? Didn't think so So instead of visiting other planets, shouldn't the team be exploring the city, looking for the Ancient's food "replicator"? It really would be nice to see a little more of the city than we have seen so far.

They should find little colored cubes, yellow, Thor's favorite, laying around and taste them so we can have a group spewing scene

And now for something completely different:
How did Sheppard and McKay get lost in the first place? A scene must have been cut for time. Everyone else is suffering through a Harvest Festival, but they're out getting lost to find the secret entrence to the Underground. Hmmm.
Sheppard and McKay, the anti-Kirk and Spock

[ToastBusters]

Slightly off topic, but what sg-1 ep was McKay in?

[Mio]

Slightly off topic, but what sg-1 ep was McKay in?

Redemption and 48 Hours.