Before I Sleep (115)

[SmartFox]

I got a question. When old Weir gives Mckay the list of gate addresses doesnt he say something about them already going to one of those planets. Does anyone know which one it is, im guessing its the world from Childhood's End.

[GatetheWay]

That would be my guess too. It is the only other planet they have gone to in the Atlantis show so far that has had a ZPM.

[Draco_Astreus]

I got a question. When old Weir gives Mckay the list of gate addresses doesnt he say something about them already going to one of those planets. Does anyone know which one it is, im guessing its the world from Childhood's End.

Yep, it's M7G-677 (I like the pegasus planet code thing, hehe), which is the world from Childhood's End.

[Dr. Weir's Hair Gel]

Did anybody notice that in the first ep of Atlantis, Dr. Weir did not use me in her hair, but in the alternate timeline, 10k Weir DID use me in her hair?

So the reason that the alternate Atlantis team was destroyed was because Dr. Weir used me in her hair before gating from the Milky Way.

Love,
All-Powerful Hair Gel

[Easter Lily]

Did anybody notice that in the first ep of Atlantis, Dr. Weir did not use me in her hair, but in the alternate timeline, 10k Weir DID use me in her hair?

So the reason that the alternate Atlantis team was destroyed was because Dr. Weir used me in her hair before gating from the Milky Way.

Love,
All-Powerful Hair Gel

No, I didn't... but thank you for bringing it to our attention... I don't want Weir losing sleep thinking that we didn't care about her hair gel.

Weir's gel must be quite a powerful formula seeing that it surfs the internet... it probably contains the Ancient gene...

[OhForCryinOutLoud]

Did anybody notice that in the first ep of Atlantis, Dr. Weir did not use me in her hair, but in the alternate timeline, 10k Weir DID use me in her hair?

So the reason that the alternate Atlantis team was destroyed was because Dr. Weir used me in her hair before gating from the Milky Way.

Love,
All-Powerful Hair Gel

APHG! All Hail! Yes - that was an important difference that was not even mentioned. Maybe if 10K Rodney had borrowed some of you, he could have thought of a solution, and avoided his own destruction?

[GatetheWay]

I didn't notice till I read Gateworld's episode analysis but alternate timeline Rodney called the Puddle Jumper bay the Gateship bay.

[Wandering Tamer]

This was an amazing episode. It's one of those time travelling eps that will set the precident like "Cause and Effect" did in ST:TNG. If you watch SciFi, there will eventually be episodes like this out there. Trust me.

[Draco_Astreus]

I didn't notice till I read Gateworld's episode analysis but alternate timeline Rodney called the Puddle Jumper bay the Gateship bay.

LOL!! That's cool, you know they had to do that.

[GatetheWay]

LOL!! That's cool, you know they had to do that.

I wonder if its going to be an on-going joke through out a couple of seasons in both Atlantis and SG-1. If you've seen Moebius you'll know what I mean.

[Bastet11191967]

While this was not an action-oriented episode, I enjoyed watching it. Weir trying to adjust to the idea of an alternate version of herself was interesting.

[Klorel]

As did I.

[SeaBee]

This is a very rare episode for me. An story involving time travel that doesn't end in a paradox.

I think this is one of my fave eps.

[Uber]

Before I Sleep is the episode that drew me into Atlantis and forced be to backtrack and watch the entire season with a new perspective.

I did, of course, watch Rising and the first few eps thereafter...but really was not compelled by what I saw. And slowly I stopped watching altogether.

Then I saw Before I Sleep and it added rich layers of dimension to characters I had foolishly written off as being two-dimensional.

First off, the production staff did a beautiful job blending in scenes from Rising. The transitions from the reality we knew from Rising to the reality that existed the first time they arrived in Atlantis was seemless.

The premise of the story intrigued me...but then, I'm always a sucker for alternate timeline stories. Usually they give some insight into how Character A would have turned out if the events that shaped their lives and mindset over the course of years or decades were different than what we know. Take Carter, for instance. The Carter of Moebius had neither the Air Force nor the Stargate program and consequently didn't have the same grounding from either source that our Carter enjoys.

But Before I Sleep doesn't go back years or decades and says "what if X were changed"...instead it shows that the same Weir and McKay that we knew and either loved or loathed in Stargate SG-1 and propels them into a catastrophic WHAT IF scenario that gives a new perspective to Rising and new insight into their characters.

Take Rodney McKay for starters. This guy...who I loved to hate as Carter's incredibly obnoxious foil in 48 Hours and Redemption. All I had seen in him was a character so self-involved and irritating to the point that I wanted to scratch my eyes out...in a good way of course...meaning, I enjoyed being annoyed by him. But in Before I Sleep, his self-sacrifice to save the lives of the others in the expedition...people he barely knew...gave me a brand new perspective of his character. He may have thought of himself as someone who'd put his life and well-being above others, but clearly when push came to shove, he showed what he was truly made of. So while he's still irritating on OH so many levels, his egocentric ways are now much more amusing because we know at his core he is made of tougher stuff.

Then of course, there's the true focus of the episode...Elizabeth Weir. I'll confess right here and now that initially I found her to be very plastic and uninteresting...but just like with McKay, Before I Sleep gave us a chance to look inside and catch a glimpse into what makes her tick. She's a true hero in every sense of the word...willing to sacrifice her life for those she had only gotten to know while preparing for the expedition to give the future team a chance...one that she herself never had.

The advice she gave to her younger self was so dead on...but then, older Weir had a little more time to ponder such things. Hopefully Weir will take her words to heart...to not be too hard on herself and to enjoy the journey.

What I was truly impressed with is that I never got the sense that the older Weir regretted the sacrifice...never mourned the fact that she would never experience any of the wonders her younger self would enjoy. She was truly at peace with the fact that someone named Elizabeth Weir was going to explore the galaxy with the team that she saved by her selfless actions over thousands of years.

I hope we get to learn more about her character and I'm delighted to say that I'm truly excited about next season and the future of Atlantis.

[golfbooy]

OK, I'll easily agree with the sentiment that Before I Sleep is one of the better SGA episodes this season. It was an engaging story, character driven, and a chance for Torri Higginson to finally get a bit of the spotlight. But I'm still in the dark as to the character development people see in the episode.

Granted, Weir is the central focus of Before I Sleep, but what exactly does everyone see that is different about her when things are said and done? Sure, our Weir has met herself, heard her story about how everyone died, and watched herself die after a 10,000 year long mission. But I still don't see how our Weir is different. What have we learned? What took place that changed her?

What we saw was our Weir sitting around like everyone else. The experience of listening to and meeting herself must have been more meaningful to our Dr. Weir than everyone else, and was most likely even a bit cathartic. But I didn't see that while watching the episode. We didn't learn anything from the elder Weir's story we didn't know beforehand. We heard the story of how she took on the mission to Atlantis, which we saw our own Weir do. They both accepted the risks involved, they both took the chance of things not turning out well. In one case they didn't, in one case they did. But the act itself is in no way enlightening. We saw the elder Weir interact, argue before, and attempt to negotiate with the Ancients she met in her past. But that too is neither surprising nor revelationary. It's exactly the same thing which we'd expect our Dr. Weir to do in similar circumstances. And that the elder Weir took on the burden of remaining in Atlantis, of saving her future self and the future Atlantis expedition is also completely on par with our expectations for the character. We already knew that Weir would sacrifice herself for her friends and team.

I don't know, maybe it's me, but the whole time I was watching this episode I was waiting for one scene, one act, one conversation which would show our Elizabeth Weir struggling with or reacting to or at least being freaked out by watching herself die. I was waiting for one act in the past by the elder Weir which might foreshadow future choices or future conflicts to come for our Dr. Weir. But it seemed like, at least to me, that Dr. Weir was more excited about learning the possible locations of a few ZPMs than about interacting with another version of herself. Isn't that a little strange?

Perhaps I've come to expect too much from similar episodes in Stargate history. Where is the equivilent of Teal'c shooting himself in Point of View? What about one meaningful look, such as Carter watching her alternate self kiss O'neill in the same episode? How about a conversation like O'neill has with his robot self at the end of Double Jeopardy? In all of these instances we learn something about the characters as they learn about themselves, or we learn about what we can come to expect from them in the future. I didn't get any development like that from Before I Sleep.

This is me asking for someone to illuminate me. I want the character growth to be there, especially for Weir. I don't want to miss it. So, tell me what you think. I'm not one who's easily swayed, but please, prove me wrong.