The Hive (211)

[MartoufMarty]

I just saw the episode! I'm so behind on my TV watching, forgive me

The episode was great... but with flaws... The scene between the Wraith spy and John went on for a little long, and Rodney's recovery was a little too quick.

John and the clown talk. That was so great. I hear ya, John!

Rodney made me laugh at the beginning, and the scenes with Beckett were sad.

This was probably said before, but I don't exactly feel like reading back seven pages... anyone else think that Beckett is a recovering addict of... something?

C'mon, 'I have an inkling'?

[Lightsabre]

This was probably said before, but I don't exactly feel like reading back seven pages... anyone else think that Beckett is a recovering addict of... something?

C'mon, 'I have an inkling'?

Yup, that was my feeling. JUst from his body language and the way he said it, I'd guess he's beaten an addiction to something.
It'd be strange that something like that didn't bar him from the Atlantis expedition tho. Maybe it's not a matter of record???

[MartoufMarty]

Yup, that was my feeling. JUst from his body language and the way he said it, I'd guess he's beaten an addiction to something.
It'd be strange that something like that didn't bar him from the Atlantis expedition tho. Maybe it's not a matter of record???

*shrug*

Who knows? He's a good doctor, and it could have been along time ago. And more than likely it wasn't on the record...

[Cynicat]

There are a few theories bouncing around about that:

- Beckett has had personal experience with some form of addiction
- Beckett has treated addicts in the past
- Beckett has seen a friend/family member go through withdrawal
- watcher652's theory that Beckett was drawing a parallel between Mckay's physical pain, and the emotional pain he was feeling because of what McKay was saying. (personally, I quite like this theory - it's cool)
- It was just a doctor-y thing to say to a patient. Empathy, and all that.

Take your pick, mix'n'match, or come up with new ones

[SGalisa]

Originally posted by Ouroboros:
Shooting the panel to keep guys out like in star wars is one thing and makes sense but shooting it to make the door open...

Originally posted by Yeade:
It's a sci-fi convention and, like the drug withdrawal, I think the audience, to a certain extent, expects it.

Of course we do!
Most average viewers have been *conditioned* into expecting it!

I do think it doesn't work for most (super-negative) nit-picky viewers, because it's either part of their own choice in preferences; or they have grown into becoming bored with such anticipated escapes, etc., and therefore now don't like the same thing done twice, even if it's done as a variation and/or by different characters on different shows.

Originally posted by CYBEREAGLE19:
all in all sounds like a great episode, heres my thing though, how is shep able to fly a dart without the computer to translate everything for him?

Originally posted by Yeade:
...I don't mind that Sheppard can work Wraith tech so easily, per se. It's more the lack of any explanation or, indeed, even questions about this ability that gets to me. Though even this depends ultimately on how the Wraith tech works. If it works on anything like the mental/emotional interface of Ancient tech, I'm going to need something more about why Sheppard can do what he can. Ask yourself this: If Sheppard's amazingly steep and largely intuitive learning curve with Ancient tech can be attributed to a combination of his mindset and his magic ATA gene, what then can Sheppard's equally boggling use of Wraith tech be attributed to?

...interesting situation... Possible answer?
Residual DNA or whatever was leftover/imbedded into him from the Iratus bug/Ellia's Wraith gene codes. It's not 100% certain from "Conversion" that those scaled bug cells on Sheppard's arm were merely absorbed into becoming part of his own genetic make-up or disappeared completely.

Originally posted by AutumnDream:
I think his "conversion" left him with a little "gift" of his own.

I think you're right...

also, as (AutumnDream) already hinted to (this as) a possible answer:

He's like James Bond, he can pilot anything.... He's just less British and more Earthling/Ancient/Wraith, and that makes "the answer to everything" all the more valid.

Not referring to the James Bond stuff here (but thought all that was cute, too)...

When I saw *Wraith* as part of the quote, I thought "No Way!"
But then I thought of what someone else mentioned in the Conversion thread - (paraphrasing) that the wound/mark Elia inflicted into Sheppard "might come back to haunt him" somehow in a future ep or eps, it makes perfect sense - provided if that *is* what actually happened.

I personally find it difficult to believe the Iratus/Wraith DNA is completely gone from his system, unless Beckett created a Dr. McCoy (Star Trek) cure.

Plus, even tho I have to wait with the January folks to actually see this episode, if the Iratus/Wraith enzyme didn't help Shep fly the dart as ancient tech works (just move his hand over something or *think* about it), it's very possible Shep might have memorized some of the control mechanisms, if there were any. He only got locked out in The Lost Boys, because the dart's automated system took over and overrode all manual commands, and Shep pressed the rematerization switch - while arguing with (R2) the dart, and flying blind (without previous detailed knowledge) on a runway ramp he didn't know was going to suddenly drop off with holes in between and change shape and direction.

Yeade, *thank you* for the photo detail of Shep with the controls inside the dart! It does seem to reinforce the ancient tech merged Wraith theory with Shep having a psychic link to the dart because of the Iratus bug/Wraith genes.

lily, I agree with you... (also) please check your PM box.

[Agent_Dark]

This was probably said before, but I don't exactly feel like reading back seven pages... anyone else think that Beckett is a recovering addict of... something?

C'mon, 'I have an inkling'?

Hmm, I could possibly see that but he is a medical doctor after all. My initial assumption was that he had experience dealing with recovering addicts in the past (family even maybe).

Though if you were to make a case strong enough that he did have a past addiction, then I might be able to buy it

[MartoufMarty]

Hmm, I could possibly see that but he is a medical doctor after all. My initial assumption was that he had experience dealing with recovering addicts in the past (family even maybe).

Though if you were to make a case strong enough that he did have a past addiction, then I might be able to buy it

C'mon, character development... angst

It's not just what he said. Like someone else said it was basically how he said it.

[MartoufMarty]

There are a few theories bouncing around about that:

- Beckett has had personal experience with some form of addiction

I'm sticking with that one

[Lightsabre]

Hmm, I could possibly see that but he is a medical doctor after all. My initial assumption was that he had experience dealing with recovering addicts in the past (family even maybe).

Though if you were to make a case strong enough that he did have a past addiction, then I might be able to buy it

I guess it'd be pretty arrogant to say "I know what you are going through" when you haven't been through it yourself.
Plus, watch the scene again.
McKay says 'You have NO idea what I'm going through' and Beckitt gets this sad/knowing look on his face and say, 'oh I have an inkling'.
That doesn't sound like second hand knowledge to me, it sounds like he's been there and knows how it feels intimately.
But, that's just my read of the situation.

[Jeffer]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Clowns


the come in VWs we fight them off but they just keep sending them in


Awesome ep

[Jeffer]

ok this is to all the ppl that said everything good was convenient or happened at the right time what did you expect the deady to get blown up and the main team to be killed and sure we didn't get some explanations as to the Queen and the Hives fighting but give it time wait till the end of the season before you start ranting about plot lines not explored or Q's not answered......in Sg-1 (and I hate to bring this up but) the first time The Furlings were mentioned ppl didn't start ranting who are they what’s going on with them.......so give it time and see how the story develops before you complain about stuff not being explained cause its only one 40min ep

[AutumnDream]

Let's just pray that the brilliant continuity displayed in Season 1 keeps going, which I think it will as long as everything is "Ok'ed" by Brad Wright!

[Easter Lily]

Anyway, I don't know if it's been said, but McKay really ended up taking that enzyme overdose for nothing. Yes, he did make his escape back to Atlantis, but he didn't accomplish what he set out to do, which was to rescue Sheppard, Teyla and Ronan. In fact, he had to suffer through another one of those "Oh my god, Sheppard's dead!" moments. What is that, the fourth time, if we count the "almost good as dead" ones? I'm counting

Spoiler:

Thirty Eight Minutes, The Siege and Conversion as the other ones.

If McKay had just sat tight, Sheppard would have made it back and rescued him, presuming Sheppard had the address to Ford's planet. I can't believe Ford would have withheld that piece of info from Sheppard.

Of course the point is that McKay cared enough to put himself at risk to save his team, even though it didn't work out that way. It was the thought that counted.

I thought that was an interesting red herring... and so was the Daedalus making its appearance and being absolutely useless... 2 red herrings... which is fun... I believed Rodney was going to be the one to save the day. I even thought that the Daedalus might be the ticket... (It had been said that Atlantis had become too reliant on the Daedalus) but lo, and behold it wasn't to be. But the important thing is that Rodney extricated himself out of a situation with brute force which was an unusual occurrence for a "brilliant scientist backed in a corner" (and gave David Hewlett the opportunity to play action man for a change )

I'm with those that say that Beckett has had some personal experience with addiction and the symptoms of withdrawal. The quiet sadness in his voice spoke volumes. I love these little character hints... more please!

[Ouroboros]

The dart guns probably don't. It's probably the hive and cruiser weaponry that really hurts the "D", and it looked like the hives were keeping their firepower ready in case of some inter-species fighting. (Which ended up happening.

Looks to me like it's only the big ships hitting the D not the little ones.

I still think it looked too small. Plus, I'm sure they'd have some measures in place to keep their prisoners from getting out. Not even the most idiotic of Goa'ulds would build a cell with an escape as blatantly obvious as that.

Oh sure you can make excuses for it but why bother. Why should we have to do the work to explain away their carelessness with made up nonsense after the fact?

Is it too much to ask that the director, or set designer especially, notice that people can probably crawl though those gaps in the "prison cell". I don?t think it is really.

That's a liiiiittle more extreme than Super!Ford coming to save the day.

Hey you laugh but if it happened there would be people on this forum defending it from the accusations of bull**** with stuff like "gee I hope they show us how Sumner lived some day" which just skirts right round the real issue of how he was used as a deus ex machina to save the day.

The trapped people were likely hit by stunners...

Why do people keep throwing these explanations at me. This is not the point guys. Anyone can explain how this stuff might have happened. I can do it you can do it even the 10 year old kid down the street could probably do it and then we can argue over who's made up explanation is better. The point is they didn't. This is what makes it into a massive stupid plothole with Ford coming in to save the day at just the right second with everyones guns. It's also what makes it bad writing. Good writing would have found the time and the way to properly play out an important thread like that that was going to lead to the reason why they escaped..

Geeeez! Comparing Atlantis to dead roaches found in burgers... it wasn't that bad!

You misunderstood the analogy. In this case shows like BSG and Sopranos would be the $50 dollar steak. Thick and juicy and a real pleasure to eat. Atlantis is like a burger. Fun on Friday but not really something you want to subsist on. The dead roach burger is this particular episode which leaves you feeling like you went for your usual Friday fun burger but got an unexpcted crunch when you bit into it. There are other episodes that are more like filet minion burgers as well such as the storm/eye and the first 3/4 of 'Instinct'.

I think Ouroboros hit the nail on the head. I do watch BSG, and this episode would've left you feeling punched in the gut if it had been those writers - and that's what I was expecting.

Comparing BSG to Atlantis again consider Six vs one of the Wraith keepers. Here the BSG writers can manage to make a hot blonde that most guys would kill to jump into bed with seem more menacing and intimidating than the SGA writers can manage with their hot blonde who spends hours in a makeup chair being made more menacing with the use of prosthetic claws and fangs. If you maybe think that's not a fair comparison because Six gets a lot more screen time then lets look at Admiral Caine instead. She was in one episode so far, is just a 40 year old woman in a normal looking uniform and once again, she's more menacing. Even Roslin in evil mode is more menacing. These women don't need fake makeup to be menacing because the writers don?t give them hambo lines to say and make them get tricked by ploys so stupid kindergardners would unravel them in minutes. They're menacing because of what they do and how they act not because they look like monsters or hiss at people.

You could make the Wraith pretty creepy if you just wrote them a little better. They've already got the look they just need the attitude to back it up. Right now I almost feel sorry for them when they get shot/maimed. They're so inept it feels like you're watching some big nasty bully pound the snot out of a 90 pound nerd.

Our guys were in the hands of the wraith! Show some drama, show some impact - this is serious stuff! Yet, there wasn't any danger, any sense of helplessness or "Oh god, oh god, we're going to die"...instead it was just...enzyme and queenie showing she has the intelligence of a gullible five year old.

The thing of it is, I have no problem with the acting. I loved the moments with McKay, and Beckett, and Sheppard and the others - the problem was that was only what should've been the icing on the cake - this episode needed MORE. It needed the wraith to be evil and scary.

That's the thing with Atlantis. When it sucks it's almost never because of the acting that it does. Just look at Hewlett's performance in this episode for a perfect example. He was awesome and he would have been even better if he'd been given better material to work with. The actors can only work with what the script gives them and typically that tends not to be very much. I feel especially sorry for the Wraith actors. All those hours in makeup so you can be told bug your eyes out a bit more and try to drool on command.

For me, that's where the major problems with this episode happen. The complete failure to ramp up the wraith. The complete failure to carry on with the wraith-sheppard dynamic. There was only surface emotions, and no baggage earned in this.

For me it didn?t fail do to any one thing it pretty much failed do to everything coming in below the bar, with the exception of Hewlett's performance and the SFX.

There were plot holes, there was stupid dialog, there was contrivances, cliches aplenty and plenty of movment on the "wraith variable strength/intelligence dial" to accomodate the plot. It was the kind of story where you got the sense that the person writing it didn't really have a clear vision of what he wanted it to be when he first put pen to paper. Instead he just started writing, got caught in a couple of corners, pulled some contrived junk out of his hole to get out of the corners and then threw in a feel good ending to top it all off.

There was also bending of the setting/chracters/world around the story rather than writing the story in or with the above.

"Ok so we need to start the Wraith fighting each other so we?ll make the thousand year old telepathic hivekeeper get outwitted by one sentance from Colonel Hero and then we'll change the power level of the dart weapons to look more impressive in the FX oh but not before we change the fact that a human needs extra devices to fly a dart at all. Also you know since we need to kill some time how about we introduce a Wraith worshipper who ultimately serves no purpose to the story accept to prove just how super our super hero colonel hero really is and to tease teenage boys with the fact that certain hive keepers might engage in kinky slave sex with hot hot hot human slave girls."

Yep, I think there?s a dead roach in my burger.

[Ouroboros]

Minutes is all Sheppard needs though. So long as we're talking more time than 30 seconds.

Well with "resisting the charms/trickery of hot spy chicks and hive keepers" added to his list of super powers this episode I suspect it's only a matter of time before he learns that turn the world backwards to rewind time thing. Once he does that he'll have all the time he needs naturally.

As for the Deddy's shields getting drained, IIRC, that happened while under fire from up to ten hive ships and their cruiser escorts at much closer range and during a flanking move. That's a biiittt different from the situation at the end of "The Hive."

I actually took pics of this when this ep first aired because I knew everyone was going to say "it takes 10 hiveships to beat the D" without actually watching what happens in the episode.

At most there was 4 ships actually firing at the D from that formation and they pulled down the shields from full to near nil in barely a minute.

The ones here were further away which probably accounts for why it was taking them longer. They weren't hitting as much.

(There's another mystery. How come neither of the two hives were escorted by any cruisers?)

Because the writers treat continuity concepts like that like kleenex.

I realize that people can contort in many ways, but there are parts of the body that can't be mashed without breaking or crushing something vital. Thinking it over, I suppose the four guys could've helped Teyla through one of those higher gaps face up by supporting her legs if she'd grabbed bars above her to take some of her weight off the bottom bar of the gap until she could bend her lower body out. I would've paid good money to watch this, lol! Teyla being exasperatedly calm while Sheppard and Ford bickered about the best way to go about holding her legs, Ronon and Kanayo getting into a beta staring contest and not being at all helpful.

See now that actually would have been a hilarious scene. Even if it didn't work it would have been great. It would have at least showed that that everyone was aware of the suspiciously large gaps in the cage.

At any rate, this all depends on whether the gaps are big enough for Teyla to squeeze out of and, after my rewatch, I don't think that's the case. You think otherwise. End of argument.

Maybe if she was properly oiled up first?

Heh now there's a scene!

Within reason, my friend. Within reason. Clearly, your tolerances there are somewhat lower than mine. Okay. Agree to disagree.

Tapping out already huh, and it's only page 7.

I've watched Firefly (let me add that it hurts for me to listen to the so-called Chinese) and plan to watch BSG. I started Farscape but never managed to make any real progress there. 24 is not exactly a great comparison given the time compression and decompression issues between that show and SGA. Besides, like The Shield, Six Feet Under, and The Sopranos, there are the considerations of intended genre, intended audience, and setting. All I know about Lost is that it includes people in a plane crashing on a remote island somewhere and a polar bear. I guess my taste in entertainment just isn't that great, lol. I can admit that.

Some stuff is universal though, like how to write good human characters. The situations and circumstances may be different but people are still pretty much people no matter where you go or what you have them doing.

Lost is pretty good. It's weird as all hell and you'll never guess what's going to happen next but that's what makes it fun.