Ok sorry folks this was pretty freakin' weak, made even more disapointing in context of the cliffhanger and the long wait.
The pace and flow was jarring and disorienting and the episode overall felt like more of a mish-mash of scenes than an actual continuous story.
This episode is also packed to the brim with the dreaded cliches and ridiculous plot contrivances that pop up to move the story along in those times when Atlantis sinks to its worst. Despite the massive influx of SFX it also manages to somehow be rather boring.
Ok lets run down the list of those contrivances and cliches I was talking about so I don't just come off as full of it.
-Door controls that make the door open when you shoot/damage them: Try this with ANY technological device, I dare you.
-The Wraith prison bars have gaps big enough for people to fit through, especially Teyla.
-What would happen if an SGC member lost their IDC because they were captured or forgot to use it because they were doped up on Wraith enzyme. Could this be a possible point of tension in the sotry perhaps, where the control room has to gamble on trust?.... We'll never know.
-Classic junkie withdrawl scenes from the evil drugs. Drugs are bad m'kay and every drug will have a horrible heroin like withdawl period. Yes every drug and yes regardless of what it does or it's chemical make up. You get your fancy pants science out of my science fiction.
-Sheppard gets saved from certain death at the hands of the Wraith queen because she gets a phonecall. It's never explained where she went or what she was doing. Did the other queen want to trade recipies, did that boy she likes finally let slip that he thinks she's cool? We wouldn't want to see any of that crap right. If we did we wouldn't be able to show Teyla sweating for 14 minutes and asking Ronan if they'd escaped yet.
-*Insert various scenes of Wraith hissing at people, bending their necks, bugging out their eyes and drooling for no reason here*. When Shep was talking about Wraith and clowns was I the only one thinking "seperated at birth?".
-The mysterious hot chick is not just a mysterious hot chick but actually evil! OMG unexpected!
-We learn that there's Wraith worshippers, how novel. We of course never get any explanation of why the Wraith need or want worshippers. I'm sure some fans will be able to make up a good explanation like usual though. That's what I love about Atlantis, the degree of audience participation in making the stories.
-Later on Shep's about to be eaten again but Ford, who was a twitching junkie wreck the last time we saw him, suddenly storms in, with Ronan's gun no less, and shoots an entire room of armed guards to save him. You know now that I think about it maybe you should of shown us Ford's miraculous unarmed escape from 5 armed Wraith guards while in a state of semi-coma and his re-finding of Ronan's confiscated gun on an entire frigging' hiveship instead of showing us Teyla and Ronan sweating. I'm just saying it probably would have been a bit more interesting, you know as opposed to the nothing you did show us. Couldn't think of a way to make it believable huh, yeah me either. Good to see that that didn't stop you from using it anyway though. The fans can go ahead and make up an explanation for it if they really want one right?
-As the episode draws to a close we go outside where we see Shep provoke the Wraith ships into killing each other by shooting a mile long hiveship with a dart's puny gun that barely sets grass of fire. The two hiveships start shooting each other as a result of this heinous attack and then one of them blows up and takes out the other one. Conveinient huh. They're like dominos, or those slime barrels in Doom. Of course even a 12 year old playing Doom learns not to shoot the slime barrels up close after he gets blown up the first time. I guess this is something the Wraith will need more than the alloted 10,000 years to wrap their heads around. If only they had some twelve year olds.
-Oh but wait there's more. In the roughly 30 seconds between the time Shep provoked them and the time they blew up he was able to fly to safety (never actually shown on screen of course) and "surprise" us later with his miraculous survival.
This entire thing played out as almost a parody of it's own ridiculousness. It would have been excellent and hilarious as a satire of sci-fi cliches had it not been trying to present this stuff seriously. It was though so that makes it cringe inducing.
Lost Boys was a good episode with some nice character development for Ford and a decent argument on behalf of using the enzyme. This thing just has McKay say "you know when you're under the influence of drugs you see the world differently, whoda thunk it eh, guess Ford's auto-wrong now huh huh" and that's supposed to be the wrap-up I guess.
This episode doesn't continue off of any of that good stuff that was laid down in part one and instead just opts for the SFX orgy approach. This is pretty much exactly what happened with Seige 1,2 vs 3. What gives? Is it something about the long breaks that allow the continuations of these episodes to develop dry rot or something?
"The storm" and "the eye" kicked ass though so what went wrong here?
This one fights it out for the title of lamest episode of the series with condemned and Seige 3 I'm afraid, and I think it's stepping into the ring as the favorite.
The Wraith chick was hot though.
The pace and flow was jarring and disorienting and the episode overall felt like more of a mish-mash of scenes than an actual continuous story.
This episode is also packed to the brim with the dreaded cliches and ridiculous plot contrivances that pop up to move the story along in those times when Atlantis sinks to its worst. Despite the massive influx of SFX it also manages to somehow be rather boring.
Ok lets run down the list of those contrivances and cliches I was talking about so I don't just come off as full of it.
-Door controls that make the door open when you shoot/damage them: Try this with ANY technological device, I dare you.
-The Wraith prison bars have gaps big enough for people to fit through, especially Teyla.
-What would happen if an SGC member lost their IDC because they were captured or forgot to use it because they were doped up on Wraith enzyme. Could this be a possible point of tension in the sotry perhaps, where the control room has to gamble on trust?.... We'll never know.
-Classic junkie withdrawl scenes from the evil drugs. Drugs are bad m'kay and every drug will have a horrible heroin like withdawl period. Yes every drug and yes regardless of what it does or it's chemical make up. You get your fancy pants science out of my science fiction.
-Sheppard gets saved from certain death at the hands of the Wraith queen because she gets a phonecall. It's never explained where she went or what she was doing. Did the other queen want to trade recipies, did that boy she likes finally let slip that he thinks she's cool? We wouldn't want to see any of that crap right. If we did we wouldn't be able to show Teyla sweating for 14 minutes and asking Ronan if they'd escaped yet.
-*Insert various scenes of Wraith hissing at people, bending their necks, bugging out their eyes and drooling for no reason here*. When Shep was talking about Wraith and clowns was I the only one thinking "seperated at birth?".
-The mysterious hot chick is not just a mysterious hot chick but actually evil! OMG unexpected!
-We learn that there's Wraith worshippers, how novel. We of course never get any explanation of why the Wraith need or want worshippers. I'm sure some fans will be able to make up a good explanation like usual though. That's what I love about Atlantis, the degree of audience participation in making the stories.
-Later on Shep's about to be eaten again but Ford, who was a twitching junkie wreck the last time we saw him, suddenly storms in, with Ronan's gun no less, and shoots an entire room of armed guards to save him. You know now that I think about it maybe you should of shown us Ford's miraculous unarmed escape from 5 armed Wraith guards while in a state of semi-coma and his re-finding of Ronan's confiscated gun on an entire frigging' hiveship instead of showing us Teyla and Ronan sweating. I'm just saying it probably would have been a bit more interesting, you know as opposed to the nothing you did show us. Couldn't think of a way to make it believable huh, yeah me either. Good to see that that didn't stop you from using it anyway though. The fans can go ahead and make up an explanation for it if they really want one right?
-As the episode draws to a close we go outside where we see Shep provoke the Wraith ships into killing each other by shooting a mile long hiveship with a dart's puny gun that barely sets grass of fire. The two hiveships start shooting each other as a result of this heinous attack and then one of them blows up and takes out the other one. Conveinient huh. They're like dominos, or those slime barrels in Doom. Of course even a 12 year old playing Doom learns not to shoot the slime barrels up close after he gets blown up the first time. I guess this is something the Wraith will need more than the alloted 10,000 years to wrap their heads around. If only they had some twelve year olds.
-Oh but wait there's more. In the roughly 30 seconds between the time Shep provoked them and the time they blew up he was able to fly to safety (never actually shown on screen of course) and "surprise" us later with his miraculous survival.
This entire thing played out as almost a parody of it's own ridiculousness. It would have been excellent and hilarious as a satire of sci-fi cliches had it not been trying to present this stuff seriously. It was though so that makes it cringe inducing.
Lost Boys was a good episode with some nice character development for Ford and a decent argument on behalf of using the enzyme. This thing just has McKay say "you know when you're under the influence of drugs you see the world differently, whoda thunk it eh, guess Ford's auto-wrong now huh huh" and that's supposed to be the wrap-up I guess.
This episode doesn't continue off of any of that good stuff that was laid down in part one and instead just opts for the SFX orgy approach. This is pretty much exactly what happened with Seige 1,2 vs 3. What gives? Is it something about the long breaks that allow the continuations of these episodes to develop dry rot or something?
"The storm" and "the eye" kicked ass though so what went wrong here?
This one fights it out for the title of lamest episode of the series with condemned and Seige 3 I'm afraid, and I think it's stepping into the ring as the favorite.
The Wraith chick was hot though.
o
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