The Long Goodbye (216)

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

Just watched the ep. It was awesome, but it's not better than Conversion I can tell ya that. I give it a ***1/2.

Cool ending huh:


I think this season is becoming the season of bests: Joe in Conversion and Torri in this episode.

And a cool episode for sound clips (for Ronan's Gun and the Wraith stunner: Hand version).

The camera work for this episode was cool.

Tomorrow, the Genii plan a Coup.

[Lieutenant Sparrow]

A decent ep

Our soldiers are made to look like amateurs as usual. 4 or 5 guys beat up by Weir.

Torri Higginson did a great job in this ep. I thought she portrayed a different personality really well.

[Matt G]

Midweek, another ep of Atlantis...

1. Best I can tell Phoebus was able to have more of an effect on Weir because Weir had been caught off guard. Sheppard was better prepared and therefore able to give Thalen more of a headache.

2. "I know how Sheppard thinks". That aint Sheppard mate!

3. Forgot about Teyla dragging Shep in front of the camera.

4. The love story was perfectly plausible, what evidence did they have that the pair were sworn enemies?

Still a fun up.

[scifan]

One of my favorite eps.. For many reasons. Had whump, team work.... And in my POV shippiness.

I agree that Torri did awesome and should've had more roles like that. Would've loved to see her as a bad Replicator.... even if temporary.

It was nice to see them both in a different roll.
As for John being more prepared then Elizabeth, it could also be John's ATA genes. He seems to have a higher resistance to influences then others and maybe Phoebus just didn't want to show that cause it could be seen as a sign of weekness.
Phoebus was wiling to kill a lot of people for her personal gain vs Thelan. Yes, he shot Ronon, but he didn't kill him and he called it in..... guess he didn't like John yelling at him. LOL
Enjoyed the snarky banters between Caldwell and Rodney.


Some like the kiss in here just like others like the kiss in Conversion....it's just how some choose to see it.

[ZRFTS]

The Long Goodbye

So after the horrendous "The Tower", we get an episode that is a major improvement, this one. The episode concept seems like both an interesting one and a fun one; two aliens inhabiting bodies in order to settle a feud/war that has been going on for quite some time. It's something that both allows for some character-based drama when exploring the concept behind their final moments and some action as they hunt themselves down; these things are something that Stargate can truly exploit well and SGA has had a couple of these good moments under their belt so they should be able to do this without breaking a sweat...

First off, the action here is engaging and entertaining, it may be light-hearted sure but it somewhat takes itself seriously and it's balance between serious portrayal and an easy-going atmosphere is what makes it what it is. It's definitely fun to see Weir do martial arts move and roam around with a gun; what makes it fun is that she's mainly there sitting around, playing the leadership role but when an alien is inside her she gets the opportunity to prove that she can do martial arts and action stuff as well as the other guys; truly shows that there's a sort of versatility to her that can apply to her real life acting carer and Sheppard is good too though he mainly acts like Sheppard except fighting Weir... They really did a great job in showing the conflict against Weir and Sheppard, the shots displaying them really do well in showcasing the tensity and animosity they show for each other as they roam through the halls and hunt each other down; it builds the mood, it engages us in the moment and more specifically it showcases how determined these people are and the back and forwarth do well in establishing the complicated relationship that they have. To think that these two people have been fighting each other for who knows how long and to see their final wish unfold, fighting each other in the place of their dreams is something worthy of thought-processing and it reveals information about their war and certain aspects of their personalities that separate them and make them more then just hunter and hunter.

Kick butt!

However... There is something that's lacking, something involving the concept itself. The beginning is good, it sets up hopes for the episode and allows us to get engaged in the moment but when they take over their bodies; it begins to unravel slightly. The actors playing Weir and Sheppard feel the need to act radically different in order to differentiate themselves and they feel like they need to heavily enunciate and place emphasis on every word they say and they do it in an accent that makes it look like this is their first time acting, thus making it worse. These characters are supposed to be experienced soldiers in the show and that's not to say they don't have experience but scenes like this just made me think otherwise, especially when everybody is dumbed down for the purpose of the plot. It irked me that nobody could see through their act, nobody... They've been with them for a while, they know their mannerisms, style of speech and the stuff that they do is totally unlike themselves... Why can't they see through them? There is a concept about supposed trust and command issues that run subsequent to the main plot but this feels barebones and almost pasted into the episode just so it can have something to support it with. This could of been an interesting concept to explore; the characters not knowing who they are, the manipulation that's going on and with the stuff that's going on it could of been given a chance to shine but instead it's used to reference the conflict and to show that the characters are not themselves. There isn't any sense of mistrust that's established in any of the scenes; we know who they are, the characters don't doubt anything they say and it feels a bit empty to say the least.

The episode also attempts to explore the subsequent command issues of Cadwell which the episode tries to establish by including a needless previously on that could of been removed entirely, the problem is that they don't go far enough with him, the actions and tone that he does are common normal military stuff and there isn't anything serious or over-the-top that he does, he just manages the situation the best that he can. The only person who seems to complain is Rodney who while it's in his nature, seems to be there only to bring up the issue that he was compromised in a previous episode, granted it does give his scenes some ground but it never truly blossoms and while it is nice to see Cadwell take command in this episode, what the writers tried to do didn't connect with me. There seems to be more wasted ideas in this episode then there are finely executed concepts but this episode is still good; why is that? well it's just a 40 minute episode of watching these two live out their last moments in life combined with an Atlantis gone crazy episode. Through all the attempts to do something more with the episode we get moments which don't proclaim to be anything more then they are and when the stakes get raised, we're invested in it because we're invested in the action at hand. Sure, we wish there could of been more but in the end, we can't help but to enjoy ourselves plus there are some decent character moments in the episode that showcase some real drama, moments involving Beckett and Ronan for example.

Well, at least they tried...

In closing... This is one enjoyable episode of SGA; the 44 minutes will just fly by as if it were nothing. Sure there are attempts to do more but if you ever need to kill 44 minutes, this is it. Not SGA's best but then again, it doesn't need to be.

7.0/10

[jelgate]

This is clearly a bottle episode with it being shot on all Atlantis set. That said its not a terrible episode. Thier are some nice joke like how the alien possesed Sheppherd and Weir are heading for divorce. The power struggle between Caldwell and the senior staff of Atlantis was interesting. I think it made a lot of sense given that Caldwell has recently lost that symbiote that had infected his mind. Its also a pity that after this episode he doesn't have verbral arugements with Weir and Sheppherd. That was the best part about Caldwell. He was an ally but disagreed with the others sometimes. It had action seeing the two aliens using the knowledge they gained to outwit the other on Atlantis. But on the same time I look the emotional stuff like when Teyla gave Sheppherd the gun because she knew he would shoot Weir regardless who he was. But one thing that bothers me is the stupidity of Ronon. A guy who ran from the Wraith for 7 years and was a military commandar should have better strategtic sense than that.

[Jae'a]

My LiveJournal post
Wow, enjoyed it, apart from Ronon getting shot! But hey, another reason to love Carson, I guess!

[Baron Of Hell]

I liked the episode but had to check the brain at the door for most of it. Allowing your staff to be taken over, nope. Trying to kill somebody already dead, nope. Or at least one of them should have seen how dumb the situation was.

Shep was played to close to Shep. Weir was believable or she felt different to me.

[mrscopterdoc]

If there had been any voices of reason this episode could not have happened.

If there had been any voices of reason, *several* episodes could not have happened

[hazardass]

Just a couple of episodes before this one, a goauld was controlling coldwell, and people still don't quite trust him in this episode. So why did they have no problem trusting another alien consciousness that was controlling Wear? Why did they assume that Wear was in control in the very beginning? What, just because she closed her eyes and nodded, and spoke like Wear, that means the alien isn't in control? Uhm it's like these people did not just go through a goauld ordeal. How can everyone lose their mind at the same exact time, including mccay and sheppard?