Inferno (219)

[Arlessiar]

Just wanted to add that I think that this was a great episode, even if some of the scientific things bothered me. But all in all it was great. Nice action and suspense, nice team moments, much McShep fun. Excellent performances from all the Atlantis actors. And the story was interesting - in real life the whole super volcano thing (yellowstone) scares the living hell out of me since I heard about it the first time, and so I thought this episode was pretty thrilling. Unfortunately it also made me painfully aware of the fact that we here on earth don't have a stargate or a spacship to escape when it comes to an explosion of a super volcano...

Like many of you I didn't like the blond 'scientist'. She was a good trigger for some funny moments between Sheppard and McKay, but apart from that she was pretty useless, just (and constantly) following Rodney and standing in the way. And yes, it may be shallow, but I really didn't like her dress or her hairstyle. IMHO these things didn't seem to fit to her job.

Bye, A.

[GateByte]

At the very least they could have used the Atlantis gate. They didn't have to put the gate down inside the volcano, it'd be stupid to do that. They could have put it on the other side of the planet far away from any danger and then beamed people to the gate, it would have been slower but still much faster than ferrying people to Atlantis. Once they finished evacuating the people, they could have had Hermiod and Zelenka help McKay fix the Orion.

I doubt highly that Weir would have allowed them to up and take the atlantis gate to another planet. Although, I agree it would have been faster than transporting people with the Daedalus.

Unless they somehow shutdown the shielding around the hanger and had the Daedalus beem the ship into orbit (like the Prometheus did with that building/bomb in season 8), I doubt that they would have sent more people onto that planet to try and fix the ship. As it was, they didn't have time to fix anything really, aside from shields and the hyperdrive (sort of). Even though the prospect of getting such an advanced ship sounded great, I doubt that they would have been willing to take the risk, what with the impending 'extinction level event' and all.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Well, it's science fiction and of course it's everyone's right to ignore the scientific explanations and just enjoy the fiction aspects. That's alright. But I'm interested in the scientific explanations, and I think in this case Jarnin is right: Laws of physics. And increasing the pressure inside the volcano means adding energy. But they don't do that. I don't think the volcano would be bothered by the shield of the ancients, no matter how long it runs.

The scientific fallacy in that argument is your (and Jarnin's) assumption that the destabilization of the super-volcano requires the addition of energy.

Here's a different analogy: Suppose you have a gigantic pressure cooker the size of that super-volcano. The massive pressure within represents a lot of potential energy. If you were to carefully siphon some of that pressure in a controlled and limited fashion, you would be able to tap into a powerful, yet renewable energy resource. However, if you get greedy and try to extract too much energy at a time, without regard for safety protocols, you risk causing a massive sudden release of the trapped pressure, leading to a catastrophic explosion. And nowhere in this scenario was any energy ADDED to the equation.

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

I had low expectations for this ep, but I have to say that for the most part I was impressed. The plot was exciting, the tension was high enough to keep me at the edge of my seat, Ronan & Teyla were good, Caldwell and Hermiod were back (boo, hiss, Hermiod, on suggesting they leave orbit )

Rodney and Shep were more than a little annoying at times(Shep, it's considered bad policy to tell the people you're trying to impress that the guy you've brought to fix your shield generators sometimes gets his wires crossed and blows up planets), as was the blonde-chick-of-the-week.... I will say this for her, though, she was cool under pressure... or... incredibly, incredibly... how to put this nicely... naive?

The Hive ship appearing on the sensors added to the tension and I really enjoyed watching TH act Weir's part in this.

Very good ep.

[Astrofighter]

Yeah the best solution would have been to get everyone on the ship then teleport it up, i'm sure if they opened the roof right away they could get a lock.

[Wick]

Why did the Dedalus take the refuges all the way to Atlantis why not to a close world with a stargate then they could have gated to Atlantis it would have taken a fraction of the time taken to fly to Atlantis.

[AutumnDream]

I loved Elizabeth's "what's he like?" comment. Oh, Lizzie, you need teh secks.

Wahahah! She sure does. John needs to get his head out of the sand.

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

Good episode. I give it a ***. Great visual effects, I smell emmy nomination (visual effects category).

Sheppard: Whether we live or die is all up to Rodney. Rodney: This is so unfair

[mmu_man]

Faulty science? I have a shield in my brain for that sort of thing. It separates the explanation given from anything remotely resembling real life. It works rather well.

Well I don't see what's wrong there anyway.
Supposedly taking up heat from the magma chamber to power up the shields have likely more impact than boiling up some water to heat cities like we do on earth.
Now that would likely cool down the lava inside the chamber, making it more heavy, forcing it to go back down to the core of the planet, forcing up new fresh and hot magma due to the same convection princible that makes our continents drift and our electric heaters heat entire rooms. The fact that fresh magma has been flowing continuously for a year can probably be accounted as a good reason for the enlargement of the magma chamber.

Where do I start? Attractive blonde scientist chick was fun, and well-acted. Yay for her not feeling like a random alien bimbo.

Yeah, and actually she had some scientist-grade concerns, like about the hangar doors that could collapse on the ship. So she wasn't just standing by, even if it was funny to see her following Rodney everywhere, but I'd say it was more because she was amazed at what he showed her ("I've already learnt so much"). It's not always about sex you know. Ok, it might have been too

The John and Rodney almost-but-not-quite angry banter was quite fun. With the talks about blowing up a planet and Rodney working better under pressure, I was kinda wishing that this scenario had been played out closer to "Trinity" and "Condemned". It kinda follows along that thread of character interactions.

Well indeed in Trinity he wasn't really under presure, there was no imminent threat, so likely his ego took over and interfered with his judgement, which doesn't seem to happen when the danger is real.

John & Elizabeth's conversation about Rodney and Norina(sp?) was quite amusing. I also loved Liz's remark about the Chancellor. Don't worry, you'll get your hot alien man eventually.

I think she really had something with Janus in Before I Sleep, something more than just gratitude... But of course current-Weir doesn't know him personnally. I have some ideas how to make that happen, but well I'm not TPTB.

Yeah, putting all the responsibility on his shoulders is what leads to things like "Trinity", but it's just. so. awesome.

Again it's all about imminent threat vs ego.

The innuendo!
"Perhaps one day I could study under you."
(Shep eye-roll!!!!!)
"...But first we need to get off - ah, first we need to get off the planet, and then you can be under me - "
And then the tremor, and she ends up in Shep's arms, and Rodney just rolls his eye and walks away.

She actually ended up *under Shep* instead of Rodney, as he bent on her to protect her from possibly falling stuff. ::roll::

"Talk amongst yaselves. I have an idea."
"But-"
"Can't talk, busy."
"Bu-"
"Not now please."
I love the McShep show. It's not great for every ep, but damn it was good here. *shivers in fangirl love*

The good old "shut up I've got an idea"

[Quinn Mallory]

The scientific fallacy in that argument is your (and Jarnin's) assumption that the destabilization of the super-volcano requires the addition of energy.

Here's a different analogy: Suppose you have a gigantic pressure cooker the size of that super-volcano. The massive pressure within represents a lot of potential energy. If you were to carefully siphon some of that pressure in a controlled and limited fashion, you would be able to tap into a powerful, yet renewable energy resource. However, if you get greedy and try to extract too much energy at a time, without regard for safety protocols, you risk causing a massive sudden release of the trapped pressure, leading to a catastrophic explosion. And nowhere in this scenario was any energy ADDED to the equation.

Well, there is a huge grey area in terms of what the shield could possibly be doing to the volcano. However, the destabilization of the volcanic process doesn't need the addition of other energy; there is easily enough total energy within the volcano. What is more important though, is the transformation/release of the potential energy inside the volcano. Of course, what that process requires is rather fuzzy but just like the quite extreme example of releasing energy from just atoms in nuclear processes, the volcanic eruption just need another transformation of potential to kinetic energy.

[Quinn Mallory]

Decent episode. It's good to see the team work together although something toward the end showing Sheppard, etc. worrying about Teyla and Ronan would have been appropriate.

I think I saw the McKay's escape plan from the moment I saw the ship, since it's essentially a page out of SG-1's episode "Fail Safe" but there were always doubts whether the Orion would've still been in salvagable shape by the end of this episode.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode although I'm already dreading the long break after that one for SGA.

[prion]

lol, McKay's solution to the problem (riding the ship out on the blast from the volcano and doing a short hyperspace hop) was pretty random and kinda dodgy

Science has NEVER been a high point on the stargate shows....

The anti-kirkers might have a few problems with this episode - it seemed to me that Shep and Rodney were trying to compete with each other to see who would get to score with the chick. Also, I was kind of dissapointed at the lack of purposful involvement for the chick (her name alludes me atm...). Alot of the time she was just standing there while Sheppard and McKay tried to outdo each other.

I can't recall the name of the blonde character, but the actress is Brandy Ledford (Andromeda, Invisible Man). I'm not used to seeing her in that much clothing. Usually she's in god-awful spandex crap. But anyway... the way that Shep and McKay were both vying for her attention was sooooo much like the old Crosby-Hope films. Had me chortling as you knew neither was gonna win in the end.

I liked that we got more time to see the characters interact - Teyla and Ronon especially, right when they thought, well, this is it, they're doomed, gonna die. Good photography too.

I really liked this episode. Kudos to Carl Binder. He needs to write more scripts. Dialogue was great! "Anybody have a nail clipper?" Ha!

And they got something out of this one (more drones, a spaceship!)

[leaper]

Loved this ep! Though I didn't see Shep "kirking" in this one, as some others did, I saw it more as...."aahh, Rodney likes this chick, lets see if I can irritate/annoy him"

[thor's first prime]

i think the question we all want to know is, how big is the orion, too bad they did not show the two ships side by side to allow us to compare.

[smushybird]

I can't recall the name of the blonde character, but the actress is Brandy Ledford (Andromeda, Invisible Man). I'm not used to seeing her in that much clothing. Usually she's in god-awful spandex crap. But anyway... the way that Shep and McKay were both vying for her attention was sooooo much like the old Crosby-Hope films. Had me chortling as you knew neither was gonna win in the end.

Since Crosby usually won, except for Road to Utopia--and he kind of even won, then, too --I suppose it's appropriate for Shep to get the girl. (Rodney...or DH, anyway, should get the Emmy.)
I've never seen so many good reviews for one SGA ep.
I am so dying to see this one, now. You lucky people, you.