Echoes (312)

[CalmStorm]

Total filler episode. Giving away two of the three ZPMs was a total cop-out. We already freaking established that Ancient weapons were ineffective against Ori, so why does Earth need TWO of them? Oh, I forgot, Atlantis can't be too powerful, that's why!

At the same time, it has to be give and take with Atlantis. The primary goal is to aquire new technology to protect Earth, not those in Pegasus Galaxy. Sure our heros want to save the Pegasus Galaxy and everyone, but they are in Atlantis courtesy of the powers to be on Earth.

Atlantis should be able to sustain shields and the like with a fully charged zpm. Sure it would be nice to have three, but for their purposes they can make do with the one.

The Ori are a very real threat to Earth, but they are not the only threat. It makes sense to have a zpm power the defenses in the Antartica base for extra measure. Also, certainly they can find someone else with a strong gene to try and gain much more information from the chair there.

The ships in the Milky Way don't seem even remotely able to hold their own against the Ori ships. It makes sense to have at least one earth vessle with extra protection that a zpm can supply.

ZPMs are a valuable resource with many uses. It would almost be selfish for Atlantis to keep them all. This also is a way to prove the value of Atlantis and why it is worth the cost to those funding it. Also, there is no reason that the team cannot continue their search for more.

[prion]

Immediate thoughts as I watch the ep:

• Nice to see Ronon actually be something other than stoic - I *liked* seeing him annoyed and pissy in the jumper!
• Teyla kicking Ronon's ass at stick-fighting! Go Teyla!!
• BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG fat reset button to beat em all - have to admit to a little bit of disappointment that everything is magically back to normal at Atlantis with no sign of the Earth expedition ever even being gone and no repercussions of the rescue - not even a mention of Sheppard being even told off!
• Sheppard-McKay banter and teasing! Loving it!
• Weir calling referring to Sheppard and McKay as "boys". Awesome.
• Heightmeyer looked much better as a blonde - being brunette makes her look pale and drawn.
• Sheppard making anti-Canadian comments to test if Rodney is still deaf!! *BWAH!*
• Sheppard and McKay talking at the tops of their voices all the time!
• "Just like a pigeon"!!
• Oh my - the sparky fans are gonna LOVE Sheppard carrying Weir to the infirmary!
• Wow. Found myself actually tensing up as the solar flare thingy hit the Daedalus!
• Hmmm.. the whole "Ronon doesn't understand technobabble so say it in simple words of one syllable" joke is getting a bit old. He's not dumb for crying out loud...
• DeafWeir(TM. Heh.

)

All in all. Good ep. I enjoyed it.

Gotta admit, agree with all of it. The pigeon remark was great, and Zelenka raced pigeons? We're getting insight on him, finally!

Must admit I liked when Rodney went splat on the jumper's control panel.

Someone asked. According to various reports on teh web, takes about a month to heal up punctured eardrums. Keep water out, so, no swimming. Not sure how it would affect flying.

The three ZPMs. Well, let's see. The entire team stole a jumper, disobeyed orders, but saved Jack's ass but, they disobeyed orders. So.... swap a ZPM for clearing the charge?

I can see putting a ZPM into a new ship. Speed for rescue, etc. The antaractic? That's sorta lame, in some respects. If you kept two Zpms at Atlantis, they could send one back through the gate in no time flat. But, then there's the disobeying orders stuff. Could the Ori get to earth that quick that they'd need a Zpm immediateLY?

Oh, I did like the whales, but Shep's eyeing 'em as sushi. ARGH!!!

[NowIWillDestroyAbydos]

Just finished watching it, the ending was awesome with the beam of light hitting the Daedalus' shields. It was cool hearing Shep call Rodney, Meredith. And the visual effects were pretty cool, but nothing compares to the one from last weeks episode. Overall it wasn't as good as last week's episode. I give it a ** 1/2.

[prion]

Exactly. This episode just goes to show that it is entirely possible to have a good episode where every member of the core cast (and even two of the recurring cast members) can have proper development in the episode and contribute something to the storyline. Awesomeness. Every single member of the core cast had some lovely character moments in this ep and had an involvement in the story and it was great.

Carl Binder wrote the story, and Carl and Brad Wright wrote the script; therefore, carl Binder must write more. He's got the best handle on the characters that I've seen.

[PG15]

Solid, solid episode. Not extraordinary by any means, but you can't have that all the time.

There are many MANY good character moments in this ep, like the Ronan/Teyla scenes ("you can hit me with this" ), and of course, the Shep and McKay scenes were up to their usual snarktasticivity.

So, some points:

Twists, twists, and twists. I had no idea what this episode about, and boy did it take some time before I actually figured it out (about the time when Shep and McKay spelled out their plan). I'm really slow with this sort of stuff. But really, I thought maybe that the Ancient pilot thing meant that the malfunctioning jumper was going to blow up, or maybe the Whales were messing up the jumper, etc. Like I said, this episode just kept on going with the mini-revelations, just like in Season 1.

Good to see a few things mentioned/seen again, like (obviously) the whales, Heightmeier (sp?), Meredith...huh, I'm sure there are more. Well anyway, I liked this part.

Gotta love the deaf-ness gag. Loudness is always funny.

SFX was great in the last bits. Love the astronomy stuff.

I was actually afraid that they were going to drain the ZPM again, but nope. I thought 3 ZPMs might be a little too much, and I have no problems with no ZPMs at all. But just the thought of hearing fanboys () complaining about the "lost ZPMs" is giving me a headache. I'm glad they kept it.

Zelenkie!

Exploration!

Not much more to say about this episode, very solid, very entertaining, and hopefully a shape of things to come.

8/10

[Dromag67]

Weren't people complaining because Atlantis never procured weapons to defend Earth as was stated the objective in the pilot episode?

Now that the Atlantis Expedition finds 3 ZPM's and uses 2 to defend Earth all of a sudden people are angry that they dont have a fully operational City ship to go kick Wraith ***?

[PG15]

I think now it is very justifiable to say what Atlantis finds that can be used to defend it should be used to defend it, as everyone keeps saying WE are at war. Why should Earth be anymore important then Atlantis? Yes it is nice to have the Deddy come visit with supplies but they survived before and would with three ZPMs again with no contact with Earth.

That's awfully selfish and childish (we found it, so it's ours!). So the few hundred people making up the Expedition is suddenly more important than 6 billion on Earth?

They have made it clear that they consider Atlantis to be their home now, not Earth.

They're all human, they have people they know back home. I seriously don't get why some suddenly thinks Earth is expendable.

Also the PG has a heck of a lot more people or people like aliens then The Milky Way in the bigger scheme of things PG is more important.

No it doesn't. PG is smaller, and the people have been culled by the Wraith for nigh-on 10000 years. They'll be lucky if they have a thousandth the amount of people as in the MW.

Of course this is all my personal opinion on a fictional show.

Odyssey might last a little bit longer VS an Ori ship with a ZPM, won't change anything though they'll just die slower

Right, like a few extra seconds never saved anybody's life.

I don't like that they started this episode by explaining how they lost the deal with the ZPMs either. It just felt cheap, like they had to throw that in somewhere, without really explaining it. I don't like that Weir totally bent over either and was all right with it either. She's supposed to be the leader of Atlantis and shouldn't just give away ZPMs left and right.

Yeah, left and right...to her own people. No problems here.

EDIT:

If you kept two Zpms at Atlantis, they could send one back through the gate in no time flat.

What if the Ori decides to dial in, like with what Anubis did?

We'll be screwed then.

[theonebluegecko]

That's awfully selfish and childish (we found it, so it's ours!). So the few hundred people making up the Expedition is suddenly more important than 6 billion on Earth?



They're all human, they have people they know back home. I seriously don't get why some suddenly thinks Earth is expendable.

Yes but what if they did get rid of earth, that would be a shock. Although probably a bad one.

[PG15]

That would definately be "risk-taking".

However, one of the appeals of Stargate is that it's everyday people doing out-of-this-world things. Take the world away and...it'll loose that appeal.

[theonebluegecko]

That would definately be "risk-taking".

However, one of the appeals of Stargate is that it's everyday people doing out-of-this-world things. Take the world away and...it'll loose that appeal.

Yeah, I like the fact that it is close to life as we know it. It does make it feel as if it could be real, that you could actually go to another planet, another galaxy.

That is one of the things that makes it great.

(And I think one of the reasons I do not like Battlestar Galactica as much, it is just not life as I know it.)

[Detox]

Well, although I'm saddened by the fact that we won't get to see a fully operational Atlantis. At least we have 3 fully charged ZPMs. Now that the Atlantis Expedition has been justified (if 3 ZPMs aren't enough, then I don't know what is), now the IOA should support Atlantis even more.

At least now if Atlantis really needs it, they can get both Earth's and Oddy's ZPMs and fully power their shields.

Hell, just be glad we actually GOT those ZPMs. It could've been worse, we could've gotten nothing.

[JayShadow]

Yeah, I'm just glad they still HAVE 3 ZPMs. When they first explained where the ZPMs were going I assumed all 3 were still on the station, so when the flare was coming I figured as usual that they'd extend the shield all the way and deplete the ZPMs to nothing and start from scratch AGAIN. So the fact that they're still in possession of 3 of them out there somewhere is a major bonus in a universe that usually mashes the reset button at every turn. Sure it's a reset for the base, but they still have access to the others sometime if needed.

They'll never get them back again, but it's nice that they actually let them exist out there

[Stef]

Finally got around to watching the episode...here are some of my thoughts:

-Not a huge Spanky fan but even I was rooting for Ronon/Teyla after seeing all of this episode's little moments between them.
-FINALLY, some non-menacing/stoic Ronon action
-Good to see Teyla getting some quality screentime
-Nice moment between Teyla/Ronon when she lay dying
-Good old McShep back to their old selves....LOVED their scenes (yes, screaming is funny )
-The Sparky fan in me was happy to see John carrying Elizabeth
-Cute little moment at the end when John says "without so much as a thank you" in reference to the whales and Elizabeth replying "No, thank you." Expressions from John and Zelenka were priceless.
-Rodney's putting his fist up, trying to be all macho and military only to have John slap it down (awwww, Rodney wants to be cool like Sheppard).
-Love all of the interplay between John/Rodney/Elizabeth
-YES, some Teyla/Elizabeth scenes. That happens, what, once in a blue moon?

Negative points....like many have said-Heitmeyer (sp?). She just seemed really off...maybe it's the hair change

Overall, a really enjoyable episode. They should make more solid showings like this.

-Stef

[Sicktem]

I don't get what the big appeal of a fully powered Atlantis is when the stardrive is damaged. There's no way they are going to be able to fix that. It's underwater, it covers a vast amount of space, and it's highly advanced technology. So far they've fixed things that weren't operational, made some minor repairs here and there, but gathering large amounts of Ancient metals and supplies to fix that thing that's underwater is a bit beyond them. Large portions of the city were already damaged and they have left them alone. It's only after the Asurans started fixing them have they been granted access to some of them.

I'm sure at some point in the future it will get done either by some plotline like this one where by the Asurans did the work for them or (maybe) when they have a better understanding of the technology and get the Asgard to help them replicate the materials needed. But as of the near future it's just not happening. So, Atlantis would be sitting around with fully powered shields that an Asuran fleet could probably still penetrate while teams went off world and nothing changed. Even if the Wraith attacked, all they could do is fire their drones until there are none left and sit back while they are fired upon. Meanwhile, though, all it takes is one more invasion (anyone want to count how many there have been so far?) and they can all be lost - Putting all your eggs in one basket is extremely stupid.

This way, Earth has a fighting chance if the Ori attack and not only does the Odyssey have a shot at withstanding a few shots, but it can fly through hyperspace at extreme speeds. If Sg-1 needs a pickup they can be there in hours instead of days, they can jump ahead of enemies and get to their destinations first to set up traps, and if Atlantis needs an extra ship one is only days away now. Meanwhile, if Atlantis needs the ZPMs back they can send one through the stargate, hook the other back up to the Odyssey and be right there to make sure the city is fully powered again. There are dangers (like with Monday's episode) to not having 3 ZPMs, but this way also opens new doors for everyone.

Oh and btw, Weir didn't cave to the pressure of giving the 2 ZPMs away. She looked and sounded like she really agreed that Earth needed those ZPMs more than Atlantis and even got angry with Mckay one point and harshly asked him who they should deny a ZPM to. Atlantis may have become a home to these people, but there is a large leap in priorities between your home and your 6 billion large civilization and the second they forget that is the second they've gone mad and should be replaced by the IOA right away.

[sgeureka]

Re: Giving one ZPM to Earth

Let's also not forget that the now depleted ZPM from Atlantis came from Earth originally, and Earth said Atlantis needed it more back then. Now the enemy situation has changed in the Milky Way as well as in PG, so the ZPMs will be where they are needed the most. And that might not be Atlantis.