Sunday (317)

[gateship15]

this was a great episode

[FN-P90]

Incredible episode. Right up there with Meridian and Heroes Part 1 and 2.

[gateship15]

watched it again and still loved it

[dolfyn]

When I first saw Sunday (which was only last year), I'd only had a vague warning from a friend that it was a "sad episode" & that someone died; I had no idea that Paul/Carson was leaving. He was one of my 3 favourites, along with Sheppard & McKay. So I watched with a growing sense of dread & when it was Carson who died, I was very shocked & upset. After that, the remaining episodes of season 3 felt empty & hollow to me, & I really wasn't that keen to keep watching any further SGA seasons after that. I kept feeling that because Carson had died so suddenly & horribly, that I just couldn't emotionally invest in the other characters anymore; especially when Weir was also at death's door at the end of the season.
Then I found out that Carson was brought back, so I bought the box set of all 5 seasons just this year; & as I watched the first 3 seasons again I fell even harder for sweet lovable Carson (he became my top favourite) & cried even harder when I rewatched Sunday.
Although the little interactions & character developments were great in this episode, any good that did was quite literally blown away with the unnecessary death of Carson. Because he was the emotional core of the show, his removal took away the heart & left a big hole in the main cast interactions.
As far as I'm concerned, the ultimate destination of Sunday just completely permeates & ruins all the other good stuff in the episode. I want to love it but it just makes me too sad & angry, because it showcases the tossing away of a wonderful & loved character & a fantastic (& equally loved) actor.
The return of Carson was great, but it was too little too late, & certainly not enough to erase the pointlessly depressing conclusion to Sunday.

Feel the love.
dolfyn.

[gateship15]

i hated that he died but i think he died doing the thing he loved doing and that was saving lives. still sad he died and poor rodney lost a friend

[DrNicholasRush]

Just finished watching the episode for the first time. Though I had read earlier on Stargate Wiki that he had died, the strength of the character continued to cause me to feel an ever-increasing amount of dread, and quite honestly, I bawled when he died. One of the best episodes so far in SG-1, Atlantis, or Universe, and I feel this gives the franchise as a whole another injection of realism and good storytelling. Too bad it had to be at the expense of a great character.

[gateship15]

i was so upset when he died

[Gamma626]

I dreaded watching this one again, but I did. Still an incredible episode. But so sad.

[magictrick]

Incredible episode. Right up there with Meridian and Heroes Part 1 and 2.

Spoiler:

Heroes trumps this episode for obvious reasons once you reach the later seasons of SGA.

I thought the episode tried to have the same impact as Heroes in SG-1 but came up short. I won't go into details of why, as it involves future episodes to come and the eventual decline of SGA, which has already been many a times in other threads.

Just analyzing the episode on its own, it was decent. The acting was good and you got to truly see Beckett in fine form at what he does best. The exploding tumor thing was kind of ridiculous but then again it is Sci-Fi so it becomes acceptable. I was just happy to see Beckett get center stage for once in an episode as he was a great character on the show.

[gateship15]

i agree

[Kentucky]

Saw Stargate Atlantis on Syfy a second ago so of course I started to watch... and then realized it was this episode and turned it off. I think this is one of the most brutal episodes to rewatch. Knowing what happens to Carson and then having to watch each and every one of his friends turn him down for the fishing trip is like getting kicked in the gut over and over.

[PTree]

Saw Stargate Atlantis on Syfy a second ago so of course I started to watch... and then realized it was this episode and turned it off. I think this is one of the most brutal episodes to rewatch. Knowing what happens to Carson and then having to watch each and every one of his friends turn him down for the fishing trip is like getting kicked in the gut over and over.

Agreed. I don't ever want to watch this episode again. I just got into SGA this year, after having watched all 10 seasons of SG1 on DVDs borrowed from a friend. I feel as dolfyn does. Carson's death just ruined the rest of the season for me and most of the rest of the series. He was my second-favorite character, behind Shepard, and his death was so shocking to me. I never saw that coming, and it just threw me. Bringing him back they way they did was indeed too little, too late.

[gateship15]

watched it again fantastic episode

[Atlantis4Life]

When I first saw Sunday (which was only last year), I'd only had a vague warning from a friend that it was a "sad episode" & that someone died; I had no idea that Paul/Carson was leaving. He was one of my 3 favourites, along with Sheppard & McKay. So I watched with a growing sense of dread & when it was Carson who died, I was very shocked & upset. After that, the remaining episodes of season 3 felt empty & hollow to me, & I really wasn't that keen to keep watching any further SGA seasons after that. I kept feeling that because Carson had died so suddenly & horribly, that I just couldn't emotionally invest in the other characters anymore; especially when Weir was also at death's door at the end of the season.
Then I found out that Carson was brought back, so I bought the box set of all 5 seasons just this year; & as I watched the first 3 seasons again I fell even harder for sweet lovable Carson (he became my top favourite) & cried even harder when I rewatched Sunday.
Although the little interactions & character developments were great in this episode, any good that did was quite literally blown away with the unnecessary death of Carson. Because he was the emotional core of the show, his removal took away the heart & left a big hole in the main cast interactions.
As far as I'm concerned, the ultimate destination of Sunday just completely permeates & ruins all the other good stuff in the episode. I want to love it but it just makes me too sad & angry, because it showcases the tossing away of a wonderful & loved character & a fantastic (& equally loved) actor.
The return of Carson was great, but it was too little too late, & certainly not enough to erase the pointlessly depressing conclusion to Sunday.

Feel the love.
dolfyn.

I'm feelin' the love, dolfyn (great sign-off). And, I feel your pain when it comes to Sunday. I didn't cry, but I was very shocked by that episode. I honestly don't remember watching the rest of the episodes from that season the first time around, even though I know I watched them because I was still thinking about what happened to Carson when I watched them. So, I wasn't really watching because I was distracted by such a major loss to the show. And, then they introduced a replacement just a couple of episodes later... They couldn't even wait until the next season. It was like Carson wasn't even cold in the grave (figuratively) and they were bringing in someone new like we were supposed to forget that soon...

Carson is my favorite character, too. I really believe that he was the heart of Atlantis. I have this idea of how everyone fit: Shep was the military leadership and the optimist (for the first 3 seasons, but that's another story), Teyla was the soul of Atlantis that provided a voice of reason, Ronon was the guts, Ford was the free spirit, Elizabeth was the diplomat, and McKay was the brains/pessimist. Everyone had a place, and together they were like one functioning body that was well-coordinated. Then, the heart got ripped out. How could they do that? It just didn't make sense. That's also when I think the series started its decline. Yes, we got a "heart transplant" with Keller, but it just wasn't the same... I have nothing against the actress, but I think that Carson Beckett will always be the rightful CMO of Atlantis. That's the way it should be in my humble opinion, and that's the way it should have stayed.

However, several months later I went ahead and watched those last 3 episodes of the season again and they were great. I was able to just focus on what was happening, and now Submersion and Vengeance are 2 of my favorite stargate episodes period. First Strike was a great episode as well. The only complaint that I have is that no one seemed to mourn Carson after Sunday. It was like they just forgot about him, even McKay. I believe that the McKay/Beckett friendship and its ongoing development was a major missed opportunity for the show.

The goodbye between Carson and Rodney at the end of Sunday was one of the BEST interactions on television between good friends that I've seen. It's classic. TPTB also did a great job at handling Carson's reintroduction in The Kindred Part 2 (another favorite episode of mine). But, if you were only to watch all of season 5, you'd never really know that Carson and Rodney were friends - EVER. That was annoying, to say the least, because I really liked that friendship. Oh, well...

*sigh* Getting back to Sunday, it really is a strong episode (outside of the exploding tumor thing) if you watch it once the shock of Carson's premature death subsides. For some people that doesn't happen, but I was able to watch the episode for what it was worth a few months after initially seeing it. That's when I really started to like the episode. On the one hand, you have Carson's unfortunate exodus from Atlantis. But on the other hand, you have such great character interactions that were too few and far between on Atlantis in some respects. So, I watch that episode for the characters, and for the way that it showed how indispensable and irreplaceable Carson was right before his exit. It's bittersweet. But if you focus on the sweet parts, the bitter parts aren't so bitter. That's my take on Sunday.


And, I hope you're feeling the love too.

Cheers.

[Elorendil]

This is the saddest episode of any of the Stargates that I have seen so far. Yes, Heroes was sad and

Spoiler:

I was completely shocked when Janet died, and I cried pretty hard about it.

But that somehow was different. Carson was such a lovable character. He had real strength of character, and he was sweet, gentle, kind, compassionate and a wonderful friend and asset to the expedition. I think that the way he took everyone bailing on the fishing trip and how he was so good natured about really drove home how sweet he was. Insisting on removing the tumor even when he knew it could explode really emphasized how much he valued life and placed others ahead of himself. I think this is why his death had even more of an impact than Heroes did.

I don't think I will be able to watch this episode again for a very long time. For one thing, it reminded me too much of the death of my best friend, two years ago. I was going to take her out riding on the horses, but it rained and we put it off. Before we could do it, she died without any warning. It's funny how we all know that each time we say goodbye to someone, it could be for the last time, but deep down, we don't really believe that a healthy young person could die so abruptly. This episode was a very harsh reminder of the cruel, cold reality of our mortality. Seeing Carson go was like a kick in the gut. He was a large part of what really drew me to the show, and it won't be the same without him. We will see if the rest of the series can hold my interest, without him.