'The Daedalus Variations' (504) General Discussion

[pjt]

It was also nice to not deal with Keller's squickiness. Give it an A-PLUS just for her absence.

(writes in his small black book)

[amconway]

The New Enemy - we'll see them again. If they are in another reality, they may very well be in the 'normal' one. Besides, they have all those CGI ship models.

Teyla's efficiency with the equipement. She must have been studying a lot, but I've never thought that her skills were very useful, so this is good.
(re: her being judgemental and self-righteous. I've never found her so - more boringly well balanced. I'd kind of like to see her throw a hissy fit. Just as a note, Daniel could be considered judgemental and self-righteous - depending on how you feel about morality , and was central to the success of the team. He also throws a damn fine hissy fit.)

[ussrelativity]

The New Enemy - we'll see them again. If they are in another reality, they may very well be in the 'normal' one. Besides, they have all those CGI ship models.

Teyla's efficiency with the equipement. She must have been studying a lot, but I've never thought that her skills were very useful, so this is good.
(re: her being judgemental and self-righteous. I've never found her so - more boringly well balanced. I'd kind of like to see her throw a hissy fit. Just as a note, Daniel could be considered judgemental and self-righteous - depending on how you feel about morality , and was central to the success of the team. He also throws a damn fine hissy fit.)

He sure does.

[david2708]

Pretty overrated ep. Probably because the first three eps of the season were so mundanely mediocre.
Wasn't a bad ep and it certainly wasn't a stellar one either.
Nothing happened of much significance and all was normal by the end.
The first 4 eps are essentially self contained episodes and the show seems to be going nowhere in particular. Kinda just treading water. They seem to have no idea what to do with the show. What a suprise!

[sweetsamurai]

As someone who is losing trust in the writers to not do something stupid with SGA - I really liked this episode!

We finally have the team - all four - together and on their own!

"Easy Chewy, those buttons are your friends.." haha - love it!

Just want to mention ANDY MIKITA - who did an amazing job in directing. Ever since MIDWAY - I have fallen in love with this man's skill in directing.

Great script - Alan MC...is very talented.

I loved the new badguys! I hope Ronan or Teyla takes the new gun into their daily armouring.

Sheppard talking to himself was perfect - I would do that with my double: "You are great, wow, so skilled..." haha.

The story was interesting - a great way to bring new enemies into the fold.

I still wish Teyla would have more presence - she had it in seasons 1-3 and lost it in s04.

I'd give this episode a 9/10.

[sweetsamurai]

There is a huge difference in self-righteousness and compromising the integrity of one's morals and principles.

Those who, let's say lack morals, see a humble, moralistic person who is strong with convivtion - usually, text-book psych - hit back and falsely accuse them for being arrogant and self-righteous because deep down they know they are hollow inside.

Daniel Jackson was not in any way self-righteous. The writers had a perfect balance with Daniel.

Teyla however, in Season 4 became this annoying whiney person - but that is down to the fault of poor writing and dismissing a character etc..

[Linzi]

I really enjoyed this episode. It was 43 minutes of a fun space romp for me. I enjoyed the story, and where it took me, and loved the action too - though there was nothing deep here for me to enthuse over. It was what is was; action, team, space and shoot out sort of television. Fun, and entertaining, but not going to have me thinking about it for hours and hours after. That's fine. Not all episodes can do that, nor should they.

I adored the alien bad guys, and really hope we'll be seeing them in our team's reality/timelime. They were really creepy! I really thought the vis effects were outstanding too, and loved the space battles. The new little fighter alien ships were really cool, IMO.

Enjoyed seeing the team together, that was a plus point for me too. There were some funny moments too. Initially the Alt Shep Our Shep complimentary scene threw me a little. It seemed out of character...until someone pointed out to me that Sheppard was trying to annoy Rodney when doing it, and then it made much more sense to me. I laughed when I watched it the first time, but appreciated it more after looking at it with a different perspective.

Quite a few people seem to have found Ronon banging the controls amusing. For some reason I thought it made Ronon look a bit, well, stupid. In all fairness I've banged buttons randomly when playing shoot 'em style games on various consoles, so I do have sympathy. I did like Sheppard's 'Chewie' line though.

Teyla? Hmmmm, well, it was nice she had something to do, I suppose, though I do feel it was a bit of a stretch that a lesson with Marks suddenly made her seemlingly an expert. But I think it does add another dimension to her, and she sorely needs that, IMO.

I am finding the baby thing a trifle overdone now. Can the baby just go away now? Teyla has made a decision to rejoin the team. I understand about her concern for her child, but I just don't want to keep hearing about it. Sorry. I haven't really enjoyed the Teyla pregnancy storyline, and though I do understand the necessity to include it because of real life events, and have sympathy for the writers here, I just groan sometimes. I did like how it was all resolved in S and R, and thought it was important that Kanaan etc were dealt with, as they were in BT. But I've sort of had enough now.

I didn't really miss Woolsey here and saw no need for him to be in a token scene, which is a contrast to how I felt last season when Carter was missing so obviously on occasion. I don't know why it is that I felt differently in this episode. Maybe it's because it was on the Daedalus and Lorne did mention informing Woolsey of events? It seemed really well handled without him, IMO. I certainly didn't miss Keller. In fact it was rather nice NOT to have her around. She's just not part of the core team as far as I'm concerned, and a break from her rather distinctive voice was quite nice for me. I don't dislike Keller, but I really don't love her. I've liked her better this season, most definitely, so there's an improvement there, certainly, but I really was glad for the break. Sorry

So, all in all, a fun ride. Not a deep and meaningful episode for me, but an entertaining 43 minutes of scifi, with space battles, action and the odd bit of humour. 8/10.

[Naonak]

Man, I REALLY need to learn to summarize my thoughts. It's getting ridiculous.

Nah, plenty of us like reading your reviews.
And, personally, they tend to be quite close to what I think about the episode, but can't type out in good word things (), so it's nice to read.

[JSPuddlejumper]

Those F-302's did a number on the enemy fighters. Great pilots in combination with great planes. Those F-302's have superb manuverability.

[Shan Bruce Lee]

I believe that she COULD learn it, but boy, did that moment make me roll my eyes. She made it sound like (and I am probably wrong, but it is what she made it sound like) it was an afternoon tutorial Marks gave her.

My understanding of it was that she only learned to use some computer controls (basically software). And we've seen before when she knows how to use the computers in Atlantis ('Quarantine')

[Shan Bruce Lee]

Those F-302's did a number on the enemy fighters. Great pilots in combination with great planes. Those F-302's have superb manuverability.

They also had the element of surprise

[Shan Bruce Lee]

Oh no! How dare they! This alternate reality... also... has a planet...

Oh no, wait. They didn't, not all.

And one was the sun, instead of a planet.

and one had been blown to bits, and one had no Atlantis, and one had a female commander on the Deadalus... but aside from all the differences they were all the same.

[Shan Bruce Lee]

Well that would make sense as well.

I wasn't too fussed about it as I understand why the writers did it. At least Teyla had something to do rather than stand around as wallpaper. So can't complain.

Her AND Ronon

(don't even get me started on how awesome it was watching the 302 flying UNDER the turtle shell of the Daedalus as we were following it. Damn, damn damn man. Awesome)

Without a doubt my favorite moment of the episode

[foggygirl]

IMO this episode was the best of this season (so far) anyway. I loved Search and Rescue but I really considered that a continuation of season four not really part of season 5. The Seed was a blah storyline and even Broken Ties was a bit meh at times but with the Daedalus Variations it seems like they have gotten back on track in terms of storylines and characters. I really hope that they bring these aliens back in future episodes because they were pretty narly!
But on a slightly superficial note they really need to get rid of Jason's wig! The fake dreds are dreadful! LOL

[Pajus]

Message to John Sheppard: Where I come from we have a proberb: Sebechvála smrdi (self-praise stinks). I expected this to come from Mckay, but you doing it is just low