Unending (1020)

[g.o.d]

Noooo because then there would have been no need to go through 50 years with the team!

and that would be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sad

[jelgate]

I was just wondering (and pardon if it's been asked before): couldn't they have used the 'matter' device (the one that made the cello and other stuff) to have made something to diffuse/absorb the incoming Ori beam?

I know nothing that can abosrb an Ori beam

Heck, couldn't Sam have replicated that 'homemade 'gate' that was once made in her basement w/ all that tech and knowledge in the Asgard database for the Ori beam to go into?

Still, it was a good episode, if a bit sad (mostly coz' it was the series finale)

The gate would be too small for the beam to fit through and I don't think Orlin ever explained it to Sam

[Cheyenne Grace]

Okay, this is in response to the 'Why didn't the Asgard use the Ancient knowledge that Jack had downloaded into his brain?' questions, from a lil while back. (I'm sorry if someone has already answered this, but I've skimmed and I haven't seen it, so...)

The Ancients didn't know everything... plus, the repository would have been compiled prior to their Ascension. My point is, the Ancients couldn't handle their own plague... in fact, they either ran away to another galaxy, or Ascended to escape it. So why would they be able to handle the Asgard's virus?

[siles]

In Atlantis the Ancients build a machine that was capable of making a person Ascend - why didn't the Asgard use that or something similar? Asgard mass-suicide was a stupid stupid idea, unfortunately the last 2 seasons were filled with them..

[HAL2100]

Okay, this is in response to the 'Why didn't the Asgard use the Ancient knowledge that Jack had downloaded into his brain?' questions, from a lil while back. (I'm sorry if someone has already answered this, but I've skimmed and I haven't seen it, so...)

The Ancients didn't know everything... plus, the repository would have been compiled prior to their Ascension. My point is, the Ancients couldn't handle their own plague... in fact, they either ran away to another galaxy, or Ascended to escape it. So why would they be able to handle the Asgard's virus?

I seem to recall that it wasn't a virus per se, but a major genetic defect that began to manifest itself.

[HAL2100]

In Atlantis the Ancients build a machine that was capable of making a person Ascend - why didn't the Asgard use that or something similar? Asgard mass-suicide was a stupid stupid idea, unfortunately the last 2 seasons were filled with them..

The machine was probably key'ed toward human physiology.

[Jim of WVa]

Quick Question:

Would it not make more sense to call the episode: Ragnarök or Götterdämmerung instead of Unending?

Jim

[Pharaoh Atem]

Quick Question:

Would it not make more sense to call the episode: Ragnarök or Götterdämmerung instead of Unending?

Jim

huh?? and huh??

[Jim of WVa]

huh?? and huh??

Ragnarök is old Norse for the twilight or death of the Norse gods (Asgard). Götterdämmerung is the German word for the same thing.

[jelgate]

Because the average viewer wouldn't have a clue what it means and the episode's main focus wasn't the death the Asgard

[HAL2100]

If it had been focused on the Asgaard, then yes Ragnarok would have been more appropriate, but that was only a very small portion of the story.

[HAL2100]

Because the average viewer wouldn't have a clue what it means and the episode's main focus wasn't the death the Asgard

Great theory that the average viewer wouldn't have a clue about its meaning. Honestly, '"Cold Lazarus", "Ex Deus Machina", "The Torment of Tantalus", "Wormhole X-Treme!","Orpheus","Chimera","Moebius","Babylon","Ethon","Morpheus","Memento Mori", "Talion" all clearly communicate the point of the story without any question of a doubt.

[Sqrl]

I loathed this episode and cannot understand why others liked it at all.

This will be my rant on it, if you don't want to hear it you should skip it. And once I'm done I'll leave you folks who liked it to talk in peace:

/begin rant

The whole "The Ori can now track you!" schtick makes no sense...I mean why weren't they tracking the Asgard? For that matter why didn't the Asgard fire some planetary defense weapons and destroy the Ori ships before off'ing themselves? But OK lets accept that...

Oh we can destroy the Ori ships now? Neat! So we took out one after we waited until we were already down to ~23% shields to even start firing and then we jump into hyperspace. OK...crazy thought....You guys are gonna think I'm nuts...but HEY..how about you charge shields and when you drop out of hyper-space you *ambush* them (ie turn around and be ready to fire on them immediately as they leave hyper-space, possibly before even raising their shields, rather than letting them come up behind you every freaking time). Every time they engaged it was after they had already let the Ori get the drop on them, I mean the second ship they took out they were firing on the one ship that didn't have a firing line on them while another ship rode their tail blasting away with impunity and tearing up their shields.

Oh what? Instead you want to stand there taking shots from the Ori until your shields are gone and you have no choice but to hit the time dilation field? I mean..really!!? Ugh...fine whatever...

OK so we settle in for the long haul? No problem, makes sense, there isn't a lot else we can do now. Wait..what is going on? Mitchell is going crazy and breaking things...yeah cause that totally makes me like his character..I just love when my heroes get frustrated and break stuff. Oh for f___ sake..now carter gave up too? I mean losing hope when you think you're about to die in an episode here or there is one thing, but losing hope for months and years and just giving up altogether is antithetical to the identity of these characters. The character of each member of SG-1 and their refusal to give up is what made them so likable....but no now their a bunch of quitters...riiight...what the F ever....screw you writers...

Oh and while we're at it lets look at other options that carter could have explored:

- Fly the ship out of the path of the blast? A time dilation field doesn't need to be stationary and when it moves the space leaving the bubble will return to normal time while the space entering the bubble will be at the altered time. There is literally no reason they couldn't just fire up sub-light engines and leave...hell they could charge weapons and leave a dozen blasts all heading for the Ori ship as well, granted as soon as those blasts hit the edge of the field they would bunch up and slow down to normal time. - Elapsed time: A few seconds

- Go with the plan you had but instead of putting Teal'c in the bubble outside the time dilation field, build a computer/robot that can remotely tap into the ship's computer and do the job instead (the point of Teal'c going was to prevent them from repeating the ordeal) - Elapsed time: zero, with the added bonus that nobody loses 50 years off their life and you could even let Daniel and Sam put a ton of their notes from all of their studies on the computer/robot as well.

-Create and beam an artificial gravity generator in front of and either below or above where the beam will pass, turn it on to a high gravity level and then laugh when you drop the time dilation field and the geodesic path bends the blast above or below the ship (depends on placement), hell if you can get the gravity high enough and the placement precise enough you can bend the shot and make it hit the Ori ship - Elapsed time: Couple of days maybe a few weeks

- Create a new shield emitter with the core and tie the ZPM into it to block just this one blast, turn the new shield emitter on and drop the time dilation field, run your macro program to separate the drive from the core, let the new shield emitter stop the blast and jump into hyper-space - Elapsed time: A year or two

/end rant

OK, in fairness there are some redeeming qualities:

Pros:
- Daniel Vala hookup
- Becoming 5th Race
- Finally destroying some Ori Ships (even if their tactics were atrocious)
- The ending once they left the field was actually quite excellent.

Other Cons:
- Jack O'Neill anyone?
- Asgard blow themselves up? What the..? They don't think of guns but blowing themselves up is plan A?

Overall this episode makes me want to sucker punch the writers. A lot of the technical stuff that they could or should have done doesn't bother me as much since I know its a TV show and they have to have certain elements to work with...but the team giving up really bothered me, it just cut against everything I love about the series. Even when one person gave up the others picked them up and made them carry on, to see them all just hopeless makes me want to punch brick walls. Seriously this episode, specifically the part in the time dilation field, made me want to scream, cry, and kick a puppy all at once it was so maddening.

All I can say is thank god for the movies.

[cflat]

^ Wow, what a rant. But yeah, you're not the only one who didn't like that episode.

[Petra]

^ Wow, what a rant. But yeah, you're not the only one who didn't like that episode.

Oh, definitely. I hate it so much that for my own peace of mind I pretend it doesn't exist.

Not so long ago I wrote my own "little" rant about it, which can be found here. Funnily enough, my reasons for disliking it were different from the ones Sqrl gave..maybe we should make some "ultimate list of everything we hated in Unending"