Ethon (915)

[Buzz Lightyear]

So, I guess Rand and Caledonia are no more after this one. Seems like a bit of a copout though after the final scenes on the planet, felt a little too deus ex machina-ish for me.

Actually, it would have been too neat and tidy for that spur-of-the-moment agreement brokered by Daniel to have been successful. I mean, Rand was asking for the entire nation of Caledonia to give up their home and be relocated to another planet. That's a bit much, don't you think? Especially considering how long the two countries have been hostile to each other. I think the dark twist at the end was well-done. It was unexpected (in a Stargate story), yet made perfect sense, given the setting. Not at all deus ex machina, imo.

[Xanderic]

In my opinion, this episode made rebalanced stargate's realistic scale. The 303 class (Prommie/ Daed) seemed to be portrayed as a indestructible spaceship.

Obviously this isn't true now that we've seen it.

This episode was pretty good except for one thing:
The Hesitation of the Prommie Crew.

I know they care for Daniel, especially now that Oma isn't there to re-ascend him if he dies. Also, the schematics Kane brought to Earth were EARLY schematics. I'm pretty sure shields would definately be added. With that said, they should have automatically destroyed the satellite upon exiting hyperspace and then destroy the Rand Protectorate bunker. Also, Daniel's location beacon should have been a tiny little thing that he could attack to his glasses or watch or something.

[DrDJackson]

Whoever thought up this ep needs to be shot.... not for thinking up the ep... but using the Prometheus.... use the Daedalus or Odyssey they dont deserve to be active and working..... they all suck... Im very disappointed in the creative staff as well as JM.....

[Xanderic]

Whoever thought up this ep needs to be shot.... not for thinking up the ep... but using the Prometheus.... use the Daedalus or Odyssey they dont deserve to be active and working..... they all suck... Im very disappointed in the creative staff as well as JM.....

You need to be shot. The episode is brilliant.
1) The Daedalus is in Atlantis
2) The Odyssey isn't even finished building yet and will not be shown for another 2 episodes.
3) They had to use the Prometheus or else the episode couldn't be called Ethon, the bird that gnawed on the organs of Prometheus, which is exactly what happened in the episode.
4) They just didn't think that there would be shields either.
5) Prometheus means to think after. SG-1 didn't take everything into consideration before going to the planet. Perfect parallelism to the Prometheus.

[tflux]

At first I was like "WOW", great episode. And I still do think it was a great episode, but I'm kind of pissed off... I think.

Pendergast died for what? They got the Prometheus blown up for what? I suspect that weapon will come into play later in the season, but if not... what a waste. The amount of naquadah to build a ship that size just to have it shot down by a bunch of brainwashed industrial-age nutjobs? Ugh. To make things worse, the people they were trying to save still blew the living hell out of each other.

Arg. So confused! I'm going to miss both the Prometheus and Pendergast.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Overall I thought it was a good episode, but they tried too hard to be Star Trek-preachy.

This episode reminded me of that episode of Star Trek - Next Generation that got banned in Ireland for being a too simplistic reproduction of the IRA situation.

Okay, we get it. Cycle of violence, deals breaking down, it's supposed to be an Israel/Palestine reference.

The action of the episode was good though. I was surprised they blew up the Prometheus, and I liked the tension as the episode progressed. Just, the attempted real world analogy was too forced.

I didn't get the sense the episode was preachy at all. If there were any real world analogies being made, I thought it was more along the line of the US/Soviet's now-defunct Cold War and the principle of MAD (mutual assured destruction). That's nothing like Israel/Palestine which do not have equal capabilities of destroying each other. It's more like on Earth we survived a similar stand-off because cooler heads and diplomacy prevailed. The folks in Rand/Caledonia weren't so fortunate.

Is the Star Trek episode you're referencing from season 3 of the original series - "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"? That's the one with two deadly antagonists, one was black on one half of his body, white on the other half, while the other person had the coloration reversed. And their sole reason for hating each other was that coloration difference. If that's the one they banned in Ireland, then that's very sad indeed.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Poor Sam sure underestimated the satellite's technology, didn't she? This ep shows the havoc that the SGC has wreaked on on planet, from causing the world war to inviting the Ori to our galaxy. I wonder how poor Daniel can sleep at night!

Thats exactly what I was thinking! I mean if they blew themselves up then the weapon should be ours for the taking. Its only fitting that SGC get it seeing that they blew up Earth's ship. Thats the least that Earth should get for all the crap that we took trying to help them.

The arrival of SG1 from Earth (in episode 805 "Icon") was what triggered the latest confrontation between Rand and Caledonia. And being the meddlesome folks they are, the SGC gets caught in the crossfire between the two warring nations. How many times has the well-intentioned bystander try to break up a bar brawl only to get stabbed himself?

To be fair, Rand and Caledonia would have likely launched nuclear attacks on each other eventually, given their inability to find ANY common ground (guess they didn't have anyone like Jonas Quinn who was the voice of reason on Kelowna). SG1's involvement only sped up that development. However, I think we can place the blame for the appearance of the Priors in our galaxy squarely on the shoulders of the SGC.

[Xanderic]

At first I was like "WOW", great episode. And I still do think it was a great episode, but I'm kind of pissed off... I think.

Pendergast died for what? They got the Prometheus blown up for what? I suspect that weapon will come into play later in the season, but if not... what a waste. The amount of naquadah to build a ship that size just to have it shot down by a bunch of brainwashed industrial-age nutjobs? Ugh. To make things worse, the people they were trying to save still blew the living hell out of each other.

Arg. So confused! I'm going to miss both the Prometheus and Pendergast.

Stargate has overall been a realistic show. But with the Orii in this season, it seems that Earth is more or less prevailing. Sort of a godly status but not godly at all, if you get my drift. In order for the show to stay realistic, ships have to be destroyed and people have to die. Not everything can have an extremely happy ending.

[DrDJackson]

Xander..... the new ship will be shown next week... go check the episode guide....

[the_cadpig]

Originally posted by tflux
Pendergast died for what? They got the Prometheus blown up for what? I suspect that weapon will come into play later in the season, but if not... what a waste. The amount of naquadah to build a ship that size just to have it shot down by a bunch of brainwashed industrial-age nutjobs? Ugh. To make things worse, the people they were trying to save still blew the living hell out of each other.

What can you say? War is hell. That's the realism of it, and it doesn't always make sense. I appreciated that.

Also, I can't believe the beer scene is getting so nitpicked. Gotta tell ya. I was in a field unit for 14 years and during that time, we had plenty of beer. And yes, it was kept and consumed sometimes in the workplace with the full knowledge of the company commander. Mostly because the workplace was also the living place most of the time. As long as we weren't on duty and as long as people didn't over do things and get stupid, it was cool. That particular scene I could identify with... alot. Real bad day. Beer. That's real.

~cp

[Dromag67]

Great episode 4 stars.


Very sad to see Prommie and Pendergast go the way of the dodo bird, but it was necesarry and will be missed.

[Seastallion]

What can you say? War is hell. That's the realism of it, and it doesn't always make sense. I appreciated that.

Also, I can't believe the beer scene is getting so nitpicked. Gotta tell ya. I was in a field unit for 14 years and during that time, we had plenty of beer. And yes, it was kept and consumed sometimes in the workplace with the full knowledge of the company commander. Mostly because the workplace was also the living place most of the time. As long as we weren't on duty and as long as people didn't over do things and get stupid, it was cool. That particular scene I could identify with... alot. Real bad day. Beer. That's real.

~cp

I agree. I was in the Air Force, and we never kept alchohol around our immediate workplace, but you could buy beer on base at either the commissary or at an 0nbase bar or restuarant. In any case, I don't think either Daniel or Mitchell were on actual duty. I lived on base and people were drinking all the time... off duty, and away from the work areas. It looked to me like they were in Daniel's personal work area, one of his homes away from home. SG-1 has hanged around a lot in there, wether on duty or not.

As to the episode... It was great..! I'm really going to miss the Prometheus though... Farewell, fine ship...

[Xanderic]

Xander..... the new ship will be shown next week... go check the episode guide....

Doesn't matter. The point i'm getting across is that it hasn't been shown yet. Therefore, they can't use the Odyssesy in Ethon. It's either shown in The Scourge or Off the Grid... i forget which one is first and it's almost 2am and I'm tired and don't feel like checking right now. But it's in one of those two which is either 9x16 or 9x17. And Ethon is 9x15.

[AnotherEvilAlien]

I may be new here, but I have been watching SG-1 since Season 3.


Honestly, I hated this episode. Killing off the Prometheus was unwarranted and unneeded. Now, I could have understand some epic space battle where the Prometheus dished out some whupass and eventually got taken out (for instance, back in Lost City, Part 2 - had Prometheus been destroyed then, it would have been better that way than this way).

However, the Prometheus got it's ass kicked like a red-headed step child. Personally, I don't find that to be entertaining. Why not kill off Earth now? Just kill of SG-1. Hell, they're replaceable, Ben Browder proved that. Just kill the entire cast, yeah.

The worst part about it is that the writers seem to have killed off Prometheus simply because of a quick one-liner that Teal'C gave back in Ripple Effect. I'm sorry, but just because the Prometheus was lost in an alternative dimension DOES NOT mean it has to happen here.


My take: good acting, good effects, good characters. HORRIBLE writing. I was quite disgusted to see Prometheus die an undeserving and pointless death, along with Pendergast. The fact that so many of the crew was lost and that the Rand and Caldonian people just ended up killing themselves anyways, this episode quite honestly sucked. It seems like the writers hit a bit of an emo bump and decided just said "screw it" and did something grand and dramatic - only it wasn't and it wasn't needed.

I'm not saying we shouldn't kill off characters like Pendergast, or destroy things like the Prometheus, but why the hell did they have to do it the way they did? Hell, it would be like if next week, the Wraith just show up and blow up Atlantis - just like that. Not only is it a bad plot course, but it's unneeded and quite noninteresting.

However, that's just one fan's take on things. Had the Prometheus dished out some pain and kicked some butt before going down, I'd be rooting and tooting for this episode, but the writers just took a dump on this episode. It sucked, to be completely blunt and honest.

I actually like the fact that the Promie was destroyed. We always expect our heros to win, it is sometimes refreshing (and unpredictable) to see them fail.

So then you'd be okay if the writers decided to kill all of SG-1? Have Dr. Weir thrown to a bunch of hungry Wraiths? Atlantis fall into the sea?

Also, a person can fail and not die. McKay failed compaired to Carter - that doesn't mean we should throw him into a pit of lava or blow him up.

The writers COULD have had Pendergast fail to destroy the satellite, yet still live at the end of the day. This way, we see the heros are flawed and can fail - only we don't blow them up into tiny little chunks. Pendergast was an awesome character, and I am sad to see him gone. The Prometheus is replaceable by Earth, yes, but that ship had a lot of character also.

[AutumnDream]

Prometheus got fried as foreshadowing to the fact that the Ori can beat us to hell and back with or without Asgard help.

Good episode!

PS: OMG DANIEL WATCH OUT KANE IS A CYLON!