'Time' (108) General Discussion

[prion]

Yeah, they said it was the crew. And I don't know if the creatures actually ate the crew or just attacked and killed them.

They ate people. If you saw Eli's body when Scott woke up, he had a piece taken out of him.

[Radahldo]

They ate people. If you saw Eli's body when Scott woke up, he had a piece taken out of him.

His head right? Thats what they devoured?

[Meryl]

His head right? Thats what they devoured?

more his leg in my opinion...

[DavidR]

I think Lt. Scott made it quite clear what was going to happen. Still, I don't think we have to worry as I'm sure they'll make mention of it in the next episode, it's just that the episode won't actually continue event-wise into the next episode.

Major mistake in story telling. Story plots have 4 phases. Exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. If one wants, the phases could be expanded to 5. Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.

In Time, Scott only mentioned what had to be done, which is the climax of the story, what the viewers didn't actually see was the resolution. What was done to resolve the crisis, therefore in the viewer perspective, the story is incomplete regardless of what the writers think they did to resolve and complete the story.

I've seen this done in literary works where the ending was the climax of the story and the resolution was completely left out. Tie up the story was done in an epilogue. Critics were very harsh and negative towards the writer, the writers style, and give bad reviews for the book.

I can see Maureen really lay into Cooper/Mallozzi and Wright about it.

[Cecil Brax]

I'm reasonably confident that we're to assume the situation was resolved in the end.

Honestly, I think this was probably the best place to end when they did. We could have gotten 20 more seconds of the next team finding the kino and a quick mention about how the cure worked, etc etc but it would have just been a rehash of what already happened and a waste of time. While some people might have felt it made for a better conclusion, this episode literally left me on the edge of my seat and I felt myself doing a 'Greer' and going "Yeah, get some!".

I think if they had dragged that ending out a little more, it would have been exactly that ... dragging it out. It wouldn't have furthered anything more, and wouldn't have served to be something interesting. It would have just been a rehash. The only logical way I could see extending it a little is this:

Scott hears more bugs coming, and realizing he is out of time pulls his arm back hurling the Kino through the gate just as the bugs swarm around him. As soon as the Kino hits the Stargate, making the whoosh sound, that doubles as the Destiny team comes through the stargate again, and pans back away from the gate showing them staring down at the Kino laying at the bottom of the ramp.

Anyway, that's how I would have ended it if I were writing the episode. hehe.

- CB

[Orion Antreas]

Major mistake in story telling. Story plots have 4 phases. Exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. If one wants, the phases could be expanded to 5. Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.

In Time, Scott only mentioned what had to be done, which is the climax of the story, what the viewers didn't actually see was the resolution. What was done to resolve the crisis, therefore in the viewer perspective, the story is incomplete regardless of what the writers think they did to resolve and complete the story.

I've seen this done in literary works where and ending is rushed or they cut off the resolution phase and tie up the story in an epilogue. Critics were very harsh and negative towards the writer, the writers style, and give bad reviews for the book.

I've seen it done in TV and the ratings for the programs suffered terribly. A couple of them are well known current series trying for a come back in the ratings.

While I recognize this method as a ploy used for creating a sense of tension for the viewer, the same as a cliffhanger, the history of using this method in this manner, has been disasterous.

You're absolutely right. We had a resolution. Think about it. JM did say you need to use your brain with this one...

And what Scott suggested was instead the resolution, not the climax. The climax was when the second loop went all screwy.

[the fifth man]

I thought this episode was really good. One of SGU's best yet. I can't wait to watch it again in a little bit.

[StargateBuilder]

The aliens in this episode were very cool. There is one minor thing in the episode that I that was different from previous time travel experiences. Why was the event horizon flickering, it hasn't done that in the presence of a solar flare before.

[ladyjanus]

An interesting episode. I'm not even close to fully understanding all the time-looping-back-on-itself stuff, but I enjoyed the work by the actors. Lots of good scene work here, lots of emotion and characterization, even if it does end up being some sort of alternate reality/timeline/non-canon stuff. I do love to see a good actor strut his/her stuff.

Very interesting to look at, as well. The kino stuff probably pissed off some folks, but to my mind, it was appropriate, given the nature of the story telling structure. Iliked the night vision stuff as well.

And the creatures were just way too nasty. Made me go eeeewwwww....

I have what might be a stupid question - Doesn't Destiny go in and out of FTL in response to whatever problems it detects onboard, leaving the people to try to figure out what they need to do to help the ship help itself and them? I thought that was part of the grand scheme of the storyline. The people can't control when the ship stops and starts, they just have to figure out what's going on. If the ship detected the tainted water, would it choose that planet for the opportunity to gather what they need to help themselves? IDK. I might be wrong...

One quibble, though - I have lost a serious measure of respect for Eli, afer hearing him confess to liking "Old School." that movie sucked. Will Farrell is NOT funny...

[SBN]

Best episode yet, by far. Actually I would go so far as to say this is the funnest Stargate show I have seen in quite some time, maybe going back to something in season 8 of SG1.

I loved the subtlety of Eli mounting that Kino, then using the weapon like it was a video game. I say subtle because this was built up and not just slapped together in 3 seconds so they could have a "cool" scene that really feel just contrived. It just felt right.

I would also say that in retrospect I love the idea of having the Kino be the camera for this episode. It really worked. I have been kind of fence sitting somewhat on whether this whole Kino idea of filming would be a good idea. Some parts have worked, some parts kind of bleh. This time though it really helped to create an atmosphere, especially at night when they got over run.

Lastly I think they way they handle the time issue was done perfectly in that it was not all spoonfed to us like little babies. Instead it was rather complicated, especially the ending.

[SGalisa]

whoa!.. shortly more than an hour ago, this topic was still on page 1.

All I can say about this episode is just WOW. Blows all previous ones out of the water. Just... Wow.

yes, I thought so, too.. so far, anyway.
and speaking of *water* -- aka, the poisoned water from the ice planet.. interesting..

Seeing as there is still a crew next week, yeah, I would say they manage to make good use of Lt. Scott's message, which implies a better than even likelihood that Chloe will be back among the living

yeah, I thought the same. As well as the other 3 guys who "died" at the very end segment, too.

My fav episode so far. The ending was classic. It was lime watching a horror film.

I've tried to stay out of commenting for a while to absorb / digest what has been presented and debated upon. As for the effects of the so-called shaky cam ---- I haven't really seen much of that. It's more like the effects of the kino has been presented as a floating ball -- the camera movements are more even and floaty like, in that particular sense.

Rush taking off and jumping through the gate was great an the visuals are outstanding.

Question is -- whatever happened to *that* version of Rush?

It's the same flare, at the same time. Just in different AT's.

The solar flare from the end of 1969 was the exact same flare also. They went through the gate just a few short seconds early and it threw them years further than they wanted to be. By all indications it was a few hours between when Rush went through the gate and when Scott threw the Kino through and it came out the other side roughly around the same time as Rush? Really?

SG-1's 1969 eppy was my first thought on the solar flare -- forward and backward -- it didn't really matter, because of the other eppy that paralleled the same idea. The kino recorded both or more ?? events on the same data stream?

anyway, creepy eppy -- in a good way, tho. One of the few that I actually could sit thru and not get creeped out in a sicky horror sense.

Spoiler:

and is Rush really an "ancient," --as in he died, ascended and came back again.. or did he hang around Daniel Jackson too much...

[Sam StarEagle]

BSG fans were pissed at the finale of BSG for using God as a solution the BSG crew's problems. Other more neutral places were Stargate discussion, such as Metafilter and Slashdot, have left the viewers in agreement that the use of ascended beings and time travel was ruining the show. Time travel allows the writers to cheat death easily and it's something they never limit fully in it's abilities.

Actually in BSG the writers never bothered to actually work out what the "rules" for that universe were, thus the (IMHO) justified annoyance with them totally abandoning logic in S4 and saying "God" did it...

THIS, however felt like a really sleek and clever way of reintroducing the "rules" of the Gate's already established mythos without it actually FEELING like that was what you were watching...which I quite liked.

[Cecil Brax]

An interesting episode. I'm not even close to fully understanding all the time-looping-back-on-itself stuff, but I enjoyed the work by the actors. Lots of good scene work here, lots of emotion and characterization, even if it does end up being some sort of alternate reality/timeline/non-canon stuff. I do love to see a good actor strut his/her stuff.

Very interesting to look at, as well. The kino stuff probably pissed off some folks, but to my mind, it was appropriate, given the nature of the story telling structure. Iliked the night vision stuff as well.

And the creatures were just way too nasty. Made me go eeeewwwww....

I have what might be a stupid question - Doesn't Destiny go in and out of FTL in response to whatever problems it detects onboard, leaving the people to try to figure out what they need to do to help the ship help itself and them? I thought that was part of the grand scheme of the storyline. The people can't control when the ship stops and starts, they just have to figure out what's going on. If the ship detected the tainted water, would it choose that planet for the opportunity to gather what they need to help themselves? IDK. I might be wrong...

One quibble, though - I have lost a serious measure of respect for Eli, afer hearing him confess to liking "Old School." that movie sucked. Will Farrell is NOT funny...

To be honest the creatures reminded me of that Season 5 Episode of Stagate Atlantis where John touches the crystal creature and then Dr. Keller is having a Nightmare of the creature coming out of Teyla's stomach. They seriously made me think of that this episode.

As for the water, if I remember correctly TJ said that there was a tainted sample that was put into the rest of the water that tainted everything. I don't think the ship missed anything, just that someone didn't run the purifier right when they were adding the water in.

- CB

[Erised]

I'm reasonably confident that we're to assume the situation was resolved in the end.

Oh ok I thought we were safe from reset buttons lol.


Is it just me or were the creatures just badass goa'uld?

[Gatebsg]

Sweet episode