Instinct (207)

[FoolishPleasure]

Some of the lines written for Sheppard fell rather flat, but I still like his character and the way Flanigan plays him, so I'm gonna blame the writers for that one.

I've felt the same way about Sheppard the last several episodes. He looks cool, he shoots guns. He says almost the same lines. He has become a bit . . .stale. "Conversion" looks like it will give Flanigan a chance to stretch.

Tonight's first impressions (which are tough as I just finished watching a rather awful episode of BSG, which put a bit of a damper on the whole evening):

The Good:

Jewel Staite was excellent and the ending was quite sad. Liked the twist about her "father" being only 34.

Rodney hollaring at the kid. I love Rodney.

Good episode for Beckett. He even got to shoot a gun. *LOL*

Teyla and Ronon - enjoyed their little convo about following orders. . and when not to. Along with Teyla being the one to calm Ronon when he pulled the gun on Elia. Those two continue to work well together. Ronon's unpredictability brings a bit of a edge to the character - one never quite knows what his reactions will be. I like that "edge".

Really wasn't much to complain about, but there were a few questions. Would have been interesting to actually see a scene with Elia and the other Wraith. Would also like to know why a "child" was on that Wraith ship, and why the lone Wraith didn't seem to care that "she" was living with a human. We still don't know much about Wraith family structure (if they have any).

[derrickh]

The writers weren't even trying. Not only did they bring in the Wraith with a heart of gold (which sadly, I predicted a couple of eps ago). They even had Shepard come out and say she was a Wraith with a heart of gold. I'll quickly go over what I didn't like and then get to the part that I did

Ronan -is- a heavy drinker. He downed a huge tub of 'beer'(?) in about 5 seconds.

How did Elia know the retrovirus was in the case? She overheard Beckett, but she wasn't watching him. And he never said 'I'm putting the super drug in this unlocked case beside the computer'.

Why was the super drug in an unlocked case, by itself, when given the situation, it shouldn't have even been on the planet?

The father was screwed in the head and the relationship he had with his 'daughter' was really skeevy. Even under the crazy sci-fi circumstances, that guy had issues.

Now the good stuff.

Yes, the entire episode was by the numbers and telegraphed. But when SkeevyDad was pleading with Elia 'I know you're still in there', I'm so happy she didn't break down and say something like 'Father? I dont want to hurt you.' Blah blah. Nope. She killed him. Nice curveball.

And Teyla's currupting of Ronon continues! This could be the set up for the biggest swerve EVER. Last week, she convinced him to keep a murder secret from everyone. This week, she tells him that the whole following orders thing, isnt really binding, and you can basically do what you want. Teyla is setting up her own little alien conspiracy against Atlantis and using Ronon as the muscle.

It would be so great if Teyla turned out to be a Wraith spy or a super villian working with the Wraith. The foundation is already there. She can go into telepathic communication with the Wraith. She's driving a wedge between Ronon and the team. And she was the one who woke up the Wraith in the first place(kinda). Maybe the TPTB will have the guts to let this happen. If so, SG:A would get a lot less predictable.

D

[FoolishPleasure]

It would be so great if Teyla turned out to be a Wraith spy or a super villian working with the Wraith. The foundation is already there. She can go into telepathic communication with the Wraith. She's driving a wedge between Ronon and the team. And she was the one who woke up the Wraith in the first place(kinda). Maybe the TPTB will have the guts to let this happen. If so, SG:A would get a lot less predictable.

I don't exactly see Teyla driving a wedge between Ronon and the others, but Shadow was right - her talk about not following orders reminded me of "Letters From Pegasus" where she got all snippy with Sheppard. She didn't want to follow "orders" then (she knew it all. . .like a teenager. )

I've always felt Teyla was patterned after Lyta from "Babylon 5". . using that special, genetic ESP stuff to read the enemy minds and "confuse" them, find their location, etc.. After a few years Lyta was. . uh, well. . let's just say the SGA writers really don't have the guts to take a main character and go in that direction. But it certainly would be different if they did!

[Whistler84]

If I had ANY complaint, it would be the sheer, jaw-dropping STUPIDITY of Teyla. Ye gods, woman! Just when I was all proud of Shep for finding the magic words for Dex ("That's an order"), she goes and screws it all to hell by telling Dex, "Oh, you don't ALWAYS have to follow orders, it's up to US to decide when to disobey!" *headdesk* I both hope and dread that her statement will come back to bite them all in the ass. HARD. Stupid, stupid, stupid Teyla.

Wow. While I don't share the zeal of your statement, I do think that it was a poor decision on Teyla's part. Especially considering that she knows he's a loose canon by his actions in "Trinity." How could she not realize that the consequences of this will come back to haunt them later? Dex is still learning how to fit in with this crowd, and Teyla has become something of a guide to him. Now, his "guide" is telling him that he can disobey orders if he really wants to? That Atlantis allows people to break rules as they see fit? I like Teyla's character, and especially like where she's going this season, but c'mon! She's just asking for something to go wrong by saying something like *that* to a guy like *Dex*!

Other than that, good episode. Favorite moment: Sheppard hitting McKay upside the head! Hehe.

[lionel_pendergast_rocks]

So, in tonight's ep, as the wraith girl was about to attack McKay, Beckett shot her in the back with his 9mm Beretta. The Beretta 9mm has a reputation of often doing colateral damage by completely penetrating the target (if it is a person) and continuing on. So, the shot should have gone through the Wraith, and then hit McKay. Oops.

Also, one other thing:

- Why did Col. Sheppard look so surprised when Beckett told him about the serum he's working on? Isn't Sheppard part of the 'senior staff', and as such, shouldn't be informed as to what the other staff members are doing?

[ToasterOnFire]

Two major problems I had with this ep:

1) The retrovirus. It apparently can remove wraith DNA, leaving human? No way, not possible with today's science. Silence wraith DNA maybe but remove it? Nope. Of course, I can always write that off as the science fiction part and everything's ok. My bigger problem is: why did Carson even bother bringing the retrovirus when he knew that it wasn't near ready to be used? It's not like you can simply add something to an imperfect retrovirus and poof, it starts working; you need to completely resynthesize the virus again. I don't think Beckett brought the proper equipment to synthesize the correct retrovirus, so why bring the imperfect one at all? Sure it means that Elia gets transformed and the plot moves along, but the setup was flawed.

2) The end fight with Elia. Teyla gets a knock in the head and Shep orders Ronan behind? Shouldn't Ronan be the one to hunt her down while Shep stayed behind? He does have this (continually referenced btw) seven years of experience hunting down wraith and he appears to be quite good at it. Shep in the meantime would likely have been a wraith kabob if Ronan hadn't caught up. It sets up Shep's scratch that impacts the next ep, but that could have happened before Teyla got knocked out and Ronan could have hunted her down. Either poor writing or a poor command decision by Shep.

Above flaws ignored, I actually enjoyed this ep. There was an interesting setup of mystery with the townspeople, the monster, and the secret with Elia and her "father". McKay was much more subdued in this ep, presumably after the events of Trinity, but I could have done without the smack to the head. Just made Shep look overly mean to me. Great interaction with Ronan and Teyla, and I like how TPTB are setting up a potential "alien vs SG" conflict. Ronan's sword is total cheese though.

[Shivan]

*laughs and accepts pat on the back, though it was all mental ramble and not notes*

Oh, and I'm a her, by the way.

Honest mistake, it won't happen again.

[GatetheWay]

Concerning Teyla and the orders thing... Unless that was a purposeful set up for a later story by TPTB I think it would of been better if Teyla had said "Sheppard ordered you to stay with me then I'll go with you to save Sheppard." Then gets up, suported by Ronnan, and limps off to find Shep.

[smushybird]

McKay was much more subdued in this ep, presumably after the events of Trinity, but I could have done without the smack to the head. Just made Shep look overly mean to me.

I'm interpreting it as a sort of friendly smack, a guy-bonding-thing signifying friendship. I think it's Sheppard's way of easing back into his normal relationship with Rodney and letting Rodney know, too, that they're moving back toward things being okay between them. And I figure that's why Rodney didn't complain about it, either. If Shep was really pissed at him, he wouldn't have smacked him at all.

As for Teyla telling Dex it was okay to go against orders in certain situations, well, she's seen Sheppard do the same thing several times...and anyway, I got the impression that they both understood that Sheppard was a dead man if Ronon didn't go after him. Both Teyla and Ronon are more experienced in dealing with wraith and alien worlds than Sheppard. They wanted to protect him. I think it was sweet.

[smushybird]

So, in tonight's ep, as the wraith girl was about to attack McKay, Beckett shot her in the back with his 9mm Beretta. The Beretta 9mm has a reputation of often doing colateral damage by completely penetrating the target (if it is a person) and continuing on. So, the shot should have gone through the Wraith, and then hit McKay. Oops.

That occurred to me too, that Rodney was terribly in the line of fire. It seemed like the bullet might have gone through the girl but it missed Rodney, considering the way he flinched right after the shot, unless he was just flinching at the sound of gunfire. Or else maybe the wraith, being stronger, have thicker muscles and/or bones and the bullet didn't make it through?

[kadosho]

As I was reading Starfox's notes, I nodded.
There was so much that she put into her notes, its word for word.
If she gets to read this, just gotta say great job.

[Shipperahoy]

I was pretty happy with this episode. I'm a huge Jewel Staite fan from Firefly so I was looking forward to her performance and wasn't disapointed. I think that she did an excellent job. I particularly like how the episode wasn't all neat and pat and everything tied all all nicely with a bow by the end. Elia was clearly different from other Wraith and didn't want to be what she was and yet she killed people and eventually her own father. I wasn't sure whether or not to feel sorry for her and I enjoy feeling conflicted, it means that the episode gave me something to think about. It was a bit slow in some parts but there was some great character interaction in this one, particularly between Shep and McKay. And of course McKay and the little kid. Classic. I'm just bummed that there is 2 weeks until the next episode because I want to see what happens with Shep.

[Peoples_General]

I liked this episode, it shows that the Wraith can understand love with regard to the parent-child relationship between Elia and her father.

As for the father, he said he lost his own kids before. I think that much like ONiell with Skara, he took in Elia as in own child, but unlike O'Niell's relationship... his was an actual parent-child one.

I felt so sorry for Elia. I really liked her character and with there would be more others like her. Its interesting to see a "light" in a group of people that is normally seen as dark and evil.

Speaking of which, aren't we supposed to meet more "good" Wraiths sometime this season?

[Zat]

This was a pretty good episode. I do think it would've been better if it turned out that she was the only wraith and that she was the one who killed all those people, (although less people) and, of course, if at the end her 'father' was forced to kill her before she dies. I guess I was looking for a super depressing episode.

[Blue007]

Although I knew that Elia would get hurt or killed at some point, it was sad, she had such a sweet side. I enjoyed this show very much. You know I am really starting to like McKay more and more, he kills me. Tonight with the child and just the way he tries really hard to be brave and you just know he doesn't want to be doing what he is doing. Teyla through me a few times, maybe she freaked a little when she saw Ronon there and that Shep had gone to find Elia alone. Ronon looked very happy to be able to rush off and help Shep, rather than babysit. Ronon changes from one moment to the next, unpredictable I love that. I keep wondering why Elia killed the other Wraith?? Was she afraid the Wraith would tell her secret?? I felt bad too for Dr. Beckett, he seems to be trying so hard to work out something to get the Wraith from being so deadly. You just know he felt bad with what happen to Elia, but I'm sure he never dreamed anything like that would happen. Now a 2 week wait to see what else comes into play.