The Hive (211)

[Nem2k]

It aired in Canada the other night.

it did? i thought scifi had exclusive rights to the first run of the show and that they were wanting to air this episode early january?

[AutumnDream]

Apparently not. ^_^

I doubt Ford is dead. That guy is persistant. He probably hopped on a dart and flew the hell out of there. At least, I hope so! He's so cool and it'd be silly not to bring him back!

[Oranos]

Apparently not. ^_^

I doubt Ford is dead. That guy is persistant. He probably hopped on a dart and flew the hell out of there. At least, I hope so! He's so cool and it'd be silly not to bring him back!

That's right. He's the marine with more than 9 lives!

[Jeyla4ever]

I have lot of captures, can I put the pictures here ?

I liked this episode very much! But does a question remain, Ford is it always in life?

I make a vid about this episode, if you are interresting:
The hive
music: hysteria, Muse

Stupid computer won't let me green you...don't know why...but this was really cool for someone who has to wait until Jan...thanks....great job!

[CYBEREAGLE19]

all in all sounds like a great episode, heres my thing though, how is shep able to fly a dart without the computer to translate everything for him?

[Wraith_Hunter]

Oh, but it did. Just replayed it to make sure.

No it didn't! You hear the gate activating & then the kawoosh starting, before chuck says "we have an IDC".

[Yeade]

Hi, Ouroboros!

The pace and flow was jarring and disorienting and the episode overall felt like more of a mish-mash of scenes than an actual continuous story.

I have to agree with you here. The pacing felt... off. Though I think this has a lot to do with the fact that events happened over the course of several days, at the very least. Without resorting to the Musical Montage(tm), I can't think what else might have been done to show the passage of time besides dropping references here and there. Which was done.

-Door controls that make the door open when you shoot/damage them: Try this with ANY technological device, I dare you.

LOL! It really seems more likely that the doors would freeze in place, doesn't it? However, I'm willing to forgive this particular plot device simply because it tends to crop up at some point or another in nearly every sci-fi show I can think of.

-The Wraith prison bars have gaps big enough for people to fit through, especially Teyla.

This, I have to admit, I don't remember. The Wraith cells have irregularly shaped bars, yes, but I have the passing impression that the gaps are all too small for Teyla or anyone else to do much else except stick out an arm, maybe a shoulder. Also--a speculation that is only loosely based in canon--I wonder whether the bars are organic and sentient enough to contract if a prisoner attempts to squeeze out. They certainly display an impressive flexibility in retracting. At any rate, maybe a cap would help?

-What would happen if an SGC member lost their IDC because they were captured or forgot to use it because they were doped up on Wraith enzyme. Could this be a possible point of tension in the sotry perhaps, where the control room has to gamble on trust?.... We'll never know.

Agreed. A lost opportunity to up the tension. There did seem to be too much packed into the episode already though.

-Classic junkie withdrawl scenes from the evil drugs. Drugs are bad m'kay and every drug will have a horrible heroin like withdawl period. Yes every drug and yes regardless of what it does or it's chemical make up.

Well, I don't think the Wraith enzyme exactly counts as "every drug," and it's the only addiction storyline SGA has pursued. Since nearly everything about the Wraith is completely fictitious, I don't see any reason to deride the fact that the enzyme withdrawal is the way it is.

-Sheppard gets saved from certain death at the hands of the Wraith queen because she gets a phonecall. It's never explained where she went or what she was doing.

IIRC, this is the first time we've been aboard a hive ship and in direct contact with the Wraith (never mind the hive queen) while another hive ship approached in and dropped out of hyperspace. The only other times we've even seen hive ships, they've either been alone ("Rising," "The Lost Boys") or already grouped ("The Siege" and all the episodes leading up to it). Who's to say that it's not the Wraith SOP for hive queens to immediately have a psychic powwow when hive ships meet up. In fact, if the Wraith are as fiercely territorial as they seem, it makes sense that the queens have to establish boundaries as quickly as possible.

What's not clear, IMO, is whether the queen was expecting another hive to arrive or not. I would guess a general yes, as the two hives seemed to be going to a joint culling, but she wasn't sure precisely when and was pissed that it interrupted her interrogation of Sheppard.

-*Insert various scenes of Wraith hissing at people, bending their necks, bugging out their eyes and drooling for no reason here*. When Shep was talking about Wraith and clowns was I the only one thinking "seperated at birth?".

You crack me up sometimes.

In defense of the Wraith, they did at least think up and try a more subtle method of questioning Sheppard after it appeared he could resist a mind probe. It's not the hive queen's fault that Neera didn't do all that great a job. Nor could she do anything about Sheppard being more suspicious than most about mysterious hot chicks who want to sex him up. Glad to see he learned something from the Chaya incident.

-The mysterious hot chick is not just a mysterious hot chick but actually evil!

I wouldn't go so far as to say Neera's evil...

-We learn that there's Wraith worshippers, how novel. We of course never get any explanation of why the Wraith need or want worshippers. I'm sure some fans will be able to make up a good explanation like usual though.

Guilty as charged.

Right. Anyways. All I can think of is that the Wraith keep a few (thousand) humans around to do the housekeeping--you know, helping with the crowd control after a major cull or something--and to send out in special infiltration cases like Sheppard's. Of course, maybe certain queens just find it amusing to toy with the humans this way. I can totally see deviant sexu... Um, never mind, lol.

-Later on Shep's about to be eaten again but Ford, who was a twitching junkie wreck the last time we saw him, suddenly storms in, with Ronan's gun no less, and shoots an entire room of armed guards to save him. You know now that I think about it maybe you should of shown us Ford's miraculous unarmed escape from 5 armed Wraith guards while in a state of semi-coma and his re-finding of Ronan's confiscated gun on an entire frigging' hiveship...

Again, I think it's hard to tell how much time passed between Ford being taken away and Sheppard's second chat with the hive queen. McKay, who according to Beckett (which might not be a point in favor, I realize, lol) had enzyme levels comparable to Ford's, was more or less fully recovered. And it's not clear what effect being cocooned--if Ford was indeed cocooned--would have on Ford's condition.

As for Ford retrieving the team's weapons, both Ford and Sheppard knew their way around the hive ship. Remember that the two were studying what appeared to be the layout of a hive in "The Lost Boys." Note, also, that while Ford had Ronon's gun, a handgun, a Wraith pistol stunner (which he likely pulled off a Wraith guard somewhere), and vests, he didn't manage to find the P90s or Ronon's badass sword.

I think. I've only watched the episode once, okay?!

Well, anyways, assuming this is right, Ford maybe went to the nearest possible weapons cache and grabbed what he could. He got lucky with Ronon's gun.

Another point to consider is that security on the hives seems to be pretty lax all around so far as we've seen. So long as you don't trip an alarm, you can skulk around without getting into too much trouble, and Ford got himself more enzyme as well. Which undoubtedly helped.

-As the episode draws to a close we go outside where we see Shep provoke the Wraith ships into killing each other by shooting a mile long hiveship with a dart's puny gun that barely sets grass of fire.

Doesn't matter how much physical damage Sheppard could inflict. The point is that the Wraith were so on edge, any little misunderstanding could've driven the two hives to violent infighting. I'm betting the hive queen holding Sheppard et al. didn't bother to inform the other queen of her prisoners. So, when Sheppard pulled his stunt, the other queen saw it as an unprovoked attack on her hive. Sheppard had already planted the seed of doubt in the mind of his queen that the other would betray her and, likely not aware of Sheppard's actions as she'd been recently knocked out and had the culling to worry about, she thought Sheppard's talk was validated when the other queen fired upon her hive. Then apply the insect mentality of mobilizing all forces to counter any threat...

The two hiveships start shooting each other as a result of this heinous attack and then one of them blows up and takes out the other one. Conveinient huh.

Yes, yes. Agreed. I'd argue the two hives were just too carried away with trying to kill each other to notice the danger. IIRC, by that point, the Wraith were ignoring the Deddy as well in favor of what both apparently thought was the greater threat. I imagine it's similar to two mobs getting into a riot fight together--it's difficult to stop once it starts.

-Oh but wait there's more. In the roughly 30 seconds between the time Shep provoked them and the time they blew up he was able to fly to safety (never actually shown on screen of course) and "surprise" us later with his miraculous survival.

Another time issue. Once Sheppard finished that initial attack run, i.e. as soon as the hives started firing on each other, he hightailed it out of there. Unknown amount of time passes. Then the hives destroy each other. The stargate must not have been too far from where the battle took place.

The Wraith chick was hot though.

Bondage and domination. Yum.

- I was trying to decide if I missed something - did Sheppard and his team just return to Atlantis without finding out how Rodney was going or did they already know that the Daedulus had come to rescue them as they escaped the hive ship? Am I thinking too much? It just didn't flow on from the Hive?

I'm not sure Sheppard could tell the Deddy had flown to the rescue (big help that it was, eh?), but that's another issue I'll get into below. However, in a missing scene, I figure Sheppard, without thinking even, dialed to the planet McKay was being held on. He, Teyla, and Ronon then smashed into Ford's former lair with every intention of beating the crap out of whoever they found, rescuing Rodney, and heading back to Atlantis together. Our three intrepid heroes bust in to find the only two of Ford's goons left nursing sore heads and jaws. And probably playing whatever game that was they were playing earlier again.

SHEPPARD: McKay?!
GOON: Hm? The crazy guy? Left a while ago.

The three find the DHD working and assume McKay dialed to Atlantis. The end.

heres my thing though, how is shep able to fly a dart without the computer to translate everything for him?

You beat me to it!

Yeah, I was puzzled how Sheppard managed to fly the dart without McKay and Jace's translating computer interface, too. I mean, in order to get the dart to do anything, he had to input commands on the computer touchscreen! I could believe, I suppose, that Sheppard figured out the targeting and firing systems (those seemed pretty self-explanatory, really), even how obstructions around the dart were represented on the HUD, with his pilot background and what he'd seen of the hive ship. I can't remember any visible controls except the weapons joystick though. How, then, did Sheppard work the culling beam? Or even generally direct the dart if the joystick didn't have that function? Was his right hand resting on... something...?

Sheppard is intuitive with Ancient tech, but it seems his equal facility with Wraith tech is going to remain unexplained for now.


edit: tags

[Blue Banrigh]

I have to agree with you here. The pacing felt... off. Though I think this has a lot to do with the fact that events happened over the course of several days, at the very least. Without resorting to the Musical Montage(tm), I can't think what else might have been done to show the passage of time besides dropping references here and there. Which was done.

Agree with you there. McKay's progression from crazy addict, to sedated to fine was a bit jarring.

Still enjoyed the ep.

[Mackan]

Hm, "humans" really do the impossible all the time. Captured on a Hive ship, but blows it up and walks out without a scratch.

[AutumnDream]

The answer to everything: Sheppard is the man.

He's like James Bond, he can pilot anything, all the mysterious girls like him, and he can make one hell of a wisecrack. He's just less British and more Earthling/Ancient/Wraith, and that makes "the answer to everything" all the more valid.

[Yeade]

Well, I mean, I know it's because Sheppard is the Man. Or, more accurately, he's (one of) the Main Character(s). And SGA is Totally Fictional, Generally Illogical and Unrealistic Sci-Fi Fluff (With Occasional "Dark" Moments).

Not that this stops me from breaking my brain trying to make sense of things. It's what I do. Humor me, huh?

[AutumnDream]

What? John Sheppard isn't real? *sniff*

[watcher652]

Synopsis for anyone who's interested. Obviously spoilers for the episode, but if you dont want spoilers what the hell are you doing in this thread?

Super great summary. Thanks!

Random thoughts:

It was a good episode, but not as great as I would have liked it. It did move the overall Wraith storyline along.

I would have liked a little more tension on the hive ship. McKay's scenes were very intense and I think the scenes on the hive ship should have matched it. Only the scenes of Sheppard and the Wraith Queen came close. I enjoyed watching Sheppard's interaction with both Ford and the Wraith Queen.

David Hewlett's acting when overdosed with the Wraith enzyme was great. McKay is over the top normally anyway, so it didn't seem overdone. Deciding to take a massive dose of enzyme showed how off McKay's thinking was even with the lowered dosage he was receiving. Poor Rodney is so insecure that not only he felt he needed to take more enzyme just to get up to the level every one else has, but he needed to have so much more.

The only part I didn't get is how soon he seemed to recover from his massive overdose. It seemed really sudden and complete after the major torment he went thru. I wish we had a better idea how much time passes between scenes. But Teyla and Ronan seem not to have suffered as much as Ford's teammate who died from the withdrawal. One wonders what is the difference in McKay's massive overdose of the processed enzyme and Ford's direct dosage from a living Wraith.

Paul McGillion was great also. Having all those accusations thrown at Beckett by McKay had to hurt even though he knew his friend didn't mean it. Paul's quiet expressions during the scenes spoke volumes. That was a nice scene between Beckett and Weir as they watched over a sleeping McKay.

McKay is borderline hypertensive. Who would have guessed?

This note is interesting only to McKay fans, but Rodney used his left hand to inject himself in his right arm. Even though McKay holds his gun as a right handed person, he gestures when he talks mainly with his left hand. And I've seen McKay dial the DHD with his left hand as often as with his right. Maybe McKay/Hewlett is ambidexterous.

I didn't notice this in The Lost Boys but I see Teyla was back wearing her old top with the leather tie instead of the BDUs she wore during Instinct and Aurora. Why would she do this?

Don't the Wraith disarm their prisoners? Maybe they don't get many so they don't know what to look for. It's was kind of a funny joke, but, please, Ronan had that many knives?

Did blowing up the the 2 hive ships also take out the planet's orbiting Stargate (which Sheppard called a Spacegate).

Are we ever going to find out the blond, Canadian, Gate Tech's name?

Hey, we got a fully functioning Wraith Dart to take apart instead that crashed one from Duet.

What was with the 2 seconds with Radek? Except to show that he really didn't want to go on the rescue mission. Radek even made that little nervous hand twitch Rodney does. I think Radek is hanging around Rodney too much.

I found it interesting, but not surprising, that there are Wraith worshippers. It always seems to come back to that theme in Stargate, doesn't it?

It was nice to see that Lorne doesn't seem to hold that first mission he had with McKay against him. Maybe he realizes that McKay was just nervous going out with someone he wasn't familiar with and it just took a while for McKay to get used to Lorne.

Doesn't Sheppard know the address of Ford's hideout? How was he supposed to get back there if he doesn't?

Does a victim normally collapse when being restored from a Wraith beam? Maybe this was brought up in The Lost Boys when everyone was restored from the Wraith beam in the hive ship. In Duet

Spoiler:

Rodney collapsed both times when he was brought out of the beam. Cadman did too. Or was that because it was a broken Dart?

Guess that's all I can think of now.

[the fifth man]

From what I've read so far, this sounds like a pretty sweet episode. For once, I really hate living in the States. Come on January, hurry it up already.

[IMForeman]

Some great stuff, and some terribly weak stuff all in the same episode. I honestly think this one would have worked better as a three parter, as it seems like they made some immense shortcuts in wrapping up some elements.

Some great character stuff, though.