Michael (218)

[Quinn Mallory]

My biggest and main problem with the setup of this episode is this: if the team purposefully went out to capture a wraith, wouldn't they have an even better plan of rehabbing the wraith into a human without exposing as much of Atlantis or anything like that as possible? I would have expected that much more precaution would have been taken.

Even if you do the treatment in Atlantis, shipped the guy out to an alpha site for rehabilitation (ok, I know the Atlantis alpha site is quite primitive and not really suitable for this but if this entire experiment was initiated by the Atlantis team, rather than just a coincidence of capturing a wraith, you would expect the team to be much better prepared).

Another thing, I kept on expecting the team to do something quite compassionate and human that may have a lasting effect on Michael but I never saw that. Teyla's speech may had supposed to serve this purpose but it fall flat, in my opinion, in stressing the main difference between human and wraiths...the obvious thing about human is not constraint by the constant desire to feed like the wraith.

[The Kaibosh]

Kaibosh here,

Intense episode but seemed a bit under cooked in some places. This should have been a 2 parter in order for the writers to address some of the lingering issues that have cropped here. Some quick observations:

Conner Trinneer:

Very well done. Emotionally played the character in such a way that made you really think perhaps there's more to the Wraith than we have seen. In the one episode you really start to hope there is a good future for this guy. Unfortunately its this strength in the episode that really reveals a serious flaw....

Ethics:

All the while the events of the episode were unfolding I kept wondering "where's the debate?" Why are they all so willing to do this to this guy? I mean yeah as Sheppard said: "this is war" but if that were the case why were they trying to socialize Michael? Why the phony name and fake background to the point where they prepared quarters for him. It all seemed very inconsitant. On the one hand they wanted to give him a chance to turn him into a human but on the other hand they kept armed guards around him at all times. They didn't think he would find this stange and disconcerting? Again if Dr. Beckett needed to test the retro-virus why not just keep the Wraith captive and test the virus and tell him so? Why mess with Michael's head too if the retro-virus itself wasn't perfected? I know they all want to do the right thing: that is try to "normalize" Michael while developing a weapon against the Wraith. But it all seemed cruel especially when he kept insisting that he felt something was wrong. I know this is Stargate and not Star Trek and the prime directive doesn't apply but Weir is bound by the Geneva Conventions; especially as a diplomat. The apparent ease in which they all carried themselves seemed very much off key. There doesn't need to be a debate about whether or not Sheppard's "Kirking" is ruining the character: they all dropped a peg in my book.

Ronan:

This guy is an animal. Especially when Teyla is threatened. Pretty cool the way he grabbed Michael by the throat, lifted him off his feet and pinned him against the wall when he came upon Michael and Teyla sparring. Teyla/Ronan shippers should be pleased.

Nit-picks:

Why would they perform such an important experiment on a living Wraith on Atlantis when they know that Wraith can communicate telepathically? Especially when they are trying to keep Atlantis hidden? Why restrain Michael at the Alpha Site with only velcro straps when he has alreadly escaped once and has killed a guard? For that matter; knowing the stakes were as high as they were why weren't they better prepared to handle containment? I mean I get back to Sheppard saying this is war. Why not have a standing order to put a bullet in this guy's head if he started acting weird? I mean security did see him deliberately attempt to hide the laptop screen when he took Dr. Beckett's discs. They eventually all marched in there armed but what took so long?

Let me wrap up by saying that there are now some interesting developments on the horizon and I very much look forward to season 3.

Cheers.

[rexpop]

All in all a good episode. Interesting story with a few flaws, could have done with more debate around the whole moral implications and a tad more character. A couple of things:

- There definitely needs to be a focus and some reckoning on the change in Weir's philosophy over the last two years. When she was introduced (Lost City), the character was against imposing humanities views on others. Over the last two years she's allowed experimentation on prisoners ('Poising The Well' and this episode), torture of a suspect ('Critical Mass') and allowing Shep to leave an entire civilization defenseless against the Wraith ('The Tower'). I can buy the change as being somewhat necessary given the circumstances, but I want to see her faced with what she has become.

- Nice to see Teyla given some screen time and some development. More please.

[PG15]

Seems to me the only one who was thinking straight was Ronan. Who in the world actually thought bringing a wraith to Atlantis was a good idea? What's next? How about we bring a wraith through the gate to the SGC and inplant him with a Goa'uld and see if we can't all be friends. To me the biggest problem with this episode is that all the main characters with the exception of Ronan and maybe Teyla seemed to take leave of their senses. Wier and Beckett really seemed out of character in this episode. Now we are practically right back where we were this point in season one, the wraith are comming, again. Just seems a bit soon to revisit this particular plot line.

Suspicion?

Anyway, this episode is, bar-none, one of the best Atlantis has ever done. It was very dark and unsettling, and had great "shock!" moments.

Damn those spoilers! I think I would've known something was up, even without spoilers, but I doubt I would've known our poor little Mike was a Wraith.

Speaking of poor Mike, I really felt sorry for him in this episode even until the bitter end. Oh, and Trinneer does Wraith really really well.

The moral/ethics stuff, especially about being/not being human, reminded me a lot of Star Trek, coincidentally. That's a good thing IMHO.

Speaking of Star Trek, I love how they (conciously or not) put in references in it. For example, how Mike/Trip had bad dreams, or how they need medication to sleep, or how they're both from the south, etc.

The city in the mist was beautiful. I actually cheered when that happened.

Oh, and TRIP!!! I was a fan of Enterprise, so this episode was a joy for me, as you can plainly tell by now. .

Nice set up for the next 2 eps. Can't wait to see what happens!

5/5

[dark_faith]

There definitely needs to be a focus and some reckoning on the change in Weir's philosophy over the last two years. When she was introduced (Lost City), the character was against imposing humanities views on others. Over the last two years she's allowed experimentation on prisoners ('Poising The Well' and this episode), torture of a suspect ('Critical Mass') and allowing Shep to leave an entire civilization defenseless against the Wraith ('The Tower'). I can buy the change as being somewhat necessary given the circumstances, but I want to see her faced with what she has become.

I think the problem here is they give a bit of Weir here, a bit there, just when they need a decision to be taken. We don't really see her dealing with any consequences, we don't see her evolve to the dark side.
In critical mass, she makes a decision but regrets.... In the long good bye, she's all happy and overwhelmed about what happened, that was OOC, Coup d'Etat she's ready to make a war. WHAT THE HELL ?
If characters evolve to the " dark side" show us HOW.
Right now I don't feel like Weir has changed, I feel like we're imposing me a new character, and I don't like her because there is no reason for such a drastic change.

[DetriusXii]

I have a hard time believing they all thought the virus was a good idea. I find it pretty morally wrong that they figured he'd be better off now he was human.

What alternatives do humans have? It's either commit genocide against the Wraith or try to solve their biological feeding problem. There's nothing else. Micheal got to keep his existence, his personhood. The vessel that his personality resides in doesn't really matter.

[DetriusXii]

I had great expectation for this ep and I wasn't too disappointed.

At first, I didn't care they were doing such experiments because he is a Wraith... but the more you learn about the whole thing, the more you realize he looks more human than Weir, Shep and co.
The Wraith are monsters because they feed on us... That how they eat! So what are we for killing animals? The wraiths look more human than ever.

False analogy. An animal isn't aware of his existence, doesn't reason, basically doesn't possess the attributes of a person. Humans do. If we're immoral for killing animal life for food, why stop at animal life? Why not go to plant life?

[eccscape]

Who would want to bring a Wraith to Atlantis turn him human and let him stay in the city

I thought that too. Surely they would have started with him at the Alpha site. Shows they were a bit cicky about succeeding...and in that yet again confident that they were right in all their actions!! But i agree with what someone said earlier 'Where was caldwell when we needed him?'

I like how it ended with Sheppards saying, "We're going to need more fire power."

Reminds me of Jack in 'upgrades', "we're going to need more snacks" LOL

Did anyone else wonder why Ronon and Teyla hadn't been given (or at least offered) the ancient gene innoculation?

[BoneCollector]

I hope no one pointed this out yet, but if so, then i'm sorry to repeat.

I've noticed a (not so) small mistake in the beginning of the movie... When Teyla was showing Michael his quarters, his laptop was closed. But in the next scene, when we saw his room through some monitor display (while observed by Shepard), the computer was on

I think this is quite a big one, and i can't understand how they could have missed it. Maybe they did it on purpose, but... is strange!

[gambit]

False analogy. An animal isn't aware of his existence, doesn't reason, basically doesn't possess the attributes of a person. Humans do. If we're immoral for killing animal life for food, why stop at animal life? Why not go to plant life?

Animals are very much aware of their own existence. Instincts, the need to survive... etc.

[xfkirsten]

False analogy. An animal isn't aware of his existence, doesn't reason, basically doesn't possess the attributes of a person. Humans do. If we're immoral for killing animal life for food, why stop at animal life? Why not go to plant life?

As someone who's worked around animals (everything from dogs to dolphins to wolves to fish) I beg to differ on that point. Can we show that they are aware? No, we can't. Does that mean that they aren't aware? Not at all! That's just fuzzy logic there. In fact, there's mounting evidence that at least some animals are self-aware (particularly in dolphins and the great apes).

That being said, I have no problem with killing animal life for food - that's just the way nature works. Humans are omnivores. Humans do eat meat. I love a good steak.

[Easter Lily]

Now that is what I call storytelling...
I wouldn't say it was flawless but it was intriguing enough and at the heart of it was a moral dilemma... something that's been missing for the most part in this season... Yup, this is definitely the kind of gutsy writing that some of us have been clamouring for. I'd take this effort over the convenient use of Sheppard as the Pegasus galaxy's answer to Casanova anytime. At least with this episode and the previous one, I can see that the writers are trying to make something out of the people and the city.

The brilliant first part reminded me of Memento... not so much in content but in its gradual unfolding. Taking the point of view of Michael was effective in creating that feeling of mystery and ambiguity. Treneer does a terrific job as the confused man and draws us into the narrative with his honest-to-goodness naivete.

The second part... not as brilliant but still interesting in terms of Michael's transformation back. I wonder if Michael's brief brush with his humanness will have a long term impact. I was uncomfortable with the whole experiment but I think I was meant to be.

However, the question is... who is Michael... Is he a man or a Wraith? Can a leopard ever change its spots? Or is a leopard defined by its spots or by its appetite? The only thing that I question is how drastic a personality change Michael undergoes the first time round. So are the wraith mostly bug or mostly human? Is the human part fundamentally sound or is it just that the survival instincts of the bug take over the Wraith psyche competely?
I am surprised at how easily Michael adapted to his humanness considering that he's been mostly bug for so long. Here's me wishing to see more of him in the future.

[Wyrminarrd]

I didn´t have time to read through the entire thread so sorry if this has been discussed to death by now but am I the only one who feels that Teyla should now be kicked of the team? She has shown herself to have a major vulnarability to Wraith mind control and would IMO be a huge liability.

If the writers keep her on the team it should be because she lied about how Micheal escaped and covered her own rear end. I just can´t believe that any military officer would allow such a glaring security hole in the alpha team.

As for the episode, it was good although it didn´t take me long to figure out that this guy was a Wraith that had been retroed. There was the normal lack of proper security, I mean seriously has a security team ever in this series managed to keep control of the one they were guarding?

[AutumnDream]

Hrm.

Blah...

This could have been done SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.

It was a bit cheesy and very rushed. What happened to the Wraith being creepy and menacing? Being creepy isn't speaking in a stupid Goa'uld-like voice and yelling baseless threats. This should have been a two parter, and Micheal's arc of deterioration should have been written in a really disturbing, actually creepy way. Something that makes the viewer feel unsettled and uneasy when they watch. Something that really grips you and brings you into the show. Something that would have made me feel anything at all for the events of the episode. The episode just wasn't enthralling. There was really no attachment to the character of Micheal that made me feel sorry for him when he was whining about them lying to him. I don't care about time constraints. If a story is too big to do in 45 minutes, don't try to do it in 45 minutes. I hate that there's any cheesy cliche sci-fi stuff in one of the shows I normally consider to be elevated above "normal" sci-fi. The whole thing just lacked grace.

Feels like we're being taken on a rollercoaster ride of quality, depending on who wrote the episode. I wish I could place the same faith and blind adoration into the show like I used to, but stuff like this is making it harder for me to be drooling over the thought of a new episode, as was the case in Season 1.

[James_the_Wraith_Sympathiser]

Yep there really was a good presentation of the moral issue here...lots of interesting dialogue which I enjoyed...and there were 2 Aussie expedition members seen in the background Sets it up well for the season finale.