Underground (108)

[Major Fischer]

Not overly attached to this episode, but don't dislike it either. Loved the McKay/Sheppard interaction. Ford's just still sort of there to me, and Teyla is starting to annoy me less.

At least I thought it was kind of funny to see her wanting to strangle Sheppard during the first few acts.

My favorite line, "I generally stop short of offering nuclear weapons."

[Taonas]

This whole time I've been mispronoucing the Genii.... I thought it was pronouced like those things that grant wishes x.x

Anyway... This episode was great! I can't wait for "The Storm" and "The Eye"... More Genii action!

[Hohenzollern]

So we made mortal enemies with Bilbo Baggins and the techno-hobbits? Scary.
I was half expecting an Aschen type of baddie, but the hobbits aren't close to our level of technology in many regards. Especially considering our gold mine of technology we're based at.

While the Atlantis tech offsets the threat greatly...remember McKay gave them a big jump on the progress of their atomic bomb. They seem xenophic and pissed off enough to use it with little qualm.

[Hohenzollern]

Not so much episode related as thread related...

... to the Mods, the information at the top of this thead is wrong, both the episode number and the picture.

Correct on the number. But on the picture, isnt that a still of when the doomed "wraith food" guy lunged out of the wraith "life force suck o tron" screaming "help me, help me"; creating the plot device of their discovery and subsquent nerving "close" escape?

It does appear in the gateworld pics for the episode 108.

[jbrd79]

HI i loved this episode and i think SGA is great but i was woundering if anyone else notice? spoiler space ..............





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before shepard and the others left teyla and the father of the blond (that genni fella who got shot by the wraith)
it looked to me as if he gave Colm Meaney. (Chief Miles Edward O'Brien)
the old Wraith memory stick thing,then while in the puddle jumper Colm Meaney switched it for the new one so the one the SGA team has is the old one that the genni already looked at so the genni do have the new memory stick thing

did any one else see that?

[Hohenzollern]

Not super-actiony, but it makes up for it with suspense (much better done than in Suspicion) and tension and a nicely complex new enemy. .

...and ties up or brings foward nicely the issue of how many wraith ships there are...and what they may be doing. I liked that a lot.

McKay was, as ever, brilliant. Loved the atomic bomb convo with Ford. McKay's even smarter than I thought... and that's really saying something. Would have LOVED to see teenage Rodney showing off his model. The righteous indignation as he fails to win... which would probably be his primary complaint as he sits through the interrogation with government officials... lol.

...no doubt. I love Mckay's character. he just keeps getting better and better.

Interesting interior stuff on the hiveship. Reminds me a bit of Giger. Think the ships themselves are biomech? And how did McKay know he could cut through the wall/skin with a mere knife? Bad design flaw on the part of the wraith, there.

..you would think cutting into the living tissue would have further alerted the wraith... and perhaps it did. I would think all the ships are somewhat biomech...the darts perhaps less so than the motherships. Definitely very "Giger-y". Also reminded me of Lovecraft!

Bit that bugged me: Daddy-o kept telling Teyla that they couldn't rescue anyone because it would alert the wraith. Then he turns around and shoots the yelling guy. WTF did he think THAT was gonna do?? Sheesh.

...what was WITH that? I know they needed a plot device to have the obligatory tense, narrow escape...but cutting into the wall would have sufficed to alert the wraith...but I would not have liked to see Mckay cast as a buffoon.

[Hohenzollern]

I also liked the fact that, even with 50's technology, the Genii built a computer interface for a Wrath memory card. So seldom are other cutures in the 'Gate universe able to make use of the galaxy(s) the way Earth has.

Did you find that McKay seemed VERY incredelous, or ALMOST disbelieving that they were able to accomplish this? I wished there were time for McKay to expand on that, or why he reacted that way. Could the Genii have had help? If so from whom? That hand communicator in the beginning looked even more advanced then their other technology.
Just thinking aloud...but it strikes me the Genii might stop at nothing or not stop at enlisting anyTHING to accomplish their aims...to include collaboration w/ the wraith for a time. I wonder if they had a "Steve" previously from the crashed dart...and maybe got info out of him?

Could the daddy-o Genii, have REALLY been that stupid to alert the wraith that way by shooting up the guy now food? It is like he was trying to prevent something other than the rescue of the food guy. Would rescuing him have revealed some kind of collusion between the wraith and the genii?
Again...just thinking aloud. Seemed more of an intricate episode than on the surface of the plot. Looking foward to see if any of it is borne out in future episodes.

[ShadowMaat]

Could the daddy-o Genii, have REALLY been that stupid to alert the wraith that way by shooting up the guy now food? It is like he was trying to prevent something other than the rescue of the food guy. Would rescuing him have revealed some kind of collusion between the wraith and the genii?

Nah. Interesting idea, but my guess is that Daddy-o was already twitchy when Teyla tried to interfere (maybe he had reason to think he'd know someone in there) and the confrontation with Teyla coupled with the Snack screaming for help (screaming being another way of alerting the wraith) caused a temporary snap in his head. He shot the Snack to make him shut up so that HE could have some time to think. Unfortunately, he should have thought a bit faster.

Also reminded me of Lovecraft!

Maybe a bit. Although Rising actually seemed more Cthulhoid to me. The City Beneath the Sea, rising again? Kept visualizing R'lyeh.

[Hohenzollern]

The shot of Atlantis near the end of the episode...at night. I thought the sky looked more like the sky one might see in a barred, or barred spiral galaxy like our own.

I thought Pegasus was a globular cluster or smaller galaxy (on the show)?
In reality, it is thought to be a "dwarf globular" cluster.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990122.html

No way to be sure w/o being there <obviously>...but I just thought the starfield view from Atlantis at night is more of a "strip" of stars across the sky ala our own Milky Way or similiar formed galaxy.

Then again, they may be in a nebula strand or something, of which there would be plenty even in a "small" galaxy as Pegasus.

Just an idle thought. Not a "beef" I do like the overall effect and appearance.

[Grumpyguy]

My two cents here:

The bad--
1. Food shortage: Can anyone else picture the Ancients in overalls and driving a tractor to raise food? Didn't think so So instead of visiting other planets, shouldn't the team be exploring the city, looking for the Ancient's food "replicator"? It really would be nice to see a little more of the city than we have seen so far.

2. Finding the entrance to the underground city was simply silly. The Genii go to all the trouble of playing "Little House on the Prairie" and they leave the gate to their super-secret city unguarded? Plus, if the Genii were trying to keep the base secret, wouldn't they have tried to hide the radioactivity just a bit better so the Wraith couldn't find trace the technology just like McKay did?

The Genii must have the most incompetent military organization in the Pegasus Galaxy with a nuclear bomb in the making.

3. As pointed out, "We can't save him, because it will alert the Wraith." "So just let me shoot him with my loud machine gun."

4. Now the Genii are (see the most incompetent military...above) dead meat. Colm leaves one of his soldiers behind. Since the Wraith read minds, they will know exactly where he came from. Shouldn't he have at least went back and shot the guy so the Wraith couldn't gain any intelligence?

The Good---
1. The curly haired babe
2. McKay's character is quickly becoming very likeable. Sheppard wasn't bad. Teyla at least got a better hair-do. Maybe they explored the city enough to find a beauty salon.
3. We see the scope of the Wraith threat with at least over 20 ships.


Questions--
Even from seeing the FX of the Wraith ship, does anybody have sense of how big they are? A football field, and aircraft carrier, ten football fields?

Bryan

[Elwe Singollo]

Ok, although maybe Tyrus was right about not helping the dude in that little stasis area to make sure the Wraith knew they wouldn't be there, but don't you think it was kind of late already, he was already yelling, and and blah blah blah, and even stupider, the dude shot him. Ok maybe i'm looking at the scene the wrong way to some people, but i got a little more angry when the Genii Backstabbed them once again, very annoying, but i guess lying was the important thing, since if Sheppard wasn't absolutely truthful, they probably would have been dead or something.

I may sound a little evil, but Tyrus deserved to be left behind, and being supposingly dead.

[Ugly Pig]

Previously, on 'Piggy's Useless Opinion': And now, once again, to wait for next week... For which the previews look very promising. And now, the conclusion:

PIGGY'S USELESS OPINION
of 'Underground'

I'll say this right now: This episode just might be my favorite since the pilot. Of course, this is just my immediate reaction, and I don't know how well it will hold up on repeat viewing (and there hasn't been a Stargate episode to date which I haven't watched at least twice - except tonight's, of course) but right now I fell pretty dang good about this one.

And what's not to like? For the first time in I don't know how long, I was not only enjoying the show. I was literally glued to the screen. Well - maybe not literally, but I really was at the edge of my seat. There was tension. And plenty of it. Building throughout the whole episode, from the standard meet-and-greet was becoming... well, a tense meet-and-greet, to the mission into the Wraith ship. Speaking of which - those Wraith sure like to hibernate surrounded by thunder and lightning, huh?

Some Sheppard/McKay banter... is this going to become part of the character dynamics? In any case, fun to see McKay in his element. But he sure seemed to be hung up on that science fair...

Suspense, humor and a surprise twist at the end in which our guys get the upper hand (I totally didn't see that one coming! I was fully expecting the Genii to get away with keeping all their stash, especially after the guy said he'd let them walk away with their lives!). That, and the introduction of a new, appearantly recurring villain. On top of that, what McKay was tracking with his funky device didn't turn out to be a ZPM they couldn't use for some reason. Oh yeah. This ep shall have the

[ShadowMaat]

Re: memory sticks- I knew Meany's character was messing around with something but I wasn't clear on what he was doing.

Did they actually say anything about blowing up the ship? Or did they not get a chance to plant the charges or what? I must've missed that bit. Not even any reaction shots and "Oh, look at that explosion! It's... indescribable!"

[Mio]

The original plan was for the Wraith not to even know that they downloaded the information.

[tera'ngan]

Did they actually say anything about blowing up the ship? Or did they not get a chance to plant the charges or what? I must've missed that bit.

It was strictly a re-con mission. They were only there to download info from the main computer. That was why Tyrus made such a big deal about not saving anyone so the Wraith wouldn't know they were there. Of course, we all know how that ended up . . .

-tera'ngan