Sci-Friday Review
Feb. 4th, 2006 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuWell, Stargate: SG-1 was rather disappointing tonight. There were a few bright spots, but mostly it was an episode that wouldn't have been out of place in any of the Star Trek series. And I don't mean that in a good way. I mean it in the lots of technobabble, "hull integrity is failing," "shields down to 40 percent!" and "let's wait and see if the uber-weapon shoots us before we react" kind of way.
I hate the episodes that involve traveling on spaceships--they tend, not surprisingly, to be way too similar to Trek episodes, complete with familiar-sounding technobabble and plot problems caused by, based upon and ultimately cured by the interminable discussions of rerouting power, jury-rigging this, that and the other thing. Bleah.
And how the hell did Col. Carter get off the Prometheus before it blew up? They didn't even try to explain it.
Stargate Atlantis, on the other hand, turned out better than I expected. I only recently started watching it again after giving up on it early in the first season. I still tend to only watch about half the episodes, but sometimes they're pretty good. Tonight they found another city like Atlantis, run by the "royal family" who possessed the Ancient gene that lets them control the Ancient technology. I figured that the Lord Protector would, of course, bite the bitter black cookie of death and Col. Sheppard would demonstrate that he had the "royal" lineage necessary to upset the feudal applecart.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the locals knew exactly what was going on. They understood about the genetic component of the "royal" bloodline and had been taking care to conserve it for generations. I especially liked the Major Domo explaining that they knew Sheppard knew more about the technology than he was letting on because he didn't react like someone seeing magic when they demonstrated some of it. He took it in stride--a clear sign that he'd seen it before. The Atlantis team's plan to use gene therapy to give lots of people the ability to operate the tech was nifty too.
Plus, you know, watching McKay rant is always entertaining. Definitely a better episode than the SG-1 show preceding it.
I hate the episodes that involve traveling on spaceships--they tend, not surprisingly, to be way too similar to Trek episodes, complete with familiar-sounding technobabble and plot problems caused by, based upon and ultimately cured by the interminable discussions of rerouting power, jury-rigging this, that and the other thing. Bleah.
And how the hell did Col. Carter get off the Prometheus before it blew up? They didn't even try to explain it.
Stargate Atlantis, on the other hand, turned out better than I expected. I only recently started watching it again after giving up on it early in the first season. I still tend to only watch about half the episodes, but sometimes they're pretty good. Tonight they found another city like Atlantis, run by the "royal family" who possessed the Ancient gene that lets them control the Ancient technology. I figured that the Lord Protector would, of course, bite the bitter black cookie of death and Col. Sheppard would demonstrate that he had the "royal" lineage necessary to upset the feudal applecart.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the locals knew exactly what was going on. They understood about the genetic component of the "royal" bloodline and had been taking care to conserve it for generations. I especially liked the Major Domo explaining that they knew Sheppard knew more about the technology than he was letting on because he didn't react like someone seeing magic when they demonstrated some of it. He took it in stride--a clear sign that he'd seen it before. The Atlantis team's plan to use gene therapy to give lots of people the ability to operate the tech was nifty too.
Plus, you know, watching McKay rant is always entertaining. Definitely a better episode than the SG-1 show preceding it.
