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03x11: The Return Part 2
EDIT: This was originally friends-locked, but I'm going back and unlocking the old episode react posts, so ... now it's not!
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I'm really torn on this episode for a number of reasons. Moment by moment, it was a giant barrel of squee, and just filled with lovely character bits. So many of them involved Rodney (SQUEE) -- his frightened-and-resigned "Oh no, not again" to the water pouring into the jumper; the headslap in the prison room (but a fake headslap, as it turned out, which is actually even cuter); Elizabeth congratulating him at the end and Rodney doing that cute embarrassed-about-receiving-praise thing that he does. But it wasn't just Rodney-moments; I loved Teyla doing the double-fisted-shooting thing in the chair room, and Elizabeth putting her hand on Sheppard's shoulder in the jumper after O'Neill tells him he's fired, and lots more. And GORGEOUS plot twist with the fake plan! Rodney, MY HERO! (Squees again.) And now we know that Rodney-the-lousy-liar is really more of a fanon invention: Rodney actually *can* act quite well, when he has to.
Viewed overall, though, and especially as the second half to the first episode, it was full of dead ends and just plain lapses in logic. So the Ancients, who know the city and its defenses inside and out, were all (conveniently) killed off-camera but the two humans -- including the total non-combatant -- escaped without a scratch, hmm? And the gateroom got destroyed, but luckily the Replicators rebuilt it exactly as it was before! And the star drive got rebuilt too ... but they destroyed that with the drones, so we're back to square one there again. And there are no consequences for anybody for violating orders; the main team is back in the city, and presumably they'll get all the same personnel back, too. It's like pushing a giant reset button. Much short-term squee; much long-term disappointment, really. Honestly, I wasn't expecting any consequences anyway, but the Ancients were just such a GIGANTIC maguffin, even for this show ... it vexed me, really, to see ZERO fallout from that.
I'm kinda torn about Richard Dean Anderson's role in this episode. I'm maybe one of the few who doesn't mind seeing the SG-1 characters on SGA; I still love Jack after all these years, and I really enjoyed him in this episode. (I was especially impressed at RDA's expressive facial expressions underwater. I mean, DAMN.) But the ultimate result of having him around so much was that the main characters didn't get to do as much. The underwater scene, for example, would have been tenser and more enjoyable for me if it'd been one of the team in the flooded room rather than an outsider, even though it's an outsider I love -- on his OWN show -- as a character and actor. Ditto on the mind-probe. Like the episode in general, there was a lot of short-term squee over the Jack scenes but as a whole, I didn't think it held up that well.
Okay, now what am I going to do for the rest of the day? My little cup of squee runneth over. I'm supposed to be cleaning the house -- the in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving -- but right now that's the absolute last thing I want to do.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I'm really torn on this episode for a number of reasons. Moment by moment, it was a giant barrel of squee, and just filled with lovely character bits. So many of them involved Rodney (SQUEE) -- his frightened-and-resigned "Oh no, not again" to the water pouring into the jumper; the headslap in the prison room (but a fake headslap, as it turned out, which is actually even cuter); Elizabeth congratulating him at the end and Rodney doing that cute embarrassed-about-receiving-praise thing that he does. But it wasn't just Rodney-moments; I loved Teyla doing the double-fisted-shooting thing in the chair room, and Elizabeth putting her hand on Sheppard's shoulder in the jumper after O'Neill tells him he's fired, and lots more. And GORGEOUS plot twist with the fake plan! Rodney, MY HERO! (Squees again.) And now we know that Rodney-the-lousy-liar is really more of a fanon invention: Rodney actually *can* act quite well, when he has to.
Viewed overall, though, and especially as the second half to the first episode, it was full of dead ends and just plain lapses in logic. So the Ancients, who know the city and its defenses inside and out, were all (conveniently) killed off-camera but the two humans -- including the total non-combatant -- escaped without a scratch, hmm? And the gateroom got destroyed, but luckily the Replicators rebuilt it exactly as it was before! And the star drive got rebuilt too ... but they destroyed that with the drones, so we're back to square one there again. And there are no consequences for anybody for violating orders; the main team is back in the city, and presumably they'll get all the same personnel back, too. It's like pushing a giant reset button. Much short-term squee; much long-term disappointment, really. Honestly, I wasn't expecting any consequences anyway, but the Ancients were just such a GIGANTIC maguffin, even for this show ... it vexed me, really, to see ZERO fallout from that.
I'm kinda torn about Richard Dean Anderson's role in this episode. I'm maybe one of the few who doesn't mind seeing the SG-1 characters on SGA; I still love Jack after all these years, and I really enjoyed him in this episode. (I was especially impressed at RDA's expressive facial expressions underwater. I mean, DAMN.) But the ultimate result of having him around so much was that the main characters didn't get to do as much. The underwater scene, for example, would have been tenser and more enjoyable for me if it'd been one of the team in the flooded room rather than an outsider, even though it's an outsider I love -- on his OWN show -- as a character and actor. Ditto on the mind-probe. Like the episode in general, there was a lot of short-term squee over the Jack scenes but as a whole, I didn't think it held up that well.
Okay, now what am I going to do for the rest of the day? My little cup of squee runneth over. I'm supposed to be cleaning the house -- the in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving -- but right now that's the absolute last thing I want to do.
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Poor Jack, surrounded by civilians and lunatics. Who still undeniably manage to save the day ... somehow. "Plan D, works every time." ;)