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Quickie post on Tabula Rasa before bed
Must sleep! But first -- that episode was squee! Teyla and Ronon saved the day! And not in their usual "roles" either -- Ronon in particular, who basically saved the day with brains and with heart, two things that he's not in short supply of, but doesn't get to display much either...
We've been getting so much nice team-bonding lately that it actually made a nice change to have an episode that wasn't about the team as a unit, but rather, the characters as individuals. We got to see the characters interacting in lots of combinations -- Sheppard and Ronon, Ronon and Teyla, Teyla and Rodney, Rodney and Sam, Keller and Ronon, Sheppard and Lorne, Zelenka and Rodney and Sam, Rodney and Keller, Rodney and Katie ... it was just a really fantastic episode for the whole cast, even though Rodney got a bit more screen time than the others.
Of course, being me, I'm never going to complain about an episode that has the whole cast (well, most of them) sick and disoriented, plus Lorne hopped up on stimulants. :D And Rodney is a good boyfriend! That made me happy, because it just shows how far he's come as a person; and even though I'm not overly enthusiastic about romance on the show in general, I've thought that Katie was adorable, and she and Rodney were very cute together, since her first appearance in Duet. I honestly thought they'd killed her at the end, though, and I was all braced for poor Rodney to be devastated, but she lived ... and I really wonder where they're going from here, because they're actually serious now as a couple -- he fell asleep at her bedside! and she named a cactus after him! I really do wonder how this is all going to develop, and if it's going to affect the team dynamic at all...
The scenes with Ronon and John, in the jumper and on the mainland, were just fantastic -- Ronon steering around disoriented Sheppard and getting him to fly; the matter-of-fact use of the stunner to keep Sheppard out of trouble (okay, seriously, HOW many times has he shot Sheppard with that gun now?); and using their friendship to get through to amnesiac, ultra-paranoid John .... all together now, awwwwwwwww.
Little bitty squee moments, in no particular order:
Rodney's "Five bucks says you'll start losing your memory first!" to John. Oh, boys.
Zelenka in paranoid-commando mode! He must actually be pretty good at it, since he managed to elude a whole platoon of paranoid, ultra-alert soldiers.
Rodney pestering Keller ... with his tingling knees. Poor Keller. She has no idea what she's getting herself into with these people.
Ronon realizing that he and Teyla are immune to the disease! Seriously, Ronon having medical knowledge is canon now! Another bit of my personal fanon for him clicks into place!
John waking up with the world's worst case of bed-head, all sleepy and disoriented. Oh! And his little freakout when he realized that McKay wasn't with the others. (I also find it cute that he'd expected they'd all be together, and be there when he woke up. All together now, again: Awwwwww! But of course, they knew John would be okay at that point, and plus he had other people to stay with him, while Katie was badly ill, so I don't blame Rodney for being elsewhere.)
Teyla petting Rodney's arm when she's trying to encourage him. Have I "awwww'd" enough for this episode yet?
This isn't a squee moment, really, but I liked the scenes with John and Carter working together as leaders, and especially that moment where he tells her about arming Lorne's men, and she expresses her concerns before acknowledging the necessity of it. I thought that was a really interesting contrast with the way that "Hot Zone" (and similar episodes) played out between John and Elizabeth -- a very stark demonstration of what a different perspective Carter has on the whole matter of Atlantis defense than Elizabeth did. I'm not saying Carter's right and Elizabeth was wrong, or vice versa, but Carter's certainly MUCH more willing to entertain the military solutions that Elizabeth would have resisted. This is another area where I really wonder how things will play out over the remainder of the season.
Other random stuff: When the scene first flashed back from the present to the past, my first thought was "Oh, dammit, not AGAIN!" -- because they've done that before, and I'm NOT fond of the dramatic technique of jumping into the middle of the action and then cutting immediately to a flashback. (If you're going to plunge into the middle of the action right off the bat -- which, actually, I like -- for pete's sake stay there!) But ultimately, I really enjoyed the way they interwove the past and present in this episode, dangling the little mysteries of where each character had gone (I was really curious about Sheppard in particular, since he just seemed to have vanished!) and linking up the various plotlines. And Rodney, all confused and scared but doing his best anyway ...! I just liked how pretty much every character got nice scenes and had their moment in the sun.
I'm not gonna say too much about the disease, because, well ... I've been wanting them to address the whole issue of Pegasus vs. Milky Way microbes ever since the beginning, and while I'm glad they finally did, sort of, I'm not too happy with the way they did it, which made it out to be an isolated incident that required [x] [y] and [z] special condition to happen ... thereby neatly sidestepping all the bajillion real-world problems of isolated populations coming into contact and swapping germs ... But on the other hand, this is one of those things (like the thing with everyone speaking the same language) where you really CAN'T explain it away without having to basically rewrite the last four seasons -- so I'll just be happy that I got an epidemic episode and not worry too much about the HOW of it all.
Okay, aargh, I really have GOT to go to sleep now! But this episode cries out for missing scenes, it really does...
We've been getting so much nice team-bonding lately that it actually made a nice change to have an episode that wasn't about the team as a unit, but rather, the characters as individuals. We got to see the characters interacting in lots of combinations -- Sheppard and Ronon, Ronon and Teyla, Teyla and Rodney, Rodney and Sam, Keller and Ronon, Sheppard and Lorne, Zelenka and Rodney and Sam, Rodney and Keller, Rodney and Katie ... it was just a really fantastic episode for the whole cast, even though Rodney got a bit more screen time than the others.
Of course, being me, I'm never going to complain about an episode that has the whole cast (well, most of them) sick and disoriented, plus Lorne hopped up on stimulants. :D And Rodney is a good boyfriend! That made me happy, because it just shows how far he's come as a person; and even though I'm not overly enthusiastic about romance on the show in general, I've thought that Katie was adorable, and she and Rodney were very cute together, since her first appearance in Duet. I honestly thought they'd killed her at the end, though, and I was all braced for poor Rodney to be devastated, but she lived ... and I really wonder where they're going from here, because they're actually serious now as a couple -- he fell asleep at her bedside! and she named a cactus after him! I really do wonder how this is all going to develop, and if it's going to affect the team dynamic at all...
The scenes with Ronon and John, in the jumper and on the mainland, were just fantastic -- Ronon steering around disoriented Sheppard and getting him to fly; the matter-of-fact use of the stunner to keep Sheppard out of trouble (okay, seriously, HOW many times has he shot Sheppard with that gun now?); and using their friendship to get through to amnesiac, ultra-paranoid John .... all together now, awwwwwwwww.
Little bitty squee moments, in no particular order:
Rodney's "Five bucks says you'll start losing your memory first!" to John. Oh, boys.
Zelenka in paranoid-commando mode! He must actually be pretty good at it, since he managed to elude a whole platoon of paranoid, ultra-alert soldiers.
Rodney pestering Keller ... with his tingling knees. Poor Keller. She has no idea what she's getting herself into with these people.
Ronon realizing that he and Teyla are immune to the disease! Seriously, Ronon having medical knowledge is canon now! Another bit of my personal fanon for him clicks into place!
John waking up with the world's worst case of bed-head, all sleepy and disoriented. Oh! And his little freakout when he realized that McKay wasn't with the others. (I also find it cute that he'd expected they'd all be together, and be there when he woke up. All together now, again: Awwwwww! But of course, they knew John would be okay at that point, and plus he had other people to stay with him, while Katie was badly ill, so I don't blame Rodney for being elsewhere.)
Teyla petting Rodney's arm when she's trying to encourage him. Have I "awwww'd" enough for this episode yet?
This isn't a squee moment, really, but I liked the scenes with John and Carter working together as leaders, and especially that moment where he tells her about arming Lorne's men, and she expresses her concerns before acknowledging the necessity of it. I thought that was a really interesting contrast with the way that "Hot Zone" (and similar episodes) played out between John and Elizabeth -- a very stark demonstration of what a different perspective Carter has on the whole matter of Atlantis defense than Elizabeth did. I'm not saying Carter's right and Elizabeth was wrong, or vice versa, but Carter's certainly MUCH more willing to entertain the military solutions that Elizabeth would have resisted. This is another area where I really wonder how things will play out over the remainder of the season.
Other random stuff: When the scene first flashed back from the present to the past, my first thought was "Oh, dammit, not AGAIN!" -- because they've done that before, and I'm NOT fond of the dramatic technique of jumping into the middle of the action and then cutting immediately to a flashback. (If you're going to plunge into the middle of the action right off the bat -- which, actually, I like -- for pete's sake stay there!) But ultimately, I really enjoyed the way they interwove the past and present in this episode, dangling the little mysteries of where each character had gone (I was really curious about Sheppard in particular, since he just seemed to have vanished!) and linking up the various plotlines. And Rodney, all confused and scared but doing his best anyway ...! I just liked how pretty much every character got nice scenes and had their moment in the sun.
I'm not gonna say too much about the disease, because, well ... I've been wanting them to address the whole issue of Pegasus vs. Milky Way microbes ever since the beginning, and while I'm glad they finally did, sort of, I'm not too happy with the way they did it, which made it out to be an isolated incident that required [x] [y] and [z] special condition to happen ... thereby neatly sidestepping all the bajillion real-world problems of isolated populations coming into contact and swapping germs ... But on the other hand, this is one of those things (like the thing with everyone speaking the same language) where you really CAN'T explain it away without having to basically rewrite the last four seasons -- so I'll just be happy that I got an epidemic episode and not worry too much about the HOW of it all.
Okay, aargh, I really have GOT to go to sleep now! But this episode cries out for missing scenes, it really does...
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I would prefer Rodney in a relationship with John *g* but I know that's never going to happen on TV but I certainly don't want him in a relationship with someone oushy either. Actually, I'd pretty much prefer it if they'd just leave the ship out entirely but that's just me.
As for the character, I find her flat and insipid. I know she's only been on the show a few times but I don't feel any empathy towards her at all. I've never developed a feeling of being glad she's in an episode. Her voice drives me nuts for one thing. She's very pretty but I just don't see any chemistry between her and DH at all.
JMO of course
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I think the opinion on Katie in the fandom that frustrated me the most in the post-Sunday period (which I'm seeing coming back like a bad penny now that the Tabula Rasa meta is starting to go up everywhere) is the idea that she's too passive or stupid for Rodney simply because she's not a pushy, in-your-face person; the idea that being sweet and unassuming has to translate automatically into "brain-dead doormat" really got my hackles up.
I find their awkwardness endearing, and not at all unbelievable for Rodney considering that he's still awkward with his teammates after knowing them for four years and arguable being closer to them than anyone else. But that's just a personal opinion, and I can see how someone else might not see it that way.
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I'm sure this isn't what TPTB have in mind, but it helps me make more sense of what's going on between them for my own understanding.
- - - - - -
In my personal canon, Katie has a child by Rodney; he marries her out of duty; he is totally unsuited to the gooshy, noisy, smelly parts of fatherhood; and Katie ends up doing Nobel-level cancer research on a Pegasus planet where she has plenty of childcare help. And Rodney has more angst.
At what level my McSheppiness, or non-slash Sheppard-McKay grooving, comes into this, I really don't know.
- Helen
no subject
Anyway, I like the idea of Rodney/Katie dysfunctional as much as I like them sweet and happy, if that makes any sense.
no subject
Oddly enough, I can never even remember what she looks like from one episode to the next! I don't recognize her until he calls her by name. :D