(S03E20) "I'm just saying... They're a cool team... and we're a cool team..."
This week Atlantis brought out what I consider to be a classic season finale. By the end of the show there are questions about who is going to live, the survival of the city, and an impending war with the replicators. As long as they don't kick off season four with Shepard stepping out of a steamy shower, or waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette, things are looking very good for the future of Atlantis.
With a lot going on in the episode, we'll start at the beginning with the introduction of the new head of medicine, Dr. Keller. I'm a huge Firefly fan (although I loathe Serenity) so I'm happy to see Jewel Staite back on the television with a regular gig. Her reluctance to embrace the opportunity is interesting, and Weir's reassurance that she is comfortable putting her life in Keller's hands was a nice hint at what was to come.
I like Colonel Ellis. Not so much the character himself, because he is kind of a gung-ho ass, but what he brought to the story. The various conversations he had with Dr. Weir really highlighted her worries that she is not taken seriously as the leader of Atlantis. Rather, she is looked upon as the Administrator, with all the big decisions being handled from above. I especially liked the way she turned Ellis' 'with all due respect' speech around on him at the end.
Ellis also served to show just how much respect Weir has from the Atlantis team in his scenes with Rodney and Shepard. My favorite of those was when he told Shepard that he should be the one running Atlantis and Shepard replied, "But then I'd be the man, and who would I have to rage against?" It calls to mind the quote from O'neil in season eight of Stargate, "I've spent my whole life sticking it to the man. If I do this, I'll be the man. I don't want to be the man." It's also a typical smart ass Shepard response, but shows his support for Dr. Weir. Rodney signaled the same when Ellis gave him the order to submerge the city and was just blown off as Rodney looked to Weir for the go-ahead. .
The return of the replicators was a welcome one. I actually prefer the wraith as a foe, but that probably has more to do with my penchant for horror films, and the wraith's resemblance to a big bad that lurks in the shadows than anything else. That said, the replicators are a dangerous and clever enemy and there is still a lot of mileage to be had in battling them. Now that they have focused their efforts on Earth it makes the battle all that much more important.
The actual Horizon attack, while ill-conceived, looked really good. As did the retaliatory satellite/mini stargate/energy weapon. The sequence where they worked to find a way to save the city was very well done. The Rodney/Radek back and forth was in top form. The two of them play off of each other very well. Rodney and Shepard's eventual plan to launch the city and move to another planet in order to get out of the energy beam was intriguing for a couple different reasons. First, flying cities are just cool. But also, a new planet for Atlantis opens all kinds of doors for next season.
Of course, we didn't quite get to that point. The energy weapon breaking through just before the shield could be closed came as a surprise, but Weir getting caught up in the resulting explosion didn't. Her discussion with Teyla about leaving combined with SciFi's big promos about Carter joining the show didn't bode well for Dr. Weir.
And so we are left with the city lost in the middle of space, with only 24 hours of power, and questions about who will make it out of season three. As far as cliffhanger endings go, that's a pretty solid one. I don't know that Atlantis is yet equal to Stargate in its prime, but ready or not they are being handed the keys. Come fall, Atlantis is going to have to be the man, so to speak.
The Cheers episode Ken Levine's still writing in his head
Giveaway Tuesday: Fastlane - The Complete Series
Giveaway Monday: The X-Files: Revelations on DVD
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-23-2007 @ 3:02PM
Andy said...
ahhhhhhh!
so you read into it that Carter could be buoyed in as a replacement for Weir (i saw this months ago in UK) i've never thought of it that way... i always thought she'd just be added on.
but i think that could be a good possibility. i'm not completely swayed by it - but i think it could definately be a step they will take.
very much looking forward to see.
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6-23-2007 @ 4:26PM
gooby said...
I never thought they'd get rid of Weir either. I just thought that they'd add Carter to the mix, maybe having a more significant military presence in charge but Carter would be the perfect mix of both worlds, she's both a scientist as well as military, so it would be kind of cool if they could both somehow stay. The more women on this show the better :D
I think the writers never knew how to take advantage of Weir's diplomatic background as a negotiator, I wish they would have written to be more strong and so that she would have won a few more arguments, it would have made her a bit better authority figure... not someone who Shepard could always beat verbally...
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6-23-2007 @ 5:23PM
Hylo said...
This was a truly incredible episode.
There are absolutely no worries as far as I'm concerned about Atlantis taking over from SG-1. From the moment it debuted it has been the infinitely better show and far, far better then SG-1 even when it was in it's prime.
I'm glad they're writing Weir out. It's not that I hate her character or anything, and I liked the fact that she was civilian and as such added conflict with the military but it's time for a change and I'm sure Carter will add a lot to the show.
Brilliant episode to end a briliant season and season four looks set to something very special. I just hope the ratings for this episode were very high so as to maximise the liklyhood of a fifth season.
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6-23-2007 @ 6:52PM
David said...
Much better than the SG-1 garbage.
I do like the new doctor, my only problem is why are all the SG-1 doctors the best charaters on the shows?
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6-23-2007 @ 7:49PM
Kaydee said...
I just wonder why nearly from its inception Atlantis has felt the need to kill off members of is cast, from Ford to the very well liked Doctor to Weir - and all in 3 seasons! The first SG:SG1 member to leave was Michael Shanks when he needed a break just before S6! Do the writers/producers think this makes for better viewing? I love the addition of Ronan, but killing off everyone doesn't make for too much enjoyable watching. With many current TV series killing off their cast members, I like SOME shows to have cast stability.
That said, I find SG:Atlantis enjoyable but not manditory viewing, so maybe my opinion isn't relevant! LOL
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6-23-2007 @ 8:16PM
David said...
Who says Weir is dead? Of course she's not dead. No one ever dies in the season finales.
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6-23-2007 @ 8:57PM
Kevinc said...
Hylo and David - What are you guys smokin?? Have the episodes are just thin re-writes of SG-1 shows. (example, look at the quotes pointed out by Brett. Shepard's quote is a thin re-write of what Jack said.
They got rid of Ford because the creators of the show, (depending on what you read) felt the character didn't work out, or they didn't like Rainbow. Take you pick. The doctor will be returning, in some form or another, so they've said. The Atlantis team should lose more people. They are fighting the foe who beat the ancients.
Did anyone notice that the Horizon attack was supposed to be with 6 warheads, and there were quite a few more that 6 in the missile? Crap like that really bothers me... The show needs to get rid of the power issue. They need to find a bunch of zpms or learn how to refill them...
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6-23-2007 @ 9:24PM
David said...
The Wraith did not beat the ancients, a virus killed them and then the Wraith outnumbered them. Plus the Anients were not that bright because all the power they had went to their heads.
And Weir isn't dead.
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6-23-2007 @ 10:43PM
Boomstick said...
Hey Kevinc not to rain on your parade but if you had been paying attention to the initial description of the op, there indeed 6 warheads, but also 4 decoys.
As for writing characters out of a show - I think that takes courage on the writers behalf. Fans of any show get attached to their favorites and it gets hard to write characters out of a show. But in real life people come and go with great regularity. Especially in combat situations.
I love the SG shows. But when the writing always has the characters winning, that gets boring. A subtle loss now and then allows the characters to grow and the storyline not to become stagnant.
The Wraith are cliched. Vampire super villains in space. If I saw trailers for a movie with this premise I would pass it off as a bad B movie plot. The idea of sentient nano-robots in human form comes with a certain degree of originality. Fighting them should be akin to weekly episodes of Terminator 2.
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6-24-2007 @ 4:39AM
Akbar Fazil said...
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but from what I read;Ford was written out because Rainbow could not handle the stress of being a regular on an action show. By the end of season 1 he was so burned out he needed to be let go to a guest role.
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6-24-2007 @ 12:24PM
Chuck said...
"Carter joining the show didn't bode well for Dr. Weir..."
I am a great fan of Sam's, BUT the Dr Weir character, to me, is one of the most intriguing the Stargate universe has introduced. That may be why the writing for her has not been as much as it should be - too different from the status quo . Fresh off my disappointment that SG1's ending wasn't a ending (and I am a great SG1 fan), I do not want Atlantis to become an SG1 clone and Weir's character is one of the few true differences, so give me Sam but keep Weir!
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6-24-2007 @ 1:42PM
David said...
4th season spoilers are to follow.....
Sam is taking over Atlantis but Weir, last I read, will be in at least 6-7 episodes. I don't think Weir will die, I think she will just become a side charater.
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6-24-2007 @ 4:13PM
jccalhoun said...
It was a decent episode but I found it odd that they didn't manage to put in a line about Teyla's people back on the mainland. Now they are stuck there with no stargate and probably no way to contact anyone off world.
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6-24-2007 @ 4:28PM
Bash said...
Who cares about Weir. She's just a shell nothing more, the character has no depth whatsoever. It's too bad that Rainbow Sun Franks had to leave the show and I honestly don't quite understand why they first make Becket a regular in season two just to kill him off in season three - but that's not important because we know he will be back because he's not really dead.
About Michael Shanks: he wanted out because he thought he was a big shot. Look at other examples like Seth Green - he left Buffy on a high point and it all went perfect for him. Shanks did horrible stuff during the time he was gone from SG-1 and came back with his tail tucked between his legs.
To me, everything SG-1 meant went kind of downhill after RDA left but at that point we already had Atlantis in place and everyone has to agree that Shepperd is nothing else than O'Neill in slightly different gear.
Of course you can ask yourself whether everything would've gone differently if they'd taken SG-1 off the air and made a movie but like MGM I always felt that the franchise wasn't strong enough to pull off a movie (but then again The Fantastic Four or better the crap that Bernd Eichinger made of it is total garbage IMHO but still totally successful so I guess the difference between SG-1 and F4 is Jessica Alba and Michael Siklis).
I guess the way we have it now is kind of ok. DVD movies as an end for SG-1, a character from SG-1 over on Atlantis (Star Trek reference: Worf on DS-9 rocked)... maybe everything will work out fine.
And a new show is on the way too. We'll see.
I also agree that his was a "real" season finale not like SG-1 but as I mentioned there SG-1 did not end with the last episode of season 10, it will end with the DVD-movies.
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6-24-2007 @ 8:30PM
O said...
i am so confused, this aired on television one saturday a few months ago here in the US, and i remember watching it because i had never seen it before, and then spent about a week trying to figure out what happened next, and if i could find it online, which i couldn't. why did they air it then?
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6-24-2007 @ 9:00PM
Akbar Fazil said...
O, there is no way you saw this aired on any US channel.
Most of the rest of the world did air this episode months ago. Perhaps you caught it on a Canadian channel?
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6-24-2007 @ 11:03PM
O said...
no i dont think so, i live in bethesda, MD on the east coast. I saw on normal broadcast television, on fox. they usually put a few random episodes on during the weekends, and i saw this and the one where beckett died, a while ago. i think they air around noon.
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6-25-2007 @ 8:31AM
Anthony said...
SkyOne a UK based Cable Network aired SG-1 and Atlantis weeks ahead before they came out in the US.
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6-25-2007 @ 10:59AM
Akbar Fazil said...
Well O, then if you are seeing on a Fox affiliate then they are breaking the law and showing episodes in a US market before they should be show.
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6-26-2007 @ 6:31PM
mike said...
At this point I watch the 2 Stargates because I like the characters and I like their back and forth banter. It's the stuff you hear from long time coworkers. Both shows seem to take a lot of heat from snobby sci-fi fans in that story lines are sometime rehashed/reused from other shows/books/movies. That may be true but those other vehicles don't have these characters. They could film a show where they sat around and had dinner for an hour and for me the dialog -and the actors doing it - would be enough of a reason to watch.
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