Sci-fi friday squee-along post

[mari4212]

Behind the GateSo, any bets as to how fast some fan puts up a list of how often Teal'c says "Indeed"?

I also found the pranks mentioned, especially Martin Wood's "MacGuyver" scene hysterical.

SG-1*giggles hysterically* Okay, this is like the best crack ever.

Firefly reference in the first three minutes?

Invisible Jack playing pranks?

Vala plagiarising Wizard of Oz? And Gilligan's Island?

Wormhole X-treme back?

Bad parodies of Star Trek?

Farscape?

Puppet retellings of Children of the Gods?

References to spoilers?

Koala-esque Furlings? (personally, I was hoping for kitty!Furlings)ETA Okay, so they're totally Ewoks and I missed that the first time around because of the gray fur and ear tufts. Still amazingly cute.

I love it when my shows are insane. It's like chocolate for the fandom. But on a more serious note, I'm glad they went for the humor for this episode. They really had two options. They could choose to laugh at themselves, or they could try to top everything they've done dramatically, which would probably have failed miserably.

AtlantisHmm. I really wasn't that enthralled. On the one hand, yay for an Elizabeth-centric episode. On the other hand, I don't think it was very well done. I spent most of the time saying that it was a total rip-off of the Buffy episode with a similar theme.

I did like the interactions between Elizabeth and Jack, and of course, Rodney's snark is always enjoyable. But the scenes back on Atlantis didn't feel right. Part of it was that we spent most of the time with John doing everything and everyone else as background. Given that it's no secret that John is my least favorite character, you can guess it wasn't exactly my favorite. I would have prefered all of them to have a chance to encourage and support Weir in turn. Right now, it felt like they were just pushing a ship to push the ship.

In other news, I found out that as of now I don't have a roommate for this fall. Sigh. If I could afford to have my own room, I'd do so in a heartbeat to avoid these hassles.

ETA2 Reflecting later, I think one of the things that annoyed me most was the sloppy writing. Why was it possible for Elizabeth to just defeat the nanites destroying her brain by sheer power of will? Could they have actually tried to explain that thoroughly? And I also think, in terms of how the pacing of the episode went, that they should have introduced the Atlantis side of events earlier. The beginning which was all Weir dragged in timing because you knew that somehow she was going to have to figure out that things weren't right, and the end was too fast, because they had to rush through all that information in the second half.

Comments

[skirmish-of-wit.livejournal.com]

*squees along*

I missed the "Behind the Gate" special, but "200" cracked me up. The Furlings were total Ewok ripoffs! Awesome. I loved the good-natured snark at other shows. It was like an hour of tasty geek!crack. XD

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

True, Furlings=Ewoks. I just liked the idea of koala bears.

[sirutka.livejournal.com]

I don't squee that often, but yep, Firefly joke and the Farscape parody was lovely. I approve!

[sirutka.livejournal.com]

Oh and I think the Furlings were designed to look like Ewoks more then anything else, but I could be wrong.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

They probably were an Ewok reference, but it's been longer since I've seen Star Wars and I just went for koalas because of the ear tufts and the gray fur.

[sirutka.livejournal.com]

That works, whatever makes you happy.

[toasteronfire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought Furlings=Ewoks (didn't they have the same kind of huts/tree buildings?). And the MacGuyver outtake was the funniest part of the special. :)

Real World was a total bore for me, and yes I think they were pushing S/W by having Shep be the only one in her reality. Would have been much better to see the whole team there urging her on.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Furlings probably are supposed to be Ewoks. I'm just not in a Star Wars frame of mind right now, so the first thing that popped into my mind was koalas. I think it was the tufty ears that did it for me.

"You were MacGuyver, MacGadget, MacGizmo! Now you're MacUseless!"

As I've said before, I'm not interested in Shep that much, and his morality tends to make me freak out. I don't think he and Weir are a good match in general. Personally, I'd prefer not to have to ship him with anybody. But even divorcing my ship leanings from my viewing, structurally, the episode just did not work well. I think if they'd introduced the Atlantis side earlier it would have worked better, as would having the entire team reach out to her.

[heylittleriver.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, SG1. *loves* That was fabulous. I don't know what this says about me but my favourite ones? Were Teen Gate (It was just so wrong, yet right.) and Farscape (naturally). I don't have much more to say than yes! You were right! LOVE!


You had me a little concerned about Atlantis, but apparently I liked it a lot more than you. (In fact, I adored it.) 'Twas a little slow at the beginning maybe, but to me, all the character tidbits made up for it. (Her mum! We met her mum! Also, I find it amusing Torri pronounces it mum not mom.)

Part of it was that we spent most of the time with John doing everything and everyone else as background. I would have prefered all of them to have a chance to encourage and support Weir in turn.

See, I don't really see it like that. I mean, yeah, we had a lot of John. But that's mainly because Rodney and Carson had something to do. (Ronon and Teyla; don't know what happened to them. Except at the end when Teyla's all "Yay! You're back! I get a line!") They were actively trying to help her whereas all John really could do was stand there. Different sorts of support.

Why was it possible for Elizabeth to just defeat the nanites destroying her brain by sheer power of will? Could they have actually tried to explain that thoroughly?

I think it was to do with the EMP. From what I understood, Carson was saying that, outside of her body (away from her brain) her WBC were fighting the nanites and winning. With her brain (and thus the 'hallucination') they weren't, which would imply that it was connected to her thinking. The Atlantis bits came through to her when she was taking the medication (medication therefore = giving in/her immune system being suppressed). Plus, there were also so many nanites. With the EMP, the number of nanites diminished meaning her immune could defeat them; if she allowed it. Hence, her 'will' allowed to immune system to not be suppressed and fight.

I think it's to do with that age-old thing that, if you give up when fighting an illness, so does the immune system. (Psychosomatic or something like that?)

*shrugs* Fuzzy science, but it's called sci fi for a reason.


*eyes you* You know, you really shouldn't make me think. It hurts my brain. :P

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

I think it was to do with the EMP. From what I understood, Carson was saying that, outside of her body (away from her brain) her WBC were fighting the nanites and winning. With her brain (and thus the 'hallucination') they weren't, which would imply that it was connected to her thinking. The Atlantis bits came through to her when she was taking the medication (medication therefore = giving in/her immune system being suppressed). Plus, there were also so many nanites. With the EMP, the number of nanites diminished meaning her immune could defeat them; if she allowed it. Hence, her 'will' allowed to immune system to not be suppressed and fight.

You know, if they'd explained it that coherantly in the actual episode, I'd have liked it a whole lot more. That does make more sense now.

And you're right, the scenes with Elizabeth's mother and her dog were awesome.

I think that it was after the EMP pulse that it really annoyed me that no one else was doing anything to support Weir other than Sheppard. Because while Carson and Rodney were working on the EMP, it makes sense for them to be too busy. But they ended up just standing around after that failed, and that was when the focus shifted to Sheppard telling Elizabeth to fight it.

I mad you do the thinky thing? Sweet.

[heylittleriver.livejournal.com]

You know, if they'd explained it that coherantly in the actual episode, I'd have liked it a whole lot more. That does make more sense now.

Mmm. But I guess I feel sympathy for the writer because there already was a lot of exposition and there's only really so much you can give before people get annoyed.

Because while Carson and Rodney were working on the EMP, it makes sense for them to be too busy. But they ended up just standing around after that failed, and that was when the focus shifted to Sheppard telling Elizabeth to fight it.

Yeah, that was twitchy. But I think I must fanwank stuff a lot because really, to me, it kinda makes sense. Carson and Rodney are used to being able to do something if it's science-related. *This* is science-related and they both couldn't do anything; it seems right that they'd be stuck on still trying to figure it out. I think if it had gone on for longer I would've been annoyed. But it was, in total, around five hours.

[doylefan22.livejournal.com]

I really like John as a character. Hell, I like them all as characters. I do think it would have been more interesting to have Teyla help save her in the end though - after all, isn't she the one more likely to believe in mind over matter than anyone?

Elizabeth and Jack together was great and I got the sense that she really trusts him.

My main gripe was, as good as the character stuff was, they could have done something more interesting with the plot in general.

[neviachiel.livejournal.com]

Here via the newsletter-

I completely agree on the pacing of the ep. By the time they reached the Atlantis parts, it felt like one big info-dump. They tried to explain her condition in less than ten minutes. I think I also have to agree about John's role. It would have been more interesting to me to have a team effort, and when you focus on the fact that he *was* the only one, it does seem like they were trying to push Elizabeth and John as *something*. Not that they necessarily were trying to push them as a couple, but maybe trying to push John into a hero position. Thinking back on it, it would have been a cooler ep had we been able to see all of them being able to talk to her (not like it would have given anything away; we already knew that Atlantis was real and something was wrong) at the expense of more "real world" scenes.