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We are here once more to catch-up on the awesomeness!

Buckle up ya’ll, cause these are doozies!

Season 3, Episode 12- Echoes

Teyla begins to see what she believes to be the ghosts of the recently killed Alterans and is particularly distressed by the image of an Alteran man who is badly burned.

Since she hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, Atlantis’ psychologist, Dr. Heightmeyer thinks that it could be the reason for the hallucinations and tells Teyla to take it easy.

Remember quite some time ago when Rodney was stuck under water and an alien whale led Sheppard to him?

He’s back!

And so is his mother.

And father.

And aunt.

And… a whole heck ton of other alien whales are heading straight for Atlantis.

Sheppard and Rodney go to get a closer look and find out quite painfully that the whales are emitting a frequency that is dangerous to humans. Though it’s not malicious as it’s simply the whales talking to each other. (someone dies from an aneurism later on)

Quickly heading back to Atlantis (they’re both pretty much deaf and keep yelling at people because they can’t hear how loud they really are which is hilarious!) they spend some time in the infirmary with Dr. Beckett before convincing Dr. Weir to let them investigate a lab where the Alteran’s were running experiments concerning the whales.

Dr. Weir agrees because she and several other people have started to see the ghosts.

Unable to understand what they’re trying to communicate but agreed it must be something bad and could be a warning about the whales being deadly, the team goes about doing what they do best.

With Daedalus in orbit waiting to give assistance, the mystery begins to unravel.

It isn’t until almost the end of the episode that we find out the whales aren’t the problem. In fact, the hallucinations/ghosts are the whales trying to warn them of the coming danger, but they’re several generations out from the whales the Alteran’s were teaching to ‘speak’ their language and so the translation and ability is a little…wonky.

The danger they’re warning about is the massive solar flare their star is about to burp out.

Every fifteen thousand years, give or take, this occurs, and it was never a problem for the Alteran’s because they always had three ZPM’s to power their shield. In addition, they were able to extend the shield to cover a significant portion of the planet so it wouldn’t be destroyed.

Unfortunately, despite having three ZPM’s to being with after kicking the replicator/Asuran’s butts, two of them have already been sent back to the Milky Way to help defend Earth from attack and to power a new battleship in the fight against the Ori.

One ZPM is not going to do it.

However, Sheppard has a plan and takes both the remaining ZPM and Rodney to Daedalus to save the day.

By situating the ship in front of where the flare is going to be so that the energy is dispersed around the ship and sent off into the system away from Atlantis.

It works and almost immediately the whales start to leave and people get better.

With the exception of Sam who waits to say goodbye to Rodney in his own alien whale way.

It’s a really cute, terrifying and funny episode!

Season 3, Episode 13- Irresponsible

Also an episode where I can say ‘remember such and such?’, this episode we again run into Lucius Lavin, who is the hero of yet another village.

Lucius unknowingly had an Alteran personal shield device in his possession and only knew what it was after his stay on Atlantis.

Now, he is using it to gain fame once more in the form of heroism and feats no human could possibly accomplish.

To keep himself in the villagers favor however, he has hired some Genii mercenaries to play the bad guys he must defeat to keep everyone safe.

All is going well for him and our favorite team still thinks he’s a slime-bucket, but generally harmless, when real trouble shows up in the form of one Acastus Kolya.

He wants the shield for his own purposes but when he finds out Sheppard is there, well, his plans change a little. He takes everyone but Sheppard hostage and threatens to kill them one at a time until Sheppard shows himself.

Sheppard has to rely on Lucius for help and, surprisingly enough, it works. Lucius is able to rally the villagers into taking a stand for themselves against the Genii. The small coup works spectacularly, and the Genii soldiers lay down their weapons.

Leaving Sheppard and Kolya in a face off.

The stakes are pretty high considering every other interaction they’ve ever had with each other, but this time Kolya has no way to slink off to safety.

With barely a second of a difference, Sheppard is able to end Kolya once and for all.

Season 3, Episode 14- Tao of Rodney

Rodney gets superpowers.

Seriously!

Telekinesis, telepathy, and he even gets smarter (yeah, he didn’t think it was possible either).

What happens is yet another mystery lab is discovered on Atlantis and while trying to find a way to shut it off so it would stop using power, it activates and hits Rodney.

Tests show nothing different so everyone thinks he’s okay despite his insistence that there has to be something wrong with him because nothing ever ‘doesn’t’ work when it comes to the Alterans.

A little while later on a mission, he’s proved right when he saves the day by making enemy guns stop working and then, because he couldn’t prove that one, he levitates Carson.

The machine was supposed to help the Alterans ascend by advancing their bodies to the energy state. It doesn’t work of course because there are other things involved with ascending, but it takes awhile for Weir to translate the data.

Meanwhile, Rodney is having a field day working on improvements for the city (which are brilliant), creating a new math, and a whole ton of other things that don’t get brought up in the episode but get mentioned later.

When he finds out the machine is broken and he is dying, he changes.

He doesn’t believe he can ascend for various reasons and so sets out to right wrongs and make amends.

Everything he says and does he means here. The fact he’s dying just pushed him into action.

It’s a really great episode with some very heartfelt moments that you wouldn’t expect Rodney to be the instigator of, but there you have it. Yet another facet of Rodney McKay!

Season 3, Episode 15- The Game

What would you do if a video game you played ended up being real?

Well, Rodney and Sheppard find out in this episode!

Turns out the Alterans were playing god (no surprise) with several different planets by influencing the inhabitants via technology they put in place.

Our boys thought it was a game and have been playing for a year at this point when Major Lorne (on an unrelated mission) finds the planet and sees banners with Rodney’s face on them.

Going to the planet they find that, sure enough, they’ve been influencing two groups of people who live across a river from each other.

Rodney by giving them scientific knowledge to further themselves in that area to make their lives better, and Sheppard in a more militaristic way that’s never the less what he believes to be the best choice for the group.

The problem is that Rodney and Sheppard have been at odds over several issues and trade agreements in the ‘game’ and it’s effected the people who are now on the brink of war.

During the episode, the two have to try and convince the people that they aren’t gods and they should live their own lives without interference from them. Instead, when the people do in fact go to war, they end up simulating a total defeat for both sides.

Rodney’s people think several villages have been completely destroyed and they are being overrun by Sheppard’s group and Sheppard’s people think the same only in reverse.

It’s a brilliant plan and works. They offer aid if they needed but stay away from that room after that.

Season 3, Episode 16- The Ark

Sheppard gets to fly a space shuttle!

Okay, so he doesn’t so much ‘fly’ it as guides it through the atmosphere as it falls from space in a fiery blaze.

When the team finds a base carved into a low orbit moon, they are mostly unimpressed. Rodney being the exception, and forging ahead to power the base up, unintentionally initiates a machine that uses adapted Wraith beaming technology and wakes the occupant.

A scientist from the planets now long dead civilization, the man requests that he be allowed to check the machine he was being stored in as it should also contain several thousand of his people.

Instead, he wakes an official who had sworn that his wife and son would be amongst those chosen to survive in the machine until the Wraith had left for good.

Problem is, the second shuttle that had been carrying the storage device had never left the planet. His family had been dead for thousands of years.

Having spent his entire life working on the project that was supposed to be his people’s salvation, he loses it (understandably, let’s be honest) and attempts to destroy the base by opening it to space.

His death is quick, but Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon and Rodney are now cutoff from each other on a moon that’s getting ever closer to the atmosphere.

Finally being able to get backup should have been the end of it. It should have been easy enough to get to the Jumper and go back to Atlantis.

Except that the official refused to let them leave the storage device.

Apparently, as he tells poor Teyla who is stuck with him in the same compartment, his people had created weapons of mass destruction intentionally so that the Wraith would come in force and wipe them out completely. Or think they did anyways, when in actuality many would have been perfectly safe in the devices on the moon.

Unfortunately, other officials and governing people hadn’t been able to make it to the shuttle before the scheduled take-off and it had been delayed too long.

The selfishness of it cost them thousands of lives otherwise saved.

The Wraith never came back, but that was because the weapons were used and the planet was left uninhabitable for so long.

With the decaying orbit of the moon, the official traps Teyla inside the machine, leaving Sheppard no choice but to pilot the antiquated shuttle to the surface as it’s the only power supply compatible with the storage device.

(don’t worry, the official doesn’t survive because of injuries, so justice is served in the end)

Season 3, Episode 17- Sunday

Another episode you’ll need a few boxes of tissue for.

When everyone is ordered to take a day off simultaneously, our peeps have plans.

Carson and Rodney are supposed to go fishing.

Sheppard and Ronon are going to golf.

Weir had planned on catching up on paperwork and eating lunch with Teyla.

And Teyla had plans with several people.

We follow them individually throughout the episode as they relive the day and how and what they actually did.

Rodney doesn’t want to spend his off-day fishing so begs off when he gets a date set up with botanist Katie. An alarm disturbs his date.

Sheppard shows Ronon how to golf, Ronon finds it incredibly boring and challenges Sheppard to a Sateedan game that Sheppard isn’t too fond of. The same alarm Rodney hears interrupts them.

Weir is asked out by one of the scientist’s and so asks to postpone the lunch with Teyla and has a great time until the alarm sounds.

Teyla is able to get out of learning how to golf because she already has plans and is the only one who actually seems to be able to carry through with some of them until the explosion happens.

A piece of shrapnel hits her and she is very badly injured.

Trying to find out what happened takes time and in the end it takes it all for one of our team.

Two scientists had accidentally turned on a machine that was supposed to create explosive tumors in the Wraith. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work right and creates tumors in any person within proximity.

One of the scientist’s literally explodes in the cafeteria, which is when things get worse because the second scientist is injured and in the infirmary now.

Carson is ordered to clear the infirmary so that a bomb squad can get in and neutralize the scientist.

He refuses and operates to get the tumor out.

He succeeds, but can’t wait for the bomb squad to come to him when his assistant and patient are right there so takes the case holding the bomb and makes to meet halfway.

Right when we think it’ll be okay, the bomb explodes.

Killing Carson and a bomb squad technician.

One of the final scenes is of our team carrying Carson’s coffin through the Stargate.

And the absolute final scene is of Rodney saying goodbye to his friend.

Season 3, Episode 18- Submersion

You just can’t keep a bad Wraith down these days.

This time we find our team on an underground drilling platform that was supposed to get below the crust of the planet on the ocean floor to produce geothermal energy for Atlantis to use in addition to the ZPM.

Easy enough except for the Wraith Queen that shows up and takes Teyla over.

After sabotaging the platform to trap them all inside, the Queen tries to escape via a Jumper but can’t of course because she doesn’t have the gene.

After killing several people, she is apprehended and restrained.

Which is when it’s decided that letting Teyla get into the Queen’s mind is a good idea.

Apparently during the last battle over Atlantis way back when, the Queen’s ship was badly damaged and fell into the ocean. She survived by feeding on the human stores before turning on her own.

Now she wants one of two things.

Off the planet, or everyone to die with her.

The Wraith Hive is sitting not too far from the platform and right above a weak part of the planets crust. The Queen set a self-destruct that will destroy Atlantis along with them because of the added thermal energy that would be added when the ship explodes the crust.

Fooling the Queen into turning the self-destruct off isn’t easy but they’re able to do it in the nick of time!

That was a ton of episodes and all of them SO GOOD!

Next week we shall be back with a book review and the episode that directly preceded it and then another few episodes and another book before several more episodes with no book between.

We are so close to the Legacy series and I am so excited for more Todd!

So…as I was typing up my observations of ‘Common Ground’ I realized that that is a ton of words that was being added to an already big post. Thus, the catch-up episode posts have been made separate.

Here ya go!

Season 3, Episode 8 – McKay and Mrs. Miller

Rodney McKay is annoying and condescending, but the character grows so much that, just like his friends, we simply roll our eyes when he starts up again and listen while he (inevitably) is proven right.

In this episode we get to meet his sister! (fun fact; the actor and actress are siblings in real life which makes this so much better).

Jeanie has been out of the ‘game’ for several years. In fact, she hasn’t published any papers since she got married and had a daughter. She wanted to be a mother more and unfortunately, we find out that Rodney tried to talk her out of it. Considering what he’s like, you can imagine how that went.

Now though, she has a new theory that could revolutionize power modules and make the ZPM’s obsolete.

If she knew what the heck they were.

Which is where Rodney comes in. The SGC needs him to convince his sister to help them out. Despite their differing positions and four-year estrangement, he convinces her, and they go to Atlantis.

Things take a turn for the weird (as they do with our lovely family) and during the experiment a Rodney from an alternate reality pops up and tells them their experiment is destroying his world. Of course, they shut it down immediately, but it leaves the new Rodney stranded.

The new Rodney goes by Rod and is much cooler than our Rodney and has never been estranged from his sister. The differences make Rodney feel like an outsider amongst his own friends and family, which gets worse when it seems they prefer Rod’s company over his.

Turns out, the bridge they’d created between realities is still open and causing problems. The only way to shut it down completely is to send a massive amount of energy (using their only ZPM) through to disrupt it before it kills them all.

Rod asks if Rodney will help him get back to his reality, saying that he envies Rodney for his ability to not care what people think about him and for having the freedom to speak his mind. Rodney, naturally, mentions the possibility that Rod won’t make it through before the bridge collapses, but agrees when Rod insists.

The bridge collapses as planned, but Rodney refuses to shut the power off until he has confirmation Rod’s made it home. He ends up depleting the ZPM completely.

I adore this episode for SO many reasons and the character development and different sides of Rodney we get to see are why.

If you’ll recall, many episodes ago he recorded a message when the city may be lost. The message was full of self-important insights and such, but in the middle of it he records a message for his sister. Sheppard takes it upon himself to share it with Jeanie before she leaves.

Rodney isn’t good with people, not even his own sister, but we get to see that he understands that and isn’t exactly happy about it. When he can’t say the words to repair the rift between him and Jeanie, he grabs her in a hug instead and finally gets the words out.

(we will see Jeanie again!)

Season 3, Episode 9- Phantoms

This is an emotional episode so have the tissues ready.

The team heads out to see why another team is six hours late checking in. Sheppard’s team, Dr. Beckett and three extra Marines go as backup. On the planet they find several dead bodies belonging to the Genii. Some have been dead for months and it’s obvious they killed each other before killing themselves.

Things do not look good for the SGA team they came to rescue.

Rodney has them follow an energy signature and they find a Wraith machine of some kind that the Genii were messing with. Since the priority is the other team, they leave the machine.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for three of the team as they’ve been killed by their CO. You can see how Sheppard is doing with this news when they watch a recording that shows their deaths. Not knowing why he killed them, Sheppard orders everyone back to the Stargate.

Carrying their dead (Rodney complains and asks if they can take a break at one point) Ronon suddenly signals for them to stop when he sees something in the forest around them.

He can’t say what it was though, and they continue to the Gate.

One of the Marines goes to dial the Gate and it blows up, killing him instantly and injuring others, while our missing Marine starts firing on them.

The two remaining Marines are badly injured and there is no way off the planet now because the dialing device crystals are shattered and they don’t have spares.

Rodney insists they go back to the Wraith machine since it’s interfering with their radios so even when Weir dials the planet, they won’t be able to respond.

Remember when I said Rodney complained about carrying the dead Marine earlier? Yeah, well he’s helping carry one of the injured Marines now and the Marine apologizes for the fact (even though he has no reason to) and Rodney tells him it’s not a problem.

I bring this up because of the look Dr. Beckett gives him at his words to the young Marine. It’s really great that the writers took the time to consider such small things.

Think about it. What show/s are on today that care to show such a small detail that is nevertheless so important? When I say they don’t make shows like Stargate anymore, I’m not just talking about the really cool storylines that don’t revolve around sex every other episode.

I’m talking about the characters being the focus and so very obviously driving the story with their lives!

Beckett doesn’t expect Rodney’s response because of his complaining earlier and so it surprises him and it shows on his face.

They make it to the Wraith machine and Beckett does what he can for the injured Marines while Rodney tries to turn the thing off and Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla end up trying to track down the missing Marine.

Turns out the machine was an experiment intended to help the Wraith hone their mental abilities. The Genii messed it up and now it’s emitting some kind of energy that’s affecting their minds and making them hallucinate.

The missing Marine is seeing Super Soldiers from back when he served in the Milky Way (you’d have too watch the first series to understand the backstory there). Ronon starts seeing the others’ as Wraith. Sheppard begins to relive the mission that got him in enough trouble to be sent to McMurdo, while Teyla tries to pull him back (she’s been shot in the leg and her Wraith genes keep her safe from the hallucinations). Dr. Beckett thinks one of his patients stops breathing and gets the other to help revive him.

Rodney is working closely enough to the machine that it doesn’t affect him for quite some time.

The ending is really heartbreaking for our people and I think it’s good that these kinds of episodes were added because it isn’t always the obvious enemy that can be deadly. The original Stargate series was like this too and it gives us time to understand our teams and get to know them better outside of their usual fun and sarcastic selves.

Our missing Marine runs out of ammo and, believing he’s surrounded by the Super Soldiers, takes a grenade and holds it to his chest.

Sheppard and Teyla see him die.

Ronon goes after Sheppard because he thinks he’s a Wraith who’s abducting Teyla.

Sheppard shoots Rodney and Ronon believing they’re terrorists trying to kill him.

Dr. Beckett loses one of his patients without even knowing it and the other is barely holding on.

Teyla has to use Sheppard’s nightmare to get him to turn the machine off and they barely make it before Ronon almost kills him.

A not to miss episode! I don’t care how much it will make you cry, you have to watch it because it is so worth it.

Season 3, Episode 10- The Return: Part 1

Dang Alteran’s.

Apparently, there was an Alteran battleship that has been slightly out of phase with the rest of the galaxy for quite some time. The Daedalus contacts them and agrees to help repair the ship and bring them back to Atlantis.

They arrive and the Alteran leader takes control of Atlantis and kicks our peeps out. Presumably, after awhile they’ll let people back to learn more about them, but not now.

Teyla, Ronon and the Athosians are not allowed to stay either. It’s an interesting thing to hear about because the Athosians pretty much believe the hype about the Alterans (calling them Ancestors in a reverent way) and think they’re the galaxies saviors. So, to be kicked off their new home for no reason is a blow, to say the least but they are most happy to offer Ronon a place with them.

Back on Earth, and not happy about it, Weir is having trouble adjusting and is keeping to herself to the point that Beckett shows up and pretty much bullies her into joining him, Sheppard and Rodney at dinner the following day. Sheppard is with SGC and running missions and having trouble fitting in with them. Beckett is also with SGC and not quite unpacked himself, while Rodney is in Area 51 having the world handed to him and hating it.

They’re at dinner when their phones go off and they’re called into Stargate Command.

General O’Neill and Mr. Woolsey are on Atlantis keeping the lines of communication open with the Alteran’s, when the replicators (also known as the Asurans) attack.

The Alteran’s, in usual stupid and arrogant fashion, don’t believe they’re in any danger because of the no-harm coding in the Asurans base code. So when the Asurans attack, the Alteran’s are killed off quite easily.

O’Neill and Woolsey, however, are still alive and hiding in a previously flooded area that’s impossible to scan. Relatively safe at the moment.

Standing orders are to nuke Atlantis in case of a foothold situation and Colonel Caldwell is on his way to do just that when out Atlantis peeps hear about what’s happened.

Not inclined to leave anyone behind, and also not inclined to let Atlantis be destroyed, Sheppard leads them back to Pegasus.

Which leads us to Part 2!

Season 3, Episode 11- The Return: Part 2

(I may have jumped the gun on when the last episode actually ended, but that’s okay)

Ronon and Teyla are happy to have their friends back and are even happier to help them take Atlantis back.

With the help of O’Neill and Woolsey, they’re able to get into the city and start to set C4 charges in each of the ten shield emitters.

If the Asurans can raise the shields, the nukes Daedalus has won’t make a dent. Take those shields down and they will be able to keep the Asurans from leaving the Pegasus galaxy and coming to the Milky Way.

At least, that’s what they want the Asurans to believe.

In reality, and once again let’s thank the wonderful Dr. Rodney McKay for his genius, they have replaced a certain crystal with the replicator killing energy weapons crystal they brought with them from Earth.

Essentially creating one big replicator killing energy wave when the shield is activated.

In the nick of time they’re able to win the day and contact Caldwell to ask him not to destroy the city and them.

You know, as annoying sometimes as Caldwell is, he really is a good man. Instead of blindly following orders he gives our peeps a chance and, no doubt, gives everyone in two galaxies a chance to survive because without the Atlantis expedition things would get bad real quick.

Alrighty, since ‘Common Ground’ was so long I’ve split the catch up posts’ in two so next week will be the last episodes before the next book.

See you then!

I am so excited!!

I didn’t realize how close I was to ‘Common Ground’ after the last book and when the episode queued, I almost scared my mother I was so happy!

I’m calming down now, but not too much cause Todd!!

Okay.

There are going to be, I think, about the same amount of episode catch-up posts as there will be book review posts until the end of Season 5. Unfortunately, there are only about 2-3 books each for Season 4 and 5, but that’s okay because after Season 5 is the ‘Legacy’ series that I’m pretty sure is supposed to wrap the series up.

Can you say, ‘heck to the yeah’!?

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for…Todd! (I fully realize that the review for ‘Common Ground’ will be longer than the others, but I can’t help it!)

Continue reading “StARe 12 – Common Ground!” →

Bonjour!

This day we shall be catching up on the episodes between the books before we get back to the wonderful books themselves because there have been quite a few episodes in-between.

First though, it occurred to me that people might like to watch/read along with me or do it themselves. In that vein I’ll have a post set up for the order that I am personally following to post later this week.

As I mentioned in the first post, the wonderful people who did the ‘stargate.fandom.com’ site led me to the majority of what I wanted with just a few books not seeming to fall in any particular order between the episodes. The few that don’t, I thought I’d keep notes on while reading (SO hard to do because they suck you in so easily!)  and change the reading list accordingly to my personal opinion.

What that means is that the list might change as I go along, but by the last book before the Legacy Series begins it should be complete with no further additions needing to be made.

Continue reading “StARe 7 – Catching up on Episodes” →