A critical look at 'Critical Mass'
Dec. 6th, 2005 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneI felt kind of out of the loop for parts of this episode, 'cause I don't watch SG-1, and thus spent a lot of those scenes going, "Am I supposed to know who you are?" (Though I do persist in having a BRILLIANT THEORY that that bald(ish) SG-1 gateroom guy is actually Gunther from Friends.) But overall: points for intensity, and for keeping me consistently curious (not just unsure: curious) as to who had planted the bomb. So in that sense, it was a good hour of sci-fi action television.
Character-wise...
Well, there are problems. Some of them are interesting problems: namely, that Elizabeth--and not just Elizabeth, but John too--was willing to resort to torture. Everything Kavanagh said about her, though malicious and pig-headed, was also on some level right, and everyone's treatment of him was simply abominable. It's of course kind of a cheat that Ronon didn't actually get to do anything to him, but I understand why they (the writers, etc.) didn't actually go that far, because if Ronon had tortured a prisoner--and an innocent, one of their own people, no less--Elizabeth would be open to some pretty nasty reprisals, wouldn't she? As it stands, I hope she gave Kavanagh a damn handsome apology, and, I don't know--a kidney? An 'I almost got tortured for a crime I didn't commit and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' novelty tee? What can you possibly do to make up for something like that? It's an important question, and I don't care how morosely Elizabeth fiddles with her watch (what was the significance of that watch? Am I being stupid/forgetful?), it's a question I don't think we're ever going to see satisfactorily addressed.
(Gratuitous Rodney squee the first: I loved how uncomfortable the idea of torture made him, how he was the quiet, almost helplessly dissenting voice there. [Anyone who was still wondering whether or not his remark in 'Condemned' about the electric chair was a joke? I'd say this was a big YES.] Oh Rodney, you are so humane and Canadian! You show those over-hasty Americans!)
Caldwell. Okay, I really like Caldwell, and I hope that my admittedly sketchy knowledge of how the Goa'uld work doesn't make me wrong in hoping that he can be all successfully unimplanted by whatever Hermiod is doing, and also, that he wasn't a Goa'uld for very long. Because I want the Caldwell we saw in, say, 'Aurora,' to be the genuine article. But I'm confused about the timeline here: I know the Daedalus makes frequent trips back and forth, but when was he supposed to have gotten infected and done all that wacky stuff on Earth? What the heck is the Trust?
Okay, so I'm going to just keep talking about each of the characters here, because I'm too lazy to give this any kind of narrative flow. Bullet points, whee!
•Cadman. I may be in the minority here, but I like her. I like her a lot better than, say, Katie Brown, because unlike our trembling flower of a botanist, Cadman doesn't put up with any of Rodney's crap. (Which, IMO, secretly means that she gets him. This is good.) Loyal McKay/Sheppard 'shipper that I am, I have to admit that I do continually keep an eye out for a girl for Rodney, 'cause you know Shep's going to keep hooking up withstock alien women Ancients, and I want Rodney to get laid, dammit. McKay/Cadman could be fun. She tap dances! He plays piano! *insert requisite 'Duet' pun here*
And yeah, I'd feel bad for Carson, but I'm just not seeing sparks there. But Cadman...Cadman gets under Rodney's skin! *insert dirty insertion joke here*
•Teyla. Nothing all that interesting there, which is too bad, 'cause I like Teyla. But I didn't hate the Spontaneous Concert as much as I thought I would during the first few wincing seconds--the song played nicely over the montage, and was reasonably pretty. Pretty cool, though, that along with Wraith-sensing abilities, Teyla's got a built-in microphone in her throat.
Also, I understand why Teyla didn't think she was ready for the ritual. Nothing, no amount of time, could prepare you for that dress.
•Ronon: so wishes he were Jayne. That is all.
•Zelenka continues to be the most adorable person in this galaxy or any other. I loved him all Lost Boys'd up. (Not those Lost Boys, the other ones. The ones that flew, not the ones that were high. Right.) But could he please have an actual storyline soon? I mean, I don't want to get greedy--especially if my greed for more screentime means someone will hurt him: perish the thought! But c'mon: Zelenka! We all want more Zelenka, dammit!
•Rodney and John. They actually seemed almost periphery in this episode. But they were easy with each other, and I like that John has apparently taken 'What Would McKay Do?' to heart, right down to the mannerisms. We need more scenes of just them chatting. We need more scenes of just the two of them, period.
Overall, I guess I'm ambivalent. The most interesting issues here will probably be swept under Teyla's mysteriously appearing Persian rug; I can't imagine we'll see the fallout, and that's really what's crucial: not just raising the question, "What makes us different?" but answering it. No supposedly profound fade to black. Deal, people, you have to deal! And I want to see it.
(Oh, and because I apparently let that thread drop, gratuitous Rodney squee the second: just...the arms, the hands, the shoulders, the eyes...what do you want from me? Why isn't this man getting regularly sexed? The women of Atlantis must take hormone suppressants or something.)
Character-wise...
Well, there are problems. Some of them are interesting problems: namely, that Elizabeth--and not just Elizabeth, but John too--was willing to resort to torture. Everything Kavanagh said about her, though malicious and pig-headed, was also on some level right, and everyone's treatment of him was simply abominable. It's of course kind of a cheat that Ronon didn't actually get to do anything to him, but I understand why they (the writers, etc.) didn't actually go that far, because if Ronon had tortured a prisoner--and an innocent, one of their own people, no less--Elizabeth would be open to some pretty nasty reprisals, wouldn't she? As it stands, I hope she gave Kavanagh a damn handsome apology, and, I don't know--a kidney? An 'I almost got tortured for a crime I didn't commit and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' novelty tee? What can you possibly do to make up for something like that? It's an important question, and I don't care how morosely Elizabeth fiddles with her watch (what was the significance of that watch? Am I being stupid/forgetful?), it's a question I don't think we're ever going to see satisfactorily addressed.
(Gratuitous Rodney squee the first: I loved how uncomfortable the idea of torture made him, how he was the quiet, almost helplessly dissenting voice there. [Anyone who was still wondering whether or not his remark in 'Condemned' about the electric chair was a joke? I'd say this was a big YES.] Oh Rodney, you are so humane and Canadian! You show those over-hasty Americans!)
Caldwell. Okay, I really like Caldwell, and I hope that my admittedly sketchy knowledge of how the Goa'uld work doesn't make me wrong in hoping that he can be all successfully unimplanted by whatever Hermiod is doing, and also, that he wasn't a Goa'uld for very long. Because I want the Caldwell we saw in, say, 'Aurora,' to be the genuine article. But I'm confused about the timeline here: I know the Daedalus makes frequent trips back and forth, but when was he supposed to have gotten infected and done all that wacky stuff on Earth? What the heck is the Trust?
Okay, so I'm going to just keep talking about each of the characters here, because I'm too lazy to give this any kind of narrative flow. Bullet points, whee!
•Cadman. I may be in the minority here, but I like her. I like her a lot better than, say, Katie Brown, because unlike our trembling flower of a botanist, Cadman doesn't put up with any of Rodney's crap. (Which, IMO, secretly means that she gets him. This is good.) Loyal McKay/Sheppard 'shipper that I am, I have to admit that I do continually keep an eye out for a girl for Rodney, 'cause you know Shep's going to keep hooking up with
And yeah, I'd feel bad for Carson, but I'm just not seeing sparks there. But Cadman...Cadman gets under Rodney's skin! *insert dirty insertion joke here*
•Teyla. Nothing all that interesting there, which is too bad, 'cause I like Teyla. But I didn't hate the Spontaneous Concert as much as I thought I would during the first few wincing seconds--the song played nicely over the montage, and was reasonably pretty. Pretty cool, though, that along with Wraith-sensing abilities, Teyla's got a built-in microphone in her throat.
Also, I understand why Teyla didn't think she was ready for the ritual. Nothing, no amount of time, could prepare you for that dress.
•Ronon: so wishes he were Jayne. That is all.
•Zelenka continues to be the most adorable person in this galaxy or any other. I loved him all Lost Boys'd up. (Not those Lost Boys, the other ones. The ones that flew, not the ones that were high. Right.) But could he please have an actual storyline soon? I mean, I don't want to get greedy--especially if my greed for more screentime means someone will hurt him: perish the thought! But c'mon: Zelenka! We all want more Zelenka, dammit!
•Rodney and John. They actually seemed almost periphery in this episode. But they were easy with each other, and I like that John has apparently taken 'What Would McKay Do?' to heart, right down to the mannerisms. We need more scenes of just them chatting. We need more scenes of just the two of them, period.
Overall, I guess I'm ambivalent. The most interesting issues here will probably be swept under Teyla's mysteriously appearing Persian rug; I can't imagine we'll see the fallout, and that's really what's crucial: not just raising the question, "What makes us different?" but answering it. No supposedly profound fade to black. Deal, people, you have to deal! And I want to see it.
(Oh, and because I apparently let that thread drop, gratuitous Rodney squee the second: just...the arms, the hands, the shoulders, the eyes...what do you want from me? Why isn't this man getting regularly sexed? The women of Atlantis must take hormone suppressants or something.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 07:08 pm (UTC)(also, sorry, I don't usually swear, but I'm totally going round LJ going FUCKING AWESOME on every comment I see at the moment. This is how awesome it was.)
Also, way to go on the secondary characters. Zelenka, Kavanagh, Cadman, Charin... And the montage! And Caldwell! OMFG! I seriously have, like, almost no criticisms of this episode.
The Weir-torture thing - Yes, I agree. I was sitting here going "No! No! Don't do it, Elizabeth!" But at the same time, I can see why she made that decision. He behaved very suspiciously, and she had, what, ten minutes until the city exploded? It was a bad call, but an understandable one. And she does come back to it afterwards. I would like to see more come-back on that, but they handled it much better than I thought they would when the issue first came up.
Yes, Kavanagh had a point in his comments. But he was seriously unpleasant. And in the situation, he had to know that he was making it worse for himself. Also, Weir doesn't resort to force until the last minute. Ronon... I kind of expect that sort of reaction from him. And John is too quick to advocate the quick-and-dirty solution, he's done it before. Advocating stealing the ZPM from the childrens' planet, for one - he does tend towards expediency. But I don't think I'd agree that the treatment of Kavanagh was "abominable". Wrong, yes. And eeeee for Rodney as the voice of reason and not-torturing-people!
And wow. Caldwell.
Just.
*twitches with adrenaline overdose*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 07:14 pm (UTC)The Trust is the successor to something called the NID, which employed
QJohn de Lancie at some stage *g* They're a secret organisation who also know about the Stargate Program etc, and want to use it for their own ends, mostly seeking power etc. They infiltrated government and such, and SG-1 had to fight them. Clearly they've been infiltrated themselves by the Goa'uld.(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 08:46 pm (UTC)I do think torture's pretty abominable--no matter what the circumstances, but especially considering that Elizabeth was working off of no evidence besides "I don't like you very much." And yes, Kavanagh was an asshole to her, but jaysus, I don't think I'd be so great under those circumstances, especially if the person interrogating me pretty much came in thinking I was guilty.
I hope we get Caldwell back. I'm all sad now; my insta!joke is gone. *pouts*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 09:13 pm (UTC)Heh. Yes, I'm seeing a lot of people with your kind of level of "liking" this evening. And then the odd two or three like me squeeing so hard we pass out.
I do think torture's pretty abominable--no matter what the circumstances, but especially considering that Elizabeth was working off of no evidence besides "I don't like you very much." And yes, Kavanagh was an asshole to her, but jaysus, I don't think I'd be so great under those circumstances, especially if the person interrogating me pretty much came in thinking I was guilty.
Torture: yes. Always wrong. I have no argument there. I thought you were talking about their behaviour more generally.
I think there was more to it than "I don't like you", though. I mean, apart from anything else - the whole "coming back to Atlantis then leaving again almost immediately just before we find a bomb" thing - if he had been the spy, that's pretty much a perfect profile. Possibly too perfect, but seriously suspicious. And the coded emails to his friends whom he just told her didn't exist? Again with the suspicious. Add in his extreme unpleasantness, his known dislike of most of the personnel, and the way he wasn't even bothering to claim innocence most of the time... I can see why he was waaaay up the list of possible suspects, as compared to eg Caldwell who was acting pretty much as normal *g*
I hope we get Caldwell back. I'm all sad now; my insta!joke is gone.
:lol: I hope so, too. But OMG, the glowing eyes! AWESOME. If he had to go, I seriously couldn't have imagined a better way...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 10:05 pm (UTC)I bitch because I love. Really--if I didn't care this much I wouldn't, well, care.
And yeah, I get how a lot of Kavanagh's behavior was suspicious, but there was no smoking gun, you know? Or even a conspicuously mounted gun. Just: "Ew, what an asshole. An asshole with an icky ponytail!"
Heh. Elizabeth should have threatened to cut Kavanagh's hair. That would have been a threat I wouldn't have minded seeing her follow up on.
But OMG, the glowing eyes! AWESOME.
Oh, it was intense all right. It convinced me that the Goa'uld are creepy far more than the limited bits of SG-1 that I've seen did. But...*is sad* It ruins the three-way fight between Caldwell, Lorne, and Zelenka for Elizabeth's affections that they've been setting up. Okay, that I've been setting up. In my head. (Anything to distract from Sheppard/Weir, y'know?)