[spoilers]
SG-1 takes up “Arthur’s Mantle”:
Got a coupla questions:
When did Albert Brooks join the SGC?
And when Cameron and Sam were discovering they couldn’t touch stuff on the other side of the dimensional divide, how come they didn’t ask:
“Why don’t we fall through the floor?”
Actually, though, that wouldn’t have made sense within the context of the episode, because they didn’t witness “Yolanda Reese” asking that question. But this episode was full of delicious self-references -- Cam’s mention of all the mission reports he’s read, the many allusions to Daniel’s experience with the Crystal Skull -- as well as all sorts of fun technobabble -- alternate dimensions versus alternate universes. All of which points to one of my favorite aspects of SG-1: it is clearly written by geeks who understand how geeks watch a show like this. The writers anticipate the audience’s reactions and counter them with something funny or smart or clever or, very often, all three.
“Michael” drops in to visit the crew of Atlantis:
Hoorah for Connor Trinneer. He was the best thing on Enterprise, and with one slam-bang guest appearance he has brought to Atlantis what he brought to that other show: subtext. Granted, this is also probably the best Atlantis script so far -- it’s written by Carl Binder. Together, Trinneer and Binder shame the entire production by demonstrating how good the show could be.
The problem with Atlantis has been that it’s been impossible to see in it anything other than what is on its face -- there’s been nothing metaphoric in the plots and the characters appear to have no inner lives. Carson and Rodney are exceptions, but that’s more a case of the actors -- Paul McGillion and David Hewlett -- finding something to work with in the slim pickings they’re given rather than any attempt on the writers’ parts to create complex characters for them. That was the case with Trinneer on Enterprise, too. And as with McGillion and Hewlett, it’s like Trinneer is appearing in an entirely different show from almost everyone else around him:
He’s just so there in a way that the entire rest of the cast except McGillion and Hewlett are not. Like: I don’t believe a single word Dr. Weir says, including “the” and “and.” But Trinneer speaks volumes even when he’s not saying anything. Even though the concept of the Wraith has been so insubstantial as to be a filmy nothing, Trinneer makes me want to know what the writers have not been showing us all this time. We’ve seen the Wraith merely as boogeymen -- they appear to have no culture, they don’t even appear to be individuals, and yet here’s Trinneer’s Michael making me wonder what it is about being a Wraith that would be worth not losing.
And what about the potential for the Wraith to be actually seductive:
That scene with Tayla in the infirmary? Wow.
Bang! Out of nowhere, there’s suddenly a whole ton of stuff roiling under the action of Atlantis, questions like How far should you go to dehumanize an enemy? Is genocide ever an appropriate weapon of war? I hated to think it, but there were moments in this episode in which I had to liken Carson to Dr. Mengele. And it will be awesome if the show can maintain this new sense of being more than just 45 minutes of guys with guns running around shooting monsters.
Trinneer will be back in the season finale in a couple weeks. Be a shame if they had to hide his face under a ton of Wraith makeup, not just cuz he’s very nice to look at but because he really uses his face as an actor. But even buried under makeup, he’s gonna run rings around most of the rest of the cast if they don’t make the decision to come up to his level.
(screencaps snagged from GateWorld, Atlantica, and StargateCaps.com)
