walkingshadow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
walkingshadow) wrote2005-11-05 04:43 pm
walkingshadow) wrote2005-11-05 04:43 pm
Entry tags:
will we give ourselves a fright when we become less than human?
okay, i saw "aurora" and "the lost boys" a couple of weeks ago, and then the hurricane happened (and fallout is still happening, btw: cousin m. got her power turned on just thursday, eleven days after it went out; a third of the county is still without power, and they're still citing november 22nd as the target date for 100% electrification), so i didn't get around to watching them again until yesterday. but now i have notes!
209: aurora
+ ronon equals love. he is AWESOME. i would put him in my pocket, but he wouldn't FIT.
+ and god, fucking elizabeth, so stupid and so patronizing. argh! and with caldwell! make her stop talking! needlessly antagonistic, and so transparent.
+ "look at his eyes, all lighting up again, it's pavlovian." first of all: omfg so cute; second, awfully cavalier of rodney to invoke "trinity" like that, but that's RODNEY; and third, he says the thing about the ship's armory later just to watch john's eyes light up again, you know he does.
+ huh, the team is probably chomping at the bit to get out and do something since "conversion," right? or do we assume they've been going on missions since?
+ caldwell's ship = very enterprise. the beaming thing really puts it over the top. and the aurora crew has PHASERS SET TO STUN.
+ "why is the smart one having to stop and answer so many questions?"
+ rodney just doesn't know how to not push. either that, or he honestly, honestly doesn't know when he is pushing. or both:
rodney: what's the matter, colonel? don't trust me?
john: no.
rodney: . . . fine!
i lean toward the "honestly, honestly" argument, just because he sounds so surprised there. and i think john's going into the pod himself has more to do with john's need to do it himself (at both the internal, character-driven level, and at the supertext level, i.e. john is the star of the show), and with what he tells rodney: "better to have you on the outside in case something goes wrong."
rodney: ready?
john: i was.
+ teyla calls him "rodney," does she usually do that? it's usually "dr. mckay," like it is when she addresses him again a minute later, right?
+ where did the communiqué actually come from? the aurora was a recon ship, so i was assuming that they'd actually gone out and done, you know, RECON, meaning they would have found out this information for themselves? but they make it seem like they're just the messengers, that somebody else in another ship made the observation and wrote up the communiqué, but were unable to deliver it themselves, either because they were too badly damaged or destroyed, or because they had to stay and fight more. personally, i kept waiting for this to be the episode where the ancient amnesia-inducing device was introduced.
+ the aurora is even more enterprise than the daedalus. notice the women always reveal more skin than the men? at least she gets to wear pants here. and everyone in atlantis and sg-1 wear the same uniforms, excepting teyla and her midriff-baring whatever.
+ if the ship was in a fight and lost, why weren't they boarded and eaten by the wraith? maybe i'm thinking of the reavers. rather, why weren't they beamed aboard wraith ships and stored for eating later? how did they get a chance to get into their stasis chambers and be left alone for ten thousand years?
+ john's eyebrows after "i really don't like being ignored"!
+ what annoyed me was that the tension came from caldwell breathing down their necks to finish up and get out of there before he blew up the ship, but he didn't stick to the amount of time he gave them originally. rodney: "it hasn't even been five minutes!" and caldwell said he was about to fire a missile at the ten-minute mark, including commercials. the impatience at the end was justified, but only at the very end; before that they were well within their allotted time, and even that was within a comfortable margin of error.
+ immediately after this episode aired,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
silentfire was ten kinds of incoherent, in an "of course i wouldn't ever DREAM of spoiling you, but omggggg" kind of way:
silentfire: omg
silentfire: can i spoil you for one line of the episode?
walkingshadow: i'll trust your judgment
silentfire: "The thing is, Colonel Sheppard and I have gotten into this habit of saving each other's lives, and it's my turn."
silentfire: i just.
silentfire: rodney!
silentfire: <3!
walkingshadow: !!!!!!!!!!
walkingshadow: oh god
walkingshadow: oh my god
walkingshadow: oh my god!
walkingshadow: *hyperventilates*
walkingshadow: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
silentfire: yeah. yeah, that's what i said.
walkingshadow: oh my god!
silentfire: :-D
walkingshadow: that's not a line of fanfiction you got confused with the ACTUAL DIALOGUE OF THE SHOW, is it?
silentfire: well, see, i've been watching the JOHN-AND-RODNEY SHOW, so i'm quite sure i got it right
walkingshadow: i don't know if i've mentioned this?
walkingshadow: but OH MY GOD
silentfire: i'm still saying that!
silentfire: over and over AND OVER
walkingshadow: i can't EVEN
walkingshadow: i'm going to get a drink of water and try not to run squealing through the house
walkingshadow: okay, i managed to keep my squealing deep inside
silentfire: clearly you have admirable self control
walkingshadow: i want a medal
silentfire: i'll get you one
walkingshadow: . . . and a cookie
walkingshadow: and for john and rodney to declare their mutual love and admiration on-air
walkingshadow: OH WAIT
though, huh, was the last time "trinity"? because i might have to be mollified by the way they've really come back to it this episode.
+ "brown hair, a bit mussed, the term is rakish?"
+ teyla and ronon bonding over their alienation again. and they're not happy about being dragged into john and rodney's "we'll just be a minute! stall if you have to, you're great on your feet!" shenanigans, but they never balk and they would never dream of it.
+ JOHN IS SO HOT LEANING BACK, HIS LEGS ARE LIKE 23984273 MILES LONG OMFG
interlude #1: a word about lt. col. john sheppard
john sheppard has been promoted beyond his peak level of effectiveness. he's the guy who defies the direct order so he can go back for his men; he's the guy who leaves the quarantine to take down the security threat even though you told him in very small words that the rules apply to him too; he's the loose cannon. he's reckless enough to get a reputation for it, and his commanding officers have probably all had a love-hate relationship with him, because he's so goddamn good at what he does, but—well, see above re: loose cannon.
so when i say "peak level of effectiveness," it's not that i don't think he can do the job, or that i don't like the job he's doing*, but it's not where he's most comfortable, it's not his element.kaneko invoked "cult of personality" in intersections to describe his leadership style, and it's true. he's more personal for one thing (too personal frankly, and too loyal; see: "rising", "suspicion", "the gift", "runner," etc.), and what he specializes in is going against orders, being the one who knows it's dangerous or irresponsible (or guaranteed to kill him) but does it anyway, because that's the only way to do it, and it has to be done (see: "the hot zone," "the siege," "aurora"). there's this huge conflict in taking the person who excels in opposition to authority and putting him in the position of authority himself, and i don't think the writers recognize it or make the most of it.
ETA: one writer who has made the most of it ismiss_porcupine, who just posted cosecant, a fantastic story that takes place on earth, post-siege, and addresses all those problems in a very military, very realistic way. she looks at john through jack o'neill's eyes, and i think she gets him down perfectly.
* frankly, i am a scary john apologist in a way i find incredibly embarrassing, i.e. JOHN CAN DO NO WRONG. i am that girl. *facepalm*
210: the lost boys, aka A Very Special Episode of Stargate: Atlantis
+ i adore major lorne. he's so competent and good-natured and resigned. he and caldwell should totally get drunk together and wax nostalgic about smooth-running bases and people who follow orders. he has weir's mothering/pining thing pegged.
+ okay, so, john's team gets into trouble—again—and has to be rescued by major lorne, et al.—again—but it was totally not their fault this time!
+ it's a good thing john's fellow team members have fewer trust issues than he does, because otherwise there might be a problem with him allowing and encouraging teyla and ronon, two people with personal histories of being violated by the wraith, to be forcibly injected with wraith biological byproducts. more on that below.
+ ALL WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU IN TIME. "good, i hate for things to be revealed too early."
+ ford: can you fix it?
rodney: probably not.
john: that usually means yes.
is this more trinity fallout? it's just like "condemned." or possibly a reference to "condemned"?
+ ohhh, rodney putting his head in his hand, "i'm sorry," he's so messed up. john doesn't know what to do with him. actually, john knows exactly what to do, i.e. get his dosage decreased so he can think clearly.
+ "R2, i need you to turn the autopilot off now."
+ um, i am very nervous about rodney all alone with the two junkies! i've read that story, it doesn't end well!
+ JOHN IS TASTIER, WE ALWAYS KNEW THIS WAS TRUE. is this going to have something to do with retroviruses and wraith DNA? or is this just about everyone in two galaxies, regardless of species of gender, wanting to get into john's pants? is it january yet??
interlude #2: a word about the wraith
+ ford thinks they'll defeat the wraith by . . . becoming chemically dependent on them? that's more like a fucked-up symbiosis. because regardless of the ethical black hole, you could capture all the wraith and keep them as your enzyme slaves—basically chaining them up and raping them over and over—but the wraith need to feed on you to survive.
+ wraith tech is so organic: the inside of the hiveship, the inside (and outside) of the dart, the web-like gate guarding the prisoners, all the membranous accents. it's a stark, stark contrast to atlantis (or the aurora), which is all steel and concrete (or the ancient technological equivalent), hard and shiny and sterile; and the ancients themselves, who didn't like to get their hands dirty. the wraith are comparably intelligent, comparably advanced, but they're bad guys, so they must like goth clothing, BDSM masks, and dark, damp, womb-like environments.
that's two things at work:
1) the portrayal of the wraith as barbaric or animalistic. see, especially: the 10,000 year-old wraith in "the defiant one," who was a neanderthal grunt, except that he was incredibly intelligent, intelligent enough to figure out all the technology in the puddlejumper—except for the puddlejumper itself, which was locked out to him, genetically. and let's not forget that his people beat the ancients.
2) the biological element. i said "womb-like," not "cave-like," even though that's more what i'd expect from their iratus bug origins, and possibly what the set designers are going for. there's a recurring theme of battling the wraith from within and without, of the wraith as an invading presence on the personal, biological or genetic level. so far it's affected john, teyla, ronon, rodney, ford, and ford's extended lost-boys remix—i.e. every member of john's team, past and present. and there's the wraith virus that infected the daedalus in "intruder."
the attempts to fight the wraith, apart from the drones and the nuclear weapons, have been tantamount to biological warfare: the ancients developed the nanovirus (though we aren't certain it was meant for the wraith, are we?) and were the ones to invent the genetic-recognition technology, which rodney is certain was for the purpose of rendering it unusable to the wraith; there's the serum they developed in "poisoning the well," where they spoke in terms of immunity; there's whatever the adoptive wraith daddy was developing in "instinct"; and there's carson's retrovirus.
from both sides, it's really, really creepy.
209: aurora
+ ronon equals love. he is AWESOME. i would put him in my pocket, but he wouldn't FIT.
+ and god, fucking elizabeth, so stupid and so patronizing. argh! and with caldwell! make her stop talking! needlessly antagonistic, and so transparent.
+ "look at his eyes, all lighting up again, it's pavlovian." first of all: omfg so cute; second, awfully cavalier of rodney to invoke "trinity" like that, but that's RODNEY; and third, he says the thing about the ship's armory later just to watch john's eyes light up again, you know he does.
+ huh, the team is probably chomping at the bit to get out and do something since "conversion," right? or do we assume they've been going on missions since?
+ caldwell's ship = very enterprise. the beaming thing really puts it over the top. and the aurora crew has PHASERS SET TO STUN.
+ "why is the smart one having to stop and answer so many questions?"
+ rodney just doesn't know how to not push. either that, or he honestly, honestly doesn't know when he is pushing. or both:
rodney: what's the matter, colonel? don't trust me?
john: no.
rodney: . . . fine!
i lean toward the "honestly, honestly" argument, just because he sounds so surprised there. and i think john's going into the pod himself has more to do with john's need to do it himself (at both the internal, character-driven level, and at the supertext level, i.e. john is the star of the show), and with what he tells rodney: "better to have you on the outside in case something goes wrong."
rodney: ready?
john: i was.
+ teyla calls him "rodney," does she usually do that? it's usually "dr. mckay," like it is when she addresses him again a minute later, right?
+ where did the communiqué actually come from? the aurora was a recon ship, so i was assuming that they'd actually gone out and done, you know, RECON, meaning they would have found out this information for themselves? but they make it seem like they're just the messengers, that somebody else in another ship made the observation and wrote up the communiqué, but were unable to deliver it themselves, either because they were too badly damaged or destroyed, or because they had to stay and fight more. personally, i kept waiting for this to be the episode where the ancient amnesia-inducing device was introduced.
+ the aurora is even more enterprise than the daedalus. notice the women always reveal more skin than the men? at least she gets to wear pants here. and everyone in atlantis and sg-1 wear the same uniforms, excepting teyla and her midriff-baring whatever.
+ if the ship was in a fight and lost, why weren't they boarded and eaten by the wraith? maybe i'm thinking of the reavers. rather, why weren't they beamed aboard wraith ships and stored for eating later? how did they get a chance to get into their stasis chambers and be left alone for ten thousand years?
+ john's eyebrows after "i really don't like being ignored"!
+ what annoyed me was that the tension came from caldwell breathing down their necks to finish up and get out of there before he blew up the ship, but he didn't stick to the amount of time he gave them originally. rodney: "it hasn't even been five minutes!" and caldwell said he was about to fire a missile at the ten-minute mark, including commercials. the impatience at the end was justified, but only at the very end; before that they were well within their allotted time, and even that was within a comfortable margin of error.
+ immediately after this episode aired,
silentfire was ten kinds of incoherent, in an "of course i wouldn't ever DREAM of spoiling you, but omggggg" kind of way:silentfire: omg
silentfire: can i spoil you for one line of the episode?
walkingshadow: i'll trust your judgment
silentfire: "The thing is, Colonel Sheppard and I have gotten into this habit of saving each other's lives, and it's my turn."
silentfire: i just.
silentfire: rodney!
silentfire: <3!
walkingshadow: !!!!!!!!!!
walkingshadow: oh god
walkingshadow: oh my god
walkingshadow: oh my god!
walkingshadow: *hyperventilates*
walkingshadow: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
silentfire: yeah. yeah, that's what i said.
walkingshadow: oh my god!
silentfire: :-D
walkingshadow: that's not a line of fanfiction you got confused with the ACTUAL DIALOGUE OF THE SHOW, is it?
silentfire: well, see, i've been watching the JOHN-AND-RODNEY SHOW, so i'm quite sure i got it right
walkingshadow: i don't know if i've mentioned this?
walkingshadow: but OH MY GOD
silentfire: i'm still saying that!
silentfire: over and over AND OVER
walkingshadow: i can't EVEN
walkingshadow: i'm going to get a drink of water and try not to run squealing through the house
walkingshadow: okay, i managed to keep my squealing deep inside
silentfire: clearly you have admirable self control
walkingshadow: i want a medal
silentfire: i'll get you one
walkingshadow: . . . and a cookie
walkingshadow: and for john and rodney to declare their mutual love and admiration on-air
walkingshadow: OH WAIT
though, huh, was the last time "trinity"? because i might have to be mollified by the way they've really come back to it this episode.
+ "brown hair, a bit mussed, the term is rakish?"
+ teyla and ronon bonding over their alienation again. and they're not happy about being dragged into john and rodney's "we'll just be a minute! stall if you have to, you're great on your feet!" shenanigans, but they never balk and they would never dream of it.
+ JOHN IS SO HOT LEANING BACK, HIS LEGS ARE LIKE 23984273 MILES LONG OMFG
interlude #1: a word about lt. col. john sheppard
john sheppard has been promoted beyond his peak level of effectiveness. he's the guy who defies the direct order so he can go back for his men; he's the guy who leaves the quarantine to take down the security threat even though you told him in very small words that the rules apply to him too; he's the loose cannon. he's reckless enough to get a reputation for it, and his commanding officers have probably all had a love-hate relationship with him, because he's so goddamn good at what he does, but—well, see above re: loose cannon.
so when i say "peak level of effectiveness," it's not that i don't think he can do the job, or that i don't like the job he's doing*, but it's not where he's most comfortable, it's not his element.
kaneko invoked "cult of personality" in intersections to describe his leadership style, and it's true. he's more personal for one thing (too personal frankly, and too loyal; see: "rising", "suspicion", "the gift", "runner," etc.), and what he specializes in is going against orders, being the one who knows it's dangerous or irresponsible (or guaranteed to kill him) but does it anyway, because that's the only way to do it, and it has to be done (see: "the hot zone," "the siege," "aurora"). there's this huge conflict in taking the person who excels in opposition to authority and putting him in the position of authority himself, and i don't think the writers recognize it or make the most of it.ETA: one writer who has made the most of it is
miss_porcupine, who just posted cosecant, a fantastic story that takes place on earth, post-siege, and addresses all those problems in a very military, very realistic way. she looks at john through jack o'neill's eyes, and i think she gets him down perfectly.* frankly, i am a scary john apologist in a way i find incredibly embarrassing, i.e. JOHN CAN DO NO WRONG. i am that girl. *facepalm*
210: the lost boys, aka A Very Special Episode of Stargate: Atlantis
+ i adore major lorne. he's so competent and good-natured and resigned. he and caldwell should totally get drunk together and wax nostalgic about smooth-running bases and people who follow orders. he has weir's mothering/pining thing pegged.
+ okay, so, john's team gets into trouble—again—and has to be rescued by major lorne, et al.—again—but it was totally not their fault this time!
+ it's a good thing john's fellow team members have fewer trust issues than he does, because otherwise there might be a problem with him allowing and encouraging teyla and ronon, two people with personal histories of being violated by the wraith, to be forcibly injected with wraith biological byproducts. more on that below.
+ ALL WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU IN TIME. "good, i hate for things to be revealed too early."
+ ford: can you fix it?
rodney: probably not.
john: that usually means yes.
is this more trinity fallout? it's just like "condemned." or possibly a reference to "condemned"?
+ ohhh, rodney putting his head in his hand, "i'm sorry," he's so messed up. john doesn't know what to do with him. actually, john knows exactly what to do, i.e. get his dosage decreased so he can think clearly.
+ "R2, i need you to turn the autopilot off now."
+ um, i am very nervous about rodney all alone with the two junkies! i've read that story, it doesn't end well!
+ JOHN IS TASTIER, WE ALWAYS KNEW THIS WAS TRUE. is this going to have something to do with retroviruses and wraith DNA? or is this just about everyone in two galaxies, regardless of species of gender, wanting to get into john's pants? is it january yet??
interlude #2: a word about the wraith
+ ford thinks they'll defeat the wraith by . . . becoming chemically dependent on them? that's more like a fucked-up symbiosis. because regardless of the ethical black hole, you could capture all the wraith and keep them as your enzyme slaves—basically chaining them up and raping them over and over—but the wraith need to feed on you to survive.
+ wraith tech is so organic: the inside of the hiveship, the inside (and outside) of the dart, the web-like gate guarding the prisoners, all the membranous accents. it's a stark, stark contrast to atlantis (or the aurora), which is all steel and concrete (or the ancient technological equivalent), hard and shiny and sterile; and the ancients themselves, who didn't like to get their hands dirty. the wraith are comparably intelligent, comparably advanced, but they're bad guys, so they must like goth clothing, BDSM masks, and dark, damp, womb-like environments.
that's two things at work:
1) the portrayal of the wraith as barbaric or animalistic. see, especially: the 10,000 year-old wraith in "the defiant one," who was a neanderthal grunt, except that he was incredibly intelligent, intelligent enough to figure out all the technology in the puddlejumper—except for the puddlejumper itself, which was locked out to him, genetically. and let's not forget that his people beat the ancients.
2) the biological element. i said "womb-like," not "cave-like," even though that's more what i'd expect from their iratus bug origins, and possibly what the set designers are going for. there's a recurring theme of battling the wraith from within and without, of the wraith as an invading presence on the personal, biological or genetic level. so far it's affected john, teyla, ronon, rodney, ford, and ford's extended lost-boys remix—i.e. every member of john's team, past and present. and there's the wraith virus that infected the daedalus in "intruder."
the attempts to fight the wraith, apart from the drones and the nuclear weapons, have been tantamount to biological warfare: the ancients developed the nanovirus (though we aren't certain it was meant for the wraith, are we?) and were the ones to invent the genetic-recognition technology, which rodney is certain was for the purpose of rendering it unusable to the wraith; there's the serum they developed in "poisoning the well," where they spoke in terms of immunity; there's whatever the adoptive wraith daddy was developing in "instinct"; and there's carson's retrovirus.
from both sides, it's really, really creepy.
no subject
Also, I read the post of
Also, Advantage was beyond adorable. I may have made high-pitched sounds that only fannish love can elicit.
no subject
ahahaha, yes: stargate: atlantis, the show that takes the "science" out of "science fiction." the giftedness-on-television thing is indeed an intriguing little phenomenon.
if you mean the story advantage by resonant, i would say . . . okay, "adorable" is an interesting global reaction to it. they certainly are that. and i love that story with all my heart, i do. if you haven't read the author's notes for it, make sure you do—she knows rodney.
no subject
Oh, right there with you. I'm shamelessly blinded by the pretty. And the thigh holster. Really valid points about him, though.
+ i adore major lorne. he's so competent and good-natured and resigned. he and caldwell should totally get drunk together and wax nostalgic about smooth-running bases and people who follow orders. he has weir's mothering/pining thing pegged.
Totally. He's, in so many ways, what Sheppard isn't. He's military through and through but he's still human and, uh, hot.
no subject
thank god you understand. i just feel like i have NO RATIONAL DECISION-MAKING SKILLS when it comes to him. and he's so amazingly pretty, i can't stand it.
He's, in so many ways, what Sheppard isn't. He's military through and through but he's still human and, uh, hot.
yes! okay, i never thought about that, but obviously that's exactly what he is. i wonder how many people wish he were in charge instead—if the people in atlantis have a different opinion than the brass back home at the SGC; if lorne himself thinks he (or caldwell) could be doing a better job. we haven't seen much lorne-sheppard interaction, i hope we do in the future.
no subject
Oh, so do I! I'd love to see an episode where Lorne has struggles with Sheppard's methods but comes to see that this is an unorthodox situation and decisions aren't as cut and dry as they are on earth where the enemy and resources are more predictable.
no subject