(no subject)

[merelyn]

I haven't read many reviews, so I have no idea how fandom received this, but I have to say that overall I liked it. Okay, so I was expecting it to suck hardcore for some reason- I think maybe I got it all blurred together a different episode? I don't know. Plus there's a long history of this show following up amazing episodes with ones that kind suck. At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised. They were a lot of good things:

*The whole "friendy" exchange in the 'Gateroom was an priceless, but my favorite part was Teyla's look over Ronon's gun twirling. It perfectly summed up their relationship right there. Oh Rachel Lutrell. You are awesome even in the background when they give you very little to do.

*Another look inside John's head (for the second week in a row, Holy Characterization, Batman!). I will say that the whole mind probe thing never occurred to me, and so I was completely there with John and almost convinced that they were actually going to destroy Atlantis. It was notable for how cohesive and efficient and synergized the team was when the shit went down and they escaped. Aww, is that how they are or just how John sees them? Either way is fine with me, actually. Also notable, of course, for the rather eerie fulfillment of John's words to Teyla from last week. Rodney's "I can't let you do this!" was nice, but mostly: Oh. John.

*Also, Ronon tasting everyone's food! Beating people up!

*Rodney poking John's head for no reason whatsoever and John thwacking him had me giggling so hard, because it felt so realistic. Also, their relationship, distilled.

*The CGI shots of the Asurans super city were so pretty. And when the city flew it was the coolest thing ever. Just. Cool.

*Niam! Oh, how adorable and naive and just cute was he? The floppy hair! The internally conflict! The look on his face when he was being reset! Oh, my heart. Love him lots, which why the final shot was way more creepy and effective than any ending the show has had recently.

As for the new bad guys and the way the ending went down, I have heard some discussion (i.e. the only stuff I've read, i.e. annavtree's lj) about the stupidity of both John and Elizabeth in handling this situation. Which I totally agreed with after watching the episode, because it was another one were they have this bad guy who is bent on destroying Atlantis. And then the writers, for the sake of moral complexity I guess, give us a character who is a Sympathetic Bad Guy as foil for the Actually Bad Bad Guy. (Niam:Oberoth :: Michael:Wraith Queen). But he's too sympathetic, maybe? Which was the problem with Michael, and the problem with Niam. Because I always find myself watching these episodes rooting almost entirely for the Sympathetic Bad Guy and for no one else. And when the Lanteans screw over the bad guys and blow them up, as they invariably do, I end up rooting against the Lanteans and yelling at the TV for Niam not to trust Elizabeth and to run far, far away from these shady people. No good can come of your association with the Lanteans if you are a Sympathetic Bad Guy.

Okay, so granted the angry, aggressive replicator people were going to destroy Atlantis and kill everyone there with super!flying!Atlantis. And granted once the Asurans found out that Team SGA was living in the original Atlantis they were probably never going to be allies anyway, because they've held a grudge against the Ancients for over 10,000 years, and Elizabeth is in no way even remotely good enough at diplomatic relations to make them get over that, if anyone could, mind you.

And granted, I'm not really sure what they could have done with Niam once he'd been programmed to kill them in the jumper, because even if they'd had time to think things through once he wrapped his hands around Elizabeth's throat, and even if they had been able to stun/overpower him (which it really didn't seem like, as even Ronon was having issues with them), they don't have the technology capable of locking him up, or even apparently of keeping him unagressive-like permanently. So even if they had able to hold him, repeogram him before he killed them, and keep him until the next merge so they could get rid of all the unagressive programming for all the Asurans, which would have been difficult, I can kind of forgive them for not thinking all the way through on that when they were trapped in a small space with a super strong killing robot who wanted to choke Elizabeth to death. (Though a floppy-haired, adorable killing robot.)

And as for completely screwing over Niam before, I wouldn't necessarily put my life and my city on the line solely on the chance that Niam might persuade Oberoth to give up his agressive programming and not kill them. Given those two and their previous interactions, that never struck me as a very viable possibility.

So I guess it was supposed to be an "us or them" situation, if you think about it. But the thing is, after every episode like that, I have to think about it. It takes me three paragraphs worth of thinking about it to rationalize them venting my adorable, floppy-haired robot into space. While I was watching it for the first time, I was mostly horrified and sadly vindicated in all my earlier yellings at the TV.

And I'm sure not everyone feels this way, and that there are plenty of people, who, like with the Michael/Wraith stuff from earlier this season, saw the Lanteans as perfectly justified in destroying the people who want to destroy them first. And it's not like I disagree, necessarily, that they should have just sat back and trusted Niam to convince Oberoth reprogram all of them (which is actually kind of shady too, if you think too much about nature/nuture and free will and what makes a person a person). Or, falling that, that they should've let these people who hate the Ancients have a flying super!Atlantis more than capable of blasting them to smithereens if they could help it.

It's not like I don't love all of the Lanteans. I do! But still. Did the authors of this show intend for people like me to spend that episode rooting for Niam, against the Lanteans, and to be completely confused/shocked when Elizabeth said that they couldn't let the Asurans have the city? 'Cause that's what happened here. And that's what happened during Michael/No Man's Land/Misbegotten too. And I'm not sure if it's just me, or if this show is just...weird.

So, in conclusion. Someone, some person far more brilliant than I, needs to write Michael/Niam fic where they both mysteriously survive- because hi, if you actually believe that neither of them will be back, raise your hand- and run into each other somehow and are all equally embittered together, but then they're also both still torn between their human/Wraith and aggression/peaceful impulses and all conflicted and fucked up and still bitter together, and then they join their life-sucking/super mind probing and killing forces together to form a two man army to take down Atlantis or even exile them from the Pegasus Galaxy and then maybe they succeed, and holy crap how awesome would that be.

Okay. So my brain's a strange place.