SGA Progeny
Aug. 12th, 2006 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblinlenoreCould I have loved this episode more? *considers* I don't think so! I've watched it four times now, and enjoyed the hell out of it each time.
I care about SGA in the same way I care about Supernatural. Plots? Whatever. It probably helps that I haven't watched SG-1 for years, so I only saw the replicators when they looked like mechanized bugs. I never saw them in human form. In any event, I'm all about the characters and their relationships, and Progeny was chocked full of team-connecty goodness.
--Rodney and Ronon should have their own comedy show. Seriously. They're so delightfully funny together. That look on Rodney's face when Ronon moved him away from the food? Hee! And the little bit where Rodney expects Ronon to be his muscle and dispatch with the frozen angry machine in his way...the look on Ronon's face. Priceless! Hewlett is great with his expressions and body language, but I don't think I give Jason Momoa enough credit for how wordlessly funny Ronon can be.
--Elizabeth and Teyla, dudes, I'm really becoming a shipper. All those significant looks between them during the John/Rodney bickering scenes were 1) hilarious but also 2) had such a feeling of sympathetic understanding in them. As if Teyla is saying, "I, too, have difficult ones amongst my people, Elizabeth. I admire your patience." And Elizabeth is saying, "As endearing as their obnoxious affection for one another is, Teyla, I don't envy you having to put up with them all the time." I love the idea of them bonding over the difficulties of leadership, finding in each other a safe haven where they can let down their guard for a little while. I love that Elizabeth asks Teyla for her read on the situation with the angry machines, that she respects her instincts about people...or things, as the case may be. Also, they both had totally mussed hair, as if they had to roll out of bed and throw on some clothes and run to the gate room for the mission. I'm just saying! *g*
--Even though McShep is my OTP, I do think Rodney is really sweet with women, and I love his little moments of concern for Elizabeth that mirror his protectiveness of her in The Storm/Eye, his worry for her when the replicator guy wants to show her what happened with the Ancients, his "I'm so sorry" at the end. Dudes, when has Rodney ever said he was *so* sorry? My heart was all a-melty. We know that Rodney and Elizabeth have known each other in the past. My own personal fanon is that they were involved once upon a long time ago, and then various work pressures made their relationship infeasible, but they managed to stay friends and still really care a lot about each other. The fact that Rodney has such unambiguous, overt respect for her charms me and actually makes me like her better.
--Of course, the John/Rodney moments were my favorites! TPTB said they wanted to show more of their friendship this season, and they're doing a marvelous job. The little exchange about wanting to meet an Ancient race that invented cars. Hee! The Ancienty/Unancienty playfulness. Rodney getting all cranky when John is trying to rush him through rewriting the angry machine code. "You applying pressure is not going to-- Oooooh!" *laughs so hard* Yes, yes, Rodney, whatever you need to tell yourself. We all know that John applies pressure JUST RIGHT for you. And then the bickering over the amount of time. Oh, I could die of the cute. And John watching over Rodney's shoulder, and Rodney looking back for him when he wants to tell him something, knowing he'll still be there. Really, I just want to hug them both.
--And then, not to forget my favorite threesome, there is that lovely little McShepka moment, like it was framed just for me, as a friend I was watching it with said. The look between John and Radek when Rodney says, "there's nothing more annoying than people who won't admit their mistakes." Hee! I hope we get more Zelenka. I love him so.
Re: John's mind probe. I began to figure out that this couldn't really be happening when another FIFTEEN hive ships showed up, but, man, was that still painful. That sequence underscored some things we already knew about John. The way he expects Ronon just to know what he's planning when the angry machines show up with food and lower the force field of the jail cell mirrors how certain he is in No Man's Land that Ronon will want to do as much damage to the hive ship as possible and Rodney will know how to accomplish it. That little moment when Rodney disables communications between the jumper and the gate room shows how implicitly John relies on Rodney's smarts. The fact that John volunteers to go up with the city or that he expects to die alone aren't particularly surprising, either. But that he believes Rodney would at least offer to stay behind himself shows a respect for Rodney, a regard for his courage that usually stays hidden beneath their sarcastic banter.
When John closed his eyes as the city was about to blow...dudes. That just about killed me.
Re: the rest of the mind probes. I was deeply disturbed by what might have happened to Rodney and Teyla. The fact that Rodney doesn't want to recount the details of what was done to him is always a danger signal, and his use of the word "intimate" was really unnerving. I didn't necessarily think it referred to rape, although I did feel there might have been a lot of humiliation involved. But then the way Rodney reacted to John's throwaway line about "as long as that was all that was probed," made me think they were trying to suggest rape, which is just deeply, deeply disturbing. Since there's no real way of knowing, I'm going to just pretend it was something else. La-la-la-la-la. Teyla's reaction was also very upsetting. I've never seen her so off balance, and the way she had her arms wrapped around herself...it was the body language of having been violated in some way. And, of course, they all HAD BEEN violated, having their thoughts taken from them like that. But still. Very, very unsettling.
Re: how the Ancients can be surprisingly Rodney-like, in other words human. So we've now seen the Ancients have two huge technological failures, the energy source in Trinity and these nanites last night. In both cases, their determination to accomplish a goal (develop a powerful new tool in their fight against the Wraith) drove them onto shaky ground, dabbling in powerful technologies that they couldn't predict the outcome of, blinded by their own arrogance and desperation, much as Rodney himself was in Trinity. It makes me think yet again that the Ancients were somehow responsible for the creation of the Wraith, more so than simply visiting the wrong planet. We know that one of their most cherished goals was ascension, and a pattern is clearly being developed that the Ancients would go to any extreme to accomplish a cherished goal. The angry machines themselves noted that the Ancients always looked to technology to solve their problems. So perhaps when they were researching ascension, they started with what they knew, looking for a technological rather than a religious way to accomplish this goal. The Wraith feed on energy, on life force, the very thing that the Ancients wished to become. It doesn't seem like too big a leap to imagine that another one of the Ancients' experiments went awry in their quest to ascend, and they inadvertently created the Wraith, tried to destroy them as they tried to destroy the nanites, and similarly failed.
Dudes, the Ancients sucked really, really bad!
Random asides:
--Part of me wishes Elizabeth would go on more missions, because it gives her character a sense of purpose and authority that is generally lacking. Another part of me wants the team to stay just the way it is!
--The angry machines' city was super cool! As was the flying city!
--I've watched that gratuitous ass shot of Ronon more often that I should admit to anyone. Also, leather!
--They need to get Elizabeth a jacket that fits her better.
--Where the hell is Lorne???? He's got, like, one line an episode on The 4400. I think he can handle both shows!
Re: preview for next week's ep. Why must every show have a send-up of that Buffy episode? Why?
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 07:07 pm (UTC)Ugh, I know. I'm kinda curious about the SGA interpretation, but still.
Also, if they're gonna steal from Buffy, I demand SGA: The Musical. Asap! :)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 07:18 pm (UTC)- as sung by Torri on the "Hide & Seek" commentary
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 11:55 pm (UTC)