Apr 022016
 

Infection

The 17th episode of the final season of Stargate Atlantis is “Infection” and deals with some of the ramifications of the retrovirus in one of it’s many forms. A Hive ship is approaching Atlantis and a corrupted message is received from Todd, a jumper rendezvous with the Hive and they find all the Wraith in stasis but with no automate revival time set in the system. Rodney searches the ships database and discovers that the retrovirus/gene therapy had been given to the whole crew but after initial good results something went wrong, drastically wrong. Malfunctions are evident on the Hive and then a scream and a security guard is found dead, well half eaten it seems the Wraith can no longer feed by drawing life force but the infected have still got teeth.

Infection (16)They wake Todd who is not too happy given that they are no position to save his crew but as more of the infected get loose and the hive slowly loses integrity being affected by the virus itself they find themselves in a decaying orbit. Rodney is bullied by Todd to perform above and beyond and the Hive or what is left of it crash lands into the ocean where they few survivors are rescued. John who gave his work asks for permission to release Todd and he leaves hoping to find a cure for the virus in an old tradition of bonding with an Iratus Queen.

Infection is an episode that exists to tie together some plot points and to make the most of Todd (Christopher Heyerdahl) and to be fair it does a decent job with the atmospheric horror leaning story. The production side provides some great CGI visuals as the hive breaks apart and the standing set never looked better but money must have been tight when the crash was created, that looked bad. However you never get a bad episode when Todd is front and center and once again he shows why this character became a fan and production favourite.

We didn’t have a guest this week as it was a spur of the moment recording and well outside of the planned schedule but we had fun. This weeks promo is for Treks In Scifi and next week we are taking a look at the eighteenth episode of the final season “Identity” so hope you join us and let us know what you think.

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Apr 272013
 

avatar2 While exploring Atlantis and accessing some of the recent water damage areas of the city members of one of the teams vanish and their screams echo over the radio, rushing to their aid they find the two experiencing hallucinations and both violently convulse and die. Weir orders a lockdown and McKay reads the riot act to some of the scientist as to the limitations and restrictions when dealing with an as yet unknown contagion but John of all people seems to ignore Weir and her big picture thinking to chase down one of the scientists and that in turns starts another ball rolling. Atlantis itself engages containment protocols and with a time frame put onto the “infection” drastic measures are the only solution and even then Weir is unconvinced they are the right steps to take.

Hot Zone is a story set on Atlantis and draws from existing lore and opens up a new potential long term thread in regards to who was responsible for creating the “virus” especially given that it shows a bias towards the standard human genome. It’s interesting that we get a very definite clash between John and Elisabeth in the story, there have been occasions before which offered this potential but none have been exploited to this extent. Given the events in the finale and with plenty of hindsight you wonder if they were preparing the way for a change in John’s long term status or other more fundamental change, either way the clash of military and civilian was carried through pretty well.

Foreplay?

Foreplay?

McKay once again has his moments and his character continues to evolve in the episode building upon the events in The Defiant One, he’s not quite upto the heroic Rodney he will become but he is getting there and we do find out about his sister, more of her to come in later seasons.

Floating in a Tin Can...

Floating in a Tin Can…

Overall an average episode, some good bits but falling short of some of the better episodes from the first season. Next week we are back to SG1 with the Harry Maybourne episode “It’s Good to Be King” we hope you can join us for that. We have some feedback from Facebook and G+ which was most welcome and again we always appreciate any comments etc on past, current and future episodes of Stargate and Gatecast.

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