Hell on Wheels like a few select shows is one I like to marathon to get the full narrative effect so with time off work I’m currently immersing myself in the fourth season and I was pleasantly surprised to see Colin Cunningham appear in the episode Chicken Hill playing the character simply known as the Gambler. There were definitely shades of his “Pope” character or maybe that character from Falling Skies has some roots in the slick wild west card shark with an edge.
Colin is a firm favourite within the Stargate community, his portrayal of Major Paul Davis in Stargate SG1, Atlantis and the Continuum movie was excellent.
Always a joy to see Ellie Harvie on television and not actually playing a role that employs her comedic talents, in that latest episode of Supernatural “Hibbing 911” she plays Dr. Shelly Pierson and deadpans along with the best of them:)
Yes I know spotting former Stargate actors on Arctic Air is not that difficult but it was great to see Bill Dow back on my television in albeit a small role as Boomer Platt in the seventh episode of the third season of the show entitled Flying Solo. I’ve finally gotten around to watching the final season of the show, pity the powers that be decided not to go ahead with a fourth season but for a time this tale of adventures in the cold wilderness and the communities that kept the lights bright was entertaining to watch. Bill of course played Dr Lee on all three live action Stargate series, one of the many characters with smaller roles but became true fan favourites.
The dragon roars and SG1 along with Baal and Adria run away, very quickly but what do you know the dragon bursts forth from the lonely mountain and strafes them with fire before they gain cover in the tree line then it’s time for Cameron to try the man of action approach even though Teal’c is the one that goes on a suicide run but it’s up to Daniel to solve the final puzzle even if again someone else takes the first risk, this time Vala. I think there is a general sacrificial element to some of these characters in this story. The Sangraal is recovered and SG1 along with Ba’al are transported to another location and they find Merlin embedded in a stasis chamber, he’s released but is near death and when the situation is explained to him he reveals his part in the early battle against the potential Ori threat and provides Daniel with the knowledge to build a new weapon but before it can be completed Adria discovers their location within the Stargate / Transporter closed loop and her men launch an attack. Daniel saves the day but is then too weak to protect himself from Adria and is taken aboard an ORI starship, a new pet for the Orici.
The Quest Part 2 is a pretty epic conclusion to this two part story and kicks off the second half of the final season with revelations, action, some humour and a surprising turn of events as SG1 are forced to flee while Daniel uses the inherent ability given to him by the Ancient memory device, alas he is not strong enough or experienced enough to hold Adria for more than a few seconds and well what is she planning on doing with him, we’ll find out next year when the Gatecast has finished with it’s seasonal bonus shows. I’ve got to admit that once again Ba’al played by Cliff Simon is an excellent character to stir things up as even when faced with Adria and her army on their tale he still can not seem to lose the arrogance and joy he taked from needling humans this time Sam who it has to be said responds wonderfully. Of course he then steals the scene once again when he “goes for help” and gets himself killed (again) so no doubt not the original Ba’al who has a little more sense of self preservation it’s been proven time and time again.
A big thank you to Thomas for sticking with us for the whole evening (midday for him) when we recording both parts of The Quest and Thomas will return as a guest in the new year for an Atlantis episode. This weeks promo was for the The Rusted Robot podcast and next week we’ll be beginning the seasonal bonus shows starting with an episode of RL Stines The Haunting Hour called “Fear Never Knocks” and Brad will be joining me for that show, hope you join us. As always thank you to everyone that has talked to use and left feedback, always appreciated even though we would love to get more including a review over on itunes, haven’t had one of them for a good while but not to worry. We hope you keep listening to the show but for now keep watching and talking about Stargate, always more to discover within the movie, novels and live action series.
An old favourite turned up on last weeks episode of Grimm, Mr Erick Avari guest starred as JP in the fourth season episode Highway of Tears. Erick was one of the very few actors who took their character from the movie into the tv series eventually appearing in three episodes of SG1 playing Kasuf. Over the years he has appeared in shows such as Heroes, Scorpion, Warehouse 13 and Babylon 5.
As reported over on The Mary Suethe original 3d printer specs for a Stargate have been enhanced and added to by Cara McNab with quite fantastic results.
The Stargate Atlantis episode The Game is given an Opinionated Review, we’ll be covering this episode ourselves shortly but I doubt we will be as insightful or interesting 🙂
Visit the SF Debris website and let him know how much you like his work:)
After a wonderful insight and some Daniel detective work SG1 are away to discover the location of Merlin’s weapon the Sangraal. They arrive at a village and are greeted by the locals who aware of the quest, SG1 are not the first to undertake it but it seems not long before Ba’al had passed through, maybe they are too late. During some research the ORI invade and SG1 are forced to fight and then flee with the local librarian and head towards the lonely mountain and the dragon that protects the Sangraal, fun and games commence.
Well here we are at the first part of a mid-season two parter, the quest for the weapon is nearing conclusion with not only Ba’al sniffing around but the ORI hot on their heels, lets not forget the dragon of lore which is said to protect the treasures left by Merlin but alas the visual effects artists were not firing on all cylinders or maybe the budget was simply stretched too tight just this once. To eb fair it may be the case that the representation of Dragons in particular has come a long way in the last few years but this is perhaps this dragon was expected to deliver and ultimately failed, better in the second part of the episode but in part 1 just a spindly legged lizard. Of course lots more to praise in the episode, Rod Loomis as Osric was exceptional and having Ba’al and Adria on screen at the same time with what amounted to pretty much bickering foreplay was a riot to watch and we also get classic puzzle solving Daniel. As a mid-season finale The Quest Part 1 works very well, maybe a little slow in places but the puzzle solving works well within the story and the character interaction is the icing on the episode and who didn’t smile as Vala pulled the hair dryer out of her backpack, a little trite perhaps but funny.
Thomas joined us for this episode and will also be with us for part two which is going to be released next week, then we are going to do some bonus episodes and return with new Stargate specific episodes in January with The Return Part 1 and Miles will be a guest on that show which I am planning to present as a feature length show. Many thanks for the comments from Mack over on Google + for Phantoms and the ongoing chat on twitter and facebook. This weeks promo is for The Sci-Fi Movie Podcast a very entertaining look at some of the recent and not so recent scifi movies, well worth having a listen too as they cover movies from all across the genre and as always we’d love to hear from you and as a bonus a review/rating over on itunes or Stitcher would be really appreciated but for now keep enjoying Stargate, it binds us all together:)
Adam tweeted last week that he would be making a guest appearance in the new episode “Down The Drain” as Major Crimes returns to the screen, he played Mr Maguire who is part of the investigation into the death of a woman who recently gave birth, I’ll leave to you to watch the episode to see how exactly his character fits into the mystery. Adam appeared a couple of times on Stargate SG1, first as Goa’uld in Children of the Gods and then as Khonsu in the episode The Other Guys and only recently played Jason Axelrod on an episode of NCIS New Orleans.
So nice (always is) to see Salli Richardson-Whitfield on the small screen, she was excellent in Eureka as Allison Blake but only appeared once on Stargate SG1 in the first season episode Bloodlines playing Drey’auc the wife of Teal’c. Salli guest starred on the recent episode of NCIS “Alibi” playing the attorney Carrie Clark and had instant chemistry with Gibbs despite not being a love interest, not sure if that’s Salli or Mark:)
The Atlantis team follow in the footsteps of unit led by Major Leonard who has failed to maintain contact with the city, they find the dead bodies of some Genii soldiers as well as what appears to be a Wraith device emitting a mysterious signal and unfortunately nearby the dead SG team who it seems may have killed each other at least by the evidence of a video camera found at the scene. Rodney believes the alien device is capable of influencing the minds of those nearby but was damaged by the Genii and soon the reality for some members of the team begins to warp causing Ronon to see Wraith and John to believe he is back on activity duty in the middle east and as for Carson…
He Shot Me!
Phantoms is a good action orientated episode and a side step away from the main season three arcs and while it doesn’t quite hit the quality targets we’ve come to expect it certainly has a lot going for it with some great cinematography and clever use of visual styles to aid in the story telling. Truth be told even with all the death there is quite a bit of dark humour in the episode something Stargate has always done well considering it’s family friendly leanings and yes McKay gets himself shot once again:)
So how great was it to have both of the original podcasts hosts back on the show?
It was good to have Scott return to the Gatecast here by meeting his one episode a year quota and I think given the right encouragement we can get him back for some more episodes next year and that invitation is of course open to anyone that wants to join us for a show, were close to wrapping up SG1 but lots of Atlantis over the next year and a bit then Universe and of course a few bonus shows along the way. It was a lot of fun to see how Twitter exploded last week, Dan seemed to be a very popular guest to have on the show so make a note to have him back sooner rather than later but that aside we didn’t get any direct feedback but never mind the episode was a lot of fun to do. This weeks promo is for the Flash Pulp Podcast a show the presents short form audio drama and next week we will be looking at the Stargate SG1 episode The Quest.
The Odyssey arrives at the coordinates of a reported ORI supergate but they only discover a neutron star which affects the ships shields and sensors and then they come under attack by three alien starships, they evade but run into a minefield, a mayday is sent to the SGC who then lose contact. Onboard Anateo and his men murder Colonel Emerson to force Carter to remove the transponder and repair the damage to the ship and as the transponder broadcasts the position of the Odyssey it allows Vala to use her contacts and secure a less than space worthy cargo vessel but before they make contact the Odyssey as indicated by the transponder moves and they follow, it leads them to a “chop shop” for spacecraft and Vala along with Daniel get captured leaving Teal’c and Cameron to devise a drastic plan to infiltrate the Lucian Alliance who were behind the ambush of the Odyssey. Cameron using the Reol chemical which when injected into a target makes them see who you want them to see plays the part of the major Lucian operative Kefflin who is a friend of Netan the current leader. When Teal’c is captured he is only saved from torture thanks to the intervention of “Kefflin” aka Cameron and things continue to go wrong when the bounty hunter/dodgy dude Tenat arrives and provides the location of the Odyssey but having seen Cameron before he confronts him and for a price agrees to go along with whatever deal Mitchell has got going. Meanwhile Sam has freed some of the captive crew and the retake the ship and Vala takes a risk in beaming Anateo off the bridge and out into space when the plan was to beam Sam to safety, it works but before they can get underway Netan arrives but again the Reol chemical comes in handy and the two Ha’tak begin firing on each other and the Odyssey beams Teal’c and Cameron aboard and jumps into hyperspace.
Oh, the Earth is now at war with the Lucian Alliance…
Company of Thieves is another of the Lucian Alliance episodes but has a lot more meat on it’s bones, this is perhaps the first time we see them as a strong force with some very intelligent people in positions of power but without the communal self interest this “organised” crime syndicate are more interested in their own power bases and that provides the chink required for the SGC to pull their proverbial out of the fire. It’s a pity Anateo played by Rudolf Martin wouldn’t be returning, he played quite an entertaining villain and was perhaps more dangerous than Netan in the big picture but that was the problem, the tenth season had become an ORI arc and the alliance were really only a side show so they always have to be played down or a way found to negate their impact on the Milky Way while the fight for the galaxy continues.
Overall this was a fun and exciting episode, some good call backs and excellent guest and recurring actors, Teal’c got captured and tortured again and they even acknowledgment his issues with his role in these plans and of course the murder of Anateo was quite cold for a scifi show with a firm family audience, quite unexpected but probably deserved after he ordered the death of Emerson. We are going to see more of the Lucian Alliance in the years to come but they never really made their mark on SG1 and this was perhaps their best episode in terms of dramatic effect.
Dan LaRock joined us for the first time for Company of Thieves, he said he was nervous but came through the recording session with everything intact and I believe he will be very happy with the result, hopefully he’ll return at a later date and in that respect if anyone out there wants to join us for an episode then by all means get in touch, we’d love to have you on and we’ve proved timezones and locations can all be worked around. This weeks promo is for The Babylon Project and next week we will be watching the Stargate Atlantis episode Phantoms, we hope you join us for that and feel free to get in touch just as a few of you did by leaving comments on Facebook and Google+ for the last couple of shows, let us know what you think about the show and/or Stargate and if you spot any news we’d love to help pass it amongst the Stargate family of fans.
