SGA 3x16(15?) The Game...
I didn't enjoy the ep all that much. While the basic idea was cool and showed once more how messed up the Ancients were, and that it's a bad idea if people who are even more clueless than the Ancients play with their toys, but the execution really lacked.
Others have mentioned that it would have made more sense (and enhanced the artificial game-like feeling) if the Ancients combined their world-building experiments with their time distortion fields, only made time go faster there. If you want to give your civilization model a test run, real time isn't all that practical, is it? Though I guess it's possible that they just turned off the time distortion when they left to get them back in sync with the rest of Pegasus, and John and Rodney just didn't find the fast forward button, since they clearly either didn't have or didn't read the instruction manual before starting to play around. (I mean, I never do with computer games either, but then I am fairly sure that my games don't force little ant farm people into anything but are truly games.)
Also I agree with others that it is odd that nobody noticed John and Rodney playing or the data streams going back and forth. And that nobody died from their meddling felt like a cop-out. But I could have still enjoyed the ep if it hadn't for some reason triggered my embarrassment squick a lot. (Had anyone else this reaction to the ep or was it just me?) Somehow SGA eps that are supposed to be funny never work out well for me. I mean, I had a real hard time to see Rodney meet "his" society. I'm not exactly sure what made me squirm and hit pause a lot because I just couldn't look anymore, but it had that effect.
On the bright side, apparently there's no upper limit for John and Rodney's dorkdom, and the gratuitous but fun Lorne and Zelenka bits almost mollified my disgruntled mood over the continuing lack of significant Teyla contributions to the plots.
Others have mentioned that it would have made more sense (and enhanced the artificial game-like feeling) if the Ancients combined their world-building experiments with their time distortion fields, only made time go faster there. If you want to give your civilization model a test run, real time isn't all that practical, is it? Though I guess it's possible that they just turned off the time distortion when they left to get them back in sync with the rest of Pegasus, and John and Rodney just didn't find the fast forward button, since they clearly either didn't have or didn't read the instruction manual before starting to play around. (I mean, I never do with computer games either, but then I am fairly sure that my games don't force little ant farm people into anything but are truly games.)
Also I agree with others that it is odd that nobody noticed John and Rodney playing or the data streams going back and forth. And that nobody died from their meddling felt like a cop-out. But I could have still enjoyed the ep if it hadn't for some reason triggered my embarrassment squick a lot. (Had anyone else this reaction to the ep or was it just me?) Somehow SGA eps that are supposed to be funny never work out well for me. I mean, I had a real hard time to see Rodney meet "his" society. I'm not exactly sure what made me squirm and hit pause a lot because I just couldn't look anymore, but it had that effect.
On the bright side, apparently there's no upper limit for John and Rodney's dorkdom, and the gratuitous but fun Lorne and Zelenka bits almost mollified my disgruntled mood over the continuing lack of significant Teyla contributions to the plots.