SGA 1x08 Underground: Discussion

[michelel72]

This post opens discussion of Stargate: Atlantis episode 1x08: "Underground".

This episode first aired in the US 27 August 2004. This episode is parallel to Stargate: SG-1 episode 8x08 "Covenant", by original US airdate.

US DVDset summary: When Atlantis' rations begin to dwindle, Dr. Weir concentrates on trading with other worlds for food.

Comments

[michelel72]

Why did she let the team go alone to the Genii home world in the first place? And then she keeps agreeing with the crazy and rather unreasonable terms John comes up with.
I can get letting the team go first; the Genii trust Teyla, and John wants to get a sense of intel. Sending them for preliminary contact makes sense to me ... but the second John put his foot in it, Elizabeth should have been pulling them back and sending trained negotiators - and if she's the only one they have, she should be getting involved or at least holding a tighter leash. The show really struggled with making her effective in the first season, though.

I get that a missing prisoner would mean that the Wraith will know they've had visitors
Now I want a cut-scene showing us the poor beleaguered Wraith stuck on inventory duty. Punishment for insulting the Queen's hair dye? :>

One thing that really surprises me about the Stargate franchise is that, in general, the "villians" act according to reasonable motives, while the "heroes" come across as much more questionable than I really believe the show means them to. If you look at the world from the antagonists' positions, their actions tend to make complete sense. I get the Genii here a lot better than I get the expedition, for all that the Genii are costumed and coded to trigger Cold War associations. Cowen doesn't bend over backwards to make excuses for them to Sora ... and why should he? Decades of his society's efforts are in ruins because of these dilettante interlopers, and he has only Teyla's word for why one of his trusted men has been lost.

You probably guessed from the way I framed the question that I have a less charitable take on the rightness of the secrecy of the Stargate program. Heh. I mean, I get that they fear riots and chaos, but they keep a much tighter rein on developments than that would seem to require (to make the show compatible with the real world, meta-wise, but still), and as even the show points out occasionally, the US isn't too good about honoring its commitments to the rest of the world about profiting from the program ....