I woke up this morning to a new set of notes. Wait! Notes on what? I have even started a new writing job yet. Oh, wait. These are notes for the LAST writing job. The miniseries I assumed we’d completed work on a week and a half ago. Paul and I handed in the second draft, hadn’t heard back and assumed that, with the start of production only weeks away, we were done.
NOT SO FAST!
The notes are – particular. Which is fine. I prefer clear, detailed notes that leave no room for misinterpretation . Unfortunately, this being a long weekend, my writing partner is away (and computer-less) until Tuesday, meaning I’m on my own until then.
So much for that barbecue.
Speaking of barbecue, last night Akemi and I paid a return visit to the Richmond Night Market with our friends Errol and Janice. Feast your eyes on this feast for your eyes:
We followed up dinner with a walk through the flea market stall section where Errol bought a couple of Angry Bird pens for his kids, one of which promptly broke only seconds after the purchase was made. Errol returned to the stall and asked if he could exchange the obviously faulty product. The owner claimed that the pen was intact when he bought it so, as far as he was concerned, the fault lay with him. A little back and forth at which point Errol fired the “What’ll I say when my kid cries himself to sleep tonight?” volley which was effortlessly deflected with a shrug and casual: “I don’t care.” But Errol was not done yet. After retelling the story – and working himself up – he returned to the stall, snapped a picture with his cell phone, and informed him that was an editor for the local paper. At which point the owner finally came around – and asked him whether he wanted his two dollars back. Errol flatly refused and left, two dollars poorer but satisfied.
Continuing our trip down Atlantis memory lane. We’re almost at the halfway mark of season 2…
AURORA (109)
I love a good scifi story and this episode was brimming with cool, SF concepts: time distortion, virtual reality, time travel (of sorts) – and a new (technically Ancient) space ship. A great premise and an equally great ending (for those of us who, as I’ve already said, prefer our endings like we prefer our chocolate: bittersweet). The Aurora set was a redress of the weapons platform from Trinity. We did A LOT of redressing on both shows as a way to keep costs down. Boy, did we get good mileage out of that village.
My fondest memory of this episode had nothing do with the actual episode per se but a behind-the-scenes problem wardrobe came up against. Turned out the helmet on those environmental suits were too small for a dreadlocked Ronon. After some consideration, the obvious solution presented itself: Have Jason’s double take his place in the suit. Anyone notice?
And, finally, the question that everybody asks after the conclusion of this episode: What WAS that crucial piece of data pertaining to a weakness in the wraith that apparently went down with the ship? The answer: You’ll have to ask the writer, Carl Binder.
THE LOST BOYS (110)
Lieutenant Ford makes his triumphant return. And he’s brought along some friends (one of whom, Kanayo, is played by Martin Gero’s friend, and occasional writing-producing partner, Aaron Abrams)! Atlantis goes Independence Day as our heroes hatch a plan to pilot a dart into a hive ship and, once there, plant explosives that will take out the ship – once they’re long gone of course. Naturally, this being Stargate (and a two-parter no less!) things don’t go exactly as planned. It’s interesting seeing the increasingly unbalanced Ford manipulate his former teammates, equally interesting to see McKay, Teyla, and Ronon (in an appetizer for Broken Ties) react to the drug coursing through their respective systems.
As was the case with all of our mid-season two-parters, although they may have aired months apart, they were shot back to back. In this case, directors Brad Turner and Martin Wood did the honors – Brad on The Lost boys and Martin on The Hive although, for efficiency’s sake, all of the hive ship sequences were directed by Martin while Brad directed all of the scenes on Ford’s planet.
Results are in on…what?
das
The results are in on what? You made me ask. This is some kind of suspense mind trick.
Scratch that. The results ARE in, but we won’t be discussing them until tomorrow’s entry because I can’t get the damn webpage to open.
“Hey, the results are in on…”
It’s the blog equivalent of a mid-season cliffhanger.
Oops! Hit the send key too soon, Joe? We’ve all done it. 😉
Just asked Husband today if he would like to return to Van soon. Would you & Akemi be up for Richmond Night Market again in a few weeks, if S & I again stay at the nearby River Rock Resort?
Why would we return so soon? The delightful Vancouver weather; we happen to LIKE predictable cool temps with a little rain. 😉
The last week here has been hellacious, which is typical for South
Texas in summer; triple-digit temperatures for several days.
We’ve just had a two-day respite, highs in low 90s F /low 30s C. Tomorrow should be more of the same, plus 40% chance of rain, but by 6 July, we’ll be back to 100° F /37° C. Ugh.
Thanks to the cool weather, though, I’ve made serious inroads on organizing our garage and eliminating just a little of the clutter. Hooray!
Fellow blog regulars, how’s the weather at your end?
Seems I have “soon” on the brain. Still in a bit of a mind fog from the actual physical WORK done today. :-/
Aurora is still one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. Bittersweet indeed.
Mom told me to never scratch in public!!!
das
So, what has not been deep fried at this point? For all my vices, fried foods is fairly low on my list. Wouldn’t mind trying some of the things I see out there, but somehow it just doesn’t seem right. It just seems he crunchy crust is a distract or from the inmate favors of whatever is being fried.
Two solid episodes, and one that shows the Ancients were not all asses or idiots. sure, the captain seemed a little slow on the uptake, but he accepted the evidence and acted bravely. The toast at the end was lovely.
Lots of stuff going on with Lost Boys. And perversely ironic to have hu ans feeding on Wraith, indirectly, by taking their enzyme sacs.
Second day with nasty storms in the area, couple hundred thousand people without power while temps are breaking 105F, and over a dozen dead. It’s going to be a long summer, but at least I have a/c for now. thanks for taking the time to post, given your already full agenda.
@Joe:
I liked both Aurora and The Lost Boys with Aurora coming in a little ahead (I’ve tend to favor the stories that flesh out who the Ancients were as a people).
And looking at your food pics, the most interesting to me were the barbecued octopi and the xian burger. I might have tried the offal stew, but I’d have to smell it before making a final decision.
On Akemi’s Shutter-Shades; my daughter has a pair of red ones. I told her that they make her look like a member of Devo…I then had to explain WHO Devo was, which then led to me imitating a few lines from “Whip It”, which then lead to concerned looks from my daughter. I think I need to give up explaining 70’s and 80’s cultural references to teenagers.
baterista9 on weather:
Last week we were in the high 90’s (37C) but mostly low 90’s (34C) this week (in Chicagoland).
The storms we had roll through a few days ago dropped golf-ball sized hail south of us, but really hammered our relatives back east in Maryland a day later. About 2/3rds of the family there are still without power and BG&E and PEPCO seem to be slow in their emergency response.
Hopefully they’ll have power back soon…my brother-in-law is running a portable generator 24/7 trying to keep their food from spoiling, but gas is also a problem in some areas where the gas stations are also without power.
You know why I love Aurora? Because it provided Sheppard fans with the most incredible blue tinted caps of John in that uniform. Incredibly beautiful!
Funny about Jason and the helmet!
Lost Boys was a good ep too. 🙂
I really liked Aurora. Good story, nice performances, even balance between the funny and serious/sad. Would have liked to see the Wraith weakness explored. Oh well.
Lost Boys…good but I don’t buy the Genaii (sp?) as suddenly feared inter-galactic spies. I mean, I do buy that they’d have a spy network, but when we met them everyone thought they were aloof Amish farmers. I don’t see Cowan dropping the cover just because of Atlantis.
I thought Aurora and The Lost Boys were great episodes! Gee, didn’t I say that last night too? Well, get use to it. SGA was a great show with lots of imaginative and great writing, acting and directing. Yes, I knew it, it knew it! In Aurora I thought Jason’s body did not look quite right in that red suit. And that is all I will say about that! 😛 The virtual reality world was very interesting. It is just sad what happened in the end.
Loved seeing dark Ford again in The Lost Boys. I wish that character could have shown up every now and then. He was living in a totally different world now and that was kinda sad too. He’s like a drug addict. Enjoyed the food fight between Teyla and Ronon. She whipped up on him. I always liked scenes inside Hive ships. It’s interesting. And typical Ronon the warrior in the end saying, “if you want to live, stay behind me.” Why do the wraith have such bad teeth? Is it a case of, “use it, or lose it”?
@anonoymous3. Good point. But we do get a hint of the Genii’s reach as early as The Storm. And their Amish act might only be one face of the way they presented themselves. We know in later seasons they are not-quite trustworthy trade partners if the other party has something they want or need. I would suspect that the Athosians provided only marginal benefits in trade, so they didn’t play dirty in trades there.
Once their secret was out, at the least Teyla would have spread the word to be wary of the Genii. With their hands forced, I could imagine Cowen showing at least enough Genii capabilities to I timid ate or entice cooperation. After all, with Atlantis now operating as the base of resistance to the Wraith, humans in Pegasus would tend to rally to them once resistance was proven not to be futile. Since the Genii appear to have planned to be the dominant political force in Pegasus, this left the Genii few options. So I think Lost Voy works, given we have not seen on screen everything the Genii have been up to for almost a year.
I think it time we got Carl on here to answer some of our questions.
I’m heading towards the Gaviscon right now…and I haven’t eaten any of that! Suggestion – why doesn’t your friend report the stall holder to Trading Standards? Or is it the Better Business Bureau over there?
And I loved Aurora. It showed the growing bond between Sheppard and McKay. McKay risking his life when he thought John was in danger. It also successfully mixed humour and sadness. The end was fitting too. Much more realistic than a bog standard happy ending.
As for the lost boys. One of the best two parters of the whole series. Ford was great in this. His decent into madness with glimpses into his old self was brilliantly done. And it was also a great team piece, with both Teyla and Ronon becoming so out of control, they knocked Sheppard on his ass. A great scene. The look on Sheppard’s face was priceless!
Happy Canada Day!
Yeah, I have to ask the same question. Results are in on what??
The threat of media attention will get people like that every time. 😉 They don’t want to get bad publicity.
I loved Aurora and Lost Boys with Lost Boys edging the other one out because of how superstrong McKay and the others were acting. Very cool!!!!
Have a great day fixing those notes!!! 🙂
Lisa R
Great commentary for the pictures! I do love looking at food pics. Too bad about the Angry bird pens. All that fuss the owner made over such a small amount of money.
Das: I’m glad you are all ok there. I know your thoughts on generators but I hope your in-laws have one until their power comes back. How hot is it there? Miserable without a/c I bet.
Lost Boys was bittersweet for me. I liked Ford and his story reminded me of people taken by drugs. It’s a familiar story, set in the Pegasus galaxy and thrown in are some blood sucking wraiths, of course. Aurora was fascinating to me. Bittersweet but fascinating. It reminded me of Star Trek.
Deep fried cheesecake. I could die happy. Emphasis on die, I think.
@baterista9
power outages, staying elsewhere, this is what happens when I try to cook ahead and freeze the food
Speaking of Aurora, I liked the realism behind that. Their instant distrust towards Sheppard for obvious reasons, they didn’t realise they were still in stasis. Should anyone just randomly appear on an Earth ship in that situation they’d get thrown in the brig obviously.
And your Errol story, I think you’l find that most of those Angry Bird pens were likely defective. And that stall owner was less than honest. Exchanging it likely would be pointless as it’l no doubt break. He should of got his money back when offered on principle.
@ Tam – I’m all for generators…if it means my icy creams won’t melt. 😀
It’s hotter than the hubs of hell, that’s how hot it is. And humid. My in-laws are sharing a generator with their other son (who lives just around the corner). So far, so good – mom-in-law is basking in the sun on the beach today. Me? I’m holed up in the house, sprawled out in my underdrawers under the AC vent. Not that you really needed that mental image, but I just figured I’d share it anyways. 😈
das
Aurora was good. I always like having Caldwell around. He brings a strong element to SGA. The story itself was cool, but I will always remember the Atlantean uniforms and the look of the whole ship. I really liked the entire concept.
I enjoyed the Lost Boys. The first time I saw it I was like “meh”. The subsequent viewings, however, got better for me. I think it’s because I had a greater appreciation for the Ford character. He really grew from the last time we saw him. I know he was a bad guy of sorts, but still the progression was a good one. I really would have liked another fight between Ronon and Ford. They have a great chemistry together on screen. Also, I would have liked something more definitive with Ford. It was too up in the air with how it was left off. I think it was because Shep continued to hope he could somehow save Ford. I’m not convinced he ever accepted that.
It seems, though, that Shep carried a lot of guilt during his years at Atlantis.
Good episodes, Joe. Thanks.
G’day Joe
Loved Aurora, one of my favourite If not my favourite, Atlantis episode.
Weather – very cold 10oC – 50oF, at least it is sunny today.
OK I want a deep fried Mars bars and some cheescake, deep fried or not!
One of my favorite moments in this episode, Aurora, was Rodney’s trick shooting and his manly strategic repositioning.
Joe, no need for a sauna at an expensive spa, come to Chicago. It seems so tropical here