That’s some weird weather we’ve been getting.
Oof! The Very Best Descriptions of Self-Published Books
This is why I rarely go to the movies anymore: no sense at all. Also this: at the end of The Dark Knight Rises. And this: 6 Movie Plot Holes You Never Noticed Thanks to Editing | Cracked …. Oh, and this: 5 Movie Plot Holes You Didn’t Notice Due to Editing (Pt. 2) Viral
First honey and now this. Sad news. Sad, sad clown news: America suffering clown shortage as membership in trade organizations dwindles…
Crystal Head Vodka Forensic Facial Reconstruction
Continuing our Stargate: Atlantis rewatch with…and apologies for making you sit through it again…Sanctuary!
Yeeaaarrgh! I expressed my thoughts on this episode a couple of years back, but they bear repeating:
“My least favorite episode of the show’s five year run, probably the franchise’s seventeen season run. The story plods along at an unnervingly leisurely pace and the characters act – well – surprisingly out of character. Gone is the adorably curmudgeony McKay we’ve grown to know over the first half of the season, replaced by a miserable, humorless imposter. Our charming anti-hero, Sheppard, meanwhile, is transformed into a lovestruck schoolboy, picnicking on Atlantis and making the moves on a woman he barely knows. And when McKay calls him on it, Sheppard responds by almost throwing down with him. Dude, this is Rodney. Remember Rodney? The guy who saved your life two episodes back? The bulk of the episode is dedicated to entertaining the mysterious Chaya while McKay attempts to figure her out. Eventually, he learns the truth in a reveal that is at once strange and underwhelming. ”Yep, I’m an Ancient.” (Cue shoulder shrug). ”Let’s have cosmic intercourse.”
The episode is bookended by action sequences that, while exciting, don’t really make a whole lot of sense upon closer scrutiny. Why was the jumper attacked by darts in the opening? There was mention of a possible hive ship nearby but we never see it. And why is the planet attacked again at the end? Is it merely an enormous coincidence that the wraith just happened upon Proculus during the events of this episode (and while Chaya was away?)? Or have the wraith been demonstrating staggering patience by staking out the planet for generations, just waiting for an opportunity to strike?”
Also, is Sheppard so damn irresistible that this Ancient will fall in love with him over the course of an afternoon conversation? I’m sure many of you Sheppard fans will say “For sure!”, but really?
Akemi found this episode altogether bizarre: “Something like soap opera happening.”
But the first ten minutes were dedicated to a discussion of Teyla’s changing hairstyle. It went from long and curly to long and straight over the course of the half season and, for some reason, this bothered Akemi.
On their arrival on the forested planet: “Why every planet look like Vancouver?”
When Sheppard heads off on his romantic evening foray: “WTF? Night picnic?”
And, disappointment as Sheppard woos our guest star: “But I thought Teyla and Sheppard going to love-oo love-oo.”
Still, the episode did have a highlight: “I liked the fact McKay was very smart, very suspicious.”
All in all: “Kind of weird episode.”
So, how did you all enjoy like experience this episode second time around?
I was also initially confused by Sheppards sudden school boy behaviour, but knowing you men, I assumed it was a male writer’s fantasy as well. After all, Chaya is pretty hot. Sheppard was just being Kirk,
This wasn’t one of my favorites either, they did seem to be acting OOC I agree. Although if you are a McShep fan Rodney’s suspicion could be taken as jealousy. I think Sheppard would have been more concerned about the security of Atlantis than a picnic, so I agree with Akemi, too much soap. Were the writers trying to establish John as an intergalactic playboy or something at this point? It just didn’t fit. But one thing I did find interesting was the “glowy sex” towards the end, I thought at the time that it was all going to lead to some grand reveal about Sheppard – like he had the potential to be an actual Ancient or something. Some grand plan that never panned out. That was one of my biggest disappointments with SGA – that Sheppard’s special ATA gene got so downplayed as time went on. It was like reading one of those quest novels and then finding out the main character who started off raised by wolves (or poor farmers) was actually just a poor farmer and not the heir to the realm in disguise.
“Why does every planet look like Vancouver?” 😆 Priceless!
I agree with Articgoddess, I thought Shepperd was pulling a “Kirk” and with Akemi, a lot of soap.
G’evening ya’ll!
1. Yeah. Not my favorite episode.
2. Plot holes. You really need to get over plot holes. Life doesn’t make sense, so why should movies? Or books. Or even me?
3. It took hubby and me nearly 8 hours to clean out our ‘coat’ closet. Okay, I somehow managed to stow 12 boxes of comic books in there, too, but for the most part it’s just coats (gloves, hats, scarves, etc), binoculars, cameras, and our beach bag. Okay, okay…there’s also a small pile of small rugs, a bunch of blankets, my wedding dress, vibrating back pillows, and emergency lights in case of a power outage. And a small Dirt Devil vacuum. And two boxes for 2014’s bills/paperwork. And a few posters in tubes. And a box of stuff from our respective school days. And some swords for the Ren Faire. And a few backpacks. Tripods. Snowpants. A nebulizer. some sort of fold-up granny grocery cart. A canister of Damp-Rid. And parts for the telescope (which is on the porch, but should be in the closet – guess why it isn’t??! 😛 ). Somehow…some. how…we managed to get it all tidied up, put things (like the blankets) where they really belong, threw stuff out, bagged other stuff up for give-away or a yard sale, and then went out to dinner. For the next closet/drawer/cabinet I tackle I’m bringing a bloody backhoe! 😛
4. Loved the head reconstruction! Looks like the crazy lady who lived across the street from us a while back. 🙂
Gotta run…gotta sleep off this closet purge. 😛
das
I’ll agree with the Kirk comments about Sheppard, and also add that it disappointed me. I thought John was going to be better that.
As far as why everything looks like Vancouver, this may have to wait until Akemi has seen some SG1, but it explains everything
well, no point in saying much about this episode, as you hit on most of it. This episode helped set the tone for me of disliking the Ancients the more I saw of them. It’s not like there was any particular reason for Chaya to play games. As an ascended Ancient, she should still have had enough knowledge to know that the crew would not simply accept some b.s. story. But she still plays her game until called out on it. So much for Ascension and higher planes of existence. Now, for the anticipation of the approaching Siege….
Definitely one of my least favorite episodes. However, as usual Akemi’s comments were great. I would rather have her review shows instead of some of the so called “experts”. She never fails to make me smile.
Chaya, she of the spicy yet bitter tea. Also named after that board game where if you roll snake eyes you get to yell “Chaya!” and get a free turn. Sadly I cannot respect Chaya because ship Sheyla, unless Michael is in town in which case it’s all Meyla all the time. SGA needed a lot more love, Akemi speaks the truth.
I checked out “The After” on Amazon, it was nice to get the heebie jeebies from Christ Carter again.
I don’t have much to say of Sanctuary either pro or con. It is just kind of an indifferent episode for me and is neither particularly interesting nor abhorrent. Upon rewatching it, I had the thought of counting the number of times the characters say “Athar”. It’s got to be 30 or 40, I would think.
I do think the story could have operated better as a B story to a stronger main storyline that had a lot more action.
General comment….Earth seems to be the only planet whose inhabitants speak using contractions.
Joe, to this day, if I am channel surfing or if my DVR happens to catch SGA while this episode is airing I have to watch it from beginning to end. Not because it was great, quite frankly, it was one of my least favorite. But because the actress that plays Chaya is absolutely stunning!
about the plot holes;
i wonder about the magneto being free thing too. but i figured that charles xavier asked the authorities to go easy on him, since being a “normal human” was probably one of magneto’s worst nightmares.
Well, that’s a pitiful snowbank… I’ll probably be having to push back that much just to open our front door in the morning! – BTW, “cat-pee” really doesn’t melt that crap as well as one would hope…
…I’ve got a Cousin who’s a Clown…30+ years…
I don’t think this episode is all that bad. Think about it. The Atlantis crew have been away for almost a year. Shep is a hot blooded Air Force pilot in his sexual prime. It should be more surprising to everyone that he hasn’t bedded Teyla yet! And certainly no surprise that he responds favourably to Chaya. At this point of the expedition there should be “love-oo love-oo” all over the place! Trust me, there’s a saying amongst scientists, “What happens on the research ship stays on the research ship.”
What I don’t understand is Chaya herself. I understand that she’s an ascended Ancient that has been banished because she interfered in mortal events. However, I didn’t think the Ancients of the Pegasus galaxy had achieved ascension before they all left for the Milky Way. And if they did ascend while in Pegasus then who are the guys we meet in the next episode?
ahha! the first two times i watched i was taken by the lovely seeming Chaya. but the McKay / Sheppard relationship did not make sense.. unless McKay was jealous of Sheppard, in which case in all my experience most men do indeed become idots.. but hey.. women do become idiotes and blind when it comes to physical attraction.. 🙂
the fact that she wanted a man who was not one of her followers makes sense to me though, she could not allow herself to come close to anybody in the village before and lets face it.. Sheppard is cute! 😉
the wraith dropping by never made sense to me before and was never explained, but it kind of wraps in the whole mystery of it all i guess.
The relationship between her and Weir made the least sense to me though, if she was ascended, she should not expect that Weir would understand her point of view and she should have know a lot more about Earth’s customs on wars and not be dissapointed about it, unless it was an excuse to spend more time with Sheppard, in which case she was being deceitful… which means she was not truly ascended.. ascended beings do not lie, or deceive and do not put their lust first … so that did not make sense at all to me..
the cool thing was that they finally met an ancient, but i understand why McKay and Weir were so suspicous!! man!
I did like the fact that she could sense her planet from Atlantis, but again, she should have known that the Wraith were watching her, and should not have taken the risk of leaving her planet in that case. The fact that she just goes into wrath with the Wraith again does not make sense from the point of view of an ascended being.. ascended beings are ascended for a reason.. they do not just give into hate.. !lol that was plane silly if you ask me! 😉
the end was nice though, the entire energy mix, as it is more or less what really happens when people are in love, and there is no need for touching or sexual interaction to experience love with someone else. that was the only part that was great for me.
Thanks for the rant! and for pointing out more things that did not make sense than i had spotted 🙂
still, i kind of enjoyed the episode in a weird way.. out of 10 i give it 4 🙂
I can totally relate to that cat, except the snow banks in my driveway are about over my head! (Yes, I know that’s still not that tall, but still…)
Clown shortage? Yay!
Is it telling that I subconsciously skipped over “Sanctuary” on the DVD? I never even noticed it on the jacket OR on the DVD menu as I was watching episodes! So for now, I’m going by memory.
Um, yeah. Pretty much agree with both you and Akemi. It is definitely the outlier among SGA episodes in that I thought it was, well, kinda stupid. It’s the SGA equivalent to “Emancipation”, so maybe every SG series has to have at least one? Don’t really remember one from SGU though. “Earth”, maybe, but that was nowhere near like the other two. Also, the writer was a name I don’t really recognize from the franchise, so was he brought in from outside because of time constraints or something?
Speaking of weird, did anyone else watch the most recent episode of “The Walking Dead”? There was one part that was a complete WTF moment that reminded me of the SG1 episode “200” where Martin is pitching an almost impossible to resolve situation where the team is surrounded and the next thing you know they’re returning through the gate saying “Whew, that was close!” Except in “200” they actually said that was stupid.
@ Marsha_R – 😆 😆 Thanks for the laugh!! That’s perfect! 😀
das
@das You are welcome except now I caught the damn earworm!
I spared myself and willingly admit I skipped this episode this time around. Don’t agree with Sheppard and Ancient “skanky” Chaya getting together, don’t agree with Sheppard and Teyla getting together either.
gforce: good point about one episode per series usually being a little shall we say for a certain audience… lol (-_^)
So what’s going on with AKA Joe? I hope they don’t let you down.
I didn’t mind Snactuary, but I the characters were “off”. While I can totally see the attraction between Sheppard and Chaya, he is a bit too trusting seeing as he is the military leader. Rodney was downright irritating. And then the Wraith….Well. I just assumed the darts were on recon and it took time for the fleet to show up, hence the time delay and perfect timing at the end of the show for them to show up again. My biggest ponderings were what that ‘sharing ‘ thing between Chaya and John was all about and if John ever did go back to visit!!!
All in all……that kiss made the whole episode worthwhile!!!!
Been totally slacking off on my posts here…
I think I almost spit out my sandwich when I read this “Why every planet look like Vancouver?” Too funny!
I think the idea of Sheppard being “Kirk” was almost pushed too much but maybe that was the point…
McKay was priceless as always! And with all the Ancient issues we had already seen top this with SG-1 I think fans would expected some this, she how ever does not have that to fall back on and it only got worse as SG-1 went on dealing with Anubis and Morgan.
I did not mind this and did show our heroes escaping once again without scratch something that was almost over done at times…
“Or have the wraith been demonstrating staggering patience by staking out the planet for generations, just waiting for an opportunity to strike?”
The answer should have been that the Wraith would have watched the planet obsessively to figure out what that energy weapon is and to get at the likely billions of humans on the planet since they have been prevented from culling Proculus for thousands of years. Although then Teyla says it’s largely uninhabited, nullifying the second point (was that an error in the script?)
So the Wraith could at least leave one ship permanently stationed near Proculus for just the curiosity over that energy weapon and plotting to get it for themselves. Although, darts can use the gates just like the jumpers and a hive ship didn’t need to be there as darts could have checked on Proculus every so often (there is even a dart coming out of the gate at 35:35). When the destroyed darts didn’t return from their mission then scouts and likely larger vessels would have been sent to investigate.. The Defiant One showed the audience that they are very long lived and their culling/hibernation cycles showed they take a very long view of planning and have the ability to carry out plans over thousands of years as many of their leaders live to see those plans come to fruition. As such, I don’t see the Wraith’s dart presence and later response as any kind of plot flaw.
Her deception doesn’t seem to be any plot flaw either as other ascended have been exceptionally deceptive. Wasn’t the Ori a group of ascended with a different philosophy about how to handle the human population and ideas on truthfulness? Deception to protect her people of Proculus seemed perfectly reasonable.
This is the 4th lowest rated episode in season 1 on Gateworld (Childhood’s End is significantly lower) but I can understand some hatred for the episode from the testiness in McKay’s voice when talking to Sheppard but not over Rodney’s distrust and disdain for their religion. Rodney seemed to be anti-religion throughout the series and it seemed perfectly in character to me Maybe it was an emotional response to his atheism as I’ve seen many fans get hostile when confronted with atheist views. Maybe some of the hatred is for Chaya’s criticism of Earth’s religions leading us to a constant state of war. Criticizing religion can lead to stupendous fan lash back.
It also seems to be fan flame-time when their favorite ‘shipping plans are confounded and some other love interest tossed in. Katrina’s character on Sleepy Hallow got written off eventually in response to irate fans who hated her as Ichabod’s love interest. The sheer ferocity over love interests by fandom is amazing! This episode confounded both McShep’s and Shela’s so double the hatred and double the flaming! After the Sleepy Hallow experience I understand the hatred for this episode better. Chaya proclaiming that over thousands of years she has not become attached to anyone until she met John ‘Kirk” Sheppard… weeelllllll I can see how someone might throw up in the mouths a bit after that scene…
I know this was 2 years ago and I’m sad to have missed this rewatch as I’m in Season 4 of my rewatch today. I was scanning through these blogs on my way to season 4 and had to stop to watch this episode to see why it’s your least favorite of all 17 years. There are two moments about this episode that I remembered fondly. Teyla’s speech to John about being allowed to have feelings for others without having to justify them to others and Rodney screaming “Oh my god, he is Kirk!”.