Essh, I don't like spiders! Imagine being straded on a planet with BIG ones. Well, Scott, Greer, Eli and Chloe are. Seems we got a bit of a cliff hanger this week. However, I imagine they'll find their way back to Destiny soon.
This was an interesting look at Rush's background and shows why he is the person he is now. I just hope his experience, reliving the death of his wife, makes him more human. They need him on Destiny, after all.
I'm sure the info Rush got will help Destiny get its stranded members back.
The answer about Shor's Algorithm, and quantum vs. classical computers was absolutely correct. Kudos to the writers.
There's absolutely NO kudos deserved here: the information which the student rattles off is lifted word-for-word from Wikipedia’s page on Shor’s Algorithm. Now admittedly the student does look down and consult notes partway through his speech and I’m sure that both MGM and the episode writer will claim that we were meant to believe that the boy had lifted the text from Wikipedia (although I assumed that it was the actor who had had to be given the notes because he couldn’t memorise the entire speech), but that’s the worst case of plagiarism I’ve ever seen!
Alternatively, I deserve just as much kudos as the writers do, cos I found the text on Wikipedia while googling "Shaw's Algorithm" initially and not finding anything helpful, so trying "Shore's Algorithm" and finally being directed to pages about the correctly spelled thing. I went into the Wikipedia page in the hope that, as the student babbled off his dialogue, it would help me follow what he was saying, but I ended up half hysterical with laughter as he literally narrated the entry with only a few words missing from the sentences!
I wonder if Wikipedia will sue?!
At least they didn't make up BS.
A lot of this is inside Nick’s head and therefore continuity doesn’t always apply, but there’s no in-story excuse for the fact that in the first scene in the kitchen, he picks up his jacket as he leaves the room and the jacket is over his arm as he walks down the hall, but when he goes into his office it has mysteriously disappeared.
NANJAO: Gloria wears what looks like an engagement ring (a gold band with a stone on it) but no wedding ring, but Nicholas has a wedding ring and refers to her as his wife rather than his fiancée.
The significant close-up of the car’s licence plate made me think that it was going to turn out to be some kind of Gate address.
There can’t be that many laptops available on Destiny. What is Chloe doing that’s so important that she gets even temporary use of one? Is she updating her intergalactic Facebook status? (“Nobody likes me. I don’t understand why when I’m so cute. Even Eli won’t talk to me even though I stabbed him in the back a month ago and then ran off to play on a planet with Matt without making it up with Eli first, but that shouldn’t stop him being my friend. Life is so unfair. Boo hoo.”)
The ship’s number one genius is stuck in the Chair and may not come out alive or sane. So who does Young send on an offworld jolly? The ship’s number two genius. Well done, Everett – great thinking there.
Superb continuity: the tune that Gloria is playing when Nick comes home after she has found that her cancer has returned is the same tune – albeit in operatic form – that he listened to in Air part 1 when he was looking at her photo and crying on Icarus Base. However, I’m not 100% convinced that the photo he was looking at in Air was actually of Robert Carlyle and Louise Lombard. Had they already cast her that far in advance?
“It’s the first sign of civilisation on a planet out here,” says Volker, apparently forgetting that he spent the last month getting a crick in his neck staring up at a honking great obelisk. That wasn’t exactly built by savages.
Daniel reprises his Abyss/Changeling/Avatar role of guiding someone through their problems, but he did so very nicely without being too obvious about it. And a nice touch that he mentions a liaison in the Lucian Alliance which finally explains why Icarus Base got attacked.
For ages I wondered what possessed Rush to get into the Chair in the first place, knowing his sense of self-preservation. It was his speech to Daniel showing his resentment of how Eli solved the ninth chevron problem that showed me why he risked his life that way. Then again, thinking about it some more afterwards, I also wondered whether he did it because it was the only way he could think of to make himself indispensible and so stop Young trying to kill him!
Also, someone on the Gateworld Forum made the wonderful observation that – with all the classical music in this episode – it was interesting that Rush considers himself to be Salieri to Eli’s Mozart.
Was that a car whizzing past in the background at the very beginning of the first scene on the planet?! It really does look like it!
There was obviously no reason to have archaeologists on Icarus, but Eli points out that Destiny tends to only stop at planets which will have something useful, so why are he and Chloe the only civilians on the offworld trip? Shouldn’t a couple of scientists be there too/instead of them? And how come Chloe always gets the offworld trips? She only just had a whole month on a nice sunny planet – shouldn’t she do the decent thing and allow one of the others who hasn’t been off-ship yet to go instead?
If Greer is so claustrophobic, how did he manage to clump around in that spacesuit a couple of weeks ago?
Was there some significance to the flock of pigeons that took off from the park, or was it just an arty moment? Should some nerd be pausing the footage and counting to see if there were 46 of them?!
Was this the all-British show? I have no problem with Gloria being English but what were the chances of the priest being Irish? We Brits don’t all hang out together in communities in America, you know!
Once again they do no favours to Chloe, giving her the stereotypical girly “Eww! Cobwebs!” moment.
Writers of TV shows know that the best way to scare the bejasus out of a large proportion of its audience is to produce a giant spider, but is that really the best that a quality sci-fi show like this could come up with? It didn’t even look all that alien, and I’m here to tell you that if spiders really do evolve exactly the same all over the bloody universe, then – as a confirmed and lifelong arachnophobe – I am putting in an official written complaint to the creator!
However, despite its size and Greer’s claustrophobia (and possible arachnophobia) he ought to have known that – especially with their bullet shortage – a few single shots were needed here, not a barrage that was almost inevitably going to bring the roof down.
I squealed with total excitement at the sight of Riley! But it wouldn’t have hurt believability if he at least had a scar, or was a bit less bright after getting his head smacked about inside a heavy helmet. Instead – if Kinosode 24 is anything to go by – he’s totally on the ball again and happily playing practical jokes on people!
Is Paul Weller psychic? How did he manage to write such a totally appropriate song so many years ago?! Or – perhaps more likely – did someone on Universe’s executive team hear the song and think, “We have got to write an episode that we can fit this song into!”
I’d never heard of the 23 Enigma before. You learn things watching this show!
I was pleased that, the first time he said it, Rush said, “April the sixth” as we would in Britain, although he then lapsed into the American “April sixth”. But he has clearly been in America for far too long because no Brit would write it any other way than “6 April”.
Just how long did that rock fall extend for? James and Volker tried to blow a hole so far away from the entrance that it looked to me as if Team Scott would have been safer staying as close to the entrance as possible. And I think they may have over-estimated how much C4 they needed, judging by the size of the crater it left!
It was a refreshing change that Rush doesn’t wake up from the Chair and instantly know how to save the day. This was a first-time writer for the series and he included some great little touches like this.
Once again nobody considers staying behind on the planet and sticking their arm into the event horizon to stop Destiny from jumping.
I don’t remember Destiny’s Stargate ever turning after it has shut down before.
It goes almost without saying that Robert Carlyle was awesome in this episode. The way he sat and shook all through his final scene with Gloria as he fought back his emotions was amazing.
What is Chloe doing that’s so important that she gets even temporary use of one? Is she updating her intergalactic Facebook status? (“Nobody likes me. I don’t understand why when I’m so cute. Even Eli won’t talk to me even though I stabbed him in the back a month ago and then ran off to play on a planet with Matt without making it up with Eli first, but that shouldn’t stop him being my friend. Life is so unfair. Boo hoo.”)
*snicker!*
Apparently this episode was chock full of Goa'uld System Lords!! The woman playing Constance, Gloria's friend, also played Kali, one of the System Lords in the SG-1 episodes Summit and Last Stand; and the actor playing the priest was the same guy who played Cronus (I didn't even think he looked familiar!).
Also, the general consensus out there is that it was Louise Lombard in the photo of Gloria and Nick in Air part 1; the same photo was on Gloria's bedside table at the beginning of the episode, and people think that it was made up of two younger photos of Louise and Robert composited together.
It wasn't a car, sadly. I saw the episode on TV last night and it's one of those trick-of-the-eye shots where it really did look like the roof of a car driving past a hedge in the background but is actually a twig sticking into view from the side of the screen and then quickly withdrawing as the camera pans in. Shame - it would have been a fun nit!
As frequently happens in the Stargate franchise, the team makes assumptions about the entire planet from the small area around the Stargate. On that basis, an alien teleporting to Pompeii without seeing anything around it might assume that the whole of Earth is long dead and abandoned. There could be a magnificent modern city just a few miles away, containing the aliens that built the Faith planet ... or it could contain the blue aliens that captured Chloe and Nick.
And let’s face it, who wouldn’t leave an area if they were sick to death of giant bloody spiders crawling over their heads in the night!
For that matter, how big are the bugs and flies that the spiders are feeding on?!!