Some thoughts and questions regarding SGA 5x10 "First Contact"

[fiercelydreamed]

1. Are all the "John Sheppard: Smarter Than He Cares to Demonstrate!" lines leading up to something? I sure hope so, because a) John whipping out the genius would probably light our collective pants on fire, but also b) otherwise it's only semi-funny potshots taken at him for no purpose other than filler, and c) that's kind of gratuitous in an episode where JFlan spent a larger percentage of his non-crisis-mode screen time acting like a petulant twelve-year-old than maybe ever before. Not that I'm complaining on point c), mind. I'm just sayin'.

2. However, TPTB are apparently continuing their tightrope act of asserting their male leads' heterosexuality without losing that valuable slasher demographic by having John and Rodney do tag-team exposition from opposite sides of a galaxy. And I have to admit that I was a little gay for that device. Nice way to break up the exposition in an otherwise exposition-heavy episode.

2a. On which note: writerly dudes, when 90% of the wordcount of your episode so far has consisted of a discussion of Janus' secret laboratory, and two characters have spent the last however many short scenes trying to find their way into Janus' secret laboratory, in which pursuit you have them manage to bust through a wall at the end of the hall where they believe Janus' secret laboratory to be located, you really, really do not have to have one of them exclaim, "Janus' secret laboratory!" when the lights come on. We got it.

3. Ahahaha, wtf was up with the unnecessary pan-and-zoom shots of the Atlantis? They're blowing through their budget like they've got a gift certificate and are grabbing shit out of the bins at Random Special Effects R' Us, where only the clearance merchandise remains and the whole store goes out of business permanently in 41 minutes. I totally cackled every time, which I don't think was the effect they were going for.

4. Oh David Hewlett, I love you (and you know I do), but Christmas called and it wants its ham back. There's a obscure inside joke that's evolved over the last few years among select of my friends, one current incarnation of which is: "The truth about facemaking." If that were a book, I would buy it for you, or maybe for whichever director is telling you to mug every time you are supposed to be in physical discomfort or don't have a line to explicitly state your reaction to a situation.

5. However, more Todd continues to = awesome with side serving of existentialism, so I give y'all props there.

6. thingswithwings and eruthros, they found Teyla. It looks like she's swiped a perception filter from Doctor Who/Torchwood and, rather than being actually invisible, is simply harder to perceive because your eyes just keep seeing a slot labelled "John Sheppard's wing man."

7. Radek, sweetie. I adore how disheveled you are, but this was not one of your better hair days. Talk to Keller; she's probably got some product she can loan you.

8. Oh Woolsey, I felt your pain, but I also somehow got a lot of glee out of Surprisingly Sexy Mitch Pileggi's snort at your expense.

9. From a plot standpoint, using the adjusted SG scale, I give this one a 6.5-7, mostly for having an actual callback to Season 2 plot events (without going through an extended recap of "Trinity," even!), for continuing one of my favorite themes (aka "The Atlantis Expedition: Shittiest Allies Ever"), and for sufficiently ramping up the imperilment in the last five minutes to make me think (more or less verbatim), "Oh shit! The gate! How the hell are they going to get out of this one?"