Random comments:
– Aaah, Teyla has a bulldog. How cute! She’s going to kick his ass the minute she gets the chance…
– The Daedalus is leaving. Wonder if that will come up on Stargate in the next few weeks, to see Daniel refusing going to the Pegasus galaxy.
– Hey! Nice redress of the Ori village!
– Oooh, bad Ronan. That’s really gonna piss Teyla off. There goes his chances with her.
Okay, now then, to the story. Oh my. Could I possibly love McKay any more? I keep thinking no, it’s not possible, and then I’m proven wrong. David Hewlett is an awesome, incredible actor. This episode highlighted the “best” of Rodney’s incredible arrogance, and finally showed him coming against something he can’t handle, fix, or even get his massive brain around. It’s nice to finally see his comeuppance, even if it had to be a program/weapon that did it, as opposed to an actual person. I’m also rather impressed that Shepperd had some of the necessary knowledge to stay up with McKay; Shepperd often comes arcoss as the dumb military muscle, and seeing that he does have a brain is an unusual event.
I found the intersplicing of two totally separate stories to be really irritating, and breaking the tensions existing in either. I realize that writing a story that focuses solely on certain characters runs the risk of alienating fans, but it also seems that fans won’t stop watching based on a single episode. I’d rather have had Teyla and Ronan’s story in one, McKay and the others in another. It would have flowed much better.
Seeing Elizabeth chewing out Rodney out through Teyla and Ronan’s return was a nice touch; it might have been a bit much to see it up close. But the last bit of dialogue between McKay and Shepperd, regaining trust… seeing McKay at his most arrogance, and then at the end at his most vulnerable, hoping for trust and seeing that he’s not going to get it. Well, it had just the effect that the writers wanted. McKay needing to regain the trust of the people he respects the most will be an interesting motivation for the character.