Quarantine Review

January 23rd, 2008   Filed Under Episode Reviews  

We start off as any day in Atlantis would. Rodney’s in his lab, John’s there bugging him. Keller’s in the med lab patching up Ronon after another sparring accident and Carter and Zelenka are moving around the city. Rodney’s off to propose to Katie and Teyla’s gone to see John in Rodney’s lab. Suddenly the whole city goes into lockdown; there’s a quarantine situation. Everyone’s isolated and there’s no way for anyone to see who’s working on the problem. Everyone assumes it would be Rodney, but he’s stuck without a work station or radio.

Is this another bottle episode? Another episode from this season of Atlantis where there’s no real mention of the ongoing plot and we have a filler of an episode. Sometimes the fillers can be pretty good and entertaining. I personally really liked last season’s Sateda and the previous season’s The Long Goodbye, however this for me really wasn’t all that strong. Sure it had some funny moments and some stand out bits, but overall I’m left disappointed with another episode of Stargate: Atlantis.

Firstly the good stuff. Watching John climb out and up the tower to the control room was brilliant. We got some great effects mixed in with live action stuff and it was brilliant. Really great edge of your seat stuff, even though you know he’s going to be okay. And more John moments make my “good stuff” list. Well one more John moment, where he recalls Rodney’s password and then goes on to quote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Excellent stuff. And is it me, or was John particularly intelligent in this episode?

Another good thing was David Nykl, as Radek Zelenka. He’s just brilliant to watch and wish there was more of him in every episode. He effectively saved the day and was so nonchalent about it all. The polar opposite of Rodney and yet, still not boring to watch. That’s all down to David Nykl!

Sadly my list of “bad stuff” is a bit longer than the good here. I’m not looking to find the bad stuf, honest! Overall I found the plot boring. And then as a conclusion we were never really given a reason as to why the city went all bizarre just a mention of an ion storm. Very lazily written in my opinion and makes me feel like the writers think that the viewers are stupid and willing to accept any explaination that gets given to them, no matter how tacked on it feels.

As much as I love Jewel Staite and Dr. Keller, to some extent, this new relationship she seems to be having with Ronon just doesn’t seem to fit with either character. Again it feels forced, as if the writers think they need a relationship to be happening here now that the ongoing will they or won’t they saga with John and Teyla definitely won’t be happening.

Talking of all things forced I’m stepping to another relationship which really doesn’t feel like it’s working to me - Rodney and Katie. So we’re told here that they’ve been seeing each other for a year? So then why does it still feel like they’re high schoolers going out on their second date, not a couple who Rodney thought were ready for marriage? There doesn’t seem to be any chemistry between the actors and it does feel very forced to me. So if this is the end of the Rodney/Katie relationship, I for one won’t be feeling entirely unhappy about it. The scenes where the two of them were locked up were painful for me to watch. It was grating and I felt like i should have been grinding my teeth.

As you may suspect I wasn’t overly happy with this episode. There was barely anything memorable in it for me, save for John being John and David Nykl being fantastic. Overall a poor Atlantis episode for me.

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