Stargate Atlantis - Tabula Rasa *SPOILERS*

[CaptainChewbacca]

I've gotta say, this was the best episode I've seen in quite a while. It was innovative and done very well. I especially liked how atlantis kinda 'devolved' into people hiding from the scary soldiers.

McKay was great, saving the day again. I half-hoped they would put a line in where he asks Carter "Do you think we're dating?" but alas, no luck.

I give it a 4.5/5

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I was also pretty impressed with the episode overall. Definitely told and revealed its story well.

Hell, Ronon even got some good scenes.

[avatarxprime]

Certainly one of the best in a while. The time skipping was used well. However I only have one point that really bugged me.

The end where Rodney is "finishing" the program. How is "I need to hit the 'enter' key" equivalent to "almost done?" It sounds a lot more like just plain done to me. I would have liked it if they had extended the episode by like a minute and showed that Rodney had given himself the instructions he needs to finish his program in the recording we see him making when Teyla gets attacked. But that's just a minor thing, it was really well done.

[Gustav32Vasa]

How could the Wraith destroy replicator ships? They must have outnumbered them alot. Ambush?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I agree that this was definitely a much better episode than the average lately. Interesting coincidence - the episode's original air-date (i.e., Nov 2) coincided exactly with the launch date of the MMO Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.

I wasn't fond of the "x hours previously" thing (it has been way, way over done), but to their credit the episode was paced and constructed well, and I think if any sci-fi show episode could have benefited from that particular technique, it was this one.

Maybe it was because I had just run through a smattering of seasons 3, 4 and 5 of SG-1 episodes earlier in the day, but I had mixed feelings about Carter in this one. Granted, it wasn't the best episode for character type stuff, but I just haven't been happy with the portrayal of Carter. I keep telling myself it isn't the hair, but hell, maybe it is, I don't know.

[Netko]

While I agree that this was a decent episode (I expected much worse), the central conflict of soldiers vs others just didn't sit right with me. I understand the dramatic reasons for it, however I'm a bit annoyed that nobody suggested printing out a basic fact sheet ("You have amnesia do to a bacteria", "Trust Tayla and Ronin <images>", etc.) and distribute that to all the personnel before the amnesia set in. Or anything else other then mostly waiting for it to set in (excepting the few pivotal cases like Rodney and Shep's picture).

[NecronLord]

The end where Rodney is "finishing" the program. How is "I need to hit the 'enter' key" equivalent to "almost done?" It sounds a lot more like just plain done to me.

Presumably all he needed to do was compile it or something. Still could have been a bit more there, though.

[NecronLord]

How could the Wraith destroy replicator ships? They must have outnumbered them alot. Ambush?

We don't know how big a ship/ships were involved. For all we know they pounced an Asuran puddle jumper with five hive ships.

I would hope the Asurans have some cruiser-class ships somewhere. Rather than re-using the Aurora class over and over in every role.

[Chris OFarrell]

I doubt the Replicators have THAT much of a fleet right now. Atlantis nuked the crap out of the big badass Battleships they were building -and their construction facilities- not that long ago. They probably only had small ships more suited for patrol and defense left over. Like that ship we saw intercept Apollo in Lifeline.


The Wraith probably have enough hiveships and cruisers that they can concentrate and pound them, hence why the Wraith are spread so thin right now, their only hope is to concentrate everything they have on knocking the replicators (and why the FUCK did the writers have the WRAITH calling the Asurans 'Replicators'???) out of the war, fast. Before they rebuild their shipyards and start pumping out heavy warships at an absurd rate.

[NecronLord]

I doubt the Wraith have the means to attack Asuras itself. At least, not without it becoming a phyrric victory. If they did, they probably would have done so first time out...

[PREDATOR490]

Struck me as being a fairly good episode but it seemed somewhat stupid that they all didnt start taking pictures of themselves and putting instructions on them to make things easier.

I'm having trouble liking Carter in this. She looks completely odd there and her character seems to have just died to being nothing more than the occassional contribution. In SG-1 she was pro active and supposedly a better scientist than Rodney yet at best all we see her doing is acting as a source for exposition and minor decisions.

As for the Wraith reference. I find it doubtful that it would be worth mentioning if the Wraith took out puddle jumpers, sounded more like they took out larger Asuran vessels somehow. Regardless, the Wraith took out the Ancients and apparantly was able to drive them back all the way to Atlantis so it seems the Wraith must have been doing something to overcome the technological gap. We already saw that the Ancients had weapon platforms capable of killing Hive ships easily as early as Siege and I dont think even the Ancients would be so retarded as to return fire.

The Wraith have something like 50+ Hive ships left with unknown amounts of support craft and facilities which could be enough to properly engage the Asuran homeworld. They may not know where the homeworld is to launch that attack or are too busy trying to coordinate themselves. The Wraith have supposedly went unchallenged in the galaxy for over ten thousand years with little to keep up the skills they used in the war with the Ancients. With any luck the upcoming episodes will serve to show how they managed it, hopefully without making the Ancients look like complete idiots.

[NecronLord]

In SG-1 she was pro active and supposedly a better scientist than Rodney

Let's be fair, he's matured a lot since then. While he still has his issues, he has also been doing... adventure science... for three years now, too.

As for the Wraith reference. I find it doubtful that it would be worth mentioning if the Wraith took out puddle jumpers, sounded more like they took out larger Asuran vessels somehow.

Indeed it does. I was merely pointing out that we don't know the specifics of it. Were they Aurora class Asuran ships? City ships? Some kind of cruiser? And so on.

Regardless, the Wraith took out the Ancients and apparantly was able to drive them back all the way to Atlantis so it seems the Wraith must have been doing something to overcome the technological gap.

And the Asurans then took them on and clobbered them until the Wraith came up with a computer virus to make the replicators go away and stop hurting them.

The Wraith have something like 50+ Hive ships left with unknown amounts of support craft and facilities which could be enough to properly engage the Asuran homeworld. They may not know where the homeworld is to launch that attack or are too busy trying to coordinate themselves. The Wraith have supposedly went unchallenged in the galaxy for over ten thousand years with little to keep up the skills they used in the war with the Ancients.

To be fair, they seem to hibernate until large scale cullings, or a military threat occurs, so it's possible that for some of them, only decades have passed.

With any luck the upcoming episodes will serve to show how they managed it, hopefully without making the Ancients look like complete idiots.

The Ancients already look like complete idiots.

[NecronLord]

Here's an idea for why they've not attacked Asuras. Perhaps the Asurans have a dakara-type device for use in planetary defence, set up to destroy organic life. They've nothing to lose but their parklands, but it would kill both the wraith, and their technology...

[PREDATOR490]

Its more likely the Wraith just dont have the balls to take on the Asurans because of the situation. Fighting will give them nothing but casualties and they cant feed on the Asurans which makes it a lost battle either way.
Apparantly the Asurans are more aggressive and combat hardened than the Ancients were which makes it all the more likely the Wraith would choose to avoid a direct confrontation.
Especially after taking out the Ancients. It's logical to assume the Wraith must have taken some losses during that war and by the end they may have over exerted themselves against the Ancients and got caught off by the Asurans. At the very least a long drawn out war with the Ancients will require the Wraith to keep their war footing and not go into hibernation. Likely increasing the amount of people they need to feed on which apparantly ran dry even after they went into hibernation until SGA show up.

The Asurans are attacking the Wraith at a point where they are supposedly still resting due to the lack of food so its going to take time for the Wraith to wake up and get their gears rolling. Once they do, I get the feeling the destruction of Asuran vessels may become more common. With any luck we may even see the Wraith coming out with new stuff due to the recent activities.

[Meest]

I think the episode would've went a lot better if they started the time shifts later. Would've been more cliche to have the audience hanging without the knowledge of what started it all but would fit the spookier theme better.

[avatarxprime]

In SG-1 she was pro active and supposedly a better scientist than Rodney

Let's be fair, he's matured a lot since then. While he still has his issues, he has also been doing... adventure science... for three years now, too.

Well that is true, Rodney has grown a lot as a person and been pushed a scientist. I mean, he also had that bout with ascension which he has been learning from ever since.

However, Carter was never a better scientist than Rodney. They were roughly equal. Rodney had the superior intellect but as Steven Colbert has shown is important, Carter had the better gut. In the episode where they show this, the one with Teal'C trapped in the gate, Rodney had the better science, but Carter trusted her gut about the solution and was proven correct, she is more miraclously intuitive.

[General Zod]

However, Carter was never a better scientist than Rodney. They were roughly equal. Rodney had the superior intellect but as Steven Colbert has shown is important, Carter had the better gut. In the episode where they show this, the one with Teal'C trapped in the gate, Rodney had the better science, but Carter trusted her gut about the solution and was proven correct, she is more miraclously intuitive.

Carter also doesn't seem to have the over-inflated sense of self importance that Rodney has.

[CaptainChewbacca]

However, Carter was never a better scientist than Rodney. They were roughly equal. Rodney had the superior intellect but as Steven Colbert has shown is important, Carter had the better gut. In the episode where they show this, the one with Teal'C trapped in the gate, Rodney had the better science, but Carter trusted her gut about the solution and was proven correct, she is more miraclously intuitive.

Carter also doesn't seem to have the over-inflated sense of self importance that Rodney has.

I think if Rodney DIDN'T have that ego, he'd be a gibbering ball in a padded room somewhere.

[PREDATOR490]

Carter has supposedly been messing around with Ori based technology which is similar to Ancient technology isnt it and the various other piecies of technology they picked up on the way. So Rodney may have more experience with Atlantis technology. It is still odd that Carter is essentially taking a back seat in these episodes.

She is literally just sitting back doing nothing but present eye candy with the occassional decision. It creates a completely different image of her than what she was like in SG-1 and part of it includes the hair. She is supposedly still military with the training and responsibility yet has been behaving really passive. Even Weir was more lively than her.

Part of me thinks its this situation with the movies and the other being they dont want Carter to end up taking over the focus of the show from the established 'main' characters. She has an established history in SG-1 and has done shit that none of the others have done. Something of a hero complex surrounds her character which conflicts with the passive style of acting here. Makes me wonder why they brought her in for this if they are going to reduce her to a B list appearance.

Truth be told... I would personnally love to see Daniel on Atlantis rather than Carter. Makes more sense than her as well since he was a fucking Ascended being and would be way better than Teyla or Ronin.

[Chris OFarrell]

It is near impossible to say 'who is the better scientist' between Carter and McKay.

My gut feeling though, is that if you look at the things the two of them have done, Carter keeps coming out ahead as being just as smart as McKay (McKay came in to a large extent after a LOT of the hard ground breaking work had been done in Earths Stargate program) plus *far* more creative; with a sixth sense that lets her look into things on a level almost no-one else can reach.

McKay *has* gotten better, especially the more he has been out in the field, in seeing this from a perspective other then 'behind a desk' but he is also far too wrapped up in his own ego to see that other people might have a valid perspective.

Frankly I think McKay is still, in his mind, competing with Carter to prove himself, despite what he may say publicly. The problem with Carter on Atlantis is that she has a DECADE of experience in the Stargate verse, both in everything from getting the damn Stargate to work in the first place, to helping design the 301, 302, 303 and 304 to developing neural interfaces to energy weapons to hyperdrive technology to big f*#(ing Naquadriah enhanced nuclear weapons...plus countless 'this weeks problem' problems.
Plus she has clocked more field time then any of the Earth people on Atlantis could dream of.

If you really WRITE her that way, then the rest of the Atlantis cast become overshadowed quite quickly, so either you dumb her down (fuck no) or you put her into the background as more of an admin type, with the danger that she becomes the plot device "oh lets go to Carter and have her solve it!"...

[Chris OFarrell]

After watching the episode, I have to say I was very presently surprised by how good it was. All the cast worked well together, Teyla and Dex Ronan were actually used as characters and used well....