SGA 5X10 "First Contact" (Spoilers)

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2008-09-27 01:10am

Daniel Jackson visits the city of Atlantis to research an Ancient scientist who once lived there. The Daedalus welcomes a Wraith ally for a special project.

***

Well, here we go with part 1 of SGA's final mid-season two-parter.

Murazor · Post by **Murazor** » 2008-09-27 06:20am

I have heard something in Gateworld about this episode giving some quantifiable info about firepower/shields/ZPM durability or something like that, but my requests for details have been ignored. Can someone here confirm or refute this?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-27 06:42am

I really liked this episode. Martin Gero is probably the best on staff writer for Stargate at the moment, nearly everything he writes is Gold.

The quanitification they are talking about is the gate exploding and the city shield emitters not being able to diffuse the full energy of the blast.

At the point the city shield was covering literally just the gate, not quite quantification of the ZPM just yet. Unless we find out it's been drained next episode.

CaptJodan · Post by **CaptJodan** » 2008-09-27 11:07am

Overall, a very solid episode, I thought. It was a nice change of pace that both A and B stories could have both, on their own, been A stories and thus kept the tension of the episode up throughout. SGA/SG-1 episodes rarely give you that sense of 2 A stories meshed together and competing for time.

About the only thing that kind of stuck in my craw was Todd's automatic assumption that it was Atlantis that had found the device and screwed them. What would Earth gain by calling Todd around and moving through with the experimental gene therapy? Beyond just a simple intelligence gathering to make sure the weapon worked as advertised, there was no reason for them to put themselves in such a vulnerable position. Such intel could be found near any Wraith stronghold. Todd really leaped on that one.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2008-09-27 11:54am

The aliens sorta reminded me of Space Marines, or the helmets anyway.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-27 01:49pm

If you don't want to be spoiled on who the Aliens are I seriously suggest not watching any of SCIFI channel this week.

The idiots give it away in the previews.

Darksider · Post by **Darksider** » 2008-09-27 02:00pm

Zac Naloen wrote:If you don't want to be spoiled on who the Aliens are I seriously suggest not watching any of SCIFI channel this week.

The idiots give it away in the previews.

Are they the baddies from the alternate universe episode?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-27 02:05pm

Not even close

Also, steer clear of Gateworld...

Darksider · Post by **Darksider** » 2008-09-27 02:15pm

just saw the clip on youtube and HOLY SHIT!

I did not see that coming.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-09-27 02:53pm

Holy shit...

Now that's alarming.

And I'm stuck on glorified dial up at the minute, too.

I wonder... I'm imagining the 304s asgard cores popping up with a 'REMOTE SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATED' message now... Supposedly the Asgard did take 'precautions' to stop their technology being used against them, back in the way

Now, someone please type me a synopsis!

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2008-09-27 03:04pm

What I liked:

* The Daniel & McKay dynamic was fun. I liked the issue of Daniel's (and McKay's) lack of academic recognition being brought up (though it makes me wonder if we'll ever see a resolution to the matter of the SGC going public that SG-1 was toying with in Season 7).

* While the Wraith haven't always handled correctly, at least they're not stereotypically evil like the Goa'uld or the Ori. Todd's fear over the gene-therapy and what it will mean for his culture and people is well-founded.

* The Clip to "The Lost Tribe": Just watched it and holy shit, indeed.

Favorite Lines:

"Just like the Batcave."

"What would we do? Who would we be?"

"Wait a minute. You don't get paid more than I do, do you?"

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-27 04:54pm

As a very short synopsis of this season so far.

It's had it's dud's but every show has those, but in my opinion the quality to noise ratio is significantly better than any previous season.

It's good stories haven't been as good as the good episodes of season 1/2/4 (we'll ignore season 3), see The Storm/The Eye for reference but the over all quality is still definitely there, It 's a shame the show is getting canceled as it still has enough life for at least one more season.

First Contact is better than This Mortal Coil, the first part of the mid-season last year but part two has a lot to live up to beat be all my sins.

Link the First · Post by **Link the First** » 2008-09-27 09:47pm

That was a good episode, another reminder that they still don't really know what exactly they have in their city. I found it odd that no one gave Todd a thorough security check, especially since they have encountered at least one stunner bomb before. (This one was notable in that it didn't affect Todd and that Ronon and Keller seemed to be coincidentally out of the blast radius; don't know if the one used in Midway would have affected a Wraith but it did seem to have a longer range)

On a side note, it's about time Atlantis had an excuse to cause a wormhole-induced explosion. Those Stargates are dangerous.

As for the ZPM, I doubt it was drained. Zelenka said that the emitters couldn't take the strain but didn't mention that this stunt would burn through their power supply. I'm guessing that would be because the emitters were not designed to work that way given that the power supply has always been the limiting factor in the past. On the other hand, Sheppard did say to divert power from non-essential systems, though maybe he didn't know what he was talking about and Zelenka chose not to contradict him because he didn't want to waste time.

Stargate Nerd · Post by **Stargate Nerd** » 2008-09-28 02:00am

Darksider wrote:just saw the clip on youtube and HOLY SHIT!

I did not see that coming.

That's gotta be a joke. No way that's for real.

Anyways, very good episode. Witty back and forth between Jackson and McKay, Woolsey making an ass out of himself, Todd immeadiatly knowing what was going on and another Ancient, dare I say it, ambitious if flawed project.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2008-09-28 02:26am

My two cents as well, great episode.

Great character work, nifty plot and cool new bad guys, who interest me FAR more then the Replicators did as a new uber bad guys. They just show up, confoundedly fly right through the city shield, drop down a tower with some really nifty technology and get back out again ASAP. I did like that Sheppard and co actually broke out the heavy guns, G36's, USAS's and so on and just pounded through the shield with unsubtle force. Also the fact that the aforementioned shield failed after a significant pounding.

The writers fiat to have Todd take over the Daedalus was again a huge 'rolleyes' moment for me, but I can move past it, though the fact that all the Wraith he beamed in are apparent experts in human technology and ship operations was actually more irritating for me.

I DID like Todd feeling so uneasy about the Wraith loosing part of what MAKES them the Wraith, looking into the unknown future. After all, we see the Wraith to a large degree for 10,000 years have just been existing to eat, sleep and wait for the food to come back, then eat again...loosing all that would be really something that would make you think.

The hyperdrive jammer was a very cool idea...and proof that Janas, as I have always suspected, was probably the coolest Lantian ever, HE actually has a brain behind his head unlike 99% of Ancients. I also would like to thank the writers for this device, the technology will prove very useful in the future for MY purposes...

Anyway.

I'm watching with interest to see where this goes. Wonder if the Wraith will actually have the smarts to grab as much data on the Asgard shields, transporters and weapons as they can before they no doubt loose the Daedalus...

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2008-09-28 02:27am

Stargate Nerd wrote:
Darksider wrote:just saw the clip on youtube and HOLY SHIT!

I did not see that coming.
That's gotta be a joke. No way that's for real.

Anyways, very good episode. Witty back and forth between Jackson and McKay, Woolsey making an ass out of himself, Todd immeadiatly knowing what was going on and another Ancient, dare I say it, ambitious if flawed project.

That would be epic. They purposely "leaked" the aliens in the suit all over the place as a joke. However with the title it sorta makes sense.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2008-09-28 02:29am

And I just saw the preview for 5.11

JESUS TAPDANCING CHRRRISSTTT

! Now THATS a plot twist!!!!!!

Gustav32Vasa · Post by **Gustav32Vasa** » 2008-09-28 04:42am

Very good episode.

But why would the Asgard be using a ancient looking ship? Dont the lost tribe have ships of their own?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-28 05:18am

Gustav,

I thought that the ship looked very un-ancienty.

It had rounded edges, something the Ancients seem allergic to.

Gustav32Vasa · Post by **Gustav32Vasa** » 2008-09-28 08:37am

Zac Naloen wrote:Gustav,

I thought that the ship looked very un-ancienty.

It had rounded edges, something the Ancients seem allergic to.

Puddlejumpers?

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2008-09-28 08:44am

Zac Naloen wrote:Gustav,

I thought that the ship looked very un-ancienty.

It had rounded edges, something the Ancients seem allergic to.

Who built that giant circular device that the show centers on agains?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-09-28 09:26am

Seen it. 5/5, best this season. I sure hope Radek isn't dead, I'll be mighty unhappy if he is.

Link the First wrote:I found it odd that no one gave Todd a thorough security check, especially since they have encountered at least one stunner bomb before.

Well, it was a two part device. I assume they scanned for anything that was a weapon in itself, but they're hardly going to strip-search him and test what every gizmo he has on him does; he's essentially there in his capacity as a foreign diplomat, after all.

CaptJodan · Post by **CaptJodan** » 2008-09-28 11:51am

Wow.....yeah.....wow.

Not sure how I feel about this yet. Will figure it out in two weeks (is Britain taking a 2 week hiatus with Atlantis as well, or is it just the US?).

Gustav,

Totally different galaxy. They're a "lost tribe" so I imagine they may have just developed differently, choosing to base their technological advances off of Ancient designs. It actually makes far more sense to me that their technology would be based off of what was around them.

Given their aggressive nature, I have to wonder if they were cast out by the others. How this plays with the Ancients has yet to be known.

This twist sadly has the potential to actually make me morn Atlantis' passing if it's treated well. Of course, it's waaaay too early to tell yet just where they're going with it.

Oskuro · Post by **Oskuro** » 2008-09-28 12:02pm

Nice episode, but I got a bit ticked off by the usual "we don't pay attention to the thing with the blinking red light". One would think that, after all they've been through, they would make a habit of looking for any potential threats before happily playing with the consoles.

I personally would have preferred that they had detected the device's signal before the attack, even if they didn't manage to prevent it.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2008-09-28 02:51pm

Very good - no, damn good episode. I think we know who our new villains are. I haven't read much of the spoilerized stuff (just one thing that I didn't think should have been spoilerized), so I'm not going to speculate about the second part just yet.

LordOskuro wrote:Nice episode, but I got a bit ticked off by the usual "we don't pay attention to the thing with the blinking red light". One would think that, after all they've been through, they would make a habit of looking for any potential threats before happily playing with the consoles.

I personally would have preferred that they had detected the device's signal before the attack, even if they didn't manage to prevent it.

I agree. I was thinking "Why hasn't anyone noticed that red blinking light yet? Red means bad, not only for us, but also the Lanteans!" If they had shut it off, there still could have been a nice battle with the aliens as they tried to pinpoint the device.