Biggest Night of Sci Fi Ever March 19

Stargate SG-1
Stargate Atlantis
Battlestar Galactica

Stargate SG-1

This was a strange episode in that the last two weeks were about an apocalyptic anti-climactic battle the between the good guys and the replicators, gouaould and Annubis. Now, we have a final two weeks that seem unconnected to previous weeks and previous events.

This week the lady whose patronage brought Daniel Jackson into the whole Stargate thing in the first place, passed away. Jackson spoke at her funeral and the lady's niece came up to Daniel and told him that the lady had some things that she wanted Daniel to have. Well, it turns out that it was her entire ancient Egypt collection. As he studied it they realized that there were stories about a special burning lght that had vasts amounts of energy. The figured out that it was a ZPM or Zero Point Module. These ZPMs are energy sources created by the Ancients and highly sought after. They are the ultimate power sources and you certainly do not need them getting into the hands of bad guys. More importantly, Stargate command could really use one, especially the folks stuck in Atlantis.

Now, I missed the dialog because something convinced them of the absolute necessity of getting the ZPM that they decided to use a time machine developed by the Ancients which they had in their possession. Col Carter, was much opposed, as it would alter the time line, but was overruled.

So back in time they go to the 2500 BC or something like that. Back to the time of Ra, the sun god. They get into the Ra temple and recover the ZPM. (Quick note: in the stargate world, Ra and other Egyptian gods are gouaould types and the pyramids are landing pads for their space ships.) However, as they move to get back, they find that the jaffar have discovered their cloacked time machine ship and so they are stuck. Of course Gen O'Neill would like to take them on and fight, but Carter stops him because such a high impact event would immeasurably alter the timeline.

They know, however, that in about five years the locals rebel and overthrow Ra and the gouaould leave and that site becomes the archeological site where the first stargate is found. So they decide to leave a video tape in a tomb at the excavation site to be discovered during the 20th century archeological dig.

Fastfoward to present day. Daniel Jackson in altered timeline is a pariah archeologist who is stuck teaching English as a second language. Samantha Carter is a PhD Astrophyscist stuck at a mediocre mundane job doing reviews of journal articles and not going anywhere with her life. They are both contacted and brought in by Air Force and the tape is revealed to them. Of course, they have no clue what's going on. O'Neill on the other hand is a loser who gives tours on a boat and refuses to go the with air force personel.

Well, Carter and Jackson are able to figure out a few things here and there and they discover that there is a stargate in Antartica. This, in the regular timeline, was known. Now, a team has to be assembled to go back in time to restore the regular timeline or something like that. Of course, Carter and Jackson are being shut out of the operation because they have no expertise in this sort of thing.

So next week, somehow O'Neill will be persuaded to join them and they'll go back in time and restore things. Like I said, a somewhat absurd and off kilter episode. Last week, there was the big moment of O'Neill and Carter finally acknowledging their surpressed feelings for each other after 8 years, but they do nothing with that. It is possible that, being that they were stuck in ancient Egypt, they may have gotten married, etc, so that'd be a way to move ahead with that. Not my favorite episode, but it probably is building to an exciting finale. We'll see.

Stargate Atlantis

The Wraith will be at Atlantis in 49 hours. Not only do the Wraith want possession of Atlantis, they want possession of the Stargate so that they can get the mother of all feeding grounds, the earth. The Atlantis crew decides to try out an Ancient satelite in deep space and use it to stop the Wraith. A team of three is sent out to fix it. They succeed in fixing it but run into a few complications. As a result, one of them is stuck on the satellite as the Wraith appear en route to Atlantis. The other two watched from a cloaked Ancient ship as the satellite works and destroys a major Wraith carrier, but the satellite malfunctions and the Wraith destroy the satellite and crew member. The good thing is that the Wraith pull back to reasses strategy thus giving Atlantis more time.

At Atlantis, they make plans to evacuate and enact a self destruct sequence so that the Wraith are unable to take over Atlantis. However, the self destruct sequence will be unable to destroy it completely, which is a problem. Another quandry is that Atlantis is a mystical place for the people of that galaxy and they plead with the Atlantis crew to not destroy it. They believe that the Ancients must have anticipated a day like this and program Atlantis to survive. Dr Weir tries to think of creating a back up database, but they do not have enough memory devices and the most they'd be able to save is 9% of the database, if that.

Also, they discover that they have a Wraith in Atlantis, who snuck in during a reconnaisance mission a few episodes ago. He is captured and tortured, but does not reveal anything about what he has been doing for two weeks. Eventually, he is killed.

Next week is the season finale and should be pretty exciting. I'm of the opinion that between Tela's new found telepathic abilities, Atlantis' resourcefullness and the abandoned Wraith lab discovered last episode, something good will happen for them, or there'll be no second season and that wouldn't make sense.

Battlestar Galactica

Good one. There was a terrorist guy who served his time and now is free. He is building a political movement which the fleet's leaders believe must be stopped at all cost. To assasinate him would make him a martyr which is unacceptable. During a council meeting, this guy introduces a motion for the election of a Vice President, which is surprisingly seconded by the Doctor guy who is creating a cyclon detector. Anyway, this terrorist guy is garnering major support and there is a mjor concern that if he wins VP, he'll have the President assasinated and he'll assume power.

It turns out that this terrorist guy did plan an assasination attempt which was flushed out fortuitously before the day of the votes. However, the status quo candidate was not making headway and was losing in the "polls." It was then the President noticed a TV interview with the cylon detector Doctor guy who came across very well. She then forced the status quo VP candidate to pull out for "health reasons" and convinced the Doctor guy to run and he won in a dramatic vote.

In other events, there's the two military people trapped on the cyclon planet, who have been on the run for days. The lady is a conflicted cyclon clone, whose mission is to bring the guy to the cylons, but she is in love with him and he with her. In this episode they decide to attack a building, I missed the reasoning behind it. One thing, though, in the last episode, a lady that they had killed earlier was seen walking around with some cyclons. The guy finally figured out that the cyclons were cloning humans. So at this building they sneak to the roof and observe as two clones of the woman they supposedly killed were talking as they separate and walk off, confirming his suspicion, he notices someone walking across the lawn. She looks up and sees him on the roof, it is a clone of his partner. He shoots and kills her. He then has a moment of flashbacks which clue him to the fact that she is a cyclon. He takes off as she calls him back, confused. But he doesn't stop and dissappears.

It's hard to see where they're going to go with both of them. It seemed that they were setting up for a cyclon defection as she would reveal that she was cyclon but loved him, etc. But no cigar. Another development to watch is the XO on Galactica. His wife seems to be in cahoots with the terrorist guy and is planning something for next week. The other thing is that it is still not clear to us, if she is a cyclon.

The next two weeks are the final two weeks, so it should be interesting how things get resolved.