(Excerpt from Joseph Mallozzi’s blog)

imadaman writes: “No hints about when the premiere took place? Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years after EatG?”

Answer: It would have to have taken place not too long after the events of EatG (days, maybe weeks perhaps) since the events of the Atlantis movie, Stargate: Extinction, follow very son after EatG as well (and helps explain why Dr. McKay wasn’t drafted to body switch during the show’s first season).

EatG being Enemy at the Gate, the Stargate Atlantis series finale. This small section of an extremely long post seems to refer to the timing of the Stargate Universe premiere as having happened "not too long after" what happened in Enemy at the Gate. Since Mallozzi mentions Stargate: Extinction specifically, I now have my hopes raised about the future of the Stargate Atlantis movie.

I can also say that now I’m wondering if McKay is going to end up guest starring on a future episode of SGU. One can only hope! Since his character was more serious in several of the SG-1 episodes he starred in than most of the SGA episodes, I believe his character could work to fit the tone of Stargate Universe, the same way that Gen O’Neill plays to it.

I’ve been looking around lately, and so far, what I’ve discovered isn’t promising for the movie. This is the latest news I was able to find that referenced it in a way that seemed promising for its future, and of course, you see how thin that is.

Both Michael Shanks and Jason Momoa have stated they think the movie will not be made. Shanks went so far as to state that he didn’t believe there would be any new movies for either SGA or SG-1.

Here’s to hoping they’re both wrong.

Stargate: Extinction

I’m not sure how I feel about that name because it certainly doesn’t bring to mind anything good!

Is it just me, or does “Extinction” sound terribly foreboding?

The ending of Vegas left me with the unavoidable conclusion that soon Earth and Wraith will meet, and all hell will probably break loose. I’ve heard the spoilers saying this final episode is going to leave me with a cliffhanger ending. I’m glad they’ll have something to do in the movie that’s such a strong tie-in to the series, but I don’t look forward to the wait!

I really enjoyed the camera work and the editing of Vegas. How cool was the  look of the episode? Very cool!

Vegas is a visually appealing episode, with a plot that manages to tie in very nicely to our Atlantis’s universe and reality. I missed some of the regular characters, but it would have been weird if the writers had tried too hard to fit everyone into the episode.

Overall, I liked Vegas and I’m sure to be watching again sometime soon (while I wait for the Stargate Atlantis movie).

I’ll keep my ears and eyes open for news about the possibility of other future movies, you can be sure. Stargate is a franchise I love. I don’t want to see it end, but I’m not sure what’s in store with Stargate Universe.

What I’ll miss most and what I most want to see in the new Stargate Universe series.

1. Humor
2. Science
3. Action
4. Geeks/Nerds
5. Romance (because I really dug the McKay romances and I’ve always had a soft spot for Jackson’s dedication to Sharé)

If I don’t get these things, in the proper proportions, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to enjoy the newest spinoff of my beloved Stargate.

And I certainly still don’t see why Stargate Atlantis had to end to give it to us!

I always worry when writers of a series take on romance, but they’ve done it right and kept it low profile—and also made it darn fun in Tracker.

I clued into the details of this upcoming episode when I read this at TV Squad. I love it when we see rivalries between the scientists! Some of my favorite Atlantis lines of all time come from a bickering McKay and Zelenka.

Watch the trailer for this Friday’s episode. I’m intrigued. What about you?

Those days are long gone.

Ronon Dex has turned out to be a multi-layered individual and his growth has been phenomenal over the last few years. Tracker, on the surface, was a Ronon, McKay, Keller episode, but underneath it all, I believe this episode was about Ronon Dex and Rodney McKay.

Several episodes have really played up the relationship between these two so-very-different guys. Tao of Rodney, The Shrine, each show picked up the thread and wove it expertly, and now, in Tracker, I have no problem believing there’s true affection between Rodney and Ronon.

In Tao of Rodney, Rodney uses his healing abilities to remove Ronon’s scars. Those scars represented his past life, his runner history, and removing them was a gift from a dying Rodney McKay.

In The Shrine, Ronon is determined to get McKay to the place where he can be himself for one more day. He doesn’t hope to gain anything from Rodney, and no one in Atlantis is looking for that one piece of information only Rodney can give them before he dies. They want only to have the opportunity to say goodbye.

Tracker has no overt theme of friendship between Ronon and Rodney, but their interaction as they try to save Dr. Jennifer Keller is fun to watch. They act like friends who know each other well and they seem to have fallen into a rhythm of conversational byplay that really shows the bonds are there. These guys are friends and you can tell.

In fact, after watching Tracker, I’ve had to go back to Tao of Rodney and revisit the developing friendship. One of my favorite Rodney and Ronon exchanges happens after Rodney begins developing what he calls “superpowers.” He uses telekinesis to swipe Dr. Beckett’s doughnut as he’s walking out of the room with Ronon.

“We could be a team. You could be my sidekick.” (Rodney)

“Sidekick?” (Ronon)

“Yeah, it’d be like Batman and Ronon. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah, you keep eating like that it’s going to be more like fatman.”

You can’t build these kinds of relationships in movies. There just isn’t enough time. So I find myself hoping this final season of Stargate Atlantis solidifies these relationships between Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, and Ronon. Once the movies start, there just won’t be these opportunities again.

Not only was I amazed by her physical changes, I was amazed by how the episode just zipped right past them. I guess I’m supposed to understand how she went from human to Wraith and back again, without any apparent lasting physical reminders of the surgery. It was surgery, right? I’m pretty sure I saw Dr. Jennifer Keller wielding medical instruments, an anesthesiologist putting Teyla under…. What was that if not surgery, and what purpose might it have had if it wasn’t to physically alter Teyla and turn her into a Wraith?

I can suppose and speculate as to how the whole thing happened, but I would rather have had Keller explain it to me, even if it were only a short thirty second comment or two.

I was able to overlook these issues simply because that’s the kind of viewer I am. I don’t usually dwell on issues of believability when it comes to the science of the matter, because I believe wholeheartedly that science fiction is more fiction than science most of the time. That’s the way it should be.

When you take the transformation out of the show, you’re left with one of the best episodes of the series. This has been a one-two shot with Whispers and now The Queen. Although I wasn’t that sure it was going to be great, because I’m not usually a big fan of Teyla centered episodes, I can’t say enough good things about how this episode played out.

Not only is there action and intrigue, there was Todd. Todd is one of my favorite recurring characters and I loved seeing his plot line carried forward. Todd is someone I definitely want to see again. He has given me a glimpse of what the Wraith should have been from the beginning–complex villains who are shaped by their society and their genes, not the cardboard bad guy monsters they’ve mostly been portrayed as.

The Queen rules, and with those parting remarks from Teyla at the end of the episode, this one just screams for a sequel. Let’s just hope it’s not too late, since Atlantis won’t be back for season 6.

Other views of The Queen:

• Science Fiction Stuff – Stargate Atlantis “the Queen”
• TV Squad – Stargate Atlantis: The Queen
• Film School Rejects – Stargate: Atlantis 5.8

Having one of the team members masquerade as one of the enemy isn’t an unusual concept in the Stargate universe. Remember Daniel in the Stargate SG-1 episodes Summit and Last Stand? However, I haven’t seen an episode before in Atlantis that covers the same ground, until now.

The Queen brings back Todd the Wraith and begins with a meeting between his hive ship and Sheppard’s Atlantis team, Dr. Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, and Teyla Emmagan. The team would like to convince the Wraith through Todd to consider the treatment Dr. Jennifer Keller has developed to cure the need of the Wraith to feed on humans. Todd considers the idea, and frankly, Lt. Col. John Sheppard is suspicious, and rightly so. Todd comes back with his own proposal–that Teyla masquerade as his Queen.

Teyla’s DNA has traces of Wraith DNA (mentioned in previous episodes) that will allow her to disguise herself as a Wraith Queen and successfully fool the Primary, the Wraith Queen who is in charge of the entire Wraith alliance. No one else has the ability to pull this off, and so Teyla feels bound to help.

But when she and Todd are successfully aboard the Primary’s hive ship, they encounter unexpected developments that appear to force a change in their plans. Does Todd have a hidden agenda? Will Teyla be able to maintain her masquerade, or will they be discovered and killed?

Dr. Beckett and Dr. Alison Porter stay behind in the lab to go through the research while Sheppard joins Major Anne Teldy and the rest of her team, Sgt. Dusty Mehra and Capt. Alicia Vega, as they explore the surrounding forest and make their way to a nearby village.

They find the village abandoned, except for one man who appears to have been watching them. He tells Sheppard and the rest of the team about the curse believed to be haunting the village. People had begun to disappear from the forest around the village leading the villagers to eventually abandon the village entirely. When it starts to get late, the man seems overly eager to leave and Sheppard decides to let him go.

The team returns to collect Carson Beckett and Alison Porter from the research lab and they all decide to stay overnight in the village, but when Sheppard and the others go out into the forest to explore further, they discover the hybrid lifeforms have been released from their stasis pods.

In the thick fog and mist, the Atlantis team must fight off a nemesis they can’t see to survive.

What did I think about this episode? Read Whispers, Reinvigorating Atlantis

Admittedly, Whispers could be summed up with the same summary used for the Vengeance episode. Take out a few parts and here’s what you have…

…it appears the [blank] have…abandoned their village…. Searching the dark winding corridors of the abandoned tunnels the team comes upon…a lab that appears to have been used for Wraith experiments. …the team has little time to piece the puzzle together before they themselves are attacked by a…monster. (See the full Vengeance episode description)

Compare that to Whispers. Team goes through the gate, finds one of Michael’s abandoned labs, finds abandoned village, gets preyed upon by Michael’s failed Wraith experiments. There you have the plot in a nutshell.  Only—there’s more to the episode than that.

Despite the apparent similarities, Whispers goes off in a direction I didn’t expect, and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

Although Atlantis episodes are typically science oriented, this episode had only Doctors Beckett and Porter to speak tech-talk. Because of that, the episode relied heavily on the characters and their emotional reactions to the threat from Michael’s abandoned experiments.

I came away from the episode feeling like I’d just watched a horror film, and I admit I spent some time biting my nails during this one. Whispers definitely qualifies as one of my favorite Atlantis episodes this season. It was a refreshing change of pace and an invigorating episode for what’s turned out to be the final season of Atlantis.

I worried about Dr. Beckett in this one. I worried about the other team members I hadn’t met before including Major Anne Teldy and her away team, Sgt. Dusty Mehra, Capt. Alicia Vega and Dr. Alison Porter. I even worried about Sheppard. I worried a lot. That’s one reason I so enjoyed the show. There was tension there, and action, and it all kept me entertained in a way the last few episodes of Atlantis haven’t. So, cheers! I hope this is a sign of things to come. Stargate Atlantis, reinvigorated!

• Download Whispers
• Download Vengeance
  —from Amazon.com