Epiphany

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (Epiphany)

Now this began terrifically as a slight blunder from McKay lands Sheppard on the other side of a time dilation field that means he experiences time much, much faster than the others. The urgency and anxiety over every precious second being wasted made for a tense and thrillingly cool sci-fi concept that is always a big draw - it reminded me of a lot of things, from the much later Christopher Nolan film, 'Interstellar,' in which a similar time discrepancy for people in different places happens, to much earlier with the top tier 'TNG' episode 'The Inner Light' in which Captain Picard lives out an entire lifetime among the doomed people he encounters. This wasn't up to those standards as it does lose its way in the middle, but I felt it was saved at the end. Joe Flanigan (Sheppard), was credited as co-creator of the story, so it makes sense he'd think of a story he'd like to do as some of the cast of 'SG-1' used to do on occasion, so it's nice to see that tradition translated into this series. It ties into The Ancients and Wraith without actually featuring either of them, as the portal through which Sheppard is pulled takes him into a separate realm, a safe haven from Wraith menace, but also a one-way trip for the people that enter: a sort of Purgatory where people go to meditate on Ascension so they can eventually do it and go where The Ancients went (and Daniel Jackson).

After the initial excitement and the fascination of the team's efforts to understand what happened (and they do seem to panic quite a bit, which isn't encouraging!), with Rodney taking the lead again as science whizz hero, things do drop off a bit. I was glad they didn't go the whole hog and have Sheppard live out his life, as we've seen that, even in 'Stargate' (O'Neill definitely aged into an old man in one early episode), and there would have had to be some kind of time travel solution to sort it out, but you could say it's a slight cop-out since the people do their ascending and somehow have the power to let Sheppard and the (eventual), team of rescuers to go back through the doorway. It turns into a mild romance as Sheppard is enthralled by a woman in the village, one of perhaps many that have special powers, hers being that she can see into the future or beyond where she is physically, too, just as the little girl had a power to heal wounds. It was hard to buy these people had never ascended just because they hadn't conquered the invisible beast that roamed outside their village, and Sheppard gave them the courage to do it. It was a bit hokey. Mind you, the whole situation is a bit strange, and I wasn't sure if Sheppard's reservations of their lives, which he called not living, was a comment on monastic life or religious observances that he clearly feels is an unfulfilling way to spend time when you could be doing things in the flesh, but I'm sure it could be read many ways if you were looking for meanings. Either way, the people get what they wanted and he stays in the physical for now.

The beast seemed ripped right out of another 'TNG' episode, another classic, 'Darmok,' in which Captain Picard (him again), is forced to learn to communicate with and understand an alien Captain to overcome this deadly foe. Even down to the creature's phasing in and out of sight, though both could have been inspired by 'Predator,' and who knows where that film got the idea from. But that's not all, the Dalrok, a creature that a Bajoran village in the 'DS9' episode 'The Storyteller,' conjure up out of their fears and have to be brought together to fight, also seems to be a big inspiration as we see the villagers overcome the fear to put behind them the last little thing that was keeping them from ascending. But wouldn't different people be reaching this state at different times? Was anyone left behind? What if someone else stumbled through the door and was the only one to try and make a life in this now abandoned village - was that part of The Ancients' plan? There are lots of questions about the logic of it, and there's also the unthinking non-ethics of Sheppard's friends that wish to rescue him and are fine with interfering in the village in any way they see fit to get their man back, even expecting to get a ZPM out of it, which Atlantis is always on the lookout for, and with no discussion of what any of this might mean to the people inside! Trek this is not, definitely modern day humans that are quite happy to stumble into whatever might be of use to them.

That's not entirely fair as they have done their bit to help people over the years, but in the 'Stargate' world they don't seem to have anything approaching a Prime Directive and haven't yet learned the lesson that says they would surely need it rather than always going in with guns blazing, taking sides, or whatever. McKay gets a sort of talking to about not interfering with the ZPM (which I assumed was going to turn out to be in the creature, some kind of physical form of the power source to stop just such interference), and halfheartedly agrees to leave it be. I still don't know what the creature was, whether it was something the people had brought on themselves, which makes you wonder how it came into being, or a device left behind by The Ancients. The whole idea, apart from escaping The Wraith, seemed a bad one, trapping a load of people in this place so they can sit around most of the time and somehow come to the next level of being, by their own efforts? What if one among them was a bad apple and decided to take over and lord it over the others? What if some Wraith entered through the door and massacred the people? I get the sense that these thoughts weren't explored in the writing, something you see often with the series as they bang out factory-made sci-fi, much in the same way as Trek did, except in general that had better writers and aimed higher.

At least it shows that Sheppard's friends care about him, and it's fun to see the warriors, Ronon and Teyla, getting tossed around by this beast they have no hope of defeating - maybe courage following fear was the answer, as they appeared unafraid. Obviously Sheppard isn't going to ascend to be with woman of the week, and she's not going back with him, so from that perspective it does seem a little pointless, and I'd have preferred the rising tension of the time dilation side of things more than finding some space hippies and hanging out with them for a few months, but it looked nice, all outdoors (even if they do keep reusing the same cave and village sets, I suspect), and just scrapes into that category of being above average. It doesn't go where you think it will, with McKay battling to save someone from one of his own mistakes, or the story to have fun playing around with time, nor does it really go anywhere strongly with Sheppard, but I still liked it and the series is regularly succeeding now more than it was, for me.

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