Enemy At The Gate

 DVD, Stargate Atlantis S5 (Enemy At The Gate)

I wanted nostalgia - I got it. I wanted an epic finale - I got it. The only thing missing (because there were very few faces not to appear!), was a feature-length running time to match the dramatic scale of the story. And a sense of closure. For this was the finale of the 'Atlantis' and somewhat of a finale for 'traditional' 'Stargate' itself since the sequel, 'Universe,' would be very different in style and tone. But it leaves the characters in a very open-ended manner - not to say it doesn't leave them in a good place, and certainly not to say any one of them could have been killed, and that they weren't I am grateful, even though I've already seen 'Universe' and know who appears and who doesn't. But there was no end to the Wraith threat as there was for the Goa'uld, no certainty about Atlantis' mission in Pegasus from this point on: will they be permitted to return? Will they have enough power to return? I wanted some of these questions, not to be resolved as such, but at least to be set in motion so that we know Rodney's working towards getting the old city back on its home patch. Of course the real question is where would they go since they ended the series on a different planet to that which they began on (and I don't mean Earth!), so they'd already shown they didn't have a set place to exist in that galaxy. There's a certain kind of sadness inherent in the idea of this permanent city that has no permanent resting place, and perhaps that contributed to a bittersweet ending, as all endings should be.

I was concerned from the direction of the season, the uneven storytelling and the limp to the end, that they'd bungle this finale, have no time for sentiment amid action, or fail to have big action due to limited budget of a series going down. It's a real shame they 'only' made it to five seasons, an achievement in itself since this was in the days of twenty-odd episode seasons (who'd have thought that time would pass?), but it could easily have continued for five more, just as its predecessor did, and I don't know what precipitated its cancellation, perhaps people were just becoming tired of its brand of sci-fi by then. They certainly chose to shake the formula up with the sequel series that came after. For me, 'Atlantis' could have been the 'DS9' to 'SG-1's position as 'TNG,' the mother show that birthed something more ambitious in scale and intent, but it didn't quite work out that way. I respect the series and think it may have had a better like-for-like quality than 'SG-1,' but in the end nothing can replace those beloved characters, though John Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, Jennifer Keller and especially Rodney McKay were certainly up there and it was lovely to see some of them interact with the older characters at times. We get Amanda Tapping back once more as Samantha Carter, fitting since she played such an important role taking over last season when Weir was lost, and she spearheaded the nostalgia I was looking for: we did get the SGC (for the last time in its original guise?), we saw the old Wormhole in that same old place under the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, and mention of renaming the latest ship from Phoenix to General Hammond as he's apparently died from a heart attack - don't know if the actor had died, too, or just a way to remember the character, and although it's sad, I appreciated the reference.

There were so many cameos of characters from either 'SG-1' or this series it made a suitable memorial to the 'Stargate' franchise. Let me see, who was there? Colonel Caldwell and Marks on the Daedalus; Colonel Ellis of the Apollo; Carter, Walter and Major Davis at the SGC; Kavanagh, and obviously Zelenka and Lorne, and Dr. Beckett. And of course Christopher Heyerdahl back in the guise of semi-ally 'Todd,' a more fitting role for him than the minor part he had at the opening of the series as Halling, leader of Teyla's people, the Athosians. The only people really missing were the half-expected cameos of Elizabeth Weir somehow, and Ford, somehow (and maybe General O'Neill, who does get mentioned), but I can see why they couldn't squeeze them in as I'd thought they might: it was a bit of a rushed story with only the standard length of time and other than a brief mention of the message sent from the alternate universe of the previous episode (the less said about the better), nothing to do with that, except for the motivation to get this Super-Hive to Earth. The story can be pulled apart a little bit in terms of how this Super-Hive suddenly comes into existence out of nowhere, how Todd's people have been working on it for so long, how it can just zip to Earth in another galaxy, how Todd just happens to have a stash of ZPMs hidden away, and how Atlantis can, using these things and an idea Rodney left behind (Zelenka must be cleverer than he gets credit for!), get to Earth just in time.... But... It was all done stylishly, it slotted neatly together, and it gave me exactly what I wanted to see: one more heroic mission for our characters, doing what they do best.

The way Sheppard is so intent on committing to a suicide run as the only way to save Earth is inspirational, as is the demeanour of the others when they realise their time is up, they don't have time to escape to the 'gate before the Super-Hive must be destroyed, and although Rodney whines a bit, as is his wont, and is expected of him, it's telling that he's the one holding the switch when the time comes and however unwillingly, gives it up to Sheppard as they're all resigned to their deaths. It's a terrific moment, even Sheppard looks lost by the look in his eyes, these are relatively young people, they don't want to die, but if it's necessary they will. For Ronon, it is, he actually gets stabbed to death, a great feint by the writers as I really thought they'd killed him off - despite it being such a puny knife and an ignominious way to go out I could see Jason Momoa asking for it as a surprising to his character. You get that hit of horror and sadness as he dies protecting McKay, and the aftermath of telling Sheppard, but then the Wraith's own smug sense of the power they have over life and death, to give and take away, is used to great effect to bring Ronon back to life and it was a relief because it wouldn't have been a worthy way for him to die. I did think Sheppard was going to die when he explained his plan to blow the ship from the inside, but it just shows how much drama and stakes you can build without executing characters as TV loves to do so much nowadays.

There are some great moments as the city looms into view, protecting Earth and Wolsey does well in command of it. Maybe Keller could have been used better, but someone is always going to suffer when you have so little screen time and I can imagine there being more personal character scenes inserted if the episode had been a double as it deserved. But then again, did it deserve that? It ended, it had a definite sense of success in saving Earth and the team are all together looking out on the Golden Gate Bridge from a balcony of Atlantis, but nothing further than that in closure terms, and it did seem to be of relatively lower quality this season. At least it had that final moment, though, unlike 'Universe' which wasn't even granted an ending, leaving 'Stargate' to slip quietly away as if it had never existed, almost. Five seasons and a rip-roaring finale is good going by anyone's reckoning, and though I've been judgemental and occasionally unappreciative of its choices and simplistic stance, it has been a good, solid series that I will look forward to viewing in whole again sometime, and I can't say any fairer than that - it has put the subsequent Trek revival to shame as being closer to old Trek's quality of character and story, had semi-serialised tales, and showed that a successful sci-fi series can spin off an equally successful idea. I salute 'Atlantis' and all who sailed in her, perhaps the last truly good series of the genre.

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