Okay, I’ve bloviated My Important Thoughts About Current Events enough for the week. Time I got back to basics and wrote about stuff I probably know more about – silly, mindless, entertaining drivel about my favorite things.
So tonight being Friday, we’re parked in front of the TV watching Stargate, Atlantis, and then my husband David will be watching Battlestar Gallactica.
Tonight for the first time, though, my geek cred goes up slightly; I’m using my “new” laptop (which is really David’s old one). Slowly I’m moving stuff over to it from my own “old” computer, like photos and other files. And this being the House of Geeks, David’s also dinking around on his new laptop, and we’re both connected to the Internet via a wireless connection.
Earlier tonight, we went out for dinner to a local sushi joint, and so for us our geekdom is complete. We’re sushi eating, scifi watching, laptop blogging geeks.
Oh, and while David is on the phone to Steve (hi, Stevie!) I’m listening to iTunes while TiVo is paused. So, yes, mega-geekery.
Okay, so the conversation is over. Steve sounds well and chipper and was on his way to to see Ruth, and we’re meeting to work out tomorrow. Back to blogging about our show.
It’s been an enjoyable episode – the type I call the “missing man.” This is where one member of SG-1 gets left behind somehow and has to survive on his or her own for a while before making it back one way or another. This one featured some new antagonists that were kind of like ninja-Jaffa who had achieved their independence thousands of years ago. They lived in a Zen-like village that looked like in real life it might have been a Buddhist temple; when Highlander was still in production it used to be “fun” (well, fun for obsessed fans like me) to spot locations and figure out if a set was “built,” “real,” or even “virtual.” This one looked real, though some of the little buildings might have been painted effects inserted into the shot. The plot, aside from the “marooned crew” theme, was a variation on the classic “Inigo Montoya gambit.” As in “You keeled my (family member), prepare to die.” In this case, it was a brother, a plot point I predicted near the beginning. Eventually Mitchell “dies” in the ring and the other guy requests the right to dispose of the body. Right, heh. By this time we’d figured out Mitchell had been drugged.
I realized it really WAS a tribute to “Amok Time” when Mitchell wakes up afterwards, looks at the ninja dude and groans, “Thanks, Bones.” Double heh.
For all its predictability, there were enough minor twists in the plotline to keep it interesting, plus it’s evident that Mitchell has succeeded in getting the band together again – the interaction between Mitchell and T’ealc showed promise.
Basically, Ben Browder’s character (Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, not quite as wise-cracky as John Crichton) had a little shoot-out with one of the ninja-Jaffa where both were wounded. Mitchell got captured by the Ninjaffa, the other guy got hauled back through the gate to Stargate Command. Most of the action stays back on the ranch planet of the Ninjaffa, where after getting healed up by the local herbalist/martial arts teacher. They all think Mitchell killed the other guy, so by their ancient laws he has to be healed up, trained up, and then killed in a ritual that was billed to sound an awful like the combat that takes place in the classic Trek episode “Amok Time.” You know the one – Spock goes into heat, his fiance gets a little wacky and chooses Kirk as her champion, and then Bones gives Captain Kirk a doped “hypox” shot. This sets up the final “battle to the death” scene where the “dead” Kirk gets transported back to the Enterprise for a happy little reunion with the recovered but still emotional Spock.
And so this episode of Stargate went – the healer/sensei guy and Mitchell bond during the weeks of training required to get him ready to get his ass handed to him sliced up like sashimi. As I had predicted, the leader called for any kin of the “dead” warrior (who was back at Cheyenne Mountain, arguing matters of faith wiht T’ealc) to stand forth and deliver the killing blows against the human, and Mitchell’s training buddy stepped out calling for the right to avenge his brother. You could almost hear the pounding “Pon Farr” soundtrack music as Mitchell and the Ninjaffa squared off, too. After a couple of minutes of exciting (and speeded-up) combat, the Ninjaffa cut Mitchell’s leg with the edge of his blad
The followup episode of Atlantis was also satisfying… Shepard turned into a wacky-looking blue hybrid bug! Woo! And while under the influence of wacky bug endorphins, he planted a big fat wet one on Teyla after they had an exciting and stimulating… stickfight. Hey, martial arts is dead sexy, right? Right. But then Shepard got all better after something disgusting happened that had to do with yooochy insect eggs, and by the end of the episode he was all cute and cowlicky again. Which is as he should be.
Since I’m new to this “blogging while watching” stuff, I’m far, far behind. We’re now looking for stuff that TiVo queued up, and it’s found an episode of “Blackadder Goes Forth”. So we’ll watch that for a while, and then bedtime.
Oh, and more iPodding. We are geeks, you know.
