“They keep sending them in…”

Friday was a big TV-watching night here; Stargate and Atlantis both premiered the second halves of their seasons, and there was a new Numb3rs episode, a network show that we got into this year.

David and I keep chuckling about a scene in Atlantis where Sheppard and and an attractive woman he’s imprisoned with discuss one of Sheppard’s greatest fears.

Neera: And the clowns?

Sheppard: Oh yeah, the clowns. We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens. We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in. — Quotes Season 2

Actually, I kept laughing as I read down the page of quotes from the second season. The dialogue writing is always sharp on Atlantis. Sheppard is particularly funny in a very understated, boyish way.

McKay (brilliantly played by David Hewlett), was extremely funny and also exciting to watch Friday; he got hopped up on a Wraith enzyme that gives superhuman strength and endurance, beat the hell out of his captors from the cliffhanger at the end of last season, and shrieked “And that’s what happens when you back a brilliant scientist into a corner!”

Yes, he looked like a macho guy, except when he panicked a little in the fight and flapped his hands all over one guard’s face rather than throwing a punch. It was a very Stooges moment. Or maybe it was a “science nerd attempting to fight off bullies on the playground” moment. He got himself back to the base, so jacked he could hardly get any words out about the others, and then collapsed. The premise attached to the “Wraith enzyme” plot point (this is related to the Aiden Ford plotline) is that it’s instantly addictive, and if you’ve been using it, you’ll go through withdrawal when you stop. McKay, owing to the extremely large dose required to take him from nebbishy science guy to uberwarrior, has to go “cold turkey” and and could have died. He’s shown babbling, begging for enzyme, and shrieking at the doctor – it’s a good performance by Hewlett, very unsettling and disturbing.

There’s another good quote from Dr. Beckett from McKay’s bedside, after the worst is over and he’s sleeping: “I feel not unlike the priest in The Exorcist.”

Good lord, someone has alreay transcribed the dialogue from Friday’s broadcast and posted it. No wonder so many websites have these quotes.

Stargate was good, but I need to re-watch it to pick up on it more. Atlantis was much more engaging (and funny). At odd moments on our drive out to Starved Rock yesterday, David would chuckle and say “they keep sending them in.”

Numb3rs was also good. It’s a solid show (the premise is the two-different-brothers-fighting crime gimmick).

When I checked the CBS website for factoids, I noticed this ad that incorporates the show’s tagline: “We all use math every day.” Charlie says this as the opening sequence begins. He makes math sound cool (because David Krumholz’ voice has an interesting, gravelly quality). As you can see, it’s an ad for the Texas Instruments Math Education site.

There’s a moment where Charlie the math whiz was showing his university mentor Dr. Larry Fleinhardt(played by Peter MacNicol) his statistics on how many gang-related shootings have taken place in 4 years – 8.000. MacNicol’s prof is shocked at the number, and even more shocked that he didn’t know it was so high, and no one had reported how high it was, and that no one in the media or the larger community seemed to care. He said he felt he needed to do something about it, but didn’t know what. It was an interesting distraction. In a way, it was a much more telling “moral quandary” moment than anything in “The Book of Daniel,” the new series that also premiered Friday.

David recorded it for me off of a computer DRM DVR thing via our cable connection. I watched it last night, and I’m not impressed. There were moments there of something that could have been better, but I doubt I’ll go out of my way again to watch it when there is so much else that is so much better to watch on Fridays. I spoke to someone from Holy Moly just now who had talked to a couple of people that liked it, though, so maybe I’ll keep an eye on it for a while and hope for improvement. My friend Steve thought it was horrible, but I didn’t think it was quite as bad as a triple-thumbs-down on TiVo. We’ll see.