Week 5 - August 12

Winner: Stargate Atlantis ("Condemned")

Not satisfied taking a back-seat to "Battlestar", "Stargate Atlantis" episode 2.5 brings some refreshingly light-hearted action to Sci-Fi Friday. In "Condemned," The Atlantis team finds itself on a prison island. Home to the world's most dangerous prisoners (or so they thought), the island doubles as a Wraith feeding ground--allowing the civil population to live without threat of annihilation. After being shot down en route to the stargate, Rodney (David Hewlett) is forced to repair the Jumper and allow the prisoners to escape.

When a spinoff airs back-to-back with the original show, there's a need to keep them sufficiently different. Thus far, this difference has been action. In this week's "Sg-1," Daniel Jackson was tasked with debating the fundamentals of religion with a devote missionary. The episode was well written and reminded me of early "Sg-1" episodes, but early "Sg-1" episodes also had some explosions to balance things out. So far, "Sg-1" has been very talkative, with each episode coming off as overly philosophical. "Atlantis," on the other hand, has primarily concerned itself with blowing things up, creating a more enjoyable show that sets itself apart from the dramatic and very serious "Battlestar Galactica."

On the subject of "Battlestar Galactica," I wasn't nearly as impressed with this week's episode as I was with the first 4 weeks. Much of the focus is now on Starbuck, and her adventures with a human resistance group on Cylon-occupied Caprica. The writing and acting was as powerful as ever, but the episode wasn't nearly as exciting as "Atlantis." The pacing was slowed, creating more of a sci-fi mystery, than a drama. Also, I must express my feelings of contempt for the weapon props. Up to this point in the show, all of the guns have been made to look nothing like actual weaponry. This was good to keeping the alternate human civilization aspect of the show intact. Recently, however, be it from lack of funds or mere laziness, real firearm replicas are now being used, as well as an unmodified Hummer. This seemingly insignificant point goes a long way to ruining the dramatic atmosphere.

Memorable Scene: When asked to fix a heavily damaged spacecraft, Rodney makes a comment that such a feat would be made possible only by MacGyver. This Richard Dean Anderson reference is funny on oh so many levels.

Next Week: All three previews look very interesting. "Battlestar" looks to be continuing what "Battlestar" does best, and "Atlantis" looks very promising. But the bulk of my anticipation goes to "Stargate Sg-1" and the return of Amanda Tapping.

Standings:

Stargate Sg-1: 0
Stargate Atlantis: 2
Battlestar Galactica: 3