Sci-Fi Showdown - January 13

Welcome to Week 2 of Khyron's Sci-Fi Showdown. I want to start things off with a bit of a rant about my cable provider, Comcast. You see, for the past year or so, I have been working late on Friday nights. Because of this, I have had to get my Sci-Fi fix by taping the three shows and watching them over the weekend. Recently, however, I've upgraded to the Comcast DVR service. Although not as full featured as say a TiVo box would be, for the price (a mere $10 extra per month), its pretty good.

So, flash forward to last Friday, I came home from work to find that my cable had frozen, and the DVR had recorded 3 hours of scrambled junk without sound. Suffice to say, I was a bit...dissapointed? in Comcast.

Thankfully, much of Sg-1 was watchable and I was able to catch Battlestar Galactica when it was repeated at midnight, but I missed the first 15 or so minutes of Atlantis.

But, I think I got the gist of each show, so the Showdown will continue as usual:

Stargate Sg-1 - Ep. Collateral Damage

Going strong from last week's big win, Stargate Sg-1 takes a bit of a break from its main Ori plotline and goes for a one-off story that doubles as a characterization episode for the new leading man, Ben Browder.

In episode 9.12, Collateral Damage, Mitchell (Ben Browder) and Sg-1 travel to an alien world that has developed a memory implantation device by reverse engineering Goa'uld technology. After a party, however, Mitchell wakes, dazed and confused, with the memories of a violent murder. Could the leader of Sg-1 really have committed such a brutal crime? Or is this memory device to blame?

This was kind of a difficult episode to watch, as it pretty much revealed what the conclusion would be at the start. It was pretty obvious Mitchell didn't commit the murder, and that someone had abused the power of the memory machine to frame him. I will give the writers some credit, however, as they were able to take my early assumptions and give a little twist at the end (don't worry, I wont spoil it for you), but it was nothing Earth-shattering.

As I mentioned above, the real purpose of Collateral Damage was to give some more backstory for Cameron Mitchell. Until now, we haven't been given much insight into Browder's character, but now we know about his history of difficult decisions and how his father gives him inspiration.

This tragic past business is nothing new, and I'm a bit surprised they took that path for Mitchell, as it makes him even that more similar to Jack (Richard Dean Anderson). As we all remember from the movie that started it all, O'Niell's son had committed suicide with his military firearm.

So, in short, it was solid Sg-1 episode with a bit of a mystery spin to it. It's definitely starting to remind me of the more low-key, non-save the world every week Sg-1's of the earlier seasons.

Stargate Atlantis - Ep. Epiphany

Atlantis, again following suite with Sg-1, goes with another one-off episode that has little impact on the story's main plot.

In episode 2.11, Epiphany, Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) finds himself trapped in a time-displacement field. Within it resides a small village of hippies, some with special powers. As is revealed, the field was designed to allow people the time to reach ascention before the Wraith arrive. The only drawback: once you're in, you can't get out. Now the rest of the Atlantis team must race to get Sheppard out, for each hour in real time is weeks for him.

Epiphany was co-written by lead Joe Flanigan--and it shows. It was pretty much a Flanigan spotlight episode, with the rest of the cast taking a backseat to the events. Though that's not really a bad thing. I think Flanigan makes a great lead, and his character, Sheppard, is a good one.

As with Sg-1, Epiphany was a solid Atlantis episode, but there's was really nothing special about it. I'm pretty sure Jack O'Neill encountered a very similar experience in Sg-1, so it wasn't a very original idea, either. This lack of originality is really something Atlantis will need to overcome if it is to carry on the Stargate franchise.

Battlestar Galactica - Ep. Resurrection Ship pt. 2

Galactica lost out by a small margin to Sg-1 last week, but the conclusion to Resurrection Ship was by far the victor of Week 2.

In episode 2.11, Resurrection Ship pt. 2, the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus launch their join raid on the Cylon 'Resurrection ship.' Through the brave and near fatal actions of Apollo (Jamie Bamber) the mission is a success. However, the real drama comes in its aftermath, as both Cain (Michelle Forbes) and Adama (Edward Olmos) prepare to give the order to assassinate each other. Will Adama give the order? Will Starbuck follow it? Things are about to get frakking intense.

I'd say, as far as performances are concerned, I was most blown away by the so-far unremarkable Pegasus' Colonel Fisk (Graham Beckel). In a scene similar to Full Metal Jacket, Tyrol and Helo are assaulted by a couple of hot-head soldiers. It is Fisk that breaks it up. As a character, he has shown himself to be an opinionated, but a civilized and rational man. Beckel's performance in this scene and while waiting to get the order to take out Adama was great. Definitely another example of the fine casting for supporting roles in Battlestar Galactica.

Cain (Michelle Forbes) is gone now, but we all saw that coming. In fact, it was kind of a mute point in the episode because I knew how it would be going down (I thank the revealing promo for that spoiler). I'm most interested now, though, in how the writers will handle the Battlestar Pegasus. In the original show, it basically disappeared with a chance to return. That's certainly a choice this time around, but I'd like to see it stay for a while. I just feel that they haven't even scratched the surface of the plot possibilities with the Pegasus crew.

Results -

Winner: Battlestar Galactica (Resurrection Ship pt. 2)

It was a much easier decision this time around. Both Stargate's had a solid week, but in terms of shear drama, Galactica was the clear winner.

Memorable Scene: Not taking any lip from a couple of smart-ass officers, Colonel Frisk shouts "Shut your Frakkin' mouth!" Wow. He's not just a drinking buddy for Tigh, anymore. This guy means business.

Standings:

Stargate SG-1: 1
Stargate Atlantis: 0
Battlestar Galactica: 1

Stay tuned for next week's Showdown.

~Khyron, 2006