Season 3, Episode 18 - Submersion
Air date: 2007

The team goes searching for an alternate power source beneath the surface of the ocean.

Episode Guide | Spoilers | Teaser

(This topic is for people who have seen the episode to discuss it. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read this topic.)

A Wraith Queen... well I didn't see that coming before the episode had aired...

Pretty good episode overall, I didn't see the trick they played on the Queen at the end coming, so thats good. Kinda wondering why they brought Weir along with them to the bottom of the ocean...

AND, are they going to be doing anything with the Wraith cruiser... I liked it when Rodney made the crack about Shep destroying the Cruiser soon after he would repair it, thereby rendering all his hard work irrelevent.

I was wondering exactly the same thing, we've got a practically intact wraith cruiser just waiting to be used. it would have been nice to see them actually retrieve the ship.

And i hope we get to find out more about the ancient technology down at the bottom of the ocean, i'm sure it will return, probably next time we haven't got a zpm.

A pretty good episode, 8/10.

Why did the Jumper windshield shatter when Ronan accidentally shot it? Is it only armored from the outside?

God, what a shockingly bad episode. Sigh.

First, the distinct feeling of Somewhere in the Beginning of Season 1.... Hey, we've managed to see the Wraith before without repeating this nonsense, what in the world made them go back to that? I thought after Michael and Common Ground SGA finally learned to deal with its bad guys in a sensible, jjust a tad bit more 3d way... but no. Back to silly Wraith queens trying to be scary.

It jsut didn't work for me. The entire concept, the entire backsell at the end - there's using it as a story device and then there's over doing it and in bad taste and that's basically what happened here.

I hope this episode was supposed to be 17 and Sunday 18. Or that it's a one time glitch. I certainly hope this complete adn utter lack of mention of a main hcaracter who just died an episode before isn't a sign to what's gonna happen in next seasons. Hell... Line in the Sand spoilers Putting them all in a tad bit of depression or at least saying something couldn't have been that ghard, could it? the only good thign I could thinkof of Carson's death is if they're going to use it and its impact on the rest of the characters. If they're not going to do that, why bother?

Teyla... once again, they've fallen to the exact same trap they did with Ronon. It's not development if she stays inside her box, even if they do give her - finally, this season! - something to do. It's only development if she's forced out of her box. Much like Ronon didn't really gain anything to his character in Sateda, Teyla is still the exact same person she was before Submersion. Sorry, they're goin to have to do ebtter than that. Where's Teyla's equivalent of Tao of Rodney? of Common Ground? Of Phantoms or the Real World? Even in Sunday we hardly got to see anything.

Erm, good parts: Elizabeth. Sh got to play a bit with Teyla and banter a bit with Sheppard. Zelenca not knowing what was going on around him was also lovely. he does it so well. Didn't even get exxcited about Rodney this episode, he wasn;t his funny usual self.

Where's the season 3 I've learned to ove so much? Hoping for ebtter luck next week.

This post has been edited by Pitry: Jan 23rd 2007, 1:04 PM

I thought it was pretty good episode. I gave it a 8/10 because some of it was predictable. I love this episode it had a lot of Teyla in it but after Teyla finished doing her thing were she tries to tap in to the wraith minds or see if they are really near by at the beginning I knew the wraith had taken over her mind. But all in all I loved Teyla in this episode and thought it was a pretty good episode.

Ooooh, Ancient underwater-suits. You'd think Ancient technology would be a little less bulky.

Nah...

Those suits were probably equipped with propulsion units, so the wearers could make repairs all over the station. AND, they were at an extreme depth... a thicker suit is necessary so you don't get crushed like a tin can underfoot.

Regrettably i'm starting to think, that all the Stargate series are coming to end...i mean the more i think about it the more i realize, they just can't do it any more, i mean they've run out of cool new technologies to wow us with. They've done everything Super Power Soures, Fast + Powerful Ships, Advanced Weapons, Cloaking/Phase Shift Technology, and its never enough, we're always one planet against a universe gone nuts. Truthfully character development and small victories can only get you so far and we're out of ways to win big victories. In both Atlantis and Sg1, we've got almost no useful allies left (Ascard excluded of course but we haven't seen much of them lately), and the only way we can win the many wars we are engaged in is to use either some super disabling weapon distributed using the Stargate (ie super bomb, replicator disruptor, or wraith gas) or too become mass murders (which they won't do for ethical reasons).

This ep was the perfect example of that same formula as always...Advanced Tech Cool; Unexpected Problem results in the death of pointless extras; we're cut off with no hope of escape and time running out; we hatch a crazy plan that saves us at the last moment; We get some technology that will help us...a little in some upcoming battle (in this case probably First Strike); End ep. The only exception is character development eps and even they're starting to drag a bit.

I'm starting to think the switch to direct to DVD movies might not be such a bad idea...and that is saying something.

I'm hoping for the third series they do a Voyager-Like series, that way we don't get stuck with any particular type of Tech or Enemy over the long term. This way we can get back to the Glory Days of Stargate where we explore new planets and met new people. Maybe something like hey now that the Orii-Alteran war is over lets trace their path from the Orii galaxy to our own, see what happened along the way. And just for kicks lets not take an F-304, lets take an intersting Alien ship, with unexpected surprises in store for us.

Thoughts?

where was dr beckett? did i miss that part of the episode? Paul McGillion was credited as being in that episode

They didn't want to change the credits yet... What, for the last three episodes of the season? Beckett is dead, people should learn to get over that...

Coming back to this episode... It was meh... How many times do we have to see Teyla concentrating into Wraith minds? The queens of the Wraith seem not very impressive as usual. And there was nothing new in this episode. I think I had quite enough of the Wraith too...

Overall: 44/100

Things always look bad when you have a character that's concentrating into someone else's mind. it was horrible in Babylon 5 and it's horrid in SGA, too. I'd have expected them to stop doing it, then. And if they do, in a better constructed episode ;)

I don't think it's about enough of the wraith - rather enough of the wraith as they are portrayed in Submersion. that's what I meant when I said they regressed to season 1 - one dimensional cliche bad guys - I mean, enough. It's much better when they put more substance into them, in the likes of Michael or Common Ground. For the life of me I can't understand what made them go back to this sillyness.

Well.... it could be argued both ways... either she is one-dimensional because the Wraith are one-dimensional creatures, or because she has been on the ocean floor for 10 millenia.

Of course, I would think being there for so long would piss her off, and make her severely angry and more dangerous...

So, are you changing your stance about the ascension?

I thought this ep was just ok. I totally thought they were actually going to fly the wraith ship out of the Ocean for a second, but I realized that the Wraith would have just done that. At the time the ship was crash, the entire race fleet was together, so they should have been able to either rescue them, or tell them how to repair the damage.

What ever happened to the whole saltwater thing?

They're searching for an underwater facility and they don't detect a nearby ship?

I wouldn't have thought that the ancients used big bulky suits like that, when they have personal shields...

What saltwater thing?

Well... they have to be able to breathe... and at that depth, the shield wouldn't last very long...

saltwater thing came from the ep, 38 minutes (season 1) regarding the part where Ford was trying out different things to get the bug off Sheppard and Beckett commenting on the saltwater aspect when that happened

It's a safety measure, so you can be thrown clear of the accident.
Same reason people don't wear seatbelts, lol

I wonder what happens now...

Are we going to use that power station for something... Or are we going to
blow it away... Or forget that it is down there or...

And same with the Cruiser... Are we going to use this opportinity and study
the Wraith tech... Or are we going to blow it away or just forget that it even
exists as we usually do when we find something potentially usefull...

And those underwater-suits were just ridiculous...

They were deep-sea pressure suits.

What ever... In any case they look very awkward and primitive... Several
million years older design than what I would expect from the Ancients...

Even we could propably make more advanced "deep-sea pressure suits"
in the shows universe... (Most likely even in our real universe...)

They said that they would remain there to continue the study on the Ancient platform... Perhaps it will help us somehow...

I wonder what would you expect from the Ancients though... Personal shields? Revan just explained that they would drain very fast at that depth.

Teleporterts shouldn't be too hard. If a shuttle can communicate with the surface it would be possible to make a teleporter to the surface and back.....it would save a lot of trouble and time

There was no need to swim so deep, a shuttle is fine i guess.



I wonder what we're doing with the Wraith Cruiser. I would make it a main topic of research and investigation if i were Weir (wich ofcourse i'm not). But I geuss we use it to safe atlantis from being destroyed, and that we lose it in the process. Just as we did with all the other ships we got.

There are some problems though... The platform is pretty deep... Communication with Atlantis was one of them... We are the ones that adjusted PJ for underwater, so the Ancients used something else for it... what??? They didn't see to have beaming technology like in Atlantis on the platform...

The second problem is that I was referring to underwater exploration... They needed the suits for maintaining the platform from the exterior... Kind of like water-nauts...

Why? There is no reason to do so... the principle that those suits operate on is fairly inflexible... You get squashed by water pressure without substantial protection... and those suits were more futuristic or contemporary to that what is available in our society.