Episode 9 - Home
Air Date: (US) September 10, 2004

McKay's efforts to harness the energy of an alien planet's atmosphere allows for a return trip to Earth, but the team may not be able to return to Atlantis.

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.)

This episode was truly fascinating, I thought the acting was well done for Wier's character this time around, and the whole plotline was intrigueing, especially how they held back until the last.

I find that we learned alot more about the character's as well, and have finally seen some of Sheppard's near genius mathematical mind...as stated in the SCi-fi bio on him.

Boring. If I'd never seen Gamekeeper, and if I hadn't known Hammond wasn't at the SGC anymore, I'd have thought this was an okay episode. But it just fell flat. I did enjoy seeing Rodney's boxers. Cute.

One question: What purpose does Ford serve?

An interesting episode. A bit too reminiscent of Gatekeeper, but that was a relatively small part of the episode. We saw more of the characters, learned more about their past, etc....Weir even seemed interesting! My only criticism would be: Why didn't we see more of Fords mind? We saw a ton of the others but Ford seemed to be pretty minor....Are they intentionally trying to keep him boring? He has much more potential and they just aren't using them.

I'll give this one a...70, which by my new rating system is "Good".
Compared to SG1s 55, Atlantis beats Stargate for the fourth week in a row

This post has been edited by SlavsyaRossiya: Sep 11th 2004, 1:05 AM

As noted by the previous posts by others, this episode wasn't very original. There are just too many sci-fi stories of people being in alternate realities or under the influence or control of aliens.

One major goof in this episode for me was when McKay picked up the old packet of junk food from his couch and ate it. He has been away for months, so how can the junk food that he left be still edible?

I was also surprised that the aliens allowed McKay to experiment with a ZPM. If the aliens could read minds, they would have known that McKay would soon discover that they were not in a real world.

Finally, if the aliens can create pizza and beer, how did they not realize that the humans would die very soon if left unconscious on the planet's surface?

I liked last week's episode better

TauJin

That's called comedy. Haven't you noticed he eats anything? (Except citrus, that is.)

In any case, it was nice to see Don again, even if he was a fake Hammond.

I personally liked this episode it had a lot of the clasic elements of ths SG-1 show, plus it was interesting to see the characters background. I hope the Weir character gets better scripts as it did this time around. Its the first time since the show started that he get to see Higginson's acting abilities put to work and she did pretty good.

This episode was OK, but not one of the best. Obviously this episode was somewhat like 'The Gamekeeper' and I hate it when Atlantis nab some of SG-1 storylines and turn it into theres! We need BETTER and newer storylines which I guess is the whole point of having a new spinoff series. The episode was reasonable but obviously Don wasn't acting as General Hammond as himself if u get what I mean!
Overall 6/10

I thought the little homage to the Outer Limits was cute.. I bet they had no problem getting the..er.. "rights"(?) to the audio of the beginning of the show... seeing as Wright worked on Outer Limits for a good number of years?

I was bored by this ep, and I wanna know if the fog/misty dudes were the Big Giant Aliens and if they have Nick Ballard. That would have made this ep better.

But yes. McKay in his boxers. Priceless. I loved his "I'm with genius" tshirt with the arrow pointing up.

Sheppard really grows on me. The ironical way he created this absurd party scenario almost fooled me in believing I just had an amusing dream myself. Oh boy, that would have been a good one.

Lizzy (Elizabeth ) was gorgeous in her pink shirt.

Rodney had good moments like when he discovered that "this universe is not governed by the laws of science".

The plot was not very exciting. However, this episode addressed certain issues like why and in what frame the Atlantis expedition is legitimate, and Dr Weir showed more of her character. I liked the discussion with Sheppard in the beginning.

This post has been edited by ted_simple: Sep 11th 2004, 7:29 AM

Not a bad episode. Loved Rodney's reaction to strangeness of it all. I was about to say"Holy cow, Sheppard has a nice place". But it was all fantasy. I liked the party, an Johns reaction to it. Always love to see some guy waving a gun around drinking his bear.

aaaahh!

I lost the last few minutes...my VCR went off just as they were waking up...what happened?

Despite the familiar plot, the aspect of this epsiode that I enjoyed was the way the clothing and attitudes changed from perspective to perspective - even early on.

They just went to the DHD, McKay began to remove the control crystal again, and Weir said something like "be careful with that, I wanna get home", and McKay jokingly suggested if she meant earth with "home", they could cheat the energy beings and leave for earth after all. - Fade out.

This post has been edited by ted_simple: Sep 11th 2004, 8:58 AM

I'd give 6-7 Out of 10 for this episode. It just bothers me a litte that the character of Simon is played by same guy as Narim.


Anybody noticed some similarities to (4x07 - Watergate) ?

I thought it was a pretty good episode. I really liked the part where Sheppard reveiled that the friends who were in his pad were suppose to be dead. It really wiped the smiles off of their face.

I partially watched this episode because Don S. Davis had a guest starring role. I say "partially" because I channel surfed a bit, turned the tv off and did other things for a while and then came back to it for the last twenty minutes or so.

The "things are not quite what they seem" scenario has been done on all scifi shows. But it was done okay here. I liked how the overlapping points of view were blended together. Especially the scene between Weir and McKay when they finally realized that something weird was happening.

But for a spin-off show that is supposed to explore stories that can't be told in the SG-1 environment, this sure felt like an episode of SG-1. Just minus any characters of interest.

I'm wondering that myself. No answer comes to mind. None whatsoever.

I'm also wondering about his hat. Basic military protocol calls for wearing a hat or "cover" when outside. Not inside. But here's this doofus walking around Atlantis with his hat on. Peter DeLuise learned all this hat/no hat stuff first hand in the SG-1 season 4 episode Prodigy. Was no one else paying attention?

Ford always felt useless, but today I really asked myself what the writers possibly intend to do with his character. I mean, this was an episode which heavily focused on characters, and all that his got was this crappy scene about his transfer to Antarctica.

Maybe Weir and the other three are featured as the main cast, and Ford was never intended to get an equally big role.

This post has been edited by ted_simple: Sep 11th 2004, 11:42 AM

Hm.
Sheppard (to Weir): "It wouldn't be the same without you..."

Oh the irony!

Fun ep, loved the double-double crossing joke during the fade-out.

If it hadn't been for Don Davis's appearance, this would have been a complete waste of electricity. I just watched it to see Don (and to fill in time to re-watch Stargate SG1). Waste time was exactly what I did.
And knowing it wasn't really Hammond at all, I just thought "oh, hell, the gamekeeper was here!"

Hey, didn't the Gamekeeper pose as General Hammond, too? Wow, talk about your original, fresh new series. Seriously, Atlantis needs to stop copying off big sister SG-1. Maybe that's why the ratings have been going consistantly down since the pilot.

Hmm, good observation, I didn't think of it at the time. I find this quite perplexing too, as they did hardly even show his mind at all, really quite strange, and I still don't understand why their minds had Hammond as the SGC commander?! Afterall, they did leave when O'neill had taken command...

[Q] this sure felt like an episode of SG-1. Just minus any characters of interest. [/Q]

Sadly, I think you answered your own question:
Any Sg1 episode, even one without any characters of interest (which I dispute, but whatever) *IS* a story that can no longer be told in an SG1 environment

[Q]Maybe that's why the ratings have been going consistantly down since the pilot. rolleyes.gif[/Q]

Actually, I would speculate that its because the fandom is changing. If we look at the ratings for each episode, we get:

Rising: 3.2
Posisoning the Well: 1.8
38 Minutes: 2.5
Hide and Seek: 2.5
Suspicion: 2.2
Chidhood's End: 1.9

Now, rising is of course justified.
Notice that 38 minutes, alongside Hide and Seek, recieve a 2.5 rating which is quite high.
Childhood's End and Poisoning the Well, when you look at it from a storyline perspective, are much like Traditional S1-S5 SG1 containing interactions with a new culture, new problems, exploration...Yet they recieve a 1.8 and 1.9. That is about 938,000 viewers. 938000 people decided that watching them run around Atlantis or watching them be stuck in a gate was better than a traditional SG1 episode.
If we look at the Fan Rating, the results are slihglty more encouraging: 7.98 average for Posioningthewell-Childhoodsend as opposed to 8.02 average for 38minutes-HideandSeek. A small difference to be sure, but it shows a trend that is a bit worrysome...

I'm sure you've noticed the same thing happening with SG1 as time went on. Zero Hour, Avatar, Lockdown, Covenant, Affinity....In fan ratings, Icon (the only episode so far except for the Ishta one, and even that one is debatable) got a 7.11. Only Affinity scored lower. Zero Hour, Avatar, Lockdown, Covenant...
The influx of more people will always result in a reduction of quality. The producers want money and results, and thus they reduce the quality in order to appeal to the majority. Thus, the "soapeps".

You seemingly agree with me on this subject, and thus if you do then your arguement that Atlantis needs to stop copying from SG1 lest its ratings continue to decline is hypocritical and unfounded

How so? Please explain. Are you referring to the earlier eps of SG-1? Or the latter eps of As the Stargate Turns?

SG-1's ratings are waning as well, but the drop off wasn't as steep as Atlantis's. What happened to all those people who watched Rising?

Well generally, at least in MY opinion, quality has been rising the beginning - plots are becoming more detailed and nuianced, even if the plot itself has been done before. The acting is becoming much better....
However, popularity and viewership seems to be going down. Now, it should be noted that so far the average rating is 2.4, but its slipping

BTW, its not true that Sg1 is waning: Season 6 acerage rating was 1.7, Season 7 is 1.8, and right now the average rating for SG1 is 2.1. See, Stargate is no longer targetting the orignal auidence but a much wider auidence, one that isnt always watching scifi shows. Thus, it needs to be vastly simplified: Scifi plots need to go down tremedously to keep the new viewership. Thus causing "As the Stargate Turns" syndrome.

Eventually Atlantis will catch this as well: Unless the producers have the balls to keep Atlantis going in quality, eventually we'll be seeing love triangles and mysterious murders and all sorts of stuff. Why? Because Atlantis is popular, and to retain popularity it needs to be less scifi. Yes, it is ironic that TV series' on Scifi network need to be less Scifi, but....One word: Farscape

I think those of us who prefer Old SG1 are going to have to face the reality that Stargate SG1 is dead and probably will not be returning. An occasional episode perhaps, but it will not be the rule any longer. Thus I'm going to savor Atlantis while it lasts, before its either cancelled or dumbed down.