Season 1, Episode 17 - Letters from Pegasus
Air Dates - Canada: Jan 10 2005, UK: Feb 15 2005, US: Mar 4 2005

With a brief opportunity to send a data transmission back to Earth, members of the Atlantis expedition compose video messages to their loved ones at home.

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 was an interesting episode. Amanda Tapping was billed at the start, and at the end she said only one word. Which is nonsense. Even though this episode was funny, how we got to see Kavanagh complain about Dr. Weir to O'Neill. Still, this episode wasn't the best one but it was still fun to watch.

It was cool enough


the building for our great finale

Pretty good for a clip show. The SFX during the culling were nice. Weir still annoys me.

One note: have these people ever heard of the pause or rewind button? How much DV tape can you waste?


Edit: I thought they had 20 eps instead of 22 to save money, and we still get a clip show? How cheap!

This post has been edited by Arcady: Jan 11th 2005, 3:48 AM

cant help but feel that the writters were cheating when they came up with how to dial back to earth, but overall not a bad eppy, the close ups of the hiveships were great, at least if the atlantis guys get beat up it'll be done by a cool looking enemy, i do think they got a little too hung up on the whole where do you cross the line issue

I think that Ford was going to edit it after he got everyone's message.

Is it just me or does it seem that the person who is most alone on Atlantis is Sheppard?

Overall, not too bad to be a "clip" show, although there weren't as many clips as I thought there would be when I saw the credits.

Yah, it was my understanding that the ZPM was required to make the connection, and once that was done, the gate draws engery elsewhere to maintain the wormhole.. (remember hearing something of that nature in a previous episode)

But oh well, they need to make more damn episodes - am hooked on atlantis now.

Does sheppard have no family? I guess thats what he meant by "I'm not sure he has a family, not all of us do". Obviously the reason he didnt send a message...

I wonder what happened to them.

This episode has changed atlantis for me, I think it got everything right I liked it before but the last few episodes are really setting it apart from SG1 for me. The characters are really starting to flesh out and its just so damn interesting to watch now.

Also...what was the big beam that the wraith hive ship shot down at the planet?

This post has been edited by Gary83: Jan 11th 2005, 7:31 AM

[quote=PsXDnS,Jan 11th 2005, 6:09 AM]
Yah, it was my understanding that the ZPM was required to make the connection, and once that was done, the gate draws engery elsewhere to maintain the wormhole.. (remember hearing something of that nature in a previous episode)


In the Episode "Home" Mckay suggests to Gen Hammond that although the ZPM was almost depleted it would only be needed for 3.5 Microseconds to get an Eight Chevron Lock,after that the Planet's Electrical Field would sustain the wormhole.

He used the Reverse Charge Analogy to convince Hammond to try.

How did they manage to cheat and dial Earth in this Eps,I'm in Australia and the D/L's seem to be getting harder to get hold of ???

They used naquada generators to power the gate (which would only be established for 1.3 seconds, according to McKay), and sent highly-compressed data through it.

I thought the ep was alrite. It was a bit of a cheat by the writers i think...

It would have been good to see what the SGC made of it, would have made the ep much better, or worse if they had to cram the stuff in (probably couldn't have gone off planet). Well I hope they do a bit on it in some future SG1. Since Atlantis can send a message, the SGC can too (they did just use naquada generators?). So they will be able to respond, tell them the Prometheus will be there... or something.


toddy67: I find it pretty easy to get them...350MB eps, started at about 2pm today (Tuesday) finished about 10pm. I use bittorents, TorrentSpy.com. (oh i use torrent storm program).

Not the worst clip show (SG-1's were unbearable) I'd say.
Plus more attention was on the letters and the culling rather than the actual clips.

The Sheppard/Teyla conflict was a bit lame and overdone, though...

Perhaps that big beam was some sort of collector, after the victims are caught the "big" beam "collects" them and transports them up to the hive ship to save time and trouble of getting them off each individual fighter ship.

And damn, who else was counting down the minutes, fearing such a pathetic appearance of Carter?

You couldn't call it a clip show as most of the show was new stuff and the story focused far more on the culling of the village and the messages home then the clips.

I think the Sheppard and Teyla conflict on the Puddle Jumper was very well, i am starting to suspect that their is a romantic future possible for the two of them, maybe in a few more series time.

The Wraith ships look very cool, amazing to see and i can't wait to find out how Atlantis and Earth can take on the Wraith ships. It was also great to see all the different characters of Atlantis and how they approached doing the video recording and saying goodbye, some were very sad, others took the time to complain, and Mckay was very funny when doing it. Mckay, is the character that seems to evolved the most, since we first saw him back in Sg1.

didn't see her name at all in the opening!

i got so carried away when the message was sent through successfully. immediately after that i went onto the net to find out if there is any future coming episode that is gonna talk about the message in sgc. apprantly, they will keep this bit of story for later. damn.

atlantis is not exactly a spin off right? joey is a spin off of friends and frasier is of cheers. anyway, be great when i got to see some interaction between these two, not much though.

This post has been edited by hykl: Jan 11th 2005, 12:11 PM

A clip show it was realy well done by Miro and the rest of the team and Ms. Tapping was credited so was Gary Jones

I liked this episode. Altho the ending could have been better. Maybe seen SGC do something else, although kinda a good cliff hanger. It was a bit sad at the end with them all saying goodbye.

Should make for an interesting rest of series anyhoo.

I like this episode. It was filled with emotion and McKay was just too funny

Though there were some bad parts for example when Carter received the message, they should have done something like rush up and tell O'Neill or something. The good-bye part was very sad.. as I said; this episode was filled with emotional feelings. The producers/writters did some good thinking here, they actually made an episode where it would be all about emotions.

? Sheppard had to choose whether or not to stay and wait for Oron's family or leave.
? McKay talked something very nice about his sister.. and of course leadership lol
? Shaq and Kobe? lol He's so far off there. Shaq switched teams!

And so on..

It took me a while to realize too why he was so far off. Good thinking by the writers.

Overall definitely a step above the seasonal clip shows of SG-1 because there was some real action too. Some of the Atlantis cast is also growing on me and Weir's messages to families of KIA was really moving.

I think we got the basic idea but can anyone actually translate what Zelenka was saying?

It looks like the only clip we will see from the SGC looking at them will be Dr. McKay's. After all, David Hewlett according to imdb is credited with the part of Dr. McKay, and it falls in perfect timing when this airs on SciFi. 819 Morpheus I think it is called is the episode with Dr. McKay. Which means it would come on the same week as 118 Gift. Still, this was a good episode for the most part.

Very emotional episode, little less of the family story and more of reaction from SGC as said above would have been preferred. McKay was slightly weird, but it was near a tear-jerker especially when Carson never burst in tears. I thought Simon had security clearance and how come they didn't realise that 8 chevrons were lit back at the SGC and not the usual 7 -- strange. All in all, a very good attempt at an emotional story and hopefully will not be the last.

Worth 8/10

This post has been edited by Carter-Hot: Jan 11th 2005, 3:44 PM

about mckay

best laugh of atlantis so far hehee

shouldnt this have been a two parter?

Ok I think it was a great episode, BUT they way they got the stargate up and running with those naquada generators is just strange. I mean they are empty now right? What do they use for power now? Especially if you know there is an armada of enemy ships comming. O well the writers didn't realy think of that one I think (or I didn't pay attansion).

Ok last tiny thing, if they can get a gate from atlantis with those naquada generators then why can't the SGC on earth. I mean they got TONS of naquada generators. Hell they make them. So very strange that they can't get a gate open to Atlantis unless offcourse they never though of the idea.

It would have been better if it were a 2 part. I would so want to see an episode of SG-1 where Carter is decrypting the codes and reading the messages.




lol he's all explaning in Czech and after Ford was like...

Ford: You're not saying anything that requires security clearance are you?
Zelenka: Security Clearance?



Naquada generators last for a very long time. They still use the naquada generators plus they brought alot of them. They have like.. 10 more to spare..

This post has been edited by Evo: Jan 11th 2005, 4:07 PM