From GateWorld:

This episode includes the following guest characters: Keras (a village "elder"), Ares , Neleus and Pelias (also elders), Ennea (a pregnant villager), Cleo and Casta (villagers).

Major Sheppard, McKay, Ford and Teyla crash-land their "puddle jumper" ship on an alien world with a strong electro-magnetic field. There they meet Keras, one of the elders of the indigenous population -- only Keras is just 24 years old. There is no one older in the village, and the team soon learns the disturbing reason.

Long ago, the people of this world were among the many 'harvested' by the Wraith. (Their name for the Stargate is the "Wraith well.") To try and protect their people from this, they instituted a practice of ritual suicide. Their culture believes that to die at the hands of an enemy prevents their souls from finding eternal rest -- so it is better to die at one's own hand before the Wraith come for you. Whenever one of them reaches his (or her) 25th birthday, he ends his life. The villages have come to rely on this to protect them from the Wraith, who have never returned in the 500 years since the practice was begun. And tomorrow is young Keras' 25th birthday.

The Atlantis team, however, discovers that it is the planet's powerful electro-magnetic field that is protecting them from the Wraith's interest. Major Sheppard must convince them to abandon their long-held beliefs -- that the death of Keras and so many others is not necessary. Meanwhile, Ares, another of the elders, plots against the intruders.

Now, that is an episode to think about. I like the look of the Atlantis plots so far. Hopefully we'll get them just as good as SG-1.

Similar episodes (in general plot) off the top of my head

Farscape season 2 - Taking the Stone.
ST: TOS - Miri (not as much)


(Dont mean to take anything away from this episode, but i like bringing to attention similar episodes)

Yea, but you're talking about Farscape. Hate to break it to you Otriman, but that wasn't the greatest of shows. In fact I think Jar-Jar Binks would've been right at home there.

damn filler episodes

the series is going to be full of them

anyone notice alantis 103, and sg1 803 were bascially them same. both dealing with an well anscended EVIL being? anbuis and who nos wat the other one was! i guess not so much asscneded but still energy!

Anyone old enough to remember "Logan's Run"? That was a sci-fi series back in the 70's about how humans only live to age 21. At 21, eveyone is euthanized so that society would be filled with young, productive people only.

TauJin

I was wondering how long it'd be before someone mentioned Logan's Run in referance to this ep.

I don't think this is really a filler ep. It's a lot like the episodes which made up the first 4 seasons of stargate. They travel to a world that has built a culture or belief around the main baddie and try to get them to stop it.

I thought I recognized one of the elders from the commercial. He looked like Lt. Elliot from 'Proving Ground' (only remembered him because it was shown a couple of days ago on Sci-Fi). I checked this at GateWorld and I was right, the same actor will be playing Keras.

YES...If you hadn't said it, I would have

I've only seen the teaser a few times, but that face does remind me of the Lt. from proving ground.

A lot of re-used actors lately...and I hear the actor who plays Narim is going to portray someone too.

I'm fed up with episodes 103-105 all being some kind of filler episodes!
Hopefully we get the first good offworld story here!

Those filler eps have tied up so many loose ends its untrue ...

wasent there a simmilar episode on sg-1?? something about the christian community and they giving up a female to the guauld? sorry i dont remember which episode that was.
yeah true the filler episodes do sometimes tie up loose ends, afterall its the least they can do not to keep the audience from sleeping

if narim is the tollan guy that likes CARTER, then yes. NARIM is also weir's husband back on earth.

Hmmm.. Beyond Thunderdome meets Logans Run ?

See, they have Courtney J. Stevens (Lt. Elliot) playing another role and he looks different, why couldn't they do the same with Garwin Sanford (Narim/Simon) ???

I hope McKay has some good lines in this one to keep me interested.

ps. Mitch_Conner - associating Jar Jar Binks with Farscape is like comparing a Yugo with a Ferrari. You did not get Farscape, that's fine, some don't, but the quality of Farscape is light years beyond anything Lucas is concocting these days.

This post has been edited by Ehzarhorden: Aug 13th 2004, 6:28 PM

Well, I just saw it, and as for myself, I think Mckay had some cool (and very funny parts I might add) lines in this episode.

Though, Lt. Ford has some even funnier ones.

All that chocolate...lol! Can't wait to see what everyone else thinks.

I'll admit you have a point there, but the show's characters kinda looked like something off of Hercules: The Legendary Journey's. Not saying I hated either show, I just wasn't impressed visually.

The premise behind this episode was retarded. These kid's ancestors built a magnetic field which effectively knocks out Wraith ships yet they ran out of ZPM's to power it? Worse yet, why didn't the Ancients use this to fight them and win? Just like what the SGA crew said, the Wraith lost their tech. advantage because of the field emitted by this thing and couldn't harvest humans so why the Ancients didn't use this or distribute them to every human planet is beyond me. Worse yet, population control wouldn't even play a role as long as teenagers in heat (i doubt there's a real family structure w/people this young) have 2 kids before the age of 25.

The only way these things could be explained away is if there is a high mortality rate among infants (which wouldn't be surprising given how low tech these kids are) and that the people that built the field did it towards the end of the harvesting and had no more resources to build more of them or ZPMs. The fact that they didn't even hint at that was kinda annoying to me.

This post has been edited by 5150Joker: Aug 15th 2004, 8:12 AM