UNEDITED EXCLUSIVE: Stargate Atlantis Season 2 Episode 9 "Aurora" REACTION!

Nice write. I think understanding the situation was worth the toast.

Jay Newcombe

Something that always struck me about the Ancient warship design is how much it reminds me of Earth's ships. It kind of extends into how Earth's technology seems to be on a simialr trajectory to that of the ancients, even without the alien augmentation it's gotten over the years. Missiles are just lower tech drones. The Daedalus class shares the blocky, antenna-laden look of the Aurora. We're out there forming alliances of great civilizations (Tok'ra and Jaffa). It all kind of rhymes for me.

This episode is a classic for a number of reasons. First, it's pretty cool to see what an ancient warship actually looked like, even it it was rather beat up. Second, the Aurora crew are fairly memorable despite their brief appearance, especially the captain. And third, the team dynamic was especially strong here. I really do appreciate how down to earth the crew seemed to be overall. Aside from a few like Janus or Ayiana or Orlin, ancients generally seem to have a fairly persistent arrogance to them. The crew mostly seemed like ordinary people and the captain a fellow soldier to Sheppard. It's a shame they weren't able to get the intel, or at least some info to help them find or produce drones or ZPMs, but they did take out 2 wraith cruisers, so at least in death the crew of the Aurora achieved one last victory. Ronon didn't do a ton in this episode, but that opening scene was pretty fun still. Love how Weir is sitting there making a passionate argument for him to stay on the team and he's just standing there like "relax woman, I'm just done with my lunch". They actually brought in 2 real chess champions to give that scene a sense of realism, and they even rearranged the board from how the crew left it to make it more realistic. That's a lot of dedication for 2 no name characters who are on screen for just a few seconds. And again, really find the antagonism between Weir and Caldwell to be just unnecessary. Also Carson is MIA this episode. Still, I think the rest of the squad stands out pretty well. First off, Teyla's technobabble was genuinely convincing, especially for how fast and confident she was in coming up with it. She's clearly been paying attention to McKay's work. I like that her character is evolving past the "sexy alien martial artist/warrior" trope and really becoming someone who can keep the team on task in Sheppard's absence. John obviously had centre stage in interacting with the Aurora crew, but I also feel McKay earned a degree of redemption for his failings in Trinity. As much as McKay is played off as a coward, he steps up when his friends are in trouble. Finally, the scene at the end is rather touching. You have to remember that they were barely in contact with the crew for a hour. They didn't know these people. For them to take the time to raise a glass and have a moment of silence for fellow soldiers, even ones 10,000 years out of time, it's a great way to end the episode.

Timothy Nikiforovs