Submersion (SG Atlantis Review)

Airdate: 06/08/07

Writer: Ken Cuperus Director: Brenton Spencer

The Atlantis team docks the puddle jumper at a Atlantean geothermal drilling station(platform), looking for an unlimited power supply from the thermal power. And even after the last five-star episode-one thing hasn't changed: McKay is still a whiner.

By the way, what is "Oh, zing" besides Mckay's favorite new catchphrase?

The team has spent hours together in similar situation to that of the space shuttle crew all cramped up inside. Their mission: to power up the station, and find out why the project was abandoned by the ancients.

Teyla senses a Wraith presence nearby the drilling platform, but it's not on the life signs detector, thus they believe it is the pressure affecting her mind. Dr. Weir and Teyla agree for Teyla to check via establishing a mind-link to the Wraith, but the Wraith ends up being too strong for her, thereby remaining undetected. Got to love the references to "The Abyss." Finally, we get to see Teyla in action, though more in the telepathic sense. The station looses power and the force fields lock down the grid sections. Dickinson and Graydon are red shirts if I've ever seen them. Interesting that Rodney hired the wrong guy after all and that if Dr. Grayson had gone on this mission, then he most certainly would not have survived.

An experienced queen centuries old is their foe. By the way, why didn't the life-signs detector pick the Queen up? The reason the episode gives us is that she was not on board yet, but don't they run the life-signs detector again while she is on board? Theory: the ancient Wraith queen is so powerful that she is able to mask her presence in their minds. ---mask the minds of all who check the life-signs detector with an illusion.

You have to love the occasional science fiction references to Star Trek. In a past episode, John Sheppard is compared to Captain Kirk by McKay for being a lady's man. In this episode, Dickinson threatens to call Dr. McKay, Dr. McCoy, which he should have. One of the micro-morals of this episode is to say what you think because you might not get another chance. And McKay refers to Teyla's gift as "Teyla's spidey sense."

Teyla opened her mind to the Wraith queen. Rachel Luttrell's acting was brilliant and everyone at our Sci-Fi Friday gathering was impressed with how she was able to portray herself as possessed by the Wraith. Others commented that even the way that she walked and spoke was different.

This queen is so powerful that she can control another person's mind-even Colonel Sheppard's. The costuming choice for the Wraith was exquisite and this queen is the most distinctive queen ever as we see her personality through how driven she is; we know how far she will go, and that she will stop at nothing short of her goals. The Atlanteans faced in her a fearsome foe-ruthless.

The Wraith queen tells them that they are, "All about to die." They find that they didn't notice a Wraith cruiser completely buried in silt because it was emitting a low EM field. They theorize that she swam over through the crushing depths, constantly healing herself (I'd hate to see this queen at full power).

And why doesn't she have a name? She led the first wave of hive ships against Atlantis in the great war, and was the Queen of a great alliance. This earmarks her as important, and we should know her name.

The queen fed on her crew, and cyclically woke and slept like a bear in hibernation. Yet after millennia, she is foiled when she gets to the only means of her escape-the jumper- and doesn't possess the gene to fly the Atlantean ship.

Did anybody notice Teyla's eyes going white while she was trying to read the queen's mail?-Neat effect-even if it is reminiscent of Storm. Again, what is this queen's name? Not that they care, but if Teyla's reading her mind, then it shouldn't be that hard to figure out for Teyla, and would have fit nicely in right before the "Queen of a Great Alliance" bit. Was this an alliance of only Wraith factions, or did other races join up with them that we have yet to encounter? After a while, with only "Wraith Queen" to differentiate them, it can be confusing talking about them, and unlike Borg Queens, I am sure that Wraith Queens actually have designations.

Poor Ronon-the guy has to have a high pain-threshold. Ronon sure is gullible in this one, but I don't blame him the first time. But the reason he probably left them together was him hoping that Teyla would kill her.

They lose the control room, and with no time for a rescue jumper, we sure are lucky that these ancients were not all super telekinetically endowed with power, and that some of them needed mechanical devices to explore the depths. If the Wraith vessel blows, Atlantis and the geothermal platform both go out. Teyla basically tells the Wraith Queen, "Bring it on Bitch," in her own unique way.

The wraith cruiser was covered in silk, which is why they didn't see it on the way down. Wraith technology must be superior to maintain an atmosphere for so long. The queen activates the self-destruct sequence on her cruiser, and the Atlantis team must find a way to stop it from creating a chain reaction at the power station and destroying everything that we care about on the Atlantis planet. I won't tell you how it ends, but I will tell you this: this episode is great sci-fi.

Will we see this queen again? It would be nice to have named Queens and Wraith characters that return from time to time--this is what makes Michael such a unique character. Atlantis is in need of more villains currently--villains with names. By developing each Queen or high ranking male Wraith, we get to see the boundaries and the extent of Wraith culture.

For examples of a good Wraith enemy, Atlantis writers can turn to "ST II: The Wrath of Khan," or the traitor-ess in "ST: The Undiscovered Country." The head Replicator was a good enemy for Atlantis as was the past two Genii leaders. Atlantis should really remove the power device from the Wraith cruiser if it really poses such a great threat to the station-seriously-this would make a good future episode.

The Wraith, like the Ori, go back to StarGate having its own mythology to pull from though some could argue that the Wraith are much akin to vampires--it is a rebirth of mythology for a generation without any mythology of its own as Joseph Campbell said in "The Power of Myth."