Outsiders - Review
12/11/2008 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachel500Outsiders is the 12th episode in Season 5 of Stargate Atlantis.
Review
Moral ambiguity is tackled every so often in Stargate Atlantis and Outsiders definitely tackles it in spades. It provides a good, solid outing for the Atlantis team and the story is a nice mix of action and drama with a great pairing with McKay and Beckett. That’s not to say that it is without flaws; the pacing is a little off, there is some confusion around details at the end of the episode and ultimately the moral questions while raised are never fully answered.
The main attraction of the story is the teaming of friends McKay and Beckett. Since the introduction of the clone, the audience has been waiting for them to be reunited in a story that allows them to spend time together and Outsiders delivers as they both get captured and taken to the Hive ship. Their scenes together are sharp: sometimes played for humour (the scene with the dart is just laugh out loud funny as is McKay’s reminder to Beckett that he’ll have to cover him) and sometimes showing their friendship for the other (McKay telling Beckett that what has happened isn’t his fault, Beckett joining McKay for lunch). Hewlett and McGillion do a great job. They work together well; their characters work together and the great thing about their time on the Hive ship is that neither character is a soldier so their boy’s own escape provides some innate funniness.
The humour is well-played and nicely mixed in with what is otherwise quite a heavy storyline. McCullough’s stories often do have a political, social-historical subtext such as back in Tabula Rasa where the underlying theme of civilian rebellion in a military tyranny is woven into the plot. Here there are nods to discrimination and the role of collaborators in war. Neither are particularly easy topics to tackle without judgement and Outsiders doesn’t even make the attempt by marrying them together: those who turn on the ‘outsiders’ (both within the villagers and the Belaran who hands over Beckett) are the ones that collaborate with the Wraith, and all are killed as a consequence. There is some attempt through the discussions on what is the right thing to do, to paint them with a little more depth than simply bad people but there is only so much that can be done in the time available and ultimately all the collaborators are shown as not caring that their acts are morally questionable.
The question that remains though is whether our erstwhile heroes care about their morally questionable acts as Sheppard presses the button that kills a number of the Wraith and the village collaborators, and turns to tell the village leader, ‘Nice work.’ While Flanigan acts his socks off to convey that moment with regret and irony as does the leader, there is no follow up scene and the episode is the weaker for it.
The question of collaboration is also explored in the McKay/Beckett thread which has Beckett told to assist the Wraith in finding a way to detect the Hoffman toxin. Here Beckett refuses to collaborate and escapes; is redeemed by his lack of collaboration. The problem is that this thread barely touches on the fact that Beckett was largely responsible for the development of the drug in the first place and the clone was forced to collaborate further with Michael on it. When Beckett notes his first directive as a doctor is to ‘do no harm’ one wonders where his adherence to the Hippocratic oath was during his involvement with biogenetic viral weapons against the Wraith. Still, the thread allows some redemption for Beckett as he destroys the Wraith’s research and uses it to create a way for himself and McKay to escape.
The effects of the dart restoring McKay and Beckett to the team are well done and it is great to have that sense of the team on a mission together that is created within the episode. The story allows for the various season arcs to progress nicely and there is even a nice nod to the McKay/Keller arc at the end. I have to give the producers and writers credit for improving their arc skills this season.
However, on the negative side, the pacing of the story lags in places; primarily through the second and third acts. It is thought-provoking but scenes of endless discussion on what to do don’t provide enough dynamism to keep the momentum going at times. The other small glitch is the suggestion that the entire village apart from the locked-up villainous collaborators are evacuated to Atlantis at the end but the numbers shown escaping through the Stargate are just a handful. While realistically I know 600-700 people couldn’t be shown, it also doesn’t feel realistic that they had time to evacuate that number and I was firmly of the opinion only the Belarans had been evacuated until I watched a second time.
Overall, as I quite enjoy the more morally ambiguous episodes for the characters, I did enjoy Outsiders. It’s thought-provoking even if it doesn’t quite show enough contemplation and impact to our heroes from the acts shown. And while the episode didn’t quite sweep me off my feet, it was a good solid episode with a great sense of team, of friendship and a natural progression of the Atlantis story arcs.
Review
Moral ambiguity is tackled every so often in Stargate Atlantis and Outsiders definitely tackles it in spades. It provides a good, solid outing for the Atlantis team and the story is a nice mix of action and drama with a great pairing with McKay and Beckett. That’s not to say that it is without flaws; the pacing is a little off, there is some confusion around details at the end of the episode and ultimately the moral questions while raised are never fully answered.
The main attraction of the story is the teaming of friends McKay and Beckett. Since the introduction of the clone, the audience has been waiting for them to be reunited in a story that allows them to spend time together and Outsiders delivers as they both get captured and taken to the Hive ship. Their scenes together are sharp: sometimes played for humour (the scene with the dart is just laugh out loud funny as is McKay’s reminder to Beckett that he’ll have to cover him) and sometimes showing their friendship for the other (McKay telling Beckett that what has happened isn’t his fault, Beckett joining McKay for lunch). Hewlett and McGillion do a great job. They work together well; their characters work together and the great thing about their time on the Hive ship is that neither character is a soldier so their boy’s own escape provides some innate funniness.
The humour is well-played and nicely mixed in with what is otherwise quite a heavy storyline. McCullough’s stories often do have a political, social-historical subtext such as back in Tabula Rasa where the underlying theme of civilian rebellion in a military tyranny is woven into the plot. Here there are nods to discrimination and the role of collaborators in war. Neither are particularly easy topics to tackle without judgement and Outsiders doesn’t even make the attempt by marrying them together: those who turn on the ‘outsiders’ (both within the villagers and the Belaran who hands over Beckett) are the ones that collaborate with the Wraith, and all are killed as a consequence. There is some attempt through the discussions on what is the right thing to do, to paint them with a little more depth than simply bad people but there is only so much that can be done in the time available and ultimately all the collaborators are shown as not caring that their acts are morally questionable.
The question that remains though is whether our erstwhile heroes care about their morally questionable acts as Sheppard presses the button that kills a number of the Wraith and the village collaborators, and turns to tell the village leader, ‘Nice work.’ While Flanigan acts his socks off to convey that moment with regret and irony as does the leader, there is no follow up scene and the episode is the weaker for it.
The question of collaboration is also explored in the McKay/Beckett thread which has Beckett told to assist the Wraith in finding a way to detect the Hoffman toxin. Here Beckett refuses to collaborate and escapes; is redeemed by his lack of collaboration. The problem is that this thread barely touches on the fact that Beckett was largely responsible for the development of the drug in the first place and the clone was forced to collaborate further with Michael on it. When Beckett notes his first directive as a doctor is to ‘do no harm’ one wonders where his adherence to the Hippocratic oath was during his involvement with biogenetic viral weapons against the Wraith. Still, the thread allows some redemption for Beckett as he destroys the Wraith’s research and uses it to create a way for himself and McKay to escape.
The effects of the dart restoring McKay and Beckett to the team are well done and it is great to have that sense of the team on a mission together that is created within the episode. The story allows for the various season arcs to progress nicely and there is even a nice nod to the McKay/Keller arc at the end. I have to give the producers and writers credit for improving their arc skills this season.
However, on the negative side, the pacing of the story lags in places; primarily through the second and third acts. It is thought-provoking but scenes of endless discussion on what to do don’t provide enough dynamism to keep the momentum going at times. The other small glitch is the suggestion that the entire village apart from the locked-up villainous collaborators are evacuated to Atlantis at the end but the numbers shown escaping through the Stargate are just a handful. While realistically I know 600-700 people couldn’t be shown, it also doesn’t feel realistic that they had time to evacuate that number and I was firmly of the opinion only the Belarans had been evacuated until I watched a second time.
Overall, as I quite enjoy the more morally ambiguous episodes for the characters, I did enjoy Outsiders. It’s thought-provoking even if it doesn’t quite show enough contemplation and impact to our heroes from the acts shown. And while the episode didn’t quite sweep me off my feet, it was a good solid episode with a great sense of team, of friendship and a natural progression of the Atlantis story arcs.
