SGA 3x03: A man's perspective on "Sateda."

[icarus]

A man's perspective on "Sateda."

wildernessguru and I just watched "Sateda" twice, back to back.

Ronon

Finally, we get more about Ronon's life and background beyond just a few flashbacks. What Sateda's culture was like. His girlfriend. The hospital. And the announcement over the radio with that corrupt motherfucker saying "we're a brave society and we're going to fight" was very revealing. We saw just how well Sateda fought.

Ronon's of a warrior class. He's no common soldier, he has commando training, more so than John. Sheppard might have been a Special Ops chopper pilot, someone who gets by on bravado and improvising, but Ronon's the real thing.

What we saw of Ronon's team, his friends, those weren't just some guards -- those were the Elite. They were used as cover to get out the command staff. You don't use just anyone for that, you use the best. Because they're the only ones that'll hold.

I liked the battle scenarios. It was fitting and ironic that the Wraith brought Ronon back to his home planet. They underestimated him and his knowledge of the terrain and the arsenals that were left behind.

That's where you saw Ronon's commando training when all he had was a knife. That's what you do, you get your opponent into an enclosed space and in the pitch black -- very smart. Ronon's a warrior, not just a soldier. He shows it in the way he constantly improvises, thinking of strategies even when he's down.

Weaponry

Wow, the Satedan guns fired -- man, those were the size of 40 mm grenade rounds. Atlantis should go back to Sateda and get some of those.

John

The scene in the galley with Teyla is some of the best acting Joe Flannigan has done. There were a lot of tender moments throughout the story.

As for slashiness (wildernessguru here inserts that he's not a slash person) but, I knew you guys would love the scene with Rodney on the floor.

Icarus asks, "What did you think of it?" (I confess to a smirk.)

It was cute. But it was really the interaction between Rodney and the doctor that I liked best. You could tell that Carson likes him and yet has no qualms telling him exactly what he thinks -- in a nice way.

Caldwell

The discussion with Caldwell playing the devil's advocate is what the show needs, you have to have that and not (in a sarcastic girly-voice): "everyone's on board, let's go!" That's what makes the show work. Caldwell's hard-core military and seems more principled than emotional. He's not on the field-unit level. He's at the command-level, the man who leads a hundred men. You're not going to risk all of them to save one guy. Also his "Don't lecture me about not leaving anyone behind" was a reference to Michael. Ouch.

The Wraith

The super-Wraith was a little ridiculous, but I liked that we have individuals in the Wraith, they're not just demons. Liked the plot-line overall, that Ronon obviously had history with the super-Wraith, and used that knowledge, and his intuition. When Ronon was being hunted on Sateda, you got this shit guy in dark glasses. A specialist. Not just a dehumanized, a Wraith without a face.

Weak points?

Well, that remote control camera. When it picked up on John and Teyla -- wouldn't the super-Wraith have sent in some Wraith soldiers to take out those two?

And then there's the gateroom. Again. When Rodney came through, those soldiers ran up with NO SHIELDS, just carrying their guns. All the Wraith need to do is get their hands on an IDC and throw in a couple hand grenades. Their security is ABSURD.

Drives me nuts every episode.

Overall rating

Icarus: "So on a scale of one to ten, what would you give this one?"

Well, I never give anything a ten. I'm usually critical, you know that. So, hmm, well... I'd give it an 8.7.

Comments

[moxie-brown.livejournal.com]

I love his POV. I've read some reviews that are like, Carson and John are so meeeeaaaaaaaan to poor Rodney, but I think their disparagement means they are at ease and more comfortable with him than others. Teasing and harsh words==true love in dude-speak.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think their disparagement means they are at ease and more comfortable with him than others. Teasing and harsh words==true love in dude-speak.

Absolutely. You should hear wildernessguru with his best friend, The Puppy. Sounds just like John and Rodney, really. Also, they fart for each other. Save it up until they can nail each other in the car.

True love.

(Unofficially, wildernessguru says Carson adores Rodney. You can see it in his face.)

Icarus

[moxie-brown.livejournal.com]

(Unofficially, [info]wildernessguru says Carson adores Rodney. You can see it in his face.)

*cough* More like Paul McGillion loves David Hewlett. Seriously, the expressions on his face are total fondness that I think the writers weren't intending with Carson.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

No kidding, hee. It's definitely shining through. (I don't think he can help it.)

Icarus

[moxie-brown.livejournal.com]

Hehe, he most definitely can't, which takes my mind to very naughty places. :)

[celestialseason.livejournal.com]

It's nice to hear a guy's perspective on this. I have always felt that the way John talks to Rodney sometimes (the harsher words) were just his way of expressing his friendship. Having said that, it was nice to see a 'gentler' moment between them in the lab. Are you guys watching SG-1 as well? Specifically did you watch the crossover last week (The Pegasus Project)?

[meredevachon]

That's where you saw Ronon's commando training when all he had was a knife.

Especially as he fashioned said knife by lashing a length of pipe to a shard of glass(?) with some leather he pulled off of something else.

When Rodney came through, those soldiers ran up with NO SHIELDS, just carrying their guns.

And as someone else (I can't remember who) pointed out, Elizabeth approached the incoming gate after Rodney came through (with an arrow in his butt), and none of the guards tried to stop her. Way to watch out for your civilian leader, guys.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Especially as he fashioned said knife by lashing a length of pipe to a shard of glass(?) with some leather he pulled off of something else.

Way cool. Also, the Jean-Claude VanDamme manuever on the ceiling. They never look up until too late.

none of the guards tried to stop her. Way to watch out for your civilian leader, guys

No shit! You think that they would have learned after the Genii at least. *snickers*

Icarus

[xanthelj.livejournal.com]

I loved the alternative viewpoint and the take on all the "boys stuff" *g*. And I'm particularly interested in the fact that Carson "adores" Rodney. I'm interested that a guy saw that - I'll have to go back and watch it again and look at what he's seeing. I mean, I think Carson adores Rodney, pretty much like PM clearly adores DH, but I'm surprised a guy would see it that way :-). Thanks for sharing this - I really enjoyed it. Esp the thing about the security in the gateroom! LOL!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think his actual words were that Carson has crush on Rodney, but he pegs the gay stuff all the time (you should hear what he has to say about Jack/Daniel in SG-1). WG's past, er, isn't entirely straight.

Icarus

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

(you should hear what he has to say about Jack/Daniel in SG-1)

Oh man, I so, *SO* would like to hear his Guy Thoughts on Jack/Daniel. :D

(Not least because I watch the show every week with two guys. One of whom is gay, and has a big ol' crush on Daniel, so forget him being objective or anything. And the other of whom is like, he doesn't dislike slash, it's just that Jack in particular strikes him as very, VERY straight, so he can see the buddy thing but not the slash thing.)

[wildernessguru.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jack ain't totally straight. Go back through lots of episodes and he's got hand gestures that have got "pink" written all over them. In Shades of Grey no straight guy would be caught dead holding a beer bottle like that, the limp-wristed way he twirls it around. Same with Full Circle, his gestures (in the elevator with ascended Daniel on the line "just today...") and the way he talked to Daniel was faggish, my god, man.

[darsnape-dracul.livejournal.com]

Dude, please write more summaries for eps. It's interesting to see it from your point of view, especially when you're willing to admit to the slashiness factos. {Please.)

[wildernessguru.livejournal.com]

LOL I'll try! :)

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

Yes! Yes! See? This is what I'm talking about. I don't know where he gets it. I mean, I don't know what the heck RDA is *thinking* when he does stuff like that. All the roles RDA has played where he's been allowed to relax and put a lot of himself into it wind up being this way. You almost have to wonder if it's unconscious on his part. Yet, surely someone has mentioned this to him at some point.

(I've seen MS speaking at cons saying that even during earlier episodes, when they'd be watching them afterwards, CJ would turn to them and be like, "Man, you guys are queer", and MS's comment on that is, "And the thing was, I couldn't disagree with him". So it's not like they weren't aware and talking about it.)

Personally, I treasure Jack's queenliness. It sure does make him a... different sort of Big Competent Military Professional character, that's for sure. But it does kind of make my mind boggle when people hold Jack up as the epitome of arrow-straight, because... *dude*.

[scififreak.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised more people didn't pick up on Carson/Rodney in that very telling scene. And yes, there are ships flying everywhere in that ep, so maybe they all missed it, but to me it was clear as day. I mean, Rodney finishing up his rant with "...but you wouldn't know that because you don't look beyond the surface", storming out, and then Carson's face! The Look on his face that so clearly says "I've looked beyond the surface, Rodney, and I like what I see." Er, or something like that.

And Caldwell, always the unpopular voice of reason. lol

[celestialseason.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing you opinion wildernessguru. This has become one of my all time favorite Stargate episodes. I just love that we got to see more warrior Ronon, and the team love was great.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

Great perspective -- thanks for relaying it!

Ronon -- I totally agree with the assessment that he was in an elite commando unit. I would have liked to get a better sense of what rank he'd been. Because again, from what we've seen of him on the team in Atlantis, you know he's a badass fighter, but this ep really opened up and showed us his resume, so to speak. It showed us what he can do. And what he can do is run rings around a lot of the guys on Atlantis, including John. In comparison to SG-1, I'd put him on a par with Jack and Teal'c, and mainly lacking their years of experience (he's a young version of them).

Yet... he didn't really make an issue out of it, before, and I doubt he'll make an issue out of it now. Which is... interesting. I don't mean to be simplistic about it, but, I would have thought that you didn't get to be that level of commando without a lot of self-confidence. Ronon just doesn't have much of an ego, that I can see. I mean -- can he really look at John and *not* evaluate what John's level is, as a ground-forces warrior, compared to his own? But that doesn't appear to bother him. He doesn't put himself forward, he doesn't make a point about his training and experience. It's interesting.

I know that there are a lot of reasons why a guy like Ronon may follow a leader. I myself have some issues with John (and with Mitchell over on SG-1) as the leader of a ground-force team, but... I'm assuming Ronon responds to John's leadership for some other reason. John's charisma, maybe, or the fact that he cares about his people, or something. The sense I've gotten from Ronon is that, quintessential commando though he is, he *isn't* on a par with Jack or Teal'c because both of them are also natural leaders, and that is the thing that Ronon isn't. We've seen that before. He wants to be given orders. He wants to follow a good commander.

It's an interesting parallel to Jack and Teal'c -- in the way that Teal'c is so much more badass than Jack, and so much more experienced (having been supreme general of armies), yet he makes the decision to acknowledge Jack as the commander. (In the beginning you could call this expedient, but largely, I don't think it is, or is supposed to be; Teal'c seems to think Jack is a leader worth following.) (You could argue, though, that Jack is a better commando than Teal'c, who was used to leading armies, and frontal assault more than guerilla warfare.) Ronon similarly has conferred his loyalty on a man who's his inferior in skill and training, possibly in native ability as well.

The biggest problem I see, as mentioned above, is that not only does Ronon not seem to have much of an ego -- he just isn't very forthcoming, as far as I can tell, about his abilities. I feel like John underutilizes him, and doesn't appreciate what he's got in Ronon. Now that we've seen more of Ronon's past and him in action, I feel that even more. But it also seems like Ronon hasn't exactly sat John down and given him a thorough professional assessment of his background and training and what that means in comparison with the Earth military. And unfortunately, John didn't get to see what we just saw -- he only came in on the end. So he still doesn't really know or appreciate what Ronon is, necessarily, and I'm betting that Ronon still isn't going to tell him.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

The guns -- seriously. It'd be great to see some of those show up in the background in later eps. And it's not like SG-1 didn't scavenge when they liked a technology they found (the zats, the intars). Am pretty sure Atlantis has scavenged before this, too.

But then, honestly, I've been saying this since Ronon showed up with his personal weapon. That thing alone should have all of the military guys on Atlantis perking up and looking interested in where he got it, and are there more where that came from? You look cool wielding it, in a very Dirty Harry way, but also it's just useful. And the other thing I always liked about it was that it's a reminder that Ronon came from a planet that was probably a little *more* advanced than Earth. But I didn't see them playing with that very much.

John -- I thought that scene in the galley was extremely well done, too. JF put in a lot of little touches that rang very true.

The Carson/Rodney stuff really is great, isn't it?

Caldwell -- yeah, totally. And I liked that he stuck to his guns and stayed calm, even in the face of John going off at him. John was out of line. Caldwell wasn't insisting on leaving a guy behind because he thought the guy wasn't important enough to risk his ship. He was honestly trying to point out that his ship was in sketchy enough shape that it might not contribute successfully to the mission, in which case they would lose the ship *and* still fail to rescue Ronon. Caldwell wanted a *better plan*. Thank goodness *somebody* gave him one.

The Gateroom -- oh, don't get me started. They're just... aargh.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed your perspective on Sateda the society, and Ronon as commando! I thought that announcement was creepy in a Big Brother (1984) kind of way.

And yes, Caldwell brings so much "real" to the whole show. I like that realism and thought John's response was very appropriate in acknowledging the risk/reward argument too.