SGA: The Prodigal

[tielan]

Wow. The show really has tanked during the season. *grimace*

Honestly? This episode had OMG! WOMEN SHOULD LOOK AFTER THE KIDS AND MIND THE HOUSE written all over it to me. Maybe it's just me and my feminazi views but...

The fact that Teyla doesn't actually do anything until right up at the end of the episode is classic example #1 of WOMEN ARE USELESS IN ATLANTIS, and Amelia Whatshername who does kickboxing is classic example #2. Women can kick ass, but should be left behind to mind the children and keep the house while the men solve all the problems of the city. AMIRITE?

Other than that...

Was it just me, or did Michael seem...OOC? Technically, it's not possible for a character in canon to be OOC and I've written Michael with a need for Teyla's approval - albeit tied in more with his Wraithness and the Wraith social structure of following a Queen, but...I don't know. There was something "wrong" about his portrayal. I can't quite put my finger on it. And...well, the fight-above-Atlantis scene was lovely and dramatic, but...somehow lacking. Truthfully, I'd have preferred to see Michael on the verge of winning everything: destroying Atlantis, taking Teyla's son, winning Teyla over to his side...and then having it all crumble in a split-second as the net closes around him. Success is in his grasp! Only...not. And his castles come crashing down.

If this was a fanfic, it would have been written by someone whose definition of 'team' means John and Rodney friendship, who doesn't know what to do with either Teyla or Ronon, and who believes that women are permitted a moment of awesomeness, but certainly not anything more than that. I could name names, but fandom would lynch me.

If this had been my fanfic, I'd have:
1. had Teyla stash her son in the access hatch, take out the hybrid who was coming after her in a kick-ass fight, take his weapon, and sneak back out and fight, while still carrying her son,
2. had Amelia go out with Ronon and the two guys, and help take on the control room before getting knocked out,
3. had John and Rodney show just a little more concern for Teyla, her son, and her sleepless nights,
4. ...written it with a Ronon/Amelia angle.

Did anyone else see the Ronon/Amelia thing? (Is her name Amelia? That's what I thought Teyla said.)

Overall, it wasn't a bad episode. But it could have been so much better.

Thoughts on The Fall Of Stargate Atlantis here.

Comments

[chyti.livejournal.com]

i like it and didn't feel like it was leave the women at home while the men take care of business at all.

teyla couldn't leave torren in the access hatch because he would have cried and alerted the hybrids to his location, maybe taking out the first hybrid was doable but you never know how many were lurking close by as a mother i would never put my child in that kind of danger (all it takes is a stun gun and i am out for the count), when all i had to do was hide since i knew ronan was out there with others.

2. amelia was left to guard the others, when you have one of two fighters both can't go fight and leave the rest of the people to fend for their own.

3. could care less about john and rodney in this episode the action and the drama was all in the gate room.

4. the michael thing i chalk up to desperation, and i always saw a connection between mike and teyla. i have witnessed many tender moment from michael towards teyla and at times he appears very vunerable to her, i practically proposed to her in this episode.

i like the ronon and amelia angle the are a good match and i love that it took both john and teyla to down michael with teyla killing him.

[tielan]

Well, I enjoyed the episode more than some. A lot can be forgiven when Teyla gets to be awesome, however briefly.

But the underlying assumptions of gender behaviour and how they're played out disturbed me a lot in this episode.

One of my problems with Stargate canon and fanon is that, as a general rule, while the men are allowed to try things that would never work in RL and are lauded for it - in the show and by the fans, the women are only permitted to do that which would logically work in RL.

When they do do the fantastic, the unbelievable, or the slightly-exaggerated, there are a dozen fans screeching about OMG!SuperSam! or Too Much Teyla.

It's a blatant double standard, but most fans never bat an eyelash at it.

So, yes, I would have taken the "unrealistic" action and had Teyla take a risk and stash her son (who, until then had been utterly silent, and according to her comment at the end of the episode slept through the entire takeover), then go out and fight the hybrid, and succeed.

I think that people put too much emphasis on motherhood being all about the well-being of the child. We have a rosy view of self-sacrificing mothers, who will do anything for their children - and many of them will do anything for their child.

But I know that most of them will also do something for themselves, and I see Teyla as not only a mother but a person in and of her own right, and that she would protect her son, but she would also take the opportunity to kick some hybrid ass.

[sjhw-tolerance.livejournal.com]

Ah well...I should have known it wouldn't live up to your standards. I thought it was enjoyable and better than a number of other episodes this season.

[tielan]

I have...very high standards. *wry smile*

Enjoyable...well, yes. Just a bit disappointing in how little Teyla really did. She didn't even lead Michael on after his declaration, didn't ask what he was going to do, didn't try to out-think him, just tried to run away.

Better than a number of other episodes this season? Yikes.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I think you're missing a very important factor in regards to Teyla stashing her child to go after the bad guys. This wasn't about Teyla doing whatever it took to save her child...in many real ways..it was about saving the rest of the galaxy. Because of teh events in "The Last Man", she's fully aware of what would happen if Michael got a hold of her child...it would be the death of millions.

Not only did Teyla have the responsibility of the safe keeping of her son, but by keeping Torren away from Michael, she was preventing the destruction of many words. It would have been irresponsible of her to 'hide' her son so she could join in the fight. Sometimes the choice not to fight can be the hardest. Who knew what could had happened if she kept Torren in that shaft....once mom went away, yes, he could have begun crying. Once Teyla found another person to keep an eye on her son, then she did go to the fight..and got to be the hero, something we hardly ever get to see.

I also thought that for once, everyone had a part in this episode. Ronon took charge, and yes, he made
Amelia safeguard the rest of the civilians—including Woosley. What was he going to do if he ran into a hybrid?

Though in my caon they are so dating now! I love Amelia/Ronon ..heh.


I'm sorry you didn't get excited about this one, I thought you really would have loved it.

[tielan]

I get that fighting back might not have worked; on the other hand, running away might not have worked, either. She might have been caught and captured and her son taken anyway - and nothing would have been achieved, either way. I just see it as uncharacteristic of Teyla to do so much nothing, even as a mother with a son to protect. It tends to take on the flavour of an excuse for the writers not to do anything with her.

Even while she was prisoner, I felt she could have drawn Michael out more, asked questions that developed the situation. "What are your specific plans for my son? Where will we be going? How will this work?" Once Michael declared himself, there was an opportunity to use his conflicts against him. Teyla's a leader of her people, a speaker, a communicator - this is one of the things she was originally billed as, and yet nothing was used of it.

They did this with Elizabeth as well, actually. In The Game, an international deal-broker can't bring two warring groups to the table and get them to even talk to each other or see the others' point of view.

Then again, they did this to Jack O'Neill, too, back in Season 5 of SG1: from the bomb expert he was in the original movie, he needed Carter to tell him which wires to cut in Fail Safe.

To be honest, I enjoyed it as much as I could enjoy an episode of Stargate given my current state of mind regarding the show and the characters - yes, there were some neat moments in there - but it still fell far short of the possibilities of the show and the characters.

*sigh*

And yeah, Ronon/Amelia looks neat! Any communities started up that you know of? I haven't been keeping track of the Newsletter.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

This wasn't about Teyla doing whatever it took to save her child...in many real ways..it was about saving the rest of the galaxy. Because of teh events in "The Last Man", she's fully aware of what would happen if Michael got a hold of her child...it would be the death of millions.

Yes, I think this episode might bother you less if you could think of Torren as being more the McGuffin than Teyla's baby in this context. The most important thing--not from the point of view of Teyla as mother, but from the point of view of the galaxy itself--is that Michael not take him from Atlantis. Given the fact that he would inevitably make noise and give away his location if left alone, she *couldn't* just stash him away.

Teyla took out a hybrid unarmed and with a baby on her hip. She killinated Michael after he wiped the floor with Ronon *and* Sheppard. I'm pretty happy with it.

[live-brave.livejournal.com]

I liked the ep, although I think they probably could have given Teyla more to do. I do think that being a mother has changed some of Teyla's priorities - where she might have been more proactive before, it makes sense that her son would make her more cautious. John and Rodney's ambivalence about her sleepless nights seems typical them, but I wish the writers had made them a little more caring. I was actually waiting for one of them to ask to try to rock Torren to sleep and Torren miraculously falls asleep, but I'm a sap like that. :D

I do like the Ronon/Amelia angle and will now proceed to search for pertinent fanfics. :D

The problem the writers seem to have with female characters reminds me of my thesis, actually. It's not a new phenomenon that male writers have this desperate urge to classify and categorize female characters while content to leave the male characters to be whatever they want to be. It's annoying but seems to be a never-ending cycle. I think that some of SGA's shortcomings could be helped by having a female writer on staff instead of the boys club it's been for years.

[tielan]

I do think that being a mother has changed some of Teyla's priorities - where she might have been more proactive before, it makes sense that her son would make her more cautious.

Or, it's a convenient way of not giving Teyla anything to do.

I wish the writers had made them a little more caring.

Yeah, this exactly. I don't know if this is typical of the show now, but it feels like some of the fanfics I've read where John's only allowed to be 'friends' with Rodney. He's very formal and distant with Teyla and Ronon - there's no sense of friendship or intimacy there.

No, it's not a new phenomenon that women must be something while men can simply be. That never makes it less frustrating, though.

I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with.

[madjm.livejournal.com]

As I said before, I liked this one pretty well. I think we've seen already that having a child has changed Teyla's priorities, and I don't find that unrealistic at all. And I don't really have a problem with it, either, especially given what would happen if Michael got his hands on her kid.

And I felt like Michael was really at the end of his rope. He really wanted Teyla's son, but his desire for revenge on Atlantis was his undoing. I also think that he really wanted Teyla to come with him, almost to be his "family." He's an outcast from the humans and his own kind, and he's always felt like she was the only one who could understand that.

I definitely felt the Ronon/Amelia thing, but I was a little offended by it. Maybe it's just my paranoia, but it seems like it was thrown in there to appease fans (like myself) who don't for a second believe that Keller would pick Rodney over Ronon. So, hey, let's throw someone at Ronon real quick! Still, it was cute.

[tielan]

As I mentioned to chyti and live_brave, we tend to accept that women can only be one thing: Teyla's warrior and diplomat skills were completely non-existent in this episode - the only aspect that got any real play was her status as a mother. So, maybe it's "realistic" to believe that Teyla's concern for her son would override anything else; but I know the fans would never, ever, not in a million years accept that (as an example) John wouldn't just protect his son from Michael but also fight back against whoever was trying to kill him.

Do you see what I'm protesting against? It goes deeper than the lack of use of Teyla by TPTB, and touches on the inability of viewers to see that her behaviour would be unacceptable in a male character yet is considered perfectly understandable in a female character.

I liked Ronon/Keller at the start; I'm not so sure about it now. Maybe Ronon/Amelia is a tossed bone to the disappointed Ronon/Keller shippers, but as bones go, I don't think it's a bad one.

[kitsunejin.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed this episode, actually, but I agree with pretty much everything you say here. It's really pathetic how low my standards have become for this show - Teyla did spend nine-tenths of the episode running around and hiding, waiting for the men to come and rescue her, and yet I've been waiting so long for Teyla to actually fight back and kick arse against Michael that the last five minutes made it all okay for me.

In a way, I'm glad that the show is being cancelled if it means that this is the way that the Michael arc will end, with Teyla finally being the one to kill him - but jesus, we shouldn't have had to wait an entire season (actually, two, if you go back to Vengeance) for Teyla to actually fight back against him! Someone pointed out in an episode review elsewhere that the raped/abused woman getting in the final blow against her attacker is a horror movie cliche - if it hadn't been, I'm cynically wondering if we would have even gotten that much, considering TPTB's apparent opinions on what happens to a woman once a baby comes into the picture.

Also, fucking WORD about the "team" thing. I read an episode review saying what a fantastic teamy episode this was - what? WHAT? I don't think we ever even got a scene with all four of them in a room together! Actually, it explains so much about this fandom if people define 'team' as John and Rodney being cute and dorky together, with Teyla and/or Ronon standing in the background of the scene somewhere looking pretty. The scene at the end with John showing off his car racing skills for Torren was kind of cute - but why wasn't Teyla involved? Why couldn't she have handed Torren to John and kicked Rodney's arse herself? (Or vice versa.) That would have been awesome! Apparently, women can't get dorky with their male friends (the only ones left, after all their female friends blow up/fall off buildings/get turned into Replicators), they can only stand to one side and smile at the boys, if they even get involved at all...

[tielan]

Actually, it explains so much about this fandom if people define 'team' as John and Rodney being cute and dorky together, with Teyla and/or Ronon standing in the background of the scene somewhere looking pretty.

Welcome to Stargate Atlantis fandom. :)

[chyti.livejournal.com]

i like it and didn't feel like it was leave the women at home while the men take care of business at all.

teyla couldn't leave torren in the access hatch because he would have cried and alerted the hybrids to his location, maybe taking out the first hybrid was doable but you never know how many were lurking close by as a mother i would never put my child in that kind of danger (all it takes is a stun gun and i am out for the count), when all i had to do was hide since i knew ronan was out there with others.

2. amelia was left to guard the others, when you have one of two fighters both can't go fight and leave the rest of the people to fend for their own.

3. could care less about john and rodney in this episode the action and the drama was all in the gate room.

4. the michael thing i chalk up to desperation, and i always saw a connection between mike and teyla. i have witnessed many tender moment from michael towards teyla and at times he appears very vunerable to her, i practically proposed to her in this episode.

i like the ronon and amelia angle the are a good match and i love that it took both john and teyla to down michael with teyla killing him.

[tielan]

Well, I enjoyed the episode more than some. A lot can be forgiven when Teyla gets to be awesome, however briefly.

But the underlying assumptions of gender behaviour and how they're played out disturbed me a lot in this episode.

One of my problems with Stargate canon and fanon is that, as a general rule, while the men are allowed to try things that would never work in RL and are lauded for it - in the show and by the fans, the women are only permitted to do that which would logically work in RL.

When they do do the fantastic, the unbelievable, or the slightly-exaggerated, there are a dozen fans screeching about OMG!SuperSam! or Too Much Teyla.

It's a blatant double standard, but most fans never bat an eyelash at it.

So, yes, I would have taken the "unrealistic" action and had Teyla take a risk and stash her son (who, until then had been utterly silent, and according to her comment at the end of the episode slept through the entire takeover), then go out and fight the hybrid, and succeed.

I think that people put too much emphasis on motherhood being all about the well-being of the child. We have a rosy view of self-sacrificing mothers, who will do anything for their children - and many of them will do anything for their child.

But I know that most of them will also do something for themselves, and I see Teyla as not only a mother but a person in and of her own right, and that she would protect her son, but she would also take the opportunity to kick some hybrid ass.

[sjhw-tolerance.livejournal.com]

Ah well...I should have known it wouldn't live up to your standards. I thought it was enjoyable and better than a number of other episodes this season.

[tielan]

I have...very high standards. *wry smile*

Enjoyable...well, yes. Just a bit disappointing in how little Teyla really did. She didn't even lead Michael on after his declaration, didn't ask what he was going to do, didn't try to out-think him, just tried to run away.

Better than a number of other episodes this season? Yikes.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I think you're missing a very important factor in regards to Teyla stashing her child to go after the bad guys. This wasn't about Teyla doing whatever it took to save her child...in many real ways..it was about saving the rest of the galaxy. Because of teh events in "The Last Man", she's fully aware of what would happen if Michael got a hold of her child...it would be the death of millions.

Not only did Teyla have the responsibility of the safe keeping of her son, but by keeping Torren away from Michael, she was preventing the destruction of many words. It would have been irresponsible of her to 'hide' her son so she could join in the fight. Sometimes the choice not to fight can be the hardest. Who knew what could had happened if she kept Torren in that shaft....once mom went away, yes, he could have begun crying. Once Teyla found another person to keep an eye on her son, then she did go to the fight..and got to be the hero, something we hardly ever get to see.

I also thought that for once, everyone had a part in this episode. Ronon took charge, and yes, he made
Amelia safeguard the rest of the civilians—including Woosley. What was he going to do if he ran into a hybrid?

Though in my caon they are so dating now! I love Amelia/Ronon ..heh.


I'm sorry you didn't get excited about this one, I thought you really would have loved it.

[tielan]

I get that fighting back might not have worked; on the other hand, running away might not have worked, either. She might have been caught and captured and her son taken anyway - and nothing would have been achieved, either way. I just see it as uncharacteristic of Teyla to do so much nothing, even as a mother with a son to protect. It tends to take on the flavour of an excuse for the writers not to do anything with her.

Even while she was prisoner, I felt she could have drawn Michael out more, asked questions that developed the situation. "What are your specific plans for my son? Where will we be going? How will this work?" Once Michael declared himself, there was an opportunity to use his conflicts against him. Teyla's a leader of her people, a speaker, a communicator - this is one of the things she was originally billed as, and yet nothing was used of it.

They did this with Elizabeth as well, actually. In The Game, an international deal-broker can't bring two warring groups to the table and get them to even talk to each other or see the others' point of view.

Then again, they did this to Jack O'Neill, too, back in Season 5 of SG1: from the bomb expert he was in the original movie, he needed Carter to tell him which wires to cut in Fail Safe.

To be honest, I enjoyed it as much as I could enjoy an episode of Stargate given my current state of mind regarding the show and the characters - yes, there were some neat moments in there - but it still fell far short of the possibilities of the show and the characters.

*sigh*

And yeah, Ronon/Amelia looks neat! Any communities started up that you know of? I haven't been keeping track of the Newsletter.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

This wasn't about Teyla doing whatever it took to save her child...in many real ways..it was about saving the rest of the galaxy. Because of teh events in "The Last Man", she's fully aware of what would happen if Michael got a hold of her child...it would be the death of millions.

Yes, I think this episode might bother you less if you could think of Torren as being more the McGuffin than Teyla's baby in this context. The most important thing--not from the point of view of Teyla as mother, but from the point of view of the galaxy itself--is that Michael not take him from Atlantis. Given the fact that he would inevitably make noise and give away his location if left alone, she *couldn't* just stash him away.

Teyla took out a hybrid unarmed and with a baby on her hip. She killinated Michael after he wiped the floor with Ronon *and* Sheppard. I'm pretty happy with it.

[live-brave.livejournal.com]

I liked the ep, although I think they probably could have given Teyla more to do. I do think that being a mother has changed some of Teyla's priorities - where she might have been more proactive before, it makes sense that her son would make her more cautious. John and Rodney's ambivalence about her sleepless nights seems typical them, but I wish the writers had made them a little more caring. I was actually waiting for one of them to ask to try to rock Torren to sleep and Torren miraculously falls asleep, but I'm a sap like that. :D

I do like the Ronon/Amelia angle and will now proceed to search for pertinent fanfics. :D

The problem the writers seem to have with female characters reminds me of my thesis, actually. It's not a new phenomenon that male writers have this desperate urge to classify and categorize female characters while content to leave the male characters to be whatever they want to be. It's annoying but seems to be a never-ending cycle. I think that some of SGA's shortcomings could be helped by having a female writer on staff instead of the boys club it's been for years.

[tielan]

I do think that being a mother has changed some of Teyla's priorities - where she might have been more proactive before, it makes sense that her son would make her more cautious.

Or, it's a convenient way of not giving Teyla anything to do.

I wish the writers had made them a little more caring.

Yeah, this exactly. I don't know if this is typical of the show now, but it feels like some of the fanfics I've read where John's only allowed to be 'friends' with Rodney. He's very formal and distant with Teyla and Ronon - there's no sense of friendship or intimacy there.

No, it's not a new phenomenon that women must be something while men can simply be. That never makes it less frustrating, though.

I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with.

[madjm.livejournal.com]

As I said before, I liked this one pretty well. I think we've seen already that having a child has changed Teyla's priorities, and I don't find that unrealistic at all. And I don't really have a problem with it, either, especially given what would happen if Michael got his hands on her kid.

And I felt like Michael was really at the end of his rope. He really wanted Teyla's son, but his desire for revenge on Atlantis was his undoing. I also think that he really wanted Teyla to come with him, almost to be his "family." He's an outcast from the humans and his own kind, and he's always felt like she was the only one who could understand that.

I definitely felt the Ronon/Amelia thing, but I was a little offended by it. Maybe it's just my paranoia, but it seems like it was thrown in there to appease fans (like myself) who don't for a second believe that Keller would pick Rodney over Ronon. So, hey, let's throw someone at Ronon real quick! Still, it was cute.

[tielan]

As I mentioned to chyti and live_brave, we tend to accept that women can only be one thing: Teyla's warrior and diplomat skills were completely non-existent in this episode - the only aspect that got any real play was her status as a mother. So, maybe it's "realistic" to believe that Teyla's concern for her son would override anything else; but I know the fans would never, ever, not in a million years accept that (as an example) John wouldn't just protect his son from Michael but also fight back against whoever was trying to kill him.

Do you see what I'm protesting against? It goes deeper than the lack of use of Teyla by TPTB, and touches on the inability of viewers to see that her behaviour would be unacceptable in a male character yet is considered perfectly understandable in a female character.

I liked Ronon/Keller at the start; I'm not so sure about it now. Maybe Ronon/Amelia is a tossed bone to the disappointed Ronon/Keller shippers, but as bones go, I don't think it's a bad one.

[kitsunejin.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed this episode, actually, but I agree with pretty much everything you say here. It's really pathetic how low my standards have become for this show - Teyla did spend nine-tenths of the episode running around and hiding, waiting for the men to come and rescue her, and yet I've been waiting so long for Teyla to actually fight back and kick arse against Michael that the last five minutes made it all okay for me.

In a way, I'm glad that the show is being cancelled if it means that this is the way that the Michael arc will end, with Teyla finally being the one to kill him - but jesus, we shouldn't have had to wait an entire season (actually, two, if you go back to Vengeance) for Teyla to actually fight back against him! Someone pointed out in an episode review elsewhere that the raped/abused woman getting in the final blow against her attacker is a horror movie cliche - if it hadn't been, I'm cynically wondering if we would have even gotten that much, considering TPTB's apparent opinions on what happens to a woman once a baby comes into the picture.

Also, fucking WORD about the "team" thing. I read an episode review saying what a fantastic teamy episode this was - what? WHAT? I don't think we ever even got a scene with all four of them in a room together! Actually, it explains so much about this fandom if people define 'team' as John and Rodney being cute and dorky together, with Teyla and/or Ronon standing in the background of the scene somewhere looking pretty. The scene at the end with John showing off his car racing skills for Torren was kind of cute - but why wasn't Teyla involved? Why couldn't she have handed Torren to John and kicked Rodney's arse herself? (Or vice versa.) That would have been awesome! Apparently, women can't get dorky with their male friends (the only ones left, after all their female friends blow up/fall off buildings/get turned into Replicators), they can only stand to one side and smile at the boys, if they even get involved at all...

[tielan]

Actually, it explains so much about this fandom if people define 'team' as John and Rodney being cute and dorky together, with Teyla and/or Ronon standing in the background of the scene somewhere looking pretty.

Welcome to Stargate Atlantis fandom. :)