First Strike.

That's right--it's over. We have finally made it to the end of the new Atlantis episodes until the summer. I knew I would be sad, but I had no idea how hopeless the season finale would feel. At the end of every season (and every mid-season cliffhanger), I think, "How are they ever going to get out of this one?" Of course, every season it gets worse. This time, they've powered up the star drive of the city to escape an Asuran attack and were traveling to a new planet, but they dropped out of hyperspace when they started running too low on power. Now, they're floating out in the middle of space, nowhere near a planet or stargate, with only 24 hours of power. Can you believe that?

I have to say, though, I got chills for the first time since "Rising" when they actually managed to power up the star drive with only one ZPM and began to rise into the air. This slow version of the theme was playing, and it was so powerful that they were actually doing it, that they had managed, for the first time since they arrived on Atlantis three years ago, to fly the city, even if it wasn't for very long. It just shows how far they've come since they got there. I love the way both Stargate shows have the teams getting better, expanding their knowledge, fighting new enemies. It almost made me forgive them for killing Beckett. But not quite.

I had some good luck tonight, and now I'm feeling good. I know I should go to bed soon--I have a class tomorrow--but I'm watching stuff I recorded on the DVR. I'm considering not crashing until after my morning class. My night classes for the next two weeks are cancelled (we're supposed to be working on our papers, ha, ha), and I don't have to work.

"Well, get ready. It's our first day at Police Academy 4."

TV and Ice Cream.

Is there anything better? We watched Employee of the Month today, but the only parts of the movie worth watching were the parts featuring Dax Shepard as Vince (the bleached blonde guy--"This is an '81 Honda! How dare you!"). I knew Jessica Simpson was a shitty actress, but Dane Cook surprised me with his level of sucking. He is occasionally funny, and I thought he might be able to act just a little, but I was wrong. He was even worse than Johnny Knoxville. Dax Shepard is without a doubt the funniest part of that movie.

We also watched a Psych marathon on SciFi, but I grew bored with it. We just made a run for cigarettes and ice cream, and Kris is finishing Psych. I plan to let my ice cream thaw, and when the show's over, watch the stuff I recorded on the DVR while we watched the marathon--namely, South Park, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Most Shocking. (Did I mention DishNetwork caved and gave us back CourtTV? Because they did!)

I've been catching up on my reading, too. I got a bunch of good strips at work (including Red Dragon, Hannibal, The Devil Wears Prada, Little Children, Eragon, and The Da Vinci Code). I love working in a bookstore.

"You're like a singed Koala looking for an all-night burn center."

The Road Not Taken.

NO, not the poem. The SG-1 episode!

It was awesome. (I watched it on YouTube, by the way. It's much easier than downloading torrent files.) I thought it was going to be a Carter-McKay episode, which was why I was so excited about it, but it actually ended up being much better. Landry (Beau Bridges) was the President and Hammond (Don Davis) was still in charge of the SGC in the alternate reality, and it really delved into how the government can take away freedoms in a time of crisis slowly, until you have nothing left. That was what had happened in this reality. The people had found out about the Stargate program and the impending Ori attack, and there was rioting in the streets and chaos. Landry declared martial law, then pretty much took away all forms of free speech and began running the government almost like a dictatorship. It was a nice commentary that seemed to stem from current events. (I don't want to speculate too much on the origins of the episode without knowing for sure, but after watching it, it seems like a safe bet to me.)

Okay, now I need to smoke. But I leave you with this:

Carter: The McKay I know would never back down from a challenge. In my reality, he is a forthright, unselfish, courageous person.
McKay: You're lying, aren't you?
Carter: Um...
McKay: Fine, I'll help you.

Death and Scrubs.

Well, I just found out that someone is going to die at the end of season six of Scrubs. After reading on Wikipedia that Nurse Roberts (Lavern) would be in a coma, I felt sure it was her. However, after reflecting on it for awhile, I have decided that is certainly not definite. They have a tendency to try to trick us--like when they killed off Ben Sullivan (Brendan Fraser), but didn't reveal it until the very end. I read that it would definitely be a character who has been on the show "since the beginning," but there are lots of characters that have been mentioned but not seen since the beginning, and I think it would be just like the show to make you worry about Nurse Roberts, then kill off someone we've never even seen before. Someone suggested to me that it could even be Enid (Kelso's wife), and I think that would be an interesting turn. Killing off Lavern just seems pointless.

Apparently I've been thinking about this too much, because last night I dreamed that they killed Carla. I woke up really, really upset, then realized that it wasn't real and that I am a loser.

"The only thing I detest more than treating patients is treating patients on an empty stomach."

Submersion.

"Submersion" was a good episode to follow Carson's death. They got out of the city and away from the scene of the accident, it was funny, and Dr. Weir even went with them. I am going to miss her so much.

The best part was, though, that it was about the Wraith. I have to say, I've really been missing the Wraith lately--it's always Asurans (who scare the living crap out of me) or some other random people that they run into on other planets.

The episode starts with Weir, Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla, McKay, and a shitload of scientists all crammed in a jumper. (We couldn't figure out why they had so many people shoved in there, until we realized that they probably needed some extras to kill off.) McKay gets shoved to the back (where all of the scientists are--"Back of the jumper") when Weir moves into the cockpit. There's a hilarious bit about McKay not remembering the other scientists' names (a sure sign they'll end up dead). They finally find the moving geothermal energy platform they've been searching for underwater and board it.

Teyla immediately senses the presence of Wraith. She tries to reach out with her mind for them, but then says that she "was mistaken." They take her at her word and split up to begin exploring the platform. Teyla and Ronon move off together, but she attacks Ronon, then begans shutting down primary systems, power, and lights to the station. When she finally comes to, she doesn't remember anything that happened, and they begin to realize that the Wraith Teyla sensed had been remotely controlling her. By the time Ronon and Sheppard find the Wraith, a queen, she has already killed the two scientists whose names McKay had forgotten. They have to flood the area they're in to knock her out, which cuts them off from the jumper. They secure the queen, and Teyla probes her mind to find out that she arrived at the station after they did, which explains why their sensors did not pick up her presence the first time that they scanned. Teyla also discovers that she had been living in a crashed dart under the ocean for thousands of years, since the war between the Wraith and the Lanteans, and that she has set the dart to self destruct and kill them all.

McKay and Sheppard realize that they have to stop the self-destruct, and they use some high-pressure suits in the station to make their way across the ocean floor to the crashed dart. McKay, of course, spends most of the trek complaining about knowing "exactly how much pressure" is bearing down on them and how difficult it is to walk. (They look really funny making that journey, by the way, and pretty much bitch at each other the whole time.) McKay tries to figure out how to shut down the self-destruct, but it's no use.

Teyla realizes that the only way is for her to link minds with the Wraith again, even though she is becoming weak from her repeated efforts to gather information. The Wraith makes Teyla release her chains, then probes her mind to discover that her dart is operational and would be able to return her to the surface--a trap set by the team to trick her. She goes to the dart and disengages the self-destruct, and then Sheppard begins shooting her. McKay pops out from behind a wall and shoots her too, but as she keeps coming at him, he yells, "She's not dying according to plan!" Finally, they kill her and return to the station to begin their research. Sheppard, Ronon, and Teyla agree that they are more interested in resting than in exploring.

I haven't been able to see the SG-1 episodes yet, but I did read about them. The third episode, "The Road Not Taken," will send Carter to an alternate reality (God, I love alternate realities--almost as much as I love time travel and time dilation fields) where--get this--SHE AND McKAY ARE DIVORCED! Hilarious. I absolutely cannot wait.

And the movies will be Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth and Stargate SG-1: Continuum. They are supposed to be released directly to DVD this fall. I can't wait for that either.

All in all, Stargate is rocking my world right now. (Except for poor Beckett, who I miss terribly. Come back, Carson!)

"She's not dying according to plan!"

Bad day.

I'm having a bad day. I can't really pinpoint anything really bad happening to me today, I just feel like I had a bad day.

I guess I'm going to try going to sleep, even though I'm not tired at all.

I wish I could sleep like a normal person.

Good Things for Tomorrow
New Battlestar Galactica.
New Dresden Files. (Cheesey, but addictive.)
Adult Swim.
Green.

And by the way, this stuff is coming up:
Stargate SG-1, last season--April 6th
Stargate Atlantis, third season--April 6th
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, third season--this summer
Aqua Teen Movie--March 23rd (supposedly)
Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth, movie--this fall

"So say we all."

WARNING: Major Atlantis Spoilers.

I am very, very sad. I finally saw "The Ark" and "Sunday" last night. "The Ark" was good--funny, good things happened, etc. But "Sunday"--well, words fail me. It's incredibly depressing.

Of course, Mom and I had been reading all over the Internet that they were going to write Carson Beckett out of the show, and for the longest time, we didn't know when, how, or why. We still don't know why. There was already tons of stuff by the time we saw the episode that confirmed that "Sunday" was in fact the episode where Carson "disappears"--and that he wasn't just being written out, he was getting killed off. We spent the whole episode hoping that it was somehow all a big mistake, but he does die at the end. The worst part is that they set the whole episode up with tiny details that, if only one of them had been different, Carson would probably be alive. At the end, they really screw the fans--he was just a few steps away from being away from the bomb enough to survive.

I feel like the writers have let me down. I thought he was safe when he made it into the opening credits season two, but apparently I was wrong. This sucks. Mom and I were crying pretty much from when he went into surgery until about half an hour after the episode was over. Why are they doing this to us? It was one thing to kill off Grodin in season one, then get rid of Ford in season two (where the hell is he now, by the way?), but killing off Carson is almost like killing off Sheppard or McKay. Mom also told me that they're writing Weir out of the show and replacing her with Carter from SG1! That really, really makes me mad. I love Carter, don't get me wrong, but she does not belong on Atlantis. Weir has been in charge for three years, and she is the most qualified to run that base. Not to mention that if Carter really takes over, Sheppard will be outranked and no longer in charge of the military operations. I think that's just shitty. He's been ranking military officer since about halfway into the first episode, and he deserves it.

I used to watch SG1 and be amazed at how in tune they seemed to be with the fans. They made jokes at their own expense, they brought up things people had said, they even spoofed Daniel Jackson's return to the show via the fans. A lot of times lately though, when I watch SGA (which is probably my favorite even over SG1), I feel like they're really letting us down. I used to defend the writers' decisions because I believed that they were truly trying to do things for us, but I definitely don't feel that anymore. Killing off Beckett was almost as pointless as killing Wash in the last twenty minutes of Serenity.

I guess I'm just scared that, with all of these negative changes and stupid moves, the Stargate franchise may really be over soon. That makes me incredibly sad. It was my very favorite of all shows, and it helped me escape from my problems in the world for awhile. Now, though, it's becoming another problem for me.

When I watch TV shows, I don't want to see a lot of death and sadness. I watch TV as an escape from death and sadness in the real world. I don't need it thrust upon me in my shows. Some characters are okay to kill--but only if they're extras, and you need to label them as such so we know that they aren't going to make it. (Just do it like SG1--if you're some high number team, like SG13, you're probably not going to make it.)

Mom and I made a pact that, if for some outrageous reason, they ever kill off McKay or Sheppard, we will stop watching. That's a pretty big deal for us. Mom's been watching SG1 for ten years, and I am so in love with Stargate that I have a tattoo on my wrist of the origin symbol for earth. But without our guys, the show is truly over for us. Fortunately, I doubt that will ever happen (although after this, I'm not entirely certain anymore).

We will miss you, Beckett. You were a good man, and a good friend. You will always be remembered.