TV Review: Stargate Atlantis 5.20 – Enemy at the Gate

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 10, 2009

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate: Atlantis, SciFi, Airs Friday 9/8c

Episode: “Enemy at the Gate” (Season Five, Episode 20)

Synopsis: Once again, Todd the Wraith contacts the Atlantis team. We thought he was dead, but his dangerous iratus bug healed him from his previous encounter. Todd confesses to Sheppard that he had modified a hive ship to use a ZPM as a power source, resulting in a super-hive that could become invulnerable. Todd’s underlings committed mutiny, and he is now asking the Atlantis team for help. Sheppard and his team go on a mission to destroy the ship while it is in its construction phase, but things prove more difficult when they learn that Earth is the super-hive’s new target.

Review: I cannot help but feel sad with this episode because it is the end of Stargate: Atlantis as a series. Of course, there was a quick teaser for the new series Stargate: Universe at the end of the episode. We’ll see about the new series, but I did like both SG-1 and Atlantis, so I have hope.

As far as series finales go, this was a pretty great episode. We had the Wraith attacking Earth. We had the return of Todd. We had a really cool in-space fire-fight between the super-hive and the Atlantis city. We also had some nice cameos by the old SG-1 crew, including Amanda Tapping as Sam Carter, Colin Cunningham as Major Davis and Gary Jones as Airman Harriman. And on a sad note, we also had a nice nod to the late, great Don Davis (SG-1’s original leader, General Hammond), who died this summer of a heart attack.

There have been more exciting and all-encompassing episodes, including the assault on the Replicator home world with the Wraith and Asgard fleets in tow, but this series finale wasn’t about making the biggest splash. It was made to lead into a slate of direct-to-DVD films, which was successfully road tested last year with the SG-1 team (in the DVDs The Ark of Truth and Continuum). I am definitely looking forward to more Stargate fun on DVD.

But as a series, Atlantis is over, and that makes me a bit sad. At least next week, I’ll have Battlestar Galactica to look forward to on Friday nights.

Up Next: Nothing for Stargate: Atlantis, but we have BSG and the final Cylon!

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Morjana

An excellent series finale. Wormhole Drive! The Gen. Hammond and the Sun Tzu (more new battle cruisers in space...). Another suicide mission, no wait, let's use Plan B! Some other ship -- McKay/Keller and Ronon/Banks. Looking forward to the new SGA and SG1 movies and the new Stargate: Universe series. Thanks to everyone at Stargate for sharing all their talent and for all their hard work!

RobertFure

i <3 jewel staite.

Cole_Abaius

True, true. I've (age-appropriately) loved her ever since Are You Afraid of the Dark?

kheas

me too, oh boy....

Kevin_Carr

Jewel is totaly hot in person. She wore glitter at Comic-con.

Darren Albert

I loved the episode and was sad to see it all end. I'll look forward to the movies. But, one thought did strike my mind, and that is I always pictured Atlantis being much larger than the area of water the Golden Gate bridge crosses. Doesn't take long to drive over it is all.... :P Anyway, bring on Stargate Universe!

Steven Spowart

What I cant understand is, how comes nobody noticed this huge city landing right next to the Golden Gate bridge.
Even if the city was cloaked it would make a bit of a splash as it came in to land, and you could see trafic going over the bridge.
The city wasnt even cloaked imediately after entering the atmosphere anyway, and it must be bigger than a plane, so you would have thought someone must have seen it.

As far as the city being much larger than the area the Golden Gate bridge crosses (Not that I have ever actually seen the bridge, I havent even been to America), isnt it in an estuary.
We only actually saw a small area looking from Atlantis over to the bridge. The rest of it could have been stuck out in the Pacific somewhere.

DustyOR

It was somewhat unreal............e.g. Sheppard's aircraft is hit by enemy fire and as he plummets to earth in a tailspin, he tries to pull it out.........and then at the last minute he does and begins to climb rapidly......that would be an impossibility in reality...........due to many factors......just the G forces alone would prevent it
plus the damage he had sustained............and then to do the radical climbing would be impossible also.
I guess the writers took nothing of aerodynamics nto thought............
Also, they left Ronon..........'nobody is left behind' I guess was no long relevant once they
thought he was dead............
I was watching Conversion and several earlier episodes and there seemed to be much more
thought of content in those earlier episodes.............
I also was unsettled by how they allowed Sheppard to crawl away from what was left of his car
and die alone in the desert in VEGAS. He had essentially called in the air strike, thus enabling
them to destroy the Wraith and his little comm center in that Air Stream, yet, when push came to
shove nobody really considered Sheppard, OK the AU version, but still...............................

TV Review: Stargate Atlantis 5.20 – Enemy at the Gate

Stargate: Atlantis, SciFi, Airs Friday 9/8c

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