Stargate Atlantis: S1E04 - Suspicion

A note from Management: And thus we end our time with SG-1. Our last chapter covered Season 8, episodes 19 and 20. There's no following chapter for seasons 9 or 10 because there was no massive stupidity in there to mock. I think there were four or five mockable episodes that I never wrote up, but check this out: Ten years of this show, 213 episodes, and I can count on one hand the number of episodes worthy of mockery. (Granted, I can count on my fingers in binary.) That is pretty damn amazing, when you think about it. Granted, seasons 9 and 10 were nowhere near the quality of seasons 1-8 and General Landry just doesn't measure up when compared to General Hammond, but it was still fun.

So, now we're on to Stargate Atlantis and oh god the horror. First, they killed Robert Patrick in the first episode. WHAT?! Why would you do that? He's a great actor and excellent at military roles! (If you haven't watched 'The Unit', you really should.) Anyway, this isn't nearly as much fun as SG-1 but it's still worth being watch-during-workout fodder. The first episode...yurgh. Go read 'synecdochic. dreamwidth. ' (or google for 'synecdochic dreamwidth city edge of forever' if FFN mangles the link even after I've spaced it.) synecdochic did a great job with it and I'm not going to rehash what she's already written.

Anyway, on with the show!

Weir: Wow, Sheppard, you've run into our enemies the Wraith five times on your last nine missions, so we must have a traitor among us—although it can't possibly be one of the SGC humans from Earth; we only came through the Stargate from Earth a few weeks ago, and since we're in the Pegasus galaxy right now (which is hella far from Earth) there's no way any of us would have contacts among the Wraith or even know anything about them...well, I mean, granted, you woke all the people-farming Wraith up from their centuries of sleep when you killed all the ones who were awake in their hive ship while you were trying to rescue Robert Patrick, that Athosian chick, and a couple other SGC folks after the Wraith kidnapped all of them with their transporter beams. Nope, the traitor must be one of couple of hundred Athosian people that we brought here to Atlantis in order to prevent them from having all their lifeforce drained out by the Wraith since that's what the Wraith eat.

Sheppard: Holy crap, did you say all that in one breath?

Weir: No, it was two sentences. I can try again, though?

Management: Please don't. Also, John, I see you opening your mouth to drop the obligatory 'nice expository infodump' catchphrase: don't.

Sheppard: Awww!

Management: Shut it. Get on with the story.

Sheppard: *grumble* Fine. Ah...line?

Weir: 'A traitor among us?!'

Sheppard: Right, thanks. A traitor among us?! Weir, that's nuts. None of the Earthlings would know how to communicate with the Wraith, and none of the Athosians would want to. The Wraith have been farming them for centuries, going through and killing them every few decades or so and preventing them from developing modern technology. They wouldn't help the Wraith.

Weir: Do you have a better idea?

Sheppard: Yes. Someone is unknowingly giving our location away. Maybe the Wraith have some way to track them.

Weir: That's crazy talk.

Sheppard: Look, it's my team that keeps running into the Wraith. Most likely the problem is with someone on my team. That probably means Teyla, because she's the Athosian. Maybe she's got some particular signature they can track. Why don't we check?

Weir: Aww. I wanted to confine all the Athosians to their quarters and then interview them one by one, forcing them to alibi themselves for any moment that they weren't in physical sight of an Earthling, thereby causing distrust and ruining our relationship. But, fine, I suppose we can just check Teyla.

~Five minutes later~

McKay: Oh, hey, look. Teyla's necklace has a transmitter in it. Given that she lost it when she was a kid and only got it back when Sheppard found it and put it on her all sexy-like, there's basically zero chance she's a traitor.

Everyone: Wow, what a relief!

~Episode ends~