Stargate Atlantis: "Midway"

Average
Teal'c versus Ronon Smackdown

I hadn't been looking forward to Teal'c and Ronon coming together because I was more focused on Daniel Jackson coming to Atlantis and the Weir-Carter debacle of Season 4.

I'm not necessarily against Teal'c and Ronon meeting, but Teal'c's character doesn't have a dramatic need to come to Atlantis. With SG-1 supposedly disbanded (again), Teal'c's priorities lie with taking care of the Jaffa nation.

Anyhow, Teal'c comes to Atlantis to coach Ronon on handling a xenophobic IOA interview. The two share some fisticuffs, end up in a draw, and then get caught up in a Wraith attempt to take over the Midway Station and infiltrate the SGC. When Teal'c and Ronon follow the first Wraith wave to Earth, Sheppard and Rodney come onto Midway with a few teams of marines and swap the station with Wraith reinforcements a few times before blowing up the station and escaping in a puddle jumper. On Earth, Teal'c and Ronon save the SG-C. Ronon then passes the interview of the IOA stiff who originally wanted to find an excuse to get him out of Atlantis. And Ronon flies back to Atlantis on the Daedalus to pick up Sheppard, Rodney, and a few survivors who were going stir crazy after a couple weeks in the puddle jumper.

On a surface level, this episode was a definite step up from the fillers of the last few weeks, full of superficial action and thrills. But that's just it. I feel this episode has little beyond the surface.

After three years of Teyla faithfully serving Atlantis and Ronon for two (not to mention Teal'c's 10 years on SG-1), there's suddenly one man, Coolidge, who's taking it on himself to review whether nonEarth humans can serve on Atlantis/SGC teams.

When Teal'c and Ronon meet, do they have to fight? What interpersonal conflicts do they have that'd motivate the fight? And when they do, how can they go one hour when full contact matches usually end in a few minutes? On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, why do the Atlantis marines spar with Ronon at a 4, while Ronon revs up to 12?

Teal'c looks trim and his new long hair-style is dashing. But he didn't seem like himself in this episode, particularly when he told Ronon he would "very much" like to have a blaster such as Ronon's. As Master Bra'tac taught, it's not the weapon, but the heart that makes a Jaffa.

Kavanaugh, a recurring scientist character, who was formerly stationed on Atlantis returns to demonstrate that he's not only cowardly, but incompetent. He somehow doesn't know that using the system bypass feature to override the lockouts put in place by the Wraith trigger Midway station's self-destruct.

When the Wraith first come onto the station, Dr. Lee and the rest of the staff do nothing to seal off the control room and send an alert to the SG-C and Atlantis. There are no anti-intruder defenses and hardly any Air Force airmen stationed to resist a hostile take over.

Since the Wraith are capable of jury rigging a Pegasus stargate to access Midway and then override a security lockout of Midway's systems to reach the SG-C, why bother pumping Lee for the password? When did the Wraith learn how to read English? The Wraith commander who took over the station had a not so clever conversation with Sheppard in which he promised to bring Sheppard "a world of hurt." Would a Wraith channel an ECW smack-talking wrestler?

When Sheppard took back the station briefly, why did the Wraith open the control room and how did the Wraith who had Sheppard and his team in a crossfire miss?

The Atlantis marines and Wraith exchanged a lot of weapons fire without worrying about damaging sensitive equipment and causing breaches in the Midway station hull that'd bring on explosive decompression.

When Rodney and Lee decide to vent the atmosphere, the Wraith commander who'd gotten the information on Midway from Todd who'd hacked Rodney's database in Atlantis attacked Sheppard before getting shot and suffocated. What did the Wraith commander (with no name and personality) hope to accomplish? With the oxygen also totally vented while he fought the Wraith, how did Sheppard get himself into a pressure suit that requires the help of at least one other person and several minutes to enter?

It would've been nice to see Carter leading a team onto Midway at Sheppard's side, but that's not in keeping with her impersonation of Weir. It was strange seeing Walter in the SG-C control room without Landry (or SG-1) hovering over his shoulder.

If the Wraith had taken over the SGC, what could they have expected to achieve without the support of a fleet of hive ships in orbit? How would they have held out when the US military realized that the SGC was compromised, sealed it off, and directed a nuclear strike at Cheyenne mountain?

As Teal'c and Ronon swept the base for Wraith, they came across Coolidge, who unlike everyone else in the base was reviving from the Wraith stun wave that knocked everyone out. How? And why did Teal'c and Ronon listen to Coolidge when he demanded to be taken to a radio to contact the US military, which decided to set off a tactical nuclear warhead at the base. What did Coolidge hope to accomplish?

Even though the Earth episodes of Season 4 strike me as SG-1 installments with the Atlantis cast, the Wraith seeking to reach Earth is a legitimate Atlantis storyline. "Midway" struck me as being rushed, though, and in need of more development, providing enough material for two episodes, like the Genii take over of Atlantis in Season 1 "The Storm" and "The Eye."

Additionally, I find the IOA to be a weak and annoying antagonist on the homefront unlike the NID when it was run by Colonel Mayborne, who tried to take over the SGC during the first few seasons to aggressively exploit the Stargate and acquire alien technology at all costs and no scruples. I constantly find myself wondering what the producers find so fascinating about the IOA?

It was good to see fallout from Todd's collaboration with Atlantis earlier this season. With the conclusion of this episode, we know there's at least one faction of Wraith with sensitive information on Atlantis and likely the SGC as well. Until the Midway station is rebuilt, its loss will complicate the movement of personnel and supplies while Atlantis' one ZPM is at less than full capacity.

If one overlooks the superficial characterizations and logic loopholes, then "Midway" is definitely a popcorn blockbuster of an episode.