The Daedalus Variations

Brad joined me for this new episode of Stargate Archives as we have a discussion about his chosen episode "The Daedalus Variations". A very atmospheric and intense episode of Stargate Atlantis.

Stargate Atlantis - The Daedalus Variations

A Daedalus-class battlecruiser (BC-304) appears above the planet which is the current home of Atlantis and is identified as the actual Daedalus even though it is believed to be in the middle of the jaunt between Pegasus and the Milky Way. The team travel to the ship in a jumper and detect and energy signature and signs of some battle scarring on the hull, they enter and find all the fighters are missing but one jumper sits alone. Confirmation is received that “their” Daedalus in nearing Earth with no problems reported and after some minor differences are observed in the ship they reach the conclusion this is a Daedalus from somewhere else, they discovery of a teams dead bodies ramps the spookiness up ten fold.

McKay identifies the source of the energy reading and believes that it is a drive system designed to move the ship between universes/realities perhaps an offshoot of experiments into zero point energy or the more exotic goals as seen in the episode Trinity. However the system is running on automatic and when power storage reaches a specific level the drive is initiated and the ship jumps. They cross paths with an alien starship engaged in battle with Atlantis, the star as a red giant and a debris field perhaps the building blocks of the planet itself. Faced with limited resources McKay believes reversing course and letting the ship jumps “backwards” will eventually get them back to their universe but time is short and the dangers faced already will have to be dealt with again.

The Daedalus Variations is an excellent episode of Atlantis and a great scifi story, the concept is nothing new with the franchise but this is done is a very slick manner with some stellar CGI and good use of existing sets with a few tweaks. A few bones were thrown hinting at threats beyond the known or maybe just what ifs either way the alien threat matched anything the Borg offered (at their best) but perhaps the natural threats were more compelling. The episode wasn’t demanding on the actors although McKay dealing with the baby was pretty priceless but the ass kissing by John on John went a little too long. Overall a very good and atmospheric episode, highly recommended.

My thanks to Brad for picking the episode and joining me via Skype to chat about it, always a pleasure to have him on the podcast and hopefully he will be back. As always would love to get reviews and ratings and open offer to join me on the podcast, get in touch with your choice of episode and we can arrange a time to record (headset and skype required).

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