Rick O TV Live Blog

There's a Geiger counter in the suit? That's handy. Eh, I don't see any particular reason to make Stein a jerk. And how does Eiling know so much about Firestorm? Joe has a set of keys to the house now owned by the lady who is not Barry? Magic shrapnel, attracted to kinetic energy? Do you figure Stein and Ronnie need to coordinate their amorous encounters? Otherwise Stein is at the grocery store, suddenly very excited about creamed spinach? I have to give them credit, the Firestorm flight effects are awesome.

Snow White as language training. For the record, I am happy to have Bridget Reagan around, but I don't love her as a blonde. (Now I just need to work in a Gay For Kahlan reference.) "It's clearly not a German cipher otherwise the Turing Method would work." A good reference, sadly immediately followed by a crack of a "one-time pad" without said pad. Sigh. Convenient photo of convenient birthmark is convenient. John Glover! Is he the Devil, Dresden, or Luthor? "I'm really regretting the lack of knickers right now." "Not bad, for a girl." "I hate you all." Handcuffing herself to the bed is a bit over the top, yes?

Good cold open - Flash just helping people, no villains, no emo drama, and good use of powers beyond just running fast and hitting things. I like what they're doing with Piper. I'm hoping they keep him chaotic neutral. "How can you speak 6 languages and sound like a dick in every one of them?" Catching the bullet digging into his neck? Nice shout out! Sadly, that came as they broke their own rule with Peek-a-Boo: she teleported backwards, where she couldn't see. So we're going to turn this into Glee? Well then. Linda!?!? (If this means we could skip past emo Iris, I would not be broken hearted.) In costume, talking to a bad guy, not using the voice. Sigh. Followed by wanton destruction of public property. He's the Flash, not some Marvel character. "With whom," not "who," Iris. This is but one factor in you being a bad reporter. Barry, your dad is not an idiot. And I totally dig their relationship. Grodd. I was kinda hoping that had been just throwaway.

Please do not use Daniel Jackson as a flotation device.

Teal'c says "within days" which makes me wonder what a PITA it must be to synchronize day vs night with the varying day lengths of distant planets. Teal'c emotes with the grinding of teeth and the flexing of jaw. Christopher Judge is so method. Wait, why exactly are they ditching the costumes? Convenient! The prettiest tent at the very first camp! Crazy question: why don't Drey'auc and Rya'c come back to Earth? Wait, Carter just caught up that Goa'uld like a salmon? And if they're marine, how was the one able to jump into Kawalsky in the first episode? Teal'c gives junior to Rya'c and Carter has another in her thermos. How convenient! That's a bitchin' horn. Um, again I say: why aren't Rya'c and Drey'auc going to Earth? And why doesn't Bra'tac kill the guards and priests at the gate? Sam asks him, but he dodges.

Catherine is back. And it just so happens that her dad worked on the Stargate in 1945. How convenient! Catherine to Teal'c: "You speak!" Teal'c: "When appropriate." No helmet for Catherine. Ernest is still alive and hanging out near the gate room FIFTY YEARS LATER. Hey look, it's pre-"I can fix anything that has crystals" Carter. Four ancient races. We see languages for three, and I recognize Asgardian and Ancient. If only Doc Brown was here to wire up the gate to the clock tower! Oh there's the fourth language. Looks nifty! Again with the shooting of things instead of trying to disassemble them. So we know from the movie that a nuclear blast would destroy the gate and magnify the explosion. But strike it with lightning? That should be okay. So we're going to just ignore how many years of psychological research into the effects of isolation on the human psyche?

Anthropological Bingo: Vikings, Mjolnir, Midgard My wife asks: "Why doesn't he just say Mew-Mew?" They met the Nox two episodes ago, now the Asgard and Unas. They kindof burned through the first races pretty quickly, eh? But I guess they spend entire seasons looking for the Ancients, so I guess that's balanced. "Only the host can leave this place alive." So they could use this place to deworm Skaara and Sha're? Ex-System Lord Lady Kendra listens to thunder. Mmmkay. Teal'c knows the myth of the Vampyr? Really? Again with the helmets! Let's not bother trying to disable the Hammer from the outside, let's just break it. Hey, that cutesy box message, that couldn't come back later, could it? Ah, I guess they don't actually meet Thor yet. Spoilers!

Wait, being an astrophysicist doesn't prepare you to midwife? Shocking! Aww, Jack has a fan who wants to make him dessert pizza. We shall now perform the Dance of the Lamé Draperies! That must have been some mighty fine dessert pizza. Anthropological Bingo: Linear A script A birthmark, a ginger, and Daniel for the name. Poor kid. Frasier to Carter: "Tell me you brought the blood back in sealed containers!" - Because you thought she was just going to give it to you in a Slurpee cup? Carter worked for a year with a group researching medical applications of nanotechnology. Because, you know, astrophysicist. Even at 70 and emo, Jack still got game. Daniel thinks yelling at General Hammond is going to help. Octogenarian Jack is a cranky old fart. The nanites can eat through rubber gloves, but I'm sure these rubber gas masks are perfectly safe. Jack's just going to love and leave Kynthia. A girl in every port, eh?

P3C-117, which is after already visiting "19 separate worlds". And not where we'll be going today. Daniel: "Like a hummingbird?" Teal'c: "With teeth." Because, you know, hummingbirds would have come up in casual conversation before then. Nox == Organians? Another Jaffa with woodsman tracking skills. So maybe it's canon? Sam, with a giant blast hold in her top, asks Daniel what he's looking at. So he's male again? It's a hairy quark! Dammit, accept the rez. Is she afk? Arrows and darts will make it through the shield? Jack has been reading his Herbert. Theirs is a castle on a cloud?

Why would Jack touch it? Oh right, because plot. Again with the Geiger counters in the gate room. When did this stop being a thing? Jack made it through a debriefing without saying a word? Sam doesn't tell Daniel to get out of the locker room because Daniel doesn't count as a man? Is Teal'c going to learn about Earth culture through soap operas? Sam & Daniel: Teal'c, we need you for your staff. OH LOOK THE POSTER BEHIND JACK SAYS "CRYSTAL". IT'S SUBTLE. P3X-562 And how many months of therapy is Jack going to need after watching a crystalline entity replicate his dead son? The crystal in the lab? Oh, we're going to keep that one.

And now Sam has a helmet. You know, because now the deadly solar radiation has been blocked.

Who gives jewelry, even replicas, to "friends"? Oh, hey, Eddie wonders the same thing. Tina McGee name check! At Mercury Labs! Makes me think Jesse Quick might be a possibility in the future. OMG! McGee is Amanda Pays! Okay, I'm going to back away from the exclamation point. Slowly. Grant has some seriously manicured eyebrows. ((We're watching these on Hulu. The commercials are terrifying.)) Oh good, Barry finally came out to Iris. I am so glad they're not going to drag that dead horse any farther. Really? Reverse Flash just runs right onto the clearly-a-trap platform? Deus ex Firestorm? Okay, so the Wells reveal at the end is clearly a feint.

Jack: “Daniel, you dog. Keep this up and you’ll have a girl on every planet.”

Jack: "So when your back is against the wall, just take one day at a time and remember: the bigger they are, et cetera."

Jack's repetitive humor: "So this iris is gonna hold, right?" "Dial Home Device" is on the whiteboard behind Sam and Daniel, but doesn't get spoken aloud. Subtle. Nice. The military blowhard. And he can use words like "untoward". Huh. I didn't realize they introduced the word Tau'ri this early in the series. They're still using "Goa'ulds" as the plural. I wonder when they drop that? Kowalski tries to dial out and Sam calls for help instead of trying to deck him. Having her reproductive organs on the inside might prove to be useful. Looks like it's going to be an episode where they don't actually go anywhere? Teal'c channels Gandalf and holds the gate from Kowalski: "You cannot pass!" Hammond is gratuitously buddy-buddy with the President. Suck it, blowhard. Oh, they do head to P3-575 at the end.

Shanks is trying to channel Spader. Grimaces, squints, and all. Oh, hey, Jack is already retired and Hammond is on his final assignment. How 90s. I'm glad they eventually dropped the "you freeze when you gate" thing. Sam & Jack's penis-measuring contest is kindof jarring. Daniel Jackson language tally: Abydosian / Egyptian, ancient Arabic. Heh. Jack's complete dismissal of all things science and anthropology. Chris Judge is too pro. Completely serious without being over the top. Teal'c speaks perfect English. Just keep going. "Hi, my name is Apophis, and these are my magnificent abs." The mattes are bad in places, and the snake-head costumes are cheesy, but otherwise the production quality is rather good. I appreciate their commitment to eventually explain things in later episodes instead of jamming all of the exposition in the first ep. Things like GDOs get shown but not explained, because the audience is smart enough to figure it out. I wonder who has to scrub the nanofilm of unmaterialized organic molecules off the back of the iris?