[Standback]

Well, I've seen the first 5 episodes, and I'm pleased to say I enjoyed them very much. No spoilers, promise. They did an excellent job of kicking off the series - establishing the main characters, the new setting, the atmosphere, the basic story direction... and giving us a nice feeling of scope, really feeling like a colony with a couple hundred people and not just the five that actually have parts.

All the characters are fun; as of yet they lack personality somewhat (Yarr! We're valiant US military explorers!), but they're vivid and entertaining enough so that we aren't uninterested until their complexity is a bit more developed. I fear Teyla may prove an exception - she's the token "mystical outsider alien person", like Teal'c only female, and those characters are usually fairly somber and dull (*coughcoughChakotaycoughcough*), saying "Indeed" a lot and not much else. But so far, so good. The leads, Sheppard and Weir, are both great, and McKay is very funny.

Atmosphere - I really do like the sense of "We've basically got no idea what the heck we're doing here", stemming from the fact that the Atlantis base is messing around with a whole bunch of waaaaay-advanced technology they don't really know too much about. It's really very well done, and obviously going to be a major theme.

Enemies - I'm not sure how sold I am on the Wraith, who're the main enemy here. They don't seem nearly as kewl as the Gou'uld, or have half as much story potential. "Oh no... they regenerate!" Big whoop. The major encounter with them, in the primiere, had me going "neh." Oooooh, B-movie horror lifesuckers. I hope this aspect will be improving. But, they're doing an excellent job of kinda tiptoing around the Wraith - having episodes that mention and deal with things connected to the Wraith, without bringing in the Wraith themselves. That actually works to make the Wraith more ominous, and the world more real and interesting.

My one main concern is that Atlantis is leaning hazardouslyclose to Trekkie territory. Among all the ancient technology are also shuttlecraft and a wide array of tricorder-like devices. I do not want to see Stargate characters walking around and detecting anomalous graviton emissions. Episode 6 ("Childhood's End") begins with a team flying over a new planet in their shuttlecraft, until they run through an energy field and come crashing down. There are cliches and genre staples I know I'm going to see, but anything that seems "very Trek" is just a wee bit annoying. Especially since the premise of the series is "We're going to get stuck in a different galaxy, and who knows if we'll ever get home again," and colony governer Dr. Weir can look a heck of a lot like Janeway.

But I'm not too worried - so far, I think they're doing a great job, and I look forward to seeing what comes with time.

Note to MGM, or whoever's in charge of Atlantis: Next time, try putting in a few characters who's friggin' names can be spelled without looking them up.