Friday 27 April 2007

Irreplaceable

Since our friends in the US watched Irresponsible last night, I thought i'd be good and watch it again and see if my thoughts on the ep had changed somewhat from my original post on the subject. Alas it hasn't.

The premise of the ep had so much potential, but it just didn't pan out for me. From what JM said about the ep he feels the same way the fans do, which in a way is a small comfort. What I enjoyed about the Koyla/Sheppard story arc was the excitement an unpredictability of their relationship (for want of a better term). Each of them doing what they do best; fighting and defending their people for things they believed in. Their characters personalities are not dissimilar and both Robert Davi (Kolya) and Joe Flanigan's characters play off each other extremely well. That charismatic interplay between them, gives the viewers an element of surprise at what's to come next, which in turn keeps us on our toes. Each time they've come up against each other, it has played out in such a way, where you don't know who's going to win the fight. And that keeps the arc interesting. Kolya was Sheppard's nemesis and it seemed only fitting that retribution should be sought after the actions of Kolya in Common Ground. And Sheppard's promise to 'kill him on sight' was said with such vehemence that the viewer new that the next time they met, Sheppard would finish Kolya off, on his terms.

So when I found out that Kolya was going to be in this episode, I was ecstatic to see the 'showdown'. I'd heard of the wild west theme, and although it sounded a bit corny it was something that I had longed to see; Sheppard finally getting redress. BUT as it turned out (or so it felt to me), the Kolya angle seemed like a 'B plot', and the euphoria at longing to see these two finally fighting it out fell flat. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Lucius storyline. I actually enjoyed Irresistible for the most part, but I certainly didn't believe that his character warranted a second episode and certainly not with Kolya. Yes dark and light episodes do work most of the time with both SG1 and SGA, and I love the Stargate humour 99.9% of the time, but this? This was just...how can I put it diplomatically? Crap! Sorry, I tried.

It was disappointing to say the least. We lost a good foe to this and while the whole 'no one dies in Sci Fi' may afford us the opportunity to see Kolya again in future eps; either in an AU type ep, or as part of Shep's issues. I sincerely doubt it. At the very least, Kolya will hopefully get a mention if, sorry, when we see the CG Wraith again :D. I suppose after watching Common Ground, and seeing how the whole storyline shone with every element, I was expecting that same kind of pizazz from this and I didn't. :(

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

DITTO!

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with all of your comments.

Kolya was such a great bad guy. He crossed lines to get things done. He showed no emotion, unless you got a good close up of his face. I do believe he had great respect for Sheppard and when you have that, you have, IMO, great confrontations.

To have his storyline come to an end in a episode with a self-centered, deceiving, shmuck like Lucious is just horrid to me.

I had hoped for a deeper, darker meeting between the two strong personalities of Sheppard and Kolya. I guess it will only happen in fanfic and/or my dreams. **sigh**