Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

A philosophical debate which is never explored

As the mid-season teaser This Mortal Coil is subdued dealing as it does with the duplicates and the suggested death of Atlantis’s former leader Elizabeth Weir. Everything seems downbeat from the story to the actors who do their best with the limited material, and the place this assumes in the season arcs. Ultimately, the story is weak and only the last two scenes provide any saving grace.

Duplication is a sci-fi standard; the concept has been used a few times within Atlantis’s parent show SG1 and it is difficult to do something original with it but Stargate usually does produce enjoyable duplicate stories. My issue is not that this is an episode covering the topic again within Stargate history, but that it is an episode covering the topic again within the same season. Didn’t Doppelganger already have a duplicate dream version of Sheppard within its storyline? Duplication once in a season, fine; duplication, twice? It starts to feel, well, a little like duplication.

The rest of the story concept seems under-developed; the initial set-up of people acting weirdly happens far too quickly with very little mystery and too much given over to the exposition of why a group of Replicators had chosen to create the team (yet little explanation given to why with reduced power they created Weir who they had been told was dead and who they knew the team believed to have been lost). I personally think the story went in the wrong direction in trying to do the ‘something’s awry but what?’ beat. For me, the first part of the story might have worked better if the audience had always been in the know that this was a duplicate team created by Replicators and focused instead on how the duplicate team came to that same awareness.

The story picks up a little with the meeting of the duplicates and their original selves. The contrasting reactions provide some note of interest – particularly Ronon and McKay’s. Stylistically, the walks through the forest with the Ronans and Teylas sharing confidences and eventually meeting works incredibly well; the McKays revelling in their intellect much to the resigned amusement of the Sheppards also works incredibly well.

Beyond that though, the arrival of the Replicators and the deaths of the duplicates to allow the originals to escape is all over a little too quickly and nonsensical – why would two Replicator ships go after a puddle jumper? And didn’t the duplicate team steal a Replicator ship in order to get to the planet as the jumper didn’t have hyperdrive so why didn’t they use that? As a viewer I was left confused and it was something of anti-climax despite the great special effects.

The other major let-downs are around season arcs and pay-offs. Firstly, when is Teyla’s pregnancy going to be revealed? Two episodes on from Missing and it would appear it’s still a secret Teyla is keeping and it is not referred at all. Arcs need referencing and perhaps the missed opportunity here is a scene between the Teylas with the duplicate advising her counterpart to tell the others.

Secondly, the vision of Atlantis’s destruction in The Seer turns out to be the destruction of the duplicate Atlantis yet having set up the event so well in The Seer, here seems to be a complete anti-climax as too little time has passed and no other reference has been made to draw out the idea that Atlantis would be destroyed at some point. Nor is this the real Atlantis so it lacks emotional resonance. It is a poor pay-off to what had been a great set-up.

Lastly, the anticipated reunion of Weir with the Atlantis team which was set-up very well in Lifeline with Weir being left behind is a let-down as this isn’t a reunion. Joe Flanigan and David Hewlett pull off the shocked and dismayed reactions to Weir’s video very well but the drama of their being reunited with Weir is lost with the lack of face to face and the quick revelation that she isn’t really Weir. Any future reunion now runs the risk of lacking emotion because the team have already seen Weir again even if it isn’t quite their own version.

The positive is how well Weir works as part of the frontline team just as she did in Lifeline. In some ways, it’s a huge shame that instead of taking Weir out of the show that the character mix wasn’t just rejigged to have taken Weir out of the leadership, yes, but to have still included her as a diplomatic/linguistic expert in Sheppard’s team. The absent current leader, Carter, isn’t shown or mentioned at all and while this story didn’t need her to be, that every episode where she isn’t included fails to even mention her is becoming noticeable.

The only time the story excels for me is in the last two scenes where the suggested death of Weir is touched on by Zelenka and McKay and later by Sheppard and McKay. Here are scenes which are rich in emotion and drama and provide a connection between the characters. Hewlett, in particular, plays his repressed grief very well. The final closing moment is also brilliant with the fade to black and McKay’s quiet ‘oh crap!’ as the beeps of the identified Replicator ships continue; original, amusing and beautifully pulled off.

In conclusion

In contrast to the previous week’s excellent Miller’s Crossing, This Mortal Coil lacks substance as a story; it presents the philosophical debate about the duplicates but never truly explores it. There is too little mystery; no tension and the action pieces while competent fail to ignite the imagination. The actors can only do so much with so little. The end is great but it wasn’t worth the wait. After a reasonably strong first half-season, This Mortal Coil is a damp squib and I’m hoping things will get reenergised in the second.