Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Back to basics for a good Stargate story

Trio is a surprisingly engaging tale that goes back to the basic core of many a good Stargate story; a planet, a problem and teamwork to get a solution and save each other. The set design, direction and camera work are excellent; the story providing just enough plot, dialogue and action to keep the attention and the acting is well done. If there are any complaints they centre around characterisation.

This is almost a one set episode with the bulk of the story taking place in the claustrophobic underground mining room that the three fall into. It is a perfect setting; rickety, dangerous, industrial and grimy. It provides the right mix of an environment that is precarious yet believably can contain enough tools that the characters can use to save themselves. It’s a great setting and kudos to the set designers.

Equally great is the direction by Martin Wood. The shots chosen add to the sense of being in a hole in the ground; they emphasise the danger and risk the team are facing. The camera shots from above of McKay and Carter with the rope and grappling hook are great. The lighting of the small hole – the small amount of daylight is also very well done. The moment where Carter almost gets out, the sun shining down on her face is excellent. A mention also has to go to the stunt-work – there are some horrendous drops and they are very real and feel very real. The production values are very high for the episode and the story itself almost matches up.

There is a beautiful progression to the tale. The brief scenes in Atlantis and the fall through the ground on the planet are enough to paint the picture and set the scene without being overly heavy on exposition. They also allow for the character dynamics between the three main characters to be neatly shown; the way McKay makes everything a competition, the innate fitness of Carter the trained soldier compared to the other two, the gentle but firm leadership Carter invokes when insisting the two accompany her. It’s a very good set-up.

The escalating danger and the various plans to escape their predicament are also well done. Each leads naturally to the next; the pyramids, to the grappling hook and rope, to the bridge to the uber-grappling hook to the eventual solution of the mine shaft below them. It all flows.

What is also great is that all three characters are shown contributing to the ideas; they all discuss the situation and work out the plans together. There are some great moments; McKay and Carter being in synch on cracking the code to the door and the same look of blank incomprehension they share when Keller suggests the bar trick. It reemphasises how much the two have in common. Equally great is McKay and Keller both refusing to climb the pyramids due to a fear of heights.

All the characters get their moments to shine; Sam in her quick action when the gas explodes; Keller in her competent medical treatment of Sam; McKay in his eventual heroics – including his absolute refusal . Equally all three get their moments of being less than perfect; McKay’s insistence on throwing the grappling hook, Sam’s less than professional slip about Zelenka, Keller’s refusal to climb the pyramid. As a result the characters come across as being rounded and three-dimensional, and enhanced by the performances of all three actors.

There is also a great sense of them coming together as a team. I loved Keller rooting for McKay to get the grappling hook through the hole or Sam’s belief in McKay holding the rope and Keller. Yet there is enough conflict and banter between the characters to make for some interesting dynamics; Carter and McKay is a very well established one but it was equally good to see Keller and McKay.

The evolution of their dynamic through the opening ‘competition’ to Keller’s quiet acknowledgement of him as a nice guy to the closing ‘competition’ about who won the bar bet is very nicely progressed. There is a real sense that the two could develop something if it was allowed to grow; at the end there seems to be the beginnings of a friendship beyond being colleagues and even the beginnings of affection.

It is good to see that the characters’ wider relationships are being touched upon; the referral back to the mess McKay made in Quarantine was nicely done. It would have been nice to have also included the cut dialogue which explained Keller’s situation with Ronon. McKay’s whole ‘you have a perfect body but I’m not saying you don’t have a perfect body’ was very amusing and so McKay.

The characterisation on the whole is very well done. There are some lovely touches; Carter not being au fait with Genii for example, McKay’s 6th grade project, Carter choosing two physicists, McKay’s mix of coward and hero. Keller’s character however does seem to have done a one-eighty from the self-proclaimed socially inept child genius she said she was in Quarantine. Here the games, bar trick and eventual wrangling McKay into a drink all seem to contradict that. It feels like there was a need to have one of the characters know the bar trick and Keller was nominated. Equally, Carter’s leadership style is also a little all over the place in the story; while she has a more collaborative mindset, I don’t believe she would be really comfortable playing the ‘who would you’ game as a character or a leader. Twenty questions would have been more in character.

In conclusion

That said, the minor issues with characterisation aside, this is a really lovely tale. Engaging, warm, and showing the best of Stargate; a planet, a problem, and solutions that come from great team-work. I really enjoyed it.