Trio

Plot: Rodney, Sam and Dr. Keller fall in to an abandoned Genii mine shaft that is in danger of collapsing during regular earth tremors.


Sam gets involved in some proper action for the first time in ages and wouldn't you know it? She gets a busted leg for her troubles. The room that the trio fall in to is suspended on stilts above a very deep sheer drop down the mining shaft. Quite a daunting prospect, especially when their weight puts too much strain on the stilts.

It all feels a bit like a company team building exercise gone wrong, or a really mean Crystal Maze game. They try all kinds of clever ways to climb up the 20ft to the hole that they made coming through. From stacking crates, to a grapple hook and then to stacking crates on planks laid across beams suspended from the ceiling. The latter of these leads to Sam falling and breaking her leg.

During a penultimate tremor, Dr. Keller gets thrown out from the room, hanging on to a rope. She notices an escape shaft down the pit and swings to it. From there, the trio are able to escape to safety.

Perhaps most interesting is that Keller proves herself to be a bit of a hussy. She learns that Rodney and Katie split up after the quarantine incident and ends up going for a drink with Rodney at the very end of the episode. This, of course, after she and Ronon nearly ended up making out during that very same quarantine incident. She's one to watch out for. She certainly put a braver face on than when she was stranded on New Athos with Teyla in 'Missing'. She's getting to be a fun character and I hope we'll see more of her in to the next season.

I can't say this was the most thrilling episode, but it was fun to watch them trying out different ways of escape. It seems that the writers have tried to split the team up in to smaller groups during the past few episodes of the season. This has allowed for strengthening of bonds between the individual characters. It's worked well, though episodes centering around only two or three of the main cast are always going to lack a little excitement. This is especially going to be true when considering the fact that any major events are going to involve all members of the cast by default.

7 out of 10