The team visit a primitive world looking for trade and resources and discover that the local villagers pay tribute to The Tower and in return it protects them from the Wraith by means of glowing lights which fly through the sky. They are taken to the tower and it looks like the central structure of Atlantis but sprouting from a large wooded and hilly area of the planet. McKay along with a local named Baldric go investigate while the rest of the team stay in the village and discover that the enforcers of the tower act in a rather brutal manner to the villagers and when they intervene to prevent a whipping a man named Eldred appears and brings down a drone attack. He then scans the team and invites John back to the tower and introduces him to the Lord Protector who does indeed rule the plant from within a sister city to Atlantis complete with ZPM powered chair, sensors and weapon systems. The Royal family and their hangers on live in luxury thanks to them exploiting the villagers and it turns out that the Ancient gene has kept these people in power and it is slowly weakening within the blood line and John’s arrival offers a boost and so the young and pretty Mara throws herself at John and well he’s only a guy after all. Meanwhile McKay discovers a huge store of drones but finds that the ZPM is almost exhausted and while Teyla and Ronon are dealing with over enthusiastic enforcers and John handles a royal coup and murder the world is slowly spinning towards chaos when all three plot elements merge when the new Lord Protector launches an attack on the village and John has to then fight for his life.

Party Time all the time

The Tower asks a lot of questions and the main one is why would the Ancients leave a city ship on this planet complete with functioning ZPM, drones and it seems a working star drive. We have seen that individual Ancients have taken it upon themselves to protect humans within the Pegasus galaxy by a manner of means but a second city ship is not something that can be just slipped in under the council’s noses so it must have been a sanctioned plan which still leaves the question open. The story of course when dealing with the attitudes of the people of this world does make perfect sense, there is nothing new there but it’s done fairly well and the village set is rustic and primitive enough as well as the redressed Atlantis looking pretty spectacular in a period style. Lets not forget the costuming which worked well both for the male and female characters (main and extras), I really liked the flowing shirt with the ruffles that Eldred (Peter Woodward) was showing off:)

McKay with his sidekick Baldric was a laugh, Ronon and Teyla dealing with the enforcers and the villagers was quite intense at times and seeing Ronon lose it provoked by the threat of a woman’s rape was both frightening but inspiring, we really saw what he was capable of and combined with Jason’s expression during the fight really hammered home how complex this character can be. John of course had a great time, good food, good sex, political intrigue and a fight for good measure combine to make a pretty good couple of days away from the city and then underlined by the criminally short screen time for Elizabeth when the two chattered in the final scene.

Overall quite a fun episode, an excellent cast with the return of Jay Brazeau to the franchise and the overall production was excellent with action, humour and drama.

This weeks promo is for the Nutty Bites Podcast and next week we return to SG1 for the episode Off The Grid so hope you join us for that and if you have anything to say then don’t hesitate to get in touch, we love getting feedback in any form so check us out on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus and if you have the inclination a review and rating on itunes and Stitcher would be most appreciated.  Don’t forget that our two polls for the upcoming wrap up shows are currently running so please vote for your favourite SG1 Season 9 episode and Season 2 Atlantis episode.

Promo…

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• Nutty Bites
  

Links…

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• The Tower Wiki
  
• The Tower IMDB
  
• Peter Woodward
  
• Jay Brazeau
  
• Chelan Simmons
  
• Brendan Beiser
  
• David Bloom
  
• Anna Cummer
  
• Mark Gibbon
  
• Richard Kahan
  
• Andy Mikita
  

Mentions…

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• Leo Award Nominations 2014
  
• Poll SG1 Season 9
  
• Poll SGA Season 2
  

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