Major Lorne is scouting an alien world and comes across evidence that the locals have a familiarity with at least one member of the Atlantis expedition when he spies the face of Rodney McKay as a centerpiece for the symbol. The revelation seems to worry both Rodney and John and they admit to having been playing what they considered to be a game but in reality was a sociological study by the ancients of young cultures which they were not shy about manipulating, it turns out that the “game” had very real world consequences. Upon arrival Rodney is revered as being the peoples Oracle and his ego is massaged to the max, he takes pride in the progress that has been made but when John’s people turn up and are more militaristic and technologically backward it appears that conflict is on the horizon.

It turns out that these two cultures were friendly before John and Rodney began playing their game but over time the more advanced culture was exploiting the natural resources of the lesser and their only response was to increase their military with a brute force counter to the more technically minded culture. Elizabeth it has to be said is not very pleased and really loses it when Radak and Lorne begin playing “god” for another culture the “game” can observe,  the message of this episode is a little in your face but it certainly has merit and truth be told it runs throughout the Stargate franchise. The Game has some high points, I personally enjoyed the chemistry between Zelenka and Lorne and it’s never dull to see Rodney basque in the glory that is McKay but gratifying to see him brought down to the ground as well and in this case John shares much of the blame and fall out from Elizabeth. Laura Harris and David Dayan Fisher were both good guest stars and worked well opposite the main cast but overall the episode was lacking that little spark that would raise above what has turned out to be a very good season of Atlantis.

Thanks to Mack for the feedback on the Google+ page and for Misa for joining us on the episode, technical difficulties notwithstanding

This weeks promo is for the audio drama pulp themed podcast Flash Pulp and next week we are back with Stargate SG1 for the episode Bad Guys as they team have a few problems on a mission which turns out to be not quite what they were expecting and in time would no doubt prove to be a valuable lesson in the perils of first contact.

Promo…

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• Flash Pulp
  

Links…

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• The Game IMDB
  
• The Game Wiki
  
• Laura Harris
  
• David Dayan Fisher
  
• Kavan Smith
  
• David Nykl
  
• James Long
  
• John Shaw
  
• William Waring
  

Mentions…

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• Misa Buckley
  
• Cliff Simon Fan Network
  

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