Recap: Atlantis s01e01
Sep. 30th, 2013 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frith_in_thornsSince bringing Merlin to its ridiculous end, the BBC has clearly been needing to fill that Saturday early-evening timeslot with more shirtless men, historical anachronisms, mangling of myths and legends, and shirtless men. Judging just from its first episode, Atlantis seems to be filling this in an exemplary fashion. Certainly, Eleanor and I enjoyed it very much — possibly even more than Merlin, not least as this time we have no high expectations of it actually making any sense.
I thought I would recap, primarily for my own amusement. Hopefully it will amuse you too. (The main emotion this show has so far inspired in us is helpless giggling.)
Episode 1: The Earth Bull
We start with our hero, Jason, in Modern Times. The camera loves Jason, and it starts by slowly lingering on his face, pulling out as he talks to an older guy who has some vague warnings and mention of Jason's father. Jason reveals that before his father went on his last submarine dive, from which he was never seen again, he passed down an Auspicious Amulet.
Jason pilots a submarine across the sea floor. He comes across a street-sign written in a font I hate.
It says, "The Oracle". On first watching I thought it was part of a vastly improbably street-sign from Atlantis, but on going back for caps it looks like it's actually part of Jason's dad's submarine.
It says something that I honestly didn't think this being part of a street sign from Atlantis was too silly for this show.
Suddenly there is bright light, Jason's submarine breaks apart in a sequence of really bad CGI, and then nothing until Jason wakes up on a beach. Coincidently, "nothing" is what he is now wearing. Apart from the Auspicious Amulet.
I did tell you right at the start that the camera loves Jason. Kudos to the producers for clearly knowing their audience, and finding a replacement for Frequently Shirtless Arthur.
It was a really, really long shot. From several angles.
There are some people getting into a boat! Jason waves at them, and runs towards them, but for some reason naked!Jason doesn't seem to do anything for them and they sail away, leaving a pile of clothes behind them. Which Jason puts on. My classicist friend is very upset about the trousers, which are in about the right degree of historical accuracy as Morgana's goth-chick dresses.
Jason goes to a city! Everyone is wearing the sort of clothes that BBC producers assume people wore in Ancient Greece! There is a two-headed iguana and Jason pokes it. This makes it decide he's clearly food, and there's a chase. ("My cabbages!" cries Eleanor.) He eventually manages to defeat the iguana (while it's inside a bag, making this still family-friendly) — except this makes the local guards decide that clearly chasing Jason is the thing to do. They chase him onto a roof and he gets shot with an arrow from about 20m. Which he instantly pulls out, as it had only gone in about a centimetre. Atlantis has remarkably ineffectual arrows, clearly.
It looked scarier when it was moving, but also more blurry.
In desperation, he jumps off the roof! And lands on another roof, disturbing the guy who's working inside the house. He's drawing triangles! Having heard vague things on facebook, we realise that this must be Pythagoras, and indeed it is!
Pythagoras stops Jason from falling to his doom. I wasn't the least bit surprised to find the "rescuer and rescued land on top of each other" situation coming into play here, although it's taken a step further by Jason hugging Pythagoras before letting him get up.
Pythagoras, being overwhelmed by how pretty Jason is, hides him. The guards are being remarkably thorough considering Jason's crime was to get almost eaten by an iguana (is it sacred? Who knows!), and are doing door-to-door searches. One of them crumples Pythagoras's triangle drawings. HOW MEAN.
Once the guards have left, Pythagoras finds that Jason, in a box, has fainted. Awww. He hauls him out somehow and bandages him up. More awww. Jason finally finds out that he's in Atlantis, and is confused! Pythagoras introduces himself and Jason is even more confused! Then Hercules comes in and we begin what will probably be an entire series of making fat jokes about him. Bleh. Hercules notices the Auspicious Amulet and tells him to go and see the Oracle.
The Oracle seems to be providing the role of the Dragon in this show, except that she's not yet shipping Jason/Pythagoras. However, she does give a load of really unhelpful advice, mixed in with blatant lies. She has been the first woman on this show with a speaking part, so there is that.
She also has Meaningful Tattoos.
Pythagoras runs into Jason again, and explains that tomorrow is Minotaur Day, when tributes are selected from the city to go forth and fightin the Hunger Games the Minotaur. Or be eaten by it. There is a very sanitised explanation of how the Minotaur was created — apparently a man did something bad and was cursed by the gods. (This is presumably more family-friendly than the version involving Minos's wife falling in love with a bull and getting pregnant from having sex with a statue of it. Although I remember reading that when I was 8.) I note that King Minos is ruling Atlantis, which makes even less sense than anything so far.
By law, all men in Atlantis must be shirtless 50% of the time.
Did Ancient Greece have taverns? In any case, Hercules was at one, comes back, and later tries to escape the city before the tribute selection. Jason and Pythagoras go after him and end up saving him from both guards and hunting lions. As you do. Jason does some fancy gymnastics. He's totally going to turn out to be the son of a god. (He's definitely pretty enough.)
I love how blatantly what the lions are running on is not the street.
Tribute selection time! Apparently all 20,000 people in Atlantis assemble, but clearly there weren't enough extras around, so it's the smallest group of 20,000 people I've ever seen. Then we see them picking stones out of pot, one by one in a line in front of Minos's throne. I note here that since every person takes a couple of minutes, this process will take for fucking ever and I'm surprised anyone in Atlantis has time to do anything other than queue all year for this.
Minos's daughter catches sight of Jason, and likes what she sees.
In a plot twist both Eleanor and I were predicting since the announcement of The Minotaur Games, Pythagoras is the one to draw one of the seven black stones. The three of them go home in SADNESS for his last supper. Which will not be spent talking about triangles. Poor Pythagoras.
Hercules: Perhaps you could tell the Minotaur about triangles, and bore it to death!
Minos is having dinner with his wife and daughter. We presume his daughter is Ariadne, but helpfully no one speaks her name. She speaks out about the cruelty of The Minotaur Games!
Minos is not impressed by this flash of characterisation from his daughter.
In another unsurprising plot twist, Jason sneaks out early and volunteers as tribute in Pythagoras's place. There is then an extended scene of him taking his clothes off and then… putting the same ones back on again? Why am I trying to figure out plot reasons, this is clearly just an excuse for very long, lingering shots of his torso.
Probably-Ariadne sneaks up behind him to watch (hard to blame her) and then gives him a necklace which contains a spool of thread so he can find his way through the labyrinth. This further confirms that she's almost certainly Ariadne.
Pythagoras and Hercules have a cunning plan! Sneak to the cave ahead of the tributes and leave weapons there! Unfortuantely, this plan should really have been excecuted a couple of hours later, and they arrive too late. Furthermore, they're seen. "Why are you here?" demands the guard. "Uh… collecting stones?" offers Hercules, which unsurprisingly doesn't impress the guard much. Pythagoras throws a sword to Jason, who promptly drops it instead of parrying. This amused me greatly.
The portal may have taught him Ancient Greek, but swordfighting really should have been on the curriculum too.
The guard lets two lucky tributes go home, and takes Pythagoras and Hercules in their place. (Is it too soon/too inappropriate for me to start calling these two the argonauts? Because I'm going to anyway.) They go into the improbably well-lit cave with torches that are clearly unnecessary! One of the other tributes introduces herself as Helena, which makes her the first woman on this show to actually have a name, since I don't think we can really count The Oracle and Probably-Ariadne. (She doesn't really have a character, but I am desperate enough for women characters that I'm mentioning her anyway.)
Jason goes off to scout. There is a nice shot of him passing across the thread he's left, which if you think about it means he is even worse at finding his way than Probably-Ariadne thought he would be.
By the time he gets back, everyone else heard a noise and ran! Oh no! He finds Pythagoras, who is scared and bleeding a bit. Pythagoras is clearly the designated woobie on this show.
The Minotaur's lair! Helena looks hurt, and Jason doesn't help by apparently suffocating her. She screams anyway (of course) as soon as he takes his hand away from her mouth, and then there is a fight scene! It is a little anticlimatic — I mentioned as the Minotaur died that it had been quite easy, and Eleanor was surprised as she hadn't noticed that it was dying.
Anyway, before it dies, it turns into an elderly but very clean and well-shaven man, who displays a surprising lack of blood for having just been stabbed in the stomach. He says that Jason had been destined to kill him, which makes the fight even less impressive in retrospect. He also says that Jason shouldn't trust Minos! Apparently Minos is evil. (Hands up who saw that coming.)
"I'm not going to tell you anything terribly helpful, though. It's only the first episode."
The Oracle is very pleased to feel the Minotaur's death. The screencap doesn't do it justice.
Minos doesn't immediately display his hidden evilness, however — there is a nice little recognition for the three heroes (I presume Helena is dead, since she was rather more plot-relevant than, say, Hercules. Or possibly this ceremony is only for Heroes Who Are Also Male Main Characters.) Hercules's acceptance speech is cut off, which is rather funny. And with that, they go on their way, presumably back to the house which it seems they all share now. CUTE.
They really are very cute.
The credits confirm that Probably-Ariadne was, in actual fact, Ariadne. Well.
So, it's a promising start, and certainly fulfils its promise of "fun and amusingly entertaining." It would be lovely to have actual women with actual names and actual characters. Is this expecting too much? But Jason is very pretty, Pythagoras is very adorable, and we will definitely keep watching. And I will write more recaps, if you enjoyed this one!
I thought I would recap, primarily for my own amusement. Hopefully it will amuse you too. (The main emotion this show has so far inspired in us is helpless giggling.)
Episode 1: The Earth Bull
We start with our hero, Jason, in Modern Times. The camera loves Jason, and it starts by slowly lingering on his face, pulling out as he talks to an older guy who has some vague warnings and mention of Jason's father. Jason reveals that before his father went on his last submarine dive, from which he was never seen again, he passed down an Auspicious Amulet.
Jason pilots a submarine across the sea floor. He comes across a street-sign written in a font I hate.
It says, "The Oracle". On first watching I thought it was part of a vastly improbably street-sign from Atlantis, but on going back for caps it looks like it's actually part of Jason's dad's submarine.
It says something that I honestly didn't think this being part of a street sign from Atlantis was too silly for this show.
Suddenly there is bright light, Jason's submarine breaks apart in a sequence of really bad CGI, and then nothing until Jason wakes up on a beach. Coincidently, "nothing" is what he is now wearing. Apart from the Auspicious Amulet.
I did tell you right at the start that the camera loves Jason. Kudos to the producers for clearly knowing their audience, and finding a replacement for Frequently Shirtless Arthur.
It was a really, really long shot. From several angles.
There are some people getting into a boat! Jason waves at them, and runs towards them, but for some reason naked!Jason doesn't seem to do anything for them and they sail away, leaving a pile of clothes behind them. Which Jason puts on. My classicist friend is very upset about the trousers, which are in about the right degree of historical accuracy as Morgana's goth-chick dresses.
Jason goes to a city! Everyone is wearing the sort of clothes that BBC producers assume people wore in Ancient Greece! There is a two-headed iguana and Jason pokes it. This makes it decide he's clearly food, and there's a chase. ("My cabbages!" cries Eleanor.) He eventually manages to defeat the iguana (while it's inside a bag, making this still family-friendly) — except this makes the local guards decide that clearly chasing Jason is the thing to do. They chase him onto a roof and he gets shot with an arrow from about 20m. Which he instantly pulls out, as it had only gone in about a centimetre. Atlantis has remarkably ineffectual arrows, clearly.
It looked scarier when it was moving, but also more blurry.
In desperation, he jumps off the roof! And lands on another roof, disturbing the guy who's working inside the house. He's drawing triangles! Having heard vague things on facebook, we realise that this must be Pythagoras, and indeed it is!
Pythagoras stops Jason from falling to his doom. I wasn't the least bit surprised to find the "rescuer and rescued land on top of each other" situation coming into play here, although it's taken a step further by Jason hugging Pythagoras before letting him get up.
Pythagoras, being overwhelmed by how pretty Jason is, hides him. The guards are being remarkably thorough considering Jason's crime was to get almost eaten by an iguana (is it sacred? Who knows!), and are doing door-to-door searches. One of them crumples Pythagoras's triangle drawings. HOW MEAN.
Once the guards have left, Pythagoras finds that Jason, in a box, has fainted. Awww. He hauls him out somehow and bandages him up. More awww. Jason finally finds out that he's in Atlantis, and is confused! Pythagoras introduces himself and Jason is even more confused! Then Hercules comes in and we begin what will probably be an entire series of making fat jokes about him. Bleh. Hercules notices the Auspicious Amulet and tells him to go and see the Oracle.
The Oracle seems to be providing the role of the Dragon in this show, except that she's not yet shipping Jason/Pythagoras. However, she does give a load of really unhelpful advice, mixed in with blatant lies. She has been the first woman on this show with a speaking part, so there is that.
She also has Meaningful Tattoos.
Pythagoras runs into Jason again, and explains that tomorrow is Minotaur Day, when tributes are selected from the city to go forth and fight
By law, all men in Atlantis must be shirtless 50% of the time.
Did Ancient Greece have taverns? In any case, Hercules was at one, comes back, and later tries to escape the city before the tribute selection. Jason and Pythagoras go after him and end up saving him from both guards and hunting lions. As you do. Jason does some fancy gymnastics. He's totally going to turn out to be the son of a god. (He's definitely pretty enough.)
I love how blatantly what the lions are running on is not the street.
Tribute selection time! Apparently all 20,000 people in Atlantis assemble, but clearly there weren't enough extras around, so it's the smallest group of 20,000 people I've ever seen. Then we see them picking stones out of pot, one by one in a line in front of Minos's throne. I note here that since every person takes a couple of minutes, this process will take for fucking ever and I'm surprised anyone in Atlantis has time to do anything other than queue all year for this.
Minos's daughter catches sight of Jason, and likes what she sees.
In a plot twist both Eleanor and I were predicting since the announcement of The Minotaur Games, Pythagoras is the one to draw one of the seven black stones. The three of them go home in SADNESS for his last supper. Which will not be spent talking about triangles. Poor Pythagoras.
Hercules: Perhaps you could tell the Minotaur about triangles, and bore it to death!
Minos is having dinner with his wife and daughter. We presume his daughter is Ariadne, but helpfully no one speaks her name. She speaks out about the cruelty of The Minotaur Games!
Minos is not impressed by this flash of characterisation from his daughter.
In another unsurprising plot twist, Jason sneaks out early and volunteers as tribute in Pythagoras's place. There is then an extended scene of him taking his clothes off and then… putting the same ones back on again? Why am I trying to figure out plot reasons, this is clearly just an excuse for very long, lingering shots of his torso.
Probably-Ariadne sneaks up behind him to watch (hard to blame her) and then gives him a necklace which contains a spool of thread so he can find his way through the labyrinth. This further confirms that she's almost certainly Ariadne.
Pythagoras and Hercules have a cunning plan! Sneak to the cave ahead of the tributes and leave weapons there! Unfortuantely, this plan should really have been excecuted a couple of hours later, and they arrive too late. Furthermore, they're seen. "Why are you here?" demands the guard. "Uh… collecting stones?" offers Hercules, which unsurprisingly doesn't impress the guard much. Pythagoras throws a sword to Jason, who promptly drops it instead of parrying. This amused me greatly.
The portal may have taught him Ancient Greek, but swordfighting really should have been on the curriculum too.
The guard lets two lucky tributes go home, and takes Pythagoras and Hercules in their place. (Is it too soon/too inappropriate for me to start calling these two the argonauts? Because I'm going to anyway.) They go into the improbably well-lit cave with torches that are clearly unnecessary! One of the other tributes introduces herself as Helena, which makes her the first woman on this show to actually have a name, since I don't think we can really count The Oracle and Probably-Ariadne. (She doesn't really have a character, but I am desperate enough for women characters that I'm mentioning her anyway.)
Jason goes off to scout. There is a nice shot of him passing across the thread he's left, which if you think about it means he is even worse at finding his way than Probably-Ariadne thought he would be.
By the time he gets back, everyone else heard a noise and ran! Oh no! He finds Pythagoras, who is scared and bleeding a bit. Pythagoras is clearly the designated woobie on this show.
The Minotaur's lair! Helena looks hurt, and Jason doesn't help by apparently suffocating her. She screams anyway (of course) as soon as he takes his hand away from her mouth, and then there is a fight scene! It is a little anticlimatic — I mentioned as the Minotaur died that it had been quite easy, and Eleanor was surprised as she hadn't noticed that it was dying.
Anyway, before it dies, it turns into an elderly but very clean and well-shaven man, who displays a surprising lack of blood for having just been stabbed in the stomach. He says that Jason had been destined to kill him, which makes the fight even less impressive in retrospect. He also says that Jason shouldn't trust Minos! Apparently Minos is evil. (Hands up who saw that coming.)
"I'm not going to tell you anything terribly helpful, though. It's only the first episode."
The Oracle is very pleased to feel the Minotaur's death. The screencap doesn't do it justice.
Minos doesn't immediately display his hidden evilness, however — there is a nice little recognition for the three heroes (I presume Helena is dead, since she was rather more plot-relevant than, say, Hercules. Or possibly this ceremony is only for Heroes Who Are Also Male Main Characters.) Hercules's acceptance speech is cut off, which is rather funny. And with that, they go on their way, presumably back to the house which it seems they all share now. CUTE.
They really are very cute.
The credits confirm that Probably-Ariadne was, in actual fact, Ariadne. Well.
So, it's a promising start, and certainly fulfils its promise of "fun and amusingly entertaining." It would be lovely to have actual women with actual names and actual characters. Is this expecting too much? But Jason is very pretty, Pythagoras is very adorable, and we will definitely keep watching. And I will write more recaps, if you enjoyed this one!
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Date: 2013-10-14 08:12 am (UTC)Think of all the possibilities for further tv-appropriate male nudity if they didn't wear trousers! Or are male legs not supposed to be sexy?