It’s the Atlantis expedition’s rest day, meaning the whole team gets to take the day off. Everyone gets to spend the day doing their hobbies, hanging out with the friends they’ve made, even going on dates. Unfortunately, what should have been a relaxing and peaceful afternoon spirals into disaster when an explosion goes off. With three people dead and many others injured, the Atlantis team gets down to business to take preemptive measures on the new emergency.
For any adventure TV show, doing an episode that focuses on the team’s day off (that is, not going on missions) feels very out-of-the-ordinary. After all, where’s the conflict? Regardless of that, it actually works. First of all, there is a real conflict. Secondly, before embroiling them all in that very personal conflict, the episode showcases the crew of Atlantis at their most human. It personalizes the main characters.
The episode is arranged in a nonlinear narrative, with a set of flashbacks showing the events for all of the main cast, leading up to the disaster. It is edited in a way that juxtaposes the lighthearted innocence of the beginning with the tense drama of the middle, and they flow very smoothly together. All of the flashbacks show the personnel of the Atlantis Expedition at their most ordinary, really bringing them all down to earth. With one exception, most of them succeed at this.
For instance, Sheppard and Ronon play golf. It may sound boring (it sure is to Ronon), but getting to see how they act outside of combat is actually very entertaining because it highlights the cultural silver lining between Sheppard and Ronon. Sheppard likes golf, but Ronon is bored by it. Plus, Ronon swinging his golf club with one hand is simply really funny. This silver lining is further highlighted later on when Ronon spars with Sheppard—or should I say, Ronon trolling Sheppard. Trying to describe the scene with words would ruin how funny it actually is. You have to see it for yourself.
Dr. Beckett looking for another buddy to go with (after Rodney drops out), but to find none, is a very relatable struggle. The fact that he also doesn’t whine about it or try to force anyone else to go with him subtly underlines how understanding he is of other people. This compassion is further stated by him covering for someone else’s overtime so she can have her day off. Moments like these sell how much he cares about other people.
Not every character’s flashback is well-written, however, and Dr. Weir’s is the sore thumb of the bunch. She’s going on a date with a man who’s apparently been working at Atlantis for quite some time. I say, “apparently,” because we’ve never met this guy before—this is literally his first appearance on the show. As such, he has absolutely no character development, let alone an established relationship with Dr. Weir. Every step of the way is so paint-by-numbers, and both actors have no romantic chemistry between each other at all. Because of this, we’re left with a supposedly-romantic subplot that feels hollow. It’s just not believable.
Luckily, “Sunday” also features a similar subplot actually done right: Rodney and Katie, as their relationship had already been introduced in “Duet”. Rodney’s sheer awkwardness around Katie is very much in line with how it was when established in “Duet”. Also, David Hewlett and Brenda James haven’t lost any of their acting chemistry from last time. Even though this is only Katie’s second appearance, it feels like they’ve been seeing each other for a whole season.
All of these flashbacks serve as a counterbalance to the episode’s central present-day conflict, wherein Dr. Beckett decides to operate on Watson—thereby making it all the more compelling an engaging. Every character is fully in-character during the disaster, and it sums up who each character is as a person.
Having been established as a selfless soul for three seasons, it makes perfect sense for Dr. Beckett to put his life on the line to save Watson. All of his heroic actions in this episode (evacuating and quarantining the entire floor but staying behind to save Watson) solidify his place as the heart of Atlantis. His death, at the end, is the exact kind of noble sacrifice that fits his character as a whole. He would risk his life to save others in a heartbeat, and he died doing exactly that. The fact that this happened on a day off, and not on any mission connected to the show’s main storyline, only makes this statement more powerful. It punctuates exactly who Beckett was as a person.
As the smart guy of the team, Rodney knows exactly how dangerous the radiation is. While his panic over Dr. Beckett staying behind may partly come from a viewpoint of logic and knowing this plan is absolutely crazy, it seems to be more than just that. After all, these are two best friends who we’re talking about. In other words, Rodney actually cares about his best friend, deep down. While Ronon gives him the honest tried-and-true “It’s not your fault” cliché after Beckett’s death, he’s right. In fact, Rodney played as equal of a role in saving Watson as Beckett did by discovering the explosive tumor in the first place (based on information only they knew). Had they both gone fishing, who knows what the outcome on Atlantis might have been instead. Beckett would rather have died saving someone else’s life than live the rest of his life knowing he could’ve saved him but didn’t.
While not without its flaws, “Sunday” is a fantastic episode of Stargate Atlantis because of how it handles the human sides of the main characters. Most of the characters’ individual arcs (save for one) are delivered brilliantly and effectively, and it drives home who they are as people by showing them at their most ordinary, outside of the action in the field. It’s an almost-perfect—if tragic—sendoff for Stargate Atlantis’s classic cast.
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