Contains Minor Spoilers
I often compain about the poor standard (I feel) of SGA episode names – they’re just so damned bland and uninspiring.
Titles such as “Adrift”, “Lifeline”, “Reunion”, “Travellers” and “Missing” are hardly the literature titles that will be remembered in a thousand years. What’s worse, these are the names of the next five episodes of the show. In a row.
How dull.
However, whilst flicking through the upcoming episodes I discovered that the midseason episodes this year are to be called ” This Mortal Coil” and “Be All My Sins Remember’d”
Now THAT’s more like it. They may be stolen from Shakespeare, but it’s a start! Way to go Atlantis writers! More of this please.
Oh wait, one after that’s called “Trio”.
*Sigh*
The thing is about SGA episode titles (and SG1’s as well), as that they quite often have more than one meaning — including the word(s) in the title and the title in retrospect to the episode.
Something bland like “adift” (which according to Merriam Webster online means: without motive power and without anchor or mooring; or without ties, guidance, or security; or free from restraint or support.
Now, we already know from the season 3 cliffhanger season finale, “First Strike,” that Atlantis is adrift in the Pegasus Galaxy. It’s in space, without power, and moving along at its last velocity.
But moving where?
What’s in its way?
So, adrift could apply to the city of Atlantis.
But…what if it were something that was free from restraint that was the major plot point for “Adrift?” And what was last seen IN restraint at Atlantis?
Could it be…a nemesis?
Or, as they have no communication to the SGC (or apparently anyone else), and Dr. Weir was injured in the season finale, poor old Shep is going to have to make the big decision on what to do all by his lonesome. He has no guidance from superior officers, or from Dr. Weir.
He’s the man.
To me, that’s part of the JOY of “bland” SGA/SG1 episode titles. Discovering the layers of meaning with them.
Morjana
But this is hardly new. TNG got the trend rolling with The Enemy, The Hunted, The Chase, The Gift and so on. Bermaga showed REAL nice poetry with those titles(rolls eyes), but then, what else is new from those trained chimpanzees. What happened to the old titles like in TOS, “For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky”, “City on The Edge of Forever”, “Requiem For Methuselah”, “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” and so on.
No, unfortunately the episode titles today are an indication of the lack of imagination also apparent in the stories being written.