Outcast (SGA)

0:00Hey friends, a quick request before we get to today's show. StarQuest is running a short survey and we're not asking you for money. We're asking you what to make. Whether you support the network or just listen, we want to know which extras you care about and what we should try next. Livestreams, Q&As, behind the scenes, that kind of thing. It's anonymous, takes about five minutes and it's open until September 29th. You'll find the link in the show notes or go to starquest.fm slash survey 2026. You're listening to the Secrets of Stargate, Episode 278. Down at West Jackson has identified the seventh sender. Alright, here we go. We are about to try to make a connection. What we've got to do is bust out of here, come and do your the shipping to Yonko. Beat, save that a lot. I know that this could be dangerous, but this is our job, right? It's what we signed on to do.

1:02It was never a big going home. It's a big getting us to love and go. Hi, I'm Jeff Hecker and this is the Secrets of Stargate where we talk about the hidden meanings and deeper layers found in the Stargate movies, TV series and more. In joining me today is Lisa Jones, Hi Lisa. Hey Jeff. And Victor Lambs, hey Victor. Hello Jeff. Alright, so today we are discussing the 15th episode of Stargate and Land to Season 4 outcast. John Sheppard's estranged father has passed away and John returns to Earth with Ronan for the funeral. They meet his brother Dave and Ronan enjoys the buffet. Sheppard reunites with his ex-wife Maggie Beckett from Sliders. Ava Dixon. Sliders. Sliders. Ava Dixon, one of Wallace's employees who is the kidnapper who kidnapped McKay and his sister, shows up and she needs to meet with Sheppard. As he leaves, he argues with his brother who thinks he's only there for money, but John tells him that isn't why he's there. And Dave tells him their father regretted the estrangement to the end.

2:04Ava tells John and Ronan that they were conducting Nanite research and created a human form replicator out of them, but the authorities were closing in and they had to shut it down. Replicator escaped and killed two guards. Ava brings them to the facility and they capture the lead of the project Dr. Pool and interrogate him for information. And then Sergeant Bates returns. He has been working for the Iowa Aces Honorable Discharge to help monitor the Thressolate related to alien technology on Earth. They beam Dr. Lee aboard the Apollo to help track the replicator and John uses the threat of sending Ava to prison to get Dr. Pool to cooperate. They track the replicator to a warehouse, but it kills Dr. Pool and escapes again. John calls his ex to ask her for a classified intel since she is a Homeland Security Director, but she is reluctant. Later Sheppard and Dr. Lee are reviewing files and he finds that the real Ava Dixon actually died and that the Ava he knows is a replicator variant of her. His ex comes through and gives him the intel and tells him to be careful. Sheppard and Ronin find the replicator again and in the middle of the fight it's about

3:05to kill Sheppard, but replicator Ava shows up and fights it. Sheppard tags it with the locator beacon and the Apollo beams it to low Earth orbit were a burn's up on reentry. We see Sheppard meeting Ava where she can start a normal life, but it is a simulation where they put her consciousness in and her body is destroyed. Sheppard goes to visit his brother before heading back to Atlantis signaling that they will start to mend their relationship. All right, so what did you all think of this episode? I'll start with you Lisa. Reminds me of some of those S-T1 episodes we had where it was like Stargate meets exfiles, you know, where we're back on Earth running around chasing and everything's like dark and I guess it wasn't dark this time, but they're all wearing their black or their civilian clothes and empty warehouses and we had a lot of that. They gave us a reason for Sheppard to go and I love that they didn't have the whole team go that they just had him and then at the very last minute he's walking through the

4:08gate Ronin just like, I got you bro, like let's go do this. So that was kind of nice and then instead of having, oh my gosh, who is our usual civilian barit. There you go. Instead of barit, I don't know what happened to him, maybe because his heart is broken from Carter and never, you know, like returning his affection instead we got, oh my gosh, my brain is losing my body. Agent Bates. Which was a really nice call back and bringing him back and they were much more buddy buddy this time. And then we had Dr. Lee rounding out the team. I liked it. I mean, we've kind of seen these plot lines before. I liked the way it was done. I kind of got lost in all of the shoot him chase him beat him up stuff because that's not really my thing. But it was a nice heartwarming that we learned more about Sheppard and that he and his brother made up and, you know, all's well in the world and the replicators or once again gone.

5:13Nice. So what about you Victor? What do you think? I didn't think about this. There's nothing to it at all. I know they like to like fill in the backstory of some of their characters, but unless the character grows or changes is a result of it, there's no point. And there's no point to this episode either. I mean, apparently, you know, at some point last season Joe Flanagan came to the writers and was like, Hey, you know, it'd be cool. Maybe like they could fight a replicator on earth. And so for that, he gets a story credit in this. And then Alan McCullough had the unenviable task of writing that into an episode where they tried to fill out some of Sheppard's backstory. You know, he's the prodigal son ran off and his family's rich and his brother thinks he ran off and at the end, he's okay with it. And then they just run around trying to like fight a replicator where if they got the technology from like the Miller's crossing episode, that was only like a few weeks.

6:17I mean, even in story time, it would only be a few months ago, which is not a lot of time to create a human form replicator considering how long the agents took to do it. But this guy, you know, pool who doesn't seem very smart managed to do it twice with Ava and with the other guy. I had Samantha Carter, Amanda Tapping is in this episode where if she only signed on for a certain number of episodes, this was kind of a waste. You know, she has one line, McKay has one line, Taylor is not in it, Keller is not in it. So I think, you know, cost saving some of the stunts were cool. You know, James Bam Bamford got to jump off a crane in this one. But otherwise, it's just there. It is cool to see Bates again. But really, if you're watching the show, you can skip this one safely. I don't say that about many episodes, but there's no there there with this one. Yeah, I thought this one was, you know, I liked it.

7:19I do always like getting those bits of backstory of our characters. Since we really haven't gotten much of shepherd other than his military career, we've only seen kind of his, his big flashback of where he defied orders and that kind of black ball them and he ended up in an article. That's really all we knew about him. And so it was kind of nice getting, you know, we meet his, his ex wife and, and his brother in this. And yeah, it's, you know, it kind of sets up that it kind of pays off to that shepherd was in Mince and, you know, he's smart. He's he's actually very smart and we see, you know, maybe he's got that, you know, he had a lot of potential to be a lawyer or something. I can't if that's what if they said anything and what his dad wanted him to do. It sounded like just, you know, take over the family business kind of a thing. But he has, you know, that background, but he chose to, you know, probably from a strange from his dad and we didn't really get a lot of that other than that just generically that they're estranged. But, but it is nice to get that backstory and see that kind of mending of relationships

8:23with his brother there. So, and yeah, I was excited to see Bates. I forgot he was in this episode. It would have been cool if he was, if he had been recurring in some of these, earth, these Atlantis X files episodes instead of bear it. But, but so that was nice. Yeah, we don't see him again. I don't think so. Yeah, overall, I thought it was a, it was a decent episode. I'm sure it was done for some cost savings as well. So they don't have to do as many visual effects and things. Just can run around earth for a bit. So, yeah, Bates doesn't do much except get knocked in the back of the head. I mean, really, I mean, yeah, well, he's, they said he was injured in the, I guess, the CH. Yeah. That's why he's been, so he's on, yeah, he's still, he's got a more leading the team, but, yeah, he's, yeah. And they, they do set up the, the IOA is now running ops as well as the NID and stuff. So, Bates is much happier at the IOA.

9:24Yeah, he is. Yeah. Yeah, I should have had him like, peered up with like, Kavanaugh and they could have been, you know, like both really happy about not being on Atlantis and working for Weare anymore. Instead of Dr. Leab being the, the side of just they bring in it should have been Kavanaugh's or just that. That would have been awesome. Yeah. Yeah, well, he was, or maybe he was Kavanaugh making the replicators. I'm like, they had to fight him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, because he was the head of security, basically, on Atlantis. And so you're, you kind of have to be a jerk about everything to, to keep security, because they didn't really have good security on Atlantis and they often don't. But, yeah, he's, now that he's not in that role, he's definitely much, much more affable. And there's, yeah, and then as we mentioned, Maggie Beckett from Sliders is in this. Sliders. She places John's ex-wife and she's, I think it was a Homeland Security director or some kind of

10:26intelligence. Yeah. Some lawyers big up in the Homeland Security or something, I guess. Yeah. She must really still have the hots for Shepard because she's willing to like, break all kinds of rules to find stuff out for him. So she's willing to go to jail for him. Yeah. If there was any chemistry there, it's not on the screen. It's so true. It's that Stargate chasteness where it's just like, you know, there's just, there's nothing there. Well, she's remarried. To Ethan or who is it? Well, we have to think. Yeah. Some attorney. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's the attorney. He's trying a case in Arizona or something. There you go. I was like, why do you live in, why do you live in Washington and he's trying a case in Arizona? I mean, maybe he's a federal lawyer. Yeah, federal lawyer or something. Yeah. Patent Law or, you know, something. Yeah. Yeah, but that was, you know, I hadn't seen her in too much,

11:26but I just watched Sliders a couple of years ago. And I was like, she looks really familiar. And of course, like I always do, I'm DB everything. And I was like, oh, yeah, it's Maggie Beckett. So, you know, if we're in Austin, I'll just say it from Sliders. It was kind of cool to see her. I see her in this. Yeah. Oh, but did you see who, um, um, uh, Emma LaHanna was? She was the yellow Dino Ranger from Power Rangers. Ava? Yeah. Okay. I didn't, I was out of Power Rangers by the time of that. I think I got through like my, oh, I'm sorry. Yellow Dino Thunder Ranger. Yeah. Yeah. With, yeah, there's with the kids we've been watching the original Super Saiyan series that they, you know, oh, Super Saiyan stole for Super Sentai. Yes, sorry, saying something. Yes, Super Sentai for, um, for, uh, for Power Rangers. Power Rangers. Yeah. But the original so much better. Yeah. Yeah. She's been in a couple other things too that I've seen. But, um, yeah, it was kind of, it was, it was, when she shows up, she's like,

12:31I worked for this one guy. You met this one time. And I've got to talk to you. And it was just like, the, the, it was, the funeral setup was like, okay, it was kind of an odd juxtaposition of, like, they needed Shepard to get, have an excuse to be on Earth for this episode. Yeah. Like, so he could meet with her. It kind of just felt, you know, manufactured. Yeah, she just shows up at the funeral, I guess, really intense. And he's like, okay, I'll go with you. Fine. Yeah. Well, he didn't want to be there. He just wanted to. Yeah. Well, Ronin wanted to keep eating. Yeah, Ronin had a good time. I actually liked Ronin. You know, he didn't have much to do, you know, in the early part of this episode. But I liked the way they made him awkward at the, at the house and the funeral scene and the, you know, they're talking about, what movie was that? Ice, no, blaze of glory. Blades of glory. Blades of glory. And then he's like, that's a sport. And he's like, unfortunately, I mean, yeah, I really like those little moments. That was nice. And the amount of food. And the guy watching him take all the food was one of the, uh,

13:33get into the gate winners. Oh, really? I just went, yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I've like the, like, they've been dropping a lot of little like Ronin beats throughout the season. Like, even if he doesn't have a lot to do in the episode there, he's, he's gotten a lot of these, like, kind of cool, funny character moments, which is, um, you know, kind of pay, you know, if you've, if you've watched his career, because he, he, this was kind of his one of his big breaks. Um, and he's done a lot since then. And like, he's, uh, Jason Moes is a pretty funny guy. So it's cool getting to kind of see those, see, see him play that humor here. Why did they let him keep his gun on Earth, though? Like he's running around with an alien weapon. If he's, you know, killed or, or something, you know, he shouldn't just give them, yeah. What was the thing he did have it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, they treat, they track the thing to the warehouse and whatever. And, or they're like, they're going through secure facilities. So anybody who, anybody who, who, you know, would be their knows that either, like,

14:35it's classified and they don't ask or they know he's enailing from into the galaxy or something. And also, so they created a replicator, but it doesn't replicate. Exactly. So there's, so there's no threat of like it overriding her. That's just, yeah. That was kind of like a cheat, wasn't it? Yeah. I didn't like that. I think that if you're going to create replicators, they need to replicate. They like need that threat of replicating. Because, because that just made it a standalone episode, like you said, with no further threat, there's, there's no long-term consequence of this episode. There's no even plot development. It's like, oh, no, they're done. We're done. No threat. Yeah. And anyone from the SGC could attract them down. It didn't need to be shepherd and rolin. Yeah. I mean, because they're unearthed, right? It would have fallen under the SGCs, you know. Yeah. Special operations team. Yeah. Well, I mean, did they say it couldn't replicate or just that that's not one of its primary directives? They said, yeah, at the beginning, it's like, oh, don't worry,

15:37it can't replicate or something. Okay. Yeah, I couldn't remember if they. Yeah, they just say they did the program it to replicate. But I'm like, but that doesn't mean it can't. Right. Yeah. The whole line. Yeah. I thought for sure we were going to end up with like a bunch of them. You know, when they're chasing them down, he was going to start having little bugs or something. Yeah, the only the only taking clock in this is that if he gets the mineral, the thorium or whatever it is, he'll heal himself. He's just right. Yeah. Right. And if shepherd is so darn smart, how come he didn't know what that was? Oh, with the pallets of a masonry sighting or whatever or the, yeah. But even when Dr. Lee said what it actually was, like that's the code for whatever, he didn't know what that whatever was and what it was used for. So that kind of bothered me. How come they didn't know Aval was a robot. Yeah. Weird edges and nils. Well, he's not really a scientist though.

16:37Like he's smart and has like, you know, but he's probably done, you know, as a pilot, and you have to do math and stuff, but he's not a scientist. So he may not know like the scientific functions of everything, which is why he has Mikaire around all the time to handle that. Mikaire was there. He would have figured, of course, Mikaire was stuck on the planet with the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last time is the link I got to go and this time it was Mikaire's turn. Yeah. He didn't, what was it? Was it last week or two weeks ago? We did the princess slash queen little child. Last week, yeah. Okay. So he just didn't get enough of kid drama. He had to go back. Yeah. Yeah. Um, was that all the excitement of the episode? What else? Uh, Dr. leaves on vacation and then yeah, beam him way. Yeah, they'd be in modification. He should have left his, uh, emergency contact, you know, unpopulated on this out of office notification, I guess.

17:38Well, you know, they have subdominal locator beacons on everyone too. So they, they would have gotten them either way. Can you not just turn that off when you need a moment? I mean, it's like turning the location thing on your phone off. Like nobody needs to know or just turn your phone off. Yeah. Nobody needs nowhere. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah, I think to turn it off, you'd have to dig it out of you and I do not disturb. Yeah, or I'm like an aluminum garbage can as a parent in cage or something. I like to sunburn though. That was, that was a nice fit. Yeah, but we get a, so it's the second kind of friendly replicator we've had. Yeah. Because after Fran, we've seen up with other replicators start friendly and then kind of turn. But Fran was always friendly and then this, then Ava was always, uh, like she was always seemed good. But and she gets to live out her life in a digital world like Dr. Moriarty. Exactly. Yeah. Star Trek. On the virtual holiday.

18:39Yep. Yep. Well, at first when they showed her walking, I did not remember this episode at all. I mean, at all, like I maybe I've never seen it. I have no idea. But when they at the end when she and Shepherd are walking and she's talking about her new job, but this and that and I'm like, y'all are not the stupid. Like you're just letting her just because she's a nice replicator. So then I was pleased to find out they're not that. Yeah. And it was interesting to see that the interface for Shepherd into the virtual world was the aurora like table, not the game, uh, not the game master gamekeeper. Yeah, device. Which makes you wonder why they didn't use the aurora thing in the fear episode. Instead of the having to import the the gamekeeper device into Atlantis. But because wouldn't they have the aurora last something on Atlantis? Well, the aurora was destroyed. Yeah. And then they did they get the bed.

19:41Yeah. I don't know. Well, they might have had it on another aurora class. It might have had it on the was it the Orion? Yeah. They might have taken one or something. Little souvenir. I thought it would have been cool to see like Ava's head like connected to wires or something in her like looking scared at the end. Cause I don't know. Well, what you'll think about the then having him burn up in the atmosphere as a solution. I guess. I mean, so Dr Lee proposes the terminator solution. You know, you just burn him up because he's a robot. And so you could beam him into like double cano or you could just be a moment to like low earth orbit. I guess and have him burn up. It seems unnecessarily cruel, I guess. Yeah. Sentient being. Yeah. Yeah. Let's torture him before he dies.

20:42Cause presumably he can feel pain and stuff. But she said she had all kinds of emotions. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I thought at first they were just going to beam into space to freeze them like they do. The other like they always have done. But yeah, then they do the let him let him burn, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did hit baits on the back of the head with no, no, no, that was Dr. pool who had baits on the back. What was up with this Dr. pool guy? So it was not a very good character. And Stephen Miller, regardless of his status as like kind of a legendary Vancouver actor, was kind of hard to read on this one. I think his motivations were and they never state this explicit. They're like, oh, he's going to sell the technology. So we need, you know, Shepard's ex-wife to figure out who he's going to sell it to. And all Shepard's ex-wife comes back with his like, yeah, they're selling bricks.

21:44But I think like he was protecting Ava because when the real Ava died, he created the Ava of Replicator. But didn't tell her she was a replicator. All right. Maybe she, I think she knew she was a, I don't know. Yeah. I think she knew. No revelation, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then he wanted to save other guy, whatever the guy's name, Adrian Hines, a replicator guy. Yeah. But he wasn't going to sell it because they didn't uncover any evidence of that. So his motivations are still pretty unclear. He was just kind of wandering around until he got killed. That was... I didn't hate it or anything, but I felt like it was a rushed like here's the script go, you know. Lots of action, no one will pay attention to the rest of it. Yeah. And they were filming this while another crew was filming trio. So, you know, Keller, Carter and McKay were off doing that when they made this episode.

22:45So... So I guess they couldn't use, I don't know, the sets or whatever, because they were being used. They had used the sugar factory or whatever that they filmed most of us in. Yeah. And then we end with that mending offenses, but I don't think we see Shepherd's brother again. No. I don't think so. I don't know. They might mention something that ended later up so that like they're corresponding or they're you know, see each other again or something, but I don't remember. Maybe in the novels he... There he's there, I don't know. Shepherd gets some money and he's driving a Lamborghini through the city that would be... Didn't didn't finding out that Shepherd was like not just rich, but like we're talking like generational wealth wealthy, right? Yeah. That just made a lot of things fit into place for me with his personality to find out he was that kind of wealthy. I mean, I'm watching with my daughter and she's like, they have horses.

23:46I don't like it. Yeah. Like Evidelli. So that made sense. But the guy who played his brother Dylan Neal, when he came on the screen, it was one of those like, oh my gosh, he has been in so many things that took me. I had to go through his I&BD and find out what was it? You know, what was it that I'm really remembering in front? But honestly, there's just so many different things. A lot of recently, a lot of hallmark and but even before that, I mean, you go back arrow and even now to an O. And I mean, all kinds of shows that he's been on. So even bold and the beautiful back way back. Dawson's Creek. Yeah, Dawson's Creek. Yeah, exactly. He played, um, was it like, paste his brother or something? So yeah. Yeah, and he was on Captain Power and the soldiers of the future was one of his. That was like an interactive TV show. I think that you played with like a joy stick or something or a gun or something

24:47is it was on TV or something? And he was in one of the Babylon 5 movies. There was Legend of the Rangers, which is not a good movie. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah, there's like one good Babylon 5 movie and I don't know which one it was. It wasn't that one. Oh, yeah. 263 episodes of Bold and the Beautiful. So, Paparus. Yeah, he was definitely on that for a while, which I didn't watch it, but I know people who did. So it was a it was fun kind of scrolling through and thinking, why do I know him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't look him up because off earlier, but I was like, yeah, I've seen him in I've seen him in stuff and I probably recognized him from the Babylon 5 movie the one time I watched it, but he's been another stuff too that I've seen. So. Oh, yeah. Um, all right. Any final thoughts on this episode? I'm trying really. Yeah.

25:48This might be a record for us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if we didn't have any final thoughts, do we have any alternate titles at least? Yeah, we did. And German we got an apologies. They're Alzgesstosen, which is the outcast. And French we got a Venice, which is outcast. And then in Japanese, we got the Kikyo, which is homecoming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'll cast it. At first, I was like, why is it called this? But I mean, I guess there's a couple different outcasts. Yeah, shepherd's the outcast, the replicators, the outcast. Dr. Lee's the outcast. Yeah, bait to see outcast. Really, when you think about it, we're all outcasts. Yeah, exactly. No way. Yeah. But we can be outcasts together. Yeah. All right. Well, we did want to just mention, we talked, I think we talked,

26:48we mentioned last time that Michael Shanks was launching a podcast, a Stargate rewatch podcast. They did recently give the title of it, which I think it was voted on by fans. And it was the boat was full circle. And I believe it starts October 17th. And the YouTube channel is live that you can subscribe to. They haven't put anything on it yet. But there's a like a 30 minute video from dial the gate that I haven't watched. But sure they talk about it there. But so we'll hit the bell so you'll be notified of future episodes. And then we did have just a little bit of feedback. We were joking a couple of episodes ago about a rath named generator. And one of our discord members, Carmen San Diego, created one. So if you haven't been on our discord yet, and you want to, you know, and why not? Because it's a lot of fun. But you should go there and check out the rath named generator

27:49in the Stargate Discord channel. And I believe Victor, you shared it on X as well. I did. Yes. So thank you, Carmen Sanio. We should have put up our rath names for this. I know. So do you remember what yours was? It was keen something. Mine was like Willow River or something. Something like that. That's clever mountain. Yeah, some of them could also be band names too, which was. Yeah, mine was like super awesome Beth's best rath ever. I think. All right. But thank you for that, Carmen San Diego. Yes. That was fun. Everyone, you know, go on and share your target. Your your your rath name on there. So. But we'd like to take a moment to think our patrons with their real names who make a pause for us to create the secrets of Stargate, including Ming, Miguel G, Emily P Nathan H and David M.

28:52Their generous donations make it possible for us to continue the secrets of Stargate and all the shows at StarQuest. And you can join them by visiting givestarquest.com. And be sure to follow the show on Apple podcasts, tune in, Spotify, I heart radio or find our video versions at youtube.com slash StarQuest Media to find previous episodes of the secrets of Stargate and a sin feedback, including your rath names. You can visit sqpn.com slash stargate. You can email us at stargate at sqpn.com or follow StarQuest on social media at facebook.com slash starquest media or an exit sqpn. Or leave a comment on our Stargate Discord channel sqpn.com slash discord, which is again as we said where you can find your rath name. So we'll be back next time with the next episode of season four, Stargate, Lantis, Trio. Until then Lisa Jones. Thank you for joining me in sharing the secrets of Stargate. Thanks Jeff. And Victor Lam's thank you as well. Thanks Jeff. Remember your planet's weird.

29:54It certainly is. And once again I'm Jeff Hecker. Thank you for listening to the secrets of Stargate on StarVlast. Anyway I'm sorry but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think? Here's another show on the StarQuest network you're sure to enjoy. This secrets of Middle Earth. Find it wherever you can find podcasts or at sqpn.com slash Middle Earth.