My Review of Atlantis's 2x03: "Telemon"

Written by Richard O'Brien
Directed by Justin Molotnikov

Hercules (to Pythagoras): "Should Jason learn the truth, his heart will blacken and he'll be lost to us forever."

I use the above quote because it highlighted the best part of the episode - Hercules telling Pythagoras after the least amount of coaxing that Jason is Pasiphae's son and that he can't know that or else. While it did show that Hercules can't be trusted with a secret, it was also a great moment between him and Pythagoras and keeping such a secret from Jason should be quite the task this series. Until Pasiphae probably reveals it herself that is.

As for the rest of the episode, the sense of deja vu was positively overwhelming. Clive Standen is one of those actors who is easy on the eye and generally plays fairly interesting enough characters, but with Telemon, there's a sense of the writers not doing anything particular inventive with him and his hot pursuit of Ariadne.

Throughout the episode, he just came across as a slightly smarter version of Heptarian, killing off one competitor (Areto) who recognised him from the salt mines and then bribing another (Leonidas), just so that he could get into the final round with Jason in a fight that didn't prove to be fatal to either one of them. Aside from Pythagoras (probably the only smart character at times on this show), everyone else seemed taken in with Telemon.

Ariadne herself went from trying to keep him at arm's length to then accepting his proposal of marriage at the end. Even without the aid of the trailer for next week, I didn't need much to realise that Ariadne has made something of an error here. Surely she could've waited a bit before deciding to marry the first stranger on the day of her coronation, right?

- Aside from Ariadne, this episode was absent it's other main female character and I actually missed seeing the Oracle, Pasiphae and Medea because of it. Medusa got another mention too.
- This episode was basically a mash up of episodes three and seven from the first series, wasn't it?
- I'm really liking Dion as a character. He does genuinely seem to have Ariadne's back, which is nice.
- Clive Standen has previously appeared in episodes of Doctor Who and Robin Hood.

Although a slight improvement on the first two episodes, it's becoming more and more of a general struggle with this series. Not only did this episode essentially lift strands from previous episodes, but if I can recall, it didn't do anything particularly different or exciting with them either.

Rating: 6 out of 10