My Review of Atlantis's 2x05: "The Day Of The Dead"

Written by Howard Overman
Directed by Declan O'Dwyer

Ariadne (to Jason): "But nothing scares me more than admitting that I love you."

I've been somewhat critical of this current series and while I still think this show is rooted in various problems, I will give praise where it's due and this was a fairly praise worthy episode. Not without problems but the good outweighed the bad and it felt like things were finally going somewhere as well.

First of all - Jason and Ariadne. Let's face it, their love has hardly pulled viewers in the same way that Arthur and Gwen did on Merlin but after much faffing about the place and following the more compelling but subtle story with Orpheus and his wife, it was nice to see Ariadne finally admit her feelings to Jason to his face. Then that ending happened.

Anyone remotely surprised that Medea decided to stab Ariadne at the end? In spite of the fact that she spent a lot of time building Jason's trust, saving his life and undoing Pasiphae's spell with the walking dead? I wasn't but it did make for a good cliffhanger though. However I still can't figure out if her attempt at regicide was motivated by her loyalty to her aunt or her seeming attraction to Jason. I'm really hoping for it to be the former.

I was hoping that we would finally get more on Medea and this episode didn't disappoint. Although she did stab Ariadne, I actually spent a great deal of the episode feeling bad for the character. I even found her scenes with Jason pretty interesting to watch as well. Medea might be the only real bright spark about this series so far.

As for the rest of the episode - some nice choice moments with Pythagoras and Hercules but the battle scenes with the dead weren't that interesting and actually pretty hard to see at times. The love story with Orpheus and his wife and Ariadne stepping up to the plate were nice character moments though. I have to give the show that credit.

- Pasiphae literally caused the spell, passed out and then buggered off. She was pretty quick to abandon Medea.
- This episode was too dark at times. I could barely see certain scenes clear enough.
- The more they mention/allude to Medusa, the more I wish they'd get on with bringing her back already.
- Dion briefly came back to life, only to die again. Another minus for Ariadne.

Well, that was better than expected. First episode this series I mostly enjoyed and hopefully, just maybe this might hint at slightly better things to come now.

Rating: 7 out of 10