Tuesday evening was Stargate night in the UK. I get together with a group of friends who all either live in London or are close enough to make the trip manageable, or are able to get up to London and stay over. We alternate between my place, a slightly derelict 1950s semi, and SailorS's posh West Kensington pad. Lots of wine, chocolate and girly chat. Brilliant.

This week's get together was at mine, although it wasn't my turn. Mr G had studio time (he plays the drums - our neighbours love us. Everyone in the family plays the drums except me. Even Baby G at the age of 10 months already has his own pair of adult sized drumsticks, and he always has at least one in his hand.). This meant I had to pick up Baby G from nursery, and schlepping him across London to West Kensington isn't practical. Especially now that he is crawling everywhere and doesn't like being restrained in any way.

I arrived home to chaos. Mr G and the band's idiot guitarist (truly he is, a sort of guitarist savant. Put a guitar in his hand and the man is a genius. With everything else he is an idiot. He hasn't managed to hold down a job for longer than six months. Ever. He drives me nuts. There's nothing physically wrong with him, but because he's incapable of an iota of common sense my taxes go to support him) were rushing in and out with drums, guitars, amps etc.

My step daughter and her friend were amusing themselves with vodka and looking at ways to celebrate for her 21st birthday in two weeks. And there was Mags (aka Magnolia Anaglypta) looking radiant on the sofa.

It was a rush of getting Baby G to bed, getting dinner sorted, getting drinks for everyone (Nick, A, and SailorS were there as well), with everyone pitching in and lots of noise. I didn't think I was going to make the start of the episode.

The episode was Stronghold - I had to look that up as I missed a bit of the opening credits. Which was good as it meant it came as a complete surprise when Cliff Simon (Ba'al) first popped up onscreen. That guy has a toe-curlingly sexy voice. It really pays to stay as spoiler free as possible. That was a treat, and last night's episode sadly didn't have many of those. I enjoyed last week's Ripple Effect, and the previous week's Collateral Damage. But last night - what was the point? Why the storyline with Mitchell's friend? Did that add anything? I thought he was going to get Tokra'd or something similar. Was that all a setup just to show that Mitchell is capable of going gung ho?

I've drifted away from Stargate Atlantis (I still love and adore the wonder that is MacKay though) partly because they do far too much telling instead of showing. SG1 is going down the same route. It isn't necessary and it is boring. It dulls the action. And really, Tealc being tortured again? Brainwashed again? Do they just like tying his arms up?

I was going to write a frothing at the mouth rant about how badly they used Sam again, but there was the excellent gateroom scene before they went in to battle, where she was clearly the leader. Yay for Sam.

Stronghold was a score one for the recurring regulars. The real stars here were Tony Amendola, who put in a superb performance as Bratac and Cliff Simon, who as Ba'al was creepily convincing with his arguments. As Mags commented (and I agree), he was right. Of course he was just saying that stuff to get control since he's a meglamaniac goa'uld. But it all made a seductive sort of sense.

Was it just me or did General Landry look a bit more tanned than usual? Perhaps he'd actually managed to get out from inside the mountain for a bit.

I first found GateWorld, or Starguide as it was then, back in 2000 when I did a google search to try and find some info about a Stargate episode. Darren was just a clean shaven baby faced youngster then. I didn't join the forum as it was filled with scary people - MC, Vicky, TC - who seemed to know each other really well. Now those same folks are my best friends. Funny how things work out ay?

I'm committed to GateWorld in a way I never thought I would to an online community. I truly believe in the principles that Darren founded the forum on. The place certainly changed my life.