The Permanent Stargate: Universe Discussion Thread, Part III
Posted on October 24, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 304 Comments
This is the third part of the SG:U discussion thread; the first part is archived here, and the second part here.
As there is an interest in having an official comment thread here on Whatever for the discussion of Stargate: Universe episodes, themes and details, behold! This is it. Henceforth, let this be the place you come here to chat with other Whateverites (and occasionally its Creative Consultant as well) about what you see on the show. I’ll put a permanent link to it into the SG:U sidebar widget so it will always be easy to find.
NOTE: This thread will almost certainly contain spoilers of the most recent episode if you come to it during or after the first airing of the show in the US/Canada. Be warned.
All right, then. Discuss the show!
Thanks for the new thread!
YAY new SG:U been going through withdrawl :-)
The Asgard??
This comment is solely for the purpose of activating auto-notification.. Sorry for the lack of interesting content..
Ok not Asgard, pretty disturbing though
So, I’m liking it but I’m pretty easy.
I liked it better than any of the 1.0 episodes, but there was still plenty to dislike:
in particular, Fox-style musical montages!!!! If I could afford it, I would go Elvis every time that happens. Also, taking the cylon sound effect for the new alien fighters, little cheesy.
Be interesting to see if the Rush-is-a-complete-villain-sociopath crew are back in force. I agree he does everything with one eye on the long game, but he did not have to save Chloe and Young sure as hell shot the mothership to kill Rush and damn Chloe’s eyes for being in the way. On a positive note, they are resetting the civilian/military conflict on a more rational ground and I would rather be relieved they made that move to make the show better than carp on how they botched the execution of that plot line in the first half.
Here’s to a better tomorrow and greater imaginings!
I’ll tag it promising…
They solved a few issues – one, now that there is a risk to using the stones (I am guessing it involves their mind probe) they will hopefully be used MUCH less. They got Rush back, pretty much the way everyone guessed.
The aliens, while bipedal, did look alien (props for the walking motion). Rush is still a manipulator (truce indeed), and I am guessing that next week is going to shake out tho who is really in charge question and let things start moving forward.
Big negative… I know BSG was called groundbreaking, but please don’t let every space battle and shuttle launch be in ‘GalacticaCam’… And yes, I know the ship is low on power, but a little light so we can tell what the heck is going on might help..
Also, once some of the interpersonal issues are handled? A light and fluffy episode might be nice.
Riley is still an idiot. But that’s just my opinion.
Still too soap opera for me.
It was an interesting episode. I’m a bit disappointed with the aliens though. ‘Cause when I heard/read there would ‘alien aliens’, I was expecting a lot of things like something out Peter F Hamilton’s books. But in the end they’re yet another humanoid, bipedal race. Granted, they glow blue and seem to have a very jello-like substance, but still.
Aside that, I’m curious for the connection between the Milky Way, the aliens and the ‘other’ interested party. Hmm… Now that I think about it, it might well come to a mellowed down version of Hamilton’s Commonwealth saga.
Here’s to hoping it’ll be different!
I liked it. I liked the feeling of “let’s pick up where we left off.” I liked the feeling of “Oh NO ! what’s that ?!?”
I liked the glimpse of Young, on his own, trying new things. Lead by doing.
I liked the feeling of “what do we do NOW.” (love the Air Force…When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout)
It totally overrode the feeling of “What AGAIN
with the no_power_for_the_weapons.”
It also overrode Ming-Na’s “This is my calculating look, and this is my tense look, and don’t forget my (kudo’s to TWOP) scheming look.”
I liked it. And that’s all I want. I’ll keep watching.
Thanks to the crew.
I hope the next show at least addresses “Cool, we now have an alien shuttle welded to the ship, and it’s a lot newer than this piece of Ancient garbage we’re in.”
(Having Hulu’d)
Mixed feelings, but mostly–what’s *really* going on here?
Forex: They come over, latch on, grab Chloe, then leave. Why bother for just one person? They’ve already got Rush; only thing I can think of is maybe they wanted a breeding pair. (Any chance Chloe was under the influence of a Mesmer Ray ™ when she stared blankly up through the hole in the ship?) But then the aliens appear to let Rush and Chloe go (unless I missed something), which counteracts the breeding pair idea.
Also–Rush says the aliens need to get past the Destiny’s defenses–followed by a fraught silence. Rush is past the Destiny’s defenses. Are his motives entirely his own, or did they leave some posthypnotic suggestion in him with their Mesmer Ray ™? (His own motives might also serve.) Does Chloe have an implanted agenda? Do aliens carry human-scale wet suits on their ships?
And what WAS that with James crying at the end?
And so forth. But I did enjoy watching, for the most part, which is good.
Personally, I didnt like Rush getting back to Destiny so quickly. I think they should have spread that over a few episodes. Oh well, whats done is done. Did the aliens let Chloe and Rush go or are we going to find out that they been ‘programmed’ or something? How did Rush learn to pilot the ship so quickly? How was it that Chloe was in the right spot to be taken or did she just happen in to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time? Im hoping we will learn the answers to these questions. Im wondering if we’ve seen the last of these aliens or are they somehow able to track Destiny in hyperspace or wherever they are between stops?
I am currently annoyed that they made James the butt of the joke, again. She’s a USAF Second Lieutenant, cleared for duty on Icarus Base, which probably makes her a formidable woman indeed, and yet how is her character used? The ol’ “didn’t know the mic was live!” trick. Bah. Bah I say. Use Chloe for that crap, or what’s her face, that other chick, if you’re going for the cheap embarrassment laugh.
The commercials for the next episodes say something about “choosing a side”. I don’t like Young (though yeah he did make a stab at rescuing Rush, so, points there); Rush is way too self-centered with no military training; Wray is a cipher — an IOA accountant for god’s sake! (without communication with Earth, what WILL Wray’s motivation be?). So, whatever. I think — I *think* — Young might be their best bet at surviving, he was an SG team leader in the past.
Aliens are suitably alien, so points there. Still no Furlings though. Someday!
Ship was damaged in the alien attack. I am skeptical about how (and with what tools and materials) they’ll be making repairs.
Chloe survived her first alien abduction (of no doubt many many) . If she doesn’t learn self-defense from either Scott or James I’m gonna be annoyed. That goes for Eli too actually.
Can’t wait for the day Eli wakes up and realizes he has the ability to be a player, not a pawn, in all this…
I wish they’d go ahead and put Eli in charge, period. He knows enough about the ship and Ancient tech by now that he can manage Rush. He’s not military so he can’t be accused of running an end around in the name of the “chain of command.” He’s not some enigmatic agency douchebag.
Most importantly, he’s genuinely likable by just about everyone, he doesn’t pretend to have the answers so he listens to everyone, and best of all he really wouldn’t want to be in command. Oh, and as young and inexperienced as he is? He’s the one that somehow figured out the puzzle that got them all on the ship in the first place – if there’s some of other puzzle on the other end to get them back then maybe he’s the go to guy for that too.
Everyone else besides Rush, who has issues with trustworthiness for everyone involved, is there because they’re competent enough for being off world but not so competent as to earn a place in a really critical place doing high risk research. Eli’s the superstar, the pinch hitter. He’d defer like he always does when it makes sense to, but he’s got to be an awful lot smarter than he’s been written as.
Unless he’s just marginally competent and lucky, in which case I think they’re probably all screwed. It still doesn’t make sense that some of these other guys got the green light for the super secret space program, but with their current personal issues I think Eli’s the only person everyone can trust, confide in, or imagine controlling.
Didn’t think it was that impressive.
The aliens looked like they’re rendered in a cheap video game.
And if they’re computer-generated, why not try to make them non-humanoid?
Very good episode. Great comeback from SG:U :)
Many new possibilities appeared now. And about communication stones – i think, that Rush might have his own communication stone and Wray might have been involved in switching one of the original communication stones to another one – paired with the one Rush had with him (just to check if he is really dead or sth). But Rush was captured and one of aliens took this stone and… surprise!
There are still many things which are difficult to understand for me, but let’s wait until next episodes – just in case there will be some explanation :)
Regards
PS. Sorry for my english :)
My only thought is what I was shocked that Rush came back from exile so quick. I figured he’d be off the radar for at least 2-3 episodes.
Interesting comments so far.
I think this was a nice step up for the series. They dealt with the survival aspect of being on this malfunctioning ship. They dealt with the attempted coup from Earth. They have dealt with and are continuing to deal with interpersonal issues being the military and civilian personnel (which is a classic struggle) and now we introduce an enigmatic alien presence who have supposedly been interested in Destiny and are now annoyed that these dirty human are crawling all over “their” ship.
OK so now there are TWO holes in the ship. How you gonna fix that? The shields can only do so much. On the bright side they have that nifty new shuttle to play with. Which I’m sure will bite them in the butt at some point in the future.
I’m still disappointed with the women on this show. Chloe is useless and stupid enough to walk toward a hole in the ship during a space battle. Wray reveals her hand too soon and has no persuasive or leadership skills. James had that awful discussion about widowers and is weepy at the end because she doesn’t have a man warming her bed. TJ has a thing for Young, a manipulative creepy bastard. Yikes.
Just a side note. I am somewhat annoyed by the Scott and Chloe relationship. I have no real idea why to be honest, it just irks me. It’s not because of Eli or anything like that, I guess it just seems like it was too easy. It just kind of happened. “Sorry your Dad died. Hey wanna go steady?”
Why bother for just one person? They’ve already got Rush; only thing I can think of is maybe they wanted a breeding pair.
We have at least a handwave for this; Rush claims to have been able to resist the mind-probing, which would suggest that they were looking for someone more tractable.
Of course, whether or not you want to believe Rush is another story…
I’m with William @22 on the women characters, particularly Chloe. It seems like she is the least likely person to survive any kind of life-threatening crisis. How stupid do you have to be to walk toward a hole that has just been burned through the hull of your spaceship? Of all the major characters she has got to be the next to die just because she lacks survival instincts. Don’t get me wrong, Levesque is not a bad actress she just got stuck with writers who have no idea what to do with her aside from being a plot point.
My disconnect with Chloe is that she’s supposed to be in her early twenties but to me she’s written like she’s twelve. Almost as if writing her with minimal to no skills suitable for the ship meant regressing her emotionally and intellectually as well. It would explain her walking toward the hole but makes the Chloe/Scott hookup all the creepier.
She’s a daughter of a US Senator, who probably is not the most street wise out there, so some of her actions make sense…
I dunno, as a Senator’s daughter she seems like she’d be the one most savvy to the politics on the ship really. Everyone else probably got invested in politics later on in life, but she’s likely had to grow up with the realities of her dad being a VIP. He couldn’t have been some short term Senator, or else I can’t see him being allowed in on the who Stargate secret quite so directly.
I should learn to preview first, please forgive my typos!
Depends on how sheltered she was from his work, but its a valid point. I was envisioning her more in the terms of prep-school/boarding school without a lot of real world smarts (hence going towards the big hole).
She wasn’t just his daughter but was helping him in a professional capacity. Otherwise she never would have been there. She should be all over the politics on the ship, but they can’t figure out how to write her into it apparently.
I’m not sure how long she was helping though. Placing her at early 20s, she could just have gotten out of school.
Also, since she is sleeping with Scott (and I am sure that’s not a secret), I doubt the civilians would confide in her, and ditto on the military side.
I can’t imagine that she would be that daft though, especially since politicians do get death threats, attempted or successful kidnappings of themselves and their families, stalkers, and the attention of other nutsos. Caution would rule the day. Of course, I’m not sure how much situational awareness the Bush twins had so I could be way off base.
I’m also taking into account that characters on a show tend to represent the extreme of a given group. So she’ll be more likely to be the stereotypical sheltered kid, especially in season one, which will give her character a chance to grow later on..
I liked the aliens (but just cuz they’re CGI doesn’t mean they’re any better than puppets or people in rubber suits! I want to get to know them better!) and can’t wait to see more of them in the future.
However, I had one major problem with this episode: THERE CAN BE NO SOUND IN SPACE. Sure, in the universe established in Atlantis and SG-1, there is sound in space, but I thought SGU would be different. *Sigh* Do I expect too much of my scifi shows?
@35 – I don’t think we have established that sound exists in space; at least not from the perspective of the characters in the show. Providing sound for the audience is just artistic license. To be honest, I like my sound effects. Seeing things get blowed up ain’t nearly as fun if you can’t hear them get blowed up too.
Ah, I prefer the realism. There’s something about the stark silence of seeing something blow up and not hearing it that makes you realize just how different things are in space.
I see your point, but “Real Science Fiction” is a bit of an oxymoron.
We traveled through a Stargate to a space ship “several million light years away” thanks to a special planet with a highly unstable core. The ship itself is fully automated and has managed to stay functional for millions of years itself despite the numerous gaping holes in it. Thankfully we are able to communicate with Earth via “magic stones” that allow us to instantaneously swap minds with a counterpart on Earth.
If I can accept all that, I’ll deal with sound in space ;-)
We were disappointed at Chez Another that Rush was back so fast. I mean, we knew he’d be back, but the very next episode? Wow. Although we were glad that he didn’t just fix up the alien ship and set a course to rendezvous with Destiny. I’m also thinking that there’s got to be some sort of post-being-in-a-tank-with-mind-reading-headgear suggestion going on, right? Rush and/or Chloe are programmed to do something sinister on behalf of the aliens. And Rush is already sinister, so nobody will believe him when he says the aliens made him do it.
Okay, I just want to know who did the music for SGU. All through the show, I’ve loved it.
What? They couldn’t have /one/ Rush-free episode?
There goes any possibility of enjoying any of the episodes.
Getting a lift back to /Destiny/ was just a smidge too convenient.
At least we had one communication stone free episode!
Okay, I have to say that episode 12 delivered. It avoided a lot of the pacing problems of previous episodes (I enjoyed ep 11 but wow was it rushed), and was just good solid TV.
I’m sad that they fell back on the comm stones so quickly, but little uses like this beat the hell out of the extended on-earth sequences and the annoying earth vs destiny control plots of the first half of season one. I think they could have easily wrapped up the little issue with Rush that they used the stones for as a B-story in a follow on episode and been fine.
I’m hoping that knowing the aliens have a stone will result in more moderation in their use. I’d need to double-check, but I think if you stack-rank the episodes by “minutes of screen time involving communication stones”, the ones nearest zero are consistently the best episodes…
For their next trick, the writers should explore episodes where not everything is a race against the jump clock. Hell, let’s see a multi-episode span dealing with one planet (and/or lift the 8-12 hour window on the stargate/jumpclock). The race against time is getting old and I suspect there are some other ways of building tension that could be used…
“For their next trick, the writers should explore episodes where not everything is a race against the jump clock.”
You need only wait for next week, when the Destiny drops by a planet in an uncharted system and apparently there’s no countdown clock…
Well. “Divided” wasn’t half bad at all, at all. Chloe got a personality! And maybe broke up with Scott! This ep actually delivered great writing and acting and – mirable dictu — made me want to find out what happens next.
Any other Chloe/Rush ‘shippers out there? (It could happen!)(Crush!)
As for James’ lame “widower” comments from last week, I think this quote from Samantha Carter sums it up nicely : “God that’s horrible! Who would ever say that?”
Still wonder what they’re using to repair the ship with.
OK, finally caught up now.
Col. Young should never have trusted Rush. When he said “For the good of the crew,” and Rush replied with the same words, Rush was incredulous, as was I, that Young would think Rush would do anything for anyone’s good but his own.
Annnnd in the next episode, Rush proves that I was right. His “truce” with Young was just a trick, and that idiot Wray went along with him, just as if everyone on board didn’t know better than to trust that scumbag. Rush is willing to endanger the whole crew AND the ship rather than risk having Young find out about his tracking chip. If he’s not actually a traitor working for the aliens, he might as well be.
Plot-Induced Stupidity plays a strong role in both of these episodes. Young trusting Rush (presumably out of guilt), Wray trusting Rush (presumably out of either sheer stupidity or just lust for power), and of course Young not locking up everyone who participated in the conspiracy.
Personally I think he should airlock them. He should at least very publicly airlock Rush and Wray as a warning to the others. But he won’t (PIS again), and he’ll pay for that bad decision too.
I’m sure there are still some people who think Rush isn’t a total scumbag, even after his recent behavior. There are some people who think the Earth is flat, too.
One thing that this last ep did change for me: I discard Chloe. I sure hope Scott has the good sense to have nothing further to do with her, since after all she conspired with people who were quite willing to kill him and all his comrades. But Scott is long on heart and short on sense, so he’ll probably forgive her in an episode or two. I hope he cheats on her and she finds out.
I’m a little more hopeful that Eli will know he can’t trust Rush (or Chloe) an inch ever again. He’s become my favorite character somewhere along here.
I find myself showing no interest in watching the latest episode, somewhat to my surprise. At least it’ll be around on Hulu for a few weeks in case I change my mind….
Xopher…. they’re not a viable crew if he locks them up. Airlocking them? What are you psycho? Aside from the sheer inhumanity of that it’s fricking stupid. And guess what, if you’re about to jettison me out into space, I’m fighting… and if I get your gun you and every uniformed geek on there gets a bullet because you’ve just proven you want me dead.
The whole ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ comment at the end was silly – Young should know that can’t be done. They need to clear the air and work out some issues. The military isn’t trustworthy anymore than the civilians at this point. They also need more character depth – Wray sounds like a cipher spouting words right now.
One issue I’ve got right now is that I’ve lost a feel for how much time has passed on Destiny. 2 weeks and you might well still have that emergency feel. 2 months? Probably not. It’s rather unbelievable that the crew hasn’t dealt with some of the governance issues, etc.
They’re still a viable crew if he airlocks Rush and Wray, who are, remember, ringleaders of a mutiny. Military mission, despite Wray’s delusions to the contrary.
And the “pretend it didn’t happen” was sarcasm on Young’s part. “Find some way of working together” was Wray’s way of saying “let’s go on like we did before.” His response meant “yeah, right.”
I do agree that he shouldn’t have abandoned Rush on the planet…not without putting two bullets in his head.
What happened to the chair and first user ?
Anyone on Destiny have the Ancient gene ? If so, does it affect anything?
The “control room” Rush used looked “larger” and more involved than what they had been using. They going to be able to find out more about the ship ?
Since humans have the Atlantis database, has anyone looked for references to Destiny ?
Does Destiny have a reference to where it was built ? Can people go there?
Since humans have the Atlantis, Asgard and probably Ori knowledge bases how long would it take to fabricate a ship to meet Destiny ? Isn’t it 3 weeks between galaxies ? Yea, I know it could kill the premise.
What about the stargate seeder ships?
On the whole I really like the show and it bugs me that these people are such whiners. Where’s the amazement at being out there? I’m thinking that in the SG universe anything Ancient is “ours” and they need to live up to it. SG1 and Atlantis groups were generally of a better character.
Anyone on Destiny have the Ancient gene ? If so, does it affect anything?
“Destiny predates that technology.” – Rush
Divided was IMHO probably the best episode so far!
I am also glad I was right about communication stone problem @19, but it is not about my ego – I am simply happy there was very good reason behind this :)
It seems that SG:U really has potential to beat SG-1 and SGA :)
It’s next to impossible for me to take sides in the military versus civilian feud because I don’t care for either batch of ringleaders.
@45 – Leslie – Chloe/Rush? I just threw up in my mouth a little. That has the feel of a creepy old daddy hitting on his daughter’s best friend. Maybe a strong friendship based on a mutual experience, but thats about it I hope.
@50 – Stever – The chair story is on the back burner it seems while our white shirt is in a coma.
I am hoping they do an “explore the ship” ep sometime this season. On Atlantis, as far as the audience was concerned, the entire city was nothing but science labs. Seriously? The Ancients don’t go to the movies or bowl or anything? No wonder they are extinct. How boring.
If memory serves, it was the ancient database that alerted us to Destiny’s existence in the first place.
I suspect Destiny is too far out to reach in any reasonable amount of time with “conventional” hyperspace drives. But if we can pool all the nifty knowledge and figure out how to charge ZPM’s we can use that nifty new wormhole drive and just zap the city of Atlantis out to them.
I’m sure we will see a seeder ship at some point. I wonder if our new alien friends know about them. If they didn’t, they might now that they probed Rush and Chloe.
I’m going to add ‘Contract related plot induced stupidity’.
After what happened on this past episode, Wray should be either locked up or spaced. Period. Rush at least has value, other than political connections, she has none. It would certainly send a message to the crew. One thing the shows seems to forget is that anyone participating in the Stargate program agrees to put themselves under some level of military command. A courts-martial would be appropriate. (For more on this, see my discussion on government, to follow)
Rush already knows Young is willing to kill him if need be so putting him under house arrest would be resource stupid but knowledge smart. He should NOT be wandering the ship alone. Period.
As far as the stones go, situations like that are what they should have been used for day one, to bring on specialized skills to solve a problem. Rather than having the aliens get one, I would think a nice recharge period would force them to be saved for critical needs.
I’m convinced the writers haven’t really figured out where they want Chloe to fit in, other than ‘designated hot female character’ of which almost every SF shows seems to need one. Eventually she’ll settle in.
I do not recall from Episode 1 how far away Destiny actually is my thinking is its on the far side of our galaxy, which could theoretically be further than Pegasus depending on where the galaxies stand in relation to each other if planets can be reached near the respective edges. There may also be issues traveling through the center of a galaxy.
So now, to government. I am making the assumption that some time has passed between the end of 1.1 and start of 1.2. I base this on the success of the hydroponics lab, apparent solution of the water supply issue and a general sense of more comfort with the ship. It is inconceivable to me that during this time, people just didn’t sit down and figure out how they were going to run things. Now its possible they did and Young shot it down, but I don’t get that sense (and that could have easily been demonstrated in 2 throwaway lines). The appropriate configuration would have been an elected 3-5 member governance council, consulted by the military side (who could also run for the council). Anything regarding ship technical operations, exploration, and defense would be handled by the military side, the council would handle matters such as discipline on the civilian side, ration and resource allotments, etc). Or some variation on that theme. Plenty of opportunity for political drama and underhandedness, but it makes sense. Just letting things lie is not only bad policy but against human nature.
Ep 12 was indeed good. Rush’s duplicity with the tracking device mirrors Young’s duplicity with leaving Rush on the planet.
The stones may not appear much now that an alien has one: communications are compromised with the home planet.
The aliens probably have been searching for Destiny after finding/stopping a seed ship.
How to handle the insurrection: this was the weakest part of the show’s plot line. Young is, at the end of the day, a confused and undisciplined leader who really doesn’t make contingency plans: what does he do all the time? He’s military and was in charge of the base on the planet that blew up: there they had contingency plans, everyone knew what to do when x or y happens (which is why you make contingency plans…).
For him not to have such given the conflict between the civilians and the military that has been implicit in the series since Day 1 – one that reflects poorly on the civilians, by the way, since their attitude does not shift despite the military personnel taking all the risks off-planet to do the things necessary – indicates that something is seriously wrong (with the writers, that is) with Young’s character.
Someone of his rank would know contingency planning, would have inventoried everything they have (which means that no one would have been able to hoard), and would have embarked on the single most important task, the complete exploration of the ship, determination of its capabilities, armament, shielding, which areas are usable, which aren’t, would have had fall-back areas if boarded etc etc etc.
Instead, he’s acting as if that blow to his head in the first episode rattled his brain a lot harder than we have been led to believe.
Seriously, this is a major flaw. The military retaking of the ship was at least done fairly well, but the resolution of the conflict between military and civilians on that ship is not being done well at this point. The civilian leadership, such that it is, doesn’t realize that leadership isn’t a matter of rank, but of actual leadership. While Young, to me, seems to be lacking here, he’s still got the rank (which you salute even if you dislike someone) and the civilians don’t seem to realize that they have none.
Sigh. Hope it gets better: this continues to have a huge amount of potential…
OK, so I’m unclear on the whole “military must submit to civilian authority” issue.
We started the second half of the season with Wrey and Young in conflict over reports to Earth. Clearly, Young is still part of the chain of command going back to Earth and through the military and eventually civilian authority including Wrey’s own organization. Whether they are still cut-off from communicating or not is still up in the air.
Is Wrey/Rush proposing that they form an independent colony? Possible, but kind of absurd. And Young would be obligated to oppose as long as they were irretrievably cut-off from Earth. Plus, they really should try to form some form of governing body before they just tear down the military and re-enact “Lord of the Flies.”
Not that all the blame is one sided. It’s obvious (Eli’s side job) that Young knows that divisive factions exist, and yet he doesn’t make any effort to address their concerns or reintegrate them into the ‘crew’.
I think it can be argued either way if Young is or is not “in command of the ship” since the ship does whatever it wants, but when sailing was all done with wind power, it was similar in ways. Maybe calling him ship’s Captain instead of Colonel would straighten out people even if it does seem confusing in terms of military rank.
I think it’s worth noting that, during her visit back to Earth, Wray’s superiors ordered her to (I’m paraphrasing) ‘assert the authority’ of the IOA, the civilian overseers of the Stargate program.
@NerfSmuggler:
Great point: the ship actually doesn’t have a Captain. You’ve got a Colonel of Marines (Young), a Wizard (Rush), the Wizard’s Apprentice (Eli) plus a mixture of … whatever (pun intended).
Without a Captain to make the decisions, all ships founder. The Captain is tyrant at worst and benevolent dictator at best, with more of the former and less of the latter when you’re on a warship where you may have to order someone to do something that they will die trying to do (like enter a boiler room with a punctured live steam pipe and close that valve, sailor, or the ship will lose power and the enemy will sink us).
Destiny may have a crew. They don’t have a Captain.
They also don’t have a navigator, since the ship has taken that away from them.
Now I know how to keep Robert Carlyle while getting rid of Rush!
He sneaks out of whatever detention they have him in, and against Young’s prohibition uses a com stone. He’s unlucky, however, and ends up on the alien ship. The aliens realize he’s not one of them, and kill his alien body.
See how that works? Rush would be dead, and the alien would be stranded in Rush’s body, to be played from then on by Robert Carlyle! He’d have to learn English, and would eventually become a member of the crew (after, of course, acting entirely as an enemy for a whole season).
I think this is an excellent solution, and I hope the writers will consider it.
(I don’t really. Rush is just too good a villain; so good, in fact, that people are still, even now, in denial that he’s the villain of this show. The aliens are a force of nature; they won’t become villains until the humans can talk to them in real time. Even then…there are degrees of villainy. Think Crichton and Scorpius vs. the Scarrans.)
Xopher, the problem with your idea is that they would both die, as almost happened to Daniel and Vala. though that was only a one-way swap so it’s hard to say for certain. But I’m pretty sure that two deaths would result. The stones seem to not actually swap people’s minds, but rather they temporarily cross the wires on their nervous systems.
Of course if the writers wanted to do as you suggest they could easily write an explanation around why it works that way, so my point is moot (though it was already since we don’t really want this to happen or expect it to).
Actually, according to this kinosode, the characters don’t really know for sure whether the death of one will cause the death of the other and I figure they’d rather not find out :D
http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Exclusive-Stargate-Universe-Images-And-Brand-New-Kino-Webisode-24021.html
I actually really enjoyed the last episode.
Yes the Aliens could have been ‘more alien’. But at least they weren’t “A big dude with paper maché on his head” aliens.
I’ve taken SG:U as a Thriller/Drama in spaaaaaaace. And enjoy the long, drawn out pot boiler stuff. For more pew-pew just go watch older episodes.
And finally…I just have to ask…I’m not sure if I’ve just not seen a previous comment and ergo making a complete tart of myself but:
Anyone else notice that we’ve seen the alien ships before!!!!!?! Is it just me that has that anal attention to every episode and then went back and watched the last 4 minutes of episode 2? Is it? Is it!?
Again, let me say that [snarky grumbling about how the show ought to be complete in itself and not require webisodes to understand what’s going on omitted here by the poster].
Mepf.
Serraphin, we all knew that. Sorry. Some of us even predicted it would be an alien ship.
But now that you mention it…since the aliens could get onto Destiny with their cutter thing, and one of their shuttles was already there, why weren’t they already established on the ship when the humans arrived?
Damn :P I just didn’t see anyone linking it to these particular aliens.
However I’m wondering if they ARE already on the ship? Or one of them? That might explain, vaguely how the stone became ‘infected’. (Of course not why it only jumped to the alien now).
Rush carried a stone around with him to subvert Young’s authority, because he’s a total shithead. When the aliens captured him, they got it.
I’m not sure they know what it does yet, because they apparently didn’t notice right away that there was something wrong with their guy who Young jumped into.
@Eternal Density – Thanks for the Kino-sode. I wonder if they had always planned that or if they scripted it to silence all the rabid fans that were complaining about “rape”.
Although I do wish the series was self contained, it is actually an easy way to answer fan questions and concerns without having to waste plot time writing in a scene to address things. SG1 used to go out of there way to “hang a lantern on it” to address possible questions like this.
KHAN!!!!! Great reference
Whoever put in the anthropological bonding that occurs with humans when they’re not stressed, I commend you. We are such social creatures.
Ackbar would know what to say about this place.
Sorry guys but it has Scalzi written all over this episode. I guess I could be wrong but I doubt it.
Spoiler alert. (For the west coasters…)
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Why do I have Arnie talking in my head: “They’ll be back!”
And sorry, Young is out of his mind when he let the others stay.
And Dr. Caine, after getting quite a bit of screen time, just goes away? It’s like the gun in the first act, it very well needs to be used by the third act. So sayeth JMS!
Re Faith. Does anyone know the music that played during the episode: the Nick Drake-y male vocals and guitar stuff?
I think they all should have stayed on that planet. It was their best chance for survival. Destiny is their best chance of getting home, but not a very good chance, unfortunately.
But it would pretty much end the series, since there’s no stargate on that planet. So no.
Anyone else: 1) Think the beam from the obelisk looked like the Towers of Light on September 11, 2002 (and 2003)? 2) Happy to see Eli looking thinner (because that’s realistic, I hasten to add)?
@Spine
The songs are by Alexi Murdoch. This series has used his music in earlier episodes (Breathe).
@doreyr. many thanks.
@DoreyR – Thank you for the info – I really liked the music and am glad to know who did it. A good way to spend a bit of $$ to pick up his cd.
@ Bryan Price. Did they actually stay? TJ and Scott came back and so did Chloe I assumed that meant Young had convinced them all. They never really acknowledged who, if anyone stayed behind.
As for the Music, I immediately Googled after “Air” aired. Alexi Murdoch’s album has become one of my new favorites. I listen to him all the time. Bravo to whoever is picking out the music for the series.
@xopher — Eli’s looking thinner because (according to @davidblue’s twitter), that boy is up in the gym, workin’ on his fitness. By season two we should expect a real difference.
Now, as for “Faith”. I will confess that ep left me seriously confused, on several levels, but our losties were confused too, so I guess that makes us even.
First overall impression was that time and attention were paid to that script/story. Care was taken, thought applied. The story arc was well paced, developed, and filmed. Every character was lovingly delineated and developed, spoke in their own unique voice, and in general avoided being generic dialog-spouters.
The “some people stay/others must return” was a nice plot twist I did not in fact see coming, so points there. Also points for not running the WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME motif into the ground, for once.
So how come, after all that time and thought and care they pulled the hoary “gosh you don’t look good, are you okay” crap to OH SO SUBTLY foreshadow the SHOCK SURPRISE of TJ’s pregnancy? I mean, dear god. I’m 55 years old, do you have ANY idea how many times I’ve seen that “woah, I’m dizzy, what COULD that MEAN?” scene play out?! (See also: the Law of Inverse Fertility.) And someone somewhere had better goddamn well have a GOOD AND LOGICAL explanation for how a military officer cleared for duty on Icarus Base — a MEDICAL officer — managed to fumble her birth control. (Not saying there aren’t actual good reasons for birth control failure, but dammit, they had better write it in or else TJ winds up looking pathetic. Doesn’t SG command have, like, rules about that stuff for people going off-planet–?)
TJ’s pregnant. Wow. There’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming. Seriously, I didn’t, I was expecting Chloe to turn up as our first Little Mother, so, I guess points for subverting that expectation. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon, either. Like there’s not enough Drama aboard that ship already, sheesh. At least it gave us a timeline — it’s been less than 15 weeks since they landed aboard Destiny.
But you know, if they a) let TJ give birth to the little critter and b) allow the little critter to survive, and c) refrain from letting him or her be abducted by aliens to conveniently remove him or her from the plot until he or she returns one season later fully grown because of the alien growth accelerator (cf “The Doctor’s Daughter”), I will personally give the entire writing staff a cookie.
Oh crap. d) and if they don’t have TJ tragically die in childbirth.
Eye-rolling moment of the night: apparently Chloe was the ONLY ONE to bathe in the lake, seeing as how she was the only one shown (posed real artistic-like) in the water. Sadly, Lt. Scott remained fully clothed yet again, while that terrific waterfall just begged for someone to pose artistically beneath it (cf Will Smith “I Robot”) …
I don’t know what I think about the Mysterious Planet. I generally have little patience with writers who’re too cute for words and play head games with the audience — just tell me the freaking STORY already! — but in a universe that that contains Ancients and Ascended Beings, actual mysteries what *stay* mysteries are, grudgingly, allowed. I guess.
TJ’s pregnancy was widely predicted because the actress was pregnant–she delivered a few months ago. (She has several older kids also.)
If we assume its been several months now on Destiny (at least 2) its likely that any supplies of regular dose birth control have been exhausted (and I doubt they had a large stock of condoms in the emergency gear). On long duration missions I would suspect something like Norplant would be available, but Icarus base was regularly supplied so probably not as much of a concern..
As my dad put it long ago, the Rythym method is about as reliable as playing darts with a blindfold on.
I’m actually wondering just how much toilet paper and female personal hygiene supplies they brought (or maybe the Ancients have a lavatory similar to the shower?)
I just saw “Faith”. The show is just getting better and better. The science was gold, the dilemma understandable.
The characters are coming into their own. The only one I don’t care for right now is the Chinese woman, who seems underwritten.
I already would make this my favorite Stargate series. SG-1 was an adventure show, and there was something that turned me off about Atlantis.
With all the popcorn out there, it’s nice to have a serious, believable, adult program of this caliber.
@GL2418: I’m pretty sure we saw everybody that was on the shuttle come off the shuttle. The rest certainly did stay behind.
I’m even predicting that they’ll be coming back on the left behind shuttle. It wouldn’t surprise me if it managed to get upgraded and refit before it returns, either. And I expect that John is already laughing hysterically at me for this.
@Bryan Price: Many years of experience with the SG writers leads me to agree with you. There is no reason to go to the trouble of leaving the shuttle (the ONLY other shuttle mind you. What you don’t need the spare parts?) behind with the others unless it will play a key role later. Plus, why introduce the idea of yet another mysterious all powerful Uber alien race only to not use it again later?
We Humans really do love to liter don’t we? We left a couple folks behind on one of the first planets we found; Bodies and assorted equipment (from an alternate time line) on the Chest Drill planet; we transplanted a group of sand fleas from one planet to another; thanks to Rush we have lost a com stone to abductor aliens and now we leave a shuttle and a handful of humans left on yet another planet.
John are you counting all this?
Oh BTW what do we think the “robot” was that they found while exploring? It looked like it had a Kino-like “eye” in the middle. My first thought was Repair Drone.
@GL2814: I’m wondering if Rush is even going to survive, the way he’s been acting. I’m wondering if that isn’t what drives him to do what is supposed to happen next week.
What I saw in the crate, I couldn’t make out all that well, it was a little dark (understandably). But if it’s a Kino eye in the middle, that might tie into David Blue talking about the Kinos being important in the series.
A repair drone would be nice. They’re flying around with two holes in the hull (at least). They certainly need to gain more access to the ship, and getting some of the repairs done to facilitate that would be good.
According to a documentary before Universe started, the ship is supposed to be creating food for them (probably to be repaired, or it hasn’t received enough human waste yet…), and they’re supposed to have some edible slugs (reported to be found in the fourth episode! WTF? Just to throw us off?)
At least there’s nothing nagging me like Atlantis did when certainly the facilities to recharge/create ZPMs HAD to be on Atlantis somewhere. If not close by.
And I have a feeling that Destiny has taken in more mass wise than they’ve managed to leave behind.
Leslie 80: Eli’s looking thinner because (according to @davidblue’s twitter), that boy is up in the gym, workin’ on his fitness. By season two we should expect a real difference.
Well, yeah. I figured that was HOW they did it…but it’s also quite realistic for someone who’s used to eating as much as he wants going on rations—and pretty repellent rations at that. Good on David Blue for doing it, but what I was talking about was how it worked dramatically.
And now for a minor tangent.
I was over at Gateworld looking for a pic of the “robot”. I didn’t find one, but did find this pic: http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=911&pos=20
Is it just me or is Brian Smith is all kinds of Cute/Hot in this one?
Xopher and others in numerous comments, if Rush is a complete sociopath scumbag, why didn’t he just “accidentally” not fix the computer problem in time and just let Young die in the shuttle during the takeover?
All of your proof that Rush is a villain depends on assuming Rush is a villain. You could just as easily have Rush thinking at the end of Episode 11, yeah trust the guy who just tried to murder me a second time, right. I think Young is genuinely muddled and impulsive in his thinking rather than malicious. He now regrets his decision to abandon Rush, on a number of levels, and is going with a “softer, gentler” military dictatorship approach. However, for the whole of Episode 11, he had the same look on his face a dog gets when it is trying to hide its “mistake.” And those efforts included a disregard for Chloe’s life (which I can totally sympathize with.) (While Rush in a similar situation refused to kill Young and others to protect himself and the civilian faction.)
I do think this is an odd character trait in an SG colonel; was his incipient breakdown that bad? That he can no longer function competently.
I don’t side with Rush over Young; I actually think the politics here is a mess and you can make argument for/against both sides of the “mutiny.” It is not clear that the military overrules the civilians automatically and it also obvious that as time goes on, that idea is going to be less and less viable (or more if you have a certain mindset about these things.)
As for Eli, yes he is sympathetic, but his lack of sophistication has negative attributes too. He looks like he cannot begin to fathom why Chloe would side with Wray/Rush, when it is fairly comprehensible whether you agree with her decision or not. And the fact that she did make a committment and stick with it is about the most adult/likeable thing she had done in the whole series so far.
The show is not perfect, but there has been a definite improvement over the first half’s disappointments. To elaborate on my first comment on this thread: I am going to try to keep my comments mostly positive. If my impression gets really negative, I will simply not watch/post anymore.
Rush has his own agenda and can be pretty ruthless when he wants to be; I approve of the finding things out part of the agenda, though other aspects are less desirable. Young is a loose cannon who could end up aimed *anywhere*. I wouldn’t call either villain or hero, although if I were on Destiny I’d as soon they both were elsewhere (after Rush passes on as much as he can to Eli, of course).
Dr. Park should be in charge. She’s clearly bored and presumably smart; this would be a good use of her abundant energy. Although so would being pregnant, which is certainly a possibility.
Young sometimes does things for base motivations. Rush never does anything for nonbase motivations.
Young is sometimes a little selfish. Rush is never anything but purely and entirely selfish.
I really don’t want to see Rush go way. He’s a great villain, like Scorpius on FarScape, and like Scorpius, maybe he’ll prove to be an ally at some point. But he is a villain. If the writers didn’t intend him to be a villain, they wrote it wrong.
Arggggh. Just noticed I left the ‘a’ out of ‘away’.
*flogs self*
The Scorpius in Crichton’s head was actually pretty cool. Stick a Rush in Young’s head?
Nah. Eli’s, maybe.
Hey guys, has this show gotten any better? I watched the two hour pilot a few weeks ago when it was rebroadcast and haven’t bothered to watch any of the followup segments. The pilot simply was too poorly conceived to make me care about any of its characters or even what and how the ship, Destiny was it?, came into existence. Just curious. If you are posting here you must be seeing something of value.
I was a true fan of Stargate SG1 and only a so-so fan of Stargate Atlantis. I think I abandoned Atlantis in its third season.
It has its moments. There are folks who really like the show, and folks who really don’t but keep watching in a “prove yourself!” fashion. Haven’t watched the last two eps myself, but a lot of people liked the most recent ep (“Faith”). I figure the first season of an SF show often has trouble finding its feet; this one’s taping Season Two, so who knows?
(spoilers) My favorite ep so far is the classic SF one, “Time,” which is a time loop ep. “Faith” is being compared to “The crew need a vacation on Risa.”
I come here from Star Trek (most flavors) and Farscape and Lexx and lots and lots of SF reading; had only seen a few eps of SG1. Have mostly been watching this because our esteemed host is Creative Consultant and I got curious.
I like the show, but I admit that if you didn’t like the show from the start or are looking to the show for direct comparisons to the previous Stargate show there’s not a lot for you here.
I think the cool thing is how everyone’s jumped on Rush like he’s the next Gaius Baltar, and a lot of people seem to watch the show (just like BSG) just for chance to complain about how evil he is on the internet the next day.
Beating and attempting to kill people is a little bit selfish? Xopher, you are good value.
To the extent I can glean what is going on in a character’s head, Rush has nonbase motivations and selfish ones, sometimes the two are even the same. I am not as negative on Young as I was for a little while in 1.0, but Young and Rush are on approximately the same moral plane as far as I can tell. And seriously if you were one of the scientists, would you want Young’s good intentions/continued breathing to be all that separated you from the Sergeant’s boot on your face permanently? (He can be cool, but he can also be bat-shit crazy at the drop of a hat and he has demonstrated he won’t follow Scott’s orders if he disagrees with them.)
I think a lot of your arguments depend on the assumption that Rush is a villain to prove that he is a villain. I also think that you assume Young’s and the military’s moral authority for governance in this situation (as opposed to actual competence) is absolute and unquestionable. I don’t think the show wants either side to be black or white. If you think they have done that, then they would probably consider that a failure on their part.
I also think this is getting a little bit pointless. Strangely enough, I actually was more interested in debating this when I mostly disliked the show. Now that I am being entertained by it, I don’t feel the need to analyze it as much. Ah, homo radix lecti sum; ergo non bene cogito. I may not be back for a while; got to grow a few more eyes.
Googled… Man is a couch potato and therefore doesn’t think well?
El…what who? What are you talking about in 98?
I think he’s trying to figure out the latin in PrivateIron’s last paragraph.
My guess is that it means that he’s sitting back and enjoying it, so he doesn’t want/need to think about it as hard?
That was The Jam’s Irish Rose for the music in this episode I think, for the inevitable “what music was that?” folks.
Wow. I think this might have been my favorite episode so far. Rush gets some more humanity. The love triangle gets stuck on the desert island. Young gets some more face time as Captain Bligh, and even the secondary character-scientists sorts (the ones I can never remember the names of, but whose continual presence in episodes makes it clear they’re pretty much competent go to people) got a lot of air where they came off less “Eli and Rush are doing everything important with tech on the ship.”
Anyways, this was Rush’s episode and he owned. Still not a nice guy, but now he’s got reasons – blaming himself for not being there with his wife, needing the Destiny to matter to justify his own decisions, his lurking resentment of Eli? All good stuff. Everyone, even his own health, is just in the way of validating his guilt for not being there for his wife. He’s not as much “I’m just a narcissist” as much as he is Spider Man without the spandex and better nature.
Er… I’m a she. (Ellen.)
And yeah, that was my reconstruction (based on it turning out that “radix lecti” is couch potato) of PrivateIron’s Latin.
Sounds like maybe I should see this ep when it hits Hulu….
Wow. This was a great episode. Even if it doesn’t change Rush at all, it makes him much more sympathetic. And it looks like it may change him, at least for a while.
At first I thought that was a real flashback to exactly what happened and how Rush acted…and it lined up with my hatred of him. But it went a whole other way, didn’t it? I actually have a lot of empathy for him now.
People who say that this is just because I’ve just spent the last year and a half watching someone close to me die, and feeling that I wasn’t doing enough even though there was nothing I could do…are very naughty. And probably right.
I’m still not ready to trust Rush, but I have high hopes he’ll listen to “Head-Gloria.” On the gripping hand, I’m not going to be able to hate him quite as wholeheartedly even if nothing about him changes.
El…you know what ‘el’ means in Spanish, right? And what ‘El’ means in Hebrew?
Both give rise to the assumption of maleness. I’ll try to remember from now one though.
Oh, I don’t think Rush should be regarded as trustworthy. He’s on a martyrdom mission, willing to do nearly anything to make his previous choices more rational and palatable. Anyone who gets in the way of that is probably not going to like it, but maybe he starts forgiving himself through this and he comes out being the well-tempered, brilliant professor. Less awesomesauce but less “climb into the death chair, we need data about how it kills you so we can fly the ship.”
This is actually the second time the Hebrew meaning of El came up here in about a week, so I might as well change the spelling.
(I mean, yeah, I knew what they meant, but I didn’t associate it with my name ’cause I know what my name is….)
1X14 Human
Yes! This is my reward for sticking to the series. Great character reveals, good story telling, amazing acting and for once the team couldn’t beat the clock. Oh, and the music was wonderful as usual.
How much, if any, will Rush really change his attitude? Will anyone notice? How are they going to get back to the planet for a rescue? Will the foursome collaborate or splinter? Does Greer really have claustrophobia? Will he come unglued? (He is my favourite, I really hope he gets more screen time soon).
So much to anticipate!
I’m sure I’m forgetting something or just being generally stupid – like I often am – but didn’t Eli stop the stargate from closing and the ship from leaving by putting his arm through the wormhole? Couldn’t they just have done that again to buy some time? Maybe not indefinitely.
Was this explained away at some point?
My apologies, El(le), for the poor assumption of your gender on my part. I deal with a lot of that myself – a large number of people seem to think that Robin is ALWAYS a woman’s name – so I sympathize.
Anon, I was wondering the same thing. At most, I thought they could buy themselves 38 minutes (isn’t that how long a wormhole can stay open?), but they didn’t even try… I wouldn’t want to be the crew member who stayed behind to try it, but there had to be some inanimate object they could have used.
I forgot to mention that Rush gets major props for getting into the chair himself, even with the extra safeguards.
I wouldn’t want to be the crew member who stayed behind to try it, but there had to be some inanimate object they could have used.
One of the many pieces of rubble they were clearing from the entrance springs to mind. Or hits me in the head. Ow.
I think if Rush had said ” I need a few more minutes” that would have been an option but the feel of what he said was “I can’t do that soon” so the 38 minutes etc weren’t relevant. And, of course, it’s TV….
Unlike Air, etc where I was impatient with the faux tension (we knew they weren’t going to run out of air, water or food…) I liked this ep and even though we know the stranded people will somehow get back to Destiny it feels more real and less contrived than the first few eps. It might be because I didn’t like the way those early episodes dealt with how they got air etc. After all, the tension isn’t Whether (Whether they’ll find air, water and food) in those situations, it’s in the How and that rang false for me in the early episodes. They find the material t hey need to use in the air scrubbers just in time and get through just bfore the gate goes away… that’s pretty generic TV. In contrast, it feels like they’re starting to find less generic ways to explore things now.
Xopher, Robin S:
No worries.
So the Rush resenting Eli thing made me flash back to Good Will Hunting. It was one thing to suspect he resented Eli but another all together to have him fully admit it to himself. Literally.
I was laughing so hard (at myself) because as the team is walking in the tunnel I turned to my partner and, indicating the spider webs, said “oh look they have spiders in a galaxy far far way” only to have the mega spider pop up at the end. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but totally didn’t :-)
Based on the preview it looks like they are going to go through the gate to another nearby planet. I’m curious to see what happens. I can only assume Rush will finally break the code and get control of Destiny. So will they try to turn back towards Earth? That’s a LONG trip home.
Okay, time to go off an a small rant tangent here..
The show writers need to do something to explain clothing. The characters have been wearing the same clothing for 2 months now, one of which many of them spent on a jungle planet. But amazingly, it all looks freshly laundered without holes, stains, wear… nothing.
Okay, maybe aboard the ship is some super laundry (it doesn’t repair tho, Young was darning his socks), but even then that doesn’t explain how the crew that last day on the planet had WHITE shirts, I mean bleached white. I doubt huge quantities of Tide were in the survival gear.
For that matter, if everyone is on rations, the clothing should be loose and baggy. Nope, fits like a glove. And where did they find a uniform to exactly fit Chloe? I doubt she was issued one in the 45 mins she was on Icarus before the attack started.
Lets not even get started on what underwear would like like after 2 months of being worn every 2 days at best (most military always carry a spare pair or 2 in their emergency kits)
–end rant–
BTW, there is a simple (and logical) way to solve this problem, once. Earth finds a one shot deal for generating a barely stable wormhole to Destiny, one way and not safe enough for people to travel but for 38 minutes they shove through as many containers of supplies as humanly possible, with some of those being packed by the traveler’s families with personal effects. Can even be used as a good emotional draw based on the items and to build some character backstory for the supporting cast.
The only thing I’ve been upset with this season is this, how could you have a race that creates planets and NOT have a reference magratheans? even more so when the next episode pulls out the (almost in this case) meaning of life, the universe and everything. Okay rant over. love the show.
“Human” was all good except that crappy pigeon animation :/
Jeff L @114 – To add to your rant, Eli was plucked from his house with nothing but the clothes on his back. You KNOW he must be in terrible need of undies right now.
I doubt that the folks left behind on the miracle planet brought every belonging with them so maybe there are some extra clothes laying around. Not that I would EVER want used underwear. ICK!
In the first ep all we saw were boxes and boxes of “supplies” flying through the gate. I’m betting at lest one of those had fatigues of varying sizes. I would expect over time that folks would have to start wearing Camo all the time out of simple necessity.
The clothes thing doesn’t bother me. Fiction does skip mundane things – we don’t see them shower or go to the bathroom, but we assume they do (at least the latter) and, well, is it really reasonable there are human usable bathrooms on Destiny?
Taking any real time to outline how they clean clothes or deal with bathroom facilities doesn’t actually add anything to the story or the universe, so it’s skipped. A lack of medicine might (no birth control leads to a pregnancy, no antibiotics could lead to a life-threatening issue, etc), but getting clean underwear? What compelling reason is there to show that struggle in the episodes?
@Rick..
It’s not plot compelling per se, it just takes me out of the story and could easily be handled with a few throwaway lines or a plot device. In fact, they made a conscious effort to point to the matter of diminishing usage (Young’s socks, dull razors) and then let it drop. Up until that point, I hadn’t pondered the question much. But after that I started to note how the clothing made it appear no time had passed, in direct contrast to the story.
For that matter, how did Chloe get her clothes back on the alien ship? Didn’t it look like she was put into some kind of suit in the tank?
For example, look at how they handled the hygeine situation. A waterless (or low water) shower system. It makes sense that there is some form of waste disposal system in that same area. This makes sense, nothing to see here except soft-core Chloe. Move on.
/shrug… It’s a TV series with a limited amount of time per episode and a limited number of episodes per season. I could pick apart any TV show on grounds like this (quick, why don’t they all have terrible breath – where’s the toothpaste?, where’s the food coming from now and why isn’t air, food and water a continuing concern – was the initial solution THAT robust?), but at the end of the day, I think if you’re worrying about why their clothes are clean you’re not immersed in the story. Either the story has failed or the viewer is being like some friends of mine who watch for continuity errors in movies versus letting themselves get pulled into the story.
If the story fails to immerse me, it’s the story’s fault, but if the viewer holds themselves apart from the fiction and deliberately looks for things that don’t quite work I think it’s the viewer’s issue.
We do see them shower–at least Camile and Chloe so far–and there was an explanation given for how that worked, which I don’t remember. I’ve assumed laundry is similarly taken care of, but Eli’s T-shirt should be getting mighty frayed by now….
As for laundry etc., I think that the SF audience is accustomed to wondering about this sort of thing, and an SF show should be aware of that.
When I read “SF” written by a non-SF writer, I have to let all KINDS of things go if I’m going to enjoy it (e.g., Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb; Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle). I’d rather they knew the genre better, but I accept that’s not really what they’re writing.
With Stargate, though, I have the expectation that they’ll aim to do a better job of meeting genre expectations. Like where did Rush and Chloe get those wet suits? (Note: still haven’t seen past that episode.)
I’m getting an idea for a mashup here along the lines of “Trooper Clerks.” Let’s call it, “My Alien Laundrette.” I’m guessing we could make tens of dollars showing it on the convention circuit (where I first saw such classics as Darkstar and Bambi vs. Godzilla).
Not going to get into the humor of one comment saying, “How did they get their clothes back from the alien ship?” and two comments later, “Where did they get those wetsuits?”
To clarify, I know they came from two different commenters. I just enjoyed the juxtaposition.
Elle… I can name any number of excellent genre SF (our host’s among them) that don’t explain people changing clothing, finding bathrooms, etc. and I don’t buy the idea that SF needs to answer these issues more than other genres or non-genre fiction. If the audience notices it more that, to me, is a failing of the audience to fall into the story. People who deliberately scan a work looking for the minor stuff like this are missing the point in my estimation and, while I can see SF having a higher percentage of those folks, it still doesn’t mean they’re right to worry at such minutiae.
Since we are on the tangent, I would love to see a small amount of time in any SciFi show / movie dealing with bathrooms, laundry, etc… just from the standpoint that it really hasn’t been done.
Voyager had a scene showing a sonic shower in use. Demolition Man talked about the 3 seashells but ever elaborated (which is fine by me). But in a world where FLT flight, transporters, “ray guns” and star gates are everyday things, you have to wonder what miraculous improvements have been made to the bathroom. Have we honestly hit the pinnacle of bathroom design with the current day toilet? Inquiring minds want to know?
I’m enjoying the show more after the mid-season break. I’m glad to see less body-swapping. I hope that trend continues.
Any idea why Ep 14 (Human) has not hit Hulu yet? It looks like it aired on Syfy on Friday as scheduled. The shows have been hitting Hulu by Sunday night or Monday.
@Rick – It was the story that created this disconnect. Before Young and his socks I had not really thought about it, but once they showed that it set me thinking about the rest of their clothing in earnest. If they had not pointed it out it probably would have never rose beyond an idle thought….
RickWhoIsNotThatRick:
Thing is, what’s minutiae to you might not be to me. I don’t generally go looking for problems, but if I see them, it’s just that much harder to suspend disbelief. Each of us have different things that will drop us out of a story.
In other words, everybody’s mileage is going to vary. Sure, sometimes it’s pickiness, but sometimes it’s just a different life experience. (As an example, how did Apple not have a clue that the name iPad was going to bother a lot of women? I admit it didn’t occur to me either, but there’s a screamingly funny comedy sketch on Youtube about how women use the iPad, and there are plenty of women who still hate to call it by its name…)
JeffL…. Ah i see. Didn’t do that for me, but I understand.
Elle – Yep, I agree. To me, it’s the difference between something that naturally drops you out of a story and the act of looking for minor kinds of flaws. The first is highly individual and it is what it is. The second, looking for continuity and other minor faults, seems like the viewer/reader taking themselves out of the story.
Rick @ 125:
Most SF shows don’t need to elaborate on mundanities like laundry, hygiene, food, and so forth because one can reasonably assume such things are being handled. They’re on a fully functioning, fully stocked ship (Trek) or military base (SG-1, SGA mostly). They have access to running water, soap, and so forth.
SGU EXPLICITLY tells us that these characters have been thrown halfway across the universe, onto a barely functioning, worn out spaceship with whatever they were wearing and whatever random assortment of stuff they could toss through the stargate before Planet Explodium blew up.
Then they spent the first few shows or so (or so it seemed) dealing with one crisis after another. Air. Water. Food. It was made quite clear that resupply from earth was NOT an option. Given this, it’s hardly unreasonable to wonder how they’re dealing with all the OTHER issues involved in an unplanned camping expedition of indefinite duration.
Don’t want the audience to wonder about these things? Then either don’t bring up questions that get people thinking about such things or throw in a few lines of dialogue (absolutely free! no SFX required) to answer the questions you ought to know a big part of your audience is going to wonder about.
Maybe they’re dealing with the laundry when they’re planetside, and that’s one of the reasons they need so many people? That’s certainly how they’re suggesting they’re dealing with the food issue, and they settled showering a while back. At least one of the crates they brought in from the base was toilet paper. Maybe everyone’s cranky about the rationing for that, or maybe the crappers came online with the showers.
It would be priceless if the next civilian rebellion came about over toilet paper though, and the perception that Young was hoarding it for the “important people.”
I’m okay with no explanation of waste disposal; when we’ve seen the Ancients, they were human enough that I can believe that whatever facilities they designed for their own use when they got to Destiny would work for human beings. The showers still work, so I’m willing to just hand wave the toilet facilities.
As has been mentioned above, though, the writers explicitly told us that clothing was wearing out in the scene with Young and his socks. They can extend disbelief for some time with a quick line from one character (“Man, can you believe how clean the Ancient sonic laundry gets our clothes? And without the wear and tear of our laundry machines back home”), but eventually, the characters would need some new clothes.
Even just putting all the civilians in fatigues would help; presumably some changes in clothing were prepared for this trip, and might have been in one of the bug-out bags they picked up on their way out.
This isn’t a huge deal for me as long as the stories continue at the higher level that we’ve seen so far in the last half of the season, but it is something that nags slightly at the back of my mind (and comes to the forefront when I see people here discussing it).
@131.. eh… I see your point, I really do… but for me the first episodes were boring (and not well done, frankly) and the last thing I want to watch is a show where the scarcity of clothes and the general poverty of everyday comforts is at the forefront. Yes, they could tell us even in a throwaway line or two, but no fiction explains every detail.
I mean, heck, have they explained how the air is still being maintained? Are they still using the stuff Scott brought back? Because let’s face it air >> clean laundry. Same for water and food. In fact, it’s more telling that we’ve seen relatively little of them exploring the ship period. I’ve missed several episodes, so this might just be me but in SG: Atlantis they did the perfectly normal thing… “we’re pretty much cut off from home, we’d better explore this place and find out what we can about it because we might need what’s here to survive.” Has the SGU crew (such as it is…) done that and I’ve just missed it?
@RickWhoIsNotThatRick 134: They’ve explored what they can, and that seems to be a pretty small part of what seems to be a huge ship.
In “Faith”, didn’t you hear Rush say that he wanted to increase the force shield with the engines off so that they might patch up a few things, and Young said “Yeah, and get us some more real estate”. Which was how they found those new crates at the end.
My big gaffe as far as I can see was them doing calisthenics at the beginning of one of the episodes. They have limited food, and they’re being THAT strenuous? I understand the need for some exercise, but with limited calories, they should have been hoarding what food they have/had. “Faith” might have gotten them some more food, but not enough. And I haven’t heard about the ship generated food yet (or the slugs), described in a documentary before Universe aired.
Tonight’s episode was nicely played – both with the head-fake and the “problem” not being wrapped up all nice and tidy-like.
Who doesn’t think they’ll go back to the alien ship and try to get it moving?
Irony: if they’d waited to be rescued they’d have been OK. They stranded themselves by trying to catch up.
Greer’s father was right about one thing: should have let him burn.
Well, while it might have been better to let Greer’s father burn, it was probably right for Greer to save him— Greer would have wondered, if he hadn’t saved him, if he was as much of a bastard as his father.
All I kept thinking when I was watching this was the advice you always get about getting lost – stay where you are! I understood the urge to go try to find the ship, but 50/50 is not good odds.
Eventually, once they were really certain no one was ever coming for them, it may’ve been necessary to move on, but really, if they had to be stranded somewhere, the planet they were on seemed like a half-decent place to be stranded, giant spiders aside.
Well, Robin S, they can go back there. The gate network didn’t shut down when Destiny left. They can go to any of the planets they visited in this episode, though obviously some are better than others.
The preview for next week suggests that Destiny isn’t going to make it “across the void,” but will have to turn back. So there’ll be another rescue opportunity.
Oh and: am I the only one who hopes that in the situation they’re in (stranded with (they believe) no hope of rescue), the Chloe-Scott-Eli triangle becomes equilateral?
Yeah, thought so. Dayum hetros.
Next week’s blurb says ‘A brilliant scientist from earth…’
Surprise Amanda Tapping appearance? Or maybe Dr. Lee (so that he has been in all SGs)?
I wouldn’t mind if it became more complicated, but I think that’s a little more complicated than makes sense for the characters. But having Chloe and Eli work together more closely to get the alien ship working and the inevitable distance of both of them apparently looking to Scott to make he decisions… since he’s the one with the gun and the folks with guns have made it clear that that makes them in charge? That sounds interesting.
Ming Na’s character’s homosexual and in a committed relationship. That’s probably about as much progress with those sorts of issues you can expect unless SGU goes to the fourth season or so, unless it involves minor characters. That’s just the way that television pacing seems to work.
James, I know. I just want to see Brian Smith kiss another man. Maybe Jamil Walker Smith; that’d be hot!
Oh, well, can’t blame a guy for dreaming.
Well now that you’ve Rule 34’d it, it’s bound to be on the internet somewhere for you to see by the end of the year, along with the Eli vs. Mythbusters vs. Captain Kirk slashfic.
I actually want to kiss Brian Smith myself. No…I actually want to kiss Lt. Scott. But Brian Smith would do.
Actually, not getting any of that will do. It’ll have to, won’t it? :-(
@Jeff L 142: Dr. Lee has already been seen. He was the first zombie, I mean person to be taken over by the communication stones. Dr. Rush took him over. Lord knows what Dr. Lee was doing while Rush was there.
@Xopher: 3some. :-p
@Xopher – You are correct, forgot about that!
Jeff L, I think you meant to credit Bryan.
Bryan—you mean me, Lt. Scott, and Brian Smith? Sounds hot to me, but it might not thrill them.
Do you know how hard it is to type <em>me</em>? Try it sometime.
@Xopher: Well, in the movie 3some, it was two guys and one girl. Scott, Eli and Chloe. Sigh.
But if it came to who’s going to NOT get any action, I think that poor lonely Eli is going to stay lonely! :)
See, that’s what I think is wrong. I think Chloe should tell them she vants to be alone, and then be really pissed off when she finds them in bed together.
Though I don’t actually hate Chloe that much. She’s become useful since the got the alien knowledge implanted.
Second half of season one is really working for me. About to watch episode 15. 11-14 were solid and keep getting better. Loved the cold open on 14 (flashback? hm maybe not!) and getting a bit more insight into Rush. I’m hoping after the month of bridge-mending in ep 12 that we don’t go right back to military vs civilian conflict.
Two episodes in a row with no communication stones at all? Fantastic!
Really liked episode 14.
Rush working on the encryption problem working on Rush. Brilliant.
I would love it. I can understand why not. But is there any chance of a cameo from one of your races from the OMW universe?
I would love to see the Rraey or Obin make an appearance. maybe even just a small easter egg for the fans. I have no idea how much influence you may or may not have but I have been daydreaming about how that could happen if you were to do that. There were allusions to Hitchhiker’s Guide in “Pirate Planet” episodes of Doctor Who in the 70’s (story was written by Douglas Adams though)
@Xopher – Sigh. Once again I showed up too late for the slash fun.
I have not seen this yet, but go Google a movie called “Hate Crime”. You may get your wish concerning Brian.
SG.U is a nice series. So far its great, but Rush is just a tad too evil in the earlier episodes. Its good that they dialed that down a notch after he was “probed”. I really hope it gets picked up for at least another season.
@oh2 – I like to think of Rush as misunderstood. After all, we are all the hero in our own story. He has his reasons for being who he is and we are slowly peeling back that onion as the series progresses.
On a side note: How cool was the big “dinosaur” thing? I am loving that we are getting to see more alien aliens and animal life (I’ll forgive the giant spiders).
So this was the infamous body-rape episode. I guess they took out the sex between Rush and Mandy. At this point it would have been no worse than happened in previous episodes anyway.
So much for that.
I really liked this episode. Rush is a much more likeable character now (in fact before calling him “likeable” would have been impossible for me). I was touched by his speech about Gloria. This really worked.
I was less pleased with last ep’s dramatic ending being tossed away with a mysterious deus ex machina. Personally I suspect the Magratheans.
However, it’s also possible the Ancients are intervening, especially in view of Franklin’s apparent ascension.
I’m happy there was another music video. Last week there wasn’t one, but this week didn’t disappoint.
Xopher: “especially in view of Franklin’s apparent ascension.”
That was pretty much my thought.
On one of the lists, they had some pics from the episode. Seeing shots of both Eli and Scott, it was pretty clear that they’d be back on the ship this episode.
And while I’m fascinated by the Ancients seeding the universe with gates, I hope we find out why there aren’t any DHDs around to control them. Pretty useless to have gates spread around the universe with the only controls in one place, flitting from galaxy to galaxy.
Bryan, these are an early version of the gate technology. Short-range (except in this episode, another way someone had to intervene), and made exclusively for the explorers who’d be arriving on Destiny. They really didn’t want anyone else using them…especially to get to Destiny. I would submit that the presence of these hostile aliens points to the wisdom of not having DHDs on the planets!
Xopher: Then why put DHDs in the Milky Way and the Pegasus galaxies? Maybe the Ancients learned something when they put some of Pegasus’ gates in orbit. I’m thinking that those don’t have DHDs either.
And haven’t we already seen a picture of the aliens going through the gate on Destiny?
If the aliens have maps of where the gates are at, it might suggest that they also know how to dial them. They just might not know Destiny’s address (which seems to be static).
They invented DHDs later, and put them in the Milky Way, then made even more sophisticated tech and put that in Pegasus.
But remember, the idea of those was to be able to go from place to place quickly. The idea of the Destiny gates was to go to and from Destiny. There’s no point in having DHDs for that purpose.
I think they thought of the shipless use of stargates later, once they figured out how to make the range arbitrarily large. That required DHDs.
I think the lack of DHDs in the nameless galaxies has to do with the fact that the Ancients never intended to stay in any of these places. In the Milky Way & Pegasus, the gates were a quick method of letting the Ancients to get from planet to planet (even the fastest ships take longer than a wormhole), while there doesn’t seem to have been any intention to ever “move in” to any of the planets we’ve seen on SGU.
Of course, we don’t know all there is to know about Destiny’s mission, but it seems like a simple exploration mission that got abandoned when something more interesting and/or important came along. Why install DHDs on a planet when the only Ancients who’d ever see those planets would be explorers who could carry remotes around with them?
We have pre-Milkyway gates that have a remote DHD. Then we have the Milkyway gates with DHDs that are big honking things, and no evidence of remote DHDs. Then we have Pegasus gates, where we see the only remote DHDs are part of the puddle jumpers.
The gate building ships ahead of Destiny had to stick around long enough to build the gate itself (I doubt that they were prebuilt gates that just got tossed down to the planet whenever they thought it was a good planet.) They would have done a reasonable job of observation while they were building the gate for the planet.
Maybe if we learn more about Destiny’s real mission, the answer will become more apparent.
Wow. That last episode was amazing. SF at its best. Finding a way with the genre to explore what happens with characters when otherwise impossible what-if scenarios become real. By all this I mean what is so far the best use of the communications stones. What if you changed places with a paralyzed person? What if you were paralyzed and could suddenly run and feed yourself?
And then there was that fantastic jump to FTL in the middle of a fire fight.
Just brilliant all the way around.
I have to say I was a little disappointed with the convenient way we retrieved Eli, Chloe and Scott. I was thinking either by choice or due to a battle with the aliens that we would somehow deplete Destiny’s power reserves and force it to turnaround and refuel before leaving the galaxy which would give them another chance to dial in.
Loved the usage of the stones in this one. Finally someone stopped and said “you know this would be weird”. Plus the exploration of switching with a paralyzed person. It was interesting to see Mandy attack Eli for “judging” her too. It was very realistic.
It was interesting to see Mandy attack Eli for “judging” her too. It was very realistic.
And of course being Eli he totally wasn’t. That was realistic too.
Eli is my favorite character now.
@ Xopher
Yes Eli has always been one of my favorites. I am liking Rush more and more these days too. I always found him interesting, but now I actually like him too.
I am curious about Mandy and Rush knowing each other from SGC years before Icarus Program.
We all have seen scene when dr Daniel Jackson recruits Rush to unnamed (then) project, and it looked like our brilliant scientist didn’t have any previous contact with SGC.
How’s that?
PS. I apologize for my english and I hope that I’ve made myself clear enough :)
Is it possible she meant “before the project was named ‘Icarus’,” or (more likely) “before Icarus became his sole obsession”? Or, maybe she knew him and he pulled her into that because he knew she was so brilliant.
Finally found my way back here. Yay!
I cannot say how utterly pleased and actually *grateful* i was when Dr. Rush said ‘no’ to having sex with Amanda-in-Camille. Man, if he’d said yes that would have really, really bothered me.
Yay, SG:U for being a step up – hell, about five steps up – from SG: A in that regard.
Otherwise, newest ep doesn’t seem to be in the discussion loop yet. I found it a little creepy, at first, what with Wray giving Greer that *smile*, and Rush seeing shadows and oh, wow, James…sheesh. Funny, before i knew it was a hallucination i really didn’t have too much trouble thinking it was real. Guess my opinion of Scott is kinda low? Heh.
And Young is getting way too protective!overbearing! with TJ.
Space ticks. Gross.
(I was also, once again, annoyed and eye-rolly at Chloe. I am destined to be cranky about her forever.)
Can anyone explain to me why at the end of episode 17 “Pain”, Destiny drops out of FTL and has an open wormhole when it is now supposed to be in the space between galaxies? Did I misunderstand episodes 15 and 16?
I second Greg’s question. The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that they made it through to the other galaxy, however it doesn’t seem like enough time has passed yet.
Greg, Fred, I assumed that they’d gotten to the next galaxy. Yeah, I think that was kind of on the quick side.
Well, TJ seemed to be a LOT further along than in the prior episode, so maybe a month or two passed at least in ship time?
I have found that for any sci-fi series I watch, it always makes sense to assume that the period of time taking place between episodes is NOT always constant. To me, each episode shows interesting developments, but there are many other events that we don’t see happening. So variations of time do not usually bother me at all, unless specific time references are made in episodes that cannot be reconciled together.
@Jeff L 178: Anna was actually further ahead than her character.
I suspect that for some other reason, their dead in their tracks for the gate to activate.
I mean, how nice was it that it JUST happened to be out of FTL when they originally dialed in! You COULD be redialing for days/months before it comes out of FTL! I mean, there’s probably quite the time between galaxies.
Actually, a mechanism that drops the ship out of FTL when an incoming wormhole was detected would make sense. I had a bigger issue with how the gate network was able to update coordinates with the ship moving at FTL.
I’m confused. What are you guys talking about? No one dialed into the ship. The ship drops out of FTL and dials out when a gate is in range. Why only certain gates and why only for the time periods on the countdown clock we still do not know.
BTW, this appeared to be at least the second gate in this galaxy since the first gate would have been the one where the crew picked up the ticks. If they had picked them up in the previous galaxy they would have had symptoms while in transit between galaxies.
Pain got 7/10 from me.
It is not bad episode at all, but there was some issues with timeline.
It seems that they were already in new galaxy and… they already visited some planets (obviously the one with ticks) which was not even mentioned clearly :(
For a moment i thought it is caused by lamps, because each time there was cameo appearance of those little lamp.
I think it would be better to use ticks as hallucinations for one person (maybe TJ) while Young hallucination is based on not seeing ticks.
It may add some extra drama to the show and element of uncertainty almost till the end.
Oh, and BTW I really like how “alien through gate” was used in sgu 1.5 trailer :D
Masterpiece!
PS. As always I apologize for my English.
My response was in regards to Bryan, who noted how lucky it actually would have been for the Destiny to be out of FTL (especially since it didn’t have to help pesky humans) when they dialed in back in EP 1.1 – My hypothesis is the ship is designed to drop out of FTL on an incoming wormhole, a mechanism that would be necessary on an unmanned recon ship.
@ Jeff – OH now I see. I misunderstood. Yes, Destiny spends a very large amount of its time in FTL. The fact that it was not in Ep 1 is a very happy coincidence since our valiant crew would have died without the escape route.
I’m a Nielson rating person tonight. YAY!! So, SGU is put in the diary. I just wish they had last weeks so I could have put that down too. Oh well.
Saw the “Old Man’s War” novel in tonight’s episode. Sweet.
Now that is what I’m talking about. TV-PG-lv on screen at the start. Make sure it STAYS that way now, PLEASE. Now an episode finally worthy of the Stargate name. Nuff said. Keep it up to everybody who finally made it happen. Congratulations! Five Stars. Finally! Good Grief. I certainly hope TJ has an easier effort giving birth than it took bringing life to SGU. All is well that ends well. And it is just beginning. Not to say that the ends justify the means, per se. But we have lift-off. Awesome. Welcome to the new demographic onboard Destiny. Ha Ha, too bad nobody can not get off. JK Love it, not like – Love! Best -Green
Ps. Now that the show has become better than palatable, I might even get back on this blog – not. Hope it stays this way. Thanks to all who brought back Stargate. I just wonder what is going to happen when the excessive use of the stones results in their total malfunction – as evidenced (foreshadowed) by the bleed through of consciousness that led to Telford’s cover getting blown.
Too bad that Col Young didn’t get Oneil’s comment about how he took a risk telling him about Telford, i.e. Oneil could be compromised as well. We need Col Caldwell back. He is trustworthy. Just ask Mulder and Scully, LOL.
Too bad John Delancy got ejected from Promethius air lock too. He makes such a fun villain.
I really liked Greers face expression during fighting with Telford-in-Rush. It was really killing two birds with one stone. LOL! :D
O’Neil was just perfect. “Corporal?!”, wrong turn… everything brought back good old sg-1 type humor :)
Kino episodes… I really miss them much.
And I don’t know why there are only few posts per episode recently here. SGU is getting better and better. More people should comment episodes here.
Regards :)
Just watched 118 and wow – Young is really pushing it. Sorry, but i don’t ever agree with torture, and all the secrecy is doing nothing but driving wedges.
Blah – he leaves a *very* bad taste in my mouth, as does Greer being written so blood-thirsty and mindless.
Excellent, interesting episode. I’m not familiar with SG-1 so this third ‘faction’ or whoever they are is unfamiliar to me.
I rather liked Teleford’s speech about ‘why are we so special’ – a question many sci-fi shows have failed to answer!
It was nice to see him back in a capacity other than the dalliance of Young’s wife.
Looking forward to the next installment! I hope Eli or Scott actually do something instead of just standing there looking all pained. Or Wray – go knock the stone off the device! Something! Sheesh.
Loved the episode, although it did look like Richard Dean Anderson had some kind of disease.
No, I’m not making a fat joke, he looked like he was on steroids to combat lupus or some other disease.
It did not look like he’s got “Ben and Jerry’s + Domino’s” fat.
Does anyone know what’s happened to him?
I loved 1.18 Subversion, there was a nice homage to OMW and John Scalzi there when the Rush asked the escort if he would be Ok waiting by himself and the guy said no problem and waved Old Man’s War.
See http://wp.me/pKEaI-1zb for screencap.
Subversion was a great ep. And yeah, nice OMW cameo.
Kiva seems to be a great new character.
Just started ‘pain’. I’m really annoyed with Lt. James. Really really annoyed.
To clarify, I’m annoyed with her because I thought she was better than that. I knew he was bad that way, and this just confirms it, so it’s hard to get annoyed.
Funny, i was pretty damn annoyed at Scott, myself.
James didn’t deserve to be shed like an old coat, and Scott really isn’t the most perfect of people, though the writers, it seems, would have us think so.
OK, further into episode, glad to see… the correct ontological status of the first scene.
Pain 34:00 Wouldn’t it be wise to advise all civilians to hide, immediately?
As for crossing intergalactic space quickly (175,176) – *inter*galactic flight has always been quick in SG. Heck, when the Prometheus came to relieve Atlantis at the end of its first season, that took what, a week? Asgard are much much faster, often dropping by Earth from their homeworld (in a different galaxy) or back in the space of a few hours or in some cases many minutes. Something about how little there is out there might make it substantially faster than travel within galaxies.
@Luke: That would make sense. At the very least you wouldn’t likely have to maneuver around gravity wells.
Random thought from a few eps ago – Instead of James being controlled by the aliens (instead just linked to to get a loc), what if Destiny blew the lowest performing engine itself?
Re: Subversion – I had some huge problems with this ep, not from the content per se, but the writing. We know Young is an ass, but the whole secrets situation could have been handled with one line from O’neil while on board. “Young is under my orders not to say anything and this will be explained when the situation is involved.”. Also, what would the Alliance really want with the Destiny? If they know what’s on board they know better tech exists in the Pegasus galaxy, and I doubt they are exploration motivated. It makes sense for them to keep tabs on it, but not necessarily go there (which means this is probably a fairly transparent plot device to get supplies/reinforcements to the Destiny. If they find another stable Icarus planet, they have a one way support channel.
Excellent ep this week. I like the addition of the Alliance. It gives us a tie back to Earth other than the stones. I’m hoping they do make a connection just so we can get some cool high-tech supplies on board. Plus there is always the possibility of getting some new “crew”.
I will agree with one thing from previous posts. The “tension” with Wray and Young needs to be resolved already. Once your crew mutinies, its time to sit down and work through your issues.
Subversion:
Kiva’s villainy (in the sense of stereotypical villainy) is really annoying. Killing her own guy at the obviously weaseling claim by Rush, in particular.
The false claim that torture is effective, repeated unchallenged yet again, on television… is also annoying. Even if it comes from a baddie.
And then, if Kiva knew it was a setup, why come herself? It’s one of the evil overlord rules.
As for the mind-washing technology… which one is this? The one used on Rayak? That is curable. Or it could be an improvement on Zatarcs. Or… something. We’ve encountered it before, so what do we know about its limitations?
Totally agree, Luke – the ‘torture works’ crap is amazingly annoying. It’s quite obvious that it *doesn’t*, since even after being tortured, Rush is still trying to figure out ways to lie, stall, and in general be as unhelpful as possible.
I do like the idea that we’ll be able to actually move people on and off the Destiny. Perhaps only once or twice, or only one group, one time, with some supplies or something.
Sporadic contact that way beats the stones all hollow. And at last, Teleford is interesting! I like LD Phillips so much, i really didn’t want his character to be disappointing.
I’m out of the loop, what the heck is the Lucien Allience?
I stopped watching the original Stargate, because I thought it was boring. A brief overview of Stargate plot: something violent happens, oh no problem, discuss, discuss, discuss, discuss zzzzzzzzzzzz, oh yeah Sam C has a quick fix solution sure hope it works, it did, roll credits.
Somehow, SGU has a similar plot structure, yet it works. It’s like magic! The pace of this show is perfect. Perhaps because it’s not an action piece, but a character piece. I love it! It’s Lost In Space, but happening right now.
Anyhow, back to my original question (which is my one beef with the show – never watched the original, so don’t know what many of the references are), clue me in.
Tabaqui – that they’re demonstrating how it doesn’t work is the only positive element to it. But that can be attributed to heroism instead of basic human nature, avoiding needing to confront the real issue.
Grrrr. I’ve been watching the entire series just to catch Mr Scalzi’s “cameo of sorts” and guess which episode my PVR technical epic fails on? I’ll tell you, 1.18 Subversion, that’s which. And, I had set it to record only the *last* of the week’s 4 showings, to be sure to get it in HD. There goes Murphy.
Having watched the series though, I have to say that the “halfway hotspot”, when the aliens are introduced, has for me transformed the whole first half of the season from “Erm… yawn?” into “Wow, we’ll have to watch this entire thing again now, and thank the gods for something on TV finally deserving of an adult attention span!”
@Tabaqui – We can move people on Destiny, but not off. I doubt that Destiny’s gate has the power or capacity to connect back to the Milky Way.
@Jenn – After the System Lords fell in SG1, groups began to pop up with stolen Gould ships and technology. A bunch of them grouped together to form the Alliance which is basically a space mafia.
They were featured a few times over the last 3-4 seasons of SG1.
@189: “And I don’t know why there are only few posts per episode recently here.”
I don’t know about other folks, but I gave up on trying to comment when Syfy decided to put an 8-day delay on the online episodes. Since I don’t see the show when it goes out on cable, I couldn’t comment on the last episode I saw online without risking seeing spoilers in the comments from folks who have seen the following episode.
(Since there was no new episode this week, online has caught up with cable for a few days. It’ll go out of sync again on Friday, but at least it’ll catch up again in 3 weeks when the last of season 1 goes out.)
I’m perfectly happy with spoilers, but I find that talking about an episode over a week old (Hulu) seems less than useful. Then post-hiatus I watched the first episode, didn’t bother with the next two, watched the one with Rush going down Magical Memory Lane, then dropped out for other reasons (my right knee is now made of artificial materials; when I get the left knee done, I can run in slow motion!!!).
Plus (I read some spoilers) I reeeaaaallllly don’t like how one particular thread is going to end this season. So I’ve more or less opted out, though I still have this comment thread in my RSS Feed and check out another site in the first couple of days after an episode airs.
I dunno… maybe I’ll get the full-season DVD and watch it all, with commentary. Or not. I should at least check out the video of Scalzi’s Old Man’s War appearance.
I get the impression a lot of the newer material has jaws dropping; this is why I’m considering the DVD. Maybe. Possibly. I dunno.
I have tried so hard to like this show…and I just don’t! I loved SG-1 and SGA (own every single season of both), but SG:U fails. It’s gotten marginally better, but that’s not saying much since it started out as a show that seemed to be aimed at Twilight-type fangirls, not scifi and Stargate fans. The plot twists are overused (seriously, an unplanned pregnancy between two of the characters!?!). I struggled to overcome my dislike of Lou Diamond Phillips, but failed (probably because his character is such an ass). And if I’m supposed to, at any point, sympathize with Rush you all are going to have to work harder for it. (To be fair…I have only seen the actor in one other thing and he played a selfish, egotistical asshole in that too…so I already didn’t like the character…guy’s not a good enough actor that I don’t associate past roles with the current one…not totally his fault as most actors aren’t that good).
I’d rather see you working on getting the Old Man’s War series made into films. I would so be there on opening night! (Or lining up to audition for a role, any role, just to be able to say I was in it!)
I knew the Lucian Alliance is bound to fail in “Incursion – Part 1” as soon as I saw Rush-as-Telford using a ViewSonic monitor while forced to help them. I mean…nothing wrong with ViewSonic at all–I own one and it’s great–but an advanced band of interstellar smugglers and mercenaries shouldn’t have to rely upon early 21st Century Earth technology. Unless…say, do interstellar gangs go in for product placement?
@Lance 210-
If you assume that they took Earth tech (SGU is current day with the advent of some alien tech available to milgov) it makes more sense, especially if it turns out this is some kind of a fringe op.
Love the show. They got the right guy when they consulted Scalzi.
Just watched ‘Incursion’ and ooh, an episode with some tension!
I’m disliking intensely – as i usually do – the ‘need to know’ bullshite and the ‘fanatic follower’ as epitomized by Greer. I was very disappointed in Scott and Eli both, failing to do anything at all while Rush and Teleford pretty much died.
Young, with his compressions and ‘come on!’ was so very, *very* lucky to get Teleford back. Really a lame thing to do without informing his second in command and, i dunno, maybe having his *medic* standing by.
And then running off to O’Neil? Arrgh! The man annoys me on so many levels.
It sucks the gate planet is gone – i really hoped for some more back-and-forth with people. Now we have, what, thirty new people on Destiny? Unless them kill them all, that will be a lot of people to integrate. And killing them all would be…cliche.
But I did enjoy the episode, despite my twitchiness over Young. (And can Chloe just die, already? Jayzus.)
Excellent ep. That’s TWO planets we’ve exploded. Sam’s little blowing up a sun thing is not looking so bad now is it?
So now I am wondering if this will turn into a mixed crew thing like Voyager or if we are going to find a convenient planet to ditch them all on so our alien friends can team up with them and attack us later.
Also, how about the cool disintegration of the Lucian dude with the shield? Me thinks there is a ghost in the machine. Franklin? That you buddy?
And one more tech question answered. An incoming wormhole forces Destiny out of FTL. It was not luck but design that we were able to connect to the ship in the first place. Which makes sense really.
Oh and speaking of borrowed human tech, Machine guns? Really? No zats or Staff weapons or any other number of cool Jaffe weaponry?
One thing I am wondering still is WHY the Alliance would want access to Destiny unless they had some method for getting access back to primary space. A one way trip makes no sense for an organization like that (the original crew did not know for sure where they would end up and what they would find there, the Alliance does, thanks to Telford). Even with the new Icarus planet being stable they would know Destiny had no way to dial back..
Jeff L @215
I gathered that the Lucians know more about what’s on Destiny than the SG-folks, through whatever sources they have.
That may also indicate that they have some ideas on how to get back – maybe just me assigning reason where there be none though…
@Evil – I do thinks thats a possibility, given they had door openers. One of the interesting ongoing plot points will be what did they bring with them…
@ JeffL – Even though Destiny is OLD it has two things going for it. It was designed by humans (ancients) for humans and it is technology that was the basis for all ancient tech. The Goa’uld took some forms of ancient tech and created bad copies of them like with the sarcophagus’. I am betting they would like to get a look at some uncorrupted Ancient tech that is at a more understandable level to them than the stuff on Atlantis for example.
But yes, I would hope they had a plan to get home once they had Destiny.
I think maybe this was a subgroup of the LA that was on the run from someone (perhaps the rest of the LA, perhaps not).
In any case, Young should have a) told Scott what he was up to with Telford-in-Rush; b) had a medic standing by, as Tabaqui pointed out; and c) vented the gate room to space until everyone passed out, then revived Telford and spaced the rest of them.
The plot-driven stupidity is getting thick in here. It would take a minute to fully vent the gate room; they said that in the episode. So they vent it for 30 seconds, the oxygen pressure gets too low to maintain consciousness, and everyone passes out but isn’t dead. Then you pull Telford out and shovel the rest out the nearest airlock.
What? You say they should take prisoners? Nuh-uh. The Lucians are too dangerous, and Destiny’s resources are too limited. Not that I believe in coldly making decisions about who should live and who should die, but known enemies who are a known criminal organization, who have known hostile intent? Both safety and economy dictate that you space them. Never mind the fact that they picked a pregnant woman as their first “demonstration kill” for the hostages; that was their leader’s sadistic cruelty at play.
But probably they’ll come to some kind of terms. Great. Just what we need, a THIRD group vying for control of the ship. And even if they kill off some of them, they’re probably going to add
Ilse KochMira to the regular cast next season.I hope I’m wrong, and the Lucians on the ship are all dead by the end of next season’s opener. But *sigh* I’m not betting the farm on it. I will hope that they kill off “Ilse” though.
I kind of decided it would be a plot loop. If I was going through the wormhole I’d have some form of oxygen mask on going into a hostile environment, which negates the threat of venting the gate room (since they have the door device). So with that in mind, easier just to have them gate in.
Jeff, I’m not sure I understand. They could see the LA people coming through the gate, and they weren’t wearing gas masks. Also, gas masks don’t supply oxygen; those were filtration masks they had later (because THEY were using gas), not breathers.
And they could have dropped the pressure in the gate room enough to give everyone the bends, even if they did have breathers.
Do I misunderstand what you’re saying?
Oh, one other thought: Young should have vented the gate room and kept it in vacuum as soon as he found out about the impending Lucian attack. The gate wouldn’t have opened.
I’m confused – why wouldn’t the gate open in a vacuum? It seemed to work fine for the space-gates in Atlantis (and the Milky Way gates that were used for the gate-bridge, though they didn’t really OPEN, I guess).
After this crisis is averted, I hope they at least TRY to come up with some sort of Iris-like shield for the gate. Just lower it when people are off the ship, and keep it up the rest of the time (if the Milky Way galaxy folks find another way on the ship, they can always call via comm stones to let them know they’re coming).
I think this could potentially make FOUR groups trying to take over; I could see Telford arguing (and, possibly, succeeding) that Young isn’t fit to run the military half of the crew, given the mistakes that Xopher and others have pointed out.
@ Robin – I doubt they would put a formerly brainwashed double agent in charge of Destiny. They have been beating the “Military takes orders from the civilians” drum a lot. I thin kit is inevitable that some form of detente will be reached with Wray and things will settle more into an Atlantis type arrangement where the civilians are mostly running the show until a military situation arises.
@ Xopher – I agree. The first thing I thought was depressurize the gate room now before the LA arrives. No fuss, minimal muss.
So no one seems to be talking about the ghost in the machine. We are out of FTL and no gate countdown. No return to FTL. The Shield fried the LA dude. Anyone care to speculate on these tings? It would seem obvious it’s Franklin, but is he ascended? Is he part of Destiny now?
Totally agree with the last five or so posts – Young really isn’t making good decisions. They didn’t want the gateroom to be hard vacuum, though – they were doing their best not to kill Rush-in-Teleford. Though, yes, right after the LA arrived would have been the time to vent the atmosphere.
And now i’m confused – killing Rush’s body somehow reset Teleford’s brainwashing? That…makes no sense.
I rather like the LA leader – I hope she makes it! Though her whole entourage is way too many people for the Destiny to support right now.
Young, however, is just…messing up. In my mind. Pretty much constantly. I really don’t think he’s up to the job at all.
The thing is, the SGC does seem to trust formerly brainwashed individuals – look at Teal’c & Ronon (Ronan?). Each of them were brainwashed double agents at least once in their careers, and were reinstated. Just because we the viewer have less history with (and less trust for) Telford doesn’t mean SGC sees him as less trustworthy than any main character who was brainwashed.
He wouldn’t have to be officially put in charge to cause some mutinous tension, especially not with Young’s doing his best to lose his men’s trust.
I hadn’t thought about the possibility of Franklin being the “ghost in the machine,” but that makes more sense than my theory that Destiny was playing favorites.
@Tabaqui: Almost killing somebody to reverse the mindwashing was use on T’ealc.
Bryan – Yes, but…. One assumes that the brainwashing was in Teleford’s brain, not just his psyche.
So since Teleford’s brain didn’t die, but Rush’s, than the ‘reset’ shouldn’t have worked.
That’s the mystery of the stones, then, isn’t it?
I feel like the old days of discussing soul technology in Babylon 5, and how the Minbari knew that their souls were getting weaker.
Bleh. I dislike intensely things of that nature. Make it *make sense* – it’s not hard.
Make sense, like creating worm holes with a ridiculously small amount of energy? And we won’t even go into the logic of the zat guns. Or how a whole race could be developed that doesn’t seem to have a real immune system and require the presence of a symbiot.
Assuming the brainwashing is a physical thing… Maybe Telford’s brain got close enough to death? After all, Rush (in Telford’s body) was in bad shape from that incident, too…
I haven’t seen the related SG-1 episodes, but I’m inclined to thing it’s a psyche thing rather than a brain thing. If the brainwashing is the result of something done to the brain, why would it “keep” when he’s not in his own body? Arguably, it must have been part of his psyche as well (conditioned by the physical changes?), but, then, why wouldn’t Scott, Rush, and Young have felt the effects when they were using that body?
All good questions that we most likely won’t get an answer to!
Grrr.
:)
I enjoy the show, but i do wish they’d think a bit more about the science of things before they just went for it.
@Xopher:
A plot loop is when you have something that’s more complicated than needed to get to a desired point.
In this case, the writers clearly wanted the LA aboard destiny. That’s a given.
So, lets say Young turned the gate room into a vacuum chamber. Now, to accomplish the plot goal, the LA would have to come through in space suits, breathers, whatever, then open the doors (doable). However, now you need to film a scene with breathers, space suits, etc, which adds to the expense, so you ‘loop’ back to the original plan just because its a little easier.
In short, for the overall plot to work, anything that Young did would HAVE to be defeated, therefore they did nothing. Not the best for character development, but a fairly standard writing trope.
@Tabaqui
I know; it’s not like these things couldn’t be interesting to explore. I would almost have liked to see them make the characters’ personalities change based on that fact, which could’ve led up to the eventual reveal that it was because of Telford’s brainwashing (and if it’s due to an actual physical change to his brain, maybe the characters “stoning” into his mind would gradually become conditioned so that they were turning against the rest of the crew as well).
Bryan 230: Yeah, we’re having to swallow a lot of stuff for this whole universe to even exist. You didn’t mention the fact that the original Milky Way stargates can only be a system of 38 planets (because of the requirement for a unique point-of-origin symbol for each planet).
All these series require using bridge cable to suspend disbelief. I, for one, am willing to.
Jeff 233:That’s why I say Young had Plot-Induced Stupidity. In other words, he was carrying the Idiot Ball this episode.
I think that’s a sign of poor writing. Especially when Young has used hypoxia on someone in the very same episode. The only way to do this right would have been to have Young not know they were coming, which would mean Telford would have to have given him a different piece of intel to prove he was himself again.
And the LA people weren’t using probes with telemetry; they were jumping into the gate as their planet disintegrated. If the gate room on Destiny had been open to space, they wouldn’t have known to put on breathers—they would have had to do so AFTER getting onto the ship and noticing there was no air.
And they still would have gotten the bends, unless they had pressure suits.
Sigh. 38 worlds. If I can accept that, I can accept this. But Young was being stupid.
Xopher: Actually, I assume that the point of origin is actually always the same point on the gate, it’s just marked differently depending on what system you’re in/what was created for it. Remember the Antarctic gate, where they didn’t know that it was a different chevron for their starting point?
No, it’s the same 38 symbols on every gate, and you have to know the correct point of origin for the planet you’re on (NOT the gate). This is clear from the original movie, and clearly established in the first series when Daniel Jackson uses Earth as the POO to dial out from a gate transported from another planet on a Goa’uld mothership.
And the reason they couldn’t dial out from the Antarctic gate was that they were trying to dial the same planet they were on (and also there’s an active-gate exclusion rule). It was an error for Sam to think she could dial Earth, though, because she ought to have realized that she couldn’t know the POO for the “ice planet” she thought she was on.
Of course, she could have just dialed 38 times, with a different symbol as POO each time! Then she would have known something else was wrong. But that would point out what you’re not supposed to notice.
Or it could be that the DHD knows the POO, and when you hit the big red button in the center, that’s when you actually enter the seventh address. I’d have to watch them dial again, just to see if they are selecting six or seven addresses with a DHD.
Without a DHD (a la SGC), knowing the POO would be necessary.
@ Xopher – The movie is out of bounds in terms of rules for the series. If you follow the rules of the movie, every gate has a different set of 38 symbols representing constellations as they appear from the planet you are on, one of which was the POO. The address to Earth would need to be different for every planet. The series ignored that fact and created a single address for every planet changing only the POO. IF they had not done that then every ep would be taken up with the team having to figure out the address home on each trip.
BTW, The Antarctic gate had a different POO symbol than the other gate which means that the Lambda symbol with the circle over it was not the original POO symbol for Earth.
As for the stones and the brainwashing, the stone transfer is not a literal swap. The two people are connected in some way. That is why one is impacted if the other dies and why there is an interruption in the transfer when Destiny goes in and out of FTL (Which did not happen with Rush and Telford BTW which kind of annoys me). What we don’t know is did Rush-in-Telford also die and then come back when Telford-in-Rush was revived? If there is a physical aspect to the brainwashing both bodies dying would have fixed that.
What I find weird/interesting is that the residual memory thing that Rush and Scott experienced has not happened to anyone else so it must have been some kind of side-effect of the brain wash. I have no idea how to explain that one.
i never much liked stargate/ star trek/ star wars. they are too unrealistic. space travel is that fast. sure, a stargate might work but lightspeed? its so unrealistic. and the ship designs? there is no way they could change course. you need engines on all sides. space fighters in the future are probably going too be little cubes with small vectoring engines.
and the speed at which they travel. they just stand there. that speed would blow them to bits. a human can barely withstand 3g’s. lightspeed could be alot more. in my humble opinion those three are some opf the worst things in science fiction
@ is there hope 4 humanity? – “Real” science fiction is boring. With all due respect to Mr Kubrick, 2001 was a snooze fest. Silence in space, suspended animation and “realistic” velocities limit the ability to tell a story. Remove some of the things blocking your story telling and you have a much bigger stage to play on.
The “invention” of Warp Drive or “discovery” of hyperspace lets us travel faster than light.
The “invention” of inertial dampening keeps folks from going squish on the walls.
The space shuttle only has engines on the back and it manages to maneuver just fine. All you need are thrusters to nudge the front in the direction you want and the rest is done by the main engines.
I will agree that most SciFi on TV and in movies are too 2 dimensional. They think in terms of up and down and left and right. Those terms have no real meaning in space. Dog fights tend to all happen in a straight line when in reality you could be attacking your enemy literally from all sides. Aerodynamic ships serve no purpose in space either unless you want it to be able to maneuver in atmosphere too.
But if you want people to watch your show and buy your merchandise and dream of being on your ship it needs to be cool. Little cubes ain’t cool. (Although Borg Cubes are. Not sure how that happened.)
Bryan, they dial seven symbols. You have to know and dial the POO symbol. Again, I cite Daniel Jackson dialing out from the Goa’uld Hatak using the sun-over-pyramid symbol: i.e. Earth. Note that he was NOT able to go to Earth that way; he dialed out to another planet, then dialed back to Earth from there after the gate on the Hatak was destroyed.
That was still inconsistent, because the gate shouldn’t have worked by the single-gate-per-planet lockout principle they discussed in several other episodes.
GL, I didn’t remember that from the movie. I’ll have to watch it again (not a distressing prospect, except for Kurt Russel).
I definitely don’t remember that the Antarctic gate had a different POO symbol, in fact I’m not sure I believe it. That’s another one I’ll have to rewatch. It would be inconsistent with everything else they say about the POO (and the symbols on the gate) in the entire series; but it’s not like they’re ironclad about consistency!
Xopher – I did a little googling. Here is a pick of the POO from the Antarctic gate. http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=28&pos=361
The movie only had the address to Abydos and then the address back to Earth. But since each had a different POO that one symbol at least was different on the two gates.
#240/hope for humanity….
I have to say – ‘realistic’ in what way? Most sci fi is set in a future time – how do we know how ‘realistic’ it is or isn’t? And frankly, conforming to what we can do in space now would make for incredibly boring story-telling.
You can’t *tell* Star Wars or Star Trek if it takes ten generations to get from point a to point b. It’s just endless travel. And yes, there is a story there, I’ve read a few, but in the world of movie-telling, it’s not dynamic enough.
I enjoy the ‘fairy tale’ of faster than light travel. We’ll never know our neighbors if we don’t discover something like that – we’ll just send out ships with crews that won’t remotely resemble us when they’ve arrived, and who will have forgotten to care about us or the ‘mission’.
I’d much rather imagine ‘hopping’ from Earth to (far distant other planet) and meeting alien civilizations than hundreds of years of stultifying travel in a boring tin can.
The movie only had the address to Abydos and then the address back to Earth. But since each had a different POO that one symbol at least was different on the two gates.
No, that just means you have to dial a different symbol from the two gates, not that the gates have a different set of symbols. You can type A-B-Y-D-O-S-E and E-A-R-T-H-A from identical keyboards. (Yeah, I know that second one couldn’t be a dialing sequence.)
I’m not sure what makes you think that symbol is the POO. I don’t see anything in the picture to indicate that it is.
Look, my point is that the Stargate series are not consistent even internally about how the gates dial or what specifies the address. There’s no way to make sense of it that isn’t either a) disproved by one or more episodes or b) mathematical and/or information-science nonsense. In one episode they even claimed that gate addresses spelled out the names of planets in Ancient! Don’t even get me started on “Earth’s Latin is derived from Ancient,” which is patent nonsense.
In these series you just have to ignore the inconsistencies. This is frustrating when an inconsistency is the lever of a solution, which is just plain cheating on the part of the writers.
The address spelled the name of the planet? I have never heard that before (and being big geek I would think I’d remember that one).
I would have to go watch Solitudes again, but I recall Sam saying something like “this is the only symbol I don’t recognize. It HAS to be the POO”. Aw heck now you’re gonna make me read the transcript. BRB…
OK here we go…
O ‘ NEILL: You IDed the seventh symbol yet?
CARTER: Yeah, this one has to be the point of origin. I’ve never seen it before. No…batteries…guess it’s now or never.
O ‘ NEILL: I’ve always preferred now to never. [He coughs up blood]
CARTER: Here goes. [As she dials the chevrons glow but nothing happens] Dammit!
O ‘ NEILL: You dialed the right address?
CARTER: Yes! It has to be something as simple as the control interface. If we can dig down to the panel on the DHD I can fix it.
So that does not mean that the “earth” glyph was missing, but deduction tells me that the way they always quickly and easily dial earth means that the first 6 symbols are always the same so the POO must be a different symbol for each gate.
Its one of those “Mysteries” that you simply can’t look too closely at or it totally unravels the story. It doesn’t help that we keep adding new uses for chevrons like the 8th dialing a different “area code” and the 9th now having the soul purpose of connecting to Destiny.
I’m getting this weird “Lost” vibe from the show.
Especially since Eli is like Hurley and hasn’t lost any weight for the entire season.
I think Eli HAS lost weight over the season. It’s just not as much if it were real life.
As I’ve previously mentioned @135, the calisthenics that have been going on are pretty unrealistic. They don’t have the calories/food to be doing that.
And I also see that I have commented under my nickname (bytehead) and pointed to a completely different blog (but still mine!) in one comment. That is rather odd (since the cookie still has my original info, although my computer is currently packed, and I’m borrowing my son’s laptop right now). That is indeed weird.
It’ll be a while before Eli loses his double-D moobs, methinks.
At least Hurley had an excuse because he’d hoard food for himself, but what’s Eli’s excuse?
He found a giant stash of Ancient Snickers bars?
The address spelled the name of the planet? I have never heard that before (and being big geek I would think I’d remember that one).
They said that in the episode where they first discovered ZPMs. O’Neill stuck his head in the Toilet of Ancient Knowledge (again!) and he told them that. It was at the end of some season, because they used the chair in Antarctica to wipe out Anubis’ fleet.
It doesn’t make sense in ANY other episode.
OK, I get it with the first Antarctic episode. That’s contradicted in any number of other episodes. Like I said, there’s no making sense of it across all episodes; they just weren’t that consistent.
TAONAS! That’s the name of the planet that was all lava except for one small dome, where they found the ZPM.
FUCK.
1. I hate cliffhanger season endings.
2. I want Kiva dead.
3. I really hate cliffhangers.
4. These LA people have no worth as human beings; they should all die, especially Kiva.
5. I really, really hate cliffhangers.
Also, did I mention that I hate cliffhangers?
So Xopher. How DO you feel about cliffhangers?
I actually like the cliffhanger season endings: it reminds me of the old Flash Gordon serials, and I have a huge jones for them. :-)
The first parts of the show were more like the classic Stargate shows, with a nice, tied-up ending that was more or less stand-alone. Now we have a multiple-episode arcs, and we’re in the middle of one. Love it.
I like the way the season has morphed as well, from basic survival to an ongoing crisis. What is missing – and remains missing – is some serious attention to how the military would actually act, rather than how the powers-that-be think they should be acting.
Kiva and the LA folks are the exact opposite of what the Stargate crew are: they are extremely focused, collateral damage is irrelevant to fulfilling the mission, they want to *win*. The Stargate crew continues to be confused, hasn’t bothered to figure out what they can do while they are there besides survive, and are too afraid of collateral damage to actually do anything.
We can infer that TJ will lose her baby, that there have been at least 7 deaths (that I counted) and that Young has completely and royally fucked up because his need for unit survival has compromised his thinking. Given the importance of the characters, we can infer that the guys in the space suits will survive because Eli can get to the airlock in time.
The rest? Hard to tell. The “Incursion” of the title isn’t a mere incursion; the Lucien Alliance folks are not going to roll over and play dead when something happens. This is not Star Trek: Voyager (thank GOD!) where two purported enemy groups can unite for the greater good, as we saw from the attitude of the injured soldier that TJ worked on for so long (who basically said that the ship wasn’t theirs to have).
Hence we’re set up for a situation that has no happy ending: the LA and the Stargaters cannot co-inhabit the ship given the deaths and the complete lack of trust (and Young trusted Kiva???) unless…
And the death of the one LA soldier, turned into a pile of ash: Hi there, Franklin! There’s another thread left untied and unexplained: having Franklin being the ghost in the machine would be a good plot twist, indeed the only one that could actually force the LA and Stargaters to work together. If anything, it is the pistol on the wall in the first act: at some point it will be used.
Well, we’ll just have to see.
But if there is a deux ex machina (besides Franklin, that is) that saves Young, meh. Double and triple meh if Young talks his way out of this.
Actually they explained the death of the soldier. The shields weakened due to the gamma blast and he was standing under a hull breach. He got cooked (not exactly sure that is what really would happen, but it’s plausible).
The part that bugged me was ‘The FTL is offline. Why? We don’t know….’
Good lord, make something up. ‘The gamma bursts are interfering with the drive.’ or ‘the extra drain on the shields to handle just the basic gamma radiation is leaving not enough for the drive.’ or if you want to ramp up conflict ‘the extra strain on life support has pushed the system over the edge!’
Even if there was no possibility to switch off the Destiny StarGate, there should at last “bury” gate with some random stuff like containers, clothes, other things. As we know: buried gates won’t allow incoming wormholes.
I feel cheated! There is no place for brilliant solutions.
We know what (or who) will probably rescue Scott and Greer. Even if there will be some plot twist with that in next episode… it was stupid not to keep it in suspense.
Big cliffhanger in the end developed by previous character stupidity (mostly Young’s). To artificial for me (scriptwriters forcefully trying to much making it look real).
No Zat’s, Staff’s? No comment ;-)
@JeffL: Actually, that’s what was said once they knew the pulsar was near: the ship was transferring power to the shields and couldn’t recharge fast enough to jump…
@DevilaN: even better, they could have manned the Destiny Stargate room to disarm the LA folks as they flew through the Stargate: remember, they didn’t walk through, but flew through. Two each to take the first few down, then the rest are faced with cocked weapons as they land. Instead, Young allowed the incursion to gather its resources and establish a beach head. Basic military history teaches you that a beach head left alone creates huge problems and it actually saves lives to destroy them, rather than allowing a breakout.
Agree with character stupidity. In the first part of Incursion, Young was told to shape up. He failed, once again.
It’d be excusable if there wasn’t the stones: however, given the stones, it’s inexcusable…
I could have said they swore they didn’t know what was up with the FTL at the same time they discussed the pulsar but I might have missed it.
Too much plot-based stupidity in this ep. Young has been carrying the idiot ball for way too long. Time to hand it off to someone else, preferably on the other side.
Happily, Kiva has been in all the episodes she’s listed for on IMDB (which is not true of others on the show). This is a hopeful sign, but not a reliable one; these things are updated all the time, and sometimes the creators of a show deliberately mislead with the entries on IMDB.
Still, I’m hoping she simply dies, and the other LA people are more reasonable. As in: content to be abandoned on the next habitable planet Destiny encounters. It will probably have a gate, so they’ll have several planets to knock around in.
Then the story can get back on track after this brief derailment.
I just don’t see the appeal of the Lucian Alliance, to be honest.
Humans behaving like Goa’uld assholes?
Smugglers obsessed with Ancient archeology?
Huh?
Young keeps making really bad, dumb decisions. So much so that I’m getting the distinct impression this is a deliberate effort on the writers.
If you look at his history, he’s had problems with insubordination in his command (Greer starts the series in lockup), and was sleeping with a junior officer under his supervision (and knocked her up! No condoms on that base?!). The other military characters don’t seem to respect him much. He wasn’t picked for this mission. He was just the commander of that base, and led the evacuation after the attack. I think it’s even implied that he wasn’t ever going to be picked.
His behavior on the show is consistent with his history. He has failed to lead throughout, and had problems with pretty much everyone — Rush, Camile, Telford (ok, that one’s not his fault, given the brainwashing).
Personally, I think it’s a neat bit of writing, and makes the character more interesting, not less. Not every military commander is Picard, after all. Young is a likable but very flawed person.
I didn’t have that much of a problem with the cliffhanger. I’m happy they are developing a complex story over several hours instead of neatly wrapping it all up in 42 minutes and leaving a minute at the end for the “what have we learned kids” segment.
@Milleu:
I completely agree with you. However, would a Colonel with that pedigree be assigned command of a top secret military installation with significant responsibilities? (I’m not sure that he was base commander, would have to rewatch the pilot)
If that is the direction the writers wanted, one way to handle it would be to have him be the second in command, or even third, and have the commanding officer die on the way in (like Atlantis, if I recall correctly – okay that would make it derivative). Alternately have him be there in another capacity and have the commanding officer make it off Icarus, which would lead to some actually meaningful uses of the stones. Telford could probably fill this role if he stays around.
Making him incompetent and in charge is one thing, but lay the groundwork for it. This is one of my recurring complaints about the series, it really doesn’t take much to set things up before bringing them into play.
I think the point is that he’s A) Senior enough and B) Wasn’t so hot to trot that he was given more critical responsibilities like commanding something more than an irritable scientist, showing off to the political types. Icarus base wasn’t some high responsibility, high reward posting where the best of the best were sent. It was a long term research facility that needed a base commander because there was a Colonel slot for commanding that much equipment (and probably defaults for commanding “the planet”) and until Eli showed up even the long term research had apparently been stalled for a long while.
It was a “rescue your career” posting, probably more having to do with being a bureaucrat than not. Which, considering there’s been some implications that Young didn’t GET to Colonel by sitting behind a desk, sort of explains why he’s floundering in all sorts of ways.
Icarus was all about opening up the stargate to Destiny. The primary technical staff (Rush and Eli, plus those other guys that hover over Rush and push buttons when he tells them to) were the critical personnel in place. Everyone else was probably rotating through so that they could get experience (Wray, Scott), keep them out of the way while filling positions (Young, Greer) or on some normal rotation (everyone else) because space needs medics and cooks and even if it’s not high prestige getting to be a botanist on an alien planet is still sort of cool.
Yes, the Stargate program is top secret… but at this point in the series there’s got to be tens of thousands of SGC people – from the crew of the starships plus their maintenance and ground command staff to the various long term away missions to other planets, and so on. It’s really the weak link in the series premise – that many people keeping their mouths shut for several decades and retirement cycles? Hah.
@James
I’ll go with that analysis.. The secrecy issue has always been an open hole I choose to look past, much the same way I ignore the ‘Humans rationalize what they don’t understand’ trope that always appears in urban fantasy to explain why no one thought the pile of decaying flesh walking down the street was unusual..
Excellent analysis, James!
I always wondered if they just did some kind of rota in the kitchens of Atlantis, because that wasn’t really a mission where you sent through a bunch of cooks and stuff – they had no idea what was on the other side, and all personnel had to be highly trained and able to multi-task. So kitchen and laundry and table-scrubbing duties *had* to be parceled out to people on a sort of rotation.
It makes no sense, otherwise.
*and now i want to read stories about Sheppard’s day as ‘lunch lady’.*
*snicker*
I agree with Tabaqui and Jeff: that’s some first-rate analysis, James.
So we have Telford, Kiva and TJ all shot. Chloe bleeding out and most of the military crew about to be assassinated. Decent cliffhanger ending, but I am at a point where I don’t ever feel any peril for major characters. OF COURSE they will survive, its just a matter of how.
TJ’s baby is something that is up in the air though. Knowing the actor is pregnant did the writers intend to keep the baby around (never done in SG to date) or are they going to ditch the kid and create one more tragedy that must be overcome by the crew? Personally I thing that having a baby on board would completely change the crew’s perception of what is important, ESPECIALLY for Young. Nothing like fatherhood to give you perspective and make you man-up. Maybe the kid is the catalyst he needs to become a better commander.
Am I supposed to believe that when a white dwarf star plows through an accretion disc it creates some sort of gamma radiation that can transform a person into a pile of ashes in a few seconds and leave all surrounding material intact?
I’d have preferred to see the guy burst into flames and the floor around him become red-hot.
Benjamin, you don’t understand. It’s a vampirization ray. And then just plain old sunlight. Naturally he and his clothes burst into flames and burned to dust.
And of course you can’t vampirize a ship, so it was unaffected.
OK? Now relax. :-)
Do any of us really know what a super intense burst of Gamma can do to a person?
Maybe they should have had the guy get really mad, grow huge muscles, turn green and start smashing things. Talk about a plot twist.
I just went with the assumption that the radiation was altered by the weakened shield to cause that effect…
The effects of massive amounts of ionizing radiation are fairly devastating, based on industrial accidents. The LA member, if he was hit with a massive dose of radiation, would have collapsed, gone into delirium and tremors (as his nervous system went haywire), would have vomited and had severe diarrhea, with severe fever and massive headache. Gamma radiation would have penetrated the entire body (as opposed to beta burns, which would have only been on the skin). His body would suffer massive organ failure and necrosis, resulting in rapid death with extreme pain.
Hence this wasn’t gamma radiation: rather than turning into a pile of dust, he would have turned into a pile of goo. The human (and by extension LA) body has simply too much water to turn into dust. Goo, yes, but not dust. If it had merely hit his hand, the flesh of the hand would die, leading to severe problems with necrosis side effects (dead cells in the blood stream), which could be handled by immediate amputation (the skin and flesh would be falling off in any case).
For the hand to turn to ash, some sort of heat effect has to be implemented, one that leads to a sudden transition from liquid to steam: rather than start to turn to ash, his hand would have exploded due to the energy levels involved.
Sorry, but the let’s-turn-him-to-ash effects are rather bogus and unbelievable: there is simply too much water in the human body to support this. Gotta be a different kind of weapon, one that removes the water entirely…
Maybe I’m just stupid. I’ve valiantly watched every episode of SGU this season, but I have a question: what the hell is “The Alliance”?
I was watching “Incursion, Part I” on Hulu and had absolutely no idea what was going on at any point, and gave up after about 1/2 an hour.
I’ve never particularly liked Stargate, starting with James Spader. I like him, a lot, as an actor, but I didn’t like the movie. Too much hand-waving for my taste.
I only started watching SGU because my favorite author is the Creative Consultant.
Is there a secret handshake or something?
No secret handshake, just you’re missing too much from the other series. The Lucien Alliance is a group of humans that have taken over the equipment and, to a certain extent, the philosophy of their former overlords. To understand what that was all about, go watch 10 seasons of Stargate. Then maybe Stargate: Atlantis to understand more about the Ancients. Then start at the beginning of SG:U.
Starting SG:U at the end of the first season is like starting to watch Lost in the third season with no one to tell you what is going on. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Besides, if we showed you the secret handshake, we’d have to kill you… :-p
Don – or! You could just go to the Stargate Wiki page and read all about it.
:)
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Stargate_Wiki
Thanks, guys. I’ll have to take a trip to The Wikipedian Isles.
John F., you just aren’t listening. I told you it was a vampirization ray! Geez.
IMO, too much of this show relies on ridiculous communication failures. And I’m not talking technical issues: people don’t ask questions, people don’t tell allies what they’re doing, too many “I didn’t have the heart/stones/stomach to tell you” moments, feh.
Also: Eli? I’d like to punch his fat face. Sack up, you whiny POS.
Double post, my apologies:
I know all those people working on BSG needed a job when the show ended, but grafting them onto a SG franchise was a big mistake. Why? TONE.
SG has always had a silly, goofy side– rather like a 14 yo framed the whole story. English everywhere? EXCEPT individual, occasional Jaffa words? O’Neill’s “military” behaviour? Anderson’s ad-libs? All integral, and all goofy (and entertaining!).
I’m not even going into the High Goofiness that is “SG: Atlantis”.
“SG: Universe” doesn’t really have room for goofy, so IMO it just isn’t as much FUN as the rest of the franchise.
J. Eric – I have to agree, the communication failures are annoying. I’ve always *hated* that particular cliche in tv shows, books, movies – it makes no sense to me and totally goes against how i, myself, handle things. So it’s very frustrating.
But wow – why such hate for Eli? He hasn’t whined at all! He does his best, he’s scared and a bit out of his league, but he won tons of credit with me by not immediately jumping to Young’s defense when they found the gun in his room. He’s not on a ‘side’, he doesn’t blindly follow orders, he *questions*, and he’s stood up to both Rush and Young, so i gotta give him props.
The romance bit is annoying, and i wish we could dispense with it altogether for every character, but wow…i cant’ see why you’d have so much hate for the poor guy!
I kinda like the tone. The situation they’re in – it’s not possible to be goofy, really. It’s a pretty grim circumstance, and not a rosy outlook, and i like that they’re not being all silly with it, or having jokey episodes.
To each their own, i suppose. :)
Eli is the plucky comic relief character! He’s witty, not whiny.
And btw, J. Eric, do not come to New York. Complaining is an art form in these parts. In bad weather people play “who had the worst commute,” and you can tell the winner by the fact that the other people all say “wow, that’s terrible.”
Also, we like to say things that would sound whiny if they weren’t phrased cleverly. If you’re deaf to clever phrasing, as you seem to be, you’ll hate everyone here. And we’ll probably hate you too, especially if you go around saying things like “Also: Eli? I’d like to punch his fat face. Sack up, you whiny POS.”
Also, you know what? Some of us “whiny” fat guys might punch you right the hell back.
Aw, c’mon, Xopher. No need to be hostile. :)
If you’re anything like Eli, than you’re probably a cool guy to hang with.
I’m a beta. Eli’s an Alpha. Christopher BC-911.
And J. Eric clearly wanted to punch Eli in part for being fat. I think that calls for a certain amount of hostility, actually.
And you should have seen the version before I edited it to be more polite.
I have no clue what Christopher BC-911 means, sorry.
Well, yeah, he’s a douche, but it would kinda suck if this thread descended into threats and name calling, you know?
We’ll just shun him.
Shuuuuuuuuuuuuun.
I’m down with the shunning. For now. He might see the error of his ways.
I didn’t do any name calling. And “If you punch my ‘whiny fat face’ I might punch you right back” is a pretty weak threat, if you ask me.
BC-911 is my version of an azi designation derived from C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance/Union universe. “B” indicates that I’m in the second-smartest grouping; “C” is my category designation (the first name always starts with the same letter). I made up the numbers.
I was really saying “I can only WISH I were like Eli. He’s way smarter than me.”
And Eli has been carrying Chloe around for miles these last two eps! And joking with her to keep her from giving up! And absolutely not cracking under strain that I’m willing to bet would reduce J. Eric to a very whiny state indeed.
Makes me mad. Grr.
Ah ha ha. C J Cherryh is my favorite author! :) Though the Cyteen/azi stuff always creeped me out just a little. I mean…everyone is so manipulated and screwed around with, they never *really* know if what’s in their head is their own or what (Emory) someone put there.
*shivers*
No, you didn’t call him anything nasty or really threaten him, but a guy like that’ll probably want to come back with all sorts of ‘manly’ threats of violence and cuss all over the place and that’s just…amazingly tiresome.
Dude, we *all* wish we were as smart as Eli. :)
And YES. Damn – Eli’s been a total trooper these last couple eps, total hero, exhausting himself and keeping his spirits up so Chloe won’t be all bummed and…yeah. Hero.
I think it’s supposed to be a little creepy. For me the creepiest part is how damn happy the azi are…until they suddenly need tape.
But you know what? You don’t know, now, here on Earth, whether something that’s in your head is your own or something someone else put there. Geneset controls a lot of stuff. And, granted, the people putting stuff in our heads mostly mean to do something else!
But fond as I am of Cherryh, a couple of things:
First, she’s too successful to edit now, and that makes some of her work kind of tedious. For example, most of the details about the construction of Alpha Wing in Regenesis (the direct sequel to Cyteen) are repeated twice, practically verbatim. It would have been a better book had that been cut considerably.
Second…don’t quite know how to put this, but saying she’s your favorite author on another writer’s blog…
Word. Wise. Done.
I haven’t read that book yet – was waiting for the paperback! Heh. I am on a book budget. And yes, some of her books get a little long. The Foreigner series, for instance. You have this huge, *huge* book that basically is like…two days in ‘book time’. Wowza.
And yes, the whole azi/tape thing is *so* fucking creepy. They’re all fine and happy with it because they’re *programmed* to be and if they move out of their tape-taught stuff they have a panic attack or freeze and it’s just…gah.
*shudders*
We do get nicely brainwashed by our media, it’s true. Gotta fight it. Search out all sides, question every source, always think for yourself. Stay out of my braaaaaaaain!! Heee.
Eh. I’m really pretty sure he doesn’t give a damn. We’re here talking about SG:U, which isn’t soley his creation, so….
*shrug*
It’s out in paperback! I just found it in a bookstore in Riverside, CA (of all the crazy places).
If it’s there, it’s GOT to be a lot of other places.
And yeah, it’s long. It covers part of one year, instead of 20 years, so its pace is somewhat slower. She has some excitement at the end, and you get to find out who was behind some stuff in the first book.
I want to have a minimalist/indy rock band called Azi Tape.
Ah, cool – i’ll have to check my trusty online sources. :)
Heeee! That’s a good name.
(bridge)
(repeat and fade)
Dude.
:)
What is the contribution to Stargate Universe John Scalzi ?
Lugdunensis:
See
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/09/30/on-being-the-stargate-universe-creative-consultant-answers/
and
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/10/02/on-being-the-stargate-universe-creative-consultant-more-answers/
I’m a big fan of SG, but IMHO, SGU is riddled with sloppy writings, in the quest for ratings.
One thing that I really hate is those stupid stones used to communicate with SGC. It completely destroys the story, seriously.
Conflict between military and civilian people? Come on…, just communicate this to SGC and let SGC and whomever the civilians answers to back on Earth (IOA?) vet it out to determine whos in charge, end of story…no conflict.
Don’t understand Ancient tech and can’t control the ship? Well, swap a few of those useless civilians with Jackson, Carter, and McKay. Let Eli and Rush work with them 3 folks to come up with the solution…No more problem end of story.
SGU is purposely badly written to create drama, conflicts, tensions, etc for a chance to boost ratings. It’s fine to create these things, but make sure it makes sense… Goodness.
I only watch it because I’m a die hard fan and there’s nothing much better stuff to watch.
I predict that it won’t even make it to the 5th season, if this keeps up.
I’m hope
OKEJ:
drarVe
…yeah!
Really, really disappointed in the network’s decision to cancel SG:U. And we don’t even get ‘closure’, as the finale episode of season two will be a cliffhanger.
Thanks ‘SyFy’, for practicing bad tv and taking one of the few good shows out there off the air. Now, I guess, well get more exciting ‘wrestling’ and grade Z horror movies.
Bah, humbug.
It`s one year later and I still can`t believe they canceled SGU, alot of people have said that SG1 was alot better than SGU, I tend to disagree. I found that SGU had a starcraft feel which I just loved, except for the star gate of course, I hope Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper create another sequel together, I`d love to watch it.
I liked both the SGU and SG1 series, but I did tend to like SG1 a little bit better. I love science fiction /war action movies. Both the SGU and SG1 series were awesome. I know brad wright and robert c. cooper, had plans to make a movie, but they then canceled it. I really hope that they make another tv sequel.
I tend to disagree I love SGU more than SG1, Sg1 was so predictable. I really hope Brad and Robert make another sequel together. I will cross my fingers.
I disagree with people that say SGU was badly written. I think it was a much more intelligently written series than SG-1 and SGA. Darker, maybe not as fun and campy as the others, but that is what made it so good. The interpersonal relationships and character development was excellent. They take all the good shows off the air. All we can hope for now is a book or comic to give some closure. MGM and SyFy SUCK!
looks like i got the last word in. damn good series!