Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Stegall
Stargate Universe
“Darkness”
Syfy, Fridays, 9PM
Written by Brad Wright
Directed by Peter DeLuise
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
Chloe: We’ve seen planets from space.
Eli: How could you let yourself get jaded to this stuff so fast?
This is why Stargate Universe became my favorite science fiction show overnight:
Eli is recording messages from the stranded survivors on the Destiny with his Kino floating camera, in case they don’t survive. Lisa Park (Jennifer Spence, Eureka), a planetary geologist apparently, begins by enthusiastically describing the star, the probability of life on the three planets, with all the gushing wonder of someone whose lifelong dream has come true. And then she pauses, realizes that the planets in question may be tide-locked, and says they may be subject to earthquakes. Which worries her, because she was in one once. In that two minutes, the show took us from the vast panorama of a dying star and its accompanying satellites to the small, personal drama of a young woman with whom anyone can identify. It showed us the grandeur of the universe which is the background of this show, and yet kept it small and human and accessible. I think that scene is one of the best written ones I’ve seen in any science fiction written for television, and it was only one of several in this episode alone.
What Defying Gravity signally failed to achieve in its brief run has already been accomplished in only the third episode of Stargate Universe: the establishment of a believable universe with believable technology, with a deep background that includes a mysterious ancient race and believable human characters. I came to this show with little or no knowledge of the other franchises: I saw two episodes of SG-1 and bailed from sheer boredom. I loved the original Stargate movie, primarily because of its lovable characters. There are, as yet, no lovable characters on Stargate Universe, but there’s a heck of a lot of tech to love.
Having barely managed to save their air supply, the Destiny crew begins exploring the ancient ship in earnest, despite Dr. Rush’s increasingly shrill demands that they stop turning things on and off. He finally gets through to Colonel Young, who half-heartedly discourages his crew. It’s not enough, and halfway through the episode the power mostly goes off. We have just enough glow-in-the-dark stickers, flashlights, and bright-screened PDAs to see our way. (When Robert Carlyle called this version of the franchise “darker in tone” a few weeks ago, he wasn’t kidding around.) Rush collapses in exhaustion and despair, but recovers just in time to see the ship through its brush with the outer atmosphere of a gas giant. And here’s another moment I loved: when they realize what’s about to happen, most of the crew gather in a viewing room to watch the sight. Nobody is flip or dismissive or cynical, nobody is such a drone that they would rather stay at their jobs, everyone turns out to share the awe of the moment. That’s a primary human trait that too seldom gets emphasized in by-the-numbers TV dramas: a sense of wonder.
This could all have been handled badly, with overwrought screaming (Chloe in the pilot) or sneering hostility (Greer in anything). Instead, we get quiet moments like the ones where Rush wakes up and Lt. Tamara Johansen (Alaina Huffman, Smallville) diagnoses his problem as caffeine withdrawal. Rush’s wry realization that he’s about as far from a Starbucks as it is possible to get had me laughing. Moments like this warm up a character that otherwise threatens to turn into Dr. Zachary Smith of the old Lost in Space series. Like Eli’s Planet of the Apes references last week, it keeps us from disconnecting from characters in a situation we will never experience.
One of the ways to draw us into that experience is to reflect back to us the very human reactions. That’s why Eli’s camera diary works, when usually this trick backfires. The camera diary has been used and overused, ever since The Blair Witch Project established it as a permanent item in the toolbox of filmmakers everywhere. Defying Gravity tried to take advantage of the immediacy of the technique to insert plot points where the plot itself could not go, which was a mistake that backfired. Here, the writers use the video confession as it ought to be: as an adjunct to the main story line, used to allow a soliloquy without breaking the fourth wall, and to flesh out the characters in a plausible way. Besides the moment noted at the beginning of this review, there is one very telling “entry” from Dr. Rush: badgered by Eli to “show us how you feel” about their predicament, he just glares at the camera. In that one flash, Robert Carlyle gives us disgust, despair, irritation, and resignation… without speaking a syllable. My admiration for this actor grows apace.
Another advantage this show has over the late and unlamented Defying Gravity is the use of images of space. From the very first episode, we’ve had shots of space, of distant galaxy spirals, of red dwarf stars, and a “hyperspace” environment that looks like nothing so much as the aurora borealis. Yes, I know that even if one were able to travel faster than light, by definition that would mean we could not see light. I don’t care; I’ll grant a show plenty of dramatic license as long as it delivers on the drama.
And we couldn’t get much more dramatic than this episode. From worrying about air the crew now segues to worrying about freezing in the dark. The ship, apparently doing its best to save these ignorant humans from themselves, is headed for a planet. But the traverse of the gas giant’s atmosphere has thrown it off course, and now it is heading into the star. This is a great cliff-hanger for next week; I can’t wait to see how Rush and Young handle this!
For the sake of the good moments, I can forgive some silliness, such as when Eli states that the showers don’t use water, but produce a mist. Er, what? I think the scenes where Young revisits his wife to say goodbye were premature and unnecessary, Colonel Telford is an annoying nuisance, and the overt sexism is annoying—how many shower scenes or half-dressed female soldiers are we going to see?
I didn’t find any ratings posted by press time, but I’m willing to bet that, as it did last week, this show earned new viewers. It’s dark and gritty and desperate, a whole universe away from the bright and bouncy Stargate SG-1 and even the slightly more derelict Stargate Atlantis franchises. And in this dark winter of war and economic discontent, maybe that’s exactly the kind of escapism we can use.