Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Stegall
Stargate Universe
“Space”
Fridays, SyFy, 9PM
Written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
Directed by Andy Mikita
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.
All the time I was watching this episode of Stargate Universe, I kept thinking of the Jamestown colony. Founded in 1607 as the first English colony in North America, it experienced many of the same challenges and crises that the denizens of Destiny face. Ten minutes after arriving, everyone wants to go home. In Jamestown, many of the colonists were completely unsuited to the tasks at hand, much as the civilians of Destiny are the wrong people on the wrong ship. There is tension, sometimes physical conflict, between the civilians and the military authority. Rivalries between civilian factions break out, diseases of unknown origin plague the company, and food shortages threaten everyone. In short, both the Jamestown and Destiny folk face a hostile environment, internal dissent, military ineptitude, and unknown hostiles who attack with little or no warning.
You’d think we’d have learned better by now. Four hundred years after Jamestown, we still think that putting a bunch of grunts with guns in charge of unruly civilians is the best way to govern an isolated outpost. Instead of letting the people who are trained to the task do the governing, the guys with guns think they have it all figured out. Clearly, in this episode, Colonel Scott does not.
Having abandoned John Smith, er, Dr. Rush on a desert planet, Young is viewed with suspicion by one and all, and feels wounded that no one seems to trust him. Gee, wouldn’t anyone be suspicious of a guy who went out for a walk with his greatest rival and came back alone? Camille threatens to tattle to England, er, Earth about his misdeeds. However, something conveniently weird happens with the communication stones, putting Young into an alien space ship. No one believes him when he uses that malfunction as an excuse to shut down the talking stones. Good thing, then, that Destiny drops out of hyperspace near a huge alien ship no one has ever seen before. Eli hails it in Ancient, and it sends back one word: Surrender. Then it attacks. I kept wondering if the aliens were named “Spanish Armada”.
A nice CGI space battle ensues, with suitable dialogue on board Destiny that almost devolves into Eli shouting, “I’m givin’ her all she’s got!” in a Scottish accent. The aliens throw a slew of little ships at Destiny, Scott and Greer jump into the Millennium Falcon, er, shuttle, and go out to fight them. This is all a diversion, however, designed to distract the Destiny‘s crew from the aliens’ real purpose: kidnapping Chloe. Which they do. Which proves how dumb the aliens are.
Young uses the stones to transfer his consciousness to an alien on board the ship. He finds Chloe in a fish tank; more surprising, or perhaps dismaying, he finds Rush in one as well. He frees Rush, who kills the “alien” Young is inhabiting, then Rush frees Chloe. As they fly back to Destiny, Young (now in his proper self again) orders Eli to fire on all the enemy ships, even though he knows Chloe and probably Rush are on one of them. Is he really sacrificing the two to save Destiny? Or is he trying to kill Rush again? Rush and Chloe get back to the ship, Rush surprises Young by backing up his story about a landslide on the desert planet, and an uneasy balance is restored. It is clear, however, that as much as Rush and Young want to paper over their differences for the sake of the crew, the crew is unwilling to go along. Factions and alliances and schisms are busting out all over.
It’s interesting to me to see the cross-currents happening in this show, if for no other reason than that these rivalries are political and cultural, not romantic. I am much less interested in who is sleeping with whom—or who wants to—than I am with who is going to control the, er, destiny of these Lost Colonists. Castaways on their own ship, a mismatched lot without the skills, desire, or mandate to become explorers or pioneers, they will be forced to survive with mankind’s oldest weapon—their brains. Since, to some extent, all life is a balance of rivalries, skills, and dominance, Destiny can become a microcosm for the human race. Will it become Jamestown, which eventually became a successful foothold in a new universe? Or will it disappear like Roanoke, a colony that vanished with no clue?
I enjoyed this re-introduction to the Stargate Universe series, but I am still struggling with several problems. Is Colonel Young really supposed to be as incompetent as he appears? Is he supposed to be a hero or a bad guy? Or is that too naïve a question for a show which may be reaching for a level of complexity so far not seen in this franchise?
Stargate Universe picked up a hundred thousand or so new viewers, even after a four-month hiatus; it went from 1.3 million viewers with the last episode to 1.4 million this time around. This may mean the show’s falling ratings have bottomed out, and are starting to climb again. Possibly this reflects the audience which came for another flavor of Stargate: Atlantis departing in disgust, to be replaced by a new audience with no expectations. Or so it would work in my world. At any rate, SyFy has renewed the show for another season, so we have plenty of time to see if the crew of Destiny can learn to live together.