Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Stegall
Stargate: Universe
“Sabotage”
Syfy Channel, 10PM Fridays
Written by Barbara Marshall
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.
This episode had so much potential for social disaster written all over it, I am amazed that it eventually emerged as a fine, well-written episode. By “social disaster”, I refer not to the internal dynamics of the show, but to the fan fallout. Leaked preliminary copies of the script for this episode had many fans alarmed at what appeared to be an insensitive characterization of a handicapped person. The final version, however, treated a woman with severe disabilities in a dignified and heroic manner, with no lessening of the drama inherent in the story.
With Chloe, Scott, and Eli missing and the Destiny about to jump between galaxies, Rush and Young face a potentially fatal problem: Destiny can’t make it across the gap. Or rather, it will, but as Rush says, by the time it drifts into the next one, all their bones will be dust. They still cannot steer, boost, stop, or control the ship. They are getting farther and farther from the nearest gate to their missing away team. What to do?
They do what they should have done in the first place: they call home. Using the plot convenience of the communications stones (which are even better story devices than Star Trek‘s transporters), Rush dials up an old student and colleague, Amanda Perry, who is the greatest physicist and engineer he knows. She also happens to be a paraplegic, a la Stephen Hawking, so finding a volunteer to switch bodies with her for weeks on end proves to be a challenge. After some trial and error, Camille Wray is selected, and she gets to spend time at home with her lover. Rush and Amanda work closely together, rekindling some feelings that once brought them together after the death of his wife. Most of the episode winds up focusing on people who, despite their physical attraction, cannot touch: Camille and her lover are separated by her paraplegia, Amanda and Rush by his recently refreshed grief over his wife, in another wonderfully played scene from Robert Carlyle.
This is a nice solution to a delicate problem which already posed some major problems: what exactly is the ethical solution to “borrowing” someone else’s body for sex? That problem already ruined Young’s marriage; there’s every chance it could ruin Camille’s as well. On top of which, I just find it beyond difficult to believe that one can look in the face of an utter stranger and see the soul of one’s beloved. Nope. We like to believe we’re such spiritual beings, but human beings are made of flesh and blood, and that flesh has its own mute, stubborn demands. As Woody Allen famously said, the heart wants what it wants. It will accept no substitutes.
Having said that, I will say how happy I was at yet another episode designed to make Rush resemble a human being. The one-dimensional curmudgeon bit has been milked dry; the show either needs to kill him off or rehabilitate him. Harking back, twice, to the trauma at the center of his life is a good move for bringing him back from the edge of irrelevance. I would hate to have everyone in this cast settle into stereotypes: Curmudgeon, Hot Chick, Nerd, Grumpy Soldier, Moody Coward, and so forth.
Apart from “character development”, however, the plot to this episode was choppy and illogical. Having brought Amanda aboard to fix the ship, it ultimately gets fixed when Franklin sits in the un-comfy learning chair. The search for the away team is cut short when the stargate dials and they simply stroll onto Destiny, having rescued themselves by some unknown means. The attack from the aliens, who are cued in to Destiny‘s location by a malfunction/sabotage of the communications stones, is thwarted when Destiny finally jumps to FTL. The only real surprise was the mystery of Franklin’s disappearance from a locked room. I eventually figured out that the aliens (who are never seen in this episode) figured out a way to use a communications stone to take over Lt. James’ mind when she, er, wasn’t looking, and used her to sabotage the ship. This had to be explained in a couple of throw-away lines, because it sure wasn’t shown to us.
Clearly, the “journey” that the writers of this show are interested in is the internal journey each character is making. The actual travel between planets must appear to be ho-hum boring to the writers, even though it’s the main attraction of the show for me. Maybe the real journey we’re on is the one where Young evolves into a competent man, Rush learns a little grace and sympathy, Scott and Chloe grow up, and the real leader in Eli emerges to save the day. Maybe. Whatever the plan is, at least there’s an attempt underway to make these characters a little less dark and a lot more likable. However, this means the pace has to slow way, way down, in order to give full screen time to the nuance of character evolution. The plot thereby suffers by having to be crammed into whatever nook or cranny remains. The problem with Stargate Universe now is not lack of ideas so much as lack of a master plan. The focus of the show has shifted from story to character, leaving us expecting the wrong things and thus ending up disappointed.
Call me cynical, but I think they’re going to find a way for TJ not to have that baby. I loved Brody’s still—my only question was, what took him so long? Next, he’ll put on a funny hat and turn into Whoopi Goldberg behind the bar. I’m wondering if Franklin won’t be back as the voice of Destiny, a la Majel Barrett. I do hope that the political alliance between Rush and Camille remains impersonal. And most of all, I would like to see more planets, more ship, more aliens—in short, more science fiction. I think the writers are handling the soap opera fairly well, I just wish there was less of it.