My Review of Aftermath. A surprise.
Stargate: Universe
Season: 2.0
Episode: Aftermath
Synopsis:
The formerly stranded Lucian Alliance members who were non-confrontational have been kept together on Destiny in a separate area. But Ginn from the Lucian Alliance explains to Wray that Destiny might be capable of conferring “god-like” powers to its pilots or crewmembers, and that it might be capable of controlling time and space. Rush enters the Destiny’s bridge in this episode. Although this is the first time we have seen it, it is apparent that he has been there previously. Food and supplies are again a concern. Rush decides to stop the ship at a planet which has been designated “non-operational” by the system. He is assisted by “manifestations” of his dead wife and also Franklin who had been vaporized in season 1. Against their advice, Rush recommends sending a shuttle mission to the planet and the fact that the planet has a turbulent atmosphere and volcanic activity explains part of the reason that it was locked out. After entering the atmosphere, the shuttle loses power and crashes. The crash pinned Riley under wreckage, and it seems that the wreckage allows him to stay alive without bleeding to death. Destiny jumps, and Rush is unable to think of a way to hide the fact that he is responsible for the stop at the planet. The stargate on the planet is buried by tons of rubble, and the stranded aweigh crew uses explosives to clear it. Young gates through to the planet to assess the situation. Riley is hopelessly pinned, and Young asks to be alone with Riley. Riley begs Young to kill him so that the rest of the crew can move on. Young obliges, and kills Riley by suffocating him with his bare hands. Meanwhile on Destiny, the IOA has conveyed a list of Lucian Alliance members to be kept onboard, whilst others were to be left stranded on the planet. Varro, Ginn and a number of Lucian Alliance members are retained, and the others stranded on the planet. Rush decides to keep his discovery of the bridge secret and his “manifestation” of his wife says nothing of it. But the ship is nearing something, an object. This episode ends with the ship heading straight for the object as Rush and other crew members stand looking forward from the observation deck.
Review
In a nutshell - This episode surprised me in a lot of ways. First of all, overall I actually liked it better than I disliked it. Honestly, it was actually pretty well done. Its flaws were mostly writing and concept rather than the way it was executed. I was able to make it through the entire episode without a single WTF moment, but there were several negative head shakes and at least one genuine moment of excitement. The special effects in this episode are the best I have seen yet, and the new bridge set is very detailed and has cool displays and is actually well lighted! And overall, despite the VAST improvement (especially sedating “shaky camera dude” and making the effect much less noticeable), the episode failed to make me care about the characters enough to want to identify with one of them or even be anywhere near them.
This is the conundrum of this show…it has so much potential, and there are so many cool elements to exploit and interesting science to investigate, but the writing still breaks down to drama, drama and more drama until you have mental heartburn from it. I want science fiction first, and throw in some drama. My mind is unchanged as to the show being worth watching on a regular basis. But this episode could have been a strong beginning of a true science fiction/drama show named something other than Stargate. Standing alone without the name and as a different show, this episode would be most acceptable in my opinion. You could actually START a show at this point and move forward. But, that is not the case, and Im still remembering Chloe and Eli drunk in the nightclub from season 1, stone swap sex, and last week’s magical aliens who whisk TJ into a dreamworld. Everything about the show seems disconnected and convoluted, and unfortunately…unwatchable on a continued basis.
Review – The opener with Ginn telling Wray of the legends which say that Destiny might be capable of giving its crew god-like powers and possibly being able to control time immediately turned me off. But the reason it did is because of the canon established by SG-1 and Atlantis. The Destiny is OLDER than either Atlantis or the Milky Way gate system, so how could this ship have capabilities greater than Atlantis or any of the Pegasus warships or installations? In Atlantis, we learned that there were SEVERAL city-ships like Atlantis launched, and we even saw one which had been buried and occupied by natives. So, we have a plothole as big as the city of Atlantis to explain away.
A previous plot hole has been plugged! The Franklin “manifestation” states clearly that the ship is indeed more than a million years old, correcting Rush from last season who would say it was “hundreds of thousands of years old”. Rush enters the bridge and we see it for the first time, and I really liked the way they showed us that he had been there before. It made the scene very smooth. I would not have wanted to seen Rush wide eyed as he was seeing the bridge for the first time, running his fingers along dusty consoles and such. It was well done, and the controls and design of the bridge are interesting looking. But they don’t look Ancient at all. They do, however, match the Ancient-goth look they have created for this show. What I don’t like is these “manifestations” of Rush’s wife and Franklin on the bridge. If the ship has some sort of neural interface, or these are Ancients or whatever the case, Rush interacting with them smacks of Baltar’s Caprica 6 (a Cylon female seen only by Baltar). Carlyle’s acting is good in this episode, and not over the top.
Rush decides to stop the ship at the planet even though he had data on the planet, and his “manifestations” advise him he has made a dangerous oversight. But it doesn’t work for me. He has the entire bridge, all the displays and controls and at the last minute he calls the shuttle to warn them of turbulence? Okay. But that was to lead up to the single moment of true “excitement” in the episode. The shuttle enters the atmosphere and encounters turbulence. It suddenly flames out and crash lands on the planet. The effects were superb in this episode. Very well done. Nausea-cam was greatly reduced. The shuttle hits a mountain, and crash lands on gravel. It continues to slide towards the face of a cliff, and I was genuinely thrilled by it. The way looked when it crashed, and the immediate reaction of the crew was done well. Riley is pinned, and from the moment he said he couldn’t feel his legs, I knew he was going to die. More on that later.
Break time…
This space normally reserved for WTF moments is actually empty this time. A first for me! And even though some of you might be thinking “has Overmind lost his mind?”, no…I haven’t. I still don’t like the show, but I liked this episode even better than Time.
Back to the show…
The rest of the crashed crew finds the stargate on the planet buried under tons of rock. COMPLETELY buried. Even with explosives, the SGU spinning stargate shows us its flaws by showing us its base in the rubble, unobstructed by rubble or dirt, and evidently in a neat crater. That induced a major eyeroll. Eli dials the gate to Destiny and the crew can get back to Destiny now. But Riley is still pinned.
The next few scenes were disturbing, and were the only actual “dark and gritty” scenes I have seen in any of these episodes to date. We see the tenderness of TJ who is willing to remain with Riley for his last moments, but Riley knows that time is limited. Riley and Young are left alone in the shuttle, and The two men speak to each other. Riley asks Young to kill him and put him out of his suffering. Young doesn’t want to do it, he offers to get TJ to sit with him, but Riley begs him to do it. He looks at Riley, and the pain in his eyes and courage he was building up came through. He puts his hands over Riley’s mouth and nose and suffocates him to death as they maintain eye contact. Creepy and moving at the same time. Gritty…dark. Surprising. They killed off a character whose name I actually remembered! The guy who made the red fire truck for the sappy baby shower. It’s a shame that the only connection I made to this character was to one of the silliest, soapiest scenes from Subversion of last season. But I was surprised at the way this was done.
The crew returns to the ship, and we get a music montage showing the crew drinking to Riley in the “still room”, we see the Lucian Alliance members who get to stay, and we see those who must leave walk through the stargate to the planet to be stranded.
We are OFFICIALLY in “Voyager mode” now, folks. We have a Federation/Maquis consolidation situation, with Varro as Chakotay, and Ginn as B’Elanna Torres. Eyeroll.
In the background we hear Riley narrating his beliefs, while Eli watches it on a console. And we get more of Rush and his “manifestation” of his dead wife. Rush expresses remorse that he is responsible for the shuttle crash and Riley’s death. But then the console springs to life and alerts Rush that the ship is approaching something. Rush summons Volkker and Brody to the observation deck, and the Eli and Scott hear on the radio and go to the deck as well. The episode ends with the ship approaching something. “Rush says “we are heading straight for it”.
Conclusion:
As I said earlier, this episode for me was the best I have seen this show deliver to date. Its still not enough to pique my interest to watch it further, but it was not bad. This was the fairest review I can write for the episode. But honestly, I still think the show is doomed because I still don’t like any of the characters. The new characters are interesting, but did not get as much air time as necessary to make me accept them. But already I like them better than the original crew. Perhaps thats because the writers haven’t yet had a chance to ruin them. I don’t like the “manifestations”, and I don’t like the implication that Destiny has capabilities greater than any of the other Ancient tech we have seen in previous shows. I don’t like the reference from Wray that the Lucian Alliance might be preparing to attack Earth either. I don’t buy the Lucian Alliance suddenly being elevated to a threat status unrivaled even by the Goa’uld and the Ori and the Wraith.
I see this episode as a lucky roll. But in the end, it still loses everything because of the risks it took early on.
Stargate: Universe
Season: 2.0
Episode: Aftermath
Aftermath
By Overmind One
Synopsis:
The formerly stranded Lucian Alliance members who were non-confrontational have been kept together on Destiny in a separate area. But Ginn from the Lucian Alliance explains to Wray that Destiny might be capable of conferring “god-like” powers to its pilots or crewmembers, and that it might be capable of controlling time and space. Rush enters the Destiny’s bridge in this episode. Although this is the first time we have seen it, it is apparent that he has been there previously. Food and supplies are again a concern. Rush decides to stop the ship at a planet which has been designated “non-operational” by the system. He is assisted by “manifestations” of his dead wife and also Franklin who had been vaporized in season 1. Against their advice, Rush recommends sending a shuttle mission to the planet and the fact that the planet has a turbulent atmosphere and volcanic activity explains part of the reason that it was locked out. After entering the atmosphere, the shuttle loses power and crashes. The crash pinned Riley under wreckage, and it seems that the wreckage allows him to stay alive without bleeding to death. Destiny jumps, and Rush is unable to think of a way to hide the fact that he is responsible for the stop at the planet. The stargate on the planet is buried by tons of rubble, and the stranded aweigh crew uses explosives to clear it. Young gates through to the planet to assess the situation. Riley is hopelessly pinned, and Young asks to be alone with Riley. Riley begs Young to kill him so that the rest of the crew can move on. Young obliges, and kills Riley by suffocating him with his bare hands. Meanwhile on Destiny, the IOA has conveyed a list of Lucian Alliance members to be kept onboard, whilst others were to be left stranded on the planet. Varro, Ginn and a number of Lucian Alliance members are retained, and the others stranded on the planet. Rush decides to keep his discovery of the bridge secret and his “manifestation” of his wife says nothing of it. But the ship is nearing something, an object. This episode ends with the ship heading straight for the object as Rush and other crew members stand looking forward from the observation deck.
Review
In a nutshell - This episode surprised me in a lot of ways. First of all, overall I actually liked it better than I disliked it. Honestly, it was actually pretty well done. Its flaws were mostly writing and concept rather than the way it was executed. I was able to make it through the entire episode without a single WTF moment, but there were several negative head shakes and at least one genuine moment of excitement. The special effects in this episode are the best I have seen yet, and the new bridge set is very detailed and has cool displays and is actually well lighted! And overall, despite the VAST improvement (especially sedating “shaky camera dude” and making the effect much less noticeable), the episode failed to make me care about the characters enough to want to identify with one of them or even be anywhere near them.
This is the conundrum of this show…it has so much potential, and there are so many cool elements to exploit and interesting science to investigate, but the writing still breaks down to drama, drama and more drama until you have mental heartburn from it. I want science fiction first, and throw in some drama. My mind is unchanged as to the show being worth watching on a regular basis. But this episode could have been a strong beginning of a true science fiction/drama show named something other than Stargate. Standing alone without the name and as a different show, this episode would be most acceptable in my opinion. You could actually START a show at this point and move forward. But, that is not the case, and Im still remembering Chloe and Eli drunk in the nightclub from season 1, stone swap sex, and last week’s magical aliens who whisk TJ into a dreamworld. Everything about the show seems disconnected and convoluted, and unfortunately…unwatchable on a continued basis.
Review – The opener with Ginn telling Wray of the legends which say that Destiny might be capable of giving its crew god-like powers and possibly being able to control time immediately turned me off. But the reason it did is because of the canon established by SG-1 and Atlantis. The Destiny is OLDER than either Atlantis or the Milky Way gate system, so how could this ship have capabilities greater than Atlantis or any of the Pegasus warships or installations? In Atlantis, we learned that there were SEVERAL city-ships like Atlantis launched, and we even saw one which had been buried and occupied by natives. So, we have a plothole as big as the city of Atlantis to explain away.
A previous plot hole has been plugged! The Franklin “manifestation” states clearly that the ship is indeed more than a million years old, correcting Rush from last season who would say it was “hundreds of thousands of years old”. Rush enters the bridge and we see it for the first time, and I really liked the way they showed us that he had been there before. It made the scene very smooth. I would not have wanted to seen Rush wide eyed as he was seeing the bridge for the first time, running his fingers along dusty consoles and such. It was well done, and the controls and design of the bridge are interesting looking. But they don’t look Ancient at all. They do, however, match the Ancient-goth look they have created for this show. What I don’t like is these “manifestations” of Rush’s wife and Franklin on the bridge. If the ship has some sort of neural interface, or these are Ancients or whatever the case, Rush interacting with them smacks of Baltar’s Caprica 6 (a Cylon female seen only by Baltar). Carlyle’s acting is good in this episode, and not over the top.
Rush decides to stop the ship at the planet even though he had data on the planet, and his “manifestations” advise him he has made a dangerous oversight. But it doesn’t work for me. He has the entire bridge, all the displays and controls and at the last minute he calls the shuttle to warn them of turbulence? Okay. But that was to lead up to the single moment of true “excitement” in the episode. The shuttle enters the atmosphere and encounters turbulence. It suddenly flames out and crash lands on the planet. The effects were superb in this episode. Very well done. Nausea-cam was greatly reduced. The shuttle hits a mountain, and crash lands on gravel. It continues to slide towards the face of a cliff, and I was genuinely thrilled by it. The way looked when it crashed, and the immediate reaction of the crew was done well. Riley is pinned, and from the moment he said he couldn’t feel his legs, I knew he was going to die. More on that later.
Break time…
This space normally reserved for WTF moments is actually empty this time. A first for me! And even though some of you might be thinking “has Overmind lost his mind?”, no…I haven’t. I still don’t like the show, but I liked this episode even better than Time.
Back to the show…
The rest of the crashed crew finds the stargate on the planet buried under tons of rock. COMPLETELY buried. Even with explosives, the SGU spinning stargate shows us its flaws by showing us its base in the rubble, unobstructed by rubble or dirt, and evidently in a neat crater. That induced a major eyeroll. Eli dials the gate to Destiny and the crew can get back to Destiny now. But Riley is still pinned.
The next few scenes were disturbing, and were the only actual “dark and gritty” scenes I have seen in any of these episodes to date. We see the tenderness of TJ who is willing to remain with Riley for his last moments, but Riley knows that time is limited. Riley and Young are left alone in the shuttle, and The two men speak to each other. Riley asks Young to kill him and put him out of his suffering. Young doesn’t want to do it, he offers to get TJ to sit with him, but Riley begs him to do it. He looks at Riley, and the pain in his eyes and courage he was building up came through. He puts his hands over Riley’s mouth and nose and suffocates him to death as they maintain eye contact. Creepy and moving at the same time. Gritty…dark. Surprising. They killed off a character whose name I actually remembered! The guy who made the red fire truck for the sappy baby shower. It’s a shame that the only connection I made to this character was to one of the silliest, soapiest scenes from Subversion of last season. But I was surprised at the way this was done.
The crew returns to the ship, and we get a music montage showing the crew drinking to Riley in the “still room”, we see the Lucian Alliance members who get to stay, and we see those who must leave walk through the stargate to the planet to be stranded.
We are OFFICIALLY in “Voyager mode” now, folks. We have a Federation/Maquis consolidation situation, with Varro as Chakotay, and Ginn as B’Elanna Torres. Eyeroll.
In the background we hear Riley narrating his beliefs, while Eli watches it on a console. And we get more of Rush and his “manifestation” of his dead wife. Rush expresses remorse that he is responsible for the shuttle crash and Riley’s death. But then the console springs to life and alerts Rush that the ship is approaching something. Rush summons Volkker and Brody to the observation deck, and the Eli and Scott hear on the radio and go to the deck as well. The episode ends with the ship approaching something. “Rush says “we are heading straight for it”.
Conclusion:
As I said earlier, this episode for me was the best I have seen this show deliver to date. Its still not enough to pique my interest to watch it further, but it was not bad. This was the fairest review I can write for the episode. But honestly, I still think the show is doomed because I still don’t like any of the characters. The new characters are interesting, but did not get as much air time as necessary to make me accept them. But already I like them better than the original crew. Perhaps thats because the writers haven’t yet had a chance to ruin them. I don’t like the “manifestations”, and I don’t like the implication that Destiny has capabilities greater than any of the other Ancient tech we have seen in previous shows. I don’t like the reference from Wray that the Lucian Alliance might be preparing to attack Earth either. I don’t buy the Lucian Alliance suddenly being elevated to a threat status unrivaled even by the Goa’uld and the Ori and the Wraith.
I see this episode as a lucky roll. But in the end, it still loses everything because of the risks it took early on.