Terran77
Captain Tightpants
Alrighty, here's my review of the "Epilogue" episode. To be fair, I watched it several times and tried to be fairly unbiased in the plot/story synopsis. I saved my comments for the sections on characterization and final thoughts.
Plot/Story
Oddly enough, "Epilogue" begins with something of an epilogue, showing the very old colonel Young in his deathbed, attended by a similarly aged Chloe. He asks for his son, Stephen, who mentions that Sara (presumably Young's daughter) is also on her way. But we don't have much of a chance to learn more from his, as we immediately cut back to the Destiny's shuttle landing on Novus.
We're treated to some wonderful shots of the very large city, covered in ash that continues to rain down, and a statue of Young set in a central plaza of sorts. Yaozu, the elderly colonist, takes them to a large bunker complex with a historical library and supplies, but they need to use Destiny's main gun, powered down, to blast open the thick doors. Once they have access, they take an elevator deep down into the complex. Somewhat humorously, the Novans have invented elevator muzak. Entering, Yaozu proudly declares that this is the Tanaran archive, a repository of their entire planetary history, including works on science, medicine and technology. He shows them the very first recording, a kino of the Alt-Destineers arrival on a less-than-hospitable planet.
Oddly enough, there is still no trace of survivors or human remains. Eli, reporting what they have discovered back to Young on the Destiny, is quickly reminded by Rush to look for things that will help their current survival: supplies and materials for life support. Lt. Scott and Greer go to another level of the bunker to survey food and other items stored there. Eli remains in the computer core, and other Destineers, including Rush, arrive to help with the transfer of supplies back to the ship. Brody, Volker, Park and Eli work on the database, configuring an uplink to Destiny to save the archive. Yaozu stands over Brody menacingly, reminding us that Brody was apparently the leader of "Futura" the enemies of Tanara.
Another cutaway has us back to kino footage of the Alt-Destineers first landing on Novus, and the limited tech they've brought with them: only a few kinos, a dialing device, guns, and several other items. Alt-Eli reflects on the fact that they could have gone forward or backward in time due to solar flares. Young gets them started on finding shelter and food.
Meanwhile, Greer and Rush find a storage room filled with food and supplies, including beef jerky! Chloe and several others are still reviewing the database, or their personal diaries, which get us back to the early days on Novus. Tensions grew, with Brody beginning to question Eli's suggestions and offering his own for basic toolmaking. Flashing back to Chloe in the archive, a brief discussion is followed by an earthquake. Additional teams are called down to load ships with all the supplies and equipment.
They also continue going through their archived Alts' diaries, and we see that Volker was the first to die and have a funeral, likely due to kidney failure and lack of medical treatment. Alt-Young and Alt-TJ are also shown re-kindling their relationship, leaving Varro out in the cold. Our Eli discovers that the majority of Novus's population escaped via stargate to their other colony planets before their gate was buried in lava following a massive earthquake. The remaining survivors from both nations then banded together and built non-FTL ships that was launched some time ago; although they're going to one of their colony planets that would take Destiny "10 days by FTL but the Novans several hundred years" to reach.
Back again to the story of the Alt-Destineers, Scott and James have a nice moment followed by Scott and Chloe's wedding. Others begin to pair off as couples: Young and TJ, Varro and James, Greer and Park; only Eli and Brody haven't found mates. Multiple birthing scenes are shown, and we eventually learn (after some wistful moments) that Eli eventually hooks up with Cpl. Barnes. She too has a birthing scene. In a later gardening scene with the ladies, we learn that Wray has been "dating" but ultimately feels sad because she's permanently separated from her "soulmate" back on Earth. Reading this alt-diary, our TJ learns that she apparently developed ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and dies only five years after arriving on Novus. Young takes care of her as her symptoms grow ever worse, and we are shown a sad moment with Young and their children after TJ's death.
Returning to our Destineers, amid lesser earthquakes, Rush finds some equipment and Scott discovers that an unlaunched Novan ship may still be in one of their factories. About a third of the Novan archive has been uploaded to the Destiny, as it's quite large. Varro tries to comfort TJ, but she explains there is no cure; Young has Volker start checking the Novan and Ancient databases for possible cures. Taking a shuttle, Scott and Rush discover that the Novan factory and ship have been destroyed by lava; the black hole near the system is causing massive tidal forces that are tearing Novus apart. Yaozu comes to find TJ and notes that they have a cure for ALS, although it's buried somewhere in the database.
The Alt-Destineers are shown growing older and talking about their grandchildren. Alt-Wray writes a constitution, Alt-Eli develops a school. Alt-Brody, angry and alone, has a humorous kino moment about "rotten kids dancing and messing up his lawn". Apparently he's not alone in his feelings, showing the beginnings of the Futurans.
Back with our Destineers, a massive earthquake hits the bunker and it loses power. The data transfer is halted, and the crew is forced to take a damaged ladder-system up in order to get out. TJ nearly falls, but Varro saves her before falling far to the ground. Still alive, they pull Varro and others out with ropes; they barely escape before the bunker is destroyed in aftershocks.
For some initial closure, we go back to the deathbed scene of colonel Young, attended by Chloe and Young's children. He apologizes that he never got them home, and a tearful Chloe says, "we are home."
Rush uses a "highly advanced material" he found on Novus to fix the Oxygen scrubbers, stating that it will last for years to come. They plan to take Yaozu and the colonists to the expedition planet, and Volker reflects to Rush that "it must burn you up, that we survived and did just fine without you." In the medical bay, Varro appears to be on the mend. Eli reports to TJ that he hasn't yet found the ALS cure, either in the Novan or Ancient databases, but feels that they will find a cure.
For the last and final scene, we have the early Novan dedication of a school. Wray, now elderly and the "last surviving member" of the original crew, gives her community a heartfelt speech reminding us that "although we didn't accomplish Destiny's mission, the real mission is 'the journey itself'." As we pan above the early Novan township, we see it through later ages: more and more technologically advanced, until finally we are shown the final launch of the Novan ship.
Characterization/Characters
Definitely, this episode was all about exploring the Alt-crew's emotions through their frontier-life struggles, adapting and surviving on their new planet Novus. We did see some interesting emotional moments between Young and TJ, and the fracturing of Varro's attraction to her. TJ is also hit hard with another loss: learning that she will most likely develop ALS.
Volker had a nice moment after learning of his Alt's death soon after arriving on Novus, but I was left wondering if this will impact his character beyond feeling sad.
The multiple scenes with Eli not finding a girlfriend (while everyone else does), until eventually hooking up with Cpl. Barnes, seemed rather forced. Clearly the message here is "if you don't have children, or a partner, then your life is empty and meaningless."
The others, from Varro-James to Greer-Park, all concentrated on babies and grandchildren, and how wonderful their life was on Novus because of family.
Rush, the odd man out because his Alt never joined them, was curiously silent for the majority of the episode. Quite literally and uncharacteristically silent, except for finding the "better than lime" oxygen scrubber.
But... were any of the characters really explored here, beyond having babies and making a town? Honestly, I kept thinking that much of this really didn't matter for our crew because this was all happening to the Alts. And that's fine, but did it really impact our Destineers in terms of characterization? Nothing much at all really happened for our Destineers, other than reading their alts' diaries and histories. None of them have been really changed by reading about the Alts' experiences, they're all still the same as they were. Eli was and is still the quirky math geek, and it was difficult trying to picture him as a "father" or teacher; it might have helped if they had shown him acting as a grown-up and not geekly, or even building something. Only TJ has had something significant happen, and it's really just more sadness on her plate. At the end of the day, nothing really evolved them.
Overall Thoughts
Because of the time spent on it, I think the writers really wanted me to care about "who partnered with whom" but honestly it all just felt rather forced. So much time was given to the Alts that nothing much at all really happened for our real crew. Way too much time was shown where they were sitting around reading their Alts' diaries or watching their Alts' kino footage. And frankly, not all that much happened for the Alts either. Building a society from the group up should significantly change a person, make them evolve and grow in ways they never expected. Here, everything was pretty much as expected.
The preponderance of left-behind supplies, and the "way better than lime" oxygen scrubber material, those were all just a little too convenient for my tastes. Furthermore, escaping "just in time" as earthquakes tear apart the bunker, terribly contrived. In a lot of ways, this felt like "fan-wank" (fanfiction written to explore something that would never really happen) and not terribly realistic. It highlighted one of the things most seriously wrong with the series as a whole: the writers create situations that are immediately solved by having exactly what the crew needs, with a "just in time" moment to build tension. Unfortunately, the tension feels incredibly contrived and is usually very, very slow. There was a lot of sadness going around, but the Alts' various situations had the feel of melodramatic pathos, totally absent of real emotional truth. Example: Eli lamenting that his mom wouldn't meet her grandchildren.
Another major problem rears its head here: attempting to create tension by introducing new character faults that add very little to the overall plot or direction. TJ's "future" ALS is one example, Alt-Brody's sudden fight with Alt-Eli is another. Will TJ die in the future? Will our Brody ultimately side with Rush? Should I care? Neither really adds much to the central story, and neither really develops their character because they're only possible future outcomes. Frankly, I don't believe for a second that Varro will die, because they've made such a gigantic point about him being the only remaining member of the Lucian Alliance.
As an aside, did all of the Alt-women really need to scream while birthing their babies? Did we really need to see that, over and over? I think this is actually a reflection of the ongoing sexism within SGU. TJ's character has been shown giving birth, losing a baby, gardening, scrubbing clothes, etc. I'm surprised they didn't show her in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. The other women, although some of them carry guns, don't ever appear to fire them; instead, they too get scenes with babies. Or gardening and gossiping. Or Wray using her distaff/spindle. Granted, these are things that likely would've happened in an early "frontier" life. But did we see one instance of women helping do any of the classically "male" things? Frontier women also helped build houses, but we don't see that. And we don't see the men doing any building, etc. It's not just on Novus, though. On the Destiny, I have yet to see James shoot her gun, and she's been little more than eye candy for two seasons now. Disappointing!
In many ways, I do think this episode would have been a fitting end to the series as a whole. It again underscored the fact that none of the original characterizations have evolved or developed in two years of episodes, and that interesting things only really happen to Alts. See the "Time" episode for this same issue. There were some nice tender moments, and even a number of humorous moments. It was good to see James finally get to deliver some lines and not just be simple eye candy, although for the plot she too was ultimately there for birthing the Novus babies.
Ultimately, did this episode really add anything to the overall plot and story? Not really. I suspect that much of it was setup for things they might have done in Season 3, had that been in the cards. But overall, we learn nothing more about Destiny's real mission. I'm even still unclear whether or not "finding the God signal" really is Desiny's mission or just something Rush wants personally.
"Epilogue" did nicely answer the question of what happened to the Alt-crew after they went through the unstable stargate, but it does next to nothing to advance the story or even really to evolve our characters. We also learn nothing new about the robotic drone-ships or their war in this galaxy. In such a hostile zone, would the non-FTL Novan ship survive against those drones? Or, given that it will take them "hundreds of years" to reach their new planet, could they really have packed enough supplies? And why, exactly, can't they go find one of the Novan ships? Knowing their trajectory and speed, and having all these math whizzes on the Destiny, shouldn't catching up to their ship be a simple math problem?
And for the Destiny crew why have the writers even bothered to add in the Novus supplies, the new Novan tech, and the new Novan medicine? There's still a giant database of Ancient knowledge that the characters (and the writers) won't explore, and the crew still hasn't explored the Destiny which could have loads of cool Ancient tech gadgets or bots. But I forget, this isn't sci-fi, it's drama.
Final Grade: D
Plot/Story
Oddly enough, "Epilogue" begins with something of an epilogue, showing the very old colonel Young in his deathbed, attended by a similarly aged Chloe. He asks for his son, Stephen, who mentions that Sara (presumably Young's daughter) is also on her way. But we don't have much of a chance to learn more from his, as we immediately cut back to the Destiny's shuttle landing on Novus.
We're treated to some wonderful shots of the very large city, covered in ash that continues to rain down, and a statue of Young set in a central plaza of sorts. Yaozu, the elderly colonist, takes them to a large bunker complex with a historical library and supplies, but they need to use Destiny's main gun, powered down, to blast open the thick doors. Once they have access, they take an elevator deep down into the complex. Somewhat humorously, the Novans have invented elevator muzak. Entering, Yaozu proudly declares that this is the Tanaran archive, a repository of their entire planetary history, including works on science, medicine and technology. He shows them the very first recording, a kino of the Alt-Destineers arrival on a less-than-hospitable planet.
Oddly enough, there is still no trace of survivors or human remains. Eli, reporting what they have discovered back to Young on the Destiny, is quickly reminded by Rush to look for things that will help their current survival: supplies and materials for life support. Lt. Scott and Greer go to another level of the bunker to survey food and other items stored there. Eli remains in the computer core, and other Destineers, including Rush, arrive to help with the transfer of supplies back to the ship. Brody, Volker, Park and Eli work on the database, configuring an uplink to Destiny to save the archive. Yaozu stands over Brody menacingly, reminding us that Brody was apparently the leader of "Futura" the enemies of Tanara.
Another cutaway has us back to kino footage of the Alt-Destineers first landing on Novus, and the limited tech they've brought with them: only a few kinos, a dialing device, guns, and several other items. Alt-Eli reflects on the fact that they could have gone forward or backward in time due to solar flares. Young gets them started on finding shelter and food.
Meanwhile, Greer and Rush find a storage room filled with food and supplies, including beef jerky! Chloe and several others are still reviewing the database, or their personal diaries, which get us back to the early days on Novus. Tensions grew, with Brody beginning to question Eli's suggestions and offering his own for basic toolmaking. Flashing back to Chloe in the archive, a brief discussion is followed by an earthquake. Additional teams are called down to load ships with all the supplies and equipment.
They also continue going through their archived Alts' diaries, and we see that Volker was the first to die and have a funeral, likely due to kidney failure and lack of medical treatment. Alt-Young and Alt-TJ are also shown re-kindling their relationship, leaving Varro out in the cold. Our Eli discovers that the majority of Novus's population escaped via stargate to their other colony planets before their gate was buried in lava following a massive earthquake. The remaining survivors from both nations then banded together and built non-FTL ships that was launched some time ago; although they're going to one of their colony planets that would take Destiny "10 days by FTL but the Novans several hundred years" to reach.
Back again to the story of the Alt-Destineers, Scott and James have a nice moment followed by Scott and Chloe's wedding. Others begin to pair off as couples: Young and TJ, Varro and James, Greer and Park; only Eli and Brody haven't found mates. Multiple birthing scenes are shown, and we eventually learn (after some wistful moments) that Eli eventually hooks up with Cpl. Barnes. She too has a birthing scene. In a later gardening scene with the ladies, we learn that Wray has been "dating" but ultimately feels sad because she's permanently separated from her "soulmate" back on Earth. Reading this alt-diary, our TJ learns that she apparently developed ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and dies only five years after arriving on Novus. Young takes care of her as her symptoms grow ever worse, and we are shown a sad moment with Young and their children after TJ's death.
Returning to our Destineers, amid lesser earthquakes, Rush finds some equipment and Scott discovers that an unlaunched Novan ship may still be in one of their factories. About a third of the Novan archive has been uploaded to the Destiny, as it's quite large. Varro tries to comfort TJ, but she explains there is no cure; Young has Volker start checking the Novan and Ancient databases for possible cures. Taking a shuttle, Scott and Rush discover that the Novan factory and ship have been destroyed by lava; the black hole near the system is causing massive tidal forces that are tearing Novus apart. Yaozu comes to find TJ and notes that they have a cure for ALS, although it's buried somewhere in the database.
The Alt-Destineers are shown growing older and talking about their grandchildren. Alt-Wray writes a constitution, Alt-Eli develops a school. Alt-Brody, angry and alone, has a humorous kino moment about "rotten kids dancing and messing up his lawn". Apparently he's not alone in his feelings, showing the beginnings of the Futurans.
Back with our Destineers, a massive earthquake hits the bunker and it loses power. The data transfer is halted, and the crew is forced to take a damaged ladder-system up in order to get out. TJ nearly falls, but Varro saves her before falling far to the ground. Still alive, they pull Varro and others out with ropes; they barely escape before the bunker is destroyed in aftershocks.
For some initial closure, we go back to the deathbed scene of colonel Young, attended by Chloe and Young's children. He apologizes that he never got them home, and a tearful Chloe says, "we are home."
Rush uses a "highly advanced material" he found on Novus to fix the Oxygen scrubbers, stating that it will last for years to come. They plan to take Yaozu and the colonists to the expedition planet, and Volker reflects to Rush that "it must burn you up, that we survived and did just fine without you." In the medical bay, Varro appears to be on the mend. Eli reports to TJ that he hasn't yet found the ALS cure, either in the Novan or Ancient databases, but feels that they will find a cure.
For the last and final scene, we have the early Novan dedication of a school. Wray, now elderly and the "last surviving member" of the original crew, gives her community a heartfelt speech reminding us that "although we didn't accomplish Destiny's mission, the real mission is 'the journey itself'." As we pan above the early Novan township, we see it through later ages: more and more technologically advanced, until finally we are shown the final launch of the Novan ship.
Characterization/Characters
Definitely, this episode was all about exploring the Alt-crew's emotions through their frontier-life struggles, adapting and surviving on their new planet Novus. We did see some interesting emotional moments between Young and TJ, and the fracturing of Varro's attraction to her. TJ is also hit hard with another loss: learning that she will most likely develop ALS.
Volker had a nice moment after learning of his Alt's death soon after arriving on Novus, but I was left wondering if this will impact his character beyond feeling sad.
The multiple scenes with Eli not finding a girlfriend (while everyone else does), until eventually hooking up with Cpl. Barnes, seemed rather forced. Clearly the message here is "if you don't have children, or a partner, then your life is empty and meaningless."
The others, from Varro-James to Greer-Park, all concentrated on babies and grandchildren, and how wonderful their life was on Novus because of family.
Rush, the odd man out because his Alt never joined them, was curiously silent for the majority of the episode. Quite literally and uncharacteristically silent, except for finding the "better than lime" oxygen scrubber.
But... were any of the characters really explored here, beyond having babies and making a town? Honestly, I kept thinking that much of this really didn't matter for our crew because this was all happening to the Alts. And that's fine, but did it really impact our Destineers in terms of characterization? Nothing much at all really happened for our Destineers, other than reading their alts' diaries and histories. None of them have been really changed by reading about the Alts' experiences, they're all still the same as they were. Eli was and is still the quirky math geek, and it was difficult trying to picture him as a "father" or teacher; it might have helped if they had shown him acting as a grown-up and not geekly, or even building something. Only TJ has had something significant happen, and it's really just more sadness on her plate. At the end of the day, nothing really evolved them.
Overall Thoughts
Because of the time spent on it, I think the writers really wanted me to care about "who partnered with whom" but honestly it all just felt rather forced. So much time was given to the Alts that nothing much at all really happened for our real crew. Way too much time was shown where they were sitting around reading their Alts' diaries or watching their Alts' kino footage. And frankly, not all that much happened for the Alts either. Building a society from the group up should significantly change a person, make them evolve and grow in ways they never expected. Here, everything was pretty much as expected.
The preponderance of left-behind supplies, and the "way better than lime" oxygen scrubber material, those were all just a little too convenient for my tastes. Furthermore, escaping "just in time" as earthquakes tear apart the bunker, terribly contrived. In a lot of ways, this felt like "fan-wank" (fanfiction written to explore something that would never really happen) and not terribly realistic. It highlighted one of the things most seriously wrong with the series as a whole: the writers create situations that are immediately solved by having exactly what the crew needs, with a "just in time" moment to build tension. Unfortunately, the tension feels incredibly contrived and is usually very, very slow. There was a lot of sadness going around, but the Alts' various situations had the feel of melodramatic pathos, totally absent of real emotional truth. Example: Eli lamenting that his mom wouldn't meet her grandchildren.
Another major problem rears its head here: attempting to create tension by introducing new character faults that add very little to the overall plot or direction. TJ's "future" ALS is one example, Alt-Brody's sudden fight with Alt-Eli is another. Will TJ die in the future? Will our Brody ultimately side with Rush? Should I care? Neither really adds much to the central story, and neither really develops their character because they're only possible future outcomes. Frankly, I don't believe for a second that Varro will die, because they've made such a gigantic point about him being the only remaining member of the Lucian Alliance.
As an aside, did all of the Alt-women really need to scream while birthing their babies? Did we really need to see that, over and over? I think this is actually a reflection of the ongoing sexism within SGU. TJ's character has been shown giving birth, losing a baby, gardening, scrubbing clothes, etc. I'm surprised they didn't show her in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. The other women, although some of them carry guns, don't ever appear to fire them; instead, they too get scenes with babies. Or gardening and gossiping. Or Wray using her distaff/spindle. Granted, these are things that likely would've happened in an early "frontier" life. But did we see one instance of women helping do any of the classically "male" things? Frontier women also helped build houses, but we don't see that. And we don't see the men doing any building, etc. It's not just on Novus, though. On the Destiny, I have yet to see James shoot her gun, and she's been little more than eye candy for two seasons now. Disappointing!
In many ways, I do think this episode would have been a fitting end to the series as a whole. It again underscored the fact that none of the original characterizations have evolved or developed in two years of episodes, and that interesting things only really happen to Alts. See the "Time" episode for this same issue. There were some nice tender moments, and even a number of humorous moments. It was good to see James finally get to deliver some lines and not just be simple eye candy, although for the plot she too was ultimately there for birthing the Novus babies.
Ultimately, did this episode really add anything to the overall plot and story? Not really. I suspect that much of it was setup for things they might have done in Season 3, had that been in the cards. But overall, we learn nothing more about Destiny's real mission. I'm even still unclear whether or not "finding the God signal" really is Desiny's mission or just something Rush wants personally.
"Epilogue" did nicely answer the question of what happened to the Alt-crew after they went through the unstable stargate, but it does next to nothing to advance the story or even really to evolve our characters. We also learn nothing new about the robotic drone-ships or their war in this galaxy. In such a hostile zone, would the non-FTL Novan ship survive against those drones? Or, given that it will take them "hundreds of years" to reach their new planet, could they really have packed enough supplies? And why, exactly, can't they go find one of the Novan ships? Knowing their trajectory and speed, and having all these math whizzes on the Destiny, shouldn't catching up to their ship be a simple math problem?
And for the Destiny crew why have the writers even bothered to add in the Novus supplies, the new Novan tech, and the new Novan medicine? There's still a giant database of Ancient knowledge that the characters (and the writers) won't explore, and the crew still hasn't explored the Destiny which could have loads of cool Ancient tech gadgets or bots. But I forget, this isn't sci-fi, it's drama.
Final Grade: D
