Terran77
Captain Tightpants
LINK to Front Page review HERE
Thought I'd move this out into the main area, rather have it inside the preview/discussion. So here's my review of the "Blockade" episode. I re-watched it a few times to catch missed details. Let me know your thoughts, or if I'm missing something glaring.
Plot/Story
We begin this episode with Rush coming to see Eli and asking for calculations, lamenting about the lack of real paper to write on. Eli is replaying the Novans' dedication of their first school, which prompts Rush to say, "Eli, if you don't have anything better to do..." and Eli returns quickly with, "there's no TV to watch, and honestly, they're us: humans." Also, Eli misses the colonists, which they've apparently dropped off, sometime between the end of the last episode and the beginning of this one. Now they're headed to a different planet, again getting low on energy reserves.
Back on the bridge, Rush learns that the Destiny has dropped out of FTL to take a detour around a gas giant before refueling at a local star. Almost immediately they see that the drone-ships have set up a blockade near the star, complete with a command ship. Young decides to go back into FTL and search out another star for refueling. Everyone, except Rush, is concerned about how the drones knew they'd be coming. Eli suggests that the drones may be predicting their course, and so they plan to go "off course" in order to recharge at a star not along the planned route of the seed ships. We're again reminded of a limitation of the Destiny: that going back into FTL too quickly can seriously damage the engines, so getting into a fight unprepared is not an option.
Unfortunately, the next star they've chosen also has a blockade of drone-ships, so it's back into FTL until they can come up with a better plan. Telford "stones in" for an update, TJ notes that the ship is starting to power down various systems to conserve energy, and Rush and Eli describe their only apparent option: to refuel at a blue supergiant star. But because of the dangerous temperature of such a star, this plan means most of the crew must evacuate temporarily during the recharge process and those who remain to pilot must wear space suits.
Also, because the Destiny's shields aren't powerful enough, they try to save as much as they can of their hydroponics garden. But very quickly afterward, they start evacuating to a nearby planet. Dr. Park asks to stay behind on the ship; she thinks that with the protection of a suit, she might be able to save the valuable medicinal plants they've collected from previous planets they've visited.
The Destineers arrive at what Eli dubs "Pittsburgh" though it looks abandoned. It is, Eli suggests, possibly one of the earlier colonies of the Novans, as their descendants sent out colonists for hundreds of years. Young notes that there could be danger, after all something did prompt the inhabitants to leave, and Greer jokingly replies, "have you ever been to Pittsburgh?" Lt. James looks insulted, "hey! I was born there!" They agree to break up in small teams to look for supplies, including new clothes and food stores.
Meanwhile, Dr. Park and Eli have suited up and are collecting the medicinal plants. Rush calls and reminds Eli to come and start preparations for flying the Destiny through the blue supergiant, so he leaves Park to her work after joking, "don't leave me alone with him too long." She says, "be right behind you!" Eli returns to the bridge, and after a little spat with Rush they decide that Eli should be the primary pilot to make course corrections and calculations on the fly. Out of time, Park gets trapped in the hydroponics bay.
On the abandoned planet, the Destineers find very little of use. Most of the buildings have been cleaned out of useful supplies. Oddly, there are also no vehicles anywhere to be seen. They do find a diner with canned food, although the labels have faded due to age. Greer wants to save them anyway, and Volker packs them while muttering, "mmm, botulism!"
Back at the site of the planet's stargate, one of them has found a newspaper written in a variant of English, a clue that the planet was attacked. The headlines read, "Terminus Under Siege", "Atak!!" and "Exodus of Heroz". Apparently the attack came from space, some sort of machines. Young confirms this from his team's high vantage point in the city, "these people were wiped out." They decide to continue the search for possible supplies, and Greer replies, "copy that, keep shopping... keep shopping." Dismayed at not finding any gun stores, Volker says, "maybe they're Canadian." Shortly thereafter, they hear a machine and take cover in nearby buildings. Seconds later, one of the drone ships flies by and starts a search pattern effectively pinning them down.
On the Destiny, Rush and Eli can't get the door to the hydroponics bay to open. Destiny has completely locked them out. Running out of time and with "Eli taking too much time to save {Park} instead of preparing to pilot the ship", Rush suggests that she finish suiting up and immerse herself in main water tank. Unconvinced, but with no other way to survive, she agrees.
Meanwhile, one of the civilian Destineers gets antsy and grabs the stargate dialing device and starts it up for a nearby planet. Lt. James immediately knocks him out with a face-punch and halts it, but not quickly enough: one of the drone ships outside tracked the energy and is moving toward their position. Lt. Scott, using his radio to warn her, prompts another drone ship to fire directly on his hiding place. Greer sees this, and opens fire on the drone. Combined fire from Greer, Scott and Young luckily bring down the drone, so their teams head back to the stargate. Lt. James hears the second drone's approach and activates her radio so it will track her. When it's drawn out, Varro shoots it down with some type of grenade launcher. All of the teams on the planet reunite.
Back to the Destiny, Eli and Rush find themselves put to the test. Flying toward the star, they have some trouble keeping pace with Destiny's attempts to abort and turn away. Shields appear to hold as they activate the energy collectors, but Eli nearly panics as he modulates the shields to save the ship from the incredible heat. Park immerses herself in the water bay, which has begun to steam and boil. Fully recharged and starting up the engines to exit the star, we see the heat destroy the hydroponics bay as the dome shears away and Park is nearly sucked out into space. Screaming from the heat and shock, she briefly opens her eyes to see the whirling fire all around her. On the bridge, Rush sees that hydroponics is completely open to space, prompting Eli to rush down to see if Park is still alive.
Young congratulates Lt. James on killing the second drone, and she notes "Varro made the shot." He then tells Wray that he couldn't find a grocery store or a gun store, but did manage to find a dry cleaner and possibly a new suit that will work for her. Wray relates what they've learned from the Terminus newspaper, that a number of heroic citizens sacrificed their lives to draw the drones away with a vehicle convoy while the stargate was moved to a low-technology area of the town. Once set up there, the others escaped through the stargate.
Eli makes it down to the bay while Rush is able to override the door control now that they're safely away from the star. Crying and terrified, she says "I can't see..." She might have been flash-blinded, or she might be permanently blinded, there's no way yet to tell. Gating back to the Destiny a bit earlier than planned, Young and the others see a drone command ship land on the planet surface. Rush quietly conveys to Young that Eli "was amazing, just genius, making calculations on the fly." Young states, "he might have to do it again," but Rush says "I doubt they'll fall for our trick again. At least we have a full tank of gas."
Characterization / Characters
After all the time they've been on ship, and all that they've been through, it's still difficult to watch Eli act sheepishly toward Rush. Eli is still the same as he was at the beginning, and truthfully so is Rush. Eli is still the "kid genius" and Rush is the angry single-minded pragmatist.
No surprises really from the rest of the cast, as this is again just a "hunt for supplies" type of filler episode, except for some very nice moments from actress Julia Benson who plays Lt. James. Finally we get to see her in military mode rather than as eye candy. Her face-punch to the out-of-line crewman was an "Oh Yeah!" kickass moment, but seeing her strategize with Varro to draw out the drone and bring it down showed some real thought and the "stands tall in the face of death" character that I expect from Stargate military personnel. So it was very nice indeed to finally see this from Lt. James.
With Dr. Park, I can't help thinking that this is going to be yet another injury that is miraculously and oh-so-fortunately fixed by the next episode. If it's permanent blindness, I'll be extremely surprised. Given that there is only one more episode, we may never actually know if it's permanent or not.
Overall Thoughts
Honestly, I was a little shocked that they so quickly and suddenly got rid of the remaining Novan colonists, without showing us any of it whatsoever. To hear about it in an offhand comment was just odd. In fact, if you missed Eli's one line about it, you might think they were still on board. They could have had Eli watching a kino of their departure and goodbyes rather than having him review the school dedication on early Novus. Goodbye, Yaozu and the rest, we barely knew you!
I'm still not quite sure why the Destiny couldn't have caught up with the Novan evacuee ship. After all, it would've been a matter of mathematically calculating the right moment to drop out of FTL in order to "catch up" with them; and we do have all of these math whizzes on board. But that was not to be, so I'll be left wondering why, I suppose.
Definitely a lot of filler in this episode, which was somewhat expected given that the next episode was clearly a planned cliffhanger as the season ender. There were lots of unexpected moments of well-done humor. From Greer's "shopping, shopping.." comments to Volker's "mmm, botulism!" quip. Still, lengthy moments of wandering around an abandoned town might have been better used to show us other things. Perhaps even a semi-feral survivor or two.
We still have learned very little about the drones, their command ships, or even the races involved in this galaxy-spanning war that apparently wiped out both sides. On the surface, going with robotic drones has a certain sort of appeal: it brings to mind the Cylons and Battlestar Galactica, and actually hearkens back much further as a classic trope in sci-fi. But making the drones the season-ending enemy seems like a giant mistake, especially given that we still know so little about them.
Cold, robotic enemies as a concept are scary at the prima facie level, but in practice they have been extremely problematic as a primary sci-fi plot device. It's something Star Trek knew all too well with the Borg, and why they had to eventually have "Hugh" and eventually a Borg Queen. It's why both the new and the old Battlestar Galactica needed some of the Cylons to have distinct personalities. It's why both the Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis replicators needed more than just the "bugs" to fight against. That's why, at least to me, these robotic drones in SGU still seem rather empty and pointless after many episodes, and the writers are sadly making a "first year screenwriting" type of mistake. Perhaps they planned to introduce some personality to the drone-controllers in Season 3, but I suppose we'll never know.
Finally, I keep wanting the writers to give us something more about the Destiny's big mission. Throw us a bone, give us more details than the "God signal" that seems to have been dropped almost as fast as it was introduced. Nearing the end of a second season, I need to know that the main hook of the overarching "mission" is still something we're shooting for. But more than that, I'd really like to know what that mission is, and why the Ancients went to all the trouble of outfitting and putting Destiny on this course. Still beyond even that, I'd like to know why the crew should want to risk their lives by staying on the Destiny rather than recalling the seed ships for the extra power that could dial them home.
Big Questions
- why no mention of TJ's ALS this episode, or any attempt to locate a database that might have her cure? It was the BIG DEAL of the last episode.
- if the hydroponics bay was unable to withstand the heat, what about their three shuttles? Why would the "glass"(?) on the shuttles be more resistant than the dome?
- was there absolutely nothing of interest on the Novan colony where they dropped off the colonists? Nothing at all? No supplies, or any sign of attack there? Just nothing?
- we get Telford "stoning in" for a report, but we learn nothing about what happened back on Earth at the SGC? Seriously?
Final Grade: C
Thought I'd move this out into the main area, rather have it inside the preview/discussion. So here's my review of the "Blockade" episode. I re-watched it a few times to catch missed details. Let me know your thoughts, or if I'm missing something glaring.
Plot/Story
We begin this episode with Rush coming to see Eli and asking for calculations, lamenting about the lack of real paper to write on. Eli is replaying the Novans' dedication of their first school, which prompts Rush to say, "Eli, if you don't have anything better to do..." and Eli returns quickly with, "there's no TV to watch, and honestly, they're us: humans." Also, Eli misses the colonists, which they've apparently dropped off, sometime between the end of the last episode and the beginning of this one. Now they're headed to a different planet, again getting low on energy reserves.
Back on the bridge, Rush learns that the Destiny has dropped out of FTL to take a detour around a gas giant before refueling at a local star. Almost immediately they see that the drone-ships have set up a blockade near the star, complete with a command ship. Young decides to go back into FTL and search out another star for refueling. Everyone, except Rush, is concerned about how the drones knew they'd be coming. Eli suggests that the drones may be predicting their course, and so they plan to go "off course" in order to recharge at a star not along the planned route of the seed ships. We're again reminded of a limitation of the Destiny: that going back into FTL too quickly can seriously damage the engines, so getting into a fight unprepared is not an option.
Unfortunately, the next star they've chosen also has a blockade of drone-ships, so it's back into FTL until they can come up with a better plan. Telford "stones in" for an update, TJ notes that the ship is starting to power down various systems to conserve energy, and Rush and Eli describe their only apparent option: to refuel at a blue supergiant star. But because of the dangerous temperature of such a star, this plan means most of the crew must evacuate temporarily during the recharge process and those who remain to pilot must wear space suits.
Also, because the Destiny's shields aren't powerful enough, they try to save as much as they can of their hydroponics garden. But very quickly afterward, they start evacuating to a nearby planet. Dr. Park asks to stay behind on the ship; she thinks that with the protection of a suit, she might be able to save the valuable medicinal plants they've collected from previous planets they've visited.
The Destineers arrive at what Eli dubs "Pittsburgh" though it looks abandoned. It is, Eli suggests, possibly one of the earlier colonies of the Novans, as their descendants sent out colonists for hundreds of years. Young notes that there could be danger, after all something did prompt the inhabitants to leave, and Greer jokingly replies, "have you ever been to Pittsburgh?" Lt. James looks insulted, "hey! I was born there!" They agree to break up in small teams to look for supplies, including new clothes and food stores.
Meanwhile, Dr. Park and Eli have suited up and are collecting the medicinal plants. Rush calls and reminds Eli to come and start preparations for flying the Destiny through the blue supergiant, so he leaves Park to her work after joking, "don't leave me alone with him too long." She says, "be right behind you!" Eli returns to the bridge, and after a little spat with Rush they decide that Eli should be the primary pilot to make course corrections and calculations on the fly. Out of time, Park gets trapped in the hydroponics bay.
On the abandoned planet, the Destineers find very little of use. Most of the buildings have been cleaned out of useful supplies. Oddly, there are also no vehicles anywhere to be seen. They do find a diner with canned food, although the labels have faded due to age. Greer wants to save them anyway, and Volker packs them while muttering, "mmm, botulism!"
Back at the site of the planet's stargate, one of them has found a newspaper written in a variant of English, a clue that the planet was attacked. The headlines read, "Terminus Under Siege", "Atak!!" and "Exodus of Heroz". Apparently the attack came from space, some sort of machines. Young confirms this from his team's high vantage point in the city, "these people were wiped out." They decide to continue the search for possible supplies, and Greer replies, "copy that, keep shopping... keep shopping." Dismayed at not finding any gun stores, Volker says, "maybe they're Canadian." Shortly thereafter, they hear a machine and take cover in nearby buildings. Seconds later, one of the drone ships flies by and starts a search pattern effectively pinning them down.
On the Destiny, Rush and Eli can't get the door to the hydroponics bay to open. Destiny has completely locked them out. Running out of time and with "Eli taking too much time to save {Park} instead of preparing to pilot the ship", Rush suggests that she finish suiting up and immerse herself in main water tank. Unconvinced, but with no other way to survive, she agrees.
Meanwhile, one of the civilian Destineers gets antsy and grabs the stargate dialing device and starts it up for a nearby planet. Lt. James immediately knocks him out with a face-punch and halts it, but not quickly enough: one of the drone ships outside tracked the energy and is moving toward their position. Lt. Scott, using his radio to warn her, prompts another drone ship to fire directly on his hiding place. Greer sees this, and opens fire on the drone. Combined fire from Greer, Scott and Young luckily bring down the drone, so their teams head back to the stargate. Lt. James hears the second drone's approach and activates her radio so it will track her. When it's drawn out, Varro shoots it down with some type of grenade launcher. All of the teams on the planet reunite.
Back to the Destiny, Eli and Rush find themselves put to the test. Flying toward the star, they have some trouble keeping pace with Destiny's attempts to abort and turn away. Shields appear to hold as they activate the energy collectors, but Eli nearly panics as he modulates the shields to save the ship from the incredible heat. Park immerses herself in the water bay, which has begun to steam and boil. Fully recharged and starting up the engines to exit the star, we see the heat destroy the hydroponics bay as the dome shears away and Park is nearly sucked out into space. Screaming from the heat and shock, she briefly opens her eyes to see the whirling fire all around her. On the bridge, Rush sees that hydroponics is completely open to space, prompting Eli to rush down to see if Park is still alive.
Young congratulates Lt. James on killing the second drone, and she notes "Varro made the shot." He then tells Wray that he couldn't find a grocery store or a gun store, but did manage to find a dry cleaner and possibly a new suit that will work for her. Wray relates what they've learned from the Terminus newspaper, that a number of heroic citizens sacrificed their lives to draw the drones away with a vehicle convoy while the stargate was moved to a low-technology area of the town. Once set up there, the others escaped through the stargate.
Eli makes it down to the bay while Rush is able to override the door control now that they're safely away from the star. Crying and terrified, she says "I can't see..." She might have been flash-blinded, or she might be permanently blinded, there's no way yet to tell. Gating back to the Destiny a bit earlier than planned, Young and the others see a drone command ship land on the planet surface. Rush quietly conveys to Young that Eli "was amazing, just genius, making calculations on the fly." Young states, "he might have to do it again," but Rush says "I doubt they'll fall for our trick again. At least we have a full tank of gas."
Characterization / Characters
After all the time they've been on ship, and all that they've been through, it's still difficult to watch Eli act sheepishly toward Rush. Eli is still the same as he was at the beginning, and truthfully so is Rush. Eli is still the "kid genius" and Rush is the angry single-minded pragmatist.
No surprises really from the rest of the cast, as this is again just a "hunt for supplies" type of filler episode, except for some very nice moments from actress Julia Benson who plays Lt. James. Finally we get to see her in military mode rather than as eye candy. Her face-punch to the out-of-line crewman was an "Oh Yeah!" kickass moment, but seeing her strategize with Varro to draw out the drone and bring it down showed some real thought and the "stands tall in the face of death" character that I expect from Stargate military personnel. So it was very nice indeed to finally see this from Lt. James.
With Dr. Park, I can't help thinking that this is going to be yet another injury that is miraculously and oh-so-fortunately fixed by the next episode. If it's permanent blindness, I'll be extremely surprised. Given that there is only one more episode, we may never actually know if it's permanent or not.
Overall Thoughts
Honestly, I was a little shocked that they so quickly and suddenly got rid of the remaining Novan colonists, without showing us any of it whatsoever. To hear about it in an offhand comment was just odd. In fact, if you missed Eli's one line about it, you might think they were still on board. They could have had Eli watching a kino of their departure and goodbyes rather than having him review the school dedication on early Novus. Goodbye, Yaozu and the rest, we barely knew you!
I'm still not quite sure why the Destiny couldn't have caught up with the Novan evacuee ship. After all, it would've been a matter of mathematically calculating the right moment to drop out of FTL in order to "catch up" with them; and we do have all of these math whizzes on board. But that was not to be, so I'll be left wondering why, I suppose.
Definitely a lot of filler in this episode, which was somewhat expected given that the next episode was clearly a planned cliffhanger as the season ender. There were lots of unexpected moments of well-done humor. From Greer's "shopping, shopping.." comments to Volker's "mmm, botulism!" quip. Still, lengthy moments of wandering around an abandoned town might have been better used to show us other things. Perhaps even a semi-feral survivor or two.
We still have learned very little about the drones, their command ships, or even the races involved in this galaxy-spanning war that apparently wiped out both sides. On the surface, going with robotic drones has a certain sort of appeal: it brings to mind the Cylons and Battlestar Galactica, and actually hearkens back much further as a classic trope in sci-fi. But making the drones the season-ending enemy seems like a giant mistake, especially given that we still know so little about them.
Cold, robotic enemies as a concept are scary at the prima facie level, but in practice they have been extremely problematic as a primary sci-fi plot device. It's something Star Trek knew all too well with the Borg, and why they had to eventually have "Hugh" and eventually a Borg Queen. It's why both the new and the old Battlestar Galactica needed some of the Cylons to have distinct personalities. It's why both the Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis replicators needed more than just the "bugs" to fight against. That's why, at least to me, these robotic drones in SGU still seem rather empty and pointless after many episodes, and the writers are sadly making a "first year screenwriting" type of mistake. Perhaps they planned to introduce some personality to the drone-controllers in Season 3, but I suppose we'll never know.
Finally, I keep wanting the writers to give us something more about the Destiny's big mission. Throw us a bone, give us more details than the "God signal" that seems to have been dropped almost as fast as it was introduced. Nearing the end of a second season, I need to know that the main hook of the overarching "mission" is still something we're shooting for. But more than that, I'd really like to know what that mission is, and why the Ancients went to all the trouble of outfitting and putting Destiny on this course. Still beyond even that, I'd like to know why the crew should want to risk their lives by staying on the Destiny rather than recalling the seed ships for the extra power that could dial them home.
Big Questions
- why no mention of TJ's ALS this episode, or any attempt to locate a database that might have her cure? It was the BIG DEAL of the last episode.
- if the hydroponics bay was unable to withstand the heat, what about their three shuttles? Why would the "glass"(?) on the shuttles be more resistant than the dome?
- was there absolutely nothing of interest on the Novan colony where they dropped off the colonists? Nothing at all? No supplies, or any sign of attack there? Just nothing?
- we get Telford "stoning in" for a report, but we learn nothing about what happened back on Earth at the SGC? Seriously?
Final Grade: C
I havent seen the episode yet.
