Stargate Universe Season 2.5 Episode 13: "Twin Destinies"
CLICK HERE FOR FRONT PAGE REVIEW
Preface
The episode starts out with the usual long preamble of clips from the earlier episodes to provide continuity for those just tuning in. But now those clips have become unintelligible. They do not show a progression of a storyline. But that is unavoidable, since the storyline is somewhat vague to begin with. Yeah, I know, I’m starting off on a sour note. But its not all bad. Read on…
I am going to be honest, this episode was not the worst of the 32 episodes aired to date, but it certainly was not the best.
The Story
We begin this episode with the A and B cast sitting around in the mess hall discussing the depletion of supplies, parts and resources. It’s a similar, but less dire situation as we had with the “survival” episodes like Light, Water and Air. We listen to Volker and Brody and Park talk about the lack of redundancy {insert attempts at humor} and food and medicine and other supplies. More on this later in the review. Needless to say, Rush states flatly that there is no choice in the matter of these setbacks. But then Eli speaks up and says that he and Ginn had figured out a way to dial earth using the stargate whilst the ship is refueling in a star. Rush has an outburst of frustrated angst and leaves the room.
The next scenes involve the A and B crew organizing the steps necessary to prepare for dialing earth using Eli’s math solution. Rush resists, and the rest of the crew takes measures to prevent him from possibly sabotaging the attempt. Rush suggests that the rest of Destiny’s crew (which is hardly ever seen) be given the opportunity to CHOOSE what they want to do. He gets Young to agree to stand at his side whilst he makes his speech. Eli uses the stones to run his calculations by the best of the best math geeks on earth. We get a surprise cameo from Dr Bill Lee, which is not even mentioned or commented on. In case you don’t place the face:
Lee is seen with Volker and Brody on Destiny whilst Eli is on earth via the magical stones. But then, he fades back as Brody makes a comment about how Eli is “the smartest person he ever met but please don’t tell him”. Eli catches this and channels McKay as best he can. More “humor?”. I didn’t like the attempts at humor in this episode. They didn’t fit in the context of things, and the timing was all wrong IMO.
Brownie points: We see EXTRAS! We actually see people other than the same dreary cast wandering around on Destiny, gathering things, making background chatter…it felt very familiar. It was a GOOD thing. The extreme change of mood with the extras in the ship made a HUGE difference. But it should have been done from the beginning before the viewers got so bored they stopped watching it last year. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
We see loads of people standing around in the gateroom, gathering to get ready for the dialing of earth. Where were all these people before? It felt good to see them there. But wait…Brody and Volker call Young from the bridge and demand that he report there immediately. When he arrives, they begin telling him how they have detected the shuttle of the Destiny orbiting around the star they are approaching for refueling and dialing. But its not Destiny’s shuttle, is it? Theirs is still docked on the ship. No, its Rush from the future calling Destiny to request docking procedures {insert ominous music}. The next scene WAS funny, but I don’t think it was meant to be. The Rush from the future docks with the Destiny and when they open the airlock, Rush lunges at Telford as if he was going to inflict bodily harm (now THAT was really funny!). He rants about how Telford is going to “kill them all”. The next chunk of the show talks about how the attempt to dial earth fails and only Telford makes it through. Rush recalls the scene in the gateroom of 12 hours in the future, and we get to see Rush’s impassioned speech about how the “mission” is so important, and asks for volunteers from the group to stay on the ship to complete it (you know, the one about the signal from God deep in the background radiation of space, yada yada). OF COURSE, the ones to step forward are the cast members we all have gotten so bor……um…familiar with. Yep, even Chloe wants to stay. But what really annoyed me was a comment from TJ to James (in front of Eli) about Eli being asked to join the SGC, because he would be considered amongst the greats like Col. Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson and “that guy who was staring at your …” then she rolls her eyes and says “oh, McKay”.
NOTE: (bangdesk) I would have switched it off here if I wasn’t doing this review!
The dialing attempt is aborted because they can see that it wont work, from Rush’s account of things. The presence of future Rush is proof of that. Oh well, but not before the future Destiny is found slowly sinking into the gravity of the star. They decide to cannibalize her for the supplies they need (remember the beginning scene in the mess hall? Lame setup attempt). Operations begin to do this by using the STARGATE! Wow, it hadn’t rusted from non-use for so many episodes? They actually used it a lot in this episode, and it even malfunctioned a few times for us (to create tension, I guess). This time, they essentially have the gate dial itself (in the other ship) and salvage operations begin. We see people unscrewing parts from the other Destiny. Particularly interesting was what looked like at least 100 bottles of pills and other medicines in TJ’s (now fully equipped) medical bay. We see tons of rifles and ammunition (Greer is happy).
Anti-Brownie points (the kind in underwear, not the good baked ones you eat): Rush’s shuttle from the future is the perfect shuttle which was delivered by magic from the Eden planet aliens , remember? So, now Destiny has TWO perfectly restored shuttles. Neat, huh? And they now have TWO magic survival kits. TJ has enough pills and drugs to start her own pharmaceutical supply operation in that section of the universe. GROAN. Back to the review…
Okay, the next scenes were with Telford being a real annoyance about Rush preventing the dialing attempt. He and the future Rush are on the future Destiny trying to salvage a part which will increase weapons. But Telford keeps provoking Rush, and Rush shoves him into the panel. He goes stiff, and Rush sees that he is being electrocuted. There is nothing he can do, and Telford finally falls (fried) to the floor. The future Rush panics and runs away down the corridor. The rest of the crew returns to Destiny except Telford. The present Rush and Scott go back to find Telford and the future Rush. But they find Telford dead on the floor. They try to find future Rush, but present Rush thinks he knows where he went. Rush runs to find him whilst leaving Scott at the gate. They find each other in the Destiny chair room. Rush exchanges some rather great scenes with Carlyle doing a respectable job of acting with his future self. Good acting showcase. Future Rush wants to be put in the chair before he dies. Present Rush assist him and activates the chair and we see it envelop future Rush in steampunk glory. Present Rush runs back to the gate to meet Scott at the gate and then they jump through at the last minute.
Back on the newly refueled, newly restocked Destiny (and a shiny new magic shuttle to complete the two), Young shows his support for “the mission”. He was the first to say he wanted to stay. I just couldn’t get my head around that.
Lets not forget that the FUTURE Telford who made it through the gate is now on earth, which means he could (for the aborted season 3) be demoted back to “guest star” status, thus lowering costs.
Conclusion
This episode was beautiful, visually. I loved the background activity, the minimal shaky cam, the music was properly applied, but the STORY lacked. The entire episode was a deus ex machina, where they suddenly now have two fully restored shuttles, tons of medicine and food and parts and gun and ammo…too convenient. Telford being banished to earth again, it was just too contrived for my taste. For many, this episode might have been seen as good, but its only good as far as SGU goes, not good when compared to episodes from the other series. This was my review, and its harsh. I understand that many may not agree, but I stand by my words here! Deliverance didn’t deliver, IMO.
CLICK HERE FOR FRONT PAGE REVIEW
Preface
The episode starts out with the usual long preamble of clips from the earlier episodes to provide continuity for those just tuning in. But now those clips have become unintelligible. They do not show a progression of a storyline. But that is unavoidable, since the storyline is somewhat vague to begin with. Yeah, I know, I’m starting off on a sour note. But its not all bad. Read on…
I am going to be honest, this episode was not the worst of the 32 episodes aired to date, but it certainly was not the best.
The Story
We begin this episode with the A and B cast sitting around in the mess hall discussing the depletion of supplies, parts and resources. It’s a similar, but less dire situation as we had with the “survival” episodes like Light, Water and Air. We listen to Volker and Brody and Park talk about the lack of redundancy {insert attempts at humor} and food and medicine and other supplies. More on this later in the review. Needless to say, Rush states flatly that there is no choice in the matter of these setbacks. But then Eli speaks up and says that he and Ginn had figured out a way to dial earth using the stargate whilst the ship is refueling in a star. Rush has an outburst of frustrated angst and leaves the room.
The next scenes involve the A and B crew organizing the steps necessary to prepare for dialing earth using Eli’s math solution. Rush resists, and the rest of the crew takes measures to prevent him from possibly sabotaging the attempt. Rush suggests that the rest of Destiny’s crew (which is hardly ever seen) be given the opportunity to CHOOSE what they want to do. He gets Young to agree to stand at his side whilst he makes his speech. Eli uses the stones to run his calculations by the best of the best math geeks on earth. We get a surprise cameo from Dr Bill Lee, which is not even mentioned or commented on. In case you don’t place the face:
Lee is seen with Volker and Brody on Destiny whilst Eli is on earth via the magical stones. But then, he fades back as Brody makes a comment about how Eli is “the smartest person he ever met but please don’t tell him”. Eli catches this and channels McKay as best he can. More “humor?”. I didn’t like the attempts at humor in this episode. They didn’t fit in the context of things, and the timing was all wrong IMO.
Brownie points: We see EXTRAS! We actually see people other than the same dreary cast wandering around on Destiny, gathering things, making background chatter…it felt very familiar. It was a GOOD thing. The extreme change of mood with the extras in the ship made a HUGE difference. But it should have been done from the beginning before the viewers got so bored they stopped watching it last year. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
We see loads of people standing around in the gateroom, gathering to get ready for the dialing of earth. Where were all these people before? It felt good to see them there. But wait…Brody and Volker call Young from the bridge and demand that he report there immediately. When he arrives, they begin telling him how they have detected the shuttle of the Destiny orbiting around the star they are approaching for refueling and dialing. But its not Destiny’s shuttle, is it? Theirs is still docked on the ship. No, its Rush from the future calling Destiny to request docking procedures {insert ominous music}. The next scene WAS funny, but I don’t think it was meant to be. The Rush from the future docks with the Destiny and when they open the airlock, Rush lunges at Telford as if he was going to inflict bodily harm (now THAT was really funny!). He rants about how Telford is going to “kill them all”. The next chunk of the show talks about how the attempt to dial earth fails and only Telford makes it through. Rush recalls the scene in the gateroom of 12 hours in the future, and we get to see Rush’s impassioned speech about how the “mission” is so important, and asks for volunteers from the group to stay on the ship to complete it (you know, the one about the signal from God deep in the background radiation of space, yada yada). OF COURSE, the ones to step forward are the cast members we all have gotten so bor……um…familiar with. Yep, even Chloe wants to stay. But what really annoyed me was a comment from TJ to James (in front of Eli) about Eli being asked to join the SGC, because he would be considered amongst the greats like Col. Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson and “that guy who was staring at your …” then she rolls her eyes and says “oh, McKay”.
NOTE: (bangdesk) I would have switched it off here if I wasn’t doing this review!
The dialing attempt is aborted because they can see that it wont work, from Rush’s account of things. The presence of future Rush is proof of that. Oh well, but not before the future Destiny is found slowly sinking into the gravity of the star. They decide to cannibalize her for the supplies they need (remember the beginning scene in the mess hall? Lame setup attempt). Operations begin to do this by using the STARGATE! Wow, it hadn’t rusted from non-use for so many episodes? They actually used it a lot in this episode, and it even malfunctioned a few times for us (to create tension, I guess). This time, they essentially have the gate dial itself (in the other ship) and salvage operations begin. We see people unscrewing parts from the other Destiny. Particularly interesting was what looked like at least 100 bottles of pills and other medicines in TJ’s (now fully equipped) medical bay. We see tons of rifles and ammunition (Greer is happy).
Anti-Brownie points (the kind in underwear, not the good baked ones you eat): Rush’s shuttle from the future is the perfect shuttle which was delivered by magic from the Eden planet aliens , remember? So, now Destiny has TWO perfectly restored shuttles. Neat, huh? And they now have TWO magic survival kits. TJ has enough pills and drugs to start her own pharmaceutical supply operation in that section of the universe. GROAN. Back to the review…
Okay, the next scenes were with Telford being a real annoyance about Rush preventing the dialing attempt. He and the future Rush are on the future Destiny trying to salvage a part which will increase weapons. But Telford keeps provoking Rush, and Rush shoves him into the panel. He goes stiff, and Rush sees that he is being electrocuted. There is nothing he can do, and Telford finally falls (fried) to the floor. The future Rush panics and runs away down the corridor. The rest of the crew returns to Destiny except Telford. The present Rush and Scott go back to find Telford and the future Rush. But they find Telford dead on the floor. They try to find future Rush, but present Rush thinks he knows where he went. Rush runs to find him whilst leaving Scott at the gate. They find each other in the Destiny chair room. Rush exchanges some rather great scenes with Carlyle doing a respectable job of acting with his future self. Good acting showcase. Future Rush wants to be put in the chair before he dies. Present Rush assist him and activates the chair and we see it envelop future Rush in steampunk glory. Present Rush runs back to the gate to meet Scott at the gate and then they jump through at the last minute.
Back on the newly refueled, newly restocked Destiny (and a shiny new magic shuttle to complete the two), Young shows his support for “the mission”. He was the first to say he wanted to stay. I just couldn’t get my head around that.
Lets not forget that the FUTURE Telford who made it through the gate is now on earth, which means he could (for the aborted season 3) be demoted back to “guest star” status, thus lowering costs.
Conclusion
This episode was beautiful, visually. I loved the background activity, the minimal shaky cam, the music was properly applied, but the STORY lacked. The entire episode was a deus ex machina, where they suddenly now have two fully restored shuttles, tons of medicine and food and parts and gun and ammo…too convenient. Telford being banished to earth again, it was just too contrived for my taste. For many, this episode might have been seen as good, but its only good as far as SGU goes, not good when compared to episodes from the other series. This was my review, and its harsh. I understand that many may not agree, but I stand by my words here! Deliverance didn’t deliver, IMO.
I'm still peeved at the dig at McKay AND Eli the drop out with only 2 years of experience is suddenly in the same league as CArter & McKay? Can we see where seizure is headed. Eli will outsmart McKay and I will throw up over my keyboard 
