SGU 109: "Life" (Spoilers)

[Anguirus]

Call me crazy, but I'm going with 5, and my favorite episode so far. It had me riveted start-to-finish.

I do wonder about the implications of body-swap-sex. What if the "borrowed body" is a born-again Christian or something? Was there some sort of briefing somewhere along the line when they took her aside and explained, "your body is going to be used for girl-on-girl action?" Cause if not, that's kinda unethical. Of course, Telford had no idea he was going to have his body used, which was quite unethical. Honestly, in this episode I found Everett far worse than Telford. Telford's a lying, manipulative sack, but Everett assaulted him twice, and lied to the Air Force to get an extra turn with the stones (when he still goes back the most often). I'll be very surprised if Telford doesn't get him relieved for that stunt.

Of course, the cardinal sinner for this ep is Rush. I almost wish he'd gotten to drag his scheme out a little longer. Perhaps Wray can take Everett's issues and Rush's general lack of trustworthiness (now exposed to even his former allies) and come out on top with a leadership role.

Oddly, Eli had very little to do this ep and I still liked it, though I'm an Eli fan. He did expose Rush's voodoo with more voodoo of his own, as usual, and got yelled at by people as usual. I thought his conversation with Scott was just awkward enough to ring painfully true.

And speaking of Scott, I'm glad he's facing a little responsibility for once. I don't hate him as much as some, but I'm not pre-disposed to liking a religious, judgmental guy who has sex with younger girls. I liked that he was willing to give up his pay, it's not like he's using it. I also liked that the girl didn't just tearfully thank him...heck, some people do like their jobs. I really do wonder why she named her kid after him though. So yeah, thinking with his dick might have cost a bright young woman the "right" life, from Scott's perspective. Good thing to throw at him.
Spoiler

I really thought the episode was setting up Greer to get in the chair. Perhaps foreshadowing?

[AndroAsc]

After last week's episode, this week is sure a bore. Seriously what SGU needs is more action. I think they're going overboard with this damn "character development". How has the plot been advanced in this episode? Well... nothing, ok maybe except for the discovery of the ancient chair device.

It just occurred to me although a BSG ripoff, SGU seems to be lacking something. What is it? Some bad guys. For fuck sake, can we have some explosions already? Even the first season of SG-1 wasn't this bad.

[Sarevok]

Btw I HATE their body swap mechanic. It had me utterly confused for several episodes about how they are magically teleporting. Then I realised they are just possesing other people. Ummm if so then why are they using same actors ? It is very dumb. I want to see eli walking around in body of a slim guy or what that defense department chic felt like in chloe's rather attracive body. Body swapping with another person is kind of an ultimate wish fullfillment fantasy and there is so much that can done with it even ignoring obvious fetish ideas. For instance seeing Telford being possed by Young would have a much deeper emotional impact if Young did not magically appear in his place. The situation and dialemma of fucking your wife in another mans body is totally lost.

[Sarevok]

After last week's episode, this week is sure a bore. Seriously what SGU needs is more action. I think they're going overboard with this damn "character development". How has the plot been advanced in this episode? Well... nothing, ok maybe except for the discovery of the ancient chair device.

It just occurred to me although a BSG ripoff, SGU seems to be lacking something. What is it? Some bad guys. For fuck sake, can we have some explosions already? Even the first season of SG-1 wasn't this bad.

SGU is not a nBSG ripoff anymore than original stargate was a ripoff of the star trek formula. Regarding bad guys have you slept through the last episodes ? The aliens so far have been truly alien as in the dust entity and utterly terrifying as in case of the facehugger like critters. The battle against the facehuggers in particular highlighted the finest traditions of a good science fiction story.

[Bounty]

After last week's episode, this week is sure a bore. Seriously what SGU needs is more action. I think they're going overboard with this damn "character development". How has the plot been advanced in this episode? Well... nothing, ok maybe except for the discovery of the ancient chair device.

It just occurred to me although a BSG ripoff, SGU seems to be lacking something. What is it? Some bad guys. For fuck sake, can we have some explosions already? Even the first season of SG-1 wasn't this bad.

If you want to see a different goddamn show, watch a different goddamn show. Meanwhile, the people who are enjoying what may be the first SF series in quite a while which doesn't try to insult its audience at every turn and which makes an actual effort to be interesting drama can continue looking down on people like you.

[Sarevok]

Well it is not like there is 15 years worth of SG-1 and SG:Atlantis if you are into that sort of thing. :d

[Covenant]

I like character development, but they still need to move on and do something. I only like a character when they've done something I like--or distinguished themselves in some other way. So far nobody has really done that, so throwing them into drama that further muddies the water... it really just serves to make me like them less. Yes, it's interesting to see them not so cookie-cutter, but they're still not really doing much, and the kinds of scenes and sense of growth I like the most are the cheapest and fastest stuff:

Stuff that shows character choices and a passage of time, to show people evolve while off-camera too and makes it feel like a living ship: Eli with Chloe doing stretches, Asian chick destressing via flings, a shot of Rush looking down at a picture of his wife, Greer sitting at peace before what he thought was his death-by-sunfire... those things are windows into their personality. And talk about growth--last episode gave us a view of what people hold most dear, what scares them, motivates them... and it also did it while giving us monsters, exploration, gunfights, science, and mystery. The best part of this episode was the Flogging Molly scenes at beginning and end, and the rest was disposable.

By comparison this is basically a soap opera episode. I would like to see character development like this occur a little more spread out between episodes that give us a reason to care. I don't want to take away anyone else's enjoyment but I find it a little odd that this is supposed to be somehow more 'mature' or enlightened when, aside from some good stuff like last episode, all we're getting is a romantic soap drama with high production values and dark theme. I expect people to look back on these early episodes as the clumsy stumbling blocks that tried to establish tone and character (the same way SG1 started off sluggish and strange) before getting on to whatever will actually make the show good.

[NecronLord]

Btw I HATE their body swap mechanic. It had me utterly confused for several episodes about how they are magically teleporting. Then I realised they are just possesing other people. Ummm if so then why are they using same actors ? It is very dumb. I want to see eli walking around in body of a slim guy or what that defense department chic felt like in chloe's rather attracive body. Body swapping with another person is kind of an ultimate wish fullfillment fantasy and there is so much that can done with it even ignoring obvious fetish ideas. For instance seeing Telford being possed by Young would have a much deeper emotional impact if Young did not magically appear in his place. The situation and dialemma of fucking your wife in another mans body is totally lost.

They inherited this mechanic from the previous two shows.

Even so, the issues you talk about will be addressed in a future episode.

[Bilbo]

Interesting and boring at the same time.

1. Glad to see Young beat the fuck out of Telford. Brings in some interesting questions. First Telford has the stones disconnected with a phone call on Young, that should require some explaining and since the driver knows Young was at his wife's house Telford has a lot of explaining to do. Logically Telford should be moved to a different command by O'Neil. You do not have this kind of stress situation in something already as F'd up as Destiny. Of course dyfunctional starship is the name of the game here so Telford won't be going anywhere.

2. The whole scene with the lesbians pissed me off. There is no respect what so ever in this show for being in someone elses body. Drinking? Eating od foods? Having sex? WTF, this is not your fucking body. You can assume the average person drinks, but its still pretty fucking rude to load the body with wine. You have no fucking idea what food allergies the person has. And using their body for sex is a complete and utter violation. The IOC chick was wrong in doing it and Young was wrong in doing it.

3. Looks like Rush was right, all the research Eli has done has reinforced Rush's statement that the escape plan would have been a great big boom.

4. Letting sargeant psycho out of his room is a complete sign of incompetence by Young. Chalk it up to having tons on his mind and too few resources but letting him out of the room, much less having him run the civilians through workouts is completely brain dead.

5. I am with Necron on the chair thing. The whole hand restraint part (assuming I saw that right) really makes me wonder how benevolent the chair is.

6. Will be interesting to see what plays out but are we going to learn that Greer's is the Desert Storm version of the Great Santini?

[NecronLord]

2. The whole scene with the lesbians pissed me off. There is no respect what so ever in this show for being in someone elses body. Drinking? Eating od foods? Having sex? WTF, this is not your fucking body. You can assume the average person drinks, but its still pretty fucking rude to load the body with wine. You have no fucking idea what food allergies the person has. And using their body for sex is a complete and utter violation. The IOC chick was wrong in doing it and Young was wrong in doing it.

There's no evidence Wray had sex. She did a bit of kissing.

As for allergies, I expect that would be listed on the USAF personnel file of anyone being given stone duty. So no worries there.

5. I am with Necron on the chair thing. The whole hand restraint part (assuming I saw that right) really makes me wonder how benevolent the chair is.

It's a halo thing with bolts in it. There are however, wrist and ankle clamps, which is suspect. Of course, I would let someone volunteer, and maybe tell someone to do it anyway. The Headsuckers were generally not that bad.

[Bilbo]

My assumption they had sex, could have just been cuddling. Even if they did not Young did have sex. Also there are food allergies that can kill you and then there are foods you just dont agree with that upset your stomach. Just like Eli and Cloe going partying (Cloe got ripping drunk) there seems to be a very large disregard for using someone elses body. I doubt the owner of the body avoided a major hangover due to Cloe's actions.

That is what I meant, the wrist and ankle clamps are what made me unsure how benevolent the machine is. On the other hand we have never ever seen anything close to a torture device or any other forceful technology, so odds of it being an unfriendly device is rather low.

I know Rush said (in his opinion at least) that the ship preceeds the ATA gene, but there was no thought at all that the chair may be a very early version of a Control Chair.

[Anguirus]

It's a halo thing with bolts in it. There are however, wrist and ankle clamps, which is suspect. Of course, I would let someone volunteer, and maybe tell someone to do it anyway. The Headsuckers were generally not that bad.

Except for the part where you die if the Asgard don't fix you.

[CaptJodan]

Even so, the issues you talk about will be addressed in a future episode.

And I just don't understand why the issues of people misusing other people's bodies should be addressed so late in the game. I suppose I'll be happy if they get to it at all, but I'm surprised at the level of disregard both sides have to this kind of thing. No one has thus far been put off by kissing their S.O. in a completely different body, with all that comes with that.

I'm also not really to necessarily concede that the chair is built at the same time or younger than Atlantis 2 million years ago. We haven't really gotten an exact age for Destiny yet, and I think the writers are trying to tell the audience that it's older than Atlantis, though they may just have forgotten about the opening crawl of the first episode, which is why they can't ever get it right (they probably assume Atlantis is only about 10-50,000 years old, because that's what the rest of the series focused on, forgetting the whole Earth launch thing). We'll see what more evidence comes later down the road.

As for allergies, I expect that would be listed on the USAF personnel file of anyone being given stone duty.

Destiny's crew doesn't have this information. I suppose once they arrive on Earth they can be told what allergies their bodies have, but that doesn't really help if you don't know what sexual diseases your partner on Earth might have picked up and are giving to the body you're in. And so much for medical information being private between patient and doctor here.

Seems everything would be a lot better if they had put some restrictions on how bodies were used, rather than letting people run rampant with someone's body.

[Oskuro]

Not a bad episode, but I'm yearning for some more development on the Destiny.

I'm thinking that, in order to volunteer for stone duty, the soldiers (Telford included) might be warned what their bodies could be used for, and they might agree. Actually, that's pretty much it, I doubt someone who wouldn't agree with that would volunteer. There's probably some paperwork too, and medical examinations to make sure there are no risks.

I'm also waiting for the in-universe explanation (the out-of-universe explanation being obvious) for them not using the stones to send Carter, Daniel Jackson and McKay to the Destiny.

Regading the chair having shackles, remember that the head-grabber did grab on to the user's head. O'Neill was pretty much forced to endure the thing the first time through, remember? I guess the notion is that contact must be maintained during the process, and all that information being dumped might cause reflex actions that could shift the user around, so bracing the user to the device might be a safety measure.

At least I'm glad that it wasn't simply a control chair, although I loved the giger-esque aesthethic of the headgrabber and was a bit let down by how shiny this chair is.


Now, another thing I found interesting was that Scott didn't seem pleased when he found out that Chloe had told Eli about his son.

[neoolong]

Now, another thing I found interesting was that Scott didn't seem pleased when he found out that Chloe had told Eli about his son.

That's kind of a personal thing, considering that Scott is trying to work through it. Regardless of the whole triangle thing, he would likely be displeased about that. I doubt that Eli would be happy if Chloe had told everyone that his mom had AIDS without getting permission first either.

[White Haven]

Aaah, good, a return to form. Character development and layering without the mind-paralyzingly obnoxious time travel schtick. Gave this one a 4, a good, solid, enjoyable episode, albeit a bit heavy with the dickery from...pretty much everyone. As to the 'She had sex!' crowd...This is SGU. They've been quite painfully explicit when they want to show that one character's fucking another's brains out. The converse is that the lack of said evidence indicates a lack of sex.

Oh, and watching Telford get his shit ruined was quite, quite enjoyable to boot.

[PREDATOR490]

3

Watched it and felt rather bored throughout the entire thing. The situation between Telford and Young just seems extremely artifical and retarded for it to continue.
Clearly people at the SGC are noticing Telford's obsession with using the stones and the recent situation only further indicates that Telford needs to be removed from the position he occupies.
As for the body-switching situation. It was a neat gimick at first and a nice call back to previous SG series but SGU has quickly demonstrated why these things should have been left alone due to the issues they bring up from a series perspective. As a one-shot episode deal they generally work, as a long term drama inducing crutch they are fundementally flawed.
Logically these people are told what they are volunteering to do and take the proper precautions to inform them of the risks. Granted, what Young did or abusing people's bodies without reason is unethical and wrong. Personnally, I think the personal field trips in other people's bodies is extremely retarded at this point. I can understand it as a way to keep in touch with home but I would have thought the SGC smarter than letting people run around like this given the previous experiences with this technology.

As for that chair, the first time I saw it I was expecting them to say it was the precursor to drone control chairs which would have made sense. Instead, its a magical chair that gives you the knowledge of the Ancients. How convienient they happen to have a chair that can give them access to any knowledge the writers need when they feel like empowering one of their cast. The idea the Ancients would put a device that gives anyone such knowledge is frankly retarded. What the hell was the point in puting security lockouts if this chair can potentially be used by anyone to override them and gain access to the Ancient database ?

It seems extremely retarded for the Ancients to deploy such a device on their premier exploration ship into the unknown. What happens if a race like the Wraith, Goa'uld or Ori got hold of this ship ?
Of course, the chair might have failsafes to fry any intruder who tries to access the information but that sounds to me like fore-shadowing to come out with a cast member that has the ancient gene. I wouldnt mind seeing Eli get shoved into the thing to increase his overall usefulness if it works but I suspect it will end up being Young or Scott.

[Oskuro]

Hey, maybe Chloe, seeing as how she's useless otherwise, volunteers to get into the chair. Wouldn't that annoy a whole lot of people?

[NecronLord]

I'm also not really to necessarily concede that the chair is built at the same time or younger than Atlantis 2 million years ago. We haven't really gotten an exact age for Destiny yet, and I think the writers are trying to tell the audience that it's older than Atlantis, though they may just have forgotten about the opening crawl of the first episode, which is why they can't ever get it right (they probably assume Atlantis is only about 10-50,000 years old, because that's what the rest of the series focused on, forgetting the whole Earth launch thing). We'll see what more evidence comes later down the road.

Mallozzi for one is aware of it, and just says Destiny is older than Atlantis. However, the actual show implies that it's younger.

Destiny's crew doesn't have this information. I suppose once they arrive on Earth they can be told what allergies their bodies have, but that doesn't really help if you don't know what sexual diseases your partner on Earth might have picked up and are giving to the body you're in. And so much for medical information being private between patient and doctor here.

There is no disease they could pick up that can't be cured by fifteen seconds with Vala Mal Doran. Which really makes it kinda dickish that Eli's mum still has HIV.

[NecronLord]

As for the body-switching situation. It was a neat gimick at first and a nice call back to previous SG series but SGU has quickly demonstrated why these things should have been left alone due to the issues they bring up from a series perspective. As a one-shot episode deal they generally work, as a long term drama inducing crutch they are fundementally flawed.

Hopefully the flashes Scott was having indicate that they'll have to use those bloody things less in the future.

As for that chair, the first time I saw it I was expecting them to say it was the precursor to drone control chairs which would have made sense. Instead, its a magical chair that gives you the knowledge of the Ancients. How convienient they happen to have a chair that can give them access to any knowledge the writers need when they feel like empowering one of their cast. The idea the Ancients would put a device that gives anyone such knowledge is frankly retarded. What the hell was the point in puting security lockouts if this chair can potentially be used by anyone to override them and gain access to the Ancient database ?

That's a bit premature. All we know is that it's a neural interface device. For all we know it could be a torture or entertainment machine. Rush outright said the only way to know what knowledge is in there is to sit in it.

[neoolong]

Hopefully the flashes Scott was having indicate that they'll have to use those bloody things less in the future.

That was his first time using the stone wasn't it? It's interesting that it happened on his first time, and we haven't seen it happen to other people yet, yet those others have used it more often.

Although, maybe it was because Telford used it so much.

[Oskuro]

Or maybe it was the first time two different people used Telford's body. Didn't the original stones kind of imprint into one user and only worked for said user? Maybe the retroengineered SG version of the communicator has glitches.

[Bounty]

I found it strange that they'd let possessed people drive. Imagine if the connection glitches just as you're at an intersection - that's just asking for bad accidents.

But on the whole, the mechanic doesn't bother me. It's a way for the characters to interact with home without actually letting them go there, and it did give us an interesting Young/Telford relationship. The moral kinks are there, yes, but you have to remember that one, this is the only way they can communicate, and two, there isn't likely to be a protocol for it. The use of the stones is at the stage where rules are probably only just being drawn up.

Additionally, it's not like people aren't held accountable for what they do with their host bodies. They have handlers, even if they stay in the background, and everyone using the stones knows that the mind of the person they are inhabiting is running around with their body too, and will probably do so again in the future.

[Sarevok]

The problem is not with body switching. The problem is with how the bizzare decision to show Telford transform into Young instead of Telford acting like Young now that he has been possesed. Do they think audiences are so stupid they dont understand the concept of Youngs mind now controlling Telfords body ?

[Bounty]

The problem is not with body switching. The problem is with how the bizzare decision to show Telford transform into Young instead of Telford acting like Young now that he has been possesed. Do they think audiences are so stupid they dont understand the concept of Youngs mind now controlling Telfords body ?

It's not a bizarre decision when you consider that the sequences are filmed from the possessing characters' point of view.