SGU S02E10 Resurgence (SPOILERS)

[Adrian McNair]

We've reached the mid-season finale of Stargate Universe's second season. Here are my thoughts:

- Telford made his triumphant return in a great moment (dealing with an enemy pursuit via a star has to be one of the top Universe moments) and he brought the Greys with him (now known as the Ursini). I wish we could have seen some interactions between the crew and the Ursini, with Telford translating and acting as a liaison. They're not the best possible allies, but I would like to see the Seed Ship and Destiny working in concert as a mini-fleet. Besides, they need all of the help they can get just to survive out there let alone reach the Milky Way.
- That's the second Arthur C. Clarke related reference Eli's made. Outside of that this was not Eli's finest hour. Instead of assisting during the battle he chose to talk to the most untrustworthy person on the ship right now. His grief has blinded his judgment beyond all reason (at least we got references to Ginn out of it, ensuring that she wasn't just a forgotten girl of the week). While I don't see the ship being destroyed as a result of Chloe's tampering it was still a stupid mistake on Eli's part.
- Chloe is too erratic now. Her enhancements have definitely boosted her strength (to the point where she can easily overpower a fully-trained muscle-bound marine). She's definitely stronger than the Blues (considering that Rush was able to take down one of them in hand to hand combat, they aren't particularly tough). They need to deal with this threat permanently. Greer is the perfect candidate for the job as was made clear last week.
- A new foe appeared on the scene- automated attack drones directed by a command ship. So much for my Ursini/Blue war theory (admit it, you'd like to see those two duking it out in epic fashion). They might well be the relics of a long extinct species or we could be dealing with another race of machines. Regardless of where the truth lies they're definitely a force to be reckoned with. The drones are swift, maneuverable and have some potent firepower, bringing Destiny's shields down fairly quickly. The Blues were never this dangerous back in the previous galaxy.
- Fuck, I hate cliffhangers. It's going to be a long wait until next year's air-date. They'd better not botch the mid-season return like they did with the season premiere (where every current crisis was resolved in an underwhelming way).

Four out of five from me this week.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I enjoyed it, I thought it was a great episode. I also loved that the Ursini tricked us right after we were discussing tricking them. I'm wondering what they really expect, though. We're obviously outmatched by the command ship, so unless Destiny is some sort of diversion that will draw off the drones so their fleet can come and kick its' ass, I don't know what they're planning.

[PREDATOR490]

4

Pretty enjoyable and a marked improvement in actually being entertaining.

Drones - Ugh, meet SGU's Replicators AGAIN. Is it even remotely possible NOT to fall back on the 'EVIL MACHINES' as enemies ?
This has already been rehashed at least THREE times.

Eli - Nice to see them attempting to address the fact Eli should be an emotional wreck but this episode felt like Eli's subplot was really tacked on.

Lucian Alliance 'leader' - Can already see a relationship happening with TJ and cause melodrama as Young goes apeshit.

TJ - Ugh, they still fucking refuse to say what the hell happened to the baby. Sure, they HINT at it but the always make the subtle suggestion something else might have happened. I find this insanely annoying. If the show dosent have the balls to come down one way or the other then stop fucking mentioning it rather than keep trying to pander to both sides everytime you do.

Rush - Fair enough episode for him although I find it likely he did something while he was 'away'. I would not be surprise if he is somehow responsible for the ship jumping into the fight early rather than the Greys.

Getting backstabbed by the Grey's was hinted at but I remain skeptical. Clearly Destiny is getting it's ass kicked and it seems rather foolhardy to throw the ship away on an attack that would fail like this. Possible the Greys are going to do something fancy while the Destiny soaks the fire.

Chloe - Trying to give a damn.... nope cant do it. Giving her super strength and being slowly transformed in an sympathetic drama way dosent change anything.
Chloe is a walking plot contrivance that does whatever the plot needs her to do.

'When have we last spent the night together' = You dont want me anymore
It's likely Scott is withdrawing but using this as a qualifier just irked me completely. The guy is coming to see her regularily, desperately trying to connect even when she tells him to fuck off but apparantly they arent close unless hes humping her. Nice to know they have such a strong relationship. Its not like she is literally transforming, isolated and potentially dangerous so clearly not 'spending the night with her' should be taken as a sign he dosent want her or something.

That said, I call 50/50 on wether or not what she did saved the ship or fucked them completely. I'm guessing the former because that means we can play out the melodrama some more rather than have the obvious conclusion of her damaging the ship being a bullet in her forehead.

While this was a decent episode, I'm sorry to say I really dont give a shit about the conclusion so I'm not going to be on the edge of my seat waiting. Especially since the Stargate franchise has an alarmingly obvious trend to make cliffhangers that fizzle out quickly in the following episode.

Cliffnotes of whats coming:
Destiny Survives
Eli magically feels better
Chloe becomes the source of more melodrama for her actions
Rush continues being an asshole
TJ hooks up with LA dude
LA dude and maybe his colleagues start integrating into the crew more
Young gets pissed at LA dude
Seedship magically disappears / gets destroyed to get rid of that nasty ability to dial back to Earth

[adam_grif]

Drones - Ugh, meet SGU's Replicators AGAIN. Is it even remotely possible NOT to fall back on the 'EVIL MACHINES' as enemies ?
This has already been rehashed at least THREE times.

We had the replicators on SG-1, the Asurans on Atlantis... when was the third time it was rehashed?

Anyway, we don't know if they're replicator clones or not yet. They're automated attack ships, but we don't know anything beyond that. IMO, as long as they avoid more HUMAN FORM REPLICATOR bullshit, which was a fucking cancerous growth on the face of an otherwise awesome antagonist, I'll be able to deal with it.

[JME2]

I'm wary of another AI adversary. The Replicators were fine until the Human Forms came along in Season 6 and I despise the Asurans.

I'm thinking Chloe probably signaled the Blue Man Group, who can now resestablish a lock of the ship's location. That should make it an interesting shooting match.

4/5

[dragon]

The thing is it doesn't have to be AI they're up against, after all the command ship commands the drones and it might have a crew. Hell we use drones today, maybe the aliens don't want to risk their lives.

I hate how Chole is able to operate ancient tech with no problem, or how the greys were able to pilot the seed ship with no problems.

As for the baby didn't a crew member get asorbed by the ship in the first season.

[CaptJodan]

I'm thinking Chloe probably signaled the Blue Man Group, who can now resestablish a lock of the ship's location. That should make it an interesting shooting match.

This was the first think I thought she was doing too. As far as we know, she was created by the Blues for some unknown purpose. If the Blues were at war with the AIs as well as the Grays, then it makes sense that she'd call them in.

Trouble is, it'd be massively convenient if the Blues were anywhere near the ship and could come to the rescue in the few moments they have left to live. Of course, convenience was never a problem for SGU, as Telford arrived just in time.

Either it was the Blues, or she knows yet something more about the ship and how it works to get them out of the situation they're in. She just activated the super-shield, or a super weapon, or some other stupid contrivance. I have to agree that Stargate has never been very good with cliffhangers, and SGU is one of the worst examples so far. Given how bad Destiny is being hit, Chloe is sadly the key to getting them out of it. Let's recap:

1. She's never done anything to harm the crew thus far (save for beating someone up for stopping her from her mission).
2. She's only ever helped so far.
3. She said they couldn't trust the Greys, and proven right.
4. She's only ever unlocked systems for the crew.

I'm not suggesting that what controls her is doing so in the best interests of the crew, but clearly it wants to live and keep the ship intact until (probably) the Blues can get to it again. So whatever she did is almost certainly the key to Destiny surviving the next few minutes.

'When have we last spent the night together' = You dont want me anymore
It's likely Scott is withdrawing but using this as a qualifier just irked me completely. The guy is coming to see her regularily, desperately trying to connect even when she tells him to fuck off but apparantly they arent close unless hes humping her. Nice to know they have such a strong relationship. Its not like she is literally transforming, isolated and potentially dangerous so clearly not 'spending the night with her' should be taken as a sign he dosent want her or something.

I don't agree with a lot of your complaints, but I found this irksome too. So Scott is taking the absolute bare minimum of caution here by not putting his dick into something that's turning into fuck knows what, and she whines that that is him pulling away from her? Pulling away from her is not coming to her quarters to talk to her every 5 minutes, or making sure the guard goes in with her just in case she goes apeshit (another lapse in the constantly lapsed security of that ship). This, after she told him to stay the fuck away. Worse, Scott seems to take it with no retort to point out the obvious whatsoever.

Some other thoughts
-Destiny just can't win a fight. It's never won a fight. At best, it's survived long enough to run away from a fight.
-Twice now we've boarded wreaks of the unknown ship, and twice we've found exactly nothing of value, but tend to get in trouble once we're over there. Maybe it's time to stop boarding that particular race's wreaks. It just doesn't seem to work out. They just randomly walk the halls until something happens.
-The Grey's plan looks pretty stupid at this point. I'd guess they felt they were under a time constraint. They guessed correctly that Destiny wouldn't really want to help them and that once they repaired their FTL drives, they'd be gone. It was a now or never situation, even if chances of success weren't high.

I'm going to give it a provisional 4. It was enjoyable enough, but I can't really put this episode by itself without seeing what comes later. Stargate has a terrible time making good cliffhangers that pay off well later.

[CaptJodan]

It's never won a fight.

Correction, I remember it "winning" one when they drove one of the Blue ships away.

[JME2]

I'm thinking Chloe probably signaled the Blue Man Group, who can now resestablish a lock of the ship's location. That should make it an interesting shooting match.

This was the first think I thought she was doing too. As far as we know, she was created by the Blues for some unknown purpose. If the Blues were at war with the AIs as well as the Grays, then it makes sense that she'd call them in.

Trouble is, it'd be massively convenient if the Blues were anywhere near the ship and could come to the rescue in the few moments they have left to live. Of course, convenience was never a problem for SGU, as Telford arrived just in time.

Either it was the Blues, or she knows yet something more about the ship and how it works to get them out of the situation they're in. She just activated the super-shield, or a super weapon, or some other stupid contrivance. I have to agree that Stargate has never been very good with cliffhangers, and SGU is one of the worst examples so far. Given how bad Destiny is being hit, Chloe is sadly the key to getting them out of it. Let's recap:

1. She's never done anything to harm the crew thus far (save for beating someone up for stopping her from her mission).
2. She's only ever helped so far.
3. She said they couldn't trust the Greys, and proven right.
4. She's only ever unlocked systems for the crew.

I'm not suggesting that what controls her is doing so in the best interests of the crew, but clearly it wants to live and keep the ship intact until (probably) the Blues can get to it again. So whatever she did is almost certainly the key to Destiny surviving the next few minutes.

Good points.

I suggested she signaled them because we still don't know if she managed to get a signal out during "Trial and Error". And given their pursuit of Destiny last season, I wouldn't put it past them to keep following it into another galaxy. Now, whether or not their firepower would be superior to the drones is another matter.

Regarding Chloe's character arc...you know, this is reminding me of the attempts to revamp Ford in Season 2 of SGA. I knew something like this was probably going to happen from the moment "Air" premiered. She is the most useless character. She's tried to find a niche and now has no purpose on the ship other than being Scott's girlfriend and Rush's calculator. And I don't feel compassion for the character's mutation as it's her own damm fault for playing Carol Ann and going into the light during "Space".

[Themightytom]

Telford made an awesome return, but...um... he basically reported he hooked himself up to the mind re-educator, and even HE doesn't know all of what got dumped into his head... thats not a GOOD thing... Also he's pretty lucky the alien nutrient pods could sustain him, as the aliens clearly did not have a taste for human food.

Scott just plain doesn't know what to do with Chloe, I mean he's trying but definitely out of his element.

Chloe actually helped them last time, so I'll assume she is doing that this time, I personally as a writer would have had Scott shoot her to get her to back off in order to provide better cliff hang drama.

Young has a really loose hold over his crew, seriously he needs to lay shit down with the military at least. Eli exercised poor judgment, and this was apparent when Chloe took out the guard, at least he tried to rectify the situation by chasing her down. TJ having no idea this was going down probably shouldn't have let the OTHER prisoner out without Young's permission. With discipline breaking down, I want to see one of the two face consequences. This is obviously difficult as one is a medic and one is a civilian scientist.

[JME2]

Young has a really loose hold over his crew, seriously he needs to lay shit down with the military at least. Eli exercised poor judgment, and this was apparent when Chloe took out the guard, at least he tried to rectify the situation by chasing her down. TJ having no idea this was going down probably shouldn't have let the OTHER prisoner out without Young's permission. With discipline breaking down, I want to see one of the two face consequences. This is obviously difficult as one is a medic and one is a civilian scientist.

Young's barely managed to pull himself together and you're right, it's affecting the military. If anything, the civilians are holding together better than Young is.

[Adrian McNair]

For anyone who is curious here are my ratings for each episode to date:

1 - Intervention: Two out of five
2 - Aftermath: Four out of five
3 - Awakening: Three out of five
4 - Pathogen: Three out of five
5 - Cloverdale: One out of five
6 - Trial and Error: Four out of five
7 - The Greater Good: Three out of five
8 - Malice: Four out of five
9 - Visitation: Three out of five
10 - Resurgence: Four out of five

So if I were to give a grade based on this ratings system, it would be 62% which amounts to a passing grade. That's fitting. There were rough patches here and there, but the show has started to gather momentum. Things will probably continue to pick up in the second half, not that the dyed in the wool haters will ever care.

[hongi]

So did the seed ship just follow the preset route of Destiny and that's how it find them?

I felt this episode was odd, the dialogue was awkward, scenes seem to be just mashed together. Wasn't very happy about it at all. Like it goes from the middle of the battlefield to skipping across a star in just one scene cut - and how convenient for a star to be close by?

[NecronLord]

I was expecting the seed ship to power transfer, get Destiny's main gun working at full power, and hole the command ship in one shot or something, but then have its power transfer conduits burnt out in doing so.

[NecronLord]

So did the seed ship just follow the preset route of Destiny and that's how it find them?

Presumably it was able to track Destiny. Destiny was well away from her route in the graveyard, so, yeah.

[JME2]

So did the seed ship just follow the preset route of Destiny and that's how it find them?

Presumably it was able to track Destiny. Destiny was well away from her route in the graveyard, so, yeah.

Well, we know from that Destiny maintains subspace links with the seed ship fleet; it makes sense that Telford and Ursini could track the experiment's flagship.

[NecronLord]

Indeed.

I'm kinda disappointed that we didn't get something about the Ursini having found this advanced ship, discovered something of Ancient philosophy from records on board it (the ancient version of the plaques on the Pioneer probes) and decided to wait for Destiny to show up and help them. And then being massively disappointed. I'm sure that could be played for comedy somehow.

[JME2]

I'm sure that could be played for comedy somehow.

Especially given this outtake from "Awakening".

[Freefall]

Wow, Predator liked this one? Interesting. I actually did not.

2 out of 5 from me.

For me it went downhill as soon as the Seed ship showed up. I don't have a problem with them somehow following Destiny, but showing up just in the nick of time is pretty cliche.

However, the real problem was how they "saved the day."

"Hey guys! See the giant nuclear fireball over there? The one that's just a couple minutes away at STL travel, but apparently none of you managed to notice at all? Let's head towards that!"

Seriously? How do you not notice there is a star that close by? It must have been within 4 lightminutes or so of Destiny, it just seems like someone should have noticed. Like the ship. The one programmed to refuel when a star is conveniently in range.

On top of that, Destiny gets its energy from stars. They really needed to be told to head into it? Why didn't they stay there? Shouldn't they have effectively unlimited shields and weapons as long as they sit in it? Even if they couldn't just sit in it, why were they concerned about the drones getting around the sun? Just shoot at them until shields and weapons start losing power, then go back through the star again to recharge.

I dunno, it just seemed like a pretty big tactical oversight to me.

Another thing that bugged me is the show getting too Star Trekky. Exploding consoles and corridors? Check. Vital systems going off line just as you need them? Check. Shields being quickly depleted by completely random alien threat? Check.

I generally like Eli's actor, but he doesn't do emo very well. What they're trying to do with him is perfectly reasonable, but it just didn't feel convincing coming from him.

Telford's back, but felt like a waste. Just seemed like he was barely even in the episode. If you're going to get Lou Diamond Philips back, at least use him before the 4 month (or whatever it's going to be) break.

The aliens conveniently had hardware in their stasis pods that could download exposition directly into Telford's mind, and was apparently compatible with human brains. Oh, and they could feed him nutrients too. Very convenient indeed.

Like others, I have to question what the greys were thinking. Tossing your ace-in-the-hole into a firefight it obviously isn't prepared for is pretty stupid. On the plus side, I liked that the greys were actually a shade of grey, not just simple "good aliens" or "evil aliens."

Apparently Chloe just wasn't enough of a deus ex machina, because now she's superstrong too and can knock out airmen with a single hard shove. Though to be fair, most of these airmen seem pretty worthless. I wonder what would happen if you put them in a Roman Colosseum against a bunch of TOS Redshirts.

The final battle spent most of its time showing people running around through exploding corridors, and sparks flying all over the bridge, and hardly anything of the actual battle. We didn't even get a shot of Command Ship.

Yeah, overall, just too many conveniences/acts of plot in one episode, plus the show is just getting more and more Star Trekky. I remember when it first started, it looked like it was going to try and have a more sophisticated approach to science and technology than Trek or previous Stargate had, but it looks like they are quickly falling back into old and silly habits. I find it pretty disappointing.

And we have to wait how long to see the conclusion? Come on "syfy," BSG could pull that off because it was a huge hit and people (apparently) were willing to buy overpriced half-season DVD sets. I don't think SGU has the kind of following to play that game.

[CaptJodan]

Wow, Predator liked this one? Interesting. I actually did not.

There are some valid points here.

"Hey guys! See the giant nuclear fireball over there? The one that's just a couple minutes away at STL travel, but apparently none of you managed to notice at all? Let's head towards that!"

I had this reaction too. We certainly didn't get a view of a close star during any shots when they were mulling around the debris field, and we saw several angles of that. Then suddenly there's a convenient sun to dive into that no one saw until Telford showed up to point them the way. That aspect definitely wasn't well done.

On top of that, Destiny gets its energy from stars. They really needed to be told to head into it? Why didn't they stay there? Shouldn't they have effectively unlimited shields and weapons as long as they sit in it? Even if they couldn't just sit in it, why were they concerned about the drones getting around the sun? Just shoot at them until shields and weapons start losing power, then go back through the star again to recharge.

Destiny's shields don't seem to work on the Atlantis shield principle. With the exception of the last episode of Atlantis (let us never speak of it again), the city's shields couldn't be worn down except by draining power from the ZPMs. Thus, the shields didn't really ever fail, it was just that they were always under threat of running out of power for them.

Destiny seems to rely more on the Trek (and every other SG style) shield method, that shields can be worn down. After battles that have nearly completely drained their shields, they weren't complaining about needing to immediately dip themselves back into a star to recharge. This tells me that it's more a generator problem. The shields can only take so much, then they need time to...repair themselves, or siphon off energy, or whatever shields do, before they can be effective again. So diving into a star to recharge power reserves may not do much to bring shields back to 100%.

We've also never seen Destiny stay in a star. This WAS the perfect opportunity for Destiny to stay inside. My guess is that the ship simply can't. It can stay as long as it needs to in order to refuel itself, but that it ultimately has to come out. A throw away line about how they couldn't use that tactic would have been really helpful in this episode, because we're just guessing at this point, but it fits the evidence so far.

Vital systems going off line just as you need them? Check. Shields being quickly depleted by completely random alien threat? Check.

It's the old "x must happen for plot's sake" routine. Destiny being slowly overwhelmed by many bee stings is a nice idea. Destiny being overwhelmed by many stings that seem as powerful or perhaps even more-so than the Blues' weapons is less so. This was the latter. But the plot demanded that Destiny be overwhelmed quickly so they could move on to the other plot points I guess, including busting their ability to escape.

[Temujin]

Missed the first showing and caught it last night at 11pm. Unfortunately I was starting to nod off so I think I missed a few seconds/minutes here and there towards the end.

All and all a solid 4.

Especially given this outtake from "Awakening".

That was awesome!

I generally like Eli's actor, but he doesn't do emo very well. What they're trying to do with him is perfectly reasonable, but it just didn't feel convincing coming from him.

(Grumbles about the overuse / misuse of the term emo )
Not everyone, particularly young people, handle emotional hardship in a neat stereotypically consistent way. Some don't know how to feel or what to feel, and often behave in a contradictory or otherwise erratic manner. Eli is young, was probably a virgin (or close to it), and this was probably the first and most intimate relationship he has ever had outside of that with his Mother (cut it out, you know what I mean ). To me his behavior is quite acceptable for someone his age, experience and social background (i.e., geeky gamer math boy).

[JME2]

That was awesome!

Yeah, I had a good laugh too.

[Freefall]

Destiny seems to rely more on the Trek (and every other SG style) shield method, that shields can be worn down. After battles that have nearly completely drained their shields, they weren't complaining about needing to immediately dip themselves back into a star to recharge. This tells me that it's more a generator problem. The shields can only take so much, then they need time to...repair themselves, or siphon off energy, or whatever shields do, before they can be effective again. So diving into a star to recharge power reserves may not do much to bring shields back to 100%.

When Destiny encountered the Blues, it was shown that using the weapons drastically reduced the time shields could be maintained, so it definitely depends on the overall energy reserves of the ship to some degree.

We've also never seen Destiny stay in a star. This WAS the perfect opportunity for Destiny to stay inside. My guess is that the ship simply can't. It can stay as long as it needs to in order to refuel itself, but that it ultimately has to come out. A throw away line about how they couldn't use that tactic would have been really helpful in this episode, because we're just guessing at this point, but it fits the evidence so far.

Well, "indefinitely" was probably a poor word choice. I wouldn't honestly expect even an Ancient ship to be sturdy enough to sit in a star forever without melting (or at least cooking the inhabitants). Still, I don't see why they couldn't make a couple more passes if they had to, especially if they burn some energy firing the weapons. Plus, the star itself should be big enough that they could evade the drones for a while just running circles around it at sub light. I dunno, just seems like about as good a place as any to make a stand. Especially since they explicitly showed a bunch of drones being dumb enough to self-destruct trying to chase them in the first time.

It's the old "x must happen for plot's sake" routine. Destiny being slowly overwhelmed by many bee stings is a nice idea. Destiny being overwhelmed by many stings that seem as powerful or perhaps even more-so than the Blues' weapons is less so. This was the latter. But the plot demanded that Destiny be overwhelmed quickly so they could move on to the other plot points I guess, including busting their ability to escape.

I think it is the speed with which it happened that bugged me the most. Remember, Destiny has been flying around for hundreds of thousands of years, and been attacked many times before this, and apparently never has it actually suffered complete shield failure (or had its FTL system knocked off-line), yet these buggers pull it off within minutes? There could have at least been a lot more of them if they really needed it to happen so fast.

(Grumbles about the overuse / misuse of the term emo )

Can't really fault you there, since I generally agree the term is grossly overused. I suppose a better way of putting what I meant might be that I simply didn't really buy what the actor was trying to sell, and he came off to me as trying to be emo, but not doing that great a job.

With the exception of the scene where he talks about Riley. I thought that was done well, felt genuine, and I appreciate that the writer's aren't just letting him be forgotten like would probably happen on other shows. Even in death, it makes it feel like he was a real part of the crew.

With Gin, I dunno. It just feels like something is missing to me. I get your point about not everyone grieving the same way, but that's not what's really bugging me. I feel like maybe the actor himself didn't feel much connection to her. I mean, they really only had one episode together before she died, right? That's not a lot of time to work with someone. Riley had been there since the beginning, even if he was a secondary character, but it could have still been enough time to give the actor a sense of how the two characters related, whereas with Gin he has to try and act emotionally distraught over a character he spent all of 20 minutes with.

I dunno, could just be me, but that's just kind of how it came across to me.

Also, Rush really sucks at pep talks.

[Stargate Nerd]

I think it is the speed with which it happened that bugged me the most. Remember, Destiny has been flying around for hundreds of thousands of years, and been attacked many times before this, and apparently never has it actually suffered complete shield failure (or had its FTL system knocked off-line), yet these buggers pull it off within minutes? There could have at least been a lot more of them if they really needed it to happen so fast.
.

You raise a good point, but If I'm not mistaken Rush mentions during Season 1 that the shields are weaker now, due to the crew using up all that energy.

[Lonestar]

You raise a good point, but If I'm not mistaken Rush mentions during Season 1 that the shields are weaker now, due to the crew using up all that energy.

Yup, plus the ship already had damage(with parts of the hll having shields covering holes), and it's mentioned that over the past million years or so enough equipment has been destroyed in battles/broke that the power storage can only be maxed out at 40% of designed capacity(which of course is why they can't dial home).