SGU "Sabotage" [season 1 episode 16] (Spoilers)

[Netko]

The robot got very little screentime for something that obviously must've cost quite a bit to bring to life in CGI... So I imagine we'll be seeing it again.

As for the people complaining about a lack of "awe and wonder", I do have to ask... Has there ever been a series about a bunch of people lost in the great wild yonder done better than SGU? Whether it's Voyager, Atlantis or Lost in Space, I genuinely can't recall a show that handled the issues (both general and inter-personal) between a bunch of random people stranded in the middle of nowhere better than SGU.

Farscape - it got a little bleak and unfocused towards the end, but the early seasons, and especially early season one are pure gold from a sense of wander and discovery perspective and the characters were a diverse and individually interesting bunch (plus "real" aliens for once). And their relationships grew pretty much organically (with a few bumps of unnecessary drama along the way). Its a rather under-appreciated show for what it did when it did.

[Temjin]

I enjoyed the episode, but I found the premise to be a little bit forced.

It was implied in the earlier episodes that Destiny at least had a simple A.I. that can fulfill at least some of the needs of the people on board her, like jumping to a planet that contains a mineral to fix the life support system.

But that whole thing just flies out the window in this episode. Instead of disabling the drive that's bringing down the efficiency, it's just going to continue to use it and then spend a hundred thousand years or so drifting to it's destination.

That, and the way it was fixed ("Hey, turns out that explosion that destroyed the drive helped us. Cool, huh?") just makes it seem as if it was just a flimsy excuse to bring in a guest star.

[NecronLord]

I enjoyed the episode, but I found the premise to be a little bit forced.

It was implied in the earlier episodes that Destiny at least had a simple A.I. that can fulfill at least some of the needs of the people on board her, like jumping to a planet that contains a mineral to fix the life support system.

But that whole thing just flies out the window in this episode. Instead of disabling the drive that's bringing down the efficiency, it's just going to continue to use it and then spend a hundred thousand years or so drifting to it's destination.

That, and the way it was fixed ("Hey, turns out that explosion that destroyed the drive helped us. Cool, huh?") just makes it seem as if it was just a flimsy excuse to bring in a guest star.

A simple AI does not necessarily have any problem solving ability. A resource unit in your average RTS can be told to find resources from the map it has, (suns, lime, whatever) that doesn't mean it's sapient. The problem on Destiny was obviously a complex one that either needed a controller, or the robot to actually go in and cut the thing off.

It's cool that Destiny can fix some problems on its own, but there's been no reason to think it's capable of that kind of problem solving.