I accept that the writers don’t have to tell us everything that everyone’s doing, but it was kind of a surprise to find that the crew had found this nifty little hand-held D.H.D. that we’ve never known about before. And how come the Ancients abandoned those devices for the big clunky fixed-in-the-ground D.H.D.s that we’ve always seen before?

Also, how and why did the Gate close down after Scott’s and Young’s brief radio conversation?

So these communication stones can be used by anyone. Somebody’s apparently tinkered with them so that they no longer need people with the Ancient gene to use them, cos I refuse to believe that everyone on Icarus Base had the gene, and Chloe also oh-so-conveniently happened to have it too. So why – now that Sam Carter has had the chance to get back to Earth – are they not getting her linked to someone on Destiny so that she can actually be on board the ship and help with their problems?

Why does steam vent up from either side of the Destiny Stargate whenever it shuts down (apart from the obvious answer – BILC!)?

I really would have thought that Homeworld Security would have checked whether Mrs Armstrong was mentally stable and strong enough to cope with a strange woman turning up and claiming to be her daughter before letting Chloe anywhere near her, even if it meant telling Chloe that she couldn’t visit on this occasion. Sympathetically allowing Chloe to be the one to tell her almost-if-not-totally alcoholic mother that the Senator was dead simply because he and Jack were old chums is ludicrous. Stargate Command would never have allowed it – why is Homeworld Security so lax?

Why could Telford-in-Young’s-body walk around without any assistance, while Young himself needs his rifle as a crutch?

The ‘face in the sand’ was a bit Star Trek DS9, wasn’t it?!

Why is Scott (apparently) not keeping an eye on the time? Long after Eli declares that it’s half-time, Scott appears to be wandering at random out in the desert, and doesn’t even seem to be distracted by following his friendly little vortex thingy at the time.

I loved the ‘Oh my god we’re all doomed!’ expression on Rush’s face when Eli proudly said, “I have a gun!”

When James brought Eli a new Kino before going off to search for Scott and Greer, I assumed she’d brought it so that he could dial the other planet and send the Kino through to look for Palmer and Curtis. But maybe it wasn’t worth trying: Destiny locked out the planet’s address for a reason and so, unless they deliberately and stupidly went out of radio range, they probably got eaten by a beastie shortly after arrival!

But what were the odds that there’d be something lethal on the planet? The ships that preceded Destiny shouldn’t have been planting Stargates on dangerous planets, and the only reason Destiny locked out the other planets was, I thought, because Rush had told it that they needed something to power the scrubbers and Destiny searched its databanks to find the nearest lime-bearing planet. It does seem a bit too convenient that there was something on the other planet that would kill or disable Palmer and Curtis enough that they couldn’t radio back.

Kudos to the make-up team, who did a great job with all the sunburn. Also kudos to Joel Goldsmith whose music during the montage scene was awesome.

I’m liking Greer quite a lot as a complicated character. Despite his near psychotic need to shoot someone, the way he screamed at Scott to get him moving was awesome.

Rush and Young have an urgent conversation about whether it’s wise for Eli to stick his hand into the event horizon when the Gate’s about to shut down. I can’t believe in all the years of the Stargate programme that they’ve never experimented with trying to stop a Gate closing – for instance, at the end of its 38 minutes – by inserting something into the event horizon.

I loved Eli’s face as he put his arm into the event horizon! I also loved the way he held his arm out in front of him when he came through the Gate and started feeling it to check it was still intact!

I thought the “Don’t forget to breathe” song was totally ludicrous as the air started to flow on the ship again.

So what was the whirly vortex thing? Oma Desala?! And what was the ship that took off from Destiny at the end?

I just realised that because I do the bad thing and download my episodes of Universe and because the seeders cut the episode as short as possible, I’m not likely to ever hear the show’s theme tune until I buy it on DVD.

I am just wondering what the range is on those stones. "Chloe" obviously went to where her mother lives, which was not another office in the Pentagon. Also, there must be quite a number of those things, since Chloe and Young were both able to use them at the same time.

As for anyone with the Ancient gene; it would seem that no one has it; otherwise someone would have been able to access the systems on the ship. In the Atlantis pilot as soon as the travelers came through the gate onto Atlantis everything started powering up; I guess the Ancients did not program this ship to do that.

So I guess Palmer and Curtis have been left behind.

When Rush used the stones it was someone else who was there - waiting? why would he be waiting? - this time it was Telford. Why was he waiting? did they set up some sort of time, saying be there at o-whatever and we will talk to you?

What did Scott's hallucinations have to do with the storyline? He just seemed to be apologizing to his priest for something he did; maybe this will come up in a later episode? I know he told Chloe that the priest raised him and then committed suicide but I still do not see the connection.

Okay, so what was this all about? What was the alien intelligence on that planet? Why did the Ancients stick a Stargate there? At the end of the episode, I was going "Huh? That's it!?"

The departure of the Destiny strands Palmer and Curtis on some other planet. No mention is made of trying to rescue them. Okay, maybe it can't be done, but it wasn't even discussed!

So, who was in that ship that left Destiny? Where are they going?

This episode left me wanting, because it has so many unanswered questions.

Now I come to think of it, these can't be the same stones that Jack and Joe used in Citizen Joe, because they just saw each other's lives but didn't actually swap bodies. They must be a variation of the stones used by Daniel and Vala, but without the bracelets, and you don't need the Ancient gene to work them. And I get the impression that once you've activated the stones and swapped bodies, you stay in that body wherever it goes until someone deactivates the stones again. Presumably the light box which we've seen the stones resting on is the activator. But you're right, Beth, there ought to be some kind of maximum distance you can get away from the stone or the box before you lose the link.

IIRC, there were 5 stones in Colonel Young's box and presumably there are at least as many back at the Pentagon. As far as Bill Lee and then Colonel Telford waiting by the stones, I believe that Bill started waiting as soon as the Icarus crew went through the Stargate and disappeared from the POV of Stargate Command/Homeworld Security. And somewhat foolishly, when Rush swapped with Bill, nobody thought to make an arrangement for the next contact, so Telford was just sitting there and waiting for whoever next thought to use the stones from Destiny's end.

I think the priest flashback was purely meant as a backstory for Scott. Unfortunately, all it's done is demonstrate that the boy is incapable of keeping his pants done up!

I was OK with them not telling us what the whirly vortex thing was - it was just an alien being and quite possibly had always been there. As for why a Stargate would be put on a desert world: presumably it wasn't a desert when one of the unmanned ships planted a Gate there umpty thousand years ago.

I think everyone knew that there was no chance of rescuing Palmer and Curtis, because the crew still can't control the ship, and couldn't do it through the Stargate on the planet because the two of them weren't replying to radio calls and so couldn't be sent a remote to allow them to dial back to the desert planet.

Presumably the ship at the end was meant to be a cliffhanger!

I agree that the episode wasn't as dramatic as I was hoping, and involved a heck of a lot of shots of people plodding along in the (albeit very pretty) sand. I get the feeling that this series is going to be more about characters and less of what my gran always used to refer to as "shoot bang fire" shows. Whether that will be enough to maintain the viewers' interest remains to be seen.

Was the vortex something real, first testing and then leading Scott through the vision of the priest? Or was it all an hallucination? If it was real, did it 'Gate onto the Destiny with Scott? I'm not sure if it was just one of those "gusts" showing the air system coming back up, or the vortex, but there was something in that one corridor.

Well, I still think they should have discussed Palmer and Curtis and whether they could be rescued or not. Destiny can't afford to lose that many people. It's not like they can call Earth for replacements!

I had to laugh when Mrs. Armstrong said, "I am a personal friend of the President and of the first lady."
Considering that the real world President's friends include a racist priest, a convicted terrorist & a whole bunch of tax evaders... well, it puts senator Armstrong's sacrifice in a whole new light. Maybe he figured he might use a 'heroic sacrifice' to make his legacy look better when whatever scandal is in his past might be discovered? ;-)
(Admittedly, the Stargate-verse might have a different President than real life, but it was an amusing thought.)

Is Henry Hayes still President in the Stargate-verse? Last time we saw him was in Continuum but that was an alt-timeline. IIRC he was elected at the end of Season 7, so could be on his second term.

Callie - Rush and Young have an urgent conversation about whether it’s wise for Eli to stick his hand into the event horizon when the Gate’s about to shut down. I can’t believe in all the years of the Stargate programme that they’ve never experimented with trying to stop a Gate closing – for instance, at the end of its 38 minutes – by inserting something into the event horizon.
Thinking it over, I remembered we saw something inserted into the event horizon of a Stargate in the second episode of SG-1... Kowalsky's head.

Didn't turn out well. ;-)

And thinking further on it, what was the plot of the Atlantis episode Thirty-Eight Minutes? Puddlejumper is stuck in a stargate & if they don't get through before time runs out they'll be cut in half.

Good thing the stargate in this episode read the script & knew it wasn't supposed to chop off Eli's arm & leave the others stranded like any other stargate would. ;-)

I suppose it could be argued that in Thirty-Eight Minutes it was the Gate's limit that was about to be reached whereas in this episode, it was Destiny's time limit, i.e. it was Destiny which was trying to shut down the Gate, not the Gate itself, and that Destiny had been programmed not to do so if anything was in mid-transit.

*sigh* I really need to stop trying to bail the writers out!