Now that’s a mid-season finale! Which is clever, because this episode wasn’t filmed as the mid-season finale – that’s the next episode. But even though it’s bleedin’ obvious how Rush will catch up with Destiny, it was still a really good way to leave us on a cliffhanger.
So America and Britain don’t get a new episode until March or even April. Apparently, however, Canada will jump right in with the second half of the season in January. Beth – you need to alert us if/when you know when the first episode will air, please!
It’s good to learn that they’re now going on offscreen missions to collect food, water etc.
Spencer shot himself in the right side of his head and fell onto his left side. Greer comes in, shouts at him a bit and then pushes him over onto his back, and it seems that only then does he see the bullet hole in Spencer’s head. But surely it would have been visible while Spencer was on his side?
Did they really bring body bags as essential items from Icarus? Pessimistic much?!
I initially wrote the following while doing the transcript:
Why were so many people up at three in the morning? I wouldn’t imagine that there’s so much to do on the ship that they need to do shift work. I definitely can’t see why Young would be asleep at two but up at three and having a meeting with the head of HR.
However, I later realised that Alaina (who plays T.J.) had mis-phrased the sentence. It’s not the first time that she has put a break in the wrong place and I just wish that the directors would pull her up on it. She said the lines thus: “Rigour’s set in pretty good but not completely, so I’d guess an hour – either side of oh-two-hundred.” However, once I had googled “rigour mortis” and learned that it doesn’t set in until at least three hours after death, I realised that she shouldn’t have left a gap after the word “hour”. With the gap, it says that rigour set in an hour ago at around 2 a.m.; without it, it doesn’t imply that only an hour passed since death. There’s a huge difference.
However, Scott and the others who provided each others’ alibis by playing cards together were up between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. so either they don’t get much sleep or they’re allowed to sleep in late!
I doubt that any of the writers or producers are even aware of it, but Young lists several of the characters thus: “Lieutenant Scott, Eli, Mr. Brody, Lieutenant James and Doctor Park.” How does Eli feel about being treated as the kid of the bunch, not even being given the courtesy of a title?
Young gets very annoyed when Rush radios from the control interface room while everyone’s supposed to be in the Gateroom. But isn’t that down to his soldiers? Someone should either have frogmarched Rush to the Gateroom in the first place, or not allowed him to sneak out later.
What were the chances that Eli would shine his flashlight in just the right way to enable him to spot the shadow of the gun in the air vent in Young’s quarters? Rush should have hidden the gun in a more obvious place.
Eli finds the pistol and Scott radios Young to get down there. There’s a commercial break and then Young walks in asking, “Where was it?” in such a way that suggests that Scott told him what he’d found over the radio while Young was making his way to his quarters. I’m not sure that’s good military protocol, not to mention that other people could hear the conversation.
Young tells Chloe that Camille will come after him because the I.O.A. wants the chance to have “one of their own” in charge. I thought that Jack put Rush in overall charge, so why would Young’s removal from the chain of command affect that?
Young says he doesn’t want Scott defending him because he doesn’t want it to seem like “the military against the civilians”. So he appoints Scott’s girlfriend instead. Yeah, that’s gonna make the rest of the crew feel much better. (/sarcasm)
Again with the SG-1 references! Anyone who’s not seen the predecessor series won’t have a clue what Brody’s talking about when he says that they don’t have a little grey alien to set things right if anyone sits in the Chair.
That Chair is more than a little bizarre. No matter how 1.0 it is, why would the Ancients build a Chair that digs holes in your head every time you want some information?!
Still no sign of Riley in the Infirmary!
My heartfelt congratulations – and apologies – to Airman Rennie who I immediately renamed Airman Redshirt but who amazingly made it back in one piece!
With their iPhones, iPods and now the mention of iMovie, how much are the producers getting paid for all this product placement?!
Considering how he looked like he was about to widdle himself with excitement when he got the news of the alien ship, and considering that he has barely any time to investigate the ship when he finally gets to the planet, Rush seems to be on a Sunday afternoon stroll as he walks across the terrain.
Rush says that he heard a shot and went to investigate. Rush investigating gunfire? Doesn’t sound like him. I would have thought he’d have been more likely to radio for the military to come and investigate in case someone had gone bonkers and was firing randomly at anything that moved.
When Young hauls Rush to his feet during the fight and then stares into his eyes, I’ve not seen a KMYF moment like that for years!!
Can I just pause for a moment to say once again just How Much I totally adore Nicholas Rush? Despite the fact that he’s a complete and utter bastard, Robert Carlyle plays him with such conviction that I still want to believe that Rush genuinely believes he’s doing what he does for the good of the crew. I know that he doesn’t want to go back but I’m still convinced that he wouldn’t deliberately endanger the majority of them just for his own benefit. Oh, he’d definitely endanger (or even sacrifice) one or a few, but not the whole crew.
Young comes through the Gate with about five seconds to spare. Why is nobody sticking their arm into the event horizon by then to stop the Gate from closing?
Eli tells Young that even Scott didn’t see the Kino footage of Rush coming into Spencer’s room. How didn’t he see it? He was in Eli’s room when Eli accessed the missing suicide message – did he conveniently pop out for a pee just before Rush arrived on the footage?
If both Eli and Young are the only people to have seen Rush’s arrival in Spencer’s quarters, surely Eli must suspect that Young did something deliberate to Rush on the planet. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would just not mention it and there are a lot of long looks between the two of them in the Infirmary, but I would have expected him not to be able to help himself in asking questions.
Watching the episode a second time, Rush’s early comments about Spencer’s suspicious death (“You put ordinary people under enough stress, I think you’ll find they’re capable of just about anything. ... I doubt you’ll find many tears shed over this man”) really came home to roost, didn’t they?!
It was good to see Chloe get some useful time for once. But Young ... Young has gone from a thug who lies about his identity and beats up people who can’t really fight back for fear of hurting someone else’s body to an outright murderer. Oh, Stargate Command, when did you start searching the dregs of the military for your staff?!
So of course the big question now is: (no, not “How is Rush gonna get back to Destiny?” Like I said, I think that’s pretty obvious) Did Rush shove Franklin into the Chair? Did Franklin really go in of his own accord? Or were Camille’s hands shaking in her quarters because she did it?
I rather thought that Franklin himself got into the chair, not that someone forced him to do so. As soon as he asked Eli to get himself something to eat I knew he was going to do it.
I was stunned when Young came through the Gate and said that Rush did not make it. I do not really like Rush - do not like anyone actually except possibly Eli - but could not believe he would be left behind, but then remembered the ship and figured of course Rush will be able to fix it and can somehow catch up to the Destiny. It will be interesting to see just how he does that.
Space Channel has a show afterwards that talks about SGU; I do not generally watch it but did last night because for some unknown reason Numb3rs did not air on another channel at that time. They had a couple of phone blurbs with Eli and Young's characters which basically said nothing, but it was mentioned that the 'back half' would not be airing until March. I will be checking my local TV Times though just to make sure, and also probably the website as well. I personally do not like the idea that they are waiting so long.
With their iPhones, iPods and now the mention of iMovie, how much are the producers getting paid for all this product placement?!
Not to mention that I don't believe that Apple makes iMovie for Windows PCs (I think Eli has a Dell).
Ah, another episode in which those stones were nowhere in sight. That was one factor favouring it for me.
I must admit I didn't see the end coming. Young basically left Rush to die. No doubt Rush will find a way to get that ship wreck working and use it to get back to Destiny, but Young has no way of knowing it.
Camille is another character I wouldn't mind seeing chucked out an airlock. I wonder how long she would have lasted before the military on the ship staged a coup? What the heck is her role supposed to be anyway?
Now we have to wait until March. Why did Sci-Fi split the season? Why not run it all at once? Current management should be fired.
It has just occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, that wrecked ship has a working gate on it. It did not look big enough but there could be quite a bit buried below the surface. Rush could use it to gate back to the Destiny. Just a thought.
Actually they said the ship was not an Ancient design so it seems unlikely it has a gate on it.
On the other hand, why can't someone use the gates to go from planet to planet in this galaxy?
If anyone would have an idea of the next planet Destiny would gate to it would be Rush.
But can he activate the Gate? Did Young leave him a remote? I know that Rush was holding a scanning device of some kind but was that also the Gate remote or something separate?
Actually, if Young left him a remote so that he can get off that planet and try and find one with food and water, I can forgive him for what he did. If he didn't, then he left Rush to die.
Well, we don't really know. Would Young stoop so low as to totally abandon Rush on a dead planet? Rush may have been wrong to try and get Young to step down, but that does not warrent a death sentence.
If Young truly wanted Rush dead, why didn't he just shoot him when they were alone on the planet. When Young got back to Destiny, he could have made up the same story he did. There would have been no way to check to see, of course.
Re: Kmorgan's post
Intresting, & a possible alternative to the "let's fix up this alien spacecraft, that's nearby, to reach Destiny, before the end of the series...", approach that Rush might have to do, to rejoin the rest of the Crew.
As for the iMovie reference, unless Eli's Dell is running a illegally hacked copy of the latest version of Apple's OSX operating system, it runs Windows Movie Maker, or another companies editing software, but not iMovie...
Maybe Young couldn't bring himself to kill Rush in cold blood. Whilst I see your point about product placement that is what real people use, we use ipods and iphones and i movie we don't use mp3 players cell phones and movie editing software, (well we do but we don't call it that). Like when on TV someone says lets have a soft drink or soda when in real life you'd say lets have a coke/fanta/sevenup. Apologies to Americans who don't recognise the products not sure how universal seven up or fanta are.
Well, leaving Rush stranded without any food or water is just the same as shooting him with a gun. It will just take longer for him to die.
True but it's proably just that little bit easier to do. Especially as he left him with an alien ship so he at least has a chance.
Yes, as long as Young can sleep at night, everything's fine. /sarcasm.
He doesn't know that he's in a sci-fi series where the characters perform miracles on a daily basis. He doesn't even know whether Rush can get the hatch open, let alone get inside and work out all the alien instrumentation. What he's done is left a man to die slowly instead of having the guts to shoot him in the head, and I refuse to give him any credit for even vaguely hoping that Rush can get the alien ship working. I don't even give him credit for saving their limited supply of bullets!
Yeah your probably right, maybe he felt a bullet was to quick for Rush but still it's probably easier to leave someone to die than actually do it yourself so your right, he didn't have the guts, still its not like Rush didn't deserve it, he stranded them halfway across the universe after all.