I'm sure Chloe haters must be popping champaign corks all over tonight in the fact that she got left behind. Too bad Eli and Scott got left with her. Of course, you know that their gonna get back to Destiny somehow.

TJ also told Young about her pregnancy, and that he was the father. He took it rather well considering. Destiny is hardly the place for a child.

Interesting look at Greer's background. We saw how and why he ended up joining the military.

We get another look at the alien ship on the planet that Young marooned Rush on. Looks like Chloe may have picked up a few things from those aliens that grabbed her. Maybe Rush knows some stuff to, and that will lead to their rescue.

Could someone please clue me in to the purpose of all these stargates? As I said, SGU is the only show of the franchise I've followed. Were these ancients the same race as the alien that appeared in the original Stargate movie (that starred Kurt Russell)?

There's quite a handy guide to the Ancients here but in a nutshell, no, they're not the guys from the movie. The Ancients are the ancestors of humanity and seeded Earth and many other planets in different galaxies a few zillion years ago. The bad guys in the movie were the Goa'uld, who are parasites who take human hosts.

It was the Ancients (or Alterrans, to give them their proper name) who built the Stargates as an easier and much quicker means of travel than using spaceships.

Thanks, Callie

A Stargate episode featuring real Stargates! Woo-hoo for Martin Gero, who nearly always writes the stuff that matters. And the matte painting, special effects and CGI people must have had a field day!

It was nice seeing Riley becoming the new Kino driver.

I liked hearing Chloe using her father’s favourite phrase, “One step at a time.”

So what was that whooshing sound in the tunnels that seemed so important last week? We never did find out what it was – unless it was the spider sighing heavily? ;-)

Why does Young’s flashlight go out while he’s walking along the corridor? Just because she’s in power-saving mode, how can Destiny turn batteries off?

Why is Young’s hair getting longer but nobody else’s is?

Why do the aliens have a map of the Stargates? Have they found out how to use them? Do they even know what they are?

Everyone’s worrying about the fact that if they don’t find the missing team the next time Destiny jumps out of F.T.L., they’ll lose them forever, but nobody seems in the least bit concerned that they’re about to enter the vast space between galaxies and it could be months if not years before they next get a chance to go offworld and find more food, water and medicinal plants. Are they really so well supplied now that they can easily ride out that enormous amount of time? I’d have thought that their number one priority would be considering whether it would be better to find a liveable planet at the next stop and abandon Destiny rather than starve to death in the vast wastes of space. Also, Destiny’s trying to go into power-saving mode and they won’t let her. Do they have enough energy to keep the power on – especially important things like CO2 scrubbers and heat – all the way through the intergalactic trip?

Eli seems very confident that the Kino has found an exit, but all it’s showing is daylight coming down a sort of chimney. The opening at the top could be too narrow to get through or could be sealed off.

Nice to see Rush going on the rescue mission instead of sending Brody or Volker.

Why is Young going to talk to Volker about getting the recharging plates working again? Volker’s an astrophysicist – what would he know about them?! Brody’s the engineer. Does Patrick Gilmore have it in his contract that his character must be mentioned in every episode even if he doesn’t appear onscreen?

Once again, Chloe does nothing to comfort a friend when he’s in pain. She just walks past Matt as he stands at the stone chimney anguishing about Greer’s death, and doesn’t offer him a hand, or a shoulder, or a kind word or anything.

Scott’s comment about how Destiny’s address won’t show up on Eli’s remote if she’s in F.T.L. confirmed something I’d been thinking about for a while: it seems that the Icarus crew were very lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) that Destiny just conveniently happened to be out of F.T.L. when Rush and Eli worked out her address. However, IIRC, the very first scene of the series had sound effects that made it seem as if the ship was slowing down and coming out of F.T.L. just before the Gate started to dial in, and the implication seemed to be that she stopped because someone was dialling her Gate. But if that’s the case, why can’t Eli dial her and stop her as soon as they get within range? Why is her address not on the remote while she’s in F.T.L.?

We don’t actually see Eli collect the Kino on the foggy dinosaur planet, but I suppose he could have done it offscreen.

OK, I’m sure it’s not easy to be calm in the presence of a dinosaur, but Scott didn’t really need to waste bullets firing at it. He could easily have sprinted up the ramp and dived through the Gate before it reached them, and I’m not sure it could have fit through the Gate even it was able to crouch down. And he especially didn’t need to fire another burst from the top of the ramp.

Where did Eli dial to as the dinosaur was approaching? He apparently didn’t dial back to the planet of the ruins or Greer would have arrived in time to meet with them before they dialled out again. But dialling blind to the next planet on the route was very risky, regardless of the danger of staying where they were. Are the Stargates really so widely spaced that Planet Dinosaur was the only one they could reach from Planet Ruins?

Rush says, “Who would have guessed that Destiny had skipped over so many planets with Gates on?” Well, shouldn’t he know how many? In Air part 2 they knew exactly how many planets she had locked out while dialling the desert planet, so surely she always shows how many gated planets there are? The only way they might not know about other planets is if she skipped a whole star system or two.

On the sandstorm planet, Eli tells the others that the Kino which he sent to the next planet is saying that the atmosphere is toxic. Behind them, the Gate shuts down, apparently on its own. Stargates only close down on their own for two reasons: the maximum 38 minutes have passed, or there’s nothing keeping it open, not even radio waves. Did it really take a whole 38 minutes to work out that the atmosphere was toxic, or did the Kino get bored and stop transmitting?

Scott comes directly from Planet Sandstorm to Planet Pretty Snow but isn’t wearing his scarf across his face when he arrives on the latter, unlike Eli and Chloe when they arrive later. As far as I can tell in the dark, he doesn’t even still have his scarf around his neck. Why would he take it off beforehand? He would be walking into the Gate with his eyes full of sand and wouldn’t be able to see any immediate danger on the next planet.

As Team Scott arrived at the alien ship, I glanced down to see how much time was left for the episode, and growled to myself, “This had better be a three-parter. If they arrive back at Destiny and everything’s done and dusted in the next five minutes I will not be happy!” I should have trusted Martin Gero more.

Until Eli found Rush’s glasses on the alien ship, I hadn’t even realised that he didn’t have them any more!

Have we seen that establishing shot of Destiny before – the one immediately after Scott tells Eli that he has fifteen minutes to work on the alien ship? It looked much clearer than any previous shot and made Destiny look the size of a large city!

So who’s the person in Greer’s photograph that he was looking at a few episodes ago? He seemed happy to see whoever was in it, so I doubt it was anyone from his family.

Two episodes in a row without Camille. Did anyone notice until I mentioned it?!

Great episode. The Stargate die-hards should be happy that there was more excitement and adventure in this one, plus lots of Stargate action!

It'll be interesting to see whether they're actually able to bring Franklin back into the show in a future episode. In this one, T.J. says that she is 22 weeks pregnant. On the Faith planet, towards the end of the month that they'd been there, she told Chloe that she was 15 weeks pregnant. It's not clear how much time passed between Justice and the beginning of Faith but I'd say that at least 12 weeks have passed since Franklin went into the Chair and he's been in a coma ever since.

Unless the actor has been on a crash diet, it's not going to be very convincing if Franklin recovers consciousness after a 3 month coma and hasn't lost any weight.

Actually, it's amazing that the emergency supplies contain enough intravenous stuff to have kept him alive this long ...

Actually, it's amazing that the emergency supplies contain enough intravenous stuff to have kept him alive this long ...

It's the Gilligan's Island syndrome at work here. Things just magically appear when needed.

Indeed. Although they have occasionally found other food on planets, the bulk of their ration has been that emergency powder they brought with them which has fed about 80 people for 22 weeks and will no doubt continue to do so for over another year. Hence my concern about whether they're stocked up for the long trip in between galaxies!

Sooooooo... how many ships did the Ancients send to how many galaxies? If Destiny is leaving this galaxy to go to another that indicates a lot of gates on those ancient ships. (Very well stocked.)

On the other hand maybe Destiny isn't the only ship out there? Maybe there are other ships in other galaxies surrounding the Milky Way that could have picked up the 9th chevron signal? Would seem to make a lot more sense then sending out ships in just one direction.

Given that the stargates in this galaxy have those big bases & ramp it seems even more inexplicable that you can only dial a gate by using a remote & can only know what is on the other side by sending through a kino. You'd think that the base could contain equipment that could tell you what is on the other side of a given wormhole by contacting the equipment on the other side & ditto for someway of dialing in case a remote broke down.

Leaving this galaxy to go to another.
Did they join the ship late on its trip through this galaxy? As Eli said galaxies are big.

Also wasn't the point of Destiny to provide a destination for colonists/explorers/whatever from the Milky Way to this galaxy & its gate system?
If Destiny leaves this galaxy then this galaxy becomes unavailable, unless at some point Destiny turns around or there is a second Ancient ship just arriving at this galaxy.

Additionally leaving this galaxy means dangling plot points.
What happened to those members who went through the stargate in one of the early episodes? I kept expecting them to show up again.
What about the aliens? While it might be possible they could have intergalactic travel I don't think earlier episodes indicated that level of tech.

And on a personal note Hulu has changed when they shows eps of Universe. Whereas before they aired a day after Syfy now they air 8 days after Syfy, so if I do have nits it'll be a week after everyone has posted theirs. (So as far as I know my comments about leaving the galaxy may have already been dealt with in the next ep.)

Did they join the ship late on its trip through this galaxy?
I think we have to assume that they did.

If Destiny leaves this galaxy then this galaxy becomes unavailable
It’s a fair point, and a terrible waste of Stargates. I can’t remember whether they’ve clarified how the Gate-seeding ships work: do they carry a massive supply of Gates on board or do they use materials they find along the way to manufacture new Gates as they go along? Whichever, the only half-sensible theory I can come up with is that the Ancients were thinking that – when they got around to it – they would gate to Destiny, have a look around the galaxy she was in at the time and then turn around and backtrack, checking out all the earlier galaxies she visited.

Or, as you suggest, there’s another Destiny-type ship tagging along out there and so they planned to take one forward and turn the other one around.

What happened to those members who went through the stargate in one of the early episodes
Unless the blue aliens have picked them up, I don’t expect to see Palmer and Curtis again. They didn’t have a remote and so were stuck wherever they gated to.

What about the aliens?
Yes, it’ll be interesting to see whether they’re able to pursue Destiny if she does head off into the void between galaxies.

if I do have nits it'll be a week after everyone has posted theirs
And I’m going to have to be really careful that I don’t reply with comments based on the following episode!

I do wonder about those gate-seeding ships. What did they use to plant the gates? Proto-replicators?

Oh, dear lor'. If Destiny catches up with a seeding ship and gets over-run by Replicators, I'm flying to Vancouver and buying a gun ... ;-)

Well, Replicators are the closest to robots I recall seeing Ancients use.

On the other hand I did find myself wondering how much more interesting this show would have been had Destiny's computer been an insane AI like Castle Heterodyne in the webcomic Girl Genius.

There was that thing they found in a crate in Faith which they said looked like a robot, but on my screen it was so dark I couldn't see what it looked like at all! But it sure didn't look like a Replicator, thankfully.

As for AIs, a lot of people on sites like Gateworld are convinced that Destiny herself is an AI but that the crew hasn't learned how to talk to her properly yet. They wonder if that's how she has stopped at planets which contain things that the crew need (the lime in Air part 3, the ice in Water, etc). There was a throwaway line when Destiny stopped in Air part 2 and locked out most of the Gates in range - Rush said that she'd locked them out because he'd told her what they needed (presumably by somehow inputting it into her systems) but he never really explained further.

Yeah, I inferred from that line that Destiny "thinks", but since it apparently doesn't talk how much it really thinks or just calculates things based on input is unknown. If it is an AI though it's probably an earlier version of that which was later used for Replicators which would make for interesting possibilities...

Why doesn't Greer try to call the others with his radio? Or did he lose his radio.