Stargate: Universe – Recap & Review – Sabotage

photo: syfy

Stargate: Universe
Sabotage

Original Air Date: May 7, 2010

Em – Sr. Reviewer
em@thetwocentscorp.com

Our reluctant heroes aboard the Destiny have now entered the void. They’re traveling through the space between galaxies, without a way of replenishing their food and water supplies, and without a hope for rescuing their lost crew members.

Just when you think it can’t get worse, of course, it does. Turns out, Destiny doesn’t have enough to get across the void.

Brody suggests they find a way of increasing the efficiency of the ship to work better with the power they have. This is why “troubled genius” characters like Rush bother me so much. Rush is so intent upon being gloomy and giving up that he doesn’t even try to come up with a solution!

They decide to recruit the aid of an expert in hyper-drive technology, Amanda Perry, who is disabled. Vanessa volunteers to switch bodies with her, ready to prove to Young that she can do anything – but then she can’t. After just a few moments in Perry’s body, she panics and returns to her own. Camille volunteers instead.

TJ attempts to make Vanessa feel better, but just then Rush and Perry come by, and Vanessa leaves before the situation can get any more awkward. Emily Post never covered stuff like this! Perry tries some nasty space-fruit that’s on offer in the mess hall and surprises everyone by not spitting it out in disgust, but she’s just excited about being able to feed herself.

Vanessa has an odd experience in the hallway, though really, you have to know what’s coming to realize that’s what that is. I approve of aiming for “subtle,” but this time they overshot subtle by a good bit.

Back on Earth, Sharon has taken some time off work so she and Camille can catch up. The two are enjoying a somewhat strained vacation until something explodes aboard the Destiny, causing it to drop out of FTL abruptly. Camille and Perry temporarily switch bodies, and several people are injured.

Vanessa is getting a check up in the infirmary and tells TJ that she’s missing some memories from just before the explosion. TJ thinks she has a concussion, and keeps her in the infirmary overnight. Vanessa starts to keep an eye on Franklin. She thinks that Franklin is aware of what’s going on, but just not in control of his body.

The Stargate lights up with an incoming wormhole, and Eli, Chloe, and Scott who come through. Yes, just like that – what a cop out! I was looking forward to some epic space hijinks to get them back aboard, and this is just anti-climactic.

Perry goes to talk to Eli about some calculations. Eli’s in a bad mood and doesn’t respond well when she calls him Math Boy. She relates that to how Rush used to call her Little Miss Brilliant. Failing to notice that Eli isn’t interested in the conversation, she rambles on about how she and “Nick” used to be so close and she had such a crush on him. Eli and I both try to figure out what other Nicholas Rush she could be talking about – except, not really, because of course there’s got to be more romantic drama about the spaceship Soap Opera. I mean, Destiny.

The scientists discover the cause of the explosion: an overload in one of the modules of the FTL drive. Meanwhile, Young is assembling a team to explore the planet, in case they have to evacuate the ship. TJ wants to join the team, but Young wants to send Scott instead. It’s a moot point, though, since the kino they send through gets fired on by aliens.

Brody sets up a still, and Rush takes Perry out for a drink. Perry asks Rush if he ever had any idea how she felt about him. He still doesn’t get it, so she invites him into her room. They start to make out, but he says he can’t do it, because it’s “complicated.” Before I could go congratulating him for being a better person than Young, though, he says it’s because he just had to relive Gloria’s death, rather than because of the ethical problems involved in Perry being in Camille’s body.

Camille, meanwhile, sends Sharon out to the store, wanting her to get out of the house for a little while. Sharon doesn’t return for hours, though, and Camille worries that she’s gotten into an accident. The stress causes Camille to have some sort of episode.

Vanessa tells Chloe about her dream, and Chloe realizes what it really means: one of the aliens took control of her body because she didn’t wipe her impression off the communication stone. The aliens sabotaged the ship, and soon after, aliens ships arrive to attack.

Young decides to sit in the command chair and try to tell the ship to jump to FTL. Vanessa is venting her problems to Franklin when he suddenly wakes up and says “the chair.” She runs to fetch Young and Rush, thinking that Franklin wants to sit in the chair himself. They bring Franklin back to the command room, and once he sits in the chair, the temperature drops, the room fills with mist, and Franklin tells them to leave.

The ship jumps to FTL, and because the most damaged module is now switched off, the ship’s efficiency has improved as well. It looks like they’re out of the woods – until next week’s disaster, of course. Perry says she hopes Rush needs her again, and kisses him goodbye.

Young returns to the command room to find Franklin has disappeared. That was actually a pretty chilling moment, no pun intended. There hasn’t been anything on Universe that’s actually creeped me out up until now, so props for that. It’s just unfortunate that it happened in an otherwise very weak episode. The A plot, fixing the ship, failed to hold my interest for long, and the B plot with Vanessa was confusing. Or maybe I couldn’t make sense of it the first time around because of the aforementioned lack-of-interest problem.

As for Perry: there were scenes where I found her genuinely interesting and sympathetic, but she was the only person we really got strong characterization of during this episode, and who knows if and when we’ll be seeing her again? Making her characterization come at the expense of the regular characters. They also completely glossed over all of Rush’s faults and painted him as such a tragic hero, which bothers me greatly. What did you guys think, though? Do you like Perry and want to see more of her? What do you think happened with Franklin? Give me your two cents!

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