Sabotage

 DVD, Stargate Universe S1 (Sabotage)

For all the disappointment over the easy resolution to the missing people, the musical montage that they love so much, and a rapid conclusion to the alien attack story, this one worked on most levels otherwise. They threw a lot into such a short running time and despite not being an action-packed episode it was, far more importantly, a character-based one. I would have liked to have seen the old adversary, those skinny aliens, board the ship and have a firefight with our brave people, but the real stuff was Dr. Amanda Perry's last moments away from her paralysed body. She's Dr. Rush's old colleague (not old really, 'past colleague' would be more accurate - being both a brilliant mind and a supermodel at the same time), whom it's necessary to bring in to solve the Destiny's latest problem: it ain't gonna reach the next galaxy before petering out, and while the ship itself can drift on and eventually reach it, that will be long after everyone aboard her is dead. The resolution to Scott, Eli and Chloe's predicament, stuck on a planet in the previous galaxy, is resolved all of a sudden: the ship breaks out of FTL for no known reason, the Stargate engages, and boom, they're back on board. I didn't remember how they were saved, and now I know why, since it was pretty unremarkable. It's more of an aside than anything, clearly we need to get three of our core cast back, but I wish a little more panache had been used.

Then it's onto the real issue of the episode, that of fixing, and eventually realising they need to break off, the damaged engine, thus giving them the efficiency across all the others which will in turn get them to where the ship wants to go. We didn't really need Dr. Perry after all since all they had to do was program the robot (which was found a while back), to go in and disengage the damaged part, but the real reason isn't for her technical expertise, it's to have a look from a sci-fi perspective at what it would be like if you were a paraplegic from a young age to suddenly have the opportunity to live like everyone else for a few weeks. That Rush respects her means he's the target for her temptations - there again we have the implications of using someone else's body that doesn't belong to you, for personal things, and surprisingly that wasn't touted as a reason for restraint, merely that Rush is in a fragile state where the personal is concerned since reliving his wife's death recently. Perry makes the most of her brief span of freedom, putting things into perspective for some: Lieutenant James, who thought she could do anything, especially when asked of her by Colonel Young, is unable to adjust to the radical lifestyle of living in a chair which can only be operated by breath; Eli, who wishes he wasn't there, while Perry would give anything to be; and Rush himself, who learns to relax and let his copious hair down - in Brody's home-brew still, as that appears to be the social spot of choice at the moment!

Camille is the brave soul who takes on Perry's body for the time she's required to help Rush fix Destiny's systems and learns what it's like to live like that, but Perry herself is the real draw of the episode, showing delight in every simple experience that everyone else has learnt to take for granted, so that her eventual farewell has so much more weight to it. There's also a parallel between Camille's experiences and Dr. Franklin who has come to a greater level of awareness than previously exhibited, to the extent that while Young decides the best thing for Destiny's safety when the aliens attack, is for him to jump in the Chair that will hopefully give him control, he ends up giving the job to Franklin. It was a hard decision for a military man like him to make, to pass over the risky role to someone who may not even be in a fit state of mind to do it, but on the very precipice of taking the Chair, Rush and James are able to persuade him Franklin wants to go back in, and can. We even end with a mystery, the disappearance of Franklin - has he been evaporated, inducted into the ship itself, blown up, or somehow wandered off (though Riley was guarding what I assume was the only door into the chamber)?

I haven't even mentioned the theme of the title, which is James' realisation she's being controlled by the aliens to sabotage the ship. A good wrinkle with the stones is they need to be put back properly - since James threw the board away from her in horror she kept open a doorway into her mind which the aliens exploited. There's a moral there somewhere. I think it was their sabotage that caused the stranded crew to return, so it was a blessing in disguise, and it was a nice symmetry with the season that they should have one more encounter with the enemy kind making it another good episode that shows they've got into their stride now. My one concern is that this could have made for a strong season finale and closed out the aliens of that galaxy (which don't appear to have the resources or technology to pursue them into the next galaxy, for all that they were able to follow them out of the one they inhabit). I don't recall the end of the season being particularly good, but maybe I'm misremembering. The important thing is that this precise moment the series works! And that's even with what I've come to see as going to Earth as holding back the characters a little. Mainly though, you feel for Perry and Rush and the difficulties of their different circumstances, and making us feel sympathy for the characters allows you to make good drama. Can they make it four in a row next time?

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