Resurgence

 DVD, Stargate Universe S2 (Resurgence)

Telford comes back! I'd thought he did, and indeed, he did, the aliens apparently benign, at least enough not to harm him and allow him to search out Destiny on the seed ship they'd taken over, to form a truce to take out the boss ship of some automated drone vessels. There's some kind of war going on between them and these aliens (the Ursini, or Ersini, or maybe even Orsini - I'm going with the first one). It all looks really nice, as ever, the visual effects very accomplished, even beautiful sometimes, such as escaping an attack by following the seed ship into a star's corona which takes out many of the pursuing drones. It also sounds appropriately evocative of space. So sound and visuals a-okay, it's just that the story tried to whack in a bit too much and yet wasn't satisfactory, there's no underlining of the plot, it's a little too vague, I found myself dropping out sometimes in dialogue-heavy scenes which suggests it wasn't holding the attention as the series can. Otherwise I don't know, it's difficult to say why it didn't work, with a good mixture of exploring an abandoned hulk, getting Telford back, and going into battle against many much smaller ships. But I found myself wondering things like how could the shuttle dock with Destiny when it suddenly comes under attack by the drones in the debris field, a graveyard of Ursini ships? Destiny never dropped shields and yet they were able to get in. Those are the kind of details I like to know, and growing up with the very well defined rules of Trek, I wanted that here.

There was also a spot of confusion over what game the Ursini were playing - it seemed like they'd double-crossed their human allies, but I wasn't sure how. Weren't they expecting there to be lots of drone ships where they were going? Rush, characteristically, advised double-crossing them in the first place, just as he shows a lot of irritation with the other scientists (no wonder Brody wanted to go off with Scott and Greer to explore the ship in the debris!), and is very dismissive. But he is still grieving, lest we forget, he lost the woman whose mind was within Gin's body, Dr. Perry. He's able to talk to Eli as one who knows, Eli's become quite unfocused in his work, various people worried about him, Camille tries to talk to him, but like a typical modern young man he refuses even to stay in the same room when the painful subject is broached. At least Rush's blunt, unsentimental, facts-of-life attitude to dealing with him gets somewhere, but it's interrupted before he can finish or Eli can run away. I think that's it, the episode was very unfinished in all its plot lines, that's what takes away from a story that would have been otherwise fine.

We have Eli not getting back to normal, not reacting well to Gin's death, but holding it all in, too. You have Chloe continuing to be distant with Scott (then cries when she points out he's being that way, too!), because she thinks her time is almost up - that develops into her going alien and escaping during the battle to go somewhere on Destiny and do something... we don't know what. Could be good, could be bad, we're not told. Wait till next time! Then there's the aliens versus the drones - are our people the victim of a trick, or not? In the chaos of battle it's anyone's guess. Is this some kind of mid-season mini-finale? Did they even have those then? Or is it merely a cliffhanger as we sometimes see, not every episode neatly wrapped since it is a form of serialised storytelling. There are plenty of character scenes, like Brody and Greer bantering about the third EV suit that's recently been fixed and why should Greer be the one to wear it (easier to fix, is Brody's quick-witted answer, all very fitting), Varo wants to help TJ, despite the debacle of Simeon happening on his watch, and she eventually allows him out to assist with casualties. Volker, Parke and Brody in their put-upon roles under Rush (no surprise he sits in the Captain's chair!), are always fun. But we don't see much of others like Lt. James, people are quite isolated now that they have the command centre on the Bridge, and everyone seems to be in their own little areas, much like a Trek starship, except without the myriad crewmen. So things are a little bare. I hope the next part retroactively improves this one.

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