Deliverance

 DVD, Stargate Universe S2 (Deliverance)

An exciting opening and conclusion, with a happy ending isn't enough to disguise a confused narrative. It was like a 'Voyager' story except without the structure. There are three groups other than Destiny and I wasn't sure exactly what the relation was to each other - we have the Ursini, which I was under the impression got us into this mess; the drones, which are the mess we're in; and the aliens from the previous galaxy whom have somehow found their way to this one and are on the way to... help? I mean what was the point of all that stuff with them desperate to retrieve Chloe after what they'd done to her to make her change into, presumably, one of them? They make a deal with Destiny to take on the drones until they're both sufficiently restored to escape, and the price is that we let them take Chloe, but then they'll give her back as good as new? Where did that all come from? It was such a muddle! Then the Ursini themselves who I thought were the double-crossing bad guys in all of this turn out to be self-sacrificial enough to go on a suicide run in order that Destiny will survive because they feel bad for getting them into the scrape in the first place? I don't know about all this...

The B-story is all about putting an idea from Eli into practice where they capture one of the dormant drones and try to find its weakness. That made sense although at first I wasn't sure why Dr. Parke shows up for the mission with Scott and Greer simply because it's 'her turn' when surely she'd have been better used elsewhere, like, I don't know, helping them get the all-important shields back online so they can go to FTL and get out of there! But then I thought if the others are handling it, it makes sense they have a scientist along in the retrieval process although I'm not sure her expertise ever came into play as she was merely there to direct the shuttle into picking up the drone. Handy they were able to find one that was tiny enough to fit in the back of the shuttle, eh? They're successful in programming the drone to turn the other drones (that's not these drones, this is another group of drones, so I suppose there was a fourth party in the story - see what I mean about confusing?), into enemies, and then the second drones fight the first drones and Destiny can escape (it would have been very beneficial to have hoovered up as many of these reprogrammed drones as possible to use in future, but they hardly had the time for that as they barely escaped as it was). In the meantime the aliens with no name, or Other-Galaxy aliens as we could call them (as opposed to the Ursini, who are conveniently completely wiped out by the drone enemy so we don't have to ever think of them again!), also escape the drones, but there's the impression the truce was only temporary and they still want Destiny. Okay.

For all the confused messing about, the characters were all nicely played - we get people like Brody and Volker doing their thing with the shields, and Lieutenant James gets put in the pilot seat, or some such important position, even though she'd had a mere hour's training, but it was nice to see her doing something. Parke, as I mentioned, has plenty, but it was Chloe who really stood out as this accepting soul, allowing Young to do with her as he will, not holding any grudge and either stoically sitting in her prison cell or bravely going over to the Other-Galaxy aliens for who knows what surgical procedure that could just as easily have made her worse or killed her for all she knew. So it was a very good episode for her, her nature really shines through and it was especially nice at the end when Rush pays her a visit and shows concern about her throughout. Of course with him you never know if it's genuine concern or a pragmatic, self-seeking big picture view that believes she still has untold depths of alien knowledge within that will assist in his motive of learning more about the secret of the Destiny's mission, and succeeding at it. You can never quite trust him again. But the crew all being friends, there being no simmering tension, everything reset back to normal, or as normal as it can be, makes it a relatively positive instalment. Who knows what the last half season will bring, I didn't even remember the Other-Galaxy aliens showed up again. Still such a tragedy the series didn't last longer.

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