The Hunt

 DVD, Stargate Universe S2 (The Hunt)

Not quite up to the recent standard, going a little soapy (a little more than usual, I mean). It's good to have some time on a planet, but it does make it more like a conventional, relatively unambitious story, the kind of filler they could do on a semi-regular basis in 'SG-1' and even 'Atlantis.' Nothing wrong with it as such, just that it doesn't have the fascinating sci-fi angle that makes an episode stand out, and I'm not sure about some of the choices. Making Greer into someone that's lost his nerve and now second-guesses himself, while a dramatic development, isn't the kind of thing that appealed, nor is Volker's teddy bear pining over the injured Dr. Parke. The only storyline with real potential was the one where Rush plays a prank on Eli and Brody. It's a little manipulative and creepy that he would go to these lengths, but that's how Rush works, in more ways than one: he insensitively puts Volker off from his dreams, while teaching any dissent a lesson. Eli finds the stasis pod room that will become integral to the end of the season (and series, sob!), and Rush suggests they leave until they can check up on it in the database, no doubt having heard Eli complaining about taking orders from him. He must have already discovered it or know about it from the Bridge interface, but it must have been him that activated the pod when Brody's in it (I ask you, why would you stand inside one!), to put some heat under Eli and prove that once again he's right and they should just follow his lead.

I liked the technology and wished the plot had been extended so Eli roped in various others, not just Chloe, in an effort to free Brody without informing Rush, but it was just some light comic relief to jump to between the other stories. The main one is tracking down the lair of a sabre-toothed bear-wolf creature on this forest planet that has conveniently captured TJ and another guy alive to feed on later. It's a bit ho-hum, and including CGI creatures isn't a great idea at the best of times, even in big budget films it never looks right, and that was the case here with the bear-wolf and the deer, but they were going to do it because they could. They do try to mitigate the effects by showing as much as possible from the perspective of the animal and having it move really fast, but even so you can't disguise unreality. What was most unreal was that it turns out to have cutesy eyes like Gollum when Greer faces it down in its lair and he and TJ theorise it's actually intelligent because it looks at their fire! I understand they were trying to pay off that he was getting over his fear in doing that, but it seemed entirely unreasonable that these creatures were intelligent enough to understand they had to let their prey go - I mean they'd already killed several people (apparently all that were left of the Lucian Alliance prisoners other than Varo!), and violently taken these other two for later, so they were predators, why would they just calmly let the prey walk away! Ludicrous. At least Greer didn't become a vegetarian out of the experience as we see the crew enjoying a long-awaited barbecue at the end!

The way Varo and the others were crashing about in the forest, having a conversation at normal speaking levels, even walking upright with little attempt at concealment or using torches at night, suggests their hunter credentials may not be quite as impressive as they like to make out, so that took a lot of the reality out of the situation: they should have been barely speaking at all, crouching double and creeping along as silently as they could, but then they couldn't so easily have the conversations about Greer being a liability and needing to use his fear, not be fearless. I like Varo, and it's good that because of his actions in this episode he's no longer considered a threat. But wasn't he already pardoned and one of the crew? And when Young gave him a small hand gun when he allows him to take over the mission I couldn't help thinking a bigger weapon would have been a better and fairer option. I was also forced to wonder where they get all their bullets from because they must have a finite source and have used a fair few since they got to Destiny? I suppose we're not supposed to think about things like that in the same way on 'Voyager' they could always get new shuttles, etc. The difference there was they did at least have Replicator technology and could manufacture parts if they found enough energy.

Wasn't so keen on the tension at the end when Young finds Varo and TJ together, we really don't need more of that kind of thing that was going on earlier in the series between him and Telford, but it's not like we need to worry about it as there's only a handful of episodes left. That's my biggest complaint about this episode: it was too much of a time-waster, not really adding much to the series when there's so little time to play with. Why did it have to be TJ with a nondescript guest soldier, why couldn't it have been someone we knew? Though I did like her rousing 'speech' about him having two choices, either he fights and holds his head high when they get back to the ship, or she saves him and he'll feel ashamed of himself. Good one! Otherwise I would much rather be doing stories where they explore the ship and uncover more about it which is what the Eli/Brody part could have been if it didn't degenerate into a comedy tinged with the sinister edge of Rush's manipulation of people to his will. He seems remarkably calm having just lost his great love Amanda Perry - so I suppose she was right and he didn't really care that much after all? And the philosophising about death between Greer and James was interesting and different, but maybe didn't suit their gung-ho characters much.

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