Epilogue

 DVD, Stargate Universe S2 (Epilogue)

I can't imagine a much more fitting ending for the series than what they did in the last scene of this one: the final living member of the original Destiny crew, Camille Wray, gives a speech opening a new school and we fly up over it to see the whole town, which then changes over time as ages pass until finally they even have their own space ship. It isn't the real Destiny crew's destiny, but it's a beautiful possible conclusion to their lives and legacy. Maybe it wouldn't have worked as series finale, maybe they did still need to tie up a few things in the 'real' characters' lives - for all I know they weren't even sure whether they'd be coming back for Season 3 or not at this point and felt they had to work up to a cliffhanger. All I know is that there wasn't really anything pressing back on the 'real' Destiny that we needed to return for two more episodes to see. Not that I'm complaining, I'm glad there are more episodes with stories to tell, but I doubt they can retain the same level of poignancy as this episode showed when it touched on the lives of our characters and what might have been. There's something so sad, bittersweet about the sweep of a life. So short and yet so full to the person living it, the memories made, the people known, and I felt this story encapsulated that well.

It's not all about the alternate timeline, it also throws in some hard new truths for some of the crew, about who they may end up associating with, about death in the near future - the two most affected being Volker and TJ, the first because he's set to die from possible kidney failure not long into the future, and TJ develops ALS and dies a few years later. It would be hard to process that in a normal environment, but as some alternate timeline that could possibly be averted it makes it even more of a confusing challenge. I would never have heard of the disease when I first saw this episode a few years ago, but Kenneth Mitchell, the actor who played several roles on 'DSC' died from it only recently, which puts the magnitude of it in perspective. In the 'Universe' world of sci-fi there are always possibilities, though even there it looks bleak - the database of the people of Novus included cures for that and many other diseases, but they had to get out before they could retrieve this irreplaceable data, preserving only a mere third, which didn't include the cure. There's still the Ancients' own database aboard Destiny, maybe they could run into the generational ships making their way to this planet, but it's almost impossible. These developments made the seriousness of the story so much more personal.

Much is packed in, they're dealing with three different groups, namely our characters, the alternate timeline versions, and the people who remain from their descendants (though that latter group don't have much involvement in the episode, August Schellenberg again not used nearly enough, sadly). The story alternates between these disparate times - at first I found the reliance on the kino footage to be a slight irritation with the tinny sound and visual glitches here and there (I thought perhaps it was meant to be a bit fuzzy to help disguise the old-age makeup, which wasn't bad but never looks quite real, but Camille's at the end was very realistic, as was her performance), but eventually they show actual flashbacks (which in a weird way are also flash-forwards since our people have yet to experience those years of their lives), with vast contrast between the bare, cold interiors of the underground database archives, and the vivid colour and homemade livings happening on the planet of the past. It made the alternate more real in some ways than the present, which is as much to do with my perspective of the series gearing up to end, and why I felt it made such a fitting final scene for the series, as it is about how it was shot.

Amid all these weighty issues and revelations there's time for the occasional spot of humour in the 'Stargate' tradition (mostly at Brody's expense, it must be said!), but also good heroic moments, too - the biggest when the last remaining crew have to get out of the archive as earthquakes rock it, the only escape route being a rickety ladder straight up the wall. TJ's rung breaks and she plummets to her death, only saved by the quick and brawny arm of Varo, still sweet on her in spite of the knowledge she and Young ended up being a family (he ended up marrying James!). He's able to swing her across to relative safety, but in doing so his own rung breaks and he falls to what I assumed was his doom. But Young doesn't like to leave a man behind, perhaps why they keep showing his guilt at killing Riley in the opening recap, and goes back for the former Lucian Alliance man who is still alive though heavily injured. A good hero moment in an episode that was generally much more about the broad strokes of life in the community they made without technology. I found that to be fascinating and I almost wonder if that wouldn't have been just as good a watch as going back into space and all the technology we expect. Depressingly, it's all irrelevant as we come to the end, but it made for one last hurrah for the series if they don't manage that level of quality in the two episodes that remain.

When I first watched this I found it to be a bit too much of a time-waster, inconsequential to much of the ongoing story, but I see it now as a tantalising and more suitable final moment for the series than it was afforded in reality. It was amusing when they cut between all these babies being born amid the screams of childbirth, yet Parke naming her first child after Dale Volker was touching, plus there's a certain level of creepiness and yet fascination in learning what became of them all had they followed that path of enforced self-sufficiency, making a new home on a planet far from their roots, but it isn't what is in their futures, whether the series had continued for many years or not. Even though there is no future, or perhaps because of it, what happens to the alternate characters has more meaning. I found even the simple idea of August's character remembering running through the halls of this archive as a child to hold a certain poignancy to it, returning to a life that is entirely gone. It's shot beautifully, the sets look good, it's refreshing to spend almost the entire episode off Destiny, and it gives us a glimpse into how character dynamics could change, and for all that I felt it was one of the better episodes.

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