shavedape
Well Known GateFan
Since this episode deals with divergent time lines that are presented in a peripatetic fashion then please expect the flow to be a bit jerky at times. The episode’s narrative jumps back and forth without much segue, if any. Forewarned is forearmed mon ami.
This episode of SGU (written by Carl Binder) continues the events that happened in the previous episode “Common Descent”. Having found their own descendants (from a different time line) colonizing a planet (colonists who are now cut off from contact with their home world) the crew of Destiny takes their descendants back to their home world even though the CO2 scrubbers on Destiny are about to die. Oh noes!
“Epilogue” opens with an aged Young (pardon the pun) on his death bed. A less aged Chloe sits vigil nearby. He asks if she's TJ but she says no, she's Chloe. She tells him his son Stephen will soon be there. Okay, so in this time line Young is old and dying and his family is coming over to see him off to the great beyond, got it. Cut to the current time line scene where the shuttle carrying Scott and Yaozu (sp?) and a smattering of others lands on Novus, the home planet of the colonists. As the shuttle settles to the ground in what looks like a park (in an incredibly modern city) a statue of what appears to be a very stalwart Col. Young is present in the foreground.
Novus – which is the name of the planet the colonists are from – means “new” and was monikered by the alt-time line crew of Destiny that was thrown 2000 years into the past and redirected to this planet during the botched “Eli dials Earth while inside a sun” adventure some episodes back. Good thing he and several other people grabbed kinos (six to be exact) before they jumped thru the wormhole in their botched attempt to make it back to Earth. The kinos came in handy to document their exciting new life on a planet where they were starting from scratch.
Back in the current time line when the shuttle lands Yaozu says he knows where the archive vault is located (his father worked there when he was a kid, how convenient). A quick call to Young gets the “doors” opened with a blast from one of Destiny’s big guns. They go inside, take a trip down an elevator (replete with Muzak) and then Yaozu tells them it’s the Teneran archive (whatever that means). Eli blathers some information for us, the viewers, even though he’s shown conveying that info to Young. He says the place is powered by wind, solar and geothermal, which explains why the lights are on and the Muzak is playing, plus it provides a nice little eco-friendly, politically correct lecture to edify us viewing heathens. How nice. I feel smarter and more eco-friendly already.
So anyway, there are seismic shocks going on whilst they investigate the archive building. It’s decided to do an uplink to get all the archival information to Destiny toot sweet, which could take days based on the size of all the info. While that’s going on Chloe shows up and finds her diary in the archives – I’ll give you a minute to digest that one...
Yes, that’s right gentle reader, Chloe has a diary. At first I was picturing her grabbing a notebook and pen when Telford was screaming at everyone to go thru the gate with only the clothes on their backs. It’s all about priorities, gentle reader, priorities, and it isn’t hard to picture Chloe doing this. But then I remembered she was “documenting” some stuff on a kino when she was going thru her bluefish transformation -- important stuff all about boys and unicorns and Bubblicious bubble gum (watermelon flavor if I remember correctly). At any rate, Chloe’s diary narrates certain alt-time line scenes that explain the immediate events after the truncated gate attempt. One assumes the diary was all done via kino although a hand written hard copy could have been entered into the Novan archival database. One also assumes the kinos have a near unlimited power supply as they were used to document things for years as shown in this episode. How delightfully convenient.
If Chloe did hand write a diary it begs the question of how she got paper and pen to do so? Did she happen to be holding those items as she ran thru the gate during the evacuation? Did someone else? It’s a bit far fetched when you consider how dire the situation was when they evacuated Destiny and how they were stranded on a hostile planet, then on Novus, with literally the clothes on their backs and nothing else. Bringing paper and pen isn’t impossible to believe but one wonders how much of it would have been allowed to be wasted on Chloe’s pensées insipides. Such items as paper and pen would be gold and would not have been wasted as they would be the last of their kind in existence on Novus. Of course since they managed to manufacture tools and fibers (for clothes) they probably had no problem cranking out reams of paper for Chloe to doodle on. -- Oh yeah, and by day five of their internment on Novus they were able to manufacture pens, lots and lots of pens, or at the very least crayons, which probably had Chloe in seventh heaven.
Via Chloe narration we find out alt-Volker dies of renal failure on Novus. Also, it doesn’t take long for TJ to blow off Varro in favor of Young thereby setting the stage for generations of Novan women to do the wrong thing at the first possible chance they get. Let’s hear it for Novan Women’s Lib!
We also find out the women of Destiny love to garden. They love it as much as sex because every time they show women they’re either digging in the dirt or giving birth – perhaps both at the same time, who knows? Well I guess Eli would know, as we later find out, because he manages to be present at every birth on Novus. (How creepy!)
Let’s see, what else? Um, Scott has a thirty second heart-to-heart with James who instantly forgives him for screwing her in a utility closet and then dumping her for a girl 10 years her junior and who also happens to be 4 bra sizes her junior. It’s all good, no worries, the women of Destiny are all about being used and then discarded like paper napkins at a summer BBQ.
Scott marries Chloe, Young marries TJ, Varro hooks up with James and Greer shacks up with Park. Eli is jealous of all the baby making going on and becomes desperate not to be alone – all documented via his kino (which never seems to run out of power, again, how odd). He laments being single (in so many words) and settles for fathering children with that Asian chick they have in the background in some scenes. She’s a “red shirt” just waiting to be killed off but for now she serves the purpose of being Eli's brood sow. How romantic.
It’s actually kind of pathetic how Eli seems so reluctant about the whole marriage thing to the “red shirt” chick. He probably sublimated his feelings of doubt by eating...and eating...and eating, as his weight never seems to fluctuate during all those years on Novus – a planet of subsistence, of hand-to-mouth living. They literally have to do everything by hand, from creating tools to constructing buildings to gardening to hunting. The daily workload in that situation would be back breaking. The caloric expenditure of such a life would preclude the girth of Eli. It just would not be possible that Eli would be that corpulent on Novus as it wasn’t possible for him to be that corpulent on Destiny. (Good job of method acting for the run of the show David Blue! Here, have a doughnut.).
Back in the current time line, in another part of the archive building, Greer finds beef jerky (i.e. freeze dried food) and supplies. Young orders them to send the supplies up to Destiny (well duh!). Rush (who is going on day 154 of not bathing) skulks about the room with the supplies and is clearly up to something. Perhaps he’s trying to find a pair of scissors so someone can give him a haircut? One of the women from Destiny perhaps? Yes, those gals love to do women’s work and dote on men; it comes naturally to them as this episode proves in spades.
Park, who has come down to the archives (everyone came down, it was a party!) looks at a blinking screen on the wall and proclaims that the citizens of Novus built space ships and split because a black hole was tearing apart the planet. The people of Novus fled to a planet they used to be able to gate to where there was an existing colony. The only problem is their ships don’t have FTL drives and it will take them 200 years to get to their new home. For Destiny it will only take 10 days. Park says there’s a remaining ship left in the factory where the ships were built. Although the ships aren’t built for FTL they figure they can shove the colonists (who are clogging up the halls on Destiny) into the slower ship and warehouse them there. After that the crew of Destiny will wash their hands of them and will let God sort them out.
So Scott, et al, rush to the ship factory (taking Rush along the way to take him back to Destiny) and they find the factory gone. It’s been swallowed up by a lava-laden fault line. Boo hoo. Now the stinking colonists have to remain on Destiny where the CO2 scrubbers are failing – but fear not! Rush has brought back some magic material (a Hefty trash bag) that will fix the CO2 problem for years to come! Yay!
Back at the alt-time line we find that TJ has developed ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) a couple years after marrying Young and bearing his genetically inferior children. No doubt she could have avoided this fate had she stuck with the more manly Varro but she chose the weak and attenuated Col. Young and consequently was infected with his weakness. Her punishment is slow death by crippling disease whilst hand washing laundry on the shores of a lake. There is a maudlin montage scene with TJ losing her ability to eat soup with her now-adoring husband and two cute, shining, sparkling, blindingly-white children. Eventually the dinner table is only set for three as TJ’s place sits empty for she is now gone, sigh.
Back in the current time line TJ is freaking out about finding out she will develop ALS. There’s a huge pity party for her and everyone stops working even though the clock is ticking on getting the data and supplies the hell out of the crumbling building. Varro comes and consoles her (obviously some gossiping bitch like Wray didn’t waste any time in spreading the news). Young shines around and there’s that ‘male dogs competing for a bitch-in-heat’ tension between those two again. Yawn.
Yaozu suddenly pipes up and says that his people have a cure for ALS even though he isn’t a doctor nor does he seem very knowledgeable about anything scientific. Ask him something shamanistic and he’s your man, still, he knows that his people have a cure for ALS just the same. It’s in the archives somewhere so the race is on to download the whole thing before the building falls in on itself. Thank goodness Yaozu happened to be there to blather more convenient information at the perfect moment. First he knows exactly where the archive building is and then he knows not only how to diagnose TJ but that there is a cure for the complicated disease she has in the Novan database. Good job Yaozu! He’s so smart. I should take him to a baseball game as I bet he could tell me where the hell I parked my car after the game. In fact, I’d let him drive, he looks like a safe driver, one who doesn’t suffer from road rage, but you can never tell with the quiet types. Oh well, I’ll see how many beers I have during the game and then play it by ear. Come on Yaozu. Go Brewers!
Okay, so the planet is being rent asunder and the archive building is collapsing. The power goes out and the remaining people have to climb out from the depths of the spiraling floors o’ data. Young, genius that he is, directs Eli to take the lead and begin climbing up the wall ladder. Yeah, smart move, send the guy with the Krispy Kreme fetish up the crumbling wall ladder first. TJ deserves everything she gets for choosing Young, the genius decision maker, to spend her life with. (Can I get an amen, sisters?)
So naturally a rung of the ladder breaks (after being weakened by Eli no doubt) and TJ falls but Varro snags her, then chucks her to a nearby platform. The rung he's holding snaps and he then plunges to the floor of the archive building as TJ just looks down with no emotion at all. Very weird reaction on her part. Perhaps it was shock from discovering she has a fatal disease or maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t really care for Varro and is done toying with his emotions? Or, more likely, she was just miffed because she knew that an injured Varro would steal the spotlight from her in the realm of fatal moments. And here she had plans for an even bigger pity party back on Destiny. How selfish of Varro to plunge to his (possible) death like that. What a scene-stealing turd!
Scott and Greer are up at the top and just happen to have a ton of rope to use to get Varro’s limp body hoisted up top (Yaozu probably had the rope handy under his robes). Varro's not dead but he’s in pretty bad shape, but hey, messing with a game-playing chick like TJ will do that to ya. Next scene everyone is in their respective shuttles and they fly off to Destiny as Novus falls apart beneath them.
Back on Destiny Rush has fixed the CO2 scrubber with the Hefty garbage bag he found on Novus. Volker makes a weird crack to Rush when everyone leaves the room, stating that he thinks Rush must be burned up by the fact that they (the alt-time line Destiny members) survived and thrived without him in their midst. The comment falls flat because Rush doesn’t seem to care about people one way or the other. In fact chances are he would have been glad to be shunt of them. (I know I would.)
Cut to TJ in her surgery-clinic where she’s explaining to Young that Varro is beat up pretty bad with broken ribs, etc. and they will have to wait and see as to his outcome. Eli shows up and says he couldn’t find the magic cure-all to ALS in the archives they downloaded but not to worry, we all love you TJ and can I smell your hair because I’m a lonely freak, blah blah blah. She asks if they can simply get a copy of the archives from the ships going to the new Novus planet and is told that even though Destiny will get there in 10 days the other ships won’t arrive for 200 years. So basically there’s no way to scan the flight path of the other ships whilst in FTL then put on the brakes and meet them when Destiny reaches that point in space. Yeah, lame.
Cut to alt-time line scene of Young still on his death bed. His son Stephen is there and his daughter shows up. Young apologizes to Chloe for not getting everyone “home”, then, as she replies that they are home, he dies.
Next there’s a scene where a school house is being dedicated in Eli’s name. Wray is the only surviving member of the Destiny crew at that point and Eli’s grandson, the school principal, introduces her. She gives a speech about how she thought they failed with Destiny’s mission but looking at all that they have built and accomplished on Novus she knows they succeeded. The music soars as the camera pans over the school house to reveal a village which time-morphs into a modern city. A space-worthy ship lifts off from the ground and flies out of view.
The end.
Now, the good and the bad and the bizarre in a rather large nutshell:
Whilst doing their search of the archives Chloe talks about how alt-time line Eli wrote over 1000 books on mathematics and physics. He’s looked upon as the Einstein of Novus and is revered for being a genius. This is all good and well until you realize that none of those 1000+ books he wrote explained how to create an FTL drive since, obviously, the Novan population fled the planet in sub-light speed ships. Even on the off chance that he didn’t know the details of FTL flight he would at least have an inkling of how to achieve it. Plus they had 2000 years to improve upon his theories for FTL, so it doesn’t make sense that the Novans didn’t have that technology to use on their new ships.
As for the Novus colonists, why, if they come from an advanced civilization replete with sky scrapers and ALS cures, were they living in tents on the other planet? Why wouldn’t more supplies have been gated to that destination? What, steel girders can’t be brought thru the gate? Also, why wouldn’t they have computers replete with full data bases of information? If this civilization was so advanced as to cure ALS they would have that information in more than one database. It makes no sense to establish colonies on other planets yet not give them full medical databases in order for them to, oh I dunno – stay healthy. Lame, incredibly lame.
Another problem is in terms of writing/direction. We’re told that Young was “re-elected” and that Eli is this great scholar but we’re never shown that of either one. We see Young being contemplative and walking around and Eli hanging out whenever anyone is having a baby (feeding his childbirth fixation no doubt, the creep!). And this is the problem an overly ambitious show like SGU has, the inability to show pertinent things so they cheap-out and merely tell us about them. They could have cut some of the ‘poor TJ’ scenes or some of the ‘birth’ scenes and maybe popped in a scene showing Young actually legislating or Eli actually writing something down or teaching a class. Show me, don’t tell me is an age-old dictum that shouldn’t be flaunted as easily as they do it on SGU. For shame you lazy writing dogs!
One of the good things about this episode is the make-up effects used to make the characters appear more aged. The team who did the make-up effects did an outstanding job. A good example of what I’m talking about is the Young death bed scene at the end with Chloe. She truly looks older and the effect is quite believable. Damn fine work from the make-up team. Thumbs up on that one.
The end scene with an aged Wray delivering the school dedication speech was also quite good. We find out she was a two-term mayor of Novus-ville and also that she wrote the governing constitution. One can only wonder at the philosophically seditious and socially deleterious ideas she incorporated into law on Novus (“Men are to be beaten and not heard!” etc.). As the last surviving member of the Destiny crew she attributes her longevity to “Whiskey and poontang – not necessarily in that order, wink wink.” Okay, maybe she didn’t say that, but you know you were all thinking it, don’t even pretend you weren't.
There was also some good humor in this episode. Brody is shown being divisive and contentious early on the Novus planet. He’s angry with Eli for getting them stranded there. We see shades of the man who will cause the citizenry to splinter in the future. There’s a montage scene where the characters are all talking about how wonderful their lives are and how many kids they have and then the kino cuts to Brody bitching about “...all these kids tearing up my lawn!” Good one.
In closing I’d have to say that overall this SGU episode wasn’t great but it was acceptable. The biggest problem, as stated previously, is the over-ambitiousness of the story in toto. From the start of the show this has been one of the major flaws working against its success. There are too many characters (many that we don’t care about) and too many story lines. The forced drama has, thankfully, been toned down and the action/movement has picked up of late.
But there are remnants of these flaws in scenes like Volker ragging on Rush when in all truth a sociopath like Rush wouldn’t give a damn if other people lived or died outside of his sphere of influence. Ham handed melodramatic writing like that is just stupid and distracting and is the cause of the cancellation for this show. There are also the annoying instantaneous resolutions to long drawn out dramatic conflicts such as the Lt. Scott/James issue. Such moments are proof that the writing was flawed from the start -- these awkward attempts to clean up dumb dramatic BS that should never have been written in the first place. Again, too little too late to fix this doomed show.
So, this episode wasn’t great but it didn’t totally suck either. The pace wasn’t as fast as the preceding episode but it didn’t crawl. It was somewhere in the middle in terms of movement. There was little set-up for the next episode so it appears the Novus story line is possibly finished; maybe, maybe not. In short this episode was passable but somewhat forgettable in spots. It soared in certain moments and limped along in others. The episode could have been a bit better if it hadn’t been so “crowded” with all the story lines and characters and various time line scenes jumping back and forth. It was a good idea for the show to explore but ultimately it was too bloated and awkward in the execution. That said, I am feeling generous today and based on SGU as a whole I’d give this episode a solid “B”.
Thank you.
