R
Robbie_Rocket_Pants
Guest
Stargate: Universe
Season: 2
Episode: “Pathogen”
Synopsis, Recapitulation, and Review By Robbie_Rocket_Pants
Before I commence with my review - being the gentleman that I am, I would like to apologise for it's belated appearance. Due to the nature of my job & living arrangements my t'interweb connection is shared & subsequently, video streaming is not feasible.
As it stands, I have in recent hours just started on the beer & watched the most recent episode of The Inbetweeners to raise my spirits so that I can go into watching this episode on a high in the hopes that my review will be as unbiased & as fair as it can be (given what I have been given to work with).
I have written this intro before starting the episode because I say this, not to put myself down, but as I have yet to see what is on the road ahead of me............... I hope you enjoy my review as much as you enjoyed this episode.
Synopsis:
Chloe's increasingly erratic behavior raises concerns for the rest of the crew, leading to the discovery that she may be under alien control. Eli returns home when he learns that his mother has fallen ill.
Recapitulation & Review In One: (Only because this episode is so difficult to review).
As usual, at the opening of the episode we are met with a flashback montage of exerpts & vocal platitudes from previous episodes but unlike episodes of season one, we have clips of the additions of aliens, mystery, intrigue & some kind of advancement of plot (unfortunately what would be the developments of one episode, are in actuality the developments of 23 episodes). Unfortunately these scenes are then followed on by the usual scenes of drama, whiney emo shit, drama, soap suds & long-assed, staring laments.
In the first scene we have Roller-Pig wheeling into the control room (which is now relegated to useless thanks to Rush's little bridge discovery) & finds Chloe has been sleep-walking in her attempts to find some cock (unsuccessfully I might add) & claims that she can't remember how she got there (caught in the act & embarrassed).
We immediately cut to the mess hall & a scene between the two jilted love interests discussing how "weird" Chloe has been acting, basically comparing notes on the slut who jibbed them off for some blue alien wang, pretty much acting like whiney, emo bitches - that includes Chloe! It turns out she has been keeping a diary (no emo is complete without one).
............... OMG, it's a magic beans episode, it looks like Hikikomori McMoobs is going back to Earth to see his dying mother, unlock his basement troll & check his Facebook (0 messages).
We cut to the bridge & are met with a very fatigued Rush attempting to learn more about the Destiny & how to control her but met with criticism from both his dead wife & that dead, anonymous scientist dude. We then have people in the control room conveniently questioning why this unknown, unexplored ship's new, unpredictable behaviour might be happening (as if it's somehow different from this unknown, unexplored ship's previous unpredictable behaviour) how very convenient a plot development indeed. Following the Destiny dropping out of FTL, Rush is radioed by the other scientists on board as to why Destiny is doing what it is doing, where he is & what he is doing - this discussion should have gone as follows:
Brody: Why is Density acting a cunt? What are you doing? Where are you?
Rush: Density is merely a Deus Ex Machina, I'm having a tommy tank whilst dropping the kids off at the pool!.........Oh, & I'm in Camille's quarters! Happy?
Now we are in a hospital & Eli (or is it Pte Red Shirt) is being briefed by a nurse as to Mother's condition (he is in a USAF uniform as he needs to be inconspicuous of course!) As it would happen, he is in uniform as he is Airman Tracy (not so that he can avoid all the adoring WOW groupies) but because he doesn't want her to know that it is him. She, it would appear, has depression - can you say Amanda Greystone? because she wants her cheeky chappy there whilst she dies horribly.
In the following scene we have Wray getting out of a car & approaching a house, only to be greeted by another (presumably lesbian) woman who greets her in an oriental language (just to make sure that the big, black, USAF guy approaching her house is in fact her white, female lover who is a member of an unofficial, top secret organisation created specifically to oversee an even more top secret, unofficial & military organisation which visits other planets)................ Yeah it's okay........ feeewww, it's Camille, she can come in! This was a very short & ridiculous scene.
Next scene we have the brother & sister grim (Scott & Chlamydioe) in bed & Scott asking "where are we?" So yes, more emotional soapy shit. Very short scene, I thought Chloe was going to lance Scott with some weird, mutated alien forehead thing.
Next scene is Wray having lunch with lesbian lover, couldn't have been more than 10 seconds long.Next episode was a short one (possibly 15 seconds) but had more development than any previous episode - firstly, Young is releasing all of the LA prisoners & assigning security details to them (Greer has reservations & wants to skull fuck them) & secondly, Chloe has gone on another Blalien cock hunt it would appear.
Next scene we have small talk in the mess hall twixt TJ & McBoobs & the LA guy (Samuel from Heroes) gets escorted in & acts like the school bully (how very dramatic). This offence is repelled by the resident Vinnie Jones (Volker) but is then followed up by an incredibly impressive display by Greer in defense of his own against said bully. I was very impressed by this scene, by Greer (his angry black man persona had place & purpose for once) & by the performance of Jamil Walker-Smith.
Yet another scene transition, this time back to the bridge, merely so we can see that Rush is getting head-blagged by his missus for working too much & not giving her enough of his time or something lalala!
Another scene & we have Tj discovering Chloe in a cargo hold (mistaking it for the hydroponics bay) breaking into a crate trying to find some cucumbers & marrows.
I don't even know what is going on in this next scene - Camille's bird has a strop at her because Cam rips her for her inability to locate her keys...........m'kay. Fuckwit left them in the door, wow. Drama, whine, drama.
Jesus, there are still 29 minutes of this shit to go & we have had so many scene transitions already, these writers really are trying too hard.
In this next scene Eli's Mom is asking Eli/Pte Red Shirt why Eli never calls - she is about to die & everybody else's brother's cousin's dog seems to get clearance so why not the dying mother? Don't they want God to know what they are doing with the Stargate program? ............. sex & drama! Okay so then Eli tells her about the Stargate program but not that he is actually Eli? WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF? Why would you do that? That is fucking retarded. Oh no, then he drops that little nugget on her bed sheets that he is Eli & she is like "Wha?".
Another scene transition & we are back in the infirmary with Chloe talking about her weird zombie-like sexploits.
Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddddd back to Eli & his Ma & he is trying to explain to her about the stargate & all that jazz but she is not believing him in the slightest (so NOW normal civilians find it unbelievable?!).
Another scene transition & we have Scott routing through Chloe's diary to see if she has been spit-roasted by any crew members or Blaliens & finds her confessional encoded in some Lantean-looking dialect........which leads to the next scene.
The seniors discuss Chloe & her change/infection (she was infected by Scott, not Blalien) & they somehow think that she may somehow be transforming into a Blalien, may be a threat & needs isolating .............. yeah because the Blaliens proved so dangerous against Rush!
This next scene is so whiney it's unreal. Eli cries like a little bitch, we are just under a minute away from the middle of this episode & I am somehow left thinking.......... "why does the end of this episode seem like the other end of the world?"
YAY! Mid episode!
Yet another scene, Rush shows Chlamydia is insanity room, or as he calls it "a place to solve problems". It would appear that after a Senator's daughter sucks off a Blue Fish Alien, that she acquires super human abilities from swallowing the Blalien's spooge. Just give that girl a chalk & she can write new forms of mathematics (who ever said that no ho ever amounted to anything?!).
Okay in this scene with TJ speaking to that LA dude that Rac80 seems to like so much, he explains that the dude from Heroes (sorry I can't be bothered to find out his real name) is from an LA world where the quality of life is more harsh so he should be excused, I like that the LA is represented as being an entity made of more than one faction (similar to Earth in many ways) so that is quite interesting.
The next scene is so short & just filler that I'm not even going into it.
We are then met with a scene involving Wray & her lover in a kitchen.............. a short scene devoted entirely to small talk, it reminds me so much of a soap opera & doesn't seem to have development tothe story - the 2 very things this episode needs but is seriously lacking.
We discover in the following scene Simeon (the Heroes guys) has been duplicitous by giving disinformation but he is reigned in by Varro (Rac's fancy man). On Varro's way out we get a lovely view of those silk bed sheets the Ancients left behind, the crew take care of their prisoners well.
The ship drops out of FTL, Brody mithers Rush some more but he refuses to answer, Brody & anonmyous civilian scientist chick then brief Young as to the situation. It seems to make no sense at all for Rush to drop himself in it in the way he is doing. It's not just suspicious, it's down right blatant & seems to serve only as an example of lazy character writing to allow the plot to advance further.
The next scene & Rush is confronted & accused by Young but can cover his arse by showing them his insanity room & pointing the finger at Chloe for her Blalien influence (very sneaky. I likes it). She is then paid a visit by a security detail headed up by Greer.
We then have a confrontation in a corridor between Simeon & Greer. Greer disarms himself, squares up to Simeon & Simeon backs down. I am liking Greer as a character more & more by the day & he is appearing more realistic as a military man.
It would appear that Chloe is now confined to the brig (whereas the LA crew get quarters & silk sheets). Scott comes to visit her & it is obvious from her appearance & mood that she is having withdrawal (I think you all know to which kind of withdrawal I am referring).
We then have over a minute's worth of soppy, soapy bs between Wray & her lesbefriend, why am I watching this again?
More emo bs with Eli & his Mother. This collection of scenes contained two facepalm moments in as many minutes. Firstly Wray says that dude to unlocking the 9th chevron (he worked out a code in a video game) that he is possibly the most important person on the Destiny & secondly, that his mother gets security clearance to get deus-exed...... uh I mean stoned, onto Destiny. WTF?
I wasn't fully taken aback by the scene where Eli's Ma is on the Destiny & says she is proud of him because I have yet to really connect with his character or know much about his history. I was just pleased that this aspect of the episode wasn't left open-ended & unresolved like so many things in this show. (I'm not sure why I should be praising an episode for doing something which it should naturally do every episode as a given).
Rush proposes that the chair device may be able to expel any residual Blue Alien spooge from Chloe's system & with her permission, actions this accordingly (they neglected to give her a stomach pump aswell though). It later transpires that she's not cured (probably due to not stomach-pumping).
Eli thanks Wray for her help.
Scott makes sure Chloe is alright.
Wray's missus & Eli's Mother decide to start up a self help group for family members affected by the labsence of a loved one billions of light years away............ yeah I'm sure it will get a huge membership.
Everybody is unhappy, la la la. The end. (Thankfully)
Episode Summary: (In the absence of a conventional review).
I have yet to encounter an episode so disjointed & with so many scene transitions as this one, I haven't counted them but there are many as is typical with one of these stones episodes. Not a very viewer-friendly episode, let alone a reviewer-friendly episode. They used their favourite deus ex machina to solve every problem going & the whole episode revolved around them. I didn't give a shit about Eli's plight as even after over one season, I still don't know, understand or care about his character. There were too many soapy scenes on Earth (especially with Wray & her missus) which just seemed to be filler as had no place or purpose. We are also still no closer to understanding the ship's mission if it even has one. The only reason we know it does is that the crew are always proposing that one exists but they just don't know what it is. This was not even close to an episode of a science fiction TV show. With every episode of SG-1 & SGA I never wanted the 45 minutes to end but with this one I couldn't wait for it to end (those 40 odd minutes actually took many hours). But there were some good points to this episode, although few and far between they are as follows.
Good Points:
- Greer's character played a richteous part in the episode in opposition to Simeon (The writers may finally be starting to understand that people want heroes & villains, protagonists & antagonists rather than villains & villains, antagonists & antagonists just arguing & fighting to advance a dramatic agenda).
- Rush's sly maneuvreing in avoiding being found out & passing the buck to Chloe who then ended up in the brig, pure genius. (Also the addition of the chair device cure, made Rush appear to be helping her when he was in fact helping himself). His character is definitely one to watch out for.
- Varro seems to be developing well as a character & a likeable one at that. He is better than most of the Destiny's crew of douchbags (not difficult to do).
- The Eli/Eli's Mother plot is resolved.
- Good music throughout (including during the montage, the only thing letting the montage down was that it was a montage).
- The episode wasn't too dark. I actually like the dark, gritty look to the sets but this episode got just right for a change.
In Conclusion:
This episode sucked so bad! So very awful. The previous episode to this was actually pretty good for an SGU ep & I hardly had any things to complain about. Are TPTB mocking me? Are they trying to make me look like a miserable, moaning, old twat? Every episode I get to review is either mediocre or plain awful.......... I can only write a review honestly & based on WHAT I SEE.
Anyway, that took me a hell of a long time to write (an evening & a morning) just to watch it once & I now want to cry........ not because this was such a touching episode (because it wasn't) but because it was a very draining episode to watch, took alot of effort & I feel ashamed that I could not produce a better review. All that remains to be said is propose, analyse, debate.
Edit:
I would like to apologise for the length of this review but there are alot of scene transitions & it is not easy to follow a TV show when the ensemble cast is so large & there are so many characters involved in one single episode, this was not an enjoyable episode to review at all I might add.
Season: 2
Episode: “Pathogen”
Synopsis, Recapitulation, and Review By Robbie_Rocket_Pants
Before I commence with my review - being the gentleman that I am, I would like to apologise for it's belated appearance. Due to the nature of my job & living arrangements my t'interweb connection is shared & subsequently, video streaming is not feasible.
As it stands, I have in recent hours just started on the beer & watched the most recent episode of The Inbetweeners to raise my spirits so that I can go into watching this episode on a high in the hopes that my review will be as unbiased & as fair as it can be (given what I have been given to work with).
I have written this intro before starting the episode because I say this, not to put myself down, but as I have yet to see what is on the road ahead of me............... I hope you enjoy my review as much as you enjoyed this episode.
Synopsis:
Chloe's increasingly erratic behavior raises concerns for the rest of the crew, leading to the discovery that she may be under alien control. Eli returns home when he learns that his mother has fallen ill.
Recapitulation & Review In One: (Only because this episode is so difficult to review).
As usual, at the opening of the episode we are met with a flashback montage of exerpts & vocal platitudes from previous episodes but unlike episodes of season one, we have clips of the additions of aliens, mystery, intrigue & some kind of advancement of plot (unfortunately what would be the developments of one episode, are in actuality the developments of 23 episodes). Unfortunately these scenes are then followed on by the usual scenes of drama, whiney emo shit, drama, soap suds & long-assed, staring laments.
In the first scene we have Roller-Pig wheeling into the control room (which is now relegated to useless thanks to Rush's little bridge discovery) & finds Chloe has been sleep-walking in her attempts to find some cock (unsuccessfully I might add) & claims that she can't remember how she got there (caught in the act & embarrassed).
We immediately cut to the mess hall & a scene between the two jilted love interests discussing how "weird" Chloe has been acting, basically comparing notes on the slut who jibbed them off for some blue alien wang, pretty much acting like whiney, emo bitches - that includes Chloe! It turns out she has been keeping a diary (no emo is complete without one).
............... OMG, it's a magic beans episode, it looks like Hikikomori McMoobs is going back to Earth to see his dying mother, unlock his basement troll & check his Facebook (0 messages).
We cut to the bridge & are met with a very fatigued Rush attempting to learn more about the Destiny & how to control her but met with criticism from both his dead wife & that dead, anonymous scientist dude. We then have people in the control room conveniently questioning why this unknown, unexplored ship's new, unpredictable behaviour might be happening (as if it's somehow different from this unknown, unexplored ship's previous unpredictable behaviour) how very convenient a plot development indeed. Following the Destiny dropping out of FTL, Rush is radioed by the other scientists on board as to why Destiny is doing what it is doing, where he is & what he is doing - this discussion should have gone as follows:
Brody: Why is Density acting a cunt? What are you doing? Where are you?
Rush: Density is merely a Deus Ex Machina, I'm having a tommy tank whilst dropping the kids off at the pool!.........Oh, & I'm in Camille's quarters! Happy?
Now we are in a hospital & Eli (or is it Pte Red Shirt) is being briefed by a nurse as to Mother's condition (he is in a USAF uniform as he needs to be inconspicuous of course!) As it would happen, he is in uniform as he is Airman Tracy (not so that he can avoid all the adoring WOW groupies) but because he doesn't want her to know that it is him. She, it would appear, has depression - can you say Amanda Greystone? because she wants her cheeky chappy there whilst she dies horribly.
In the following scene we have Wray getting out of a car & approaching a house, only to be greeted by another (presumably lesbian) woman who greets her in an oriental language (just to make sure that the big, black, USAF guy approaching her house is in fact her white, female lover who is a member of an unofficial, top secret organisation created specifically to oversee an even more top secret, unofficial & military organisation which visits other planets)................ Yeah it's okay........ feeewww, it's Camille, she can come in!
This was a very short & ridiculous scene.Next scene we have the brother & sister grim (Scott & Chlamydioe) in bed & Scott asking "where are we?" So yes, more emotional soapy shit. Very short scene, I thought Chloe was going to lance Scott with some weird, mutated alien forehead thing.
Next scene is Wray having lunch with lesbian lover, couldn't have been more than 10 seconds long.Next episode was a short one (possibly 15 seconds) but had more development than any previous episode - firstly, Young is releasing all of the LA prisoners & assigning security details to them (Greer has reservations & wants to skull fuck them) & secondly, Chloe has gone on another Blalien cock hunt it would appear.
Next scene we have small talk in the mess hall twixt TJ & McBoobs & the LA guy (Samuel from Heroes) gets escorted in & acts like the school bully (how very dramatic). This offence is repelled by the resident Vinnie Jones (Volker) but is then followed up by an incredibly impressive display by Greer in defense of his own against said bully. I was very impressed by this scene, by Greer (his angry black man persona had place & purpose for once) & by the performance of Jamil Walker-Smith.
Yet another scene transition, this time back to the bridge, merely so we can see that Rush is getting head-blagged by his missus for working too much & not giving her enough of his time or something lalala!
Another scene & we have Tj discovering Chloe in a cargo hold (mistaking it for the hydroponics bay) breaking into a crate trying to find some cucumbers & marrows.
I don't even know what is going on in this next scene - Camille's bird has a strop at her because Cam rips her for her inability to locate her keys...........m'kay. Fuckwit left them in the door, wow. Drama, whine, drama.
Jesus, there are still 29 minutes of this shit to go & we have had so many scene transitions already, these writers really are trying too hard.
In this next scene Eli's Mom is asking Eli/Pte Red Shirt why Eli never calls - she is about to die & everybody else's brother's cousin's dog seems to get clearance so why not the dying mother? Don't they want God to know what they are doing with the Stargate program? ............. sex & drama! Okay so then Eli tells her about the Stargate program but not that he is actually Eli? WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF? Why would you do that? That is fucking retarded. Oh no, then he drops that little nugget on her bed sheets that he is Eli & she is like "Wha?".
Another scene transition & we are back in the infirmary with Chloe talking about her weird zombie-like sexploits.
Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddddd back to Eli & his Ma & he is trying to explain to her about the stargate & all that jazz but she is not believing him in the slightest (so NOW normal civilians find it unbelievable?!).
Another scene transition & we have Scott routing through Chloe's diary to see if she has been spit-roasted by any crew members or Blaliens & finds her confessional encoded in some Lantean-looking dialect........which leads to the next scene.
The seniors discuss Chloe & her change/infection (she was infected by Scott, not Blalien) & they somehow think that she may somehow be transforming into a Blalien, may be a threat & needs isolating .............. yeah because the Blaliens proved so dangerous against Rush!
This next scene is so whiney it's unreal. Eli cries like a little bitch, we are just under a minute away from the middle of this episode & I am somehow left thinking.......... "why does the end of this episode seem like the other end of the world?"
YAY! Mid episode!
Yet another scene, Rush shows Chlamydia is insanity room, or as he calls it "a place to solve problems". It would appear that after a Senator's daughter sucks off a Blue Fish Alien, that she acquires super human abilities from swallowing the Blalien's spooge. Just give that girl a chalk & she can write new forms of mathematics (who ever said that no ho ever amounted to anything?!).
Okay in this scene with TJ speaking to that LA dude that Rac80 seems to like so much, he explains that the dude from Heroes (sorry I can't be bothered to find out his real name) is from an LA world where the quality of life is more harsh so he should be excused, I like that the LA is represented as being an entity made of more than one faction (similar to Earth in many ways) so that is quite interesting.
The next scene is so short & just filler that I'm not even going into it.
We are then met with a scene involving Wray & her lover in a kitchen.............. a short scene devoted entirely to small talk, it reminds me so much of a soap opera & doesn't seem to have development tothe story - the 2 very things this episode needs but is seriously lacking.
We discover in the following scene Simeon (the Heroes guys) has been duplicitous by giving disinformation but he is reigned in by Varro (Rac's fancy man). On Varro's way out we get a lovely view of those silk bed sheets the Ancients left behind, the crew take care of their prisoners well.
The ship drops out of FTL, Brody mithers Rush some more but he refuses to answer, Brody & anonmyous civilian scientist chick then brief Young as to the situation. It seems to make no sense at all for Rush to drop himself in it in the way he is doing. It's not just suspicious, it's down right blatant & seems to serve only as an example of lazy character writing to allow the plot to advance further.
The next scene & Rush is confronted & accused by Young but can cover his arse by showing them his insanity room & pointing the finger at Chloe for her Blalien influence (very sneaky. I likes it). She is then paid a visit by a security detail headed up by Greer.
We then have a confrontation in a corridor between Simeon & Greer. Greer disarms himself, squares up to Simeon & Simeon backs down. I am liking Greer as a character more & more by the day & he is appearing more realistic as a military man.
It would appear that Chloe is now confined to the brig (whereas the LA crew get quarters & silk sheets). Scott comes to visit her & it is obvious from her appearance & mood that she is having withdrawal (I think you all know to which kind of withdrawal I am referring).
We then have over a minute's worth of soppy, soapy bs between Wray & her lesbefriend, why am I watching this again?
More emo bs with Eli & his Mother. This collection of scenes contained two facepalm moments in as many minutes. Firstly Wray says that dude to unlocking the 9th chevron (he worked out a code in a video game) that he is possibly the most important person on the Destiny & secondly, that his mother gets security clearance to get deus-exed...... uh I mean stoned, onto Destiny. WTF?
I wasn't fully taken aback by the scene where Eli's Ma is on the Destiny & says she is proud of him because I have yet to really connect with his character or know much about his history. I was just pleased that this aspect of the episode wasn't left open-ended & unresolved like so many things in this show. (I'm not sure why I should be praising an episode for doing something which it should naturally do every episode as a given).
Rush proposes that the chair device may be able to expel any residual Blue Alien spooge from Chloe's system & with her permission, actions this accordingly (they neglected to give her a stomach pump aswell though). It later transpires that she's not cured (probably due to not stomach-pumping).
Eli thanks Wray for her help.
Scott makes sure Chloe is alright.
Wray's missus & Eli's Mother decide to start up a self help group for family members affected by the labsence of a loved one billions of light years away............ yeah I'm sure it will get a huge membership.
Everybody is unhappy, la la la. The end. (Thankfully)
Episode Summary: (In the absence of a conventional review).
I have yet to encounter an episode so disjointed & with so many scene transitions as this one, I haven't counted them but there are many as is typical with one of these stones episodes. Not a very viewer-friendly episode, let alone a reviewer-friendly episode. They used their favourite deus ex machina to solve every problem going & the whole episode revolved around them. I didn't give a shit about Eli's plight as even after over one season, I still don't know, understand or care about his character. There were too many soapy scenes on Earth (especially with Wray & her missus) which just seemed to be filler as had no place or purpose. We are also still no closer to understanding the ship's mission if it even has one. The only reason we know it does is that the crew are always proposing that one exists but they just don't know what it is. This was not even close to an episode of a science fiction TV show. With every episode of SG-1 & SGA I never wanted the 45 minutes to end but with this one I couldn't wait for it to end (those 40 odd minutes actually took many hours). But there were some good points to this episode, although few and far between they are as follows.
Good Points:
- Greer's character played a richteous part in the episode in opposition to Simeon (The writers may finally be starting to understand that people want heroes & villains, protagonists & antagonists rather than villains & villains, antagonists & antagonists just arguing & fighting to advance a dramatic agenda).
- Rush's sly maneuvreing in avoiding being found out & passing the buck to Chloe who then ended up in the brig, pure genius. (Also the addition of the chair device cure, made Rush appear to be helping her when he was in fact helping himself). His character is definitely one to watch out for.
- Varro seems to be developing well as a character & a likeable one at that. He is better than most of the Destiny's crew of douchbags (not difficult to do).
- The Eli/Eli's Mother plot is resolved.
- Good music throughout (including during the montage, the only thing letting the montage down was that it was a montage).
- The episode wasn't too dark. I actually like the dark, gritty look to the sets but this episode got just right for a change.
In Conclusion:
This episode sucked so bad! So very awful. The previous episode to this was actually pretty good for an SGU ep & I hardly had any things to complain about. Are TPTB mocking me? Are they trying to make me look like a miserable, moaning, old twat? Every episode I get to review is either mediocre or plain awful.......... I can only write a review honestly & based on WHAT I SEE.
Anyway, that took me a hell of a long time to write (an evening & a morning) just to watch it once & I now want to cry........ not because this was such a touching episode (because it wasn't) but because it was a very draining episode to watch, took alot of effort & I feel ashamed that I could not produce a better review. All that remains to be said is propose, analyse, debate.
Edit:
I would like to apologise for the length of this review but there are alot of scene transitions & it is not easy to follow a TV show when the ensemble cast is so large & there are so many characters involved in one single episode, this was not an enjoyable episode to review at all I might add.
... That's all I'm going to say about the entire thing--from TJ staring off into nothingness, to Volker trying to have a backbone, to Greer turning into a lunatic over his girlfriend (?), well at least this time he had a real reason to go psycho considering that T-bag seems pretty devious. So I guess Carl gets a point for that... Still, some of it felt staged. 
) from the Icarus base, but if I remember correctly, they were using white/clear boards.