Stargate Universe Rewatch: Now with teacake

[Sindatur]

Yes, Rush is always right, but, part of the problem with him not being able to play well with others is his excessive arrogance, secrecy and lack of patience. Even if someone was able to keep up with him theory-wise, he often starts in the middle, expecting people to be as up to date as he is

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And really why should Young trust him after he made the decision to dial the 9nth chevron when they could have all trotted off to some other planet the Hammond could have eventually rescued them from? He's started his relationship with these people as a loose cannon and they aren't going to forget it.

 

[The Wormhole]

While everyone might have legitimate reason to mistrust and dislike Rush, they still tried too hard to make Rush seem like a shady bastard. Sure he's rude, immoral, and has an assortment of personality disorders, but it always seemed clear to me he was working in everyone's best interests. Or at least what he believed were there best interests.

 

[bullethead]

Yes, Rush is always right, but, part of the problem with him not being able to play well with others is his excessive arrogance, secrecy and lack of patience. Even if someone was able to keep up with him theory-wise, he often starts in the middle, expecting people to be as up to date as he is

To be fair, he mellowed out a lot once he got over his wife's death while using the chair. That said, I don't think he and Col. Young ever had a good professional relationship while at Icarus Base, so it's not surprising that Rush didn't play well with the rest of the crew at first. Their "Rush is an asshole, so let's be an asshole back at him" attitude didn't help either.

This brings up an interesting point - did no one in the upper echelons of Icarus Base know about Rush's wife being dead? Because you would think Wray would bring it up in discussion with Young or something in order to get these guys working together better. I'd assume marital status would be in the background information that Young and Wray would have access to given their positions (given security concerns and what not), but I don't think anyone aside from Amanda Perry knew Rush was a widower.

And really why should Young trust him after he made the decision to dial the 9nth chevron when they could have all trotted off to some other planet the Hammond could have eventually rescued them from? He's started his relationship with these people as a loose cannon and they aren't going to forget it.

I mentioned this earlier, but there's a decent chance they would've been more screwed if they hadn't used the 9th chevron address due to Stargate technobabble/continuity.

Anyway, regarding the trust issue, there should be a little trust after Rush correctly diagnoses the air scrubber issue and manages to keep some idiots from killing his entire team (although two people do manage to get themselves killed and Franklin had to be shot). At the very least, I would trust that he knows what he's taking about when it comes to the ship and tech, especially when my second best scientist is a complete rookie with next to no knowledge of SG physics/tech at all. Sure, he might not have the purest motives, but I'd at least trust that he's not going to screw over everyone else out of a sense of self-preservation.

Then again, Young seemed to be really paranoid when it came to Rush in S1. At the end of Light, he jumps to the conclusion that Rush knew they'd survive, when the facts all pointed to them probably dying by flying into a star. At worst, Rush didn't tell them that the ship might refuel by flying into suns, which is totally reasonable when dealing with a ship that they couldn't control, had no power, and was so old that the air scrubber broke five minutes after they arrived. At that point, I would've assumed death was imminent too.

 

[MacLeod]

And really why should Young trust him after he made the decision to dial the 9nth chevron when they could have all trotted off to some other planet the Hammond could have eventually rescued them from? He's started his relationship with these people as a loose cannon and they aren't going to forget it.

If they dailed another planet why would they need a ship to rescue you them couldn't they simply dial the SGC or one of the other off world sites?

As for the start of there relationships with one another, it appeared that they had been working at Icarus base for some time with one another. You could say Rush's descion to dial the ninth chevron didn't exactly help his relationship with them. But we know energy can travel through a stargate so dialing Earth or one of the other off world sites would have been a risk just in case the worst happened. So the only two options open were :

1.>Dial an unihabitated planet in the Milky-Way
2.>Dial the nonth Chevron.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Light: Wray is completely pathetic. Young is going to draw a lottery for who gets to go on the shuttle and she marches up to him all, "DO THIS, do THAT, do BLAH BLAH BLAH!!"

And so Young, being a pissy fellow, says "I may take your name out of the lottery."

And she starts to cry. She begs him, "please" not to do this.

And THEN when she actually wins the lottery and gets on the not gonna burn and die shuttle she cries some more. Sobs. Okay I'm sure someone is going to say, well she's a civilian, she's not trained for this. But Chloe didn't cry when her lover jetted away (with his ex lover..) and she thought she would never see him again and also die herself. Was all this Wray crying supposed to help the audience see her soft side? Didn't work.

I think it is shitty that they left bald angry marine out cold on the floor after Greer king butted him with his machine gun. Unprofessional and unkind and shitty.

And Greer.. Greer prepares for death by stripping off, he wants to die as naked as he came into the world. Forget all that awful Greer backstory coming up THIS is all we needed to know. Great stuff.





And finally I do not think Rush "knew" that Destiny would fly through the star and survive. I think he believed that Destiny would survive because Rush, the consummate scientist, has a religious relationship with this ship which he thinks is his own personal "destiny".

 

[Sindatur]

Light is excellent on paper, we find out about the Destiny recharging via suns, after the drama of everyone thinking they were gonna die a horrible death, the shuttle drama, the planet they found that wasn't perfect, but instead was barely survivable, the moral dilemma for Young to choose "the right people" vs the Lottery.. definitely one of the better early episodes, but, still, just missing something

I agree with you Teacake, Rush didn't know, but, he had Faith in his Destiny and maybe suspected what was going on.

Yea Wray i not a sympathetic character yet, in this one, but, I think she was right, as the Leader, it was irresponsible for Young to leave it to chance and the Lottery (Though if Scott hadn't made it back, and Young loaded the shuttle with the absolute best/most important to survival, then they'd really be screwed)

I took Greer stripping down as a response to the expected heat, and possibly a fear that at some point his clothes would burn maybe. Or possibly some kind of pseudo-religious cleansing in death thing.

 

[MacLeod]

Light: Wray is completely pathetic. Young is going to draw a lottery for who gets to go on the shuttle and she marches up to him all, "DO THIS, do THAT, do BLAH BLAH BLAH!!"

And so Young, being a pissy fellow, says "I may take your name out of the lottery."

And she starts to cry. She begs him, "please" not to do this.

And THEN when she actually wins the lottery and gets on the not gonna burn and die shuttle she cries some more. Sobs. Okay I'm sure someone is going to say, well she's a civilian, she's not trained for this. But Chloe didn't cry when her lover jetted away (with his ex lover..) and she thought she would never see him again and also die herself. Was all this Wray crying supposed to help the audience see her soft side? Didn't work.

People handle situtations differently. Just because peson A doesn't cry in a situtation when person B does, means nothing.

 

[AJ86]

When you actually analyse who the characters are, what happens to them, and how they react, you realise that Chloe is probably the bravest of the lot.

 

[Gary7]

^ I think they're all really brave at various points in time. But yeah, later on Chloe proves to be the bravest based on what she goes through. Greer is brave, but it's easy for him to fall back on it because he's a marine. Chloe is a civilian with no training.

I'm re-watching the series again... and wow, it has grown on me. Each time I see something else, something new. These episodes are chocked full of so much material, both in terms of story and emotional interplay. And I'm afraid I'm also growing to like the characters even more, including Rush. This makes it all the tougher to deal with the absurdly short run of only 2 seasons.

 

[MacLeod]

I enjoyed SG:U when it was on put a portion of those who had watched SG-1, and SG:A opinion could be summed up in one phrase.

"You changed it now it sucks".


"Yes SG:U was a change in tone from the previous two shows but it had been similiar in tone to the previous shows and if it had still been cancelled after two season the cries would have been "They should have tried something different".

Of course their are a myriad of reasons why some didn't like, i.e. characters.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Water: Non corporeal aliens and big accident on the ice planet. I enjoyed Rush telling Eli off, he really is oddly childish at times. Otherwise this is as meh as Enterprise's ice planet ep

 

[bullethead]

What I really liked about Water was that TJ wound up being the only one in Young's clique who was competent at being a leader. Her command decisions were a thousand times better than Young and Scott's in prior episodes.

 

[Sindatur]

Water, yea, another necessary episode, but, not particularly entertaining for me. Again, it had alot right when you write down the positives of the plot, but, just didn't gel for me.

Yea, TJ in command was good, and it's good they addressed the water situation, and it's good they had an "alien" Alien species, there's been entirely too few really "alien" Aliens in SciFi shows over the years (Though, surprisingly Voyager had more than I would've expected when I did a rewatch of Voyager)

 

[The Wormhole]

The problem with TJ being left in command is that medical officers aren't supposed to be in the chain of command. So with Young and Scott gone, it should have been Lt James in command. Of course, the real world reason is that TJ is part of the main cast and therefore needs her screen time. Same reason why doctors end up in command on Star Trek.

 

[bullethead]

The problem with TJ being left in command is that medical officers aren't supposed to be in the chain of command. So with Young and Scott gone, it should have been Lt James in command. Of course, the real world reason is that TJ is part of the main cast and therefore needs her screen time. Same reason why doctors end up in command on Star Trek.

Yeah, at least on Star Trek, the doctors getting command opportunities made some sense because the characters were expanding their skill sets (and in the EMH's case, Voyager ran into so many anomalies that took out the crew that having the ECH made sense). I really wish I knew what the writers were thinking by not having James be part of the main cast (just bump Chloe down to the second string), but I was really disappointed when they tossed out her whole dislike of being left in the dark when the mutiny happened. I was expecting her to lead a third faction that wanted neither Young nor Wray in command, but no, they made her one of Young's toadies.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

James is great and I would have loved to see her with a lot more to do. A third faction leader would have been excellent.

 

[P0sitr0nic]

I just watched the 2 parter where the crew find Novus and their descendants. Still to this day my fav of SGU and just a good story.

 

[The Wormhole]

I really wish I knew what the writers were thinking by not having James be part of the main cast (just bump Chloe down to the second string),

I was under the impression that James wasn't originally intended to be that important, it was just because everyone liked the actress that they kept bringing her back. Although, I guess they could have added her to the main cast in the second season or something. Hell, at times the secondary cast was more interesting than the main cast. With her, Colonel Telford, Doctors Brody, Volker, and Park, being the leads on the show I might have been more interested in it.

 

[bullethead]

I really wish I knew what the writers were thinking by not having James be part of the main cast (just bump Chloe down to the second string),

I was under the impression that James wasn't originally intended to be that important, it was just because everyone liked the actress that they kept bringing her back. Although, I guess they could have added her to the main cast in the second season or something. Hell, at times the secondary cast was more interesting than the main cast. With her, Colonel Telford, Doctors Brody, Volker, and Park, being the leads on the show I might have been more interested in it.

It just seems weird that there's one officer that wasn't a main cast member. If there'd been a few more LTs, I probably wouldn't have minded.

But yeah, the secondary cast was a lot more interesting during season 1.5. That was when TJ got derailed by the pregnancy plot, Young was at his most idiotic, and everyone but Rush was making terrible choices. Telford only got interesting once they broke the mind control on him and he quickly outshone Young by virtue of not being the second coming of Chakotay. Then he got ruined by the writers in Twin Destinies for the sake of drama.