Well, we called it, Fuel dump, but it still felt very satisfying. I really enjoyed the crews reactions to the inevitability of it all. A solid episode for certain.

Some notes:
*GRRR!!! bad Chloe! Get with the geek boy not the jock! <nerd rage>
*So Greer's crime was decking Talford for being a jerk? Eh, not as simple as I expected, but still, very much in character. I think his scenes with his recording and Young are the first time I have actually warmed up to his character at all.
*I personally don't think Rush knew, but he may have had some inkling of what was possible, rather like us.
* So this means the ship is fully repowered. On top of that, we know that its' shields are insanely potent, which makes the damage to the vessel more concerning. What could punch through those defenses?

Oh, for those not in the loop, you can see the episode via Hulu, or linked from the shows IMDB site. No clue why it has not been posted on the Syfy site.

In other news, Altantis is confirmed to be getting a TV movie!

Overall I'm so indifferent about this series. Sure I've warmed up to a fww characters, and finally Rush is getting some of the approval, and trust of the crew, but still this is a weird take on Stargate (Series) as a whole.

I understand the wnat to be Battlestar G vibe, but for a Stargate series is just different.

But I will watch the series to it conclusion because overall it does seem moderately enjoyable.

I'm beginning to think the damage to the ship was done from the inside.

Okay, how and by whom?

Yeah, pretty solid episode. I honestly don't think Rush knew, since he resigned himself to actually reading his book before the end. And since he described it as a "Truly mediocre book" I can honestly think he wasn't too enthralled to spend his final hours like that.

The thought probably crossed his mind, but he didn't feel like sharing it to a ship full of what he considers to be idiots. He probably figured it would be better safe than sorry, and not to open up the possibility that it's a fuel run in case it would lull the crew into complacency.

Good character episode, but it drug out for way too long in places.

Chloe's character is very extremely lame though. Not really liking her that much anymore.

I also found the drama with the shuttle at the end was just to stall for time to fill the episode and I hated the mess hall scene afterward.

pretty good episode overall. I gotta say though the background music in this series is awesome.

The "limited number of seats on the shuttle" drama was pretty decent for being a generally cliched sort of plotline. And just as we all expected, it was a refueling trip - but at least that wasn't the entire point of drama in the entire episode. There was still other stuff to do, and the fact that the stuff about the right planet and getting the shuttle to intercept the ship again was pretty solid sci-fi rather than glossed over was kind of cool. (A little annoyed the landing was SO spot-on, but whatever, they showed that they gave some real consideration to these issues.)

The characters are getting better mostly, but I was also really annoyed with Chloe. The past few episodes have focused on her and Eli, and Eli was the one she went to at the end, even. But oh no, Sgt. Hunk shows up and that's who she wants to see. Although, you have to admit, that's pretty much based on somewhat solid reality too.

I don't think the ship necessarily was attacked inside or out, I just think that it's naturally failed over time. It's what, thousands, millions of years old? It makes sense that there would be some hull compromises in that time, even without someone blowing a hole in a bulkhead.

Good episode though, and now that they can open the gate again, I'm curious to see what direction the show starts taking. For example, will they try and figure out what happened to those other two people who went through on the desert planet?

As far as direction for the show.. Well they've got power back... and they know how to dial the gate, but they still have no control whatsoever over most of the systems and are pretty much at the mercy of Destiny.

I think those 2 that gate jumped are pretty much stuck unless the ship decides to go backwards

This is the first Stargate show i'm actually enjoying, but the ending with Rush was too contrived. I mean really, the writers can't come up with a better way of making everyone hate him? Lame.

If this had been an SG-1 or Atlantis episode, it would have been focused on finding a way to steer Destiny away from the star. In this show, the focus isn't on the situation, but rather on the people in that situation. Yeah, we figured out the twist pretty quickly. But we're on the outside looking in. I think the characters reacted very realistically given their situation. We got to see them having very personal, very intimate moments, and I'm highly impressed.

Yea Veritas, I really am digging this shows soundtrack a lot too. And the glimpse of a theme we get in the closing makes me wish we could get full credits one of these days.

My reaction against Chloe is simply one of geek pride and wishing she'd get with Eli, no knock against the character or the (admittedly sad) reality of their situation. Though I do wonder how (...umm...What's her name? The other girl?) will react when she learns about the two of them.

Even with the ship repowered, I doubt the systems are set up to dial intergalacticly, meaning they remain trapped for now.

Speaking of the other scientists, I wonder... they mentioned back in Air that there were 5 addresses "in range". Would range mean, within that galaxy? Seems awfully few, and shouldn't stargates have unlimited range within the current Galaxy? I wonder why the two of them never tried to dial home, or why the Destiny crew hasn't tried to reach them...Oh right. Power...Well...that's all fixed, maybe they can now?

Maybe the "in range" is what the ship is telling them. Sure, they should be able to dial any number of gates, but the ship may be taking other things into consideration, such as the possible need to use the shuttle to go to the surface or what have you. It's also been shown to lock out gates from being dialed when it arrives in a system.

And I'm calling it right here, Destiny is perhaps one of the best-constructed Deus Ex Machinas at this point in the series. So far, everything the ship has been both benevolent and benign; almost as if it knows better than the people on board of how to take care of itself and its passengers. But I see that changing at some point when "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," to borrow for another sci-fi series... Then the castaways' thoughts and feeling of Destiny will greatly change.

On the subject of Eli and Chloe, speaking from personal experience (Eli's POV), Chloe sees him as a friend or a big brother. She doesn't see him as a potential mate. Personally, I'd rather see Eli end up with one of the other women, possibly one of the Air Force ladies.

I guessed that Destiny would use the star to refuel fairly early on, once they said that the ship was on course directly for it. Still, the drama of everyone trying to decide who was going on the shuttle made for some good TV, so no foul there. I don't think Dr Rush knew for sure that Destiny would survive, but I agree that he suspected it would. I view his reaction to the situation to resigning himself to his fate, but really hoping his instincts were correct.

Ugh. This played out precisely as predicted and had exactly the problems predicted, except that 1/5 of the crew weren't stranded as, y'know, predicted, making the plot movement here utterly nonexistent. We learned that a minor character who we didn't like really is a bitch, but not amoral, because she felt guilty about getting to live. That's the extent of the character development in this episode.

I'm enjoying some of the characters, but I'm still waiting for the plot to arrive. Nothing about the writing makes me think "better Stargate," which is probably good, but instead I'm thinkning "watered-down BSG." That we have an invisible Roslin, an uncompromised Adama, and a messianically selfless Baltar among the crew doesn't help. (Hell, and a male Starbuck.)

I also felt like the shuttle trajectory and the slingshot manoeuvre were filler. Imagine how pissed at the ship and at Rush the survivors would be if the shuttle was lost in that final, ah, bump with Destiny. Things like that - basically the there-is-no-God factor - are precisely what this series lacks to really do BSG, at least thus far. If you're going to do this hackneyed thing, give it a twist, some kind of unexpected emotional punch.

We're getting it in bits, but it's not quite enough. The best moment of this episode was Rush's reaction to the Kino in the airlock.

Predictions-wise: I don't think there's going to be any dialing home going on. Rush isn't going to let that happen, even on a full tank. I sincerely hope, however, that they get to start plotting their own courses at some point. It's not like it would mean that they could get the ship home in the next century. Still, kudos for bucking the usual Stargate formula in this episode: no away mission and not a single shot of the gate.

Oh, and Rush. Why do we care if he "knew" again? Obviously, he wasn't sure, just had a hint. I think "we" know that from his reaction? But it doesn't really make sense as a big trust exercise that he would stage if he was certain, and if he was anything less than certain, then the cap'n has to acknowledge of some level that Rush did exactly what was necessary ... a realization process we just might get dragged through in slow motion next week.

I am enjoying this series, and I don't see it as "flawed" in any way - it just has a hell of a lot more potential than it's tapping. (Some really great CG in this episode, too.)

The reason they were concerned if Rush knew is because this episode finally made him (In the eyes of the crew) sympathetic. He seemed as ready to die as anyone, he and Young presented their mutual respect in the open, and the moment where he sees the ship, a surrogate for his wife in many ways, was touching to the others.

If he knew that there was no danger (even if we as the audience know he wasn't sure) it puts all his humanizing traits into question for them. It's like an emotional Xanatos Gambit. Rush plays for sympathy, and they like him more. Ship explodes, no loss. Ship makes it, he has more stability and cred with the crew.

I think Rush knew it was a possibility, but he was prepared to go down with the ship if it wasn't. He definitely knew that getting back to the ship might not be a possibility. To him, dying with Destiny is a better fate than living apart from her.

Yea, like I said, he's using Destiny as a surrogate for his dead wife in some fashion. Heh...You know, rush is the kind of egotist who would lie about the ships Lantean name, and just named it after his wife maybe...

I also had a random thought about the whole "range" thing with the Destiny's gate. What if you always have to dial a 9 chevron address unless the ship is in that exact star system, where it defaults to a standard 7.

What was the point of the "unless Rush knew" thing? What good would it do Rush to keep that a secret if he knew?

Edit - Okay, I just read what you said about that, Vestras, and I guess it makes sense. But I think they are just being paranoid and he didn't know.

Also, I really don't think it matters who damaged the ship. It was probably damaged a million years ago in a galaxy millions of lightyears away.

If he knew, he may have chosen to keep it from the others in case he was wrong. It's better not to give them false hope. This has the potential to create another humanizing moment for him.

No topic for the new ep? I don't feel the need to do a full review at the moment, so I'd feel silly starting one ....

I just have to say that while "Water" was a repetition of everything we've seen before in this series and I still haven't decided whether to love or hate the show - well, tolerate or dislike it - that ending sequence, literally the last 15 seconds, was extremely well handled.

The show is starting to loose me in the sense its just BSG lite.
BSG had a water episode as well.
Oh and Eli needs to get with that one air force lady with the big breasts. The one who came out in a t-shirt and panties....She is better looking.
otherwise so far its a survivor-bsg knock-off.

I'm glad that they finally added to the Chloe/Scott relationship. Previously, the only thing shown of their "romance" was them doin' the do. They shared very little else as far as the emotional aspect of the relationship goes. It wasn't much, but at least we saw Chloe concerned for Scott when he was off-ship and not just the usual "well, Scott's gone. I may as well go talk to Eli."

I like the alien better as a swarm of tiny things that fly and work together. I previously had the impression that it was a wind-based entity.

I like that the show seems to bypass some of the usual tropes that have become common place. They lead into the whole "Maybe if we can just communicate with it, it will be our friends" thread and then totally botched it up and said "Fine, stick it in a can and throw it through the stargate" regardless of whether it could have survived on that planet or not.

I bet you the sand swarm will terraform that planet in no time into a paradise. we know they absorb water, what else can they absorb and work with I wonder?

I also am grateful that they brought it back rather than having it be a one shot critter. And yea, the swarm thing makes a little more sense than sentient sand/gas hybrid.

An average episode I suppose, but it was nice to see Young getting some characterization beyond being half crippled or having marital issues. First time I have gained much of any real confidence in him.

Heh, I like how Eli is the practical guy of the braintrust. We have anti-grave cameras, we have a dolly... BAM Hover cart!

My only complaint is that the swarm aliens got onto Destiny by hitchhiking a ride through the stargate with Scott. So how do they get rid of them? Dump them through a stargate where Scott is waiting on the other side -- who then proceeds to travel back through the stargate to Destiny. Rinse and repeat. Doesn't seem like a well thought out solution...

I also like how he wasn't building it to be useful, but rather to amuse himself. He didn't want to make a hover dolly, he wanted to make a hover board.

It's better than nothing. There's a good shot of that getting rid of them for good.

Ideally, they wouldn't have escaped the can until after the gate was closed.

I'm wondering what they will do on that "Hoth" world. I doubt that they will ever show the results of them being there, but it would be cool, pardon the pun, if they would show that they transformed the planet into something habitable.

I think there is some chance of that happening. We still have a lot of unanswered questions like that Pod and the fates of the morons who gate jumped.

Right now, I am wondering how long until the paradigm shift for the show. At the moment, it is purely a matter of survival from one week to the next. Things have to change up soon or the show is really going to struggle to keep the casual audience. It's good sci-fi, and a decent show, but they need a stronger hook to really kick things into motion.

they absorb water...and were found on a desert planet. You do the math.

they become like Americans, FAT

The Earth-side Colonel is creepy. Can he pass himself off as Everett?

In all fairness, it was kind of inconsiderate of Young to put Telford's penis into someone he doesn't know without his permission.

Edit: Also, we now see why the SGU uniforms have nametags on them.

I know!

That whole senario is weird... for all three parties involved.

Also, on the sand swarm... It really makes a good point that maybe you should have some sort of quarantine procedure for using the stargate... like... maybe that would be a good idea.

Yeah, I would have thought sex would have been against the rules Young talked about having to follow. Oh well, I guess. Maybe they've done this with the stones on previous shows, but I liked how in this episode they *finally* did a really good job of portraying the body swap as a thematic story element. Eli seeing how the other half lives, Chloe hearing what people think about her and seeing her old life from another point of view, and of course the sex. It actually dealt with the sort of stuff that would come up from that sort of thing, and in a pretty decent way.

I agree with Kal, that this show is doing a decent enough job of casting aside the stereotypes and tropes of what you'd expect to see in this sort of show. It's close enough that it's neither unfamiliar nor epically groundbreaking, but it's also different enough to be interesting without being confusing. I think it's a good mix.

I'm also still wondering about that pod, about the two people who gate-jumped in episode 2, etc. I dislike when shows leave things like that hanging, and I'm hoping this show won't.

In response to Vestras, I think that holding off on an overall story arc is actually better for keeping casual viewers. Right now, someone could conceivably miss an episode or two and not be lost. It's been survival stories, character explorations, etc. Nothing has happened which has been fundamentally pivotal or representing a paradigm shift. At some point, that will be necessary to give a deeper emotional hook to the show's audience, but for now, I actually think they're better doing more one-off stories to keep being able to hook casual viewers. Part of the reason this is my first regularly-watched SG series is because the deep history of the other shows was too impenetrable after a while. If I tried to watch an episode, I was completely lost. Anything to delay that kind of reaction on this show would be smart, in my opinion.

Pretty great episode. I'm with Galenraff on all that analysis.

I so felt for Eli in that little Fantasy scene of his in the car. While all the sex and pop-music kinda of feels against the grain of SG, the episode really drove home a lot of what the characters have been missing. Sunlight, love, music, liquor. Also, anyone else catch Young's dream and then the reference to a "Her" at the base? And here I was thinking Johansen was involved with Ms. Wray.

Which was something they implemented after SG1 went through their own version of musical bodies. Fun fact, those name tags are just on with velcro, for easy "Who the hug are you?!?!" moments.

It's like this, actually: Off-world uniforms don't have rank insignia or nametags. They have the Tau'ri symbol on the left shoulder, a unit patch on the right shoulder (or an SGC logo if the character isn't a member of an SG team,) and a small branch logo (if applicable) beneath that. Crewmembers of a ship or space station wear nametags and ship/station patches as per normal for Air Force flight suits. Crewmembers of an off-world base, such as the Alpha site, wear the standard off-world uniform.

While in the SGC, personnel wear rank insignia and nametags most of the time.

I believe that the reason why they don't have rank or name tag on ALL off-world teams is that if they were captured and tortured, the enemy would easily identify who's more important (by rank) SC-teams are covert, top secret, black-ops missions.
As for on the SGC, well it's a military base soit makes sense to hold a chain of command.

For the episode, can we please tone down the sex sense of the show. It would appear almost every episode has some sex sense going on.
Air episode= Scot and James
Fire episode= Scot and Chole
Water episode = Chole taking a shower
Earth episode - Young + wife

(on a side note: Man I do noticed every sex sense here.......... I need to do something about that, maybe later )

I think Telford going to pose as Young is sort of revenge on how Telford got humiliated.
I would asume Young gave his wife some sort of secret code to let her know if Telford or any other is really Young or not......

I don't think young anticipated Talford realizing what was happening, so I doubt a code word was worked out. Alternatively, I always kind of wondered...what if Talford was already banging Young's wife, even before the body swap...

Caught up on the Kino shorts over the weekend, pretty funny stuff, especially with Greer and James. Not sure where exactly they cut off in relation to main events.

Next week, HIGHLIGHT to view:
time travel 101, and gratuitous deaths of most of the main cast

I love this show. I feel like I must be in some alternate universe...my wife didn't particularly care about SG-1 or Atlantis but she likes this show and actively wants to watch it with me! It's awesome!

Yeah, last night was amazing. That has to be the best time travel episode ever. The ending, or lack thereof was the icing o the cake of awesome that is this show.

The best part is that it was established the first time Stargate ever used the solar flare time travel deal that it doesn't work at all the way they used it last night. My favorite part is how this show totally screws up everything it tries to do.

I also miss the DHDs, even if only from a cool looking prop perspective.

agreed.... and indeed

last night was just awesome, even if the show only has a few episode in it's belt, the continuity is just rock solid
when they anounce that there wont be a regular alien bad guy on the show, i was wondering how are they gonna do that. i mean every show has a regular bad guy to build-up its reputation as a bad guy, but this episode just shows me that all around them is an alien bad guy waiting to get out. the devil sand thing, and now water bacteria (i just love it)

the best part of that episode was when camera eli shouted to camera rush that he's crazy when his running away, then eli pointing out to rush that he is crazy, then rush just gave him the "eh" shoulder look (gold, just pure gold)

I'm thinking that Destiny detected the micro bacteria and intentionally located an antidote for the crew.

An intriguing thought. If true, then Destiny is much more intelligent (sentient?) then anyone ever thought.

Personally, I'm expecting Scott to toss the creature he shot - along with the kino - into the unstable wormhole. Even if it's dead, it's more than they had to begin with...and much safer then making a third trip.

I also suspect that the creature will become the crew's new medicine chest if they can keep it alive and contained. They'll discover that its venom is a universal cure-all for just about any ailment.

-SS (their own private drug store!)

I don't know about throwing the bug through. They didn't concretely work out how far back the wormhole was throwing stuff, but given the skull it's certainly long enough. No, the fix for the episode was spelled out anyway. The next loop they'd get Scott's message and have time to go hunting during the day when it's safe and probably grab as many of those things as they'd need. Nobody dies, nothing goes through the time warp and the cycle breaks. Next week's episode will be business as usual as if nothing ever happened. Cause most of it didn't. Yay, time travel!

Man, they seriously need some better quarentine procedures.