Season One – Episode Sixteen
As Destiny flies between galaxies it becomes apparent that the ship will not make it across the void between the two systems. Rush and Brody have calculated that Destiny will lose power and drift the rest of the way between galaxies and even though Destiny will eventually make it the passengers will not survive the voyage. So it seems that desperate times call for desperate measures and that means bringing someone from Earth to help in solving the problem. Unfortunately the person who they need to bring is severely disabled and the person swapping places will deal with an arduous situation.
This was one of the better episodes of the first season of Stargate Universe. We again get to see the lighter side of Nicholas Rush. The person who is brought to work with him is a colleague that he has known since she was young. She was the person he turned to after his wife died. They became close friends and she always saw more in their relationship. Kathleen Munroe plays a dazzling Dr. Amanda Perry. She’s a woman who has been severely disabled since she was nine yet overcame those odds to be one of the brilliant minds of her time. She even next to Rush understands the most about Ancient technology and how it might be manipulated or understood. So the catch is the person who is switching places with her will be put into a position of maintaining their sanity while being in a body that can basically just function. This is a pretty big jolt to ones psyche. Amanda has been that way most of her life. This person must handle the situation knowing it is a temporary one, but necessary to their survival. In the end Camille played by Ming-Na does an outstanding job of coping with the understanding that she will spend her time at home with her partner Sharon played by Reiko Aylesworth.
Amanda and Rush immediately start working on the problems when there is an explosion and Destiny falls out of FTL. It is now the job of the crew to repair Destiny and return her to better performance all at the same time. One of the byproducts of the situation is that the gate dials in and out walk Scott, Chloe, and Eli who were still in gate range and imagined that the crew got control of Destiny so they could return. From this point on the story gets quite convoluted as the aliens that have been dogging them appear, they just need to fix Destiny before they’re attacked, Rush and Amanda have an interesting relationship, and Lieutenant James and Dr. Franklin have tremendous revelations of their own.
The writers and production staff seem to be getting a better hold of the plots and the characters this second part of the first season. In a way the first half of the season was very simplistic. Now with some subtle nuances to the characters and interesting side stories the plots are getting better each week. There is no one focal character that the viewers can hone in on and as a viewer you are forced to consider the whole instead of the individuals. The cast chemistry seems to be improving as well. The actors seem much more comfortable in their roles than they did early on. Emotion can flow and the viewer is drawn into the story instead of feeling like an observer.
So it seems that a united Destiny is once more on its path, wherever that may take it. There are some major mysteries to uncover and storylines still to deal with, but as Destiny moves forward we can become more comfortable with the direction the franchise is going. Personally it’s going to be fun to see where things go. Thanks for reading…
Jeffery Yarter
