Friday, May 21, 2010

Stargate Universe - Pain, S01E17

Although I would have named this episode Fear rather than Pain, this episode is just further proof that the writers of the series have figured out how to bring the show back to the quality expected from the Stargate franchise.

This episode played with the emotions, the relationships, and the kinds of things that had me dubbing this Stargate Melrose Place earlier in the season, but instead of addressing them in that kind of manner, they used science fiction themes instead.

Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith) didn't go back to Earth to talk to his ex and discover he had a son, something mostly irrelevant to the plot. Instead, knowing about that son, he saw him running around the ship. Scott realized he was hallucinating, was able to then volunteer to have the tick causing it to be removed, and risk death. We understood his pain regarding his son without simply being told about it (until the end, when everyone summed up their fears).

It was also a brilliant way to show that James (Julia Benson) is still holding a torch for Scott, and that it is far more serious a thing than we knew before. So much so that her anger caused her to kill him. Luckily, she only struck her hallucination.

This is what I wanted for SGU. Again, a little bit more humour would be nice, but in the main they are now giving us the slightly darker, more emotional stargate that we were promised.

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