As much as the start of “Life” was a warning of things to come with the catchy music (something that was actually enjoyable, despite its message), I was hoping that this episode would remain fairly Stargate-oriented despite what was shown during the preview. Instead, viewers were treated to a show that somehow seemed more like an episode of The O.C. or Days of Our Lives. From Lt. Scott’s revelation that he had a child to the triangle between Colonel Telford, Colonel Young, and his wife, this episode was just way too much drama.
“Life” had such great potential, with the discovery of the Ancient chair/repository. I really hesitate to put it this way — but if this was SG-1 or Atlantis, that’s what the show would have been about, with a possible B story. Even the character development with Wray and her partner back on Earth felt right because it was still, in a way, dealing with what was going on on board the Destiny. If that had been the entire B story with the chair being the A story, “Life” would have been a completely different episode.
Instead, Scott and Wray’s lives on Earth became the A story (or stories) with the Destiny and the chair becoming a partial B story.
Rush’s discovery of the chair was important, and what little the writers did with that story was so interesting that it left me wanting so much more. You could see Rush’s complete lack of care for other people’s lives, played so well in his desire to obtain the ship’s master code. In contrast was Young going against him trying to do the right thing. Everything happening on board Destiny was interesting: the chair, T.J. doing psych evaluations, and Spencer going crazy because of withdrawal from his medication.
An episode like “Life” makes it evident that SGU is catered toward a new audience. While I can say that I do like drama (and watch some really bad TV on occasion), in the end, what Stargate fan cares whether Lt. Scott has a kid or not? Even the Telford/Young/Emily triangle got a little less interesting. The producers could have put a great sci-fi twist on that — if Telford was, in fact, pretending to be Colonel Young — but instead they turned it into a weird love triangle.
The episode was close to being a complete disaster, but “Life” had a couple of saving graces in Colonel Young and Dr. Rush. Both are very powerful men. Young is a complete force to be reckoned with, which came out a lot in this episode. Hopefully, the chair room will have some prominence in future episodes — which would make a lot of Stargate fans happy. “Life” also had a hint of more I.O.A. scheming with Strom’s brief appearance, which was one more minor saving grace.
Unfortunately, nothing mentioned above redeems “Life” from being the worst episode of SGU to date. Next week is the mid-season finale, and one would hope that SGU makes some kind of impact before a long hiatus. While the show has been pretty reliable and enjoyable thus far, “Life” was a step in the wrong direction.
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@Julian: I agree on just about everything you said. The chair should have been the A story and Wray the b story and nothing else. This instead turned out to be an episode of just character development and the science ended up being the E story. I don’t mind character development but they tried to develop EVERYBODY in this episode! That could never ever work! They should always have a sci-fi story being the A story and have ONE character develop, maybe two if their stories intersect. Like LOST, they concentrate on just one character per episode, everybody else might develop if they are involved with the story of that particular character, otherwise there in the background.
Life was like a cook trying to make a dish and decides to throw in EVERY SINGLE ingredient he’s got. Can you spell DISASTER? Hopefully "Justice" will put SGU back on track
with ingredients in this case being every character
I agree that the scenes on Earth tainted the episode.I'm personally not a massive fan of this ''drama on Earth'' idea that the LRC stones have brought up, however in saying that I did think that these Earth scenes were more bareable than the Earth scenes from the episode ''Earth''.
I thought that the going-ons onboard the Destiny were the highlight of the episode. I feel that the discovery of the chair could pull SGU back into being ''Stargatey''.
IMHO I found this to be on of the best episodes yet. To put this in perspective this is only the second SGU episode that I've rewatched thus far apart from ''Air (Part II)''.
And Yes because of the chair.
I really find this the first review for SGU that I flat-out disagree with. To me, this was one of the best episodes yet, and I didn't mind for a second that the "In your face science" moments were taking a backseat to more subtle uses of technology and character development.
I totally agree with the review. IMO, this was one of the worst episode of all three Stargate series. The whole time I was hoping for the chair to be something, but it never was ... they only focused on the relationships back on earth. Maybe by season 4 I would care about things like this, but so far I don't even like these characters. If this was SG1 or SGU then someone would have sat down in that chair and some big things would have happened. My favorite episode of the season so far has been "Time", but all other ones were just so-so. I hope the next two before the break will be better; I so much want this to be a good show. I've been very disappointed so far. Give us some science fiction!
I completely disagree with this review. I will contend that it may be the weakest ep of the series but it was still a great ep with plenty of character development, exploration, intrigue and drama. I quite liked Life.
Yes, it was bad.
One thing I have to disagree with is "Rush’s complete lack of care for other people’s lives".
Rush never said anything about forcing someone on the chair. Someone might have been willing to take the chance, Greer even offered it although possibly in jest.
Imho Young has shown himself as quite an incompetent military leader.
What I like about SGU:
- new camera style
- high budget digital effects
- great new sets and set pieces
- The kino which allows for a more direct interaction with characters
- The premise of a crew that is not 'up to par' stranded on an incredible ship many light years away
What I loathe about SGU:
- Lack of any sense of adventure
- Constant drama
- Incessant 'hooking up' and body swapping rape
- Lack of action
- Molasses like pacing
A good review of a terrible episode. The Sci-Fi really has taken a back seat to the drama. Personally, I think they're trying too hard to create drama even just on Destiny itself - let alone all this garbage on Earth. The sheer fact that government actually allows all these people (inc civilians) to use the stones to go out and mingle and get trashed in public just blows my mind. It reeks of desperation to create extra drama that's completely unnecessary for what's apparently a Stargate show.
It's very disheartening to me knowing that they've already finished with Season 1 because that means this sort of drama is just going to continue. At best, all I can hope for is that the negative feedback is noted and taken into consideration if and when they begin writing Season 2.
Kinda disagree on this review. I would agree that it is one of the weaker episodes of SGU thus far but it wasn't bad, there were some aspects that I liked.
We got an insight on what the day to day life is like on the Destiny, the beginning of formations of "camps" for control of the ship, the introduction of the chair etc.
Would agree that they really should stop going to Earth so often though, if they do I hope that there's larger gaps between visits that we see on screen. I would rather have more time seeing what's happening on the Destiny.
As far as I can tell the next episode is going to be on-board the Destiny, don't see character drama on Earth happening much in it.