Farewell, Destiny: Ten Great SGU Moments

With the series (cliffhanger) finale just hours away, GateWorld is bidding farewell with 10 of our favorite, stand-out moments from Stargate Universe‘s 2-year run! (Watch out for spoilers through last week’s episode, “Blockade.”)

1. Hold That Gate!
Episode: “Air, Part 3”
Character: Eli

It’s the new team’s first off-world mission, to find a substance capable of repairing Destiny‘s air filtration system. Lt. Matthew Scott and MSgt. Ronald Greer have found the lime and are running back to the gate at break-neck speed, but there’s no way they will make it in time. Destiny‘s clock is about to hit zero, and the crew back on board can’t stop it from entering F.T.L. and leaving the team behind. But Nicholas Rush suspects that the ship may have a safety protocol that can give them the few moments they need. He radios Eli on the planet and tells him to stick his arm into the event horizon. The gambit pays off, giving the men time to reach the gate … and save everyone on board.

2. ‘You Are All Going To Die’
Episode: “Time”
Character: Matt

The team’s first encounter with time-travel is intense and personal, as they find a kino on a jungle planet which contains footage of their gruesome deaths. They had originally arrived and begun collecting food, only to be attacked in the night by vicious creatures that burrowed into their bodies and left bloody corpses behind. A solar flare is bending the Stargate’s wormhole back in time, so there is no going back to the ship. Meanwhile, people are falling ill from an infection in their recently-acquired water supply. The team’s mission to retrieve the creature’s venom to save the crew … fails miserably when the team is attacked and killed by the creatures. Lt. Scott is the only survivor, and uses another kino to send a message back in time to Destiny‘s crew once again — telling them everything they need to survive this incredible ordeal the next time around.

3. Close Encounters
Episode: “Space”
Character: Everett

Now away from Earth for months, the crew has acquired the basic necessities of survival and is settling into a routine of using the long-range communication stones to visit their loved ones back on earth (and report to Homeworld Command). Transferring your consciousness into the body of someone back on Earth has almost become too commonplace — until it goes terribly wrong for Everett Young. The Colonel activates his communication stone but, instead of opening his eyes back on Earth, he finds himself occupying the body of an alien on board a mothership. It is the first time he has seen the species that would threaten his people so many times in the future, and though he’s only connected for a few minutes, it is a startling event both for the Colonel and for SGU viewers.

4. Escape!
Episode: “Space”
Character: Rush and Chloe

“Space” opens with that jaw-dropping scene, and closes with Rush and Chloe’s daring escape from alien captivity. He was picked up after being left behind on a planet and breaking into a crashed alien ship (“Justice”); she was abducted from Destiny in the middle of a firefight. After Colonel Young has used the communication stone to get on board the alien ship and set Rush free from his watery prison, Rush discovers that Chloe is also a prisoner. He kills one of the aliens, locates Chloe and frees her from the water tank holding her, and the two hurry to steal a fighter craft to escape the mothership. It sets up much of what is to come — the blue aliens’ constant pursuit and Chloe’s transformation — but after so many episodes of dark brooding by the characters, it also felt to us like one of SGU‘s first epic moments. Two characters who were once enemies, now desperately escaping together from an alien threat.

NEXT: Memorable moments from Season Two!