SGU First Timer: Out of Control In ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Twin Destinies’

What happens when a long-time Stargate fan finally watches SGU for the very first time? Join Sara Kehoe on the adventure and see Stargate Universe through fresh eyes!

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Sara’s first time watching SGU is moving into the final stretch! In this installment she shares her first impressions of “Deliverance,” the mid-season premiere that began the series’ final 10 episodes. Faced with an overwhelming fleet of unmanned drone weapons, Destiny has its back up against the wall … only for another hostile alien force to appear with its own demands.

Then, in the fan-favorite episode “Twin Destinies,” the crew comes upon a second Destiny — their own ship from the future, which is falling into a star.

Here is Sara’s take!

DELIVERANCE

It’s space battle time, y’all. Roly-poly drones from the haunted battlefield are angry they’ve been woken up. Destiny isn’t doing well, and Chloe “The Buffy” Armstrong has made a decision. She thinks the CGI BlueBugs can help. She breaks out of her cell and hacks the computers to send a signal to the BlueBugs. When Greer and his security boys show up Lt. Scott tries to keep the peace, but she’s crossing some major trust lines here.

Per usual, I really enjoy Greer’s performance. You can see the character weighing his options before pointing his gun at Chloe. He’s defying a direct order, but he truly believes it is the right thing to do. He knows Chloe is a threat, and despite his relationship with Scott he wants to put the ship and her crew first.

The BlueBugs show up and draw indiscriminate fire from the drones, which was Chloe’s plan. Eli figures out stuff, Telford agrees with Rush, and Destiny kills the command ship … and I really don’t care because this is a Chloe episode.

Chloe broke her guard’s arm in two places and did some computering that even impressed Rush. (Let’s take a collective moment to appreciate Rush giving a compliment.) She’s beyond the control of Colonel Young, because she has grown smarter and more physically capable than they can manage.

Boring non-Chloe stuff: Since last we saw them the Ninja Turtles tried to contact their home colony … but another command ship has targeted it and it’s probably toasted. And the command ship is coming our way. So, we’re going to kidnap a drone. Because poking things tends to work so well for us.

Back to Chloe. I’m not quite on board with the “hand Chloe over to the BlueBugs” plan. It feels out of nowhere and a little un-Stargatey. The forced sacrifice of a team member isn’t anything Jack O’Neill or John Sheppard would ever do. I know Young isn’t O’Neill or Shepherd, but I felt like his actions here were unnecessary. I would have felt totally different if Chloe came up with the plan, or if he had discussed it with her and gave her a chance to think about it.

TWIN DESTINIES

My brain hurts. Time travel always creates this tiny pain behind my right eye.

My biggest question is how did Alt-Rush and Alt-Telford get to where they were? Rush time-traveled back and Telford didn’t time travel at all? Does Telford disappear on Earth because they never open the wormhole, enabling him to return to begin with? Are there now Zero Telfords?

Are we now able to control time travel? Was this incident caused by solar flares again? When Alt-Rush merged with the Alt-Destiny … did he also become part of our Destiny? Is he now galactic BFFs with Franklin?

One thing sci-fi shows do a lot is play with time travel in one episode and then ignore any fallout or repercussions in the grand scheme of things. SG-1 played with time travel and “2010” directly referenced what happened in “1969,” but “Moebius” Parts 1 and 2 don’t get referenced at all going forward. Outside of time travel episodes themselves, the events of those episodes rarely affect the plot in significant ways.

With Alt-Rush becoming one with the Alt-Destiny and the real Destiny harvesting some of those parts, I would love to see that come back around. We’ve seen Franklin come back again and I’m curious to see what Rush could do with his “uploaded” self. Two Rushes would have an insufferable amount of ego but an impressive intelligence to solve problems with. It would be Rodney McKay to the nth power!

If Alt-Telford is still around on Earth and survives the paradox, will his knowledge of what happened-but-didn’t-happen become useful down the road? He knows how to get back to Earth, and Alt-Rush knows what went wrong; they could come up with a workable solution.

I went into this knowing that (per Internet comments) SGU does not end in a satisfying way. But this feels like it could have been a route to take to give the show an ending. Maybe they get into it in the comics?

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In the Next Installment: Camille Wray and MSgt. Greer fall victim to a terrorist attack on Earth in “Alliances.” Then Dr. Volker’s life is on the line in “Hope,” and someone we thought was dead makes a surprise return.

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Read more about “Deliverance” and “Twin Destinies” in GateWorld’s SGU episode guide.

The guys at GateWorld discuss both episodes on the GateWorld Podcast.

Sara is watching through Stargate Universe for the first time! We’d love to read your comments below … but please don’t spoil future events for her.