SGU: Darkness (Episode 4)

SGU Episode 4 “Darkness” Reviewed by Colonel_Ez Spoiler Potential: High As per my new system I have given this review the title “Out of the frying pan, into the Sun“ Firstly just let me say Yay! Peter DeLuise and leave it at that Now, onto everything else… Its my feeling that, as good and as different as the pacing of SGU is, its also going to be the biggest hurdle for fans to contend with, personally I like it but I still have to remind myself of that and I have to wonder what this episode would be like viewed through the eyes of somebody who doesn’t remind themselves of that. Having this conversation with a friend a little earlier and they asked a valid question “is the show still good if you have to keep reminding yourself why” I have to make sure im being clear when I say, im not constantly reminding myself its good, the quality of writing, acting, the camera work, score everything about each of the episodes reminds you of that, im reminding myself that its not the same stargate we’ve lived with for years. It was inverted Stargate – the power going off and careering towards a sun were given but a few minutes where as in previous stargate episodes that would have been the main focus, is it a bad thing that It wasn’t? In this reviewers opinion, it definitely was not (did I really just refer to myself as this reviewer?) A lot of this episode was settling in, people having briefings, people checking out systems, working to try and establish a chain of command, establishing what they have and what they need – along with taking another pass on a few characters and introducing us to some more, on a sidenote – as we are introduced to more and more characters it becomes apparent to me what my biggest issue is going to be with the show and that’s remembering character names. I do worry about the ratio of introductions to development, I know I gave this a lot of coverage last week in reference to Greer so I wont go into it significantly again here, it’s a worry for me that while the hit and run style of introductions works for characters like TJ or Camille doesn’t always work, Sergeant Spencer & Greer are my examples of it not really working, but – this is a new show with a different format and, the episodes so far haven’t let me down so im willing to trust in the writers and the actors themselves to bring me round. The CG in this episode was outstanding, the gas giant was breathtaking, Eli’s question to Chloe about how she could already be so jaded to this stuff was fitting, I’ve watched my fair share of Science Fiction (to be entirely accurate, I’ve probably watched about 50 peoples fair share of Sci Fi) a planet is a planet, a gas giants a gas giant, but this was outstanding, my mission for sometime in the week when I have a few free minutes is to find a really nice screen capture out of the shots from the observation deck to set as a desktop background and the sweeping shot of the Destiny on course for the sun, again nothing we haven’t seen before in Sci Fi, hell even in Stargate but, so much more impressive, so much more real. The music, well the music in Stargate has always been great but there is something about this new direction Joel Goldsmith has taken it in, something about it, I can only assume the “synthesised Swells” (which ill continue to call them until I come up with a better description” reminds me of the original Transformers movie, you know – the cartoon one, I really like it, I also like the inclusion of real music, while not in this episode the song at the end of Air Part 3 has gone from me disliking it significantly on first viewing to being on the top 25 most played on my iTunes, which I guess would be my general advice to those who are watching SGU and still not liking its differences, give them time to grow on you… If I had to pick a favourite moment then I would be torn, but since SGU is more about people ill make my favourite moment the same – Dr Rush’ Kino scene was fantastic, when Eli asked him to say what he felt and he said nothing, but his face, eyes, hell even body language was screaming, this is a man in pain – as long as Robert Carlyle can keep playing scenes like that (what am I saying, course he can he’s Robert Carlyle) they could go entire seasons without devoting even a minute of an episode to telling us what his problem is, the combination of writing, acting and directing here simply parked it and parked it deep – give Greer a moment like this, a perfect, simple moment that tells us “this is Greer, now quit asking” Finally, as a man, im pleased that they took the time to confirm that 2nd Lt James has nipples and, would appreciate the crew giving the same amount of care and attention to proving that the rest of the female members of the cast have them also, big thumbs up from me For this week, that’s me done – please let other Stargate fans know about this review and continue to let me know what you think, the follow up discussions I’ve had with people since doing these have been lots of fun Colonel_Ez, out