SGU: Time (Episode 8)

SGU Episode 8 “Time” Reviewed by Colonel_Ez Spoiler Potential High With a personal title of “Well for a moment there I thought we were in trouble…” I started this review about three times, because I wanted to express how much I really (really) enjoyed this episode – in fact I think it may be the best episode so far, while referencing my one, single issue with it. My issue was about deaths in time travel shows and how when it happens to certain people you know it isn’t lasting, however – I’ve watched the episode twice now and I don’t think I want to talk about it anymore, because it was handled really well. When I began watching I was beginning to have a gripe about what looked to be the start of an “all kino” episode, don’t get me wrong I love the kino as a storytelling device but I’ve never been a fan of the shaky, handheld shooting style, it makes me dizzy – so a whole episode shot like that was going to be a problem for me, then – we got 9 minutes in and I forgot all about that. Those were some shocking visuals, Chloe dying in front of the kino was a serious WTF moment because, up until the 9th minute I had a whole bunch of other theories about how the episode was going to shape up (Time distortions, headaches, dizziness – a whole planet out of time thing going on) I’ll have to be honest that the idea of a solar flare effecting gate travel was pretty far from my mind, and that’s because the main premise of the “return to Earth” idea from last weeks episode was based on dialling the gate from inside a star so I assumed that particular part of gate travel 101 was being fudged over, my second guess like Eli’s was an alternate reality. When people on the ship started getting sick regardless I was thinking it was a whole temporal causality thing (what has happened, will happen, fixed point in time sort of thing… a thought you can blame on last nights episode of Dr Who I guess) the possibility that it was the water on the ship and nothing to do with this planet was a complete side swipe, which on reflection it shouldn’t have been because the ice planet was included in the intro clip this week, I can only assume as a reference point for viewers of this episode who haven’t watched each episode. Again, as is a standard for SGU the character moments was outstanding, Eli and Rush, Eli and Chloe, TJ and Eli, Scott & Eli, TJ and Death, Rush and Young all really nice insight. For me, my favourite was Eli telling Rush about his grandfather and with no disrespect to David Blue but it was less about his story and more about Rush, even though he hardly said anything – it was both compelling and uncomfortable to watch him listen to a story about death, almost as compelling and uncomfortable as this moment was the moment of watching TJ cry as Eli confesses his feeling to an already dead Chloe. I cant decide where I stand on the end of the episode, by rights if they had solved the problem in the remaining minutes then it would have seemed like the all too common problem of the week format that was prevalent in SG-1 early on and in a lot of Atlantis, but I don’t know if ill be happier if it just gets solved between this week and next, or if we spend a portion of next weeks episode getting a venom sample. I think for any of you, like me that have friends out there who are (or were) stargate fans who haven’t got into SGU yet, or even just people you think would like the show this is the episode to tease them with – as much as I’ve liked the episodes so far, this episode is a cut above For this week, this is Colonel_Ez, Signing out