What an odd little episode. Nothing really happened, and yet, a lot actually happened. Instead of “Faith”, the episode really should have been called “Mending”, because that seems to be what everyone is doing for the entire episode.
“Faith’s” premise has Destiny coming out of FTL when she runs across a solar system that isn’t supposed to be there. Turns out, instead of just a mysteriously appearing system, there’s also a giant, shiny new star and oh look, a very Earth-like planet just waiting to be colonized, filled with all the wonders of Earth minus all that human overpopulation, pollution, and other global messes we’ve made of things on our own little blue planet.
I know what you’re thinking: It’s a trick! Tricky aliens with mind powers are trying to trick our heroes into falling in love with the Earth-like planet so the aliens can suck on their juicy, squishy brains while they sleep! As it turns out, not so much.
So, let’s catch up with our stranded shipmates since last week’s ep:
Rush (Robert Carlyle), still suffering a tad (okay, mightily) from his impromptu surgery is limping around the place trying to grit away the pain. You actually feel for the guy, and for a moment you forget that he’s a selfish dickhead who will do pretty much anything to get his way, which invariably includes putting everyone else’s life at risk. Ah, the life of a dickhead genius.
Colonel Young (Justin Louis) and his military crew are still trying to mend fences with the civilian types after last week’s failed coup. (Really, a bunch of civvy nerds against a hardened unit of soldiers? Yeah, that was really gonna work there, guys, way to overestimate yourselves.) Lt. Scott (Brian J. Smith) is taking lead on the diplomatic “hands across the ocean”, with the grouchy Sergeant Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) actually doing his part as well. Alas, while Scott is busy trying to be everyone’s friend, he has no time for civvy love interest Chloe (Elyse Levesque), who Scott is still miffed with after last week’s aforementioned attempted coup.
Of course, things all change when Scott takes a small crew down to the Earth-like planet for a little investigatin’ and resupplying, while the Destiny must circle around the system’s sun, a process that will take a month before it can jump back to FTL. The new planet screams home, probably because they shot it in some Canadian back country, but I digress. As the civilian and military personnel put aside their differences to explore their newfound paradise, which we shall dub Earth 2, they find abundant food and water, and the formerly anemic T.J. (Alaina Huffman) finally reveals the cause of her lackluster self to Chloe: she’s preggers. Uh oh. Obviously it doesn’t take a genius to guess who the father is if you’ve been watching the show, which makes the pregnancy twice as complicated.
While Scott and company rejuvenate their batteries on Earth 2, those left behind on the gloomy, dusty, and oh-so-cold Destiny are wishing they were also down there enjoying the fun in the sun. Camile Wray (Ming-Na) has a nice moment with Eli (David Blue) in the cafeteria over some alien fruit, while Young and Rush make the first tentative efforts to put their conflict behind them. Obviously since one framed the other for murder and one left the other for dead on an alien planet, there’s a lot of conflictin’ to be put behind. Perhaps a game of chess will change all that? Don’t bet on it.
Back on Earth 2, a crewmember we’ve never seen before (or at least I’ve never noticed existed before) reveals himself to be a man of faith, and starts talking the rest of the crew into staying. Eventually most of the civvies decide to stay, including Chloe, with T.J. also realizing it might be best for her if she stayed behind while her baby’s daddy continued on on the Destiny. Scott, feeling duty to the civvies, and perhaps finally realizing that he still enjoys tapping that Chloe ass, also informs Young that he would like to stay behind as well.
And that is as conflict-y as “Faith” gets.
The episode introduces another potential alien race, but we don’t see them, only their work: the spanking new solar system and Earth 2. The aliens have left behind a giant monolith-type structure on the planet (very “2001″-ish), perhaps some kind of super duper terraforming device (Eli tosses out a “Wrath of Kahn” reference), that does seem to activate later in the episode, but the results are well beyond the reach of “Faith”. Perhaps they’ll return to kick some human tail, and perhaps not. We might never know.
With no aliens to battle, and no real internal strife between the crew, “Faith” spends much of its time catching up with the characters. Which leads me to this very obvious conclusion: if you’ve been disappointed with “Universe’s” lack of physical action and “alienness” up to this point, you’re going to hate the living hell out of “Faith”. But if you thought the characters were somewhat interesting, and you don’t mind that people aren’t firing laser weapons at each other every “Universe” episode, then “Faith” is a very well crafted, well acted, well written, and well directed episode.
Other reasons to put your faith in “Faith”: we get to see another (welcome) side of Ming-Na’s ambitious bureaucrat, and we also get some chuckles out of sneaky hot nerd Lisa Park (Jennifer Spence), who really needs more screen time in future episodes, but perhaps that’s just my bias for sneaky hot nerds talking. Unfortunately I thought the constant meddling of Jesus Guy was a bit of a deus ex machina. Then again, I suppose the entire existence of Earth 2 is, literally, something of a deus ex machina.
“Faith” caps off with Young doing what a hardened military veteran is supposed to do — he asserts his authority and leadership, for better or worst, on the civilians and his military officers wishing to stay on Earth 2. And so Destiny continues on, lighter in the crew department, but perhaps stronger in other areas.
Here’s a preview of next week’s “Stargate: Universe” episode, 1.14 “Human”, which features a guest spot by longtime “SG1″ nerd Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks).
