Stargate Universe Recap 1.06: Water

As I have been dutifully preparing to write this weeks episode recap of SGU, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of a particular moment or event in the story to launch from. Did anything really happen at all in “Water”? I don’t think so. The episode didn’t exactly tank. It wasn’t horrible. It just seemed like, narratively speaking, the show was just ah, treading water. Television shows have a proud history of doing this, usually for the purposes of setting us up for some important future development. I’m really not sure what that important development could be here.

Once again, the nearly helpless crew of the outward bound Destiny have a problem. They are running out of water. They had a whack of it but now a whack is gone. Who is drinking the water? Man, that’s got to be some old water. I’m not sure I’d be very keen to drink it anyway. Guards are assigned to the water tank but no answers are forthcoming. Meanwhile, our little alien friend from the planet of the sandy priests has somehow come aboard. It is buzzing around and doing not much of anything. I’ve been saying that there has been a decided lack of mysterious spookiness aboard the Destiny, a ship that is big and old and empty. These characteristics are prime Sci-Fi real estate for nebulous, dangerous goings on. So at last we have us a somewhat scary presence aboard the ship. So lets review. Many particled creature from a desert planet? Check. Rapidly dwindling water supply? Check. You don’t have to be Dr. Watson to figure out that perhaps this is a thirsty creature. Perhaps the planet was that dry because of the creature? That would be my bet. Like any good starship, a crew would not be complete without a completely brain dead red shirt. See the testosterone saturated Mr. Redshirt encounter the minding it’s own business, thirsty creature from Sandyland. See him react like any decent red shirt would do, as the only purpose a red shirt has is to immediately die, only to used by the writers as a living mcguffin to move the story along. Shooting at this completely amorphous creature redefines stupid and pointless and is a depressing return to the bad and lazy writing that I had hoped we had left behind.

Meanwhile, Colonel Young and Lt. Scott have embarked on a little trip to an ice planet that just happened to be passing by when they needed it. An idea that we keep returning to and is getting increasingly annoying. These two fellas are heating up a regular bro-mance. Louis Ferreira continues to be the best actor on the show. He refuses to overact. Without his steady presence I think the show would be in real trouble. What goes down out there in the frozen, argon polluted wastes? Not much of anything exciting. As I mentioned earlier, there was a ton of filler in “Water”. The alien thing had a kind of cool Abyss (James Cameron movie) vibe to it which I thought was nifty. There was a little bit of character advancement for Eli Wallace, who was put in his place by Dr. Rush for acting like a guy that lives in his mother’s basement and plays video games all day. The Senator’s daughter and love interest of Lt. Scott, Chloe, continues to look outstanding. In the end, medic and temporary boss Tamara Johansen coaxes the dust devil into a barrel of water and then out the barrel goes through the stargate. Everyone makes it back to the Destiny. Yawn.

If Stargate Universe follows this sort of non episode up with something good then I’m sure we’ll all happily allow “Water” to just evaporate from the temporary space it is taking up in our hippocampus. If this sort of thing continues then I’m afraid we will remember “Water very well, since it will occupy a significant percentage of the show’s total run. Next week we’ve got (sigh) “Earth” to look forward to. I’m hoping that we get more of “Air” and a lot less of “Water”.