By Lisa Fary
In this episode, Col. Telford, Col. Young and Mrs. Young have the most awkward threesome ever. That’s a new off-label usage for the communication stones.
There is hope afloat that the castaways may be able to dial Earth. The theory is that, if Destiny flies through another star, they can funnel the power directly to the stargate, dial Earth, and go home. The problem is that it’s expected to be several months until power levels get that low again.
Enter Col. Telford and his douche brigade.
He’s been put in charge of the ship, and the two science types with him are to execute the plan. Naturally, there is no room for error and the slightest mistake, miscalculation, or misjudgment will result in the crew getting all explody.
Why, yes. Dr. Rush is against the plan, and even argues with Telford, although not as hard (or as loudly) as he typically would argue with Col. Young. In fact, he’s downright cooperative with people he would normally consider mere prawns in comparison to his own intellect.
That should have been a red flag that Rush was up to something.
Meanwhile on Earth, Eli, Chloe, and Col. Young visit family with their host bodies and attempt to have some normal interactions. Eli can’t bring himself to tell him mom the truth and passes himself off as Phil, a made-up co-worker. It’s obvious that she really misses him and he’s genuinely concerned about her well-being. I even choked up when she tearfully said, “Tell Eli I’m proud of him.”
I’m maternal approval’s bitch.
Chloe’s mom already knows, but she introduces herself to her Pretty People! friends as “Cousin Liz from Out West” and attempts to have a night our on the town. “Phil” goes along and gets chatted up by a hot girl at the bar. “Cousin Liz” isn’t so lucky. She learns that he ex-boyfriend dumped her for her best friend and some other Pretty People! guy is really bummed out that he can no longer take advantage of her dad’s Wall Street contacts. You know, the senator being dead and all.
Chloe goes on to get really drunk and have a bit of an existential crisis. Her friends aren’t really her friends. She wants to be more than just a senator’s daughter riding his coattails to success. But, she still wants to have that awful conversation with Eli. You know the one that was bound to happen sooner or later and involves the f-word.
“You’re cute. And you’re funny. And you’re a genius,” she slurs.
“Don’t say it,” he pleads.
She says it. “And you’re a good friend.”
Looks like Lt. Scott’s ripped bod is still winning out over Eli’s smarts + cuddle factor. Maybe in space, Eli will meet an alien girl who prizes intellect and wants to hear all about this thing called The Silmarillion. I really hope so because Eli seems like a good guy.
And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that a perfectly good geek boy is yet again chasing some Pretty People! girl who will never get his references and will only think his love of Star Wars and comics is childish. No. I have no experience with that sort of thing at all.
Col. Young has an emotional reunion with his wife during with they patch things up. Then they really patch things up.
Hmmm. I guess that doesn’t really work as a suggestive euphemism.
Col. and Mrs. Young are in the middle of make-up sex when. . . .
The communication stones short out. Suddenly, Young is back in Destiny’s command center and Telford is in Mrs. Young, both men wild eyed at the change in environment and activity. But, only for a minute and Young is back in time to finish up before his wife notices there’s another man in her bed.
Back aboard Destiny, the douchebag brigade runs down the power reserves in an attempt to force the ship to fall out of FTL and fly through another star. Once that’s happened, the risky procedure begins. For a moment, it seems like it’s going to work, then it all goes to hell. Too much power is getting funneled to the stargate, the systems are going to overload and it’s unstoppable.
Telford nods to his science types. Wordlessly, they leave the gate room and back to the communication stones, leaving the ship. As soon as they’re gone, Dr. Rush does his stuff, gets the situation under control, and even calms the crew. He’s so calm and smirky and self-satisfied about it that Camille Wray puts it together immediately.
He staged the whole thing, controlled the power flow, made it look like they were about to explode, which they very well could have if Rush wasn’t such an awesomely intelligent guy. Rush thought the scheme wouldn’t work and he saw this as the only way to keep Telford and IOA from meddling further.
But, it might have worked.
Which means that Rush is either extremely cautious with the lives of others or it means something else. I don’t know what that something else is, yet. He’s unnecessarily secretive. He thwarts attempts to get back to Earth. There’s speculation at IOA that he’s not interested in going home. What is going on with this guy?
The ep ends with Young confronting Telford about cutting and running – in front of the project big wigs. The last shot is Telford showing up – as himself – at Mrs. Young’s house. I can only assume that he’s going to pretend he’s Col. Young in some revenge effort. If you can’t get the guy professionally, then get him personally, right?
Much of the ep was spent on Earth dealing with personal issues – that newfangled human drama we ladies are supposed to be drawn to like calories to cheesecake. Normally, I hate that sort of thing, but in “Earth” it was actually relevant. And notice how the show didn’t come grinding to halt to do it (I’m talking to you – you know who you are).
Everyone who visited Earth was reminded what they were fighting to get back to, and for some of them, it wasn’t all that great. Camille would be going back to a job where she’s undervalued and can’t get ahead. Chloe would be returning to a life where no one respects her or expects anything from her. Eli, while he would be there for his sick mom, would go back to non-impact anonymity. Whether they realize it or not, at least aboard Destiny, they have the chance to be more than they could be on Earth.
Col. Young is a different story though. He’s a career military guy who has already been away too many times and for far too long. He’s already done great things, seen horrible things. Now he just wants to go home. I’ve quickly gone from disliking him to empathizing with him.
I’m even starting to like Chloe.
And now, your Equal Opportunity Objectification Moment, brought to you by Louis Ferreira. I know of at least one Raygunner who’s been waiting for this one. You’ve got to look closely – he’s way in the back of the frame, and the whole thing lasted for like five seconds.
Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s almost 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
For some reason i kind of like this show. It has its shortfalls, and they are different from the kind SG-1 and Atlantis did. And i still like those shows more. I like the characters of SGU, but if one of them went on a suicide mission to save the others (like Sheppard did at the end of the first season of Atlantis) i wouldn't much care. Just not invested in them enough yet.
The characters are the best thing this show has: they're all flawed but still somehow interesting. I like Eli, i like Young and the fact that he's hell-bent on staying alive and getting home, i kind-of like Chloe who realizes how useless she is, and i like Rush and his sneaky ways. And TJ who doesn't want to be there and she's new at being in command, but is still perfectly rational in her decisions.
But i think they really have step up the action a bit. So far they haven't convinced me they were in any very real danger at any time. And this show needs a bit more stuff happening on the ship and with the people in the ship, so we can see how they interact with each other. What the previous shows really thrived on was the interactions between their main teams.
And please, please,please drop the Scott/Chloe/Eli thing ASAP.
I would like to see it move past the core group – there are a lot of people on board and right now, most of them are just background pieces. There seems to be a mutiny brewing, so we may get more into those background folk as the side develop (at least, I hope so).
For the most part, I don't think they are really in danger. They're scraping by, but the ship seems to be able to make it's own decision as far as how to keep them alive.
I thought the unintentional threesome was hilarious in its wrongness. The implied Young/TJ affair, though, not so much. I really wish that Team Stargate would get away from romantic entanglements between superior and subordinate officers. It was dragged out five seasons past what should have been a reasonable conclusion on SG-1. [see: 'Divide and Conquer' (4.05). Sorry, Jack/Sam shippers, but it was inappropriate military conduct at best.]
My favorite bits were definitely Eli visiting his mom (so sweet, and with a bonus Futurama reference), and Rush's machinations. I'll be interested to see how the relationship between those two men develops. Hopefully Rush can encourage Eli to self-confidence without eroding his innate goodness. And, just maybe, Eli can convince Rush to trust someone else.