"Water"

    Water has been mysteriously disappearing from the tanks aboard Destiny. Just days ago (two episodes) the crew was rejoicing in having a slight surplus that would allow them to lighten rations, now they're struggling to make sure they have a enough rations to last more than a few days. Conveniently, Destiny has dropped out of faster-than-light speed in a system with only one planet - an ice planet. Recognizing the opportunity to replenish their dwindling water supply, Col. Young and Lt. Scott don Ancient space suits and journey to the planet to retrieve ice which they can boil and put in the water tanks. Meanwhile, several crew start to piece together the mystery of what was stealing the water and Lt. Johansen steps up into a leadership role.

    I thought this was a fairly solid installment of the series and a good idea of what we can expect week-to-week. For me, it was not nearly as good as the last two episodes, but probably better than "Air, Part 3." Speaking of "Air, Part 3" it did feel odd to essentially get the same story as that episode from this episode. That is, a resource runs out, the semi-sentient ship stops at a planet that can fulfill said need, an away team goes, is at first thwarted by the resource being "contaminated" and then magically happens upon a clean version of the resource. While the circumstances surrounding the situations are different, it was funny to see the same progression again. However, I think this episode did a better job of it. Compared to "Air, Part 3" we had enough plot to fill the 45 minutes, as well as a solid B-plot with Lt. Johansen dealing with command and stopping the alien threat to the water supply. Even though it was overly cliche, the part where Lt. Scott falls into a crevasse didn't seem to take too much time, where it could have been potentially a whole episode affair.

    For a show that's fairly limited in sets, I have yet to get the feeling that we're reusing the same corridors yet. This is a very good compliment to the directors and cinematographers for filming things from different angles and positions, to that what's probably the same E-shaped corridor looks like a series of curving Ses. At first, I was a little unimpressed with the CGI snowfall on the planet, it looked like there was too much and on my screen it caused a fair bit of pixellation. That said, I was really impressed with some of the CGI and practical lighting choices on the planet. When Scott and Young got to the "Oasis," for lack of a better term, It was nice to see some static lighting choices, that is to say the sources were limited to the moon and head lamps on the suits. As well, there was a great scene where the gate shuts down on the planet and the scene goes dark except for the halos of light from the suits. The artistic direction for this show has really shone through in the past few episodes. The CGI for the aliens, let's call them dust devils, was fairly strong in places and it really looked nice on the snow planet at the end. I was hoping for a bit more from them, but I was glad that we have a truly alien alien.

    This episode saw Eli and Rush pushed a bit to the side, and allowed us a little more time with Sgt.Greer and Lt. Johansen. I have to admit, I hadn't quite taken to Johansen at first. She seemed like a cast-a-like, eye-candy type with very little development to her character besides "My tour of duty was over." This episode sold me on the idea that we'd have a Amanda Tapping-level well rounded, female lead on the show... eventually. She's not quite there, but her leadership role in the episode and the conflict really evidenced that she's a good actress, when actually given something to do in the plot. I realize this might be my problem with Chole Armstrong, she has absolutely nothing to do. I would really like to see Ming-Na and Elyse Levesque switch credits down the road - that is, Ming-Na being a regular and Levesque being a recurring guest. Greer gets a bit more spotlight here. He has the potential to be the quiet bad-ass of SGU that Teal'c and Ronon were for the previous installment of the franchise. There were some nice signs with him and Johansen that I thought played out nicely. As well, I liked the scene where he's searching Chole's quarters. I would still like to see Greer lead a story, hopefully that will come along soon.

    There's not much say about the cast that rounds out the episode that hasn't been said in previous articles. Eli and Rush have some great scenes this episode, most off of each other, and Young again shines with his subtle humor. Scott I felt came off better this episode than has over the past few episodes. I was also glad to be free of the ancient communications stones for two consecutive episodes, especially since they figure so prominently into the preview for the next episode.

    Overall, this episode was a step down from the previous two, but not enough to dissuade me from tuning in. I really fell we need to get beyond the "X recourse is running out, we need to find it" model of the episodes. I know the opening of the series was intended to be based on the four base elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth, so I have feeling after next week's installment, we may be moving on to dealing with more "lost in space" elements and less "need to survive" elements. It's not that I haven't been enjoying the episodes, they just feel packed together. I would have enjoyed a bit more space between these three big crises. It is hard to believe we're only 4 episodes away from the mid-season break on this show already. I'll be curious to see where this show can go by then. Stargate Universe airs Friday nights at 9 PM on the SyFy Channel. Check back here the following Saturday for my latest review! Thanks for reading.

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