Review: Epilogue
Epilogue is the eighteenth episode in Season Two of Stargate Universe.
The best thing about time travel or alternate reality stories is the peek into ‘what if’ they provide for our usual characters. “Epilogue” delivers the answer to the question ‘what if the Destiny crew was stranded on a planet and had to start again from scratch?’ In that, the episode is somewhat successful but focuses too much on the ‘what happened’ as opposed to revealing anything new about the characters. But as the second part to the story begun in “Common Descent,” this is a solid follow-up which provides better tension, a better emotional connection and better special effects.
I want to begin with what was better than “Common Descent” because that episode presented a great concept and failed to follow through with any tension in the storyline, in making an emotional connection between the Novus descendants and the Destiny crew, and the last shot of the cityscape was fake enough that I winced. “Epilogue” does a lot to improve on that.
There is fabulous tension set up in three ways - the first being the physical predicament of everyone exploring the planet which is unstable and tearing itself apart. The slowly escalating earthquakes experienced throughout the story along with the shuttle fly-by of the encroaching lava river are a fab way of increasing the danger without being too overt about it.
The second tension is one built through the past season with the triangle of TJ, Varro (Mike Dopud) and Young (Louis Ferriera). The moment where Varro falls is a breath-taking one and there is a real sense that the audience cannot predict whether Young will go back for him or not. Ferriera sells the moment by truly looking indecisive as though he is considering his options in an evil villain kind of way (“I could leave him there and TJ will be mine! Mwha-ha!”)
The third tension is created with the attempt to connect the Novus situation to a member of the crew directly, thus providing an emotional hook for the audience. The discovery that TJ has a life-threatening disease but the Novus archive holds the cure but will they be able to transfer the relevant data in time - definitely creates another element of tension in the plot. The emotional connection though, while admirable that one was attempted which is so a step up on “Common Descent,” just doesn’t sit well with me - possibly because it is TJ who is selected.
Don’t get me wrong; I still love TJ as a character and I love the increased focus on her this season but this feels like a focus too far. TJ’s had the losing her baby storyline; the love triangle development; the ‘can I step up and perform a kidney op?’; the ‘kidnapped by beast’ storyline. Compared to say Chloe who has only had the ‘turning into an alien with super math skills’, TJ’s had an embarrassment of riches. Ultimately, I come away less with an ‘OMG, TJ needs to be saved!’ reaction and more of a ‘what the hell else can possibly go wrong for the poor woman!’ I think the ALS storyline could have gone to someone else.
That’s not to say that Alaina Huffman doesn’t act both the evolution of the illness for Novus!TJ within the kino recordings or the fear of her own demise in our timeline very well. She’s very good in both as is Louis Ferriera who plays Novus!Young having to deal with losing his wife extremely well. Indeed, that whole sequence showing the progression from the family at the table through TJ dying to the family back at the table without her is well done and touching.
The peeks into the fate of the Novus!Destiny crew is explored a lot more than in “Common Descent” which is also a good thing because this is what time travel and alternate reality stories are great for: showing the ‘what if.’ I loved the joke of grumpy old man Novus!Brody, and the humor implicit in the multiple women giving birth shots. But truthfully the focus on who hooks up with who, and the focus on Novus!TJ dying doesn’t leave a lot of space for character exploration.
What is there is good: Novus!Young’s guilt throughout his life that he never got them home; Novus!Camile still considering Sharon as her soul-mate regardless that they’ll never go home again and being the last surviving original settler; Novus!Scott stepping up to talk to Novus!James before his wedding to Novus!Chloe in a direct contrast to how he acted in the delusional Cloverdale world. I would just have liked more of this.
Production-wise, “Epilogue” delivers at every turn; the archive set is great alien but not too alien; the make-up of the Old!Characters is very believable and well done; the costuming is great; the special effects are much, much better than in the previous episode with the evolution from settlement to city at the end a nice note to end on.
Indeed, in the end “Epilogue” is a good solid episode. I’ll never consider the two-part story overall as a classic and it’s probably my least favorite of the time-travel related episodes to date across all Stargate shows. It’s entertaining enough but with so few episodes to go, I was hoping for more.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine
The best thing about time travel or alternate reality stories is the peek into ‘what if’ they provide for our usual characters. “Epilogue” delivers the answer to the question ‘what if the Destiny crew was stranded on a planet and had to start again from scratch?’ In that, the episode is somewhat successful but focuses too much on the ‘what happened’ as opposed to revealing anything new about the characters. But as the second part to the story begun in “Common Descent,” this is a solid follow-up which provides better tension, a better emotional connection and better special effects.
I want to begin with what was better than “Common Descent” because that episode presented a great concept and failed to follow through with any tension in the storyline, in making an emotional connection between the Novus descendants and the Destiny crew, and the last shot of the cityscape was fake enough that I winced. “Epilogue” does a lot to improve on that.
There is fabulous tension set up in three ways - the first being the physical predicament of everyone exploring the planet which is unstable and tearing itself apart. The slowly escalating earthquakes experienced throughout the story along with the shuttle fly-by of the encroaching lava river are a fab way of increasing the danger without being too overt about it.
The second tension is one built through the past season with the triangle of TJ, Varro (Mike Dopud) and Young (Louis Ferriera). The moment where Varro falls is a breath-taking one and there is a real sense that the audience cannot predict whether Young will go back for him or not. Ferriera sells the moment by truly looking indecisive as though he is considering his options in an evil villain kind of way (“I could leave him there and TJ will be mine! Mwha-ha!”)
The third tension is created with the attempt to connect the Novus situation to a member of the crew directly, thus providing an emotional hook for the audience. The discovery that TJ has a life-threatening disease but the Novus archive holds the cure but will they be able to transfer the relevant data in time - definitely creates another element of tension in the plot. The emotional connection though, while admirable that one was attempted which is so a step up on “Common Descent,” just doesn’t sit well with me - possibly because it is TJ who is selected.
Don’t get me wrong; I still love TJ as a character and I love the increased focus on her this season but this feels like a focus too far. TJ’s had the losing her baby storyline; the love triangle development; the ‘can I step up and perform a kidney op?’; the ‘kidnapped by beast’ storyline. Compared to say Chloe who has only had the ‘turning into an alien with super math skills’, TJ’s had an embarrassment of riches. Ultimately, I come away less with an ‘OMG, TJ needs to be saved!’ reaction and more of a ‘what the hell else can possibly go wrong for the poor woman!’ I think the ALS storyline could have gone to someone else.
That’s not to say that Alaina Huffman doesn’t act both the evolution of the illness for Novus!TJ within the kino recordings or the fear of her own demise in our timeline very well. She’s very good in both as is Louis Ferriera who plays Novus!Young having to deal with losing his wife extremely well. Indeed, that whole sequence showing the progression from the family at the table through TJ dying to the family back at the table without her is well done and touching.
The peeks into the fate of the Novus!Destiny crew is explored a lot more than in “Common Descent” which is also a good thing because this is what time travel and alternate reality stories are great for: showing the ‘what if.’ I loved the joke of grumpy old man Novus!Brody, and the humor implicit in the multiple women giving birth shots. But truthfully the focus on who hooks up with who, and the focus on Novus!TJ dying doesn’t leave a lot of space for character exploration.
What is there is good: Novus!Young’s guilt throughout his life that he never got them home; Novus!Camile still considering Sharon as her soul-mate regardless that they’ll never go home again and being the last surviving original settler; Novus!Scott stepping up to talk to Novus!James before his wedding to Novus!Chloe in a direct contrast to how he acted in the delusional Cloverdale world. I would just have liked more of this.
Production-wise, “Epilogue” delivers at every turn; the archive set is great alien but not too alien; the make-up of the Old!Characters is very believable and well done; the costuming is great; the special effects are much, much better than in the previous episode with the evolution from settlement to city at the end a nice note to end on.
Indeed, in the end “Epilogue” is a good solid episode. I’ll never consider the two-part story overall as a classic and it’s probably my least favorite of the time-travel related episodes to date across all Stargate shows. It’s entertaining enough but with so few episodes to go, I was hoping for more.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine