'Faith' (113) General Discussion

[reddevil18]

I think I'll have to let things settle in my mind for a while, but right now...I'm pretty close to up-right HATING this episode. Unless they actually revisit the alien civilization, this was the most pointless episode in the entire series. Nothing happens and the stay/leave conflict feels shallow.

Not only does the debate generated not really develop into a debate - it's more a case of one side simply saying "there's a reason why we're here", the other saying "no"(Scott pretty much repeats the same line within 2 minutes to 2 different people) - but the situation itself is absurd to me. Whereas with Divided things played out in a manner in which I could buy a revolt even so early in the show(Young's actions against Rush being the catalyst), this truly was a case of "Let's do BSG", but far too soon. They've been on Destiny for less than 4 months. As Scott put it, as long as there's a gate, there's hope for more. It just doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever...

There were a few seeds for the future planted, with what I assume to be those repair droids or whatever, but aside from the fact that they lost some people(who's next on James' "hot male" list now that Caine's gone?) and good acting from Alaina Huffman, there was pretty much nothing worth remembering in this episode, aside from that beautiful shot of the Destiny angling around the sun.

Waste of an episode and a momentum-killer. Watch the ratings plummet for Human(and that's yet ANOTHER character-centric episode with little action, so I expect Lost to drop down to Caprica levels). The core idea of an alien-made star system is cool, but that's it. Lesson for the future: no more freelancer screenwriters, please.

This is the first episode in which I don't even have a SINGLE scene I'd like to rewatch. Even Life, which was my least-favorite, had more things going for it. Extremely disappointed.
5/10

[g.o.d]

brilliant episode. Probably the best so far, at least for me.

but I'm suprised nobody mentioned the Ascended beings

[g.o.d]

That is so far fetched. Thier is no information that the ascended Ancients were involved, it makes no sense for the Ancients to go this this far out since creating such a thing would take time, and finally their is no indication that ascended powers can do that

as we know, there are other ascended beings than the Alterans/the Ori. I believe this part of the Universe "has" its onw ascended beings

[GoodSmeagol]

brilliant episode. Probably the best so far, at least for me.

but I'm suprised nobody mentioned the Ascended beings

I loved the episode too, so many goodies it foreshadowed!
It opened doors I was looking forward to being opened.
And it bought 3 weeks worth of 'healing' time for downed crew mates, now I look forward to seeing Riley and maybe the dentist chair guy(name?)
Also, we have an established 16-17 week timeline, 15 weeks since left icarus, at least a week into their 3 week stay on the planet(sound good?).
And we saw the end of the power struggle which I was getting tired of.
Read through the threads here, soo many viewer questions and desires happened in this episode, exploring, repair shuttle, food/water, no earth drama angst, but lacked combat and I do not recall a single explosion, so it does loose a few points.
Oh, and it had the one single worst line ever.
Eli: "Welcome home..."
BAHHHH ***** shoulda stayed put on the planet!

[wingsabre]

I'm glad they're exploring the ship though. Hopefully they'll do that more. I was somewhat annoyed with how they didn't really do much in terms of exploring Atlantis in SGA. You would think that the first goal was to seek out the place where the Atlantians made ZPMs.

[g.o.d]

I'm glad they're exploring the ship though. Hopefully they'll do that more. I was somewhat annoyed with how they didn't really do much in terms of exploring Atlantis in SGA. You would think that the first goal was to seek out the place where the Atlantians made ZPMs.

or toilets

[GoodSmeagol]

as we know, there are other ascended beings than the Alterans/the Ori. I believe this part of the Universe "has" its onw ascended beings

Can I play?
How about this.
Alien race finds seeder ship, studies it.
Learns about ascension, booyaaa ascended alien.
Or are ascended and find a seeder ship in their galaxy and study it and learn of the ancients.
They know of Destiny, and believe it to be the bringer of the Ancients who they want to meet and impress.
So they create this small solar system in Destinys path to await for its arrival.
They will be sad when they meet Young, who is not close to as advanced as O'niell (2 L's)

[General Jumper One]

brilliant episode. Probably the best so far, at least for me.

but I'm suprised nobody mentioned the Ascended beings

Your have a century's posts behind...many people including myself have posted alot about Ascended beings.

[g.o.d]

Your have a century's posts behind...many people including myself have posted alot about Ascended beings.

I know. I was just suprised nobody said "hey, I know a race which can probably do this, but they're not very talkative."

[Vapor]

I, for one, thought this episode was wonderful.

After sitting through so many episodes of SG where the characters just happen upon the most perfect planets (even if there was an explanation for some of them being so suitable to their needs), it was refreshing to have someone among them actually question whether or not there was a greater reason for it beyond what they could immediately calculate.

One of my favorite scenes in terms of direction was when Scott had his chat with Dr. Caine about the possibility that a higher power might be involved. I remember when "Air, Part 3" came around, and a lot of people reacted strongly to the idea that we may get religion "thrown in our faces" every five minutes from this character. Things didn't turn out that way at all, imo, but I'm glad to finally see a return to the Scott that re-examines his own personal faith, wondering about the coincidences they face in this episode.

Eli and Wray had a couple of great moments back on the ship. I thought Wray's comment about the situation was excellent. Not that it was a mistake to let the others leave when they might not see them again, but that it was a mistake to stay on the ship instead of joining them. It speaks to the sense of isolation, loneliness, and restlessness the crew feels on the ship. She and Eli bond over their collective sense of longing and just plain boredom as they wait out the month.

Speaking of which, I get the feeling part of the reason the writers made the episode where a whole month goes by is because it was an easy way to smooth out some of the wrinkles created by the mutiny. During this time, many characters, both on the ship and on the planet, had time to let go of some of their grudges and begin to be friendly (or at least civil) again. Of course, the conflicts are still there, but they've taken a major leap forward, in just one episode. Awesome. Something I would have done were I in the writers' place.

I was not a fan of the thought of TJ (or anyone on the ship) being pregnant, but I REALLY like how it was handled here. TJ being happy to be stuck on the planet was a great element to the story, and it kept things from feeling too... I don't even know what the word is. Ultimately, it was a good way to reveal the pregnancy, both to the audience and to the characters that are fully aware of the whole story. However, I still honestly hope we don't have to deal with a baby on the ship in the future. There are a few ways around it, which could be EXTREMELY dramatic, but I have no idea if the writers would have been willing to go that route.

Meanwhile, I loved all of the scenes where the characters seemed to be making an effort to get along. Seeing the "growing pains" that came along with the mending of their relationships were sweet, and amusing. Particularly the scene with Greer and the other guys (one of which I recognize from Galactica- hellz yeah!!). "We're all friends now." LOL! The most dramatically impressive was the moment between Young and Rush. Young seemed so uncomfortable, but I felt so terrible for him being in that position, even if part of it was his own fault. Beautiful performances all around.

My only complaint about the whole episode is that they didn't explicitly tell us if anyone was left behind, and if any, who? I'm perfectly fine not knowing who the aliens were, or what their whole deal was- SGU isn't always going to serve up explanations for every single subplot on a silver platter, and I like it like that. But I really wish there was more clarity about what happened to Caine and the others. I realize we might find out next week, or whenever, but I feel strongly that we should have had at least a single shot of Caine in the montage, whether he's on the ship staring out as they fly away from the planet, or he's actually still on the planet, staring up at the obelisk in the distance. SOMETHING to show us the consequences of this event.

Otherwise, the episode was great. Can't wait to see where Destiny takes us next. >_>

[Sebastian]

One of my biggest beefs with the concept of ascended beings in sci fi series is it creates an artificial plot device that the writers can whip out of the closet any time they want to fix something. They're basically a genie, or a magic wand, and not that much more inventive.

They use the Ancients as a Deus Ex Machina plot device. Although in this case I really hope the Ancients were not involved. I hope there is a new presence.

This episode reminds me of "The Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons, where the Keats cybrid is having a conversation with an AI which goes like:
AI: "[Most of us stay in the comfort of the old spaces]"
Keats: "Why?"
AI: "[Because it is scary out there/and there are other]"
Keats: "-Other things? Other intelligences?"
AI: "[Too kind a word\ Things/ Other things/ Lions and tigers and bears]

The intelligence who made that system reminds me of the "Lions and tigers and bears". If anyone read the novel, you know what I mean (I don't want to spoil it to those that haven't). All in all, pretty good episode, I hope the new unknown party will be involved again, even if not directly.

[Loheat]

I agree with Reddevil, this episode was good, but all the while I was waiting for something to happen. It was all, this planet is great, and I was thinking whats gonna happen to make everyone realize they couldnt stay, are the blue guys gonna come back and crash theyre party. But alas, nothing happened.

I guess SGU is just a different bird, but something more exciting could have happened there.

Also, it really would have been nice to know who exactly was left behind, because right now we really have no idea

[senilegreen]

Makes me think of the Preserver Obelisk that Captain Kirk found on that planet with the Native American Indians in Star Trek TOS.

Yes, this was sort of an homage to ST. First the Wrath of Khan reference. The obelisk associated with the paradise. Adding the chess game to the mix of the #1 and #2 power figures on the ship. I wonder if we could find more?

[myutopian]

I love that this episode, as well as the past couple, really show that the characters pick up on things (aka Scott's mention about glances between TJ and Young) and have interactions off camera. Similarly, I appreciated that the closest we got to Young's speech was a humourous reenactment by Greer.

The planet was real! I was afraid, not knowing too much about the ep ahead of time, that it was going to be an illusion of some kind, or doomed to explode or some random thing like that. All these mysteries and ideas left unexplained really add to the feeling that the viewer is along with the crew.

I wonder if Scott's desire to stay was 100% because TJ's pregnant. Afterall, he has a kid that he didn't know about (as would Young had everyone been allowed to stay), and he might feel like he's making up for that by being around for TJ and the baby.

My one question is why would it take a month for the ship to fly around a sun and make a course correction? It took a tiny fraction of that time when it ran out of power and flew into a sun to refuel before continuing on... If it was the existence of the planet itself that triggered the stop (as in, hey, go explore this), then it should have made it easier to actually go and explore by using the planet to slingshot around?

[senilegreen]

This was a pleasant enough episode to watch, except for the Chloe character.

However, once again my critique of SGU turns to the writers portraying human actions in an unrealistic manner. In this episode's story why are there not many characters that are dying to know about the obelisk? Shouldn't someone be so obsessed with it that an entire team spends the whole month doing nothing but studying it?

Think about it - would you spend an entire month just collecting plant samples when you know you just arrived at a planet created, apparently ex nihilo, with the one blatantly obvious piece of evidence (the obelisk) of the creator(s) staring you in the face, and not have your job #1 being to pick apart that evidence?

For those suggesting the Ancients as the planet creators - heh, at least you didn't pick the Ori!