'Pain' (117) General Discussion

[Gollumpus]

BAG carried destiny across the void

BAG throws Destiny from one galaxy to another, and He is there in the second galaxy to catch it even before He throws it from the first galaxy.

regards,
G.

[meo3000]

Im slowly loosing any interest in this show.

They said they wanted a character driven story but now its getting ridiculously boring.

We dont even get entire chapters, only a few pages per episode. We get to see a moment in time where the characters try to deal with a situation thats out of their control, and thats it. All the stuff that made Stargate fun and interesting has been sucked out.

We get it, Scott abandons the people hes suppose to care for, Chloe is missing her daddy, James is pissed at Scott, Greer has trust issues, Rush is scared ****less of being abducted, etc. Whats in store for season two, how everyone become good friends? Season 3, betrayal? BORING!

But dont despair my friend, the PTBs made sure to make a few action packed classic Stargate episodes to wrap up the season, just to ensure you come back for next year.

I surely wouldve liked to have a void episode that end entering the new galaxy. Its the first void travel for the crew and its skipped like its nothing. And apparently they picked up a bug somewhere...

SGU is like a vague dream you cant really remember the details. You know it must have been a cool dream but you dont remember the good parts, and you woke up just when you were about to get the girl.

Its cool but ultimately it sucks.

[Gollumpus]

The episode was a bit of a non-starter for me as well.

After a few minutes of sorting out what was going on and realizing that there was only one potential "red-shirt" the episode lost a lot of tension. It was pretty clear that there was something going on which was messing with some people's minds, and once it was clear that the rest of the crew was at only minor risk of infection, it lost some more tension.

The Rush hallucinations were fairly dramatic, however I would have liked to have seen a bit more of his time in captivity revealed in these sequences.

Chloe's time with "Harvey" (Jimmy Stewart movie reference) was kind of sweet, but not particularly enlightening. It is interesting that of all the folks who were bitten she had the most "positive" (ie. non-violent, no paranoia, fear-free) experience. Perhaps this is because she was aware of what was happening to her and was able to control her experience.

James had the most significant developments for her character. It will be interesting to see how her relationship with Scott and Chloe develops. Will she go crazy and resort to violence, or will she wind up with a "noble death" scene saving her rival from certain death. I don't see a happy ending for the character.

Young and TJ had a touching moment or two where he wants to protect her (and the baby) from any form of harm, and she has to assure him that they will be okay.

Mostly, the episode felt like filler. Maybe it could have been improved by only having Rush infected and actually trying to sabotage or take over Destiny. Greer would be the only one who realizes this (at least at the start), and due to his actions everyone thinks he is the crazy one..... nah, that's not any better.

regards,
G.

[spinny magee]

Fun to watch

Epic Wins:
- Riley still hasn't mentioned Franklin bribing him see he could leave that room
- Rush with pipe
- Greer playing "Survivor" with Rush and Wray
- Wray getting WTFPWNED by Rush
- Appearance by Chloe's dad....less annoying this episode thank god
- Rileys unamused look after Volker was banging at the door his face said "dude......what"
- Scott getting killed again, and being bashed by Rush

Epic Fails:
- Now no aliens in the last 3 eps
- Rush not whacking at Scott a bit more
- Lack of actual snakes
- Music at beginning and end
- Riley not going crazy

8.5/10

[PG15]

Well, I believe Andromeda is about 500 million ly from the Milky Way.

Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away from us.

/pedanticcorrectionfromresidentphysicssnob

Assuming, of course, they are in a new galaxy and not just at a rogue star (system) in the void.

Actually, Chloe mentioned that they were indeed in the new galaxy. It was a very quick line though, so it's easy to miss.

Overall, a...pleasant episode. It kind of gives off the same vibe as "Water" for me - there seem to be very little "meat" to the story, but it was still enjoyable enough overall. I'd liken it to when Gene Roddenberry would ask his writers what each Star Trek episode was about. No, it wasn't about Kirk et al. going down to some planet and fighting aliens, it was about how they as humans react, what facet of humanity is revealed, what issues are explored, etc. In this case, "Pain" didn't seem to have much of that. It just felt like a bunch of things happened and...that's it. However, there were a few hints of what this episode could've been. More on this later.

Despite all that, there were still some great moments in here. It felt like a "summary" of the various character issues we've seen this year, to prepare ourselves for the 3 part season finale that will propel us into the next. It also had one moment that I've been waiting for since the pilot.

Clearly, all the character issues harken back to what we've seen, and it's great to know that the writers AND the characters themselves haven't forgotten about these issues and will hopefully build on them further on. For the main characters, Scott remains guilty over the son he had accidentally left behind due to being a stupid teen - a teary shuttle ride wasn't the end of that, after all. Rush, despite his callous and enigmatic exterior, does have a deep seated fear after all. The fear seems to be more primal than emotional - a fear for his life. I think it's interesting that it wasn't just the fact that aliens scared him, but aliens that managed to probe into his mind - his mind being what I believe to be what Rush believes to be his greatest asset. There is nothing more scary than beings who can take your greatest strength away from you. Meanwhile, I totally disagree with the "angry black man" label being put on Greer's portrayl. Anytime these stereotype labels are put on these it cheapens what lies underneath, and it's now feels more like they're being sensational ("lookit! I'm pointing out other people's political incorrectness to make me look better! Woooo!"). Yes, Greer was going around waving a gun at people, but his reasons are very noble IMHO. His fear of failing the crew, of Young, drove him to take drastic actions. It was probably the wrong thing to do if he really wanted to quelll a rebellion, but like he said in "Life" - he's the guy that has to do these sometimes-necessary things, he's been trained to do these things. Of course, this harkens back to "Time" and "Lost" where it was shown Greer is the way he is because he wants to use the strength that was trained into him by his father to make a difference in people's lives, to protect them despite whatever may happen to him, physically or mentally. Also, it took me by complete surprise when Greer's father showed up; loved that. Notice how Greer does what his father tells him to do; I've always surmised that Greer was ultimately thankful for what his father did to him, to make him into the force of nature that he is today. This is a sorta-confirmation of that, IMHO.

Meanwhile, the secondaries have their turn too. James continues to miss her time with Scott. The "conversation" they had in the teaser was very interesting, considering that it was basically James talking to herself. One can see her insecurities coming through - thinking that Scott has to choose between her and Chloe, and then next moment having "Scott" remind herself that he has already made his choice. Furthermore, we go from what is basically a sexual fantasy to a reality check of why that fantasy will likely never be; she can't even be happy in her fantasies. I am really liking what TPTB are doing with James; she's got the toughness down pat, and now we've got that layer of human imperfection painted on too. Now we just need to see her in happier times to really get how she ticks. Volker's scare just made it clearer how much he meant what he said back in "Life" (see how I keep refering to that episode? IT WAS IMPORTANT DAMMIT! ). Patrick Gilmore did an amazing job when he was in that box; that scene made me pretty nervous.

Now, that thing that I've been waiting for? It's what Senator Armstrong said. For the first time, someone in the series expressed the feeling that this is a dream come true; that they are sailing the stars, seeing things no human has ever seen, exploring the far reaches of reality and existence. When he said those things, I felt a chill go down my spine. It's a very powerful thing, that urge to explore, to see and understand so many new things, and I'm glad it was Chloe who expressed these feelings (since the Senator was just an extension of Chloe's mind). The quote in my sig is, as indicated, from the great Carl Sagan. Another quote from him is:

"The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery."

Considering that Chloe seems to be the one with the most to discover about what she is capable of herself, this revelation that being out there among the stars is a dream of her and her father's is a perfect fit. I loved that whole sequence, and I hope they really expand on this. Of course, Christopher McDonald is brilliant, as usual, and it actually made me tear up seeing Chloe deal with seeing her father again and realizing what I had thought at the time: "I don't care if this is fake. My dad's in front of me and I'm going to hug him and cry into his shoulder like I've wanted to all this time." Elyse did an amazing job with this episode, IMHO; one of her best performances. Her "goodbye daddy" was heartbreaking, and very surreal if you realize that other people are seeing her say that to thin air.

Oh, and the scenes between TJ and Young were as cute as ever. Young's overprotectiveness continues. It's pretty sweet.

So in these respects, I think the episode did brilliantly. However, as others have said, they could've gone deeper if the mechanics of the hallucinations were something else - something that wouldn't have gotten so much focus. For now though, we have an episode with great character stuff wrapped around a plot I've seen far too many times; again, it felt like Water in this respect. I don't really care about ticks. Worst of all, with the series focusing so much on character stuff, TPTB have no time to really develop the crisis like in SG1/SGA, where the attraction of these crisis situations is in how they keep upping the ante and throwing monkey wrenches into our heroes' plans to make it even more desperate. Thus, we get a half-baked problem that really doesn't feel that urgent; it's like, this problem will probably not get any worse than this and they'll solve it eventually, so all it does is take up valuable character time. Unfortunately, this is a very difficult balance to achieve in 42 minutes. The writers will just have to figure these things out the hard way, and I wish them good luck.

That guy with the snake thing freaked me out. I had to turn away during the, uh, "scratching" scene. It was too graphic for me; clawing at an already-bloody arm? *Shudder*

There was one intriguing notion introduced in this episode that I wish they developed more, which was how they may need to limit gate travel if bad stuff like this keeps happening, introduced in the last scene. At the time, it felt like it came out of nowhere - they've had problems offworld before but never had this thought. However, it was still a very very interesting thought. IMHO they should've had one of Scott, Chloe, or Eli mention how dangerous being offworld is after their recent experience, maybe at the beginning of the episode, just to bookend it and make it more of a theme of the episode. I mean, it's something that's never really explored (though there was a brief mention at the end of SG1's "Bad Guys") in the past SG series since they were about exploration, but really, other planets are dangerous - is it really wise to go to every one that Destiny shows them?

Anyways, to wrap this up: brilliant character work, average plotting; could've benefitted from more time and more focus on the characters' problems instead of diluting it with the tick stuff. Still enjoyable though.

[Cylykon]

Wow! Nostalgia!! The opening was practically an homage to "Championship Wrestling", the first track off Cheech and Chong's epic "Wedding Album"... Brilliant! This is what Stargate is all about!

[DigiFluid]

Actually, Chloe mentioned that they were indeed in the new galaxy. It was a very quick line though, so it's easy to miss.

I missed that completely--when did that happen?

Two other things on that,
a) Chloe is no scientist
b) Chloe also spent most of the episode tripping out, can we trust her saying anything in "Pain"?

[PG15]

I think it might've been the scene where they first find the ticks; I can be less vague when the transcript comes out or when I...get the episode.

I think we can trust her on this one. Her line didn't feel like it was meant as anything more than just simple exposition.

[Sebastian]

How about you people stop reading every possible spoiler beforehand, and see the episodes unbiased . It might improve your viewer experience.

Peace .

[DigiFluid]

How about you people stop reading every possible spoiler beforehand, and see the episodes unbiased . It might improve your viewer experience.

Peace .

This is how I approach it. That way my enjoyment or disappointment is just based on what I see, rather than any misguided expectations.

And I love SGU

[latvian_stargatefan]

At least we got hallucinations and now know the pain some people are in! Not that anything from this ep will ever matter again...

I'm laughing my ass off. Not that anything from this ep will ever matter again? For crying out loud, it dealt with things we've seen already on the show and these are ungoing issues that won't be resolved with this episode... Some people just don't get it.

I enjoyed this episode very much, not that much as I enjoyed "Time", "Light", ''Divided", "Lost" and maybe some other ep. but it was good, especially Greer's and Rush's parts. About aliens actuaally not coming to the Destiny, i don't really see a big deal. What would we gain from blue smurfs coming to the ship (who can't even communicate with us, like speak with us)- I suspect only some typical random shoot-em-up episode and I don't really think it would work with SGU... So let's leave them, in fact, maybe we just leave them in the galaxy we just left...

As for them being out of the void and in new galaxy (THEY ARE IN A NEW GALAXY), I don't see probems with that. We already saw some stuff they were doing while being stranded on the ship in "Sabotage" (''Only if you run'' montage). What else could you do with a void episode? Make another "Life" out of it??? It's a good decision. I like how constantlly obvious things are not spoon fed to the viewer... like they don't waste time having few lines about "now we're in the new galaxy, it took us several months, we need to recharge, we visited several planets etc. etc....

I also like montages and Eli and Chloe characters for the same reason many people hate them- for the reason that ''contemporary music montages are not sci-fi'' and Eli and Chloe are not really sci-fi show characters. For me, it's more realistic to believe that these are ''the wrong'' people from Earth if there are those songs and Eli and Chloe... They are unique to SGU so the show can't be mixed with another stranded in space sort of deal like BSG or Voyager... or Atlantis.

As for this ep., I really loved and I can tell why. It reminded me of "Grace", one of, in my opinion, best episodes of SG1 ever. Also what was fresh about this was that it deal with issues we've already seen on screen, not like in other sci-fi shows that in this episode we get to know out of the blue that "Captain McLovin is afraid of losing his people because on some planet many years ago he lost some of his friends etc."... and nothing of that matters again in the show. Both in "Grace" and here these were things we already knew about- Chloe and father, Scott and son, James and Scott, Rush and aliens, Greer and those damn two who want to take the ship from ''the man''... and his father.

I don't really care if there was a plot in this ep. of not. In my opinion, it's not really necessary to have some kind of a complex plot if you have something to show or tell us. And they certainly had something to show in this case. Greer was simply great in this episode, I don't really care about the angry black man stereotupe, I think it's bull and I will even not speak about it like I wouldn't like speak about some other people's "opinions'' that Wray is portrayed as a crazy psycho lesbian bi*** of 70s trash cinema... I can't believe people watch this show and come to these kinds of conclusions...

I really love Greer- after Young and Rush he's probably my 3rd favourite on the show and I don't want him to become ''family friendly''. Sure, he needs to work on some issues but I don't want him to become the next Ronon.... who gradually, over time, became a ''family friendly'' badass character... But I know that it isn't a BSG so we won't see a character like him shooting someone on Destiny in the face actually or Scott beating up a woman or bunch of people just thrown in the airlock. And I can do without all those things just fine and wouldn't even want to see them on SGU as long as character like Greer isn't completely turned into a ''family friendly'' type random military guy.

I liked the way how Chloe and father situation was done, in the way that she knew that he's a hallucination but just wanted to be with him again. That was pretty good. And the Rush scenes, snake under skin guy and Volker scenes were really scary, especially for me whose one of the greatest fears is to be buried alive...

Solid 8.5/10, better than ''Sabotage", worse than coming "Subversion''

[Infinite-Possibilities]

This episode was well, fine to me. I was just a little disappointed because I felt sort of it did not feel like this was the best time for a filler episode.

[Eternal Density]

This was an alright ep. It sure had me wondering what on earth was going on for a while (yay, spoiler free!) which was a nice change. Sure, there wasn't much detail in the plot but there was lots of great character stuff! Chloe was great in this one! TJ sure has a tough job but she's coping admirably. I noticed how Young is keeping a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't overdo it.
Eli was put in a tough decision (regarding ratting out Chloe's condition) but he made the right choice eventually even though she doesn't seem to appreciate it. Her goodbye to her dad and her conversations with him were heartwarming.
Riley opening Volker's door was a fun moment
The initial scene with James (which I thought was real for a while) was a bit much, but I guess it did get a point across. It did help the awkwardness when she was asked about what was behind her hallucination...
Wooooo, Rush with a pipe!
[edit] I knew there was something else I meant to say:
I did think of Atlantis: Phantoms (also an alright ep) but not until 34 minutes into the episode.

[Demoniser]

Pros
-Interesting episode, some great acting from some of the secondary cast.
- Good character development

Cons
- Reused story idea to be honest, just replacing a Pegasus Space Virus with a tick
- The episode got off to a good start but fell a bit flat towards the latter half imo
- The aliens boarding the ship, dissapointed it was just a hallucination. I wish they had made that part real , it would have made the episode that much better, distinguishing the imaginary events from those in reality. Dissapointed to be honest considering the big fuss made of it in the 1.5 trailer, seems a bit of a cop out, although i wouldn't be surprised if the writers did that on purpose to play with us but i won't get my hopes up.

[RedXian]

Despite it's simplicity, I enjoyed this episode.

But there is one line from James' hallucination that is really sticking with me.

Hallucination Matt said "We've got to stop doing this" implying that this isn't a one time event.

It's likely that this is all in James' head, but the hallucinations are stemming from something that is true.

So is it possible that Matt & James are still "visiting the closet" as it were?