'Deliverance' (211) General Discussion

[FoX-1028]

My fav episode of SGU so far... Maybe until Gauntlet airs..
Everything was awesome, only 2 things I didnt liked, 1-Chloe was walking with Young to the shuttle like if they were going to a wedding 2- We didnt saw the seed ship explode
The space battles were AWESOME!

Other thing I didnt liked was that my internet crashed when the seed ship appeared and I almost die lol.

[Gollumpus]

Eli will reprogram it as a pet, playing fetch with it using Kinos. Many people will be injured.

Ah, so it will be a comedy episode.

regards,
G.

[Skiznot]

What I loved most about this episode was everything leading up to it. Meaning everything from episode 1 to this point making me really appreciate everything they are able to do. They had to fight for air and food. They had to learn to work together to survive. They had to learn to control the ship. Eli had to step up to his potential. Rush had to learn how to play with others. I enjoyed seeing some of the plans laid from day one from a writers perspective come together. Nothing on this show was taken for granted such that when you see them start to act as a cohesive group it has much more impact than if they had it all together from the start.

Also loving what the camera work has become. Beautiful use of light.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Well that was entertaining yet bittersweet.

SGU really has found its groove now, cracking episode with enjoyable space battles and great characters. I cared about what the characters were going through. Also the CGI was as usual stunning.

However it is a bit crap knowing that after 9 more eps that's it, and SGU won't get to weave it's tale anymore. I've resolved to enjoy it while it lasts, and hopeful the next 9 eps will be as good as or hopefully even better than Deliverance.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

Deliverance [SGU 211]
By xxxevilgrinxxx | Published: March 9, 2011 | Crossposted from personal blog

Like many of the second-parters that make up SGU’s return to air, Deliverance was a solid episode offering up a great (if expected) resolution to the pre-hiatus cliffhanger.

As a fan, it wasn’t hard to see this coming. Fortunately, as a fan, it also wasn’t hard to see beneath the surface of the action onscreen and look at events in a deeper, more SGU, way.

It came down to the people and, facing a terrifying enemy, one that can’t be reasoned with or spoken to, the crew comes together under the solid leadership of Young. While the actions of the enemies – namely the Blues and the Ursini – come off as a little convenient, it’s not as though enemies have never come together when faced with something that threatens everyone. The enemy of my enemy may not be a friend in so many words but as one Klingon has put it, only a fool fights in a burning house. Just like the crew of the Destiny, the ‘frenemies’ have had to put differences on the back burner to deal with the issue at hand.

This spirit of cooperation aboard the Destiny is a strong feature of this episode. Animosities get shelved for the greater good. It may only be temporary but at least while the battle is raging, there is no fifth column on board, or at least not one that has come out for this particular fight. All of the crew, civilian and military, have stepped up and, in doing so, have gotten a taste of what they can do as a team and that won’t be so quickly forgotten.

Of the title itself, I doubt there’s a person of my generation that can hear that name without thinking of the movie and while we don’t hear any banjos playing, there are some similarities. Like that ill-fated canoe trip, the crew of the Destiny are in waters they have no business in, interacting less than spectacularly with the natives. There are consequences for actions taken further back stream and you’ve got to wonder if the Destiny has any business being where she is or if she wouldn’t have been better off staying at home where things were safe. Everyone is changed by the journey and it’s not all good. That the Destiny finally manages to engage her FTL drive may put them out of the reach of the current hillbillies but the next turn in the stream could send them across the path of new ones, or allow old ones to catch up.

Fortunately, this connotation of deliverance is not the only one available to me and without much hard work, the idea of deliverance resonated throughout the episode. First and foremost, playing off the last acts from Season 2.0, Chloe’s actions have called the Blues – who hopefully will want either Chloe or the Destiny enough to save them. The capture of the drone ship would also qualify, as would the upshot of that capture later on. The Ursini’s last act, while desperate, was also a deliverance. Last but not least is the deliverance of Chloe back to the Blues, part of an arc that has been in motion for some time now. In the image of Chloe and Scott, hands joined, there is an echo of the events of Cloverdale, one that is repeated when Chloe is returned.

There are always a few high points. Young is firmly in command and the crew appears to be behind his leadership, even the Telford/Rush/Wray contingent. It may not have been a command he wanted to take on, or one that he felt he could manage, but he appears to have finally accepted it and the crew have accepted him there.

One of the seemingly larger changes is in Rush, and while the change appears to be abrupt, I believe it has more to do with his belief that everyone on board is on board for a reason. The notion of ‘destiny’ has seized him, even though his rational mind would have dismissed it out of hand previously. The change is nuanced – one of methods – and if Rush wants people to produce for him, he appears to have learned that there are ways to get people to do more. One of those ways is to treat them better. Treating them poorly certainly hasn’t worked. Not only has Eli noticed the change but he also notes the pragmatism, when Rush quips that it was the best way to get things done.

I can’t help but feel a bit of dread for Rush, given this new outlook. He’s come a long way in terms of character development and now that he’s got that new outlook – not only on the crew but on all the things that have happened, including Young’s stranding him – I wonder if he will live long enough to see it through to the end? Is his arc complete? And what happens to him if it is?

The scientific and military teams worked seamlessly with each other in this episode. Park was delightful as always and her ability to accomplish a great deal of good with such cheer reminds me of Firefly’s Kaylee. Not a power in the ‘verse could keep Park down either. Eli is developing into a fine, strong young man, more confident in his place. Volker and Brody can always be relied upon, even in their pessimism, and it is in these two that much of the humor in this episode came from.

On the bridge, the military does the best with what it has to work with. Young offers support to James, whose insecurities didn’t stop her from doing a great job in defending the Destiny as best as she was able. Greer ably oversees the rest of the security aboard Destiny – from guarding Chloe’s chambers at the order of Scott, to defending the scientists against the drone ship in the lab.

Scott, while echoing that he loves Chloe, plainly has serious issues with what she has become. His distaste is plain, upon leaving her with Greer to watch over her quarters and it was much easier for him to put her aside in order to do his military duty than it has been in past, where he has had an inability to draw that line clearly. The image Scott has of himself is getting a little beat up by events on the Destiny but the picture underneath isn’t necessarily an awful one, just a more human one.

Chloe continues as a creature of grace. It’s true that she has had a good deal of time to come to terms but this grace is something she has shown all along. That it’s grace under such pressure only proves out that she’s an extraordinary person, proven out by her treatment of Greer, her sorrow for the soldier she hurt, for Scott and even down to her peck for Young. With her intellectual talents apparently left untouched by the Blues, I do wonder about just how much the Blues “fixed” her.

We didn’t see much of the Lucian Alliance this episode and we certainly haven’t learned much more about ongoing struggles but I have no fear that this new element of the crew has merely faded into the background. I look forward to upcoming episodes!

Rating: 8/10

[Infinite-Possibilities]

As far as this show goes, I think this episode was very good. It was certainly a lot of fun. I think (personally at least) if they had done episodes like this earlier, the show might have survived longer.

[SGU1]

This was another amazing episode. In my opinion so far all episodes besides 2 that was okay has been outstanding out of season 2.

Does anybody know how many viewers tuned in on Monday night????

it's looking like Rush is having a personality change.

I would have never guessed that Chloe was going to send a message to the blue aliens

[The Destiny]

Does anybody know how many viewers tuned in on Monday night????

roughly a million. It's on the gateworld homepage.

[Mr. Jack]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who went 'huh?' when Rush started acting human. Don't get me wrong, I liked it but it felt like it came out of nowhere or at least very quick. I hope he really has gotten his head out of his ass and isn't just play-acting in order to build everyone's trust for some sort conniving scheme he's planning.

I loved the Usurni! I thought their sacrifice was pretty cool. I guess they just said '**** it, our civilization is dead. We can remain here with our power off to eventually die due to a limited gene-pool; doomed to be an obscur piece of history. Or, we can choose to sacrifice ourselves for a group of aliens we don't even know. If those aliens are the slightest bit noble it will be so poignant they will remember us forever. We will live on through them.'

[Nth Chevron]

Its either Rush having a mid life crisis in terms of personality, or Destiny has kidnapped him and is beaming the man it knows as Rush into everyones minds

N.C

[themeatcleaver]

Its either Rush having a mid life crisis in terms of personality, or Destiny has kidnapped him and is beaming the man it knows as Rush into everyones minds

N.C

now we're talking!! =D

[thekillman]

Like many of the second-parters that make up SGU’s return to air, Deliverance was a solid episode offering up a great (if expected) resolution to the pre-hiatus cliffhanger.

great review and it reflects what i think of it. i love how SGU is paying us off for sticking around. i love the reflection of the Wedding, and how Young seemed to be reminded of Trial and Error. i loved how we got to see the Main Weapon as the terror it is, and how months of repairs have payed off.

basically this episode was a gift within a gift. the big gift for people who watched it, a big gift for the people who watched SGU and even a gift for those who previously watched other SG shows, most notably the Replicator arcs

[senilegreen]

What about character development? Last time we saw an episode that featured ship's ultra-psychic powers was "Trial and Error", and that was big Young episode. Or do you mean how the ship tried to protect TJ who had lost her child?

Yes, I meant the latter example primarily.

The problem is - at this point "character development" doesn't matter much, and I'm not referring to the cancellation. Rather, that the over arching story seems too plodding for the posited situation of the crew: lost in space with no where to go! Unless the "character development" somehow facilitates the resolution to the dilemma then the show will feel like it is in an endless cul-de-sac.

And I think that sums up my feeling to how SGU as a series got into the predicament they did - too many episodes feel like they just exist to fill up a 20 show season. That Destiny has amazing human-mind affecting capabilities is a neat plot device, but unless we can see that plot device in action to be resolving the main dilemma it just starts to fill up story time. And especially if we start to get into a position where we are double-guessing what we are seeing on screen as being the "real" action then it really gets hard to know if we are seeing any progression in the story.

[KEK]

Yes, I meant the latter example primarily.

The problem is - at this point "character development" doesn't matter much, and I'm not referring to the cancellation. Rather, that the over arching story seems too plodding for the posited situation of the crew: lost in space with no where to go! Unless the "character development" somehow facilitates the resolution to the dilemma then the show will feel like it is in an endless cul-de-sac.

But isn't that likely the case, in the grand scheme of things I mean, that them growing into their roles is what accomplishes the mission?

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

For me as a cliffhanger resolution Deliverance was sub-par, it didn't feel spectacular enough to be cliffhanger resolution. The shuttle scene also reminded me of the SG-1 ep The serpents grasp, I spotted strait away.

I also don't get why a poster a while back felt the blues sending a text in English was so bad, I could write message in (crap) French but it doesn't mean I understand it:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Le renard brun rapide saute par-dessus le chien paresseux