Stargate Universe: Season 2. Psych Evals and Moonshine

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Thread for season 2 of SGU.  Last I heard, October is the premiere.  So we can start with spoilers and nude photos of Rhona Mitra right here.

[RottingCorpse]

Rhona "Beckensale Lite" Mitra?

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That's the one!

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Trailer!

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NEW YORK - September 16, 2010 - Syfy unveils an impressive roster of guest stars set to make appearances throughout the second season of the drama-adventure series, Stargate Universe, including Victor Garber, David Hewlett, Robert Picardo, Kathleen Quinlan and French Stewart, along with the previously announced guest appearances by Robert Knepper and Julie McNiven, who will both appear in multi-episode arcs. The second season of Stargate Universe debuts Tuesday, September 28 at 9PM (ET/PT) on Syfy.

Stargate Universe follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a Stargate when their hidden base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship, which is locked on an unknown course and unable to return to Earth.

In the new season, the team fights to take back the ship from the Lucian Alliance, who transported themselves on board Destiny with plans to take control. The team also discovers their true mission. It's not about going home, it's about going further.

Stargate Universe stars Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty) as Dr. Nicholas Rush; Louis Ferreira (Hidden Hills, Grey Gardens) as Colonel Everett Young; Brian J. Smith (The War Boys, Hate Crime) as 1st Lt. Matthew Scott; Elyse Levesque as Chloe Armstrong; David Blue (Ugly Betty, Moonlight) as Eli Wallace; Alaina Huffman (Smallville, Painkiller Jane) as Lt. Tamara Johansen; Jamil Walker Smith (Waynehead, Sister, Sister) as Master Sergeant Ronald Greer; Ming-Na (ER, The Joy Luck Club) as Camile Wray; and Lou Diamond Phillips (Stand and Deliver, Young Guns) as Colonel Telford. This season, series star Robert Carlyle makes his directorial debut in episode four, "Pathogen."

Second Season Guest Stars Include:

Victor Garber (Alias, Titanic) Acclaimed stage and film actor Garber stars as Ambassador Ovirda of planet Langara.

David Hewlett (Splice, Whistleblower) reprises his role as Dr. Rodney McKay, the lead scientist of the Atlantis team.

Robert Picardo (Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: Voyager, China Beach) reprises his role as Richard Woolsey, commander of the Atlantis expedition.

Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13) stars as Senator Michaels, who replaced the late Senator Armstrong as the new head of the off-world spending committee.

French Stewart (3rd Rock From The Sun) guest stars as Dr. Andrew Covel, the new head of research at Stargate Command.

Robert Knepper (Heroes, Prison Break) portrays a member of the Lucian Alliance in a multi-episode arc.

Julie McNiven (Supernatural, Mad Men) portrays a member of the Lucian Alliance in a multi-episode arc.

[Sirharles]

I like how they don't acknowledge French Stewart being in the original Stargate movie....of course the TV Stargate universe is drastically different than the movie, but still.

And yes, I'm fully aware I'm showing my Stargate nerdness right now.

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Recap/trailer:

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So -- season two is a gritty reimagined-BSG-style version of Space: 1999 meets the last season of Angel!

And now that I typed that, let's talk about a gritty reimagined-BSG-style version of Space: 1999! Because that would make my life.

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*resumes prayers for a sci-fi series that doesn't follow up a character's major injury with a dream (or supernatural) sequence*

Of course, the huge problem with dopey blondes in peaceful settings with babies and someone who's probably dead is sooooo BSG.

Also -- they weren't clear in the season one episode that anyone stayed!  They resolved the situation, everyone filed back onto the ship, and nobody said anything about Kane or anyone else staying behind.  Never mentioned again.  Now we find out that several did stay?  And they've become magical?

Meanwhile, on Destiny, the franchise can't afford to pay Rhona Mitre this season.  Her body double is dead! 

And I love that NOW the plants in hydroponics are producing enough air to sustain four lives.  (Or, at least, Brody suggests that scenario.) Of course, (a) that's impossible and (b) remember the big huge dramatic episode where the civilians mutinied and Rush suggested the same thing as a ruse to Young and Eli was all, fuck, no way.  It was a great scene. Yet Eli now accepts Brody's claim without comment?

Finally -- things that are not worth notifying anyone about:  Chloe is a Cylon and TJ sees the nebula from the Mystery Planet.  Really? I would think a normal person, despite what they've been through, would instantly go, "Oh, fuck," and call Young.  Colonel!  I'm half-alien!  Or -- Colonel! The all-seeing, all-powerful aliens took our child and now they're here!

Oh, well.  What's really important is that we've added a cute fake redhead to the cast.  That'll take the place of TJ moping around in dumpy clothes not providing key points of information.

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Some nice spoiler-ish stuff!

http://blastr.com/2010/09/8-spoilery-good-tidbits-a.php

Little Red and Eli are hooking up, the aliens are back, and the crew becomes embroiled in Destiny's million-year-old mission. That part sounds cool:

Rush makes a discovery that is a million-year-old discovery in the ancient archives, which is the thing that motivated the ancients to launch the mission in the first place," said Mullie. "Rush eventually discovers what it was the Ancients were going to investigate in Destiny. It is kind of a big reveal moment in the first half. What we wanted to do was sort of get beyond just the idea of, well, we're just stuck here and can we get home, and start to get invested in the adventure itself and realize maybe there is something to being out here. Maybe there is a reason for us to be out here and there's something important that we have to do out here."

At the same time Rush figures out how to get more control of the ship. A big storyline that "plays out throughout the whole first half of the season is finding out a little more about the ship and gaining control over the ship. So exploring the ship, finding parts of the ship we haven't been to before and eventually gaining some measure of control over the ship ... that becomes part of the arc of the first half of the second season," said Mullie.

The Lucian Alliance will be around for "the first half" of the season and interacting with the crew (such as Little Red and Eli), but I get the impression from that "first half" quote and talk about more action this season that all we're really getting are a bunch of red shirts.  Which is fine...

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So the fans are bitching that the show has gone BSG (and it has -- god talk, Rush being haunted by his dead wife, the command falling apart), but, you know, tonight's episode was better than the last two seasons of BSG... And we now develop a larger story than just some people in a bad situation.

However... Marooning most of the Lucian Alliance but keeping the named characters was weird. The IOA has certainly changed their tune these days.

Riley's fate was a bit of a surprise. After pulling their punch with the dead baby, I didn't expect them to have the balls to do something like that.  Let's just hope the super aliens didn't take him away!

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I look forward to watching all these again when they come out on Netflix so I can actually see what's happening underneath the GIGANTIC FUCKING CAPRICA AD THAT FILLS A QUARTER OF THE SCREEN.

Jesus. 

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I love that the Pentagon clears almost everybody's loved ones to know the truth except for Eli's dying mother.

When Eli broke the rules and told her everything, I kept expected her to go Go'auld or something.  Thank you, Eli.  JAFFA!  CREE!

The Earth stuff was particularly annoying this episode because there's now lots of shit happening back on Destiny.  Why create a pointless filler subplot when you have Lucian Alliance shenanigans, and Chloe possessed, and Rush increasingly dangerous and insane? 

One thing I did like is the possibility that Rush's ghosts represent the ship either testing him or trying to impede him. And, taking that a step further, could they also be ascended Ancients testing him?

Or is he really just that crazy?

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So, wait... Chloe is alienized and in a coma, as we're all reminded of in the "previously on", but then we start up and she's not only fine but part of the away team. 

But then that fact does come in handy when Scott gets infected by some fungus thing and a transfusion of Chloe's magic immunity blood saves him.

Now... Anyone above an IQ of 60 knows that that's not how it works, right?

You know -- what the fuck was the whole idea behind this episode?  There's so many cool things going on and we get an in medias res away team episode that's set half in imaginationland and the reality half doesn't jive with anything that's happened this season.  Rush has willingly left his Cylon base for a generic, uninteresting away mission? 

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Okay, dude, they're going to have to pick up the fucking pace.  I like that Destiny appears to like Colonel Young, and that Eli is getting a redhead, and that Franklin-ghost is now more clearly Destiny and not Rush going crazy... But, Jesus. We're creeping along here.