Stargate Universe ”Blockade” Detailed Analysis & Review

We're at the second-last episode of Stargate Universe. In today's podcast, we delve into Blockade. A surprisingly good episode that I remembered little about. While the crew gate to a planet once settled and deserted by the descendant of the Novans, Rush, Eli and Park take Destiny on an extremely risky mission to recharge the ship, with devastating consequences. These drones are not letting up. It's all going to come to a head soon.

Join me as we delve deep into Stargate Universe "Blockade"

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of the Stars

And I am a nerd.

 

This is episode 90 of the podcast. Can you believe that? We’re getting close to 100. When a TV show gets to their 100th episode, it’s a big deal worth celebrating. I still feel like I only just started this podcast, and it’s a relatively new thing.

 

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Blockade”

 

And if you’d like to check out my original science fiction books, head on over to AdamDavidCollings.com/books

 

The description on gateworld reads

 

Destiny is attacked by drone ships while attempting to recharge its power reserves, forcing most of the crew to gate to a nearby planet while Eli tries a risky alternative.

 

This episode was written by Linda McGibney

It was directed by Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 2nd of May 2011.

 

Eli is still immersed in the history of Novus. Rush doesn’t get it. And he admits freely that he had no part of it. His counterpart wasn’t there. He had no descendants. But to Eli, it’s more than that. They were humans and they lived and died here in this distant galaxy.

 

And I love that he’s adding footage of the descendants to his documentary. I agree wholeheartedly with Eli when he says that he thinks the documentary is important.

Hey, I like to document and vlog my holidays. But a journey like the one they’re on, that’s so much more important.

 

The Collings Show on youtube, by the way, if you’re interested in my travel vlogs.

 

They’ve arrived in a star system to refuel. I thought this was the system where they’re taking the surviving descendants. But apparently not. The passengers don't show up or get a mention throughout the rest of the episode, so I’m assuming we’ve already dropped them off on their new world. Destiny is taking the long way around a gas giant for some reason. It clearly has a reason, the crew just don’t know what it is. But the longer they take to reach the planet, the more their resources are going to be strained.

 

Now some bad news. There are drones with a command ship here in this system.

 

How did the drones know Destiny was going to be in that system? Was it coincidence or are they still tracking the ship somehow? They haven’t been using the stargate so that’s ruled out.

 

Maybe they’re no longer tracking us, but maybe they can predict our path.

So Rush suggests going off their usual course. They drop out of FTL a long way from the star so they’ll have time to rebuild their ability to jump before they encounter any potential drones. They got lucky last time.

 

And guess what. There’s drones here too. They’ve set up a blockade blocking us from the star.

 

Destiny has to recharge somehow.

 

They’re blockading all stars they think Destiny might try to visit.

Power is getting critically low. They only have one more chance.

 

The drones know Destiny’s weakness. It has to recharge from certain types of stars. The only way to ensure there are no drones waiting is if they choose a star that Destiny would never go to.

A blue supergiant.

I’m not an astrophysicist but I can tell by the character’s reactions this is a terrible idea.

Volker is convinced the crew would never survive the heat given off by one of these stars.

The plan is, leave most of the crew on a planet and a small team pilots the ship. They rely on shields and suits to survive the heat. Hopefully.

It can’t be fully automated because even if they could convince the ship to do this itself, the core AI systems would stop working at this heat.

 

There won’t be a habitable planet near such a star, so they’ll have to gate to a nearby planet, which, of course, will attract the drones.

 

So they’ll have to be quick and get it done before they arrive.

 

It’s an insane plan and it could go wrong in so many ways.

But …. What other choice do they have? If they don’t charge soon they’ll be dead in space. And then they’ll make a very tempting target to the drones.

 

Young makes it clear to Telford they’ve not asked permission. They’re doing this. They don’t have a choice.

 

The plants in the garden won’t survive the star any more than people will, so they’re gonna have to harvest everything.

 

I don’t think Destiny is very happy about what they’re doing. It locks them out of the bridge.

 

Rush, Eli, and Park are the ones who will stay behind.

Park has some medications she wants to protect, and then she’ll back up Rush, who, in her words, isn’t as great as he thinks he is.

It makes good sense since Park is the expert on the suits, as we saw back in early season 1.

 

When Young announces that Park is staying, we get some insight into Greer.

He didn’t try to talk her out of it. He has confidence that she’ll be all right.

In most stories, when someone wants to go into danger, the loved one argues passionately against it.

And I get that. It would be very very hard for me to watch my wife put herself in danger like this.

But in little ways, we trust our loved ones as they take all sorts of risks during day to day life.

My wife is a nurse, and there’s risk involved in that job. But I trust her that she has the training and the knowledge to handle it.

But a risk like this is something else.

 

Rush has found a star. As they approach, the gate is dialled to a planet in rage.

This is where we get a big surprise.

The gate on the planet isn’t in the middle of a deserted forest or desert. It’s in a building. A big metal shed.

It must have been built by the descendants.

As Eli says “Holy crap, we dialled pittsburg.”

I don’t actually know what pittsburg looks like because I’m Australian, but it made me chuckle.

 

The place looks less advanced than Novus, and there’s no sign of life.

Due to isolation and different ideologies, it’s entirely possible that colonies of Novus would advance at different rates.

 

But what happened to the people?

But this town is a gold mine. They could find all sorts of medical supplies, food, weapons. The benefit is too great to ignore. It definitely outweighs the risk. Of course, the risk is impossible to assess right now because they just don’t have enough information.

But they make the right call to explore.

 

I’ve seen this episode multiple times in the past, but I don’t remember this at all.

Which is weird, because the discovery of the town on this planet is really cool, and ties in nicely with the previous two episodes that I loved so much.

 

Brody Makes a very interesting observation. There are paved streets, but no vehicles of any kind. Clearly, this world has cars. So where are they?

 

Rush and Eli have an interesting conversation. Rush wants to know “how they’re gonna do this”. Eli has to push through his frustration to find out what Rush is really getting at. What he really wants to know is, who’s gonna be the boss. Who will enter the course changes into the computer? 

Naturally, given Rush’s self-important ego, Eli assumed Rush would do it.

But Rush is asking.

So Eli volunteers.

It’s really hard to read Rush at that moment.

If he doesn’t trust Eli to do the job then why is he asking? Or is he trying to give Eli the push to step up and believe in himself? He has expressed some of that kind of desire in the past, he does see himself as a bit of a mentor figure to Eli in some ways.

 

Park is cutting it mightily close to get out of the atrium. And just as she’s about to walk through the door, Destiny seals it. In fairness, the ship did give an auditory warning, but not much time to evacuate.

 

Eli tries to override the door to rescue her, but it’s not working. 

Rush seems open about the fact that they may have to let Park die. They don’t have time for this. And as much as I want to disagree with him, I kinda can’t.

The entire crew are counting on them accomplishing their mission. In order to achieve that, at some point, Eli may have to stop trying to rescue Park and fulfil his other duties.

It’s harsh and it sucks, but that’s the reality of their situation.

Eli doesn’t care and is ready to go down and try the door manually.

So Rush has to force the issue by explaining the reality of the situation to her.

“Eli is spending too much time trying to rescue you, more than we can afford.”

She’d got her suit and there’s a pool in the middle of the garden. If she’s fully submerged, she should have enough protection from the star.

Rush promises her she’ll be okay.

But is he telling the truth?

 

Meanwhile, Volker and Greer have found a diner, and there’s more canned food in there. The labels are worn off, so it’s a bit of a mystery what they are, or how old they are. But Greer’s not worried.

This makes me wonder what date system the Novans used. And would any used-by dates be meaningful to us even if they weren’t worn off.

 

The crew had no way of knowing what year, or even what period of history, it was when they arrived on Novus. So using the Earth calendar would have made little sense.

I imagine they started a new calendar. The day they arrived was the beginning of year 1.

That would make it easy for our people. Given that the Novan culture started around 2,000 years ago, which is roughly when our calendar starts from, the year would be pretty similar to ours. Technically, this would be the year 2000. (assuming the 200 years wasn’t an approximation) To Destiny’s crew, it’s 2011.

 

One of the crew finds an old Novan newspaper and shows it to Camille. The headline says attack.

Firstly, I want to praise the fact that the props people spelled it without a c. A t a k. In reality, it’s pretty unrealistic that the Novan survivors would speak contemporary English after 2000 years. Just think what the English language was like in the real world, 2000 years ago. English didn’t really exist 200 years ago. It was brought to Britain by the Anglo Saxons in the mid 5th century. So let’s just look at how English has changed in the last 1500 years. Have you ever looked at old english? Or listened to somebody speak it? It’s unrecognisable as anything I’d call english. It’s a whole other language. It kinda sounds alien and I find it a little creepy. It’s really fascinating. Definitely worth a google.

 

Anyway, the language the descendants speak now, would be vastly different to what the drew of Destiny spoke when they first arrived on Novus. For the sake of storytelling, the show has ignored that, and fair enough. Stargate has been doing that since early SG-1. How many aliens we’ve never met have spoken english with no explanation at all.

 

But I do like that they at least acknowledge this concept by showing that spelling has changed. Not only that, the guy is having a little trouble reading the article. He can make the gist of it, but it’s difficult for him. So while spoken English seems to be the same, at least for the descendants we found, written English has definitely changed. Maybe the people who lived on this planet changed their language more than those closer to Novus. Anyway, a big thumbs up for that detail. Very cool.

 

But let’s talk about what the article actually means. The people on this planet were attacked. Young will shortly discover that half this city has been destroyed. And they’ll spot a drone flying through the streets.

 

Now the drones may have just come here because they noticed the stargate use, but this is a single scout. IF they knew destiny’s crew were here, they’d come in force.

 

It’s very likely that the original inhabitants of this city were destroyed by the drones.

And that’s worrying.

It means even without interference by Destiny’s crew, the Novan descendants are at risk from these drones.

 

Morrison wants to run to one of the planets in range, which won’t be in range of destiny. He starts dialling but James punches him out before the wormhole can form. 

Still, that might have been enough to attract the drone’s attention.

Idiot.

 

It’s all well and good seeing those drones flying through space, but there’s something extra creepy seeing one of them flying above the rooftops in a planetary setting. And that noise they make. I don’t normally notice sound design, but I’m really appreciating it in this episode.

 

Turns out, it’s a lot quicker to take out a drone with a rocket launcher than it is to take it out with machine guns. Who knew?

 

When the team get back near the warehouse, TJ asks if there are any injuries. And JAmes says “Just Morrison. I broke his nose.”

TJ doesn’t ask any questions. She just smiles.

I love that.

We haven’t seen a lot of Morrison in this show, but what we have seen makes it pretty clear he’s the kind of guy whose nose a lot of people would like to break.

 

I like the visual effect of Destiny flying into the blue giant star. I know it’s just CGI, and pretty average by today’s standard, but with the loud whooshing sound, and then cutting to the control room with the shaking camera and the actors in their suits. I dunno, I really got the sense of the danger.

 

Eli is starting to worry that Destiny locked out the dome because it knew it wouldn’t be survivable in there. Rush admits he had considered that possibility, but still maintains PArk should be okay as long as they both focus on doing their jobs.

 

The scene where Park makes her way to the pond is really tense. The lighting is very bright, to show how much light and radiation is coming through that dome. And there’s a bit of a heat haze effect on the footage too, which is very effective. But the anxious heavy breathing that the actress does as she desperately tries to survive is what really sells it.

The music really adds to this too.

 

As we get another beauty shot of Destiny flying through the star, we see the shields fritzing on and off. That’s the kind of effect you might often see in sci-fi but in this case, we know what that means. We know how vital that shield is to keeping Park alive, not to mention Rush and Eli. Every time that shields drop out, my throat gets a lump in it.

 They get closer.

 

The plants in the dome start to burn up.

And the water in the pod is bubbling around Park. She's hiding in boiling water. That’s intense. How long before it all evaporates?

 

Apparently, when shooting this scene, the helmet was filling up with water. So Jennifer Spence had to do the scene as long as she could, and then stand up, remove the helmet, and let the water out so she could breathe.

It must have been pretty scary, but the stunt coordinator got her through it, helping her realise she was in complete control.

 

What I love about all of this is that it’s giving us real stakes and real tension. We don’t know at this point if Park will survive or not. We don’t know how honest Rush was being about her chances. We know this show isn’t afraid to kill off semi-regular characters like Park. They’ve done it before.

 

They really are giving us a bit of a treat in terms of exterior ship visual effects in this one.

 

You can see the dome filling with fire.

And then the glass shatters.

And the water is gone.

And park is being sucked out, holding on to the edge of the pond for dear life.

And inside that helmet, she’s screaming.

 

They make it out of the star. It’s done. They made it.

They can start cooling the gate room so the crew can return.

But that’s when Rush noticed that the hydroponic dome has been breached.

No point trying to hide it from Eli.

Eli runs.

 

Back on the planet, we learn a little more of the history of the attack from the newspaper.

They moved the stargate to a less technological part of the city, and they drove all their vehicles out of the city to try to lead the drones away and save as many as possible. I wonder where they went. One of the other planets in range, I guess.

 

Young didn’t find any food or guns, but he did get some clothes from a dry cleaner.

And while Camille’s desire for a new outfit sounds comedic, it’s not so silly. Clothes ARE going to wear out. And unless they all want to become nudists, which I don’t think would be a good idea, they’re going to need new options. So it makes sense to grab some while they’re here.

 

Eli is relieved to hear that Park is still alive. The atmosphere has been vented and she’s near the door. She’s not out of the woods yet, but she hasn’t been killed by the heat of the star.

 

Now that they’re through the star, Rush can override the door. It opens.

Eli pulls her to safety.

Jennifer Spense gives a great performance as she lets all of that emotion out. It’s not just the fear that she’s just been through. She can’t see. She’s been blinded by the experience.

The way she cries, it churns me all up inside and makes me just want to give her a hug.

 

The most important thing is that Park has been saved. But there has been a loss. All the plants in the dome. Some of them were medicinal hybrids they may not be able to recreate. But they at least have stores of seeds so they should be able to start the vegetables again from scratch.

 

They have a scheduled time when they’re supposed to dial back to Destiny. It’s ten minutes too soon, but the drones are at the door. So they dial now.

We know the ship is through the star. Let’s hope Rush has succeeded in cooling the gate room enough for them to survive.

 

As the wormhole engages, a giant alien ship descends on the city. Is that a command ship or something bigger? Either way, it’s creepy as hell. Especially when it makes that noise.

 

As the crew comes back through the gate, Rush tells TJ there’s a patient waiting. Greer overhears.

 

The mission has been a success. Eli was brilliant. And Rush is seriously impressed. He just doesn’t want Eli to know he said that.

And I think that’s so stupid. Eli probably needs to hear that. I know I would. In this life, we are bombarded with so many negative messages. So many of us spend most of our lives doubting ourselves. To know that somebody believes in us, that they think we did a good job. Hearing those words is gold to a wounded soul. And most of us have wounded souls.

Why do we have this embarrassment about praising people? We need to get over that. We really do.

 

But we have to face a difficult reality check. It worked this time, but we won’t be able to fool the drones the same way again, and those blue stars are pretty rare.

The ship is recharged for now, but it’s not gonna stay that way. AT some point, they’re going to need to recharge again.

 

What will they do when that day comes?

 

That’s the question that will take us into the next episode - the show’s season finale, and the last show ever produced.

 

This was another fantastic episode. We remember the big moments., Twin Destinies, the Novan two-parter. The finale. But we don’t always remember the episodes in between. This was an episode in between, but it was really good.

 

And that stuff with Doctor Park - that was really intense. The writers could very easily have killed her off.

And where would that leave Eli and Rush?

Where would that leave Greer and Rush?

 

I think Rush was lying when he assured Park she’d be okay. I’m not saying he believed she’d die, but he wasn’t certain. There was a chance, but he had no idea if it would work.

Luckily, she did survive.

But she’s lost her sight.

 

And yet, I’m still faced with the uncomfortable realisation that Rush probably did the right thing. They had to do those calculations. They had to get the ship through the star. They didn’t have time to keep messing with the door. They probably wouldn’t have succeeded.

 

I like when shows put our characters in difficult situations like this.

But I’m sure glad I’m not in one of those situations.

 

I’m starting to feel sad about getting to the end of Stargate Universe. And feeling again the pain of this show’s cancellation.

 

One episode left.

I guess I’ll see you next time as we discuss Gauntlet.

 

In the meantime, have a great two weeks.

 

Live long and prosper.

 

Make it so.