TV episode review
US airdate 28 September 2010 (SyFy)

The Lucian Alliance have control of Destiny — not a situation Dr Rush or Colonel Young will take lying down…

It’s very much business as usual in Stargate Universe’s sophomore season. The multiple cliffhangers from the end of last season are rapidly resolved (proving just how contrived they were), and Lucian Alliance leader Kiva is killed offscreen (as Rhona Mitra is off being a suburban vampire in The Gates). Instead we have Prison Break’s T-Bag (Robert Knepper) as Simeon, who’ll hopefully get to go head-to-head with Begbie-in-space (Robert Carlyle’s idiosyncratic Dr Rush).

The episode features the most imaginative writing out of a narratively unwanted baby in television history, as TJ’s (Alaina Huffman) unborn child is spirited away to the ‘paradise planet’ discovered and colonised by some of Destiny’s crew last season. Or was it? Later episodes may reveal whether she hallucinated the scenes we saw or if the compassionate alien intervention is real.

Stargate Universe is now very much its own show, able to shrug off comparisons with the other Stargate series and Battlestar Galactica. Against everything else on television at the moment, it certainly has a unique look, though MGM’s financial situation means it’s unlikely to survive beyond this second year on air. Brian J. Robb

VERDICT: 7/10