Stargate: Universe Season 2 (www.the-usher.com)

Intervention
The Lucian Alliance is still in control of the Destiny and Col. Young is determined to get it back under his control. Young and most of his personnel are prisoners however leaving it to Rush, Lt. Scott, Sgt. Greer, Elia and Chloe to find a way to get control of the ship.

Aftermath
Col. Young and Dr. Rush are back in control of the Destiny and the remaining members of the Lucian Alliance are in custody. They're not proving to be very cooperative however and trouble looms. Of greater concern is the lack of food and water on board.

Awakening
The crews comes across a ship that is virtually identical to the Destiny. The two ships automatically dock with each other and begin transferring data between systems. No one appears to be aboard the new ship but Scott and Greer discover a hold with a series of gates, presumably being transported to various sites. The scientific team thinks that combining the power of the two ships may allow them to open a gate to Earth.

Pathogen
Eli rushes back to Earth using the communication stones when he receives word that his mother is hospitalized and in declining health. She's stopped taking her medication and is clearly depressed over the fact that Eli has never been in touch with her. Eli has to decide whether or not to tell her the truth. Camile Wray also visits Earth to spend time with her partner, Sharon Walker, but something is clearly wrong.

Cloverdale
While on a planetary expedition, Lt. Scott is infected by a plant and he now has a fungus-like growth on his left arm. TJ has tried everything known to her but she cannot get the fungus to stop spreading. Col. Young refuses them permission to return the Destiny to prevent the spread of the unknown disease and they face the prospect of having to surgically remove Scott's arm.

Trail and Error
After returning from Earth (via the communication stones), Col. Young is somewhat depressed as his wife asked him for a divorce. He's drinking heavily and begins to have a recurring dream where the Destiny is attacked by the aliens they had earlier encountered. They are demanding Chloe's return and in the first few dreams, his refusal to do so leads to the Destiny's destruction.

The Greater Good
The Destiny comes out of hyperspace and the crew finds itself facing an abandoned space craft. Col. Young and Dr. Rush go aboard and manage to start basic systems but a sudden engine start propels them too far from the Destiny to be able return. Rush confides in a colleague who is on board using the communication stones, Amanda Perry, about the control room and his ability to control all of the Destiny's systems.

Malice
Simeon has killed Ginn - whose body contained Dr. Amanda Perry's consciousness - and taken Lisa Park prisoner before using the gate to get to a nearby planet. An outraged Dr. Rush sets off on his own to find him but Lt. Scott and Sgt. Greer soon join him. Simeon is quite happy to lead them on a chase and taunts Rush at every opportunity. When Rush finally catches up with him, he has a surprise for him. He may have acted too quickly however.

Visitation
The Destiny comes out of hyperspace only to find one of their own shuttles asking for permission to dock. Aboard is Dr. Caine and the others who had opted to re-settle on a planet they has discovered. They claim to not know what is going one and the last they remember is that were still on the planet when they went to bed the previous evening. TJ hopes that her baby will be with them but Cain has no memory of her visiting them.

Resurgence
After identifying an energy pattern that may signify the existence of intelligent life, the Destiny is rerouted to the site only to find the results of what must have been an epic battle. Debris is strewn everywhere and Col. Young dispatches Lt. Scott, Sgt. Greer and Adam Brody in the shuttle to investigate one of the ships, the type that he and Dr. Rush had only recently explored.

Deliverance
The Destiny comes out of hyperspace and come under attack from the command ship. Chloe has escaped from the brig and sent a signal for help. Eli suggests jamming their communications signal which seems to work. The ship is damaged however and it will take several hours to repair the shield generator and a second cluster of attack ships are en route to them. When the shuttle is trapped when it tries to recover one of the attack drones, Col. Young decides to offer Chloe in return for freeing it. When the second wave of drones arrives, they find a way to add to their firepower.

Twin Destinies
The Destiny is In poor shape following its recent battles and have virtually no back up systems remaining. As the ship approaches a star for refueling, Eli wants to test his theory that he can dial Earth. While the simulations suggest that it will work fine, Rush is dead set against arguing there are too many anomalies in a star for it to work. Most are suspicious of his motivation however.

Alliances
When Camille and Sgt. Greer use the communications stones to return to Earth, they arrive to learn there is a high state of alert in anticipation of an attack from the Lucian Alliance. They've barely arrived when an explosion traps them in the building where they find high levels of radiation - and where, they are told, there a large bomb still waiting to go off.

Hope
Six days have now passed since the the Destiny has lost contact with Earth and they have no idea whether Washington D.C. was destroyed. They're running tests round the clock to try and re-establish communications using the stones and when Chloe's turn comes up, a new consciousness appears in her body - that of Ginn, who everyone thought had died along with Amanda Perry when she was killed by a member of the Lucian Alliance.

Seizure
Aboard the Destiny, Rush has strapped himself into the chair and entered a virtual reality world where he can spend time alone with Amanda Perry. They very much enjoy their time together but when it comes time to return, she tells him that Ginn is blocking his return. They undertake a number of maneuvers and he seems to return but he soon realizes that Amanda has created a program from which there is no escape. Ginn manages to appear before Eli and he realizes what he has to do to ensure Rush's sage return.

The Hunt
With the ship out of hyper space, a team goes to the a nearby planet and are pleased to find that game may be available. They soon find themselves the hunted however and the object of a predator of some sort, a highly intelligent animal. The group is attacked and TJ and another are taken to the creature's lair, obviously being kept for a later meal. Greer and the remaining members of the Lucian Alliance try to locate them.

Common Descent
The Destiny once again comes under attack from the drones they previously encountered leading them to wonder just how the drones and their mother ship manage to find them so soon after virtually every jump. More intriguing to everyone however are the people they find on a planet who claim to be the descendants of the Destiny's crew who founded their civilization nearly 2000 years ago. They are only a small party from their home world but have been unable to return there.

Epilogue
The shuttle lands on Novus and the recon team explores a bunker where they find an extensive library and archive that cataloged virtually all of the activities of the original colonists. The kinos and other recordings reveal the key events in their alternate lives - people die, they marry and they have children. For some however, knowing what happened to their alternate selves raises doubts in their minds as to their own future.

Blockade
The Destiny needs to be refueled but every time they come out of hyperspace the drones seem to be waiting for them. It's not obvious how the drones know they're there but it doesn't matter a great deal since they only have one more try before running out of fuel completely. Ely suggests they go through a Blue Super Giant star, though the heat it creates might destroy the ship.

Gauntlet
Eli and Rush have found a way to identify the location of drone mother ships using the Destiny's long range sensors. The bad news is that the Drones seems to be awaiting them at every possible stop along Destiny's path. They find a temporary solution to neutralize the mother ships but realize that they cannot engage in a major battle every time they need to re-supply. Eli suggest that they use the stasis pods for the crew and jump to the next galaxy, a trip that will take three years. All goes well until they realize that one of the pods has been damaged and one person will have to stay behind in the hopes of fixing the unit in the short time available or die.

The third Stargate show moves into its second season but can it regain any of the momentum created by SG-1 or Atlantis as Universe�s destiny is in its own hands.

After fourteen years, three series and a hand full of TV movies, �Stargate� comes to an end but it is not an alien invasion, an all-powerful intergalactic force or the return of the Ancients that has finished this science fiction show but poor ratings that has shut down the Stargate Program. During the second season, the SyFy network decided to cancel the show after initially funding a two season pick up from the start of the third Stargate series, just as the show was coming into its own and finding its feet but when audiences do not stay with a series and especially one that is very expensive to produce, the axe will fall. In Stargate Universe�s case, this is a real shame.

The Stargate franchise has always been compared to the science fiction behemoth that is �Star Trek� and it could be argued that the spinoff series have copied the framework set out by the classic. With �Atlantis� taking its space station/city setting from �Deep Space Nine� and now �Stargate: Universe� following the lone ship in a distant part of the galaxy/universe premise of �Star Trek Voyager�, comparisons were bound to be made and as with the Trek shows, each of them took some time to establish themselves. While Atlantis quickly set out the premise of the show and, most importantly, introduced an enemy for the team to fight, �Universe� suffered because it never did this. Without a real enemy to fight, �Universe� took the route of inner conflict with the crew and the problems of keeping such a big and old ship, the Destiny, going and struggling to understand what it can do, that, in some cases, lost the audience. While the peril was there, it was not sustained in the form of an enemy with a face (the drone fighters) or with a clear agenda (the Blue aliens that changed Chloe), with only the internal squabbling running through the show but the potential was growing.

The reason the potential was there was because of the cast. As with most shows, the actors start to become comfortable with their characters and become accustomed to the universe they are starting to create. Justin Louis� Colonel Everett Young grows in his leadership qualities and becomes a much more likeable character. Robert Carlyle�s Dr. Nicholas Rush also develops as his true motivations become clear as he thinks he has discovered the true mission of the Destiny. David Blue�s uber-geek Eli Wallace continues to be the heart of the show, finding and losing love but also continuing to be the voice of reason in the crew. Ming-Na�s Camile Wray becomes a greater part of the crew and not just the woman who goes against every decision Young makes. Brian J. Smith as Lt. Matthew Scott, Elyse Levesque as Chloe Armstrong, Jamil Walker Smith as Master Sgt. Ronald Greer and Alaina Huffman as medical officer Lt. Tamara Johansen all have stronger storylines that allow their characters to grow.

While the actor�s brought more to their characters, it was the structure of the second season that caused the SyFy channel to let the axe fall. Show creators Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright needed to inject more impetus into the show, creating greater tension and a real threat to the crew, leaving stories like the well thought out �Duplicate Storyline� and the �Destiny mission reveal� until later seasons. This is why viewers lost interest in the show, as the lack of a real direction or a reoccurring alien/enemy meant that the action quota was not as influential as it could have been.

�Stargate: Universe� is a show that had potential but it was never and will never be realised. While the ensemble cast was extremely good, the decision to move away from the traditional action fair of the previous �Stargate� series and head towards a more �Battlestar Galactica� character driven approach was wrong for the SG franchise. The second season also does not finish the series in a way that wraps everything up, which is always the problem with a cancelation. Let�s hope that this is not the end of the franchise and we get to step through the Stargate again.

Special Features:

Extensive episode commentaries by cast and crew
Making-of featurettes
Character featurettes
Deconstructing Destiny; Power, Weapons, Shields, FTL Drive, The Ancient Chair, Communication Stones & The Bridge
Behind the Season 2 Finale – Gauntlet

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