You know, it really wasn’t all that good. We were on a great run: of the last 12 or 13 episodes, with that one ‘dream bug’ episode, they were all good-to-great. Last week’s episode was a step down, but I forgave it as it was an intermezzo in a three-part story. This week’s even-less-satisfying episode is a cliffhanger that won’t be resolved until October, so, really, this one is *also* an intermezzo.

That’s one intermezzo to many.

Anyway, the Lucians still have the gate room, Chole and Eli are still lost, stuff still sucks all ‘round.

With tonight’s episode, SGU officially becomes the best SF show on the air. I’d even go so far as to say what they did tonight is superior to anything we’re seeing out of Lost at the moment, and that’s high praise indeed. This is also the episode where “Universe” finally took it’s own place alongside the previous two Stargate shows as an equal, as opposed to the frustrating departure from form it started out as. And best of all: no musical montages tonight!

Today, let’s take a moment to reflect on what a bad job Syfy is doing.

I don’t do this out of hate, really, but just to point out some critical shortcomings. And hate, too, I guess. Ok, I do it out of hate, and the critical shortcoming thing. I hate, but I hate because I love.

It’s backstory city here on SGU tonight: We have two parallel plots running, the first, and more important being an extended semi-flashback in which we watch the things that turned Rush (A person) into Rush (An evil scheming jackass). In the other one, we’ve got a fairly standard peril-on-a-planet-with-the-clock-ticking plot. Both take a rather surprising turn, which is becoming the calling card for this series, and really has always been a trademark of the SG franchise, if we’re honest.