Stargate Universe ”The Hunt” Detailed Analysis & Review

In a slightly more standalone episode of Stargate Universe, we go hunting for an alien creature that has taken two Destiny crewmembers. Varro and his Lucian Alliance people want to join, as they have much more experience with this, but can they be trusted? And what's going on with Greer?

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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 87 of the podcast

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

 

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

“The crew organise a desperate rescue mission after a predatory creature attacks an offworld team and takes two people captive.”

 

This episode was written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie

It was directed by Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 3rd of May 2012.

 

We’re on an alien planet. One of those nicely forested Canada planets we visited so often in SG-1.

They spot animals that they refer to as space deer.

Greer points out they’ll look ever better roasting on a spit.

Park is shocked. “You’re kidding, right?” she says with a look of amazement on her face.

Greer gives an amusing response. “Well, how would you cook them?”

Turns out Park is a vegetarian.

Nothing wrong with that, at all. But I’m a little surprised at her shock.

 

They’re on a spaceship, stranded far from Earth. No way to get supplies.

They’ve been scrounging for anything they can find to eat on planets they visit, that might have nutritional value to keep them alive.

And Park is shocked that a non vegetarian would consider eating these animals?

Her surprise shocks me.

Most of what they’ve eaten in the last two seasons has been extremely unpalatable vegetables. They probably haven’t had access to much protein.

It makes sense.

 

Park does raise a legitimate point. What if these creatures are intelligent?

I was actually thinking about that myself before she said it. You better make sure they’re not sapient beings. Exactly how you do that is up for discussion. But you can get a pretty decent level of accuracy just by observing their behaviour.

As Scott says, he saw one of them eat their own vomit. Not proof, by any means, but certainly one piece of evidence.

 

They look pretty cool up close. The CGI is a little dated by today’s standards, but still very artistic, and certainly a lot more than they could have done in the early days of SG-1.

 

But before Greer can make the shot, the animals run away, spooked by something.

That’s when they hear the roar.

They’re not on another T-Rex planet, are they?

 

Something jumps out and attacks them. We see the encounter from the point of view of the creature. Then we cut to credits. When we come back out, we’re looking at Kino footage, which still seems to be shot from the creature’s point of view, which is really weird and hard to explain.

 

There’s a trope often used in horror or sci-fi and fantasy. It’s the idea of ‘hide the monster’.

And it can work sometimes.

But I think I’ve said before, that this annoys and frustrates me in situations where the characters can see the creature, but it’s artificially hidden from us, the audience.

That REALLY bugs me.

 

Plenty of the away team have been injured from the attack, and two are missing =- TJ and Reynolds.

Scott wants to go down and find them, but Young is going himself, and leaving Scott in charge on Destiny.,

Young is a little concerned that Greer hesitated when he had the animal in his sights. He didn’t take the shot. If it’s just a moment of indecision, then that happens. It’s cool.

But if there is a bigger problem, Greer needs to figure out what it is and fix it.

Greer gives a very compliant “Yes, sir.”

 

Eli and Brody are exploring new parts of the ship. Rush wants them to take a cautious approach. Not looking inside boxes. Fair enough, I guess. But at some point, somebody needs to look in the box or you’ll never know what’s inside.

 

Brody thinks that Eli is afraid of Rush. Eli denies it, but when they reach Rush, he goes all quiet and awkward.

 

And after last week’s episode, this feels wrong.

Eli is really upset with Rush right now. When we last saw him, he’d just sacrifice Ginn to save Rush’s life. Eli stood up to Rush and spoke in a very affirmative and almost aggressive way.

At this point, I think Eli is done being intimidated by Rush, and has had enough of his crap.

 

Anyway, they find a room filled with slots in the wall. They look kind of like Borg regeneration alcoves.

Eli calls them stasis pods. It makes sense that a long-range ship like Destiny would have them, but they’re empty. And there’s a lot of them.

 

Rush wants to check the computers for information before spending any time studying these pods. He wants to move on, to Eli’s dismay.

 

Rush is basically cataloguing. Exploring the ship, see what you find, note it, and move on. Come back later to do detailed examinations of the things you noted.

And that’s a valid way to explore. Possibly even a wise way. It keeps you on task, without getting distracted by each new shiny thing.

 

But when you find something significant like this, it’s hard to just walk away.

And it seems that Rush’s approach and attitude is being significantly influenced by the recent tragedy. He jumped in head first because he wanted to be with Perry, and got trapped in the computer.

 

Greer is letting his guilt over not firing cause him to make poor and rash decisions. Yes, they need to hurry, but as Young points out, they need to hurry in the right direction. There’s no point running ahead if you’re going the wrong way.

 

Young is concerned that Greer hasn’t had enough time to recuperate after his surgery.

It seems in the last few episodes, we’ve really been delving into Greer’s flaws.

 

Varro wants to volunteer to help with the rescue.

The Lucian Alliance people have been hunting most of their lives. They could do this more efficiently and effectively than Young and his team. Scott agrees and sends them down.

 

Volker goes to the sick bay to see how Park is doing. The other patient, a loud-mouthed guy, is being really self-absorbed. Volker admits that he’s here to express concern for both of them, but Park clearly has more of his attention right now. And loud-mouth doesn’t help matters with his attitude.

I wonder, does Volker have some feelings for Park? It’s entirely possible that this is just concern driven by friendship and working closely together, of course. That’s completely normal and appropriate.

But stories have a tendency to focus more on romantic feelings, so I’m just wondering. We’ve seen Park and Greer have a physical relationship in the past. Is it still going on? I’m not sure.

 

TJ and Reynolds are still alive. They’re in a cave.

The fact that they’re still alive is a good sign, but not as good as Reynolds is hoping.

The creature is saving them for later. To eat.

But that, at least, buys them time to be rescued.

 

Once Rush is out of the way, Eli decides to hell with what Rush thinks. He’s gonna go look at the stasis pods. Brody decides to go with him.

When TJ looks out of the cave mouth to see where they are, we get our first real glimpse of the monster. We don’t see it fully, just a quick shot. We see a tail and the back end of  a large muscled body.

And that’s fine. I’m cool with that. That’s enough. Just show us little half glimpses at the start and fully reveal the monster at the end. I’m fine with that. But we should have seen this glimpse, at least, at the beginning.

 

So Chloe comes to see how Volker is doing. She tries, subtly at first, to suggest maybe he should tell Park how he feels about her. When that doesn’t work, because subtly rarely works on us blokes, she asks outright. “Does she know how you feel?”

 

Volker denies anything beyond friendship between them, but his awkwardness pretty much confirms that feeling that he does have. And has no idea what to do with it.

He’s a nerd like me. I totally get it.

 

Eli is really starting to vent about his issues with Rush now. This is what I was talking about at the beginning of the episode. These are the feelings I’m expecting him to have.

He’s tired of Rush taking charge of everything and cutting the others out of decisions and even knowledge.

 

Rush WAS lead scientist on Icarus, but this is personal. This is about what Eli had to do to save Rush. This is about Rush keeping the bridge secret for so long.

 

He confirms that he doesn’t want to be head scientist, but he does want more of a say.

And that’s when Brody accidentally gets locked into one of the stasis pods.

As Eli tries to free him, he activates the pod, putting Body into cryogenic suspension.

That’s not good.

But Eli doesn’t know is that Rush already knows they’re there. He was watching. And he’s the one who activated the pod. He’s screwing with them.

 

Varro learned to hunt as a child. But he also learned to respect nature. Those two things seem to go together.

But Greer sees nothing to respect in this creature. He calls it a monster.

Varro points out that animals don’t know hate, only fear and hunger. Which is true.

So what exactly is a monster? Really, that’s just a word we use to demonise a creature. And I can totally understand doing that. If an animal killed someone I love, I’d totally demonise it. I’d be filled with hate for this creature, which had acted out of fear and hunger.

 

Anyway, the creature ambushes them. It’s a pretty frantic scene. Several of them were badly injured. Varro has determined this creature is very intelligent. It’s been hunting them while they’ve been hunting it.

 

And Greer is still acting rashly. He is really not himself.

 

James has noticed that Greer is freezing under pressure. It happens to people, but not to Greer.

He shares that he thinks he died. He woke up after the surgery and there was nothing. Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.

For the first time, he’s experiencing fear.

 

James thinks it was just Greer’s brain waking from the heavy sedation a little ahead of his body.

Greer thinks it was something darker.

Death. Maybe hell.

 

Young can’t go on, because of his injuries. He’ll only slow them down. He knows this. Varro knows he knows this. He doesn’t want to give up on his people, but he’s a CO. He knows the right call here. So he chooses to trust Varro.

 

Interesting that young doesn’t say “Bring them back.” He says “bring her back.”

Despite everything, Young still has very close personal feelings for TJ. He had pushed those feelings aside, refusing to acknowledge them, out of respect for his wife (although that doesn’t make up for his past unfaithfulness), but she still obviously means a great deal to him. More than just one of his crew.

I do wonder, if now that his wife has asked him for a divorce, whether he is reconsidering the possibility of something happening with TJ. But she seemed to be tired of being toyed with, and with all she’s gone through this season, it’s hardly the time to try to start something.

 

Volker comes in to see PArk again. She asks him if he was watching her sleep. His response is so awkward that I think his feelings are probably pretty obvious to Park now.

Rush has some work for Park. She's going crazy just laying there.

 

Rush has noticed Volker’s interest in Park. But he believes nothing could ever happen with them. Not because she’s so attractive, and he’s not, but because Volker isn’t the romantic type. He’s the good friend type. And that’s just life. We all have our pre-destined roles (which does not actually sound like Rush at all). Volker is destined to live the single life and pursue science. I think he might be using a little reverse psychology here. See, Rush does sometimes like to help others, but he does it in a very Rush way.

 

Varro has set a trap for the creature, which they know is stalking them as much as they’re stalking it.

This is when Greer decides to speak up with what’s on his mind.

Greer has never liked any of the Lucian Alliance. Varro has been one of the good ones for quite a while, but not good enough for Greer. He doesn’t trust Varro, and he’s concerned about what may be starting to happen between him and TJ.

 

Varro doesn’t deny it, he simply says “why don’t we let her decide that.”

 

When the creature attacks, Greer is still not thinking well. He yells out “I’m right here.” He’s being driven by all sorts of emotion.

 

They blow up the creature. They can now hike to the lair without further threat.

And that’s when two of the hunters get taken by creatures. There are more of them.

The way this is done is pretty good. You see them just kind of disappear into the brushes, really quickly, like they’ve been snatched by something.

 

Why didn’t they use that effect at the start of the episode, instead of the monster-POV allowing the characters to get a good look at the monster, while hiding it from us. The effect used here would have been much better. It’s creepy. It’s very effective. IT evokes fear, not only of the power of this creature, but of its unknown nature.

 

Reynolds is pretty scared. The creature is too strong to kill. And he can’t stand the thought of being eaten alive. When the time comes, if he doesn’t have the guts to do it himself, he asks TJ to kill him.

 

TJ has some harsh words for him, which he seems to take onboard.

She managed to make radio contact with Varro and Greer.

That could greatly improve their odds of rescuing them.

With nobody else to turn to, Eli asks Chloe to help with Brody.

He can’t tell Rush. He wants to solve this without Rush.

Chloe may still have some residual alien knowledge. That might be helpful.

 

They’ve found the lair, but Varro is hesitant to go with Greer. He doesn’t think Greer is up for it. He’s no coward, but he’s second-guessing himself, and they don’t have time for him to work through whatever issues he’s working through.

Varro has a point.

But Greer will never accept that because he doesn’t trust Varro.

 

So Varro has little choice but to go along with Greer’s plan.

 

We get a really good look at the creature when it enters the lair. I think this is one of the babies. Anyway, it looks good. I like it.

 

When Greer arrives, TJ tells him not to shoot. She thinks the creature is recognising intelligence in TJ for using the fire.

 

Greer has the shot. He second-guessed himself last time, and now he’s being told not to shoot. This is not going to be helpful with the things he’s trying to work through.

 

TJ and Reynoldfsd leave the lair. The creature allows them.

Greer bets that the creature is smart enough to know he can kill it, but is choosing not to.

It’s a bet he’s making with his life.

 

The bet pays off. All three of them are able to leave unharmed, without harming the creature.

 

I have to wonder, just how intelligent is this thing? Is it a sapient being like us? There is no sign of civilisation. It lives like an animal. Hunting prey. It doesn’t build anything. No evidence that it has tried to develop technology.

But then, it doesn’t have the tools in its body like we do.

 

It’s a good reminder that intelligent alien life won’t necessarily look like us.

Which is actually the caution that Park raised at the start of the episode.

 

So Rush finally lets Brodgy out of the stasis pod.

Seems this was more than just him playing a joke on Eli and Brody. He was testing the pod to see how it worked, and has evidently decided they shouldn’t use them.

 

So…he’s conducted human experimentation without the consent of knowledge of his test subject.

 

That’s a new low for Rush, I think.

 

And nobody will ever know because it’ll all be blamed on a mistake by Eli.

But in the end, Rush has achieved what he wanted with those two. They are now much more cautious, which is what he wanted them to be.

 

Greer has put in a good word for Varro, who is now a free man, allowed to roam the ship again.

That’s the thing about Greer, he’s not one to trust, but if you prove yourself to him, he’ll back you up.

 

A romantic moment was about to happen between Varro and TJ, and it was very much mutual. But they’re interrupted by somebody at the door.

It’s Young, inviting Varro to lend his expertise to tonight’s dinner.

 

After Young leaves, TJ looks really troubled, emotionally. I’m not quite sure what’s going through her head.

Is she torn between Varro and Young? Or is it just about Varro, wondering if she should pursue him or not. I’m really not sure.

So Volker has finally worked up the courage to tell Park how he feels. He walks into the sick bay, flower in hand, and he sees Greer there with her, practically lying on top of her.

It seems there is still very much something going on between those two.

 

He walks sadly away. He can’t compete with a strong, brave tough guy like Greer.

I really feel for Volker.

I know how he’s feeling in that moment. I’ve been there.

It’s the feeling of ‘how could anyone possibly love me? I’m just a nerd. I’m nothing. No one could ever want me.’

I remember feeling those things deeply.

 

And yet, by some miracle, it worked out for me. I’m married to a wonderful woman and we love each other deeply.

 

There is always hope.

 

Of course, the odds are much harder for someone like Volker, on a spaceship with a very small sample of human beings.

 

The episode ends with the crew enjoying some tasty alien venison at Becker’s Barbecue.  Airman Becker, being the ship’s official chef.

 

I really enjoyed this episode. It’s mostly a standalone, after a whole lot of episodes that have followed directly one from another, but it still has a lot of connective tissue.

But the standalone elements were very entertaining.

 

Next time, we’ll look at the first of two episodes that delve into what happened when the alternate timeline crew went through that wormhole in Twin Destinies.

 

I’ll see you then for Common Descent.

 

Only 4 more episodes left of Stargate Universe.

We better enjoy every minute of it, because it’ll be over before we know it.

 

Have a great two weeks

Live long and prosper

Make it so