Stargate Universe S02E06 'Water' follows the crew of Destiny as they struggle to deal with water supply levels that are dropping way too fast with seemingly no explanation.

To combat the situation, Colonel Young and Lt.Scott don spacesuits and go through the Stargate to an ice world to try to collect ice composed of drinkable water to replenish supplies.

After suspecting members of the crew, those on board soon discover the culprit. It seems the alien entity Lt.Scott encountered on the desert planet in S02E03 'Air' is on the ship and it wants water - lots of it.

I enjoyed this episode, as I have every single SGU episode to date. Some people aren't so happy claiming that the series is suffering from "problem of the week" syndrome, but I don't see how serving up a weekly challenge as part of the ongoing wider story arc is any different than any other series on television.

The "problem of the week" doesn't bother me one bit, so long as it fits into the wider story arc, and it's way too early to tell where the alien entity from 'Air' and 'Water' fits into the wider story arc. It's a creature that has an insatiable appetite for water, and they just gave it plenty of frozen water, so who knows what the ramifications will be.

Maybe they just inadvertently created an entire new race (since the 'swarm' was growing exponentially), or destroyed one on the ice planet by putting a creature there that will turn it into a new desert - or made a race very, very unhappy with them such that an enemy ends up in pursuit. Who knows? I feel it's simply too early to call this episode "filler" as some people have.

Assuming that I'm thinking too much and not a lot will transpire from this episode (and, I admit, I do wonder how it can since Destiny keeps jumping away from anywhere it goes), what of the episode then?

I still enjoyed it. I felt the scenes on the ice planet were convincingly real enough for me to believe they were on an ice planet, and the scenes with Lt. Scott trapped in a crevice were also quite dramatic. Eli's "we've entered the Hoth system" joke was still funny, despite seeing it a billion times in previews.

The scenes on board Destiny were a little less exciting. The soldier that ends up getting killed by the alien entity was a dumb-ass, firing his weapon at it for now reason. But then, people are dumb-asses so you can't call it sloppy writing unless you call reality itself sloppy...although, maybe you can call reality sloppy writing. Hmm. Anyway.

Lt.Scott has been one of my favorite characters, but since he's now cheating on his woman from episode 1, and since she has now discovered it and seems kind of sad, I think he isn't perhaps the perfect hero dude I thought he was. Who knows, maybe if Eli ends up with Vanessa the whole strange love-quadrangle will complete and everyone will live happily ever after. Nope, I can't see it - Eli and Vanessa that is...or happiness. None of it.

Ironically, all that now makes my favorite character Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) who, despite being the unstable bad boy of the crew, is also the tough guy that ultimately everyone seems to be relying on for their dirty work. He's also the character with the most depth. There are a lot of questions about him but most of all, his scenes are always interesting. You never know quite what he's going to do, but you know he's capable of anything.

The only thing I didn't really like with this episode was the way in which they finally deal with the alien entity. I won't mention it in case you haven't seen it, but in the end I felt a released and angry alien entity would not have done that straight away! You'll know what I mean when you see it.

Overall, I think 'Water' was probably my least favorite of all the episode so far, but I still enjoyed it.

I give it 8 monkeys: [Rating:8/12]

Below are more images from the episode and a link to watch it online:

See larger image Water (Amazon Instant Video) Director: Will Waring New From: $1.99 In Stock Release date October 31, 2009.

Tags: Stargate Universe