Overall Rating: 6.7
Alien hazard of the week type show - not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, but it does have limits in terms of how strong a reaction it can produce in a critic.
Plot Synopsis:
Several members of the Destiny crew begin experiencing terrifyingly real hallucinations, revealing their fears and deepest desires in the process. These hallucinations go largely unchecked until one crew member sees snakes crawling under his skin and tears his arm to shreds. When he lands in the infirmary, TJ realizes he and the other members of a recent away mission all have ticks attached to their necks. The tick appears to have some venom that triggers a reaction on the lymbic region of the brain (the part that controls pre-rational emotions like lust, fear, anger and grief). This explains the nature of the hallucinations:
Lt. James hallucinates a hot and heavy encounter with Lt. Scott (lust) that turns into a violent domestic disturbance (jealousy/rage) when Scott breaks off the sex and makes to leave. She smashes him over the head with a lantern. Believing she has killed him, she hides for a while before she is found and taken to the infirmary.
Lt. Scott keeps seeing his son around the ship - the one he didn't even know he had. The guilt and grief over these events are made real in the hallucination when the boy asks him why he abandoned him.
Chloe hallucinates a conversation with her dead father. Her grief is so overpowering that she begs Eli not to tell anyone that she's hallucinating so that she can have more time to talk to him and fights with the security team (including Scott) that drag her down to the infirmary to get her tick removed.
Dr. Rush believes the ship is being boarded by the aliens that have been pursuing Destiny - he even sees himself trapped in one of their water filled tubes.
Dr. Volker is claustrophobic and imagines himself locked in his quarters...and then trapped in a stone coffin.
Greer - the most dangerous among the crew because his condition is not diagnosed - imagines Wray and Rush plotting another mutiny. He imagines Colonel Young giving him the green light to use deadly force to take them out and he traps both of them in a storage room for interrogation. He shoots Wray in the chest (fortunately not through the heart) and nearly finishes her off when his abusive father goads him into finishing the job.
TJ cleverly anesthetizes the ticks with a paralytic agent and removes them from everyone affected. Once they're gone, however; the crew is left to face their demons - morale is once again at all time lows.
Writing: 6.0
There's nothing inherently wrong with this script. The plot keeps your attention and there's enough suspense to motivate the viewer. I don't think anything particularly stands out, though. The alien hallucinogen concept has been done to death in Gate canon, let alone the rest of science fiction. I feel like this episode was engineered to extend the sort of whiny "woe is me" mentality that is trampling all over the things that made Stargate great in past generations. They set out to create the "dark" Gate (they've said this in interviews), but what they've actually created is just sophomoric whininess. Dark drama only works if you have a character-driven message to deliver. There's really no coherent message in this franchise, at least not yet. I was, however, pleased to see the writers pick up the thread (if only for a moment) of Greer's abusive past and show how such a life can produce consequences long after the apparent recover (through repressed anger).
Acting: 8.0
David Blue and Elyse Levesque had a good week - especially interacting together. I also, once again, very much enjoyed Jamil Walker Smith - this time for his rather frightening portrayal of how dangerous a man with incredible instincts for survival can be when he's operating entirely on those instincts (and under false assumptions). Alaina Huffman and Justin Louis had one opportunity to impress me on the acting front and I think they missed that chance a bit. They had a moment written into the script where Young became protective, concerned that a tick might jump to TJ, and she assured him that she would keep him informed if there were any changes and that she was just as concerned as he was. This came across rather flatly...I'd like to see the writers do more to work with this strange parental relationship, because, I think, given enough screen time, Huffman will shine in that role.
Message: 6.0
I guess the message would be - rationality saves us from being consumed by our emotions (and bad things happen when the lymbic system is unchecked in the brain)...scientifically true, but not particularly enlightening or original. *shrug* A creature feature episode isn't really meant to deliver deep meaning so much as develop characters.
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