Skin Deep

Well here we are again, the first piece of new content for the archive site and it’s going to be a look at Once Upon A Time and more specifically a Robert Carlyle episode from the first season entitled “Skin Deep”. In this episode Rumplestiltskin meets Belle for the first time after agreeing to end her fathers war with the trolls. Meanwhile in Storybrooke Mr Gold is imposing his own business ethics on Moe (Belle’s father) after he failed to repay a loan. David and Mary Margaret continue to their dance unaware of who they once were and Emma now the sheriff investigates a robbery of Gold’s home, a very important item has been stolen.

Skin Deep is a very rewarding look into this show’s version of Beauty and the Beast, there are some wonderful moments between Rumplestiltskin and Belle never more so after the Queen’s interference which leads to some home truths being dished out to the dark one.

Our thanks to No Spoilers Dearie on twitter who helped us to decide what we were going to do for a first piece of new content for this site and while it’s not a full Once Upon A Time podcast we hope this is acceptable.

Our next episode will probably be taking a look at Children Of The Gods (Final Cut), no schedule for release but it has been recorded so while we won’t be sticking to a weekly release we hope at least to maintain regular new content for the immediate future. The primary site for Gatecast will now be switching to Stargate Archives, new content will be posted there first and the site has it’s own own itunes entry if you care to subscribe. A few days after posting new content on that site it will be mirrored here until this site is permanently closed when the hosting runs out, we won’t be paying to keep two sites running and after this one was hacked the broken links are too much trouble to fix

Stargate Universe Wrap Up Show

Welcome to the roundtable discussion of the two seasons of Stargate Universe in this wrap up show. Joining Mike and Alan are Thomas, Ian and Steve along with additional material from the co-founder of the podcast, Scott. On the show we discuss Stargate Universe in general and answer a few more specific questions in we hope an entertaining fashion. We also have the results of the favourite episode listener poll which we ran for a week and while we didn’t get the number of votes when compared to our other polls (which ran for around a month) we got enough to give us an idea of how the show fared.

SGU Poll Results…

* Gauntlet

* Twin Destinies & Air (1,2 & 3)

We would like to thank everyone that has contributed to the Gatecast podcast for these past few years but there have been so many so for now we want to have a special mention for the three guys who joined us over skype to wrap our coverage of Stargate Universe and also to Brad for the feedback over the years and dedication in getting up so early so often to talk with us, alas scheduling prevented him from joining in directly. We also want to thank Holly for the feedback over on our Facebook group and to Dan for the email along with our continued thanks to every follower on our social media, you’ve all made this journey worthwhile.

In particular those that have joined us on the show to talk Stargate are going to get named (but not shamed) and while I am pretty sure this is a complete list if I have forgotten anyone make sure I know so I can correct any mistake, I would hate to have missed a guest while scanning through 350 episodes.

Guests…

* Kristina

* Stephen

* Steve

* Adam

* Brad

* Thomas

* Adriana

* Misa

* Scott

* Dan

* Ian

* Jacob

* Tim

* Daniel

* David

* Miles

* Andrew

* Michael

* Jeff

* Matthew

* Shayne

* Phil

* Dave

Mentions…

* Atlantis-tv

* WormholeRiders

* Holly Wilson

 

Gauntlet

Well this is Gauntlet the season and alas the series finale of Stargate Universe and while the episode was not specifically written as a series finale it actually works very well and by some miracle doesn’t annoy the viewer with a slap in the face cliffhanger. Of course as we know the final scenes of the series leaves everyone hanging by a thread but it’s done with such style and care you really do not mind, at least not too much.

The Drones once again are pressuring Destiny and continue to block every single useful star in the immediate flight path of the ship, it’s simply impractical for Destiny to seek out resource rich worlds off the path as laid down by the seed ships so the question is asked what can they do. Eli comes up with another solution, not a good one but it has the benefit of not only preventing further conflict with the drones but maximising the current resources of the ship. His solution is to make use of the recently activates stasis pods, those combined with an energy saving FTL cruise would allow the Destiny to leave this current galaxy and bypass the are of space controlled by the drones. The margin of error is very small and the decision to implement this option would have to be taken very quickly, if Destiny’s power reserves dropped too low while in FTL the ship would be stranded in the intergalactic void with hundreds of years of sublight flight ahead of it. Some of the crew are give the option of a last visit to Earth but a minor hiccup almost derails the endeavour as some of the pods are damaged and a certain mineral is needed to enact a repair. Activating the gate will of course draw a drone command ship to their location but they lay down a diversion with one of the shuttles broadcasting a powerful signal to fool the drones, when they take the bait the shuttle does a kamikaze run and destroys the command ship and Destiny gates to the planet and collects the required material. The pods now working soon fill up and eventually only Eli, Rush and Young are left, it is then they discover one of the final three working pods is still faulty. Young doesn’t trust Rush to not risk the ship if he was unable to fix the pod after he and Eli went into stasis so Young decides to sacrifice himself but Eli makes his stand, he is confident he can fix the pod in the time allowed and will not hesitate to put the ship and crew ahead of himself if he fails in his task. Young and Rush bid their farewells in a manner which truly reflect how they feel about this young man who came onboard as a bit of a bad joke but through adversary has matured into a man that could one day lead others.

Gauntlet was an impressive episode, there is as much action as you would expect from a modern scifi series and far more drama and character work than most, par for the course with Universe but this being the finale really brings it all home. It was quite an achievement to pack so much into this last “hour” of television without sacrificing so many quiet dialogue driven scenes between characters many of which showed how far these people had come. The final situation/obstacle that Eli, Rush and Young had to deal with also summed up the show to perfection, distrust, compromise and acceptance all brought together and allowing one of the youngest members of the crew and one never intended to be part of Icarus to commit himself and his life on his skill and a simple choice to protect his friends even if it meant his life.

I’m already looking forward to watching Universe again in the near future, I really am surprised how much I have enjoyed the series after it had kinda been moved into the “will watch again one day” category whereas SG1 and Atlantis were always ready to go whenever I felt like it. The production levels,

Blockade

The Drones continue to harass the Destiny but change tactics and send the command ships to local star systems to blockade the very source of energy that Destiny requires to function. As we have seen the Destiny is capable of holding her own against a single command ship and drones but each time she loses a little ground and even after a successful refueling an out of the box solution is required. Eli proposes to use a star that is way outside of the specifications and thus unlikely to be guarded, the risk is that the shields would be unable to protect the ship and crew. The decision is made to gate all but two of the crew to a nearby planet as Rush and Eli fly the ship through the star, Dr Park also asks to stay to continue the harvesting of medicinals as the radiation and heat will destroy them.

On the planet the crew find a dead civilisation no doubt sprung from the seed of Novus at some point in the past, evidence indicates that the drones were responsible but while they are there teams fan out to see if anything useful could be uncovered. Alas dormant drones detect the gate use and radio chatter and pin down the teams in the city, a firefight ensues and eventually they have no option but to gate back to Destiny with the hope she has successfully navigated the star. They are fortunate, the ship survived by Park had been trapped in the biodome which failed, she survived but suffered extensive eye damage and they know the drones will not be so easy to trick a second time.

Blockade is a perfect episode to bridge the recent drone episodes, once again it underlines how powerful they are in this part of the galaxy and that they are not simply reacting to an enemy presence rather they have a central intelligence directing them tactically. Removing the Destiny from her normal source of power demonstrates both the size of the done fleet but their big picture thinking. The crew got lucky by gating to a viable world but Destiny is not up to repeating this close call with a blue giant O-type star which begs the question what now…

My gratitude to Steve and Ian for joining me this week as Alan had family concerns to deal with, we had a great conversation. This weeks podcast promo is for The Round Table Podcast a call back to when Dave joined us way back when and next week it’s the finale of Universe and Thomas joins us to discuss Gauntlet. Any final thought on Stargate Universe would be most welcome, still time to add them to next weeks show or even the wrap up show so don’t be shy.

Promo…

* Roundtable Podcast

Links…

* Blockade Wiki

* Blockade IMDB

* Vincent Gale

* Julia Benson

* Jennifer Spence

* Mike Dopud

* Robert Carlyle

* David Blue

* Andy Mikita

 

Epilogue

Miles joins us for Epilogue the second part of the two parter which expands upon the bread crumbs offered up from Twin Destinies. The Destiny has for now broke contact with the drones and has travelled to Novus in the hope of discovering why the settlement lost contact. Initial survey clearly shows a world in the middle of a “nuclear winter” as ash falls gently and global temperatures too low. Yaozu leads the group to the entrance to a huge bunker and they use the main gun to tear open the doors, venturing inside they find the complex has power and thirty levels down they access the planets database complete with all kino footage dating back to the founding of Novus.

The lives of well themselves play out and much is revealed of the first few years on Novus as people die, couples have children, the beginnings of the split in ideology and a society which is visually growing and developing. They also learn that a black hole is indeed responsible for the growing instability of the planet as the core gets more and more active and volcanic fissures continue to expand including one directly under this city. Near the end though the two nations on this world stepped back from the edge and as in the beginning joined forces and built a number of generation ships to allow much of the population to escape, they are sublight and aimed for the various settlements but the people of Novus and humanity has not died out in this galaxy. Time is critical and they begin to upload the huge database to Destiny, Rush discovers a solution to the ship’s air filtration systems and as the complex begins to collapse the fight for survival leading to Varro being critically injured whilst saving TJ.

Epilogue is a stunning episode and totally exploits the groundwork provided by Twin Destinies and Common Descent. The revelations of a life not led were moving and at times emotional from the loss of Dale through to the birth of his namesake, the many other births and of course the path that TJ will have to travel. Oh yes who could also forget Brody and those damn kids. As the season draws to a close we know there was never going to be any follow up given that the people from Novus were bound to this galaxy as Destiny travelled on but perhaps we would have found one or two characters were reintroduced if indeed we had gotten a third season.

Our continued thanks to Miles for guesting on the podcast, it was a good evening discussing two of the best episodes of Stargate Universe. Alan will be back next week along with Ian for our discussion on Blockade and as with Destiny our journey is coming to a close. Thanks to everyone that voted in the SGU favourite episode poll, results will be in the wrap up show we recorded a few days ago.

Links…

* Epilogue Wiki

* Epilogue IMDB

* August Schellenberg

* Mike Dopud

* Reilly Dolman

* Katie Findlay

* Leanne Adachi

* Shauna Johannesen

* Lane Edwards

* Shaughnessy Redden

*

Common Descent

The crew of the Destiny come across a group of humans descended from well the crew of the Destiny in the episode Common Descent. The air scrubbers that were retrofitted when the Icarus group first boarded the ship are failing and the search begins for more lime or similar material to help clean the air. They gate to a planet and meet two English speaking young people who recognise both Scott and Greer and reveal that they are the latest generation from the crew of Destiny who found themselves stranded 2000 years in the past after attempting the nice chevron dialing within the star as told in Twin Destinies.

The news of these spreads quickly with Eli, Chloe and Camille venturing to the planet where they greet one of the settlements elders named “Yaozu” who recites a verse very familiar to Camille and in its native language. The crew then learn about the lives of those who fled the Destiny never to return thanks to the extensive use of Kinos and the ability to maintain the integrity of the day to day records of their society. No doubt Eli with his long held belief that everything should be documented would aid this young society in the centuries to come allowing for more rapid development and no corruption of historical figures and events. This settlement has lost contact with their homeworld “Novus” which was experiencing geologic issues which they were beginning to believe were being caused by a small black hole passing by the solar system, with no gate access to resources the settlement is dying but Young refuses to take them back to Novus as Destiny itself even with limited repairs would be unable to handle the extra personnel, the the drones attack.

The Destiny is battling the drones and taking people off the planet as it too comes under fire but when the Stargate is damaged the Destiny jumps into hyperspace and abandons a number of her own crew along with the last of the Novus citizens. Eli manages to get a message to the Destiny using the gate control subsystems and the Destiny swings back and transports the people to Novus. Unfortunately the planet is wrapped in extensive cloud cover with low temperatures and particulates in the atmosphere. The cities are intact though but no life is found and it is believed a major volcanic eruption drove the planet into nuclear winter and decimated the population of Novus.

Common Descent is a very entertaining episode which really makes the most of Twin Destinies at a time when there was no indication those eighty or so people who were lost in a wormhole would ever be heard of again. The producers and writers however have created a master stroke in exploiting a time travel narrative in a less than usual way with very positive results and far more to come in the second part of this story Epilogue.

Our thanks to Miles for joining us this week, he’ll return for Epilogue and continued thanks to Brad for the feedback for The Hunt. This weeks promo is for Flash Pulp and next week we are as mentioned going to be watching Epilogue, we hope you can join us for that.

Promo…

* Flash Pulp

Links…

* Common Descent Wiki

* Common Descent IMDB

* Reilly Dolman

* Katie Findlay

* August Schellenberg

*

The Hunt

In this weeks episode The Hunt a small opportunity to visit a welcoming world full of resources and wildlife, a deer like animal is sighted and Greer has a hankering for a good old fashioned BBQ but is unable to pull the trigger, it seems his recent emotional roller coaster has taken it’s toll on the hell for leather soldier. Something seems to spook the “deer” and then Scott is attacked and again Greer fails to fire which allows the “beast” to rampage through the nearby camp causing some injuries. TJ and Cpl Reynolds are missing and they are believed to have been taken by this huge predator, they have little look tracking the beast until Varro and the remaining Lucian Alliance soldiers offer their services being more familiar with the more day to day requirements of living off the land. The tracking party are however led into a trap clearly indicating this “beast” has intelligence and with more injuries Varro and Greer go on alone eventually locating TJ and using explosives distract the alien pack reach the cave. They find TJ and Reynolds along with this intelligent creature and Greer lowers his weapon in the belief that the animal recognises the threat and the removal of said threat, the animal backs off and lets them all leave. Meanwhile Brody has been locked in a stasis pod they recently found, Eli thinks he screwed up but it was actually Rush who was proving a point when it comes to jumping feet first into alien technology, a day later Brody is released in time for the Space Deer BBQ hosted by Becker with help from Varro who is now even closer to TJ than before.

The Hunt is pretty much as standalone episode no doubt written and prepared long before they knew of the shows cancellation so while it may seen like a wasted opportunity it’s understandable why the show was willing to tell this sort of story. The cutting of some TJ backstory doesn’t help but we do get some good character development between Varro and TJ and it’s a shame he ends up being the only Lucian soldier left on the ship, I would have liked to have seen more of Tasia played by Kyra Zagorsky who also appeared in the Atlantis episode Reunion. The CGI and location shooting were top notch as you would expect with this production and the issues Greer was dealing with give a lot more weight to his character. The “b” plot as it were dealing with the reveal of the stasis pods and Brody getting trapped in one provided the levity the episode needed and if for nothing else watching Rush smile as his made the younger scientists dance to his tune was a delight.

Our thanks to Ian for taking the time to join us over skype to talk Stargate and he’ll be back for the episode Blockade. This weeks podcast promo is for The SciFi Diner and next week we are joined by Miles one of the hosts of that show for the episode Common Descent, we hope you can join us too.

Promo…

* The SciFi Diner Podcast

Links…

* The Hunt Wiki

* The Hunt IMDB

* Alaina Huffman

* Kyra Zagorsky

* Mike Dopud

* Greyston Holt

* Vincent Gale

*

Seizure

The crew of the Destiny have to deal with a holidaying Rush in the episode Seizure as well as fall out from events on the planet Langara.

Homeworld command are in negotiations with Langara to use their world as a staging post for dialing Destiny thanks to the veins of Naquadria that run through the planet. Naturally given two worlds have already been destroyed the Langarans are not overly enthusiastic and are also under pressure from the Lucian Alliance. The military led by Telford favour direct action as they believe the Langarans are already dealing with the Alliance and so a plan is formulated by Dr McKay and put into action. On board Destiny Rush is having a day off and is using the chair to send his consciousness into the ship’s computer where his and Amanda’s bits and bytes can overwrite each other with abandon. When it’s time to leave Rush finds himself trapped in the computer with no control over the programme currently running and Ginn is desperate to get critical information to Eli before the system breaks down with catastrophic results.

Seizure is an entertaining episode with a fantastic guest star including Victor Garber, Robert Picardo and of course David Hewlett. It’s a pity Jack only gets a mention but the screen is certainly full of quality acting and some excellent location work in a former power plant (now a museum) which would be familiar to many a Canadian sourced tv series shown over the last decade. It was interesting to see how confrontational Homeworld was based on the belief the Langarans were double dealing and that based on very suspect intelligence gleaned from encrypted communications. In many ways it’s not a side of the SGC we want and leans more towards the dark days of the NID or maybe just the desperation by one or two individuals pushing an agenda regardless of the consequences. Helen Shaver did a magnificent job directing her first Stargate episode especially given the complexity imposed by characters who had backgrounds on SG1 and Atlantis.

Thanks to Brad for joining us on this weeks episode and for sending in the voicemail feedback for last weeks episode “Hope”. This weeks promo is for the SciFi Dig Podcast a long running show hosted by Aaron which has taken a lengthy break recently but back with a bang. Next week we are going to be watching The Hunt and as always we’d love to hear from you so leave a comment here or visit us on social media:)

Promo…

* SciFi Dig

Links…

* Seizure IMDB

* Seizure Wiki

* David Hewlett

* Robert Picardo

* Kathleen Munroe

* Julie McNiven

* Victor Garber

* Helen Shaver

Hope

They say when all else is gone there is always hope and for Eli and Rush that hope appears in the aftermath of the attack on Homeworld Command and the loss of communication via the stones. It’s been weeks and no contact but the station is continual manned just in case and then as Chloe rests her body is inhabited by an intelligence which reveals itself to be Ginn. This causes some consternation since well Ginn and her consciousness is long gone after being murdered by Simeon when she was visiting Earth to help prevent the Lucian Alliance attack. Ginn is very confused, the last thing she can clearly recall is talking to the officers at Homeworld Command and it comes as a shock to learn that she is technically dead, her body having being buried by Eli on a world light years away.

Rush reveals that he had talked to Franklin which opens up the possibility that whatever is Ginn at this time could be transferred into the Destiny’s computer and retain sentience and time is running short, continued physical choking is risking Chloe’s body and just to complicate matters Amanda Perry makes an appearance. If all this wasn’t enough Volker is in critical condition suffering from kidney failure, despite the risks Greer is a match and is will to donate a kidney and while TJ is emotionally distressed with the situation (being a medic after all not a surgeon let alone a Doctor the operation goes ahead. Surprisingly it’s the Volker storyline that ramps up the comedic aspects of the episode and it’s not even dark humour at that. Ultimately a solution is found thanks to the skills of Eli and Rush, Chloe is herself again and the Amanda AI assists TJ in the operation resulting in a successful conclusion for the two men.

Hope is another excellent episode of Universe, lots of drama and comedy with some great performances thanks in no part to a good script. We see that the arboretum is now fully repaired offering an “oasis” within the ship full of life and Greer and Volker taking a rest stop there was a moving scene. The use of the Destiny to house Amanda and Ginn pays off the more nebulous interactions between Rush and Franklin plus the image of his former wife and it was a delight to see the two actors back on the show after their “deaths”.

Our thanks to Brad for the audio feedback for last weeks episode “Alliances” and once again our thanks to Ian for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This weeks promo is for Generations Geek the father/daughter show which looks at all things geek in the media. Next week we are going to be taking a look at the episode Seizure with our guest Brad and as always we’d love to hear from you in regards to anything Stargate.

Promo…

* Generations Geek

Links…

* Hope IMDB

* Hope Wiki

* Kathleen Munroe

* Julie McNiven

* Lou Diamond Phillips

* Vincent Gale

* Patrick Gilmore

* Jamil Walker Smith

*

Alliances

Stargate Universe ” Alliances ” concludes a story arc which has been in play since the assault on Destiny by the Lucian Alliance. As intelligence indicated an attack upon Earth various members of the invading force where kept on board and interrogated, this lead directly to the murder of Ginn/Amanda Perry and Simeon going on his rampage but also the addition of Varro to the crew. In this case a routine communication stone exchange to allow Dr Andrew Covel and Senator Michaels to board Destiny to gain more insight into the condition of the ship and crew went badly as Camille and Greer where in Homeworld Command when an attack by a cloaked cargo ship happened. The two of them survive but are trapped in the collapsed building along with another survivor but a geiger counter found in the rubble indicates a huge amount of radiation is present, Varro confirms that a Naquadria device is likely to be the means to destroy the city but something must have gone wrong.

Alliances is a worthy conclusion to the Lucian Alliance plot, Varro once again proves himself invaluable despite the technical limitations of the communication stones and the interference of Covel which while being understandable wasn’t really thought through. It’s also interesting to note that Homeworld Command/IOA are having serious thoughts about the investment in time and resources required to recreate the Icarus base given the rarity of suitable planets. Great to see  French Stewart returning to the franchise and no question the pairing of Camille and Greer was inspired with some great dialogue drawing upon their establish character conflicts present since the first episode. Ultimately the episode demonstrated the best and worst of humanity but when push came to shove and with little alternative what needed to be done was done. The episode wasn#t perfect though, I still have issues with the threat of the Lucian Alliance or at least how the writers chose to present that threat but the “terrorist” approach was small scale and kept most of the narrative tied to Destiny which is important for the show as you would expect.

Our thanks to Miles for the audio feedback for last weeks show and to everyone that listened and/or spread the show info by social media. This weeks podcast promo is for Treks In Scifi hosted by Rico and next week we are going to be discussing the episode “Hope”, we hope you will join us for that.

Promo…

* Treks In Sci-Fi

Links…

* Alliances IMDB

* Alliances Wiki

* French Stewart

* Kathleen Quinlan

* Mike Dopud

* Morgan David Jones

* Jamil Walker Smith

* Peter DeLuise