Air (Stargate Universe)
"Air" is the three-part opening episode of the military science fiction television series Stargate Universe.
"Air" was written by series creators Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright, and was directed by Andy Mikita.
In the episode a group of evacuees from Icarus Base, an offworld human outpost that fell under attack end up on the Destiny, an Ancient starship located several billion light-years from Earth.
Eli Wallace (David Blue) solves a mathematical equation in an online computer game, planted there by Stargate Command.
For his achievement, Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) and Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) recruit Wallace to the Icarus program, which is attempting to dial a nine-chevron address with the Stargate.
Rush aborts the dialing sequence to Earth, arguing that the energy release from the exploding planet could follow them through the Gate, and tests the theory, which succeeds.
With the planet's unstable core about to go critical and lacking any other means of escape, the remaining survivors in the base (roughly 80 people) are forced to risk heading to an unknown destination.
Senator Armstrong learns of this and, already badly injured, sacrifices his life to seal the shuttle off and buy the team time.
The Destiny, apparently aware of the problem, drops out of FTL and dials the Stargate to a desert planet with the necessary materials to repair the scrubbers.
The sand itself has a small concentration of calcite, but not enough to be useful, so the team starts looking for a dry lake bed, which should have heavy deposits of lime.
Rush is vehemently against the idea of exploring the other addresses, believing that the ship locked them out for a reason, and several failed attempts to contact the two lost expedition members seem to support his concerns.
In the end, a recovering Scott tells Chloe that his parents and the priest died when he was young, and that the best way to deal with the grief is to keep moving forward.
"Air" first surfaced in December 2008 as a working title for the opening episode of Universe, where it was suggested to be a three-parter, according to executive producer Joseph Mallozzi.
[1] With casting concerned, several of the previous SG-1 characters made an appearance for the series premiere, including Michael Shanks, who reprises his role as Doctor Daniel Jackson in a cameo, Richard Dean Anderson as General Jack O'Neill, Gary Jones as Walter Harriman,[2] Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter,[3] Bill Dow as Doctor Bill Lee and Martin Christopher as Kevin Marks.
When filming the first three episodes, Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper decided to hire the Director of Photography from The Shield.
Joseph Dilworth Jr. of Pop Culture Zoo praised the premiere of Stargate Universe, stating that it "feels less like a weekly TV series and much more like the beginning of a twenty part long form story," and is also described as a cross between Star Trek: Voyager, Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, though the series seems to be a spiritual successor to Battlestar.
[24] The Boston Globe reviewer Joanna Weiss also reacted positively towards the pilot episodes, saying it felt like "early Lost", while the story arc followed the patterns of "Battlestar Galactica".
[25] Mark Wilson from About.com gave the episode four-and-a-half stars out of 5, saying Universe accomplishes what Stargate Atlantis was not able to, and said it was "exceptionally well made" compared to other shows.
[26] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette both praised the show, calling it "intriguing", for not abandoning its premise as Star Trek: Voyager did and criticized it by pointing out that the characters spend "far too much time wandering a desert planet" in "Air (Part 3)".
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette summarized their review by saying that, "[g]iven time, Stargate Universe may become worth watching if it develops its characters and continues to mine its premise for stories.
"[27] David Hinckley, a reviewer from The New York Daily News gave the episodes four-out-of-five stars, saying that "Eli's not the only one playing a high-stakes game here.
The reviewer wrote that the "gloomy, underwhelming Universe seems to have ditched many of the elements that the previous "Stargate" shows had, notably camaraderie and a sense of adventure, without adding much in the way of narrative suspense or complexity."
The only characters she felt were "worth following" were Eli Wallace (David Blue) and Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle).
