Syfy needs to lay off on the spoilery promos!

I will get into discussing these episodes, but bear with me for a moment.

Through the years of writing posts about TV shows, I’ve gotten my fair share of complaints from readers about spoilers. Sometimes it’s understandable to be upset, like when we someone mistakenly spoils a major plot point in a post’s title or excerpt (or … I guess in an image, like above. I’ll take the hit for that.) Other than that, it’s usually pretty easy to avoid having your eyes drift to a spoiler within the post. In the case of episode promos — most particularly those that are for the next episode of a show, that appear immediately following the current one — it’s a gamble: will they or won’t they ruin the current episode’s quasi-cliffhanger? A risk-taker will watch, while the rest can rather easily just skip it altogether.

In the case of Syfy’s promo spots for upcoming episodes, their track record has been atrocious. With other networks, promos are very much teasers and do not usually reveal much in the way of plot spoilers; and, anytime the promo does appear to spoil the hell out of the next episode, many times it’s a red herring … or is it? With Syfy, though, they’re simply not clever enough to fool us with their promos, and instead just flat-out spoil what’s to come. It happened with Battlestar Galactica, and it happened earlier in the season of Stargate Universe. Now it’s happened again with this most recent episode, and it sucks.

I won’t get into what was spoiled, just in case you were quick enough to avoid it. Chances are, though, you couldn’t help but hear the very spoilery words come from the promo, which appeared an unavoidable few seconds after the episode concluded. You simply couldn’t avoid it.

Alright, onto these two episodes. For the most part, I won’t get into last week’s episode much, as this most recent one overshadowed it quite a bit. The most interesting aspect of “Trial and Error” was what Young was going through, in having to endure a Kobayashi Maru-like, unwinable situation. It was very cool to see that the ship can continually mess with the minds of its inhabitants, and the fact that we never really get a clear indication of how and why this happens keeps this show very fresh.

“The Greater Good” was what I consider a huge step forward in the series, and could really be seen as an extreme game changer. The hidden bridge  — or control room, or whatever you call it — is finally open for all to use, and full control of Destiny is in their hands. Revealed to us, also, was what appears to be the original purpose and mission of Destiny: to collect and map out some sort of hidden “structure” or message hidden deep within the furthest-most edges of the universe. The question now, of course, is whether the rest of the crew shares Rush’s enthusiasm for continuing this mission among the stars, or if they’re more interested in getting the hell home.

The most obvious choice, as I see it, would be to figure out a way to at least allow the crew aboard Destiny to go home, if and when they want to. At the same time, they’d need to figure out a way to keep Destiny on its current mission. However, would that even be possible? I imagine it’s only a matter of locating the power needed to dial the appropriate gate to transport people as needed, but if they’re able to do that, would that cheapen the show a bit? Is the fact that these people are stranded upon Destiny part of what makes the show special?

Something to note: Rush’s “ghosts” didn’t seem to make an appearance once others were within the hidden room. So, are they simply all within Rush’s head, or will others start to see the same thing later?

I like the revealed mission of Destiny, and now knowing what its purpose is — and assuming Rush is telling the truth about it, which I do — doesn’t make me any less interested in seeing the series continue. It does, however, allow for the producers of the show to consider an endpoint to the series, where Destiny completes its mission and fans can have some much-needed closure.

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Nov 10, 2010 @ 10:42 EST5EDT