Though storytelling is an art and therefore prone to a lot of subjective elements, there are still right and wrong ways to do certain things in a story. For example, when writing the screenplay for a two-part episode of a TV show, there are some do's and don't's about which some shows seem oblivious. As good as it can be, Stargate Universe just doesn't do well with those complex flourishes. It's just bad form to give no indication whatsoever as to how two distinct plots are connected, which is almost as bad as having two plots that aren't connected at all. Though the stories commenced in "Human" aren't finished yet, they certainly don't seem like they have anything to do with one another.

Let's get the standard adventure plot out of the way first. Destiny drops out of FTL and dials a planet with some ancient ruins on it. When Scott, Greer, Eli and Chloe go down to investigate, they take no time at all to get themselves trapped in some underground caverns. There's a lot of hemming and hawing about the cave-in being too severe to dig out and one unsuccessful attempt to solve the problem with explosives. Other than that, there's no intrigue. Following the standard "Destiny only stops at important places" theory, we know there has to be something in those caverns that's important, but the episode doesn't deem it necessary to indicate what it is. I suppose we'll have to wait at least a week to find out where the caverns lead and just how half the principle cast is going to get back to Destiny now that it has jumped away. If SGU wants to keep from going stale after just one season, it's going to have to limit its use of "stranded on a planet" plots, especially where main characters are concerned.

The other half of "Human" takes place inside of Dr. Rush's memories. He plugged himself into the special Ancient chair that downloads data straight into a person's brain and the altered interface manifests as a sort of lucid dream. Once again, the only currently running show about space ships and aliens devotes a good chunk of its hour to comparatively mundane human experiences. If you happen to have been dying for a muted melodrama starring Robert Carlyle, then this episode was probably the highlight of your week. For the rest of us, it was an increasingly dire chunk of back story masquerading as science fiction.

The most worrying part of Rush's time in his own sad past is the reference to the 23 Enigma. Yes, Stargate Universe actually incorporated a plot element of that awful, awful movie The Number 23, which was a terrible idea even if it was a red herring. Long, boring, meandering story short, the big secret is 46, which is the number of chromosomes in the human genome. This leads the Destiny science team to approach the ciphers of the ship's systems by using DNA as a starting point. Of course, they mention that they already knew the Ancients based their technology on genetics, so it doesn't exactly make sense that they wouldn't have taken that into consideration already.

So, to recap the above recap: The episode ends with four major characters trapped on a planet, apparently just to create artificial suspense, and a major scientific breakthrough that should have been obvious from the start, all so Dr. Rush can come to terms with the death of his wife. Oh, how I long for blue psychic aliens.

Best Moment: As much as I found the memory/dream bits unnecessary, Robert Carlyle's performance was still fairly strong. It's a shame folks on this side of the Atlantic have only known him as a violent drunk and a goofy Scot in less-than-admirable film roles.

Notes: Michael Shanks guest starred as the memory of Daniel Jackson, who served as Rush's cryptic spirit guide through the entire ordeal. Seemed like kind of a waste to me.

Episode Rating: 2/5- I like Stargate Universe, really. It just happens to be a severely inconsistent show that jumps around too wildly with its plots, characters and fancy conceits. Ambition is killing this otherwise likable series.