On this week’s episode of Stargate Universe, entitled “Light,” the starship Destiny’s power reserves are depleted and she is locked on a course that takes them right into a sun.  Without power and being locked out of the ship’s main controls, Dr. Rush is unable to alter their collision course

A desperate plan to escape the ship has several major drawbacks. For one, there is only one working shuttle. So not everyone will get a chance to escape. So a lottery is devised to give everyone a fair chance at boarding the shuttle and escaping the looming disaster that awaits Destiny and everyone left on board.

Another problem is that they still don’t know if the final planet can support life and those who do win the lottery may have to decide to die in space or be marooned on a desolate planet until their air, food or water runs out.

At first the crew is happy about the solution to abandon the ship and the possibility of finding a habitable planet nearby.  That is, until they learn that the shuttle can only hold 15 people with supplies. The show then takes us through the many variations of emotions experienced by the crew as they await the results of the lottery.  Dr. Rush and Col. Young, decide not to add their names to the ballets for their own individual reasons.

Eli is frustrated as he discovers his love interest, a US Senator’s daughter named Chloe Armstrong, played by Elyse Leversque, runs to the arms of another man, the young army First Lieutenant Mathew Scott, played by Brian J. Scott. A brief uprising by the ones being left behind is quickly squelched and the crew move on to await their fate.

As time elapses and the crew of Destiny awaits impending doom, Dr. Rush realizes that if they were going to be destroyed that they would have already been torn apart by the forces of the sun. He then realizes that the ship is fueled by solar energy and that it was heading into the sun merely to recharge its power supplies.

Stargate Universe: Light, was a very intense episode of Stargate Universe. I’m getting into the feel of the show now and it is beginning to offer up some of the same type of human drama and emotions that remind me of another epic science fiction series, Battlestar Galactica.