There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God

I thought last Friday’s second season episode (“Human”) of SGU was the best episode since “Air” (Part 3), and “Light,” from the first season. It has a number of nice things going for it:

i) Because Rush was in a lucid coma, he could choose which memories he wanted to reenact. Not simply remember them in the usual faded sense, but reenact them in all the vivid detail of the original experience.

And that raises some provocative questions. What are your favorite memories? What makes them your favorite memories? Do you have the same favorite memories, or do your favorites change over time? If you could reenact a favorite memory (or two or three), which one would it be?

Autobiographical memory is a key feature of personal identity. Which of our memories are defining memories?

ii) The episode also had some evocative, bittersweet musical accompaniment which paralleled and complemented the shifting moods of the narrative.

iii) There was a Biblical motif involving numerology and Psalm 46. Life has a hidden, providential pattern. Coincidental events which are too coincidental to be merely coincidental.

Of course, that was in the dream world rather than the real world, but it’s an apt emblem for the real world.

And a reading of Psalm 46 in a church service is not your average SF fare.

iv) It gave Robert Carlyle an opportunity to showcase his acting ability. In addition, SGU suffers from a lack of compelling female characters, but the actress who played Rush’s wife is a cut above the rest.