Stargate Universe

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Mr. Oragahn
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Stargate Universe

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:10 am

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I could ask people what they think about the new series, Stargate Universe (SGU), but let me first present my own opinion about the new show, what I felt looked promising, what I disliked and what, most of all, was rather good.

There are, and actually were tons of things to say about Stargate Universe, its premise, its idea and how it was presented.
We have been exiting the short lived era of a struggling bleached series called Stargate Atlantis, which got canceled like its sister series, after exploiting a recipe which had never properly worked to boot, stopping the embarrassing beating of a dead horse, a story of incredible potential ran into the ground by a bunch of two hacks, whose prodigious failure was as exemplary as Bermaga's, with the slight difference that with a smaller fan base, this largely got unnoticed. And yet the similarities are numerous! Like how they found themselves at the helm of that new series because of the good and bad stories they wrote when they were under the supervision of more qualified people, and that it was better to keep people in house for the legacy. But when you try not taking risks, you are actually taking the biggest one: being lazy, being unimaginative, thinking you have nothing to prove, just getting paid, and becoming condescending regarding the fan base that loves the shit you make: cue the "Lemmings" episode.
SGA was a show pretending to be dark. Actually, it truly was immature in many regards. It's a show I literally loved to criticize towards its mid-life, when later on I would simply skip entire episodes, a self preservation reflex temporarily suspended from time to time by gems in an ocean of turd such as Common Ground, possibly one of the best, if not THE best Atlantis episode (the kind TNG and DS9 has in spades), and a series of episodes involving McKay's sister because of the more serious plot and great exchanges and ranges of emotions which didn't seem forced, both Hewletts being brother and sister in real life and really gifted.
I'm convinced that the scriptwriting was always of greater caliber because Mullozie wouldn't dare to serve Miss Hewlett the same crap they served the regular cast for four years. For those who count, that means I always leave the first season of SGA out, since to me it's the only one to be DVD worthy.
Now the SGA movie in is limbo, probably because the show actually didn't have the strength to go to the DVD racks without a total upheaval of the directing and writing staff.
Not surprising.

Flanigan could barely mask his disappointment and barely managed to remain civil enough to say what is in essence a call to cut the bullshit.

I'm a Gater of the old Showtime era, with its different style and its awesome strength, which meticulously shrunk like a snowball in hell since the transfer to SciFi, to the point where even a new cast and pseudo new main arc (the Ori one) didn't even save the series living on a past glory.
I was hungry, lost with those fond memories of the epic and unmatched movie and fantastic stand alone episodes.

So we get to SGU, speculating about its plots and charms, ready to pounce at the slightest clue of a typical fan pandering, fully knowing the mechanics of the writing process as employed during the last years of the franchise.
It's both a new beginning and the same old people trying Stargate, again.

The question, right there, would be is it better than Stargate Atlantis?
There are many criticisms to make about SGU, so I probably better start there.








Characters

First off, the cast. It's the backbone of a show. The quality of the dialogue, the effective lines, the relations, that's what drives a show.

But let's remember the way the cast was presented, each character role's skimmed, each profile roughly brushed. It really smelled like 90210, SG-1's spoof episode 200 becoming true. You had producers saying they were looking for younger demographics. So after seven episodes, how has this changed?

Well, there are the obvious appeals in each proper category.

Let's start with the ladies. There are four "main" profiles, really.
Two Caucasian brunettes, one blond and Ming-na, the oldest Chinese woman. Two of them are in the army.
Well, the Chloé chick, first brunette, daughter of a political dude who sacrifices himself heroically, is the 90210 touch in the show, that's all there is to her thus far. She shows her booty lips, swings her nipples and butts in Alteran showers, she cries, she gets cuddled left and right, and it's a miracle if by the end of the second season, she's not been visited by half the male crew (including hosted personalities... something else to talk about that I'll leave for a later comment).
Well, anyway, that cute face is just there for the sex, apparently the "mature" part of it.
The other brunette is some other random female soldier, most recently exposed for that advantageous pair of milk-machines that will prove useful when deeply engaged in the heat of combat, and which totally warrant the nickname Miss Bikino, all of which was ungraciously evidenced in the most "in your face" way in date, so that no doubt would remain about what her role is on the ship. She got banged by the pretty male boy in the first quarter of the episode, and is jealous that the whiny Chloé chick trampled her on the dude's shag list.
Johansen is the blond lady, a doc who assumes leadership of the military crew, from time to time, when the colonel is on mission. There's nothing much to say thus far. She doesn't trust Greer.
Finally, the Asian chick represents the IOA I think. There's been nothing much to say about here, but it's probable that her duty will become an obvious source of bureaucratic wrenches.

Now, onto the male side of things!

It is where, imho, there's the best to find.

Doctor Nicholas Rush truly lives through the talent of Robert Carlyle. I like the way they made him a dedicated man, who seems to know always a bit more about the ship than he shows, but he's not bad, certainly not. He's perhaps a tad too asocial. This is misunderstood by Young, and Rush's biggest error may have been to prioritize the disclosing of the Ninth chevron's purpose than the lives of all the people on the base. That's his main flaw.
We can only hope he'll always get good texts.

Colonel Everett Young. He plays out naturally, he's quite a good man, and Louis Ferreira doesn't overact. I like the character, but they're writing him a bit too confident, despite his situation and grade. He hasn't accepted Rush's decision, and is slightly paranoiac when it comes to Rush.

The relation Rush/Young is what holds the series for the moment, as far as I can tell on the scope of characterization.

Ronald Greer is a character who has been written to really be loathed to some degree, simply because of his demeanor. He acts in ways which would remind you of Ronan, but only superficially, and this time with substance. His styles gets on my nerves, but that's the point I guess, and he's actually one of the most reliable people with a gun, although he was jailed in the base on that other planet, at the beginning of the show.
Unless I missed it, we don't know why he was put there, but Young let him out when the Lucians attacked.
Well, Johasen clearly told him that she doesn't trust him, so it's a very miserable other source of tension you have here, perhaps forced.

Then you have Taylord, played by Lou Diamond Phillips. I don't like LDP. He always acts the same way no matter the character. Always the same gimmicks and faces, no matter the decade or TV movie. He's a sort of Tom Cruise who never made it to the big screen. However, despite these big flaws, he's given a role which will surely be a source of problems. He's not on the ship per se, but thanks to the body swapping machines built by the Tau'ri, he assumes the body of Young when the time comes, and clearly doesn't dig the way Young runs the show. We don't know why he's so pesky and incisive, but it's a source of trouble in some way or another.

There's also a math boy, Eli, who is a pure geek in power who plays MMOs and has no job, and wears some T-shirt I cannot read what's written on it (but I heard it's some Obama bullcrap, dunno), he's relatively convincing in his role, but the protracted way he was brought into the show, because he solved a puzzle included inside a Stargate MMO game, still leaves me breathless as to how sucky it is. The selection method, say, could be logical, but really...
Considering the MMO Stargate game in prep, he's obviously the channel for the teenagers to befriend that character, and not to forgot to BUY the STARGATE MMO game when it comes out.
All in all, he's not bad, but lacks maturity in certain ways, which is an aspect of his personality that's revealed in a few occasions to raise tension.

And then Scott, again too confident despite the extraordinary situation, assuming duties and responsibilities without a second thought. He bangs girls, he's young and handsome, and that's all.
Unless he snaps, does something wrong, nukes half a city full of people or something, he's probably going to be the most boring character of the main male cast.

Then there's an ensemble of second roles, and only time will tell if they get more developed and prove more interesting and mature in their writing than the main cast. That's quite what happened for SGA. Mind you, with characterization abysses that Ronan and Teyla were, there clearly was a need to look elsewhere to get some people to appreciate or dislike.

We have to remember that we'll need a full season to have all characters fleshed out, but least that can be said is that we're often miles above anything pulled off for SGA. We were spared the missed O'neill clone, I have yet to see an obvious Teal'c with a different skin. Eli knows some stuff, but the Carter/McKay would be Rush, safe that he's played soberly, and keeps the technobabble to himself.

The question is how will these characters evolve if the isolation continues. Will some of them go crazy?
Try to split the crew? We'll see.

That was for the people.






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The Stargate & DHD

That's the crucial element of the show. It ain't Stargate without, duh, a stargate.
It had to feel both retro and new, and I think they stroke the right balance here. First, it has white lights, which contrasts rather well with the rather dark hues of the whole ring.
A welcome change from the redish orange and turquoise.
The details on the inner and outer rings, notably the repeating arch pattern of the trim, completely fit with the Alteran style, which could still be found in bits in the very industrial style of the Lantean civilization, bringing together the sensation of mass and grace. Everything is rounded in this one, from the "chevrons" to the locking apparatus.
Considering that the stargate dialing has always been likened to the dialing on rotary dial telephones, the artists pushed the concept to its limits, both by literally making the stargate spin in order to present each correct symbol below the bulb (a sort of abstract finger stop), and by adding another steampunk/outdated touch with the pistons releasing steam once the dialing is complete.
The dialing console itself is elevated, all about round buttons, curves and thick brass edges, which completes the system.






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The ship

It's a bottle show. A crew stuck on a ship. We knew this would happen sooner or later anyway. The worst that could happen was if the ship itself sucked.
Well, good news, the design is actually gorgeous. If you love steampunk style mixed to shades of art nouveau, applied to sets that came straight out of the ALIEN series and EVENT HORIZON, the Destiny is for you.
Its anchor/axe crescent shaped silhouette with a pyramid on top will probably remind people of Warhammer 40,000's Necron Tombship, with an array of main thrusters borrowed from the Millenium Falcon. Judge by yourself.
In-universe wise, it's closer to Star Wars than Star Trek, in that's rather raw in its strength, not filled with technobabble at every corner.
Her best performance thus far has been taking a bath into a photosphere to recharge her batteries.






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Exploration & landscapes

Wait, you thought the Milky Way and its endless pine woods were boring? I guess you never tried Pegasus. For SGA, if there is one thing where you know money never went, it's in the creation of breathtaking planetary sets. Not even a decent CGI or matte painting. There has never been a single landscape worth remembering. Simply none. Zero, nada. Zip. Just woods, recycled medieval sets shared with SG-1, and that is all. How bloody sad.

But the producers said it's time to give the franchise the cash it deserves and so badly needs to leave planet Boredom and its Woods of Infinite Pine Trees, and it seems that cash flew.
After discovering that planet Earth is not limited to Vancouver, the producers probably Googled around, bought a few tourist guides, clicked on some Internet maps, and realized that there were many fantastic places where to shoot your show at. So they booked trips to some place here and there, cameras, seats, mikes, make up and solar cream all packed up.
And frankly, it was effin' long overdue!
With, thus far, a good balance of visual special effects and exotic landscapes, we got in seven episodes more variety than in all SGA.

They skim gas giants and suns, visit hot and arid deserts and icy worlds, lush jungles and there's probably more to come.
With such efforts, you realize that it would take actually very little, like a two-parter episode, to be carried away far, far away in the span of half an hour, in a fashion not so dissimilar to how we traveled to a distant dune planet back in 1994.

So, at least, on the side of epic exploration, we can hope that the show will deliver. Now, the whole question is once they'll have trodden the typical video game level themes, will they be able to actually think of some mind boggling places and think a bit more, even if it requires adding artificial structures, for example structures of long gone civilizations of giants or dwarfs?
We'll see.
I still have a bad feeling about that one though.






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Music & mood

It looks like someone decided to put an end to the trippy upbeat and frantic themes of SG-1 and SGA altogether, as well as the bland background elevator melodies, and instead decided to go with a range of themes that would suit a show that needs to take its time, intersected by a healthy dose of edge-of-your-seat moments.

So the themes are closer to harder SF than ever. We're getting closer to Vangelis than Bruckheimer. Which is probably a good thing, since the last best Stargate tune was the Lantean outpost/Atlantis one and its variations.

It also helps establish a mood which SGA crucially lacked and which takes us back to the first years of SG-1, with episodes such as Torment of Tantalus, Fire and Water or The Light.






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Themes & style

Obviously, as the show attempts to prove it can act as a grown-up as much as nBSG succeed in doing it, Stargate Universe wants to tackle certain topics with, say, a mature approach. Would it feel forced is the whole question. Knowing the past pedigree of the staff that's behind this, I wouldn't expect them to be inventing anything new, and that has been pretty much a given, notably in how they planned to shoot episodes. Still, I'm all for experimentation. That's what a spin off is for after all. That said thus far their experimentation is basically limited to copying the zooms and isometric external views from nBSG as far as showing starships are concerned, and shoulder/steady cam for the inside shots.

The backbone of any show is about character chemistry, and how their feelings, motives and beliefs mesh together... or not.
This, borrowed from themes which will allow the construction of several interactions. Isolation, mystery, fear, jealousy, compassion, curiosity, friendship are typical themes. Some of them were yet to be properly explored. In many way, SGU is another go at the failure that SGA was regarding the concept of being stuck in an alien city, in a different galaxy.
Although once again the computers are rather friendly - but this time, there's little to no USB and we can excuse this by the years of interaction with scavenged Lantean/Alteran tech - the Destiny is a beautiful ship which should provide matter to all of those ideas, if everything locks into place.

Most prevalent in some episodes is perhaps the rather tactless introduction of the religious aspect, with thus far Christianity primly featured. Thus far, it really feels out of place, as it doesn't seem to have any purpose other than say "me too!", because nBSG did it.

The other "intruder" is love. That's it. The writers have been clear about it. If you don't dig being served love, sex and probably soon, spades of suggested innuendo (which was really getting tiring with SG-1's Vala), this may not be a show for you. But sorry, I'm being negative here. Frankly, the amount has been rather limited and sequences were short. But no place is left to doubt.

Finally, as far as violence is concerned, besides the plot that dictacted the course of action taken by the characters that led to the actually situation, violence has been rather tame. Surely, when there's neither glowing eyes nor sharp fangs to shoot at, the next potential target become humans. Mind you, it didn't take more than Air to see a human take a bullet. But that was for good, and didn't count as a kill.

Bizarrely, a surprising side effect of this is that violence is less prevalent than sex, which is barely erotic at all, and more halfway between Playboyish and BSG's rough rides. You probably shouldn't count on full nudity either.






Conclusion

With more episodes coming, which I'm yet to watch, I truly hope that, within the limitations of what Stargate can be with the current staff I practically hate for the lards they became, SGU will be able to be more than a bottle show with each episode being more than the crew trying to solve mechanical problems one after another.
This will partially be defined by the decision to introduce more external elements to the microcosm of the ship than just humans stuck in a crippled anchor-looking tin can.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:41 am

What bothers me is that this show's premise is essentially a grander scale version of Star Trek: Voyager's. Only int his case, we have a ship and crew stranded in the far reaches of the universe, rather than the Milky Way galaxy.
-Mike

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:16 pm

Oh, they basically solved the isolation from get go by having those transgalactic comm-impersonation stones. Safe that the Tau'ri built its own! That's really cringe worthy.

On the plus side, the acting is really above the crap that SGA was, safe for the Hewlett and Higgison.
The lines... however... are not legendary. But the few episodes I've seen are far from enough to pass a judgment. We'll see at the end of season 1 if they managed to flesh out enough characters so the whole show's working chemistry isn't limited to Rush vs Young, plus that loose electron that Greer is.
However, season for season, SGA surely had very good episodes (the first season of SGA is really an example for writing schools in how overshadowing money concerns, sheer laziness and lack of plan can drive a show with potential into the wall).

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:48 pm

SPOILERS.///

A couple episodes later, the patterns are even easier to define.
Globally, they're doing a very good job with Rush not being decipherable as far as what his agenda could be, if he had one.
There's been a greater tension going between Telford and Young. They managed to flesh out Scott a bit, but the tiring part is that a lot of them seem to be problem people, prototypes for trouble. I know lots of people and the odds of several of them being butt hurt or else are fairly low, but that doesn't mean they don't have issues.
Still, context wise, some of the problems are solely due to the sudden cut in the lives of some of the characters due to the isolation on the ship.

The episode Earth was interesting in term of tension, and might be used to obtain some clearer bits of info about the power capacity of the ship; since her last star bath, between the lengthy and multiple FTL trips and stargate connections, the Destiny had "several months" worth of energy left. Considering the plot of the episode, it would appear that the ship literally soaks up energy instead of matter to fuse or annihilate.
We learn that a fraction of a star's output, whatever it could be, may be enough to power an intergalactic wormhole connection.

Time was, I must say, very good. Visually and plot-wise, it was excellent. A very well done ALIEN/monster type of episode that referenced a former one (and made sense at that) while sheathed in its own overall plot hinging on one of the stargates' properties. "There's a problem with the stargate" episodes tend to be well done, all shows confounded. Tension was great, visuals were of very good quality, and the setting was different enough to be enjoyable.

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Sep 19, 2010 4:13 am

It's actually been a while since I finished watching the whole season and, although very different, I must say that this new show satisfies my thirst of Stargate, especially since the two SG-1 movies were particularly boring from beginning to end and quite disasters in their own way (with Ark of Win being really the offender here - but then again, the Ori arc was badly thought out from the beginning).

Now, there's the trailer for season 2, and I like the way they seem to take Rush. I just cross fingers that they don't completely screw it up like they completely self-nuked SGA after a wonderful first season.

So, if you don't mind spoilers, here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rXJdDb1vxE

And there's something sad about Stargate that's quite well summed up by this person who commented the video:

"I don't understand why people continue to bitch and complain about SGU's style. What these trools need to realize is this is likely to be the last Stargate us fans will ever get. The third SG1 movie isn't going to happen, the SGC sets are gone and the actors aren't interested. The Atlantis movie isn't going to happen, its been what, two years since Atlantis ended? MGM is going down the toilet and the future of SG1 and Atlantis in movie form are going down with it. SGU is all we have left."

I don't know about those of you who aren't in Stargate, perhaps the character interactions might get you in, I don't know.
It's certainly not as rich and exotic as Farscape - but I don't think you can beat Farscape considering the amount of money they put on sets, both in and outdoor - but it's still good and I find the mood most relaxing at times. There are times when SGU's style seems to borrow to the smooth styles of "highbrow" obscure SF flicks.

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by The Dude » Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:10 am

I dunno, that quote puts into my mind ENT. "Its the last Star Trek series we'll get." And it sucked ass, thats not a reason for me to watch. I liked SG-1 and watched regularly until a cross country move screwed it up. There doesn't seem much interesting in SGU thats catching my attention.

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Trinoya » Sun Sep 19, 2010 9:26 pm

While SGU was on while I was boycotting SyFy I was finding out bits of information from a friend of mine... After a good number of episodes into the show I discovered it still had no real 'bad guys' as it were... and I decided I didn't want to watch Battlestar Voyager. I've not heard nor read anything about the show to make me change my mind since. Maybe in a few seasons.. (presuming it got another one).

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Re: Stargate Universe

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:15 am

Before you read this, just know that there's plenty of SPOILERS for season 1.

So, to answer some question, yes, there are enemies, but they're not as powerful, clear and loud as the Goa'uld, Replicators or the Wraith were.

The enemies from outside, thus far, are some amphibian bipeds with their own spaceships, who kept chasing Destiny all along. They want to capture the ship.
Mmm, if you want to call that show Battlestar Voyager, then I guess they could be the equivalent of the Cylons, but they don't want to destroy the ship at all, quite the contrary, so they have to be careful and that's where it gets tricky for both sides.
It's like real military, you can't bomb the crap out of a target when you have to insert a sqaud a take control of the place. You can brute force yourself through the first layer of defenses but that's about it. That layer is the shield, so that's where most of the heavy battles happen.

The other enemy is from the last years of SG-1; the Lucian Alliance. These guys are a bit hard to understand at first, because they're not your two dimensional antagonizing foe. They're scums for the most part, they come from a sort of newly raised cartel filling the vaccuum and they quickly made a speciality of producing a kind of drug back in the Milky Way. But they appear to be pressured to save their lives in some way that's not explained. Surely, they're messing things up badly and they're quite straight to the point, and it turns out that their arrival aboard Destiny at the end of season 1 changed some things. It raised tension even more, and now some of them could switch sides. They bring a new spin to the divide that existed aboard Destiny between civilians and the military. One of them is a bounty hunter seen in SG-1, who at some point managed to rise in power inside the Lucian Alliance, partly thanks to SG-1.
So we'll see how things go.

Season 2 is coming, and it seems we'll get some revelations about the ship's mission.

True, this show is very different from other Stargate shows.
The enemies of outside are not necessarily the main problem, and they're not as clear cut as your previous batch of super villain you might be used to in mainstream fiction. Now, this time, the real main problem being the struggle to take control of the ship, and as things go dire, extremes are reached from time to time.

Trailers cannot convey what really drives the show: the characters. Oh sure, there are slight misses, I'd consider non dramatic even if some ranting people tend to blow out of proportions, but the vast majority of the roster is good. They all feel like real people, so this show works really well on that point because it's about a family, somehow. Yes, Lost in Space you could say. Amongst the surprising characters for whom I had concerns before, there was Lou Diamond Phillips. As an actor, his style always was forced, never natural. In so many subpar movies he's been in, he tried, or had to overdo his character, often times having to be cooler than cool.
But in the show he really quite surprised me, as they have him act like, you know, normal. Normal and although odd because his role is obviously essential and equally problematic to the stability of the crew's relations.

All the "fix the ship" episodes were good, and that's coming from someone who's really criticized Stargate at length (unfortunately the free-speech website where I posted all those gripes has been closed by his owner after some odd dictatorial snap on his part).

I can't really give you more hints, because I think SGU's target audience is narrower in terms of your usual pulp-SF crowd, although there's probably a largely untaped hard-SF crowd out there that could be drawn to such a show, just like it happened for nuBSG. There's like one main thread which would keep you in or not, and it's just as easy to miss it and then dismiss SGU as it is to follow it and actually want to see more.

SGU doesn't feature the comfortable and easy to identify evil elephant in the room.
It's about a crew stuck in a ship which they can't totally control and is on a mission and they have to understand it if they want to increase their chances of survival. Destiny is their house, their home for the time being. An artificial domain that has to be taken care of. Humans are like living on the surface of it. They can't access the core.
Amusingly enough, Destiny is all about what we are: people on a rare planet. We live in a small layer that surrounds a big rocky "ship" that floats through space and we keep asking ourselves "why".

This show is harder to get into, but to me it also was a return to something I never found in the Stargate series before: the epic silver lining and a true sense of wonder that you will get in SGU. The same you got in the movie if you've seen it in the theaters back in 94, but which was dreadfully absent from the campier and cheesy show.
It really is a breath of fresh air to me.

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from here: I've bought all seasons of SG-1 "classic", but I'm yet to convince myself to ever spend/waste one cent in the Ori arc. Likewise, as said in the OP, I think the first season of SGA was really good, and then the silly, mediocre and bland writing kicked in early in season 2 and pretty much never left. So I would never recommend buying SGA.
I'm not into Trek so I can't really tell why ENT was considered such a failure before the last season, but if for some reason, my distaste of SGA and the Ori arc (plus the new SG-1 characters) were founded on the same principles as why most of ENT repudiated fans, then I guess that I could tell you to try SGU.

What I know is that with SGA season 2 and beyond, some other people had developped an habit of waiting the next episode solely to butcher it, because of how shitty they were. It was like a sport, a pleasure. It was also so easy. Rant after rant after rant. No surprises, dumb plots, enemies never ever given proper substance beyond a few glimpses here and there, lack of scope and vision, underwritten Wraith culture and so non-threatening Wraith, Athosians completely left out of the loop, "main" characters having less charisma and things to do and say than second hand characters (Beckett moved from a good second character in season 1 to a mediocre fan-pandering character for the rest of the show, and don't get me started on Teyla or Ruhnun Duhx), Replicators brought again (I wasn't against it if it was done properly), the particularly stellar episodes such as "The Tower" or "rape is fun" from "Irresponsible", etc.
We were fair, because we could recognize good episodes when they were made. Obviously, those centered on McKay's family and his sister (like if the writers felt they had to make an effort to improve the script quality and make it stand above the usual drek). There also was a gem like the episode Common Ground, wherein we met Todd for the first time.
Besides, there was no damn good space battle at all. But it's quite known that Stargate plain sucks in that department, so just go look for another show if you want to satiate your appetite for nice space battles (nuBSG for example, or some random SF japanime).
On the topic of SGA's internal problems, for example, you have also the way the guy playing the "cloned" main Wraith enemy, M. Laffanzano, was treated by the staff: gracefully asked to go f*** himself because he dared asking for his paycheck to be increased after several recurring Wraith roles. Execs told him that since his character never was the same from episode to episode (surely, the Wraith somehow being part insect, they often had the same person play a given caste-figure, and his lines were best sumed up to hissing in front of the screen, so he had to build Wraith attitude with gestures to compensate for the lack of good dialogue), he wouldn't get a bonus! That's why they also introduced Michael, who started as a mildly interesting and troubled figure, with a lot of good reasons to be resentful, before he devolved into a stupid cliché villain. The last episode featuring him, the one where he died, was somewhat good as you could really feel pity for him, but for most of the time after the Wraith rejected him as a tainted Wraith, the writers penned like a stupid mad man growing an army of walking bugs (which warranted a mediocre rip off of ALIENS), that to conquer the galaxy (WTF?). Then he managed to transform people into less insectish things (read humans with little make up) and started owning Wraith left and right, just like that, by act of plot.
Thene there was the actress playing the queens, Andy Ftizell, who had a much better grasp of what the Wraith were than the writers ever seemed to have. Her interviews really showed how she enjoyed that part of the show and it really feels like she should have been in the writing room since season 1. She absolutely wanted to explore the Wraith mytho more than the writers ever cared about. How can that be possible??

You could read fan stories and see how they have 1000x times more imagination than these hacks. At some point it was disgusting to see how much they were paid to defecate on paper and hand that to actors.

I also love how Torri Higgison (Doctor Weir) gave them the finger at the middle of season 4, refusing to sign for another year and a half of that crap fest.
I couldn't blame her, they often gave her stupid lines, stupid stances on critical topics, they wrote her to take absurd decisions despite being the chief of Atlantis... in fact only an enabler to Sheppard's antics.
Of course it appears that the producers were being dicks, again. Frankly, I've never seen people pay so much respect to actors and fans.
If you followed interviews of the production staff, their holier than thou attitude and how they viewed each of their script as the next gold standard, it was sickening. The big headedness of those fuckers are just unbearable.
The IOA was just there for comedy, for slapstick humour, apparently the ingredient the show lacked.
Oh sure, that's always what McKay was there for, but at least they kept him serious at times and it's the fact that Hewlett is just that fucking talended. Period. So he pretty much saved the boat.
That's just a fraction of the bile I poured over that retarded production staff, and it's about the same when it comes to SG-1 season 10 and the two movies. Dumbed down lazy writing.

When I speak of respect, you have mister Joseph "fans are Lemmings" Mallozzi whining and insulting fans, again.
I don't care what you say about fans, you just don't do that.
You learn humility. If they are that vicious, it's likely because your writing may suck big times.

This is a flash summary of the problems of SGA. We don't get much of that in SGU, save for a few overblown cases: for example, the critics about Miss Bikino (TM, fans generally her McBoobs or something) was quite legit, in the same way they criticized the way ladies were used in general in the show (which was just bollocks). There may have been a need for a couple improvements, but that was the first season. Find me one show that didn't have a first season without faults.
What I can say is that you never had fans being insulted by the nBSG staff as far as I know, and yet there were many people hating that show. But there also were many people loving it (I was among them) and that probably helped.

Part of the staff behind the works of the whole Stargate creative input have changed, for much good. There is something that makes SGU good. I tell you, I can be the most hateful Stargate fan (so much that I pissed off SBC's HMBC many times).
Yet, there's something going on, there's something good in that show that helps compensate for the bits I don't like (the whole teenage love and college rock riffs).
It's the characters, and... the mystery. Somehow, there is a mystery about that show, and it's also a mood which I described in the OP. The show takes it time, it shows plenty of new wild places we've never seen (6 episodes of SGU brought us more variety in the alien yet very classic landscapes than in the combined last years of SG-1 and the entire SGA show - a shame considering the show premise).

So yes, I'm still tuned, and season 2 will really be a test for many viewers. We'll see if the show can handle criticism, if the staff has a vision which is solid enough to resist to the fan pandering that had former writers bend and write stupid plots; it seems most of the hate come from fans who didn't like their SGA to be cancelled, and craved the humour and slapstick jokes which are not to be found in SGU. I'd say that Eli provides enough humour thank you. Perhaps a bit more, still cynical and dark humour would help, but they shouldn't push it to meet SGA's "standards".
We'll see if they really want to take the audience into hoping for something big about the show, we'll see if they can and care to maintain continuity with the rest of the universe, since after all both SG-1 and SGA are still going on in a way, off screen.

Could I recommend it? If you're a hard SF fan and could enjoy a good SF read, yes, definitely.
If you want pwee pwee action and a redux of Star Trek whatever, not so much.
I could say try some episodes, the first six ones. It's not too much, really, to know if you could stomach the cons and enjoy the pros or not.

Here's season 2's trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alKbw9Y4Aeg

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Mr. Oragahn
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Save Stargate Universe - The Petition

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:53 pm

Something surprising and impressive is going on here. For the first time in years, another expensive show might get more than a proper closure, but a complete resuming of its production, thanks to what may appear to be one of those rare and lucky petitions that could get somewhere.

Save Stargate Universe

Members of SGU's cast, plus David Hewlett (Dr. McKay) have already signed it.
Hewlett had bought a sort of warehouse where, which among other purposes, also served to store and save the sets.
So what is the plan? Well, it's quite interesting to say the least!
They intend to resume the show by moving it to Netflix, and the idea is rather sound, to say the least.
Above everything, we're given a few background tibdits about the show's success, and it's overly positive:


Petition by

Richard Dickenson

Sparta, United States

We the audience humbly ask you to consider our case that it would profit both Netflix and MGM Studios to cooperate in reviving the television series Stargate Universe (SGU). Information has emerged subsequent to SGU's cancellation which demonstrates its viewers to be far more numerous than heretofore believed, and ideally suited to become Netflix customers. We hereby petition Netflix to evaluate SGU in light.
As epic space science fiction, SGU has highly focused appeal to a desirable and exceptionally avantgarde demographic: Geeks, technophiles, early adopters--viewers in the coveted 18-49 age range who embrace tomorrow's technology today, and who prefer to watch series via the Internet through gaming consoles, laptops, PCs, smart phones, tablets, iPods, smart TVs, etc. Thus, though the Nielsen ratings measure conventional audiences with laudable accuracy, SGU's uniquely unconventional viewers went largely uncounted, watching in ways and time frames beyond The Nielsen Company's purview. This gave SGU the illusory appearance of unpopularity and skewed its reported demographics.



There is considerable evidence that SGU's audience is large, enthusiastic, and still clamoring for the show's return:

When Syfy announced SGU's cancellation, the resulting social media firestorm prompted an article by Forbes, and an unprecedented "open letter" from Syfy to fans.

The "Save Stargate Universe" Facebook page dwarfs all other "save a series" pages, with over 79,000 followers, and has inspired two more Forbes articles.

On July 6, 2012, SGU won five out of the six Constellation Awards that a TV series can possibly win, even defeating the hugely successful Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead in the "Best Series"category by more than five to one. The voting public decides the Constellation Awards.

According to Alexa statistics, the Stargate franchise, led by SGU, brings more search traffic to

mgm.com than all of MGM's other movies and shows combined.

Smart-DVR manufacturer TiVo published an article about the extraordinary popularity of SGU re-runs among its tech-savvy customers.

Over 11 million Netflix customer reviews rate the Stargate franchise an average of 4 stars out of 5; over a million of these reviews are for SGU, and rank it the best part of the entire franchise.

As you know, each Netflix customer may enter only one rating per series or movie.

The fan fiction work "Stargate Universe: The Virtual Third Season" has surpassed 250,000 downloads.

Please let SGU be remembered as a pioneer of the Internet television revolution, led by the visionaries at Netflix.

All Stargate and Sci-fi Fans should support this petition



Special thanks to

Blake Linton , Laurence Moroney, Chris Zellmer, Suzanne Phillips, Kelley Hirst and TheDudeDean aka Dean Bairaktaris

Another link which might be of interest.

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