Stargate Universe (Spoilers)

[Skyblade]

I watched and enjoyed SG-1 and Atlantis, but I was not particularly looking forward to this one. And I was correct not to. It is a boring, angsty show that we have all seen before.

The basic premise is that of StarTrek: Voyager. A group of humans is left with a single ship on the other side of the universe trying to get home. They travel from planet to planet to get items they need to fix their ship, and to try to find things that will help them on their way.

The opening episode was identical to the premiere of Stargate Atlantis. A group of people jumps to a new Ancient outpost, is cut off from a way back, and watches as the entire place starts falling apart around them. A character nobly sacrifices himself, and we're left with a poorly functioning group trying to get a semblence of order to the new situation.

The one thing I hadn't expected, though, was the poor casting. Do any of you remember the 200th episode of SG-1? It was a wonderful spoof episode with a dozen different totally ridiculous takes on the show? There was one version featuring "younger, edgier members of the cast", and, unfortunately, SG Universe seems to have taken that idea and seriously decided that it would be a good base for a show. There are currently 2 characters on the show more than 25 years old, one of whom is looking likely to die off in a couple epsiodes. The rest of the cast are young, enexperienced, whiny, and bland. They aren't well acted, and you feel no connection to them.

Seriously, though, I didn't really expect anything else. The SciFi channel has a habit of making tons of bad programs and cancelling their few good ones (Farscape, Firefly, SG-1...), and since they switched away from even being SciFi anymore, I expect that trend to just get worse.

[Slothy]

Seriously, though, I didn't really expect anything else. The SciFi channel has a habit of making tons of bad programs and cancelling their few good ones (Farscape, Firefly, SG-1...), and since they switched away from even being SciFi anymore, I expect that trend to just get worse.

I haven't seen the premiere yet, but this statement bothered me. Fox canceled Firefly, not SciFi, and although they definitely canceled SG-1 at a bad time since the Ori were still alive and kicking, I can hardly be that upset about a show being canceled when it went 10 seasons and got two direct to DVD movies to finish up the loose threads with another on the way. I realize I'm nitpicking here, but the only completely stupid thing you mentioned which they did was cancel Farscape. I'd put canceling Atlantis up there as another bad choice though myself.

[Aerith's Knight]

Not counting any movies that may or may not be released, stargate is over for me. I have great memories of that show, and I'd like to keep it that way.

[Crop]

the Ori were still alive and kicking,.

Regardless, the Ori were the worst bad guys that the show ever had, when they cancelled it, it was like finally putting down an animal that was in pain.

I never really got into Atlantis after Season 1, but I still enjoyed the show. And I really love SG1, especially the first few seasons. It was pure gold.


As for this new Universe thing, I was pretty skeptical about it and now I'm not really feeling the Premier tomorrow. Still, I'll give it a look and offer my opinions tomorrow night.

[Skyblade]

the Ori were still alive and kicking,.

Regardless, the Ori were the worst bad guys that the show ever had, when they cancelled it, it was like finally putting down an animal that was in pain.

I never really got into Atlantis after Season 1, but I still enjoyed the show. And I really love SG1, especially the first few seasons. It was pure gold.


As for this new Universe thing, I was pretty skeptical about it and now I'm not really feeling the Premier tomorrow. Still, I'll give it a look and offer my opinions tomorrow night.

No, the human-form replicators were the worst bad guy the show ever had.

Sorry about the Firefly gaff. Totally spaced on that one. >.<

[Crop]

the Ori were still alive and kicking,.

Regardless, the Ori were the worst bad guys that the show ever had, when they cancelled it, it was like finally putting down an animal that was in pain.

I never really got into Atlantis after Season 1, but I still enjoyed the show. And I really love SG1, especially the first few seasons. It was pure gold.


As for this new Universe thing, I was pretty skeptical about it and now I'm not really feeling the Premier tomorrow. Still, I'll give it a look and offer my opinions tomorrow night.

No, the human-form replicators were the worst bad guy the show ever had.

I would agree, but I eventually warmed to 5th when he came back and created Replicator Sam...who was a close second worse ever to the Ori.
Still, I do think they were much better as just bugs.

[Slothy]

Bah, the Ori weren't that bad. At least they brought in Morena Baccarin which is cool.

Anyway, I did watch the Universe premiere over the weekend and I liked it more than you seemed to Skyblade. It's a solid premise for a show as long as they avoid the Voyager trap and my only real gripe was that it was a bit too similar to the beginning of Atlantis.

I like the dynamic brewing on board where things are barely being held together by the Colonel at the moment, with no one trusting Rush (and for good reason). They seem to be laying the ground for tensions to really start to build very quickly. I also like that many of them have little to no experience with being off world just because we've had two series filled with people who are professionals and have done this for years. As hard as the situation on Universe would be for them, it should be even harder for these guys and seeing them try to cope has a lot of potential. The biggest problems I see for this show are differentiating itself from Voyager and Battlestar Galactica, and since they'll be traveling through numerous galaxies, the lack of a main villain to give the show focus. The premise isn't new and they could easily run the risk of ending up a little too close to Voyager or Galactica depending on which way they go. Hopefully they can keep the keep the things that make Stargate great while also finding their own voice for the show.

Also, the cast isn't really as young as you thought, though I agree they seem young. I'm guessing you forgot about Ming-Na who is a regular and in her 40's. Hell, the guy who plays Eli is actually thirty though he doesn't really look it. Only one is actually under 25. I didn't really get the vibe of them trying to cast it young so it would be edgy and sexy (sex scene near the beginning aside). It just wouldn't make much sense to have inexperienced lieutenants and staff sergeants in their 40's. If you're going to go with inexperienced characters in this kind of setting you're pretty much stuck with 20 something military personnel or civilians.

[Skyblade]

You wouldn't have inexperienced personnel in that situation at all. The show even knew that, that's why they stuck in the older guys and promptly killed them off. The show would actually be better if they had competent characters (John Crichton from Farscape was neither young nor inexperienced, but he was clearly in over his head from the very beginning).

The older scientist is the only character I like at all, even though he's portrayed as a manipulative twit (and, sorry, no one would accept his authority without confirmation), because he's the only one who is actually willing to make decisions and is the only one who knows what he's doing.

The characters are being portrayed as young, edgy and sexy. All the characters (the characters, not the actors) are young, overly emotional, and, yes, there is a sex vibe, or there would have been no reason to include that scene in the beginning at all. As added evidence to that, one of their promotional interviews with the actors featured the statement "the one thing this show has that the others didn't is that its sexy". So, no, I don't really have high hopes for the direction the show is going to be going in.

[Araciel]

I loved the film.

SG 1 was tolerable for a couple of seasons, as was Atlantis..

I'm not interested in this one.

[Slothy]

You wouldn't have inexperienced personnel in that situation at all. The show even knew that, that's why they stuck in the older guys and promptly killed them off. The show would actually be better if they had competent characters (John Crichton from Farscape was neither young nor inexperienced, but he was clearly in over his head from the very beginning).

To be fair, you can't really know the show would be better off with competent characters at this point. They also didn't kill off all of the older characters. A good chunk of them were piloting F-302's against the motherships and were picked up by the Hammond.

The older scientist is the only character I like at all, even though he's portrayed as a manipulative twit (and, sorry, no one would accept his authority without confirmation), because he's the only one who is actually willing to make decisions and is the only one who knows what he's doing.

He's the only one who knows what he's doing because the pilot made it quite clear that he may have his own agenda there, and because he doesn't tell the others anything. And if you didn't notice, no one did accept his authority. None of the people there trust him and the only reason anyone listened to a word he said was because the lieutenant recognized that he's the smartest person there and knows the most about Ancient technology making him perhaps the only hope they have of getting home.