I'll preface this by saying that while I'm familiar with the Stargate franchise and recently watched the 1994 movie starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, I've only seen an episode here and there of the various TV shows. So this is my newbie look at Stargate Universe, which premiered Friday night. (And, uh, there really isn't that much on Friday night, and it happened to be on Charter's video on demand, so I checked it out after the premiere aired.) I'll say right off the bat that it seems a little cheesy, so I'm wondering how it compares to the previous Stargate incarnations. The characters seem a little cliche:
- the blowhard politician with health problems (and his caring daughter), which resulted in the episode's most heartbreaking moment
- the nerdy guy with long hair and a sad past
- the nerdy kid who ends up being transported to a spaceship and helping the crew with important stuff
- the tough-guy military people with guns and crew cuts
- the gorgeous female crew members
The dialogue could use a little help, too, but I don't know ... maybe the whole thing is supposed to be a little cheesy? I mean, it sort of adds to the show's appeal in a weird way.
Even so, the premise of being able to jump through portals and end up somewhere else is intriguing, especially an ancient ship in a distant part of space. I also liked seeing Richard Dean Anderson, because I know he has a long history with Stargate. Lou Diamond Phillips and Robert Carlyle seem like a good fit, and I like David Blue as computer geek Eli Wallace.
What did you guys think of the premiere? I'd love to hear from some Stargate veterans as to how it compares to the previous shows.
For a more in-depth analysis, check out Mike's early look of the premiere. Watch the premiere episode and clips at SlashControl.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
10-04-2009 @ 9:11AM
treqie said...
I couldn't stand the crowd at the ship. All they did was complain about everything and act like children. Even the soldiers, who I thought was trained to follow orders. But other than that, I like it, should be interesting to follow.
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10-04-2009 @ 5:02PM
Jimmy Rogers said...
Well I wouldn't be so hard on the show...it's bound to be a bit wonky on the first episode. I really liked it though.
As a more experienced Stargater....here's my review
http://scienceismagic.com/?p=369
10-04-2009 @ 10:15AM
getchaos said...
I watched the premiere and i kind of liked it. I was a big Stargate fan before...at least SG-1 and only some SG-A episodes (SG-A liked the first season but i thought it got worse and worse).
For me SG-U is a very interesting and fresh approach at the SG Universe. Yes, of course it uses a lot of stuff and ideas from other shows (drama driven people, overall dirty look) but i don't think that is a bad thing. It finally breaks (at least for the moment) from the typically mighty and bad master villain concept and shows more character.
For example: Dr Rush is for me the most fascinating character the franchise created until now. At the one hand, you understand his addiction for knowledge and his fear for never having another chance to go to the 9th Chevron adress unless it's done now. On the other hand, he's just a self-centred jerk whose ends want to justify the means.
SG-1 and SG-A always introduced plain characters that were fun but never very deep. They could handle a life challenging situation in a few minutes. ("damn it, Rodney, we need more speed" "sorry, this ship is running at 120%...but wait, if we do it like that, we can get 250%"). For the first time in a SG show, the situation really seems stuck and it can't be fixed with just a blink of an eye.
Alright,...some of the drama seemed unnessesary. Why couldn't they have used one of the flying Keno thingys to push the damn closing button? Why did everybody just leave the contact to earth thing when it seemd totally obvious that Rush lied and O'Neill never would have left him in charge. What about this strange attack by the Lucian Alliance (maybe they will solve those 2 last points in the next episodes)
And i was a bit disappointed that the appearance of RDA, Shanks and Tapping was so minor...and useless. It felt, like they were only in the opener because the producers could make them do... . Certainly they could have had better motivations for our old beloved characters.
But i'm curious how this new show will progress. And as i said before...i liked the new approach and style of the show. I'm very excited!!!
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10-05-2009 @ 8:17AM
Ryan said...
The situation is stuck and can't be fixed in the blink of an eye, because like Lost in Space and Voyager, it's the entire conceit of the show. When they fix the ship and get back to Earth, the show will be over.
10-04-2009 @ 11:52AM
BBE said...
The only one of those character cliches that's totally different for a stargate series is the noble president deal. That's never been a cliche of ANY of the stargate series.
Normal sci fi movies perhaps yes, but not stargate.
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10-04-2009 @ 11:53AM
Justin said...
I disagree that Dr. Rush is self centered. Think about when everyone was escaping via the gate onto the ship. Everyone was panicking and the scene was chaos. He climbed the stairs to the balcony to gain perspective to understand the situation. Its not his job to hold peoples hands rather to analyze and fix the chaos.
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10-04-2009 @ 4:29PM
LizzieC said...
You have to be kidding me. The only reason they were *in* that situation was because he was so self centred.
10-04-2009 @ 6:43PM
Kai said...
Disagree completely.. Obviously it's subjective, but I definitely got the impression that Dr Rush's wandering off and climbing the steps was him getting his rocks off at finally making it through to the 9th chevron address..
He was too pleased with himself (he had a smug smile the whole time) to have been appraising the situation for anything other than patting himself on the back.
Overall, I really disliked the cliches and similarities from SG1/movie (the whole "What's happening?" "I don't know - we've never gotten this far before" thing, to the fact that the life support is failing - same as Atlantis ep 1)..
That said, I like some of the characters (all, except for Dr Rush) and really like the idea. Just hope that it wont turn into an alien of the week show - I like ongoing storylines..
10-04-2009 @ 12:43PM
chrissthomas said...
The cheesiness is a part of the Stargate franchise. The whole franchise is very character driven and the SG Universe (not the show the fictional reality of the franchise) has always been very compelling but due to budget early on the show was generally done in a cliche sci-fi style that poked fun at itself and all of sci-fi. I think over the years even though budgets went up the producers have tried to keep the formula as it was in the beginning to hit a specific demo. Universe is an attempt to keep that formula but tweak it enough to bring in some newbies (it worked since you watched it). I liked it but mainly because I want to get to know these characters and more about the ship and the galaxies it has been to. The style of the production is secondary, I think, to most SG fans who desire to know more about the Ancients, etc. I am excited to see where it goes and hope that it keeps drawing attention so that they have time to really develop it into something compelling and special.
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10-04-2009 @ 12:56PM
Mike in Seattle said...
Trainwreck. That's the word that kept running through my head. It's hard to know whether the acting or the writing is worse. It IS hard to choose between "I'm yelling so I'm showing "anger" which is my only emotion" and plot holes you could drive the starship through sideways such as a massive ship that's been running for tens or even hundreds of thousands of year has precisely one day of air left when our "heroes" gate in?
Really? This is what the production company did to the show that saved SciFi (now wierdly SyFy) Channel from collapse?
I don't think I've seen such an amazing example of a production company latching a show's name onto a generic soap opera since Earth:Final Conflict changed their rational, androgynous aliens into emotionally out of control alien vampires in an attempt to attract a "general audience".
I'm just waiting for them to have an excuse to host "Prom in Outer Space" as a season finale.
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10-05-2009 @ 3:33AM
Kevin B said...
The reason there was only one day of oxygen left is because nobody had been breathing it for all that time
10-05-2009 @ 8:22AM
Ryan said...
No, they only had one hour of air left because it had been leaking out of the ship for some portion of the last 100,000 years. If they fixed the leak, then it would be a static amount and there would be only one day of good air left for them to breathe. Mike in Seattle's point that they arrived at precisely the perfect time in all those millenia for maximum drama still stands.
10-05-2009 @ 9:39PM
Jason said...
The ship activated systems when it sensed the gate being dialed into. And yea, the ship is really freakin' old, but throughout the SG franchise, the ancients built things to last. You did watch it, right?
10-06-2009 @ 8:24PM
Ryan said...
I didn't say the ship was broken down because it was old, but that air had been leaking through the forcefield for likely tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Some systems came on just before the gate opened, but others have been running all along. There was a hole in the shuttle canopy and the entry door was stuck halfway open. The forcefield had to have been active the whole time or they wouldn't have had any air, but it was still slowly leaking down to the current emergency level. That situation didn't suddenly develop when the gate opened, like it did on Atlantis, but was leaking the whole time, hence the miraculous timing we were criticizing.
10-04-2009 @ 1:28PM
Jack said...
I really don't like it very much, I hope it gets better int he next episodes, yes there are a lot of improvements made to the way things look, but to be a series premiere, it was too creepy, to low light scenes, and arriving to a no hope scenario, leaves a small felling to continue, becuase it presented everything as a lost cause.
The way they introduced the cast showing some flashbacks was not good, becuase to many jumps, no sense of the time line, etc etc.
I would love to see how was the connection on the continuim line from the previews series, how they ended there on the Icarus Project? and they never show any sign of surprice to find a stargate with different codes on it something that seems binary...they broke the thing of the gene-aware technology used by the ancients, being this an ancient ship there should be the same way things works, and there is no aparent bridge on this huge ship.
By the way, the bads are perfectly preserver, that's bizzare, if it was a ship programmed to do not hold a crew why they placed bedrooms?
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10-04-2009 @ 6:48PM
PBMom said...
You missed that part. Dr. Rush explains it that it was sent unmanned, but they (the Ancients) were going to meet up with the ship later. However, since they achieved ascension and ascended to a higher plane of existence, they were no longer around to come to the Destiny as planned.
10-04-2009 @ 1:40PM
Saurin said...
Stargate has always been a campy and predictable Sci-Fi series. That's what makes people love it. Its not like the stargate creators are not aware of its pretentiousness and plot hole riddled stories.
Take the first movie for example. Daniel Jackson really wasn't necessary for them to activate the stargate. Apparently, the military had found 6 symbols and didnt really have the mental genius to try all 36 symbols for the 7th one to get a lock. ENORMOUS PLOT HOLE. But just forgive that and enjoy the campiness of it.
If anybody was expecting anything different and dramatically shocking, Go watch Battlestar Galactica or LOST or something.
Basically the Stargate is almost the same plot device as the Tardis in Doctor Who. I dont know why anyone would suspect anything else from a sci fi series with a simple plot device that can manifest 1000s of stories.
IF you feel like you could make it better....Write fan fiction.
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10-05-2009 @ 12:54PM
Alicia R. said...
I totally agree!
10-04-2009 @ 1:42PM
Jimmy_MO said...
I will admit the show wasn't perfect, but neither SG-1 nor Atlantis started out very good (Atlantis never really got that good in my opinion). I was not a fan of SG-1 when it first aired; in fact, I missed the first 2 seasons on Showtime altogether. Over time I turned from a sometime viewer to never missing an episode and actually watching the first two seasons on DVD.
There's potential in this series and given time to develop its premise, which is very different from Stargate's previous incarnations, it could turn into something good. I also liked most of the cast, but I think it's too large and could hinder character development.
Also, there were points in the 2 hour premiere where I was really bored. They could have pared this down to 90 minutes and had a much stronger episode. Still, there's enough here that I'm more than willing to give the series a chance.
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10-04-2009 @ 2:14PM
Mike in Seattle said...
Or, to put it more simply, SyFy and the production company took a generic formula they think appeals to the "Women 18-49" demographic and slapped on a very, very thin veneer of "The Stargate Franchise" in hopes of creating a mainstream hit.
What they got, though, was a boringly generic show with a badly pasted veneer that doesn't do anything well enough to appeal either to fans of "Women 18-49" shows or TV Sci Fi.
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