It occurs to me that if you put the word “Star” in front of just about anything, odds are, I’ll watch it. Star Wars (all the movies). Star Trek (all the shows and movies). And Stargate. I watched all ten seasons of Stargate SG-1, all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and now on October 2nd, “Siffy” will be launching a new series called Stargate Universe. And why not? Here’s a peek …
Here’s what it’s all about …
In SG-1, the stargate sent people to nearby galaxies. In Atlantis, it sent them really far way … but not so far that they couldn’t eventually get back. This time, it’s “several billion light years from home,” and while they have a cool alien spaceship, they don’t know which direction Earth is, even if it was close enough to reach in their lifetime. And yes, we all know they will eventually get home, most likely in the final moments of the series finale, perhaps with the help of Borg transwarp conduits … or angels masquerading as cyborgs. But oh, the “dark and heavy” drama and hijinx to be had along the way! After all, it’s a plot conceit that was good enough for Homer’s Odyssey.
Bringing this story to life are Robert Carlyle (who will sadly not be reprising his Begbie role from Trainspotting), Lou Diamond Phillips (fresh off his I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! win this summer), Ming Na (best known for her role on ER), and an assorted cast of young and pretty and/or geeky characters who are no doubt primed and ready for what I’m sure will be any number of romantic complications. After all, when you’re stranded several billion light years from Earth with a limited number of fellow humans, dating becomes a serious issue.
Overall, I’ve been very happy with the Stargate franchise. So needless to say, I’ll be checking this one out. The creators claim they’re writing it in such a way that you can appreciate it equally whether or not you’ve watched the previous series. So if you’re a newcomer to the franchise, never fear. I’ll let you know what I think after I see the first episode.
I like Robert Carlyle and Lou Diamond Phillips. Phillips, in particular, is improving with age.
Funny to watch this franchise go full circle. It’s a movie, then it’s a TV show, then it’s a spinoff show, then it’s a movie.
I have to say the trailer looks interesting but I never understood how this franchise got its following. I mean, they kill a brilliant show like Firefly, and THIS is what gets promoted?
Maybe it’s because the first movie was so disappointing. It was horrible. HORRIBLE. TOTALLY BAD. Totally turned me off to any chance of ever watching anything with a “Stargate” in it.
This is actually a TV series, not a movie. Are you talking about the original movie that started it? Because I wasn’t really a fan of that either.
Or are you talking about the two Stargate SG-1 “movies” that followed the series — “Ark of Truth” and “Continuum”? Because honestly, those weren’t really anything more than extra straight-to-DVD episodes aimed at the show’s fans that happened to be a couple of hours long. To anybody who wasn’t a regular fan of the series, I can’t imagine they would have made any sense at all, because they were deeply tangled in the show’s ten years’ worth of plot and mythology, and I’d have a hard time believing they were meant to be stand-alone movies. Again, I enjoyed these (Continuum more than Ark of Truth), but only because I knew what the hell was going on.
As for the two series, I thought both were solid shows that did a good job of building up an internal mythology and building each season to a satisfying climax. Definitely nothing as inspired as “Firefly”, but I enjoyed them. As I’ve said before, I never quite see the need to piss on one franchise just because you like another one better. This franchise has 15 seasons under its belt, and at least one more on the way — it must have done something right.
Watched a trailer for it… heavy tribal drumming in the intro, ship that is old, or not fully understood, far from home, not sure how to get to earth, heavy focus on “characters” and not effects, nasty enemies … sounds a lot like BSG to me. Could be a good thing, maybe not. I’ll definitely give it a chance.
John, that similarity definitely wasn’t lost on me — hence my comment about “angels masquerading as cyborgs” in my post. And “ST:Voyager” as well. I guess it remains to be seen if this simply a marketing ploy used for the trailer — the equivalent of “if you liked this book, maybe you’d like this one” on Amazon.com — or if the show itself will actually be that similar.
Well I started to watch Stargate since 1997 and loved the show. I, as most of the people did not like the opening of Stargate Atlantis but came to love the show. However Stargate Universe is a total let down. Not only as a series but the whole concept in general. While in Stargate and Stargate Atlantis, we knew there is always help from earth or allies. In this we have 80 people who are not soldiers, a handful of soldiers with 23 weapons all together. NO food and NO water and NO ammunition. And they have no clue where they are. The writers are desperate, which is shown by the sex scene in the first few minutes of the primer, and also a lot of time wasted on sorting out their feelings towards each other as if this is a day time soap opera. Hell maybe it is.
I for one do not see the show to go any further than the first season, if it does not improve fast. Since this is a lame remake of LOST IN SPACE.
The Stargate Universe pilot was disappopinting in every way. I would have thought they could have found at least one main charachter with some personality. Unfortunately, the charachters were so two-dimensional I found myself spacing off many times during the show.
Like Clapper said above, it had the slow, touchy-feely quality of a soap opera. I’ll try to watch at least one more episode, but I think I’ve already made up my mind that this show won’t, and shouldn’t, last.
Haha, you guys are funny. I watched the pilot and was not really impressed, but also with SG1 and SA the first season was not that impresive at all…. So i will for sure give it a go, and there are some intresting characters in it. I’am pretty sure they will develop pretty nice in the upcoming weeks, and i did enjoy the first 2 episodes. Don’t forget they always try to get new ppl intrested in watching a serie, so they explain things slowly in the begin.
That’s kind of sad for die hard SG watchers but something we got to live with…
The only thing i’am abit affraid for is that we get a sort of Startrek Voyager, that would be kind of sad 🙁
Well we just see what will come upcoming weeks 🙂
I enjoyed SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis very much. I was supremely disappointed with the premiere of Stargate Universe. So far, it seems littered with thoroughly unlikable characters (though S(Why?)F(Why?) should be congratulated, as both the character Eli Wallace and David Blue’s portrayal of him will finally release Peter Deluise’s little brother from the curse of being the least popular character in the SG series), far too much “we’re in trouble and we need to think of a way out” with far too little thinking of a way out, and no really interesting plot or direction to the show or dimension to the characters. Add to that the fact that the first two hours were soooooo slowwwwwwwwww….
I will give it a chance, but the clock is ticking. I have the disturbing feeling that SwhYFwhY hasn’t invested the resources or energy on this series that it did on its predecessors. It’s a real pity, if I’m right (and all the critique above notwithstanding, I honestly do hope I’m wrong), because those series were excellent.
The worst thing, in my view, is that the solution was so obvious to anyone over the age of fifteen. It’s called “the ensemble show.” Examples: Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, ER, CSI, Law & Order, and all their progeny. SG-1 and Atlantis would have lended themselves very well to that process.
I kinda liked the show. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. I will continue to watch and hope it gets better. I agree with you on putting Star in front of anything except I never liked Star Wars, except the first film. Hate me?
well ,have tried the new “SGU” worth waiting for, no, everyone was all over th place, if they were soldiers nobody took no notice of chain of command, and the rest of the brainy group well i was expecting all to roll up on the floor and cry, “I want my mummy”.Plot seems predictable already a different time allowed on each gate stop,and is it just me but I prefer to watch a decent picture without having to worry over the poor old camera men who seem to have bad nerves as shown in the camera shake when trying to watch each scene, still were told this makes it arty,this was one of the main reasons galactica did not last with me, and the new lad who flew on his second ship in one day telling the soldiers not to let Carlisles character press that button or we die,wow wow he,s good (not) overall factors slow, laclustre, poor script, few main characters just walking through their lines. they are lost ,they dont know where there going, frankly the first episodes should be able to grab you, as everyone will compare, “STAR GATE LOST IN SPACE” the lowest out of ten for the original stargate series of which I did not enjoy for a episode was a 5, the lowest I gave for a episode of atlantis 4, now then sgu , well it was new and should have been the one to reel us in for the follow on but alas 1.5. Next time on I,ll flip a coin to make my choice for me,(if I find one in time) ,
Mandrake
I absolutely loved the original Stargate movie and when they came out with the tv series SG-1, I wasn’t too thrilled about it. After awhile, I started watching them and came to realized it was pretty good. When Atlantis came out, I couldn’t wait. It was also a very hot show. I am mind boggled with why they would cancel it so quickly. I was told by some close friends that are connect with the studios, that it was cancelled to get SGU started. They didn’t want to do SGU with Atlantis still running. If there is one thing I learned in the business world is if you have something going really well, keep doing it till people have had enough of it. Only then should move onto another series. I think Atlantis could have gone another 3-5 seasons if you ask me.
As for the first two Stargate Universe episodes, they are sooo lame. Some really dumb things were done here. The first thing that I noticed was when they were being attacked and had to escape through the stargate, they have one of the top scientist demand they dial the gate to a distant galaxy, with so many unknowns, without even sending a MALP through. Why not just dial the gate back to earth, thus saving all the people and they dial the gate to the far side of the galaxy another time when they are properly prepared. What’s with the sex scene on a family show? This is what they have been doing on the latest Star Trek Enterprise series. Don’t they realized kids are watching these shows too? Most people don’t watch science fiction movies to see people making out, I mean a remantic scene wouldn’t be a bad thing, but when it looks like they are actually having sex, it kind of ruins it for me. If I wanted to watch porn, I could just change the channel. shhhhh don’t tell your parents I said that. Anyways, back to the SGU shows, too much dialogue on peoples personal feelings…silly soap opera stuff. And when they take a trip to the planet to find specific minerals, they wind up having two people leave to another gated planet without any authorization, with a 3rd being shot while trying to go through the gate. People making decisions for themselves, no command structure. I find it impossible to believe Stargate Command would have all these people out there not knowing how to follow the rules and commands given by their superiors. Or may this is some kind of trek with Moses for 40 years through the space instead of the desert to weed out all the bad people through the 40 years? But somebody forgot to bring the Ten Commandments with them, you know…the rules to follow and live by 🙂 It’s got to be better than having people running around doing whatever they feel like doing. Wait! where is the strong cast? Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to have some of the Atlantis people in on this? Since they were proven many times over as having a great away team under Col. John Sheppard etc… Perhaps they should have started this series slowly with some parts connected with Atlantis…slowly getting a feel of how people would respond to it? As several of you had mentioned earlier, the show has a very much Lost In Space affect to it. The top scientist being the evil Dr Smith. Maybe they used the Lost In Space as a format for SGU? Who knows….do you?
I think it’s funny that I posted this about a month ago, then kind of forgot about my blog, and return to find that people felt the need to spend SO much time discussing a show that they don’t like and explaining in excruciating detail why.
Isn’t it easier to say, “Not my cup of tea,” and just not watch it again? Life’s too short to write an essay about everything I don’t like in this world.
Personally, I’m with Tom Baker. It’s an entertaining show that I’d give maybe 3 stars out of 5. Which puts it in the same category for me as the other Stargate shows — something I record on the DVR and watch eventually during the week, when I have time.
And with that, I’m closing comments for this one, lest every single person in the world who feels the need to explain why they don’t like this show comes to my doorstep to tell me why.