f13.net

Anyone else looking forward to this?

I loved the Atlantis series but could never get into SG-1 despite trying several times. Not sure if this will be more like one or the other from what I am reading. Perhaps it is nothing like either.

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Stargate Universe is an upcoming science fiction television series, part of the Stargate franchise. The series was greenlit on August 22, 2008 and is scheduled to debut as a two- or three-hour movie and then begin regular weekly airings on the Sci Fi Channel in Autumn 2009. Stargate Universe started filming on February 18, 2009.

Stargate Universe follows the adventures of a team of explorers from Earth, who find the Ancient spaceship Destiny and must fend for themselves aboard the ship in the far reaches of the universe as they are unable to return to Earth. The show will be firmly entrenched in pre-established Stargate mythology and take place during the present time.

Stargate: Voyager, eh?   :uhrr:

I liked SG-1 well enough (although my interest started to wane once they finished with the Egyptian bad guys) but could never get into Atlantis.  I don't predict loving this either.

Yarg, I was about to post the same damn thing.  If it's anything like the rest of the series, I'll probably start watching it in about 10 years.

I only started watching SG1 because Sky TV in the uk had it playing constantly every day from series 1 to 10, after watching it all, I much preferred it to Atlantis.  Richard Dean Anderson was the main reason I could sit through SG1, so with nothing really new in store, I suspect casting is going to be pretty important for Universe too.

I noticed this during my last overseas visit.  What's up with that?

Sky One buys SF shows and plays the hell out of them, there was like 3 SG1 episodes on back to back every day.  A repeat on sky two, then all repeated over the weekend.  It's like having the dvd's, with a sky + box, kinda like your tivo box, you couldn't miss an episode.  In the early days of Sky one they had a lot of success showing Star Trek TNG every day, guess it's a continuation of that, Sky also helped fund BSG in the begining.

Robert Carlyle is in Universe so that's pretty good.  But what's up with this stuff about Universe being aimed at a younger audience?  SG1 wasn't exactly complicated.

linky (http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEdaWkedLWEogl)

This must be a Canadian Film Board grant and tax credit money grab.

Begbie is in this?


...

I...

I may have to watch it now.

Stargate is on i believe at least 3-4 hours a day or at least was. Scifi plays the shit out of it. First few seasons of sg-1 are decent. Everything after that is crap. Plot is so convoluted i don't even know whats going on.

That's simple enough to explain. Every season of Stargate was the 'last' season.

Pretty much says it all right there.  I don't even know why they bother continuing to deal with Sci-Fi channel after dealing with their nonsense through both SG-1 and Atlantis.  I'm assuming it has to do with some outrageous deal made eons ago by people no longer even involved.  Sci-Fi channel is the standard-cable version of FOX.

Stargate: Universe NEW [HQ] Trailer 7/24/09 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWfNkPCc6pY)

Meh, I don't think it's got much chance but I'll give it a watch, BSG without cylons.

That trailer is both interesting and very depressing at the same time, with a little bit of "what the fuck?" thrown in, what with that out of place looking kid.

Stargate the with a teenager? Fuck me.  :cry:

Meh, I didn't think Stargate really needed a Voyager analogue. 

I generally enjoyed SG1; primarily because of Richard Dean Anderson and some of the verbal byplay. RDA tended to make most of the horrible episodes watchable. Didn't get into Atlantis nearly as much and largely stopped watching it after several of its 'wtf?' moments (Carson dying, sorta, the replacement whiny bitch and so on). Universe.. I doubt I'll like it. I like they seem to be going for a somewhat darker approach, but I doubt the writers can pull it off and some of the characters/gimmicks just seem pathetic and stupid, even for a pulp sci-fi show.

I'll give it a shot, though.

Nothing says Stargate in Stargate Universe according to the trailer. I mean I never really got into Atlantis, I didn't hate it, but felt more like watching the Andromeda season's 1-2 with less ships and more walking, which wasn't a problem but not all too stargaty if you ask me.  But this? Feels like generic scfi 101. Teenager who shouldn't really be there, check. Random shit, check. Premise that isn't all too interest, check...i mean really lost in space and not the "probably accidental resolves itself in a few hours" kind but the "you should be fucked by let me give you 200 episodes explaining why your really not" kind? 1/3 of the trailer was pg13 sex scenes...really? Is that really what comes to mind when you think of Stargate?

So, its the Voyager (stranded on the other side of the universe, instant conflict between Marquis Civilians and Military, with an added hateable teenager for the fun of it. Just great.

It could be a BSG analogue instead (and monkeys might fly out my butt)

Interesting trivium: Ron D Moore worked on ST: Voyager...for a few weeks. Then quit in disgust.

I'd have thought saying BSG without Cylons was a big enough clue but just to be clear I thought BSG and Voyager were both terrible.  It doesn't matter how well crafted episodes like 33 were, because Moore killed the story dead in the end.  All Star Trek after the original series was a waste of time because it was just different versions of Captain Smug in space (the recent film being the exception).  The only Star Trek episodes I thought showed a spark of interest were ones that altered the time line and showed a different federation without the incredibly annoying prime directive.  Stargate is just a different kind of terrible.

Lol you mean the movie had the original Captain Smug. I grew up on Stargate SG-1 so while I agree with you on Star Treck and BSG I can't say the same about Stargate. What attracted Stargate to me was that it simply wasn't as pretentious as the other 2. At the end of the day really good aim, lots of bullets, and brass balls generally solved most problems.

I honestly thought the trailer for this was going to be a spoof for the first 30 seconds or so. I'm not sure that that bodes well in terms of premise. Also yeah, Voyage wasn't a great series and I feel like BSG has done the whole 'spaceship on the run lightyears from home or help' thing. This seems a bit soon to revisit it.

Agreed, the whole premise seems too close to a host of other series to stand out.

I'm looking forward to it, but I doubt I'm going to enjoy it. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

I liked the original captain smug, he just wanted to explore other planets so he could bang green alien chicks.  I agree about the pretentious thing, I liked that the main character in SG1 thought every bit of complicated science was basically down to magnets, it's stupid but a better type of stupid than a pretend complicated sounding reason for the holodeck breaking, yet again.

Only ever saw a couple episodes of the other series, so I don't have much in the way of expectations.  I enjoyed the first episode enough to want to keep watching and see what they're going to do with it.  Might not go anywhere, but it's not a horrible framework for a scifi series.

Even by Stargate standards I thought this opening 2 part episode was painfully bad.

Just hoping Robert Carlyle can do something with it, interview here (http://video.syfy.com/shows/universe/q_a_8/robert-carlyle-qa--part-1/v1160838).

That was the first Stargate show I've ever watched.  It's also the last.  This show is so poorly written and the actors seem to sleepwalk through their lines.
The concept is played out.  I just didn't see anything new here and the action hero military guy is a huge hypocrite for banging a subordinate and basically placing Major Young under house arrest.

I hate shows that generate drama by having two charcters take opposing views and just yell at each other no matter their previous convictions.

So I shouldn't be watching this? Oh gray gods of television let this be canceled.   

Wow, Ming-Na is nearly 46 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming-Na). Her character looks about 30.

The premise has potential and I am an unshakeable Carlyle fan, but yeah the writing is TERRIBLE. The worst scene was the Senator's daughter's grieving about her father.

I've seen worse premieres.  But I've seen Voyager, and this looks worse even than that.  I'll watch next week just to see if things get better, then I am out.  And Eli reminds me of that really annoyin young guy from those movies (Sandberg?  something like that?)

Which is too bad, the original Stargate series was good precisely because it had good writing and the actors stayed true to their character regardless of what was currently happening.

Bad, bad, bad, bad writing.


BUT...it has some good actors and one great actor (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/20/begbie.jpg), I didn't outright hate computer-game nerd, and the premise could spark some really good shows.  Even SG-1 was a total hamfest when it started out, but assuming the writing becomes better, the show could turn out to be quite good.  Writing, and being on that channel are its two biggest obstacles to overcome.

I love that Syfy did a press release saying it beat dollhouse by 400k viewers.

Start with Stargate framework, add a lot of Battlestar, a little Lost in Space (Rush = Dr. Smith) and some Sliders (a time limit for exploring a brave new world!) and you have this new show.

Young is the Col Hammond/Dr. Wier as opposed to the lead I expected him to be.  The large problem is Lt. Scott doesn't have the charisma of O'Neill/Mitchell/Sheppard.  You need that hat to hang the hook on and he's a bit straight-up marine.

It could get better.

Needs more Lou Diamond Phillips. For some reason I love him. Apparently he's just a recurring guest star.

I didn't think it was bad, certainly better than Atlantis which was pure schlocky shit.l

Atlantis was schlock, but even it managed to have some really stellar sci-fi moments (which were probably inspired by better sources, I'm sure), my favorites being the ones with "Todd", and some of the Michael stuff.  I'm also a fucking loser for Jewel Staite, so Kaylee making an appearance during that last season really helped keep me interested.

Didn't really like Atlantis at all, and I tried pretty hard to.  I thought it was pretty terrible though.  I hope it works out for Carlyle because I like him.  But the rest of the cast seems totally interchangeable.  They all have the same look, lack of charm and overwrought earnestness I hate in so many other shows.  And then there's the awful writing and shaky cam.

could be ok if they kill everyone but Carlisle and the Fat Kid.  I liked them. 

I keep thinking the fat kid is the same guy from Superbad. I know he isn't but that's the mental connection I keep making. I didn't hate the premier but it didn't live up to what I thought it was going to be. From the trailers I'd seen, I had a nasty, gritty, BSG setting envisioned. It was about 1/4 of the way there.

I also was hoping that this thing was going to put them in a completely different universe (hence the title). My thinkiing was that since 7 chevrons = 3D coords+point of origin in our galaxy, and 8 chevrons = 7 + another galaxy, then 9 chevrons would = a completely different universe/reality. Oh well.

Yeah... the whole cast did have a bit of a look-alike feel to it.  Elyse Levesque (Senator's daughter) seemed to be channeling Summer Glau at the end (might have just been the crazy/grief) and Alaina Huffman (TJ, the Medic) was very Scarlett Johansson (was probably just the hair).

Looking forward to how they'll deal with the time-limit stuff, but I'm definitely into it so far.

Third episode, loved the chubby kid spending twelve hours in the desert with his sun visor equipped hat on backwards.

Liking it so far as well, this last episode was interesting enough to overlook the acting/writing flaws. I'll give it a couple more and see how it pans out.

I think I hate every character on this show except Rush and TJ (and Eli half the time).  It's a bit like my Bizarro Dollhouse in that respect.

"Air pt. 3" did nothing to inspire more confidence in the future of the show.  I'm pretty sure I'll be hoping for the Senator's daughter to die by the time this season is over, as well as token-black-soldier-with-an-attitude-problem.  Computer-nerd needs better writing and a better actor, or needs to fucking die, because by the end I was hoping that Centauri would take him out of there to go defend the frontier from the Ko-Dan Armada and leave the rest of the mediocre crew in peace.

Ugh.  I couldn't even get all the way through the third episode before switching it off.  I decided I hate every character in the show more than every other character.  

The show works for me, no idea why.

Oh, yes, now I remember, even bad American tv shows are better than standard German tv shows.

I'm surprised I don't dislike Eli. I know I should but given his background and the situation he is thrust into he doesn't behave that bad. He is neither an insufferable genius asshole nor a cowardly jackass.

I will at least keep watching until they manage to destroy that trust into them making a gamer in this situation somewhat relatable!  :awesome_for_real:

Most other people suck, though. Rush has his moments, as has the Doctor. But I hope male young soldier lead and angry black marine guy take each other out one of these days.

They've got me for a few more episodes.  Really clunky in spots, but it still feels like it has some potential.  Or maybe I just want to like it because I feel like I'm lacking a fun scifi series to watch.

It has incredibal potential, I think.  It really taps back into some of that "dread of the unknown" from the first movie.  I just wish the writing up to now wasn't so fucking awful.  It's as if the Heroes writers decided to make a show centered on Parkman and Mohinder, and then asked Brett Ratner and Michael Bay for pro-tips on character development.

I'll still watch it, of course, because of Carlyle, and because I'm a stargate fan.  It's pathetic.

The show definitely has potential. But they've got a long ways to go.

Last episode was so hilariously bad I couldn't stop making fun of it.  I will probably keep watching though for that.  I like Dr. Rush and sociopathic black guy, but ugh at the rest of the show.

This show is so bad but somehow keeps me interested. Its basically a bunch of dumb shit and plot filler and then the last 5-10 minutes its interesting and the story moves forward. It hasn't gotten to the point yet where I just quit watching, but its getting close.

They can't keep spinning out these 15 minutes stories and think they'll keep people entertained. Unfortunately, reading the synopses of things to come, that's just what they'll do.
Still it has potential if they just up the pace a bit.

I enjoyed it.  In fact you could say that I watched a Stargate show and I liked it...liiiiked iiiiit.

Sure, it's shlocky, the characters are cliched, and some of the dialog is cringe-worthy but this isn't high art.  It's sci-fi on TV so I have low expectations and it's heads and shoulders above Star Trek, Buffy, and Angel re-runs. 

If the show goes down in flames I hope they do a reverse "Life of Mars" reveal and they all wake up in the 1970s after having taken some bad acid.

1. they need to seriously tone down the religion.  That made me stop watching BSG. 
2. they need to explain why Rodney or Daniel don't get on the horn and solve everythin double-time.
3. they need to kill everyone other than Rush and Eli, starting with the blond.  Cause you know we're gonna get her backstory when she runs out of hair gel.
4. they need an enemy for character development, and the ship could do it, if it starts to randomly kill people.

My fear is that this becomes a National Lampoon Vacation series of shorts whenever they stop in a system. O NOES WE LEFT MING NA BEHIND urrh wut?

For a time I use to give every new show on Sci Fi a chance.  Somewhere around Wrestling, it's just makes more sense to assume it sucks.  If for some reason, Syfy makes a descent show you'll hear about it.  SU is not that show.

Check that. Just watched ep2. That whole scene with the dead senator's wife and daughter was terrible.  Now I'm only watching for the sci-fi - the 'drama' I'll fast forward.

Either I'm becoming dumber, or the fourth episode was an improvement.

looking forward to #4.  There will be much drama and hang-wringing as they fill a shuttle with red shirts.  And just as the end seems at end, the ship will scoop up all the solar wind and blast off.  Leaving the B-Ark alone....

Nothing happened again in #4.  When are they going to meet some damn aliens?  This is like the TNG episodes where all they find is anomalies but they learn something personal about themselves because their dreams come alive or some shit.  Actually, that would improve the show. 

Or we could just enjoy watching the gamer guy as he tries not to watch the senators daughter take a dry shower each week.

Or the SG:U crew could find the holo-deck....lol holz lolz

Or the Red Dwarf episode where they find they have been playing a stupid computer game badly the whole time... only to find that THAT was all a dream.  :grin:

I just got my hands on all of the "original" stargate seasons, appart from those ridicoulous helmets the original series has aged very well, IMHO.

As for SG:U, I still like it.  :awesome_for_real:

I surrender, I can't not like anything that has Robert Carlyle in it.

It's the accent, I think.

RC and Ming Na deserve better than this show.

Still not entirely sure why I keep watching, but, you know, I'll probably watch this week's episode too.

Part of the reason I watch is that Elyse Levesque is mega super hot. If she died I'd stop watching.

I think the show is finally picking up, despite having the most obvious of outcomes in the main plotline, and thought the music in this episode was quite good for a tv show.  Maybe I am becoming dumber...

No big surprises in ep5, still I liked it. I wouldn't mind this being the last of the "omg we're going down" episodes. They have great material to work with, I hope they work it.

Fifth episode was actually pretty good- the last two have definitely improved things.  

I'm starting to see this as what Voyager should have been- command structure in danger of disintegrating, badass commander willing to condemn people to death for dissent (as opposed to the actual Voyager, which had the urgency and inner tension of a collection of Senators at a utility regulation subcommittee meeting).  

Yeah, that was it. He wandered around looking for other people and they all ignored him.

As for Elyse Levesque's hotness? Meh. She tries to channel Summer Glau too much for my taste. The bit-part Airforce chick with the huge rack, now she's hot.

A bit off topic but I just saw part of a Stargate episode on TV and there were two characters from Farscape in it. What's the story there?

Not the characters, just the actors.  IIRC SciFi had to fulfill the last few years of the contracts with Ben Bowder and Claudia Black, so they wrote them in to the last few seasons of Stargate. 

They did a pretty good job too. Unlike most series that go on for that long SG-1 didn't suck at the end.

Yes, yes she is.

Especially if you've seen The Masters of Horror episode she was in ("Right to Die").

Currently getting through episodes 4 and 5, and it's the Robert Carlyle show. He's out-acting the people around him by an order of magnitude, and you can see them thinking "how do I keep up with this guy?" as they deliver their lines.

Louis Ferreira is doing a decent job as Young.  Seeing as he pretty much has to spend all his time fighting Rush.

NSFW:  Mmmmm Breasts (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2579265/julia_anderson_nude_scene/)

Guess it wasn't. This is going to be the theme for the entire season, isn't it?

It's getting a little old but then most of Atlantis' first season was spent whining about not having enough power to do anything wasn't it? I think the only being in range of any particular stargate for 12 hours routine is going to turn out to be too limiting as well.

This is a general complaint I have about a lot of TV and movies that are created by folks who apparently think there can be no drama or urgency or whatever without some kind of absurdly short countdown.   Give the viewers at least a little credit -- we don't have to always be about to die in 5 minutes for the show to be interesting...

Grr.

I don't understand why there was a mad rush to get everyone on-board the ship in the first episode, considering they have totally ignored exploring the ship since.  The best part of the original Stargate movie was the build up and reveal before they went through the stargate, they totally blew that by beaming nerd boy out of his house 60 seconds after meeting him.  More "look at this cool ancient shit" less unbelievable "omg we are all going to die" in a tv series, would suit me.

Yeah that has struck me as well. When we get to see the ship from the outside, it's FRECKIN' HUGE. And they've so far managed to stick to the gateroom, three corridors, a few personal quarters, the gallery and the cockpit of the smaller ship. Why isn't anyone exploring??

They have air issues, remember?  From what I gathered, large sections of the ship are entirely depressurized, and their limited air system probably can't handle repressurizing the whole ship.  I remember Eli saying he sent some of the floating camera thingies into the depressurized areas to look around.

Besides which, until "Light", they also didn't have much power remaining, so exploring would have been a Bad Idea, like it was when they first went to Atlantis - go around the city, turn on all the systems, oops you're using the last of the power and the shield is failing.  (Sidenote: one thing I never got about Atlantis is why they never (as far as I know - still haven't watched the last few seasons) found the facility that the Ancients used to produce their ZPM's in the first place.  Surely there would be one somewhere in the city, right?)

I do hope they establish that the ship's 'stop period' is not fixed at 12 hours, and can vary depending on why the ship decides to stop, and where it stops at.  One thing Sliders did very well in my opinion was allow for a varying sense of urgency depending on the episode.  Some episodes they had little time before they had to jump to another world, and other episodes they had days or weeks on their timer.  Fixing the time at 12 hours per planet in SGU would present a serious plot limitation.

Ok, forgive me if this has been explained. But my main problem is logistics. We have this ancient ship, hundreds of thousands of years old, and the ancients didn't intend to be on it now, they intended to be on it thousands of years ago. The cast has complained several times about it not being engineered for this time span. It's on the other side of the /universe/ and stops at all these star systems that have stargates.

How did the stargates get there?

They explain this in the pilot. The ancients sent robotic ships out first that built stargates on useful worlds and I'm guessing sent some kind of signal to the ship to tell it where they built stargates. I don't remember if they actually know this or if it is a theory of Dr Rush's.

I think Dr. Rush found it in the part of the ship's computer he was able to access, so they know it with about as much certainty as they know anything.

I think having those communication crystals around is going to turn out to have been a mistake. It makes absolutely no sense that they aren't being used constantly to bring in high powered scientists and maybe an actual doctor.  There's just no good reason that Rush should be doing all this stuff alone when they could have Rodney or Samantha Carter there performing their usual miracles.

Or whats-his-name translating everything.

In the latest episode, someone  complains about some kind of rotation using the cristals is in place if memory serves me right.

I'm more interested in the crystals being used for naughtiness.  You know they'll go there.

Next week's episode has that douchebag come back and try to take command of the place.  That character is terribad.

Did the end of this Friday's episode imply what I thought it implied?

[Telford is doing Young's wife while pretending to be Young?]

Either way, this show is going places. 

I think it was implying that he banged her beforehand which is why she was comfortable banging Young in Telford's body.

Also Young and TJ banged apparently before hand.

Telford is one of my favorite characters, Lou is doing a good job at playing an asshole.

Dunno, the tech angle of the show has been bothersome. Lots of bad explanations, and the crystals are almost retardedly bad. Hey, let's have a show about being isolated across the universe...but half the show will be on earth. I think that's the thing ruining the atmosphere of the show more than anything.

I know they're angling to have it be more soap opera than scifi, but sheesh.

Also, should've been on HBO because it could really benefit from titties. Especially the chick linked NSWF above.  :grin:

That was confirmed by TJ's actress in an interview previously.  They banged, they moved on, and now's there's a sort of awkwardness between them as she was supposed to be gone.

This is getting better every episode.  If you gave up after the first 2 or 3, try it again.

I haven't watched last week's episode yet. Have they gotten off of the catastrophic ship malfunction of the week formula yet?

Yeah the Jungle episode wasn't actually that bad.

I loved the ending.  :heart:

Latest episode was really good, but I think it would have been even better

I'd agree, but after catching up on Spooks/MI:5, you realize you get tired of not having a cast to hang your hat on.  It was really cool killing off or disposing of main cast in the first two seasons, but now I'm just tired of it.

One question I have is since the gates normally have built in limiters to prevent them from going through solar flares it makes me wonder if the ship did not intentionally open them a gate to that planet where a cure for their illness existed and then intentionally put the wormhole through a solar flare to give them more chances to figure out what the cure was and to get it for the crew.

It will be curious to see if/how sentient the ship may be. It may be as simple as monitoring its "crew" and doing what it can to support them or it could potentially be more than that. Given its a long long long long range exploration ship it would almost make sense if a pretty powerful AI controls it.

First episode I really liked. Seems like they're finally getting the show going in the right direction.

Notice no use of the stupid communication devices. Those need to break.

SHODAN?

Oh that would make the show a total win if they went that route hehe.

Yeah, if the computer gets the hacker kid alone "P-p-p-poor pathetic hacker..."

Stargate universe shock for the win!

Damm it. Now I want to see a series in the Culture universe.  :awesome_for_real:

Who fucking doesn't?

The last episode was  :ye_gods:.

So not only does the Airforce let two people (Chloe and Eli) take over two random bodies and let one get incredibly wasted and have fun at a random club, they let the asian woman take over the body of some innocent woman and make her a lesbian for the day.

The ethical violations in this show are terrible.

What a piece of shit show.

Yeah, I was starting to wonder about letting the team use random offiers' bodies for random sex on Earth.  They aren't even closely monitored, what's to stop them from shooting up heroin or getting AIDs? 

They'd never let them off the base. Too many security risks. They're all part of Special Access Programs.

Totally unrealistic.

All they would do is sit in an office being steadily debriefed on every single possible detail.

Those communication crystals have got to go. They're sucking the life out of the show. It's worse than the time travel/holodeck stuff that was used on bad Star Trek episodes.

They already ruined the show.  Too late.

Holy shit. This last episode was fucking garbage. I'm done with this pile of shit, what a total waste of time.

Can I have your stuff?

It's not a good sign that the only two episodes I enjoyed had cast members dying.  The problem with the communication crystals is how they use them, not that they exist, I wouldn't normally choose to watch personal life crap on earth over events on an ancient starship.  I'm not really sure what kind of audience they are going for here.

They should do a cross-over to the Twilight-universe. That'll get them a dedicated fanbase. It'd be awesome - vampires in space!

And that's without the whole surrogate fucking/party thing. I'll be surprised if the show isn't cancelled. So much good potential to do a SG version of BSG. There should never have been any earth scenes except for maybe a shot of macguyver going "Hey, I wonder what happened to all those people?"

Its largely been better than I expected, but only barely. I can't stand Chloe? The senator's daughter. That character shouldn't be there. Write her out now, please. I actually like the black soldier. Probably because he reminds me of a marine I used to know. The stones are.. bad, in how they've been used. Should have been token usage; some kind of lame-science explanation as to why they don't work for long, thus limiting them to debriefing use and little else, so the show could concentrate on the ship-based aspect.

Herd needs serious thinning on that ship, though. A good string of episodes of a couple red shirts dying along with Chloe and I'd be willing to watch a second season. As is.. the show's just going in the wrong direction, largely, for my tastes, other than Rush, Greer, and a few token others.

The problem is that she's very tied into Eli's storyline.

I was actually pretty happy a lot of people died in that forest-planet-episode. Until they pulled the "lol it actually never happened, gotcha!"

Maybe they realize how bad those stones are storydevelopmentwise...


edit: Removed quote tags from the spoiler tags.Clicking the right buttons in the right order is hard. And I am still on my first coffee. And on antibiotics.  :awesome_for_real:

That quote doesn't really mean much without a source.  Did one of the writers say that or was it just some fan?

Duh. Let me fix that.

edit: For some clarity. That "quote" was from me, I wanted to put it in spoiler tags because it refered to the current episode. See edit above.

Ahh ok. I think most people agree with you.  They need to find some excuse to dial way back on those awful crystals. Perhaps some health problem caused by prolonged use like what they did with the sarcophagi in SG-1 which would also have been a disaster if they'd been allowed to be used routinely.

If they want to use the surrogate stone fucking party theme they need to have somebodies husband or boy friend find out about his girlfriend/wife suddenly having extramarital affairs with lesbians. I am guessing one well and truly thrashed life would make people choose not to let people ride their bodies around.

You could not pay me enough to do the body switch thing especially now that they have seen what the dipshits from the destiny do with them.

I.. don't care. Her entire character and the related dialogue and scenes are cringe-worthy even for a Stargate show. She needs to be killed off; have her death even be a Big Deal plot-wise -- so long as she dies for good. I don't know if its the actress on top of the shitty character design and iffy writing, but I've gotten to the point of generally just skipping scenes with her, which means I'm a short jump from dropping the show entirely.

She just destroys what little good the show has (well, her and the Stones).

The writers for this show are terrible.

Yes. Such a great premise, too.

Here we have this giant ancient ship, and there has been almost nothing in the way of exploration. Did they not see Atlantis?

I get the impression that the reason this show even exists is because they wanted the stargate viewership without spending the budget needed for typical stargate.  What we got was one hell of an interesting premise with one amazing actor, a couple decent actors, and a whole lot of bullshit soap-opera.  The communication stones aren't even as good as a holodeck, because at least the holodeck provided for some occasionally interesting sci-fi, where as those fucking stones just provide more "sob weepy wah boohoo GRRR ANGRY COLONEL".

This show has the same writers as SG-1 and Atlantis, so I'm amazed at how awful a lot of this show has been.

1. start killing people off, fast
2. put Eli and Rush in charge
3. no one talks to Earth ever again
4. give them an enemy -- shows is starving for a dramatic arc
5. start exploring the ship -- give us nerds what we want, the coolio factor

it will be canceled before the Fall at this rate

Maybe make the furlings the enemy? :awesome_for_real:

I just caught on to this show with my roomate, we shot gunned all nine episodes. Fucking love it as it is. Neither of us could stand the old Star Gate series', so this one was a surprise to us.

So is Stargate universe basically Stargate for everyone that hates Stargate and has an interest in pretentious space drama with very little "space"?

She can't act with a fuckstick (Elyse).

What IS the air force chicks name?

Yeah, if it were on HBO, it might have a chance due to a few hot chicks. The show is doomcasted.

I like Stargate:Voyager. However, the stones need to go, and senators daughter simply needs to stop with the talking, and stick to loving the nerd (and ditch uber christian boy, who is a fine character, all but this dumb ass shit with his personal life I care nothing about) and shower scenes.

I just recently watched all the episodes last night, get this lifetime bullshit out of my Si-Fi.

Julia Anderson.  Draegan linked to her boobs back on page 3.  Enjoy(NSFW) (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2579265/julia_anderson_nude_scene/).

Best music video ever.

WOW.

And screw you Bloodworth. I want the senator's daughter to stick with the jock....at least until the end of the season. I have ten bucks, and a lot of bragging rights depending on it.

The only way Eli is going to get laid is with someone else's body.

Having seen this story (boy meets girl, girl goes for hunky guy, calls other boy, friend) I root for the nerd. Its the only interesting outcome.

Screw you buddy, and your 10 spot!

Same here, though being a nerd also makes me kind of biased. So yeah, she needs to ditch the jock and go with Eli.

Yeah well I do things differently lol. I root for the straight laced jocks.  Yeah I know, Elis is going going to get her eventualyy, I can read the way the water is going, but that position was already taken by my jackass roomate. Besides, we've moved on, and are rooting for him to nail Julia Anderson.

However, we are ignoring the true pimp in the room, Colonel Young. His wife back on earth is smoking hot, and it alludes to him fucking the doctor (I dont know her name, so me and my buddy just call her Hot Doc.

I do not deny it.

Jock/geek here. Either way, I win. That said, I'd still prefer the LT with the big hooters or the Korean scientist chick that's making her way through the crew.

Just catching up now.  I liked episode 8, with the  twist and hey, helluva ending.  Let's see some more of this sort of thing and less body swapping travel back to earth.  This was a great example of how you can do a fun sci fi episode just the ship and some random forest planet scenes. 

I have to say that I had some serious doubts about Eli as a character, but I find I like him a lot.  Dr Rush is growing on me too.  I don't despise Chloe the way some folks here do, but I would not be too sad if she ended up as a Significant Death at some point...

Hah, Matlock in space in this episode. At least the ending was promising.

Very much so.

Yeah,

I enjoyed the last episode quite a bit.  Episodes 8 and 10 have been the high points so far.  Here's hoping the writers figure out how to seriously cut back on the communication stone usage and spend more time on and around the ship, which has no shortage of things that could be happening.  Hell, couldn't hurt to spend an entire episode on-planet somewhere instead of just using the limited visit time as a tension building plot device.

8 and 10 have definitely been the best.  Although its obvious that


I find the potential sociological aspects of the show interesting.  They've flirted with the idea of whether its going to be a military dictatorship, or if the civilians are ultimately in control.  At some point, the mostly-useless non-scientist types are going to wonder why they take orders from the guys with guns, and how easy it would be to get said guns.  

Your spoiler tags are not working as intended.

The last episode was good. I agree about the Dr Rush spinoff, with him flying around the far end of the universe in an alien ship, which he will probably change to suit local conditions until it gets stuck in the form of a police box.

I think that's the most "On ship" episode we have seen to date. That's a good thing.

jesus that show needs an enemy or something.  I mean, they're on a ship bigger than Atlantis and there's no exploration?  It's SG:U and we see barely any U.  It's a very kitchen sink drama.

Don't forget:  one of the tools they had with BSG that helped make it successful was the ever present threat of the Cylons.  That added to the drama by giving direct and indirect conflict, but also helped increase the tension/interest where the fleet was always running *from/to* something.  With SG:U they are entirely passive, they're being dragged along.  Like the audience...

I suspect that this show is being made on the cheap which explains the shoddy sets on the ship and why they're constantly going back to Earth rather than seeing anything new out in space.

Rush was the only good thing going on with this show. Even with him it was more boring than doing housework. Now it's just bad and you should feel bad for even watching it. Even if your Tivo records it, it's not enough of a reason to sit through it.

Quite sure that the gate room on the destiny is the same from Atlantis.

Haha suckers! I like the go back to earth bits. I'm sending letters to the producers imploring them to include more as we speak!

/stab

You bastard!

At least we know who to blame now.

Has this been cancelled? I see their US viewers went from 2.3mil first episode to 1.3mil for the last one and the airing date for the next episode hasn't been announced yet.

It's just on hiatus until next spring.

Oh, just when it was getting good. :awesome_for_real:

And this has been picked up for season 2.

I wasn't aware of this before, but scifi author and Hugo favorite John Scalzi (Old Man's War, The Lost Colony) is the creative consultant for the show.

Hmm, I'd have thought it'd be better then.

Scalzi answers a bunch of questions about his role in SGU production:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/09/30/on-being-the-stargate-universe-creative-consultant-answers/

Interesting that he's involved in TV. I think a series based on Old Man's War would actually work really well - though you'd probably have to sacrifice the soldiers green skin to save time and money.

Anyway, it doesn't look like the creative consultant job is powerful enough to be responsible for the shows many annoyances.

So all this talent on the show and it still fucking sucks?  Awful.

I'm catching up on Atlantis right now, Time Warner swapped out the channel it was playing on in the middle of season two and messed up my DVR programming and SciFi (SYFY  :oh_i_see:) was picked up in season three, so I just stopped watching it live.

Anyway, it's shocking how much better Atlantis is at being a Stargate show and really highlights how bad Universe is. And Atlantis is just light MotW stuff, trying to move beyond that and be dark drama was a huge mistake because a) BSG already did it and b) they're not doing it well. And of course the entire premise of being stranded across the universe being completely destroyed by the communication stones.

If the first episode is about how the communication stones no longer work, then a second season might work.

Episode 11 aired yesterday. Even if you thought the first half of the season was pretty meh you might want to check out this episode. :why_so_serious:

I feel like it was a big rushed, but that's a common failing with this show -- their need to do a whole big setup and resolution in a 45 minute episode.  Still, enjoyable enough.

We can only hope.

Indeed.  The communication stones are an annoying gimmick and handled badly.  The best episodes so far have been the ones with little or no contact with Earth.

Had this been an episode of friends it would have been called 'the one where Rush chokes a bitch'.

After last season, I was debating deleting this episode, we're tight on space on the DVR. So glad I didn't! That was a fun episode, I hope they've learned their lesson.

The chick with the enormous tits had a strange turn of character.  When she blurted out how she had the hots for some random dude and then started crying at the end was strange.

Yeah, at times I really wish it was an HBO or SHO joint.

I vaguely recall her being involved with someone early in the show.

Latest episode was great. Then the last 10 minutes had to ruin everything.

Very solid.   Pacing felt a lot better than some of the earlier episodes.  They could have resolved the final thing in a follow-on episode (hell, even as a B-story while something else is going on in the foreground) though.

I would like the latest episodes. Except I can't shake the feeling that I am supposed to side with Young and the military in this whole conflict. Which I can't do because Young is a sleazebag and and asshole.

What's so bad about Young? He seems a lot more trustworthy than Rush or that psycho woman.

You mean apart from the shit he pulls with his ex-wife, the taking-away of Stonetime from other people so that he can pull this aforementioned shit, the sneaking up and suckerpunching of another officer under guide of another person, the sex with his subordinate, trying to kill Rush because he is a pain in the ass and doing so in a both sadistic and spineless way (we are not talking a relatively humane bullet to the head here but starvation on a strange planet)?

Not much, he is kind of a dick and a military supremacist.

Rush is a dick and feels intellectually superior to those halfwits. I can relate to that better  :awesome_for_real:

They still don't know what they want to do with this show, Rush missed zero episodes after supposedly being stranded, completely pointless.  The only likeable characters are the younger ones that don't even pretend to know what the fuck and Rush.  Camile Wray has only has one purpose, get control, boring, Young is a dick, kill both them off and gate in some hot aliens already.  Also how about repairing the ship so we don't constantly get the "shields are failing we are going to die, oh wait, it's ok, lets go back to arguing" plot every few episodes.

Agreed.  This show won't last another season with this kind of writing.  They need an enemy, a threat, something to make the characters grow and push the narrative along.  These aliens may work.  But no more Dr.Phil/90201 Earth episodes.

BSG worked on people mostly because there was a continuous threat motivating change and sparking drama/conflict.  Running out of food/water/energy in a Real-World meets ST:Voyager will work only if they can do the same because the audience needs to see a story arc.  Right now, I can't see anything happening.  I don't see why I need to watch next week.  Will blondie run out of hair gel this episode?  Will Angry Black Man finally get to kill many people?  Will Ming Na just fuck off?  Will Robert Carlisle finally leave the show for real work?  I just want to murder several characters, which isn't a great feeling for a franchise.

Even being a dick Young is still better than the people you'd have replace him. Rush has no interest in getting people home, almost got everyone killed several times, manipulated that poor scientist into putting on the Ancient Helmet of Knowledge and Face Melting and just in his spare time framed Young for murder. The only thing Young did wrong was strand him on that planet instead of just shooting him in the face.

Thats why this series doesn't work. All the sides are led by unlikeable people. You kinda root for the aliens to probe them all to death.

But you didn't read my posting if you thing that's all this person did wrong during this series. He is at about three lifetimes of jail time right now if you count in all the insubordinations.

Why do you have to like the characters to enjoy the show?

Because in this show the plot itself certainly isn't entertaining enough to carry most episodes either.

Yeah, I think they need a new actor to join.

I don't care about the insubordinations. That's a star gate tradition. Refusing to follow orders from clueless Earth authorities is standard procedure. And that guy he punched out for sleeping with his wife deserved to get punched out for sleeping with his wife.

I don't even like all of the young characters really. Eli is about the only one who isn't a tool and maybe the medic.

Heh, why am I even watching this show?

Stargate has taught me this about the military: you can do/say anything you want as long as you start it with "With all due respect..."

Re: the stones. I liked the plot device with Rush giving one to the aliens, but then they used the stones without it connecting to the aliens without showing them getting that stone back or destroying it. The only hopeful part of that episode was losing contact in the middle of the surgery.

I don't know where this show is going, either. It's trying to draw from many wells and not getting the good parts of any of them. The only two characters I like are the angry black dude and the chick with the balloons. Why the hell did the soldier drop his gun when they got isolated? Even if he wasn't going to shoot anyone (under the medic's order), he should've kept the goddamned pistol on him, not given it away for some civilian without training/discipline.

Bah. The season opened was good, dammit. I hope they don't fall back into last season again.

I don't know how that stone business is supposed to work. The stones are part of a matched pair, where the sender stones are on Destiny, and the receiver stones are on Earth. If anything then the Alien consciences should be transferred to Stargate Command, not the Destiny. Maybe they reverse engineered it.

Finally got to watch the last episode off my DVR last night.  It was pretty awesome until they used those stupid stones again.  I like Young though just because he tries to do the right thing but some of his flaws are mixed in.

So I forgot what day this airs since I tend to catch shows the day after they air being 7 hours ahead of the US east coast, and so I stopped by the wiki for this show to check the airdates. While there I  read over the synopsis for the upcoming episodes as they have been updated since the last time I checked them when the show first aired.

Episode 15 might be when I stop watching this show altogether.


Also, last episode confused the fuck out of me.
Ok, the aliens apparently want Destiny right? It's some holy grail for them. They haven't been able to bypass Destiny's automated defenses tho and attack in force hoping the humans would fuck up. But wait a second... they already bypassed the defense once and kidnapped someone. They apparently attached a ship to the hull long before the humans arrived on Destiny and they are able to cut holes in the hull and get inside... so uhhh... what? They really need to decide wtf they are doing with this show.

edit: to add rant about last episode

I stopped watching this show when I started... especially after meeting that dorky guy who wears pullovers and had bit roles in Ugly Betty.  Fail.  He sucks.

I don't really now what to do with the last (Faith) episode. What was the point ?

I liked episode 13.  Nice way to let some time pass and mend some bridges.  Big win for no comm stones and no countdown timers.  I also like the occasional unexplained mystery.

Eli remains the perfect stand-in for the audience (assuming the audience is a gamer/scififan/etc):

"genesis device" <blank stares> "the end of the wrath of khan!"
- eli

"do they?! we're 0 for 3 in close encounters of the third kind."
- eli replies to "the gains outweigh the risks"

"I'm sorry you didn't get your wish."
"and what was that?"
"Aliens.  Advanced enough that they could build a starsystem.  Finally
somebody you could have a decent conversation with."
- col young, rush

Hoping they don't push the reset button on the whole military/civilian conflict thing -- I'd be happy if they let that fade out a bit.


I like the cold open for episode 14.  

Whee! Cliffhanger in ep15 (and still no damn communication stones!).

The writers get bonus points from me if they don't resolve this right away in ep16.

Ditto. They did alot better with this episode than I thought they would. And the ending wasn't at all what I was expecting, especially from this show as it has been going thus far. Now if they can only stick to their guns for an episode or two...

That was a rather incredible piece by the doc.

I was uncertain at the end of the first season, but this season is much better. I wonder if they got some feedback about all the earth/comm stones crap?

I agree with Q, the Eli stuff is pretty fun homage to the audience material. I chuckle every time he makes a geek reference and gets exasperated when the soldiers don't get it.

last episode: not too bad

I think they actually paid attention to all of the anti-communication stone sentiment. And it's helped the show immensely.

The best part is he remains entirely in character throughout.

I saw a spoilery thing on the next episode that implies we're going to have some more communication stone crap.  Ah well, if they manage to keep improving everything else, I'll probably forgive them for the occasional use of those stupid stones.

Hell, even Chloe has annoyed me less in the last couple episodes.

Looks like they may get a slight reset with a new galaxy.  The stones need to "break" so they don't use them ever again.

They will never break them. Or well they might do that. They will never destroy them/have them get lost out an airlock with no hope of them ever being used again. They won't do that.

Last time they used the stones was in a "oh fuck, we need a surgeon and we don't have one the ship, to the stones!" manner. And that is how I see them being used from here on. To fill in with plot devices that wouldn't be on the ship otherwise.

Tho admittedly, the last time they used the stones they had the presence of mind to have them go bonkers and break in the middle of something important. But hopefully that doesn't become a reoccurring theme with them.

Yeah, I can deal with that.  Beats the hell out of strange body-swapping shore leave.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?

Deus Ex Motherfucker.

the ads for Mongolian Death Worm are looking pretty good right about now


show needs a giant mutant space goat 

Well, could have been worse but that feels like a big step backwards from the last 3-4 episodes.  Meh.

They found their stash of crazy juice. Worst episode of the season thus far.

Did I miss the explanation of 'hey guys you thought we were lost but we just came through the gate automagically'?

More stone garbage.

There was some song that was really glaringly loudly bad, too. But I'm old and enjoy good music, so I'll give that a pass.

Why do people keep thinking it's ok to fuck in someone else's body?  The god damn lesbian though it was ok to take a cripple's body into a weird home and make out with another woman.  I wonder if the Air Force tells that person where their body has been.

Fuck I hate the god damn stones. 

Not sure if it was stated explicitly, but I think it was because they dropped out of FTL before being out of reach for the final stargate in the "old" galaxy.

If I was going to infect half the cast with hallucinations, I'd at least have made them hallucinate a decent episode.  Worst so far.

Wha?

I do like how they have made it tradition to include one shitty song per episode now. Now if only they would start using the stones more.

don't forget to include a gratuitous fuck scene as well as a music montage

Wow, that was both stupid and boring. The illusion of an up-trend the last few episodes is thorougly shattered.

I found myself trying hard to resist the urge to fast-forward....just in case something worth watching happened. Didn't, really. Too bad, I thought they had finally figured out the formula. But to be honest, all the Stargate shows have had filler episodes every season, so I guess it's 'tradition'.

Oh, look. Not only a return of stupid stones plots, but a gratuitous Daniel Jackson as secret agent man, and more O'Neil acting completely non-military. Let's just stop with the cameos, ffs.

I'm more impressed about how they've interacted with a grand total of ONE NEW ALIEN RACE in their first season.  And they didn't even talk to that race.  Where are the villagers full of near-humans wearing brown tunics that hold a terrible secret? 

Leave them out of this. Once this starts, we're at the old formula again. And that one is meanwhile way more annoying than what SGU delivers currently.

I was thinking about this the other day, there aren't any humans out this far, which kinda limits their guest star potential and really restricts what they can do with the plot.

I thought that was the best part!

I surprisingly didn't really mind the stones this time. I can't exactly place my finger on why really. I almost didn't notice them regardless of very heavy usage. (the entire plot centered around them)

If they are going to use them, they need to use them like this. The writers are finding them in a rock and hard place with the very premise of the show. Hence the stones provide the momentum. They are a plot device.
Guess they wanted to write a BSG type show with being stranded and limited resources, then realized their fuck whoops with that in providing new conflict.
This conflict has to be one of the very first meaningful ones they've had since the show started.

Meaningful as in it feels like it matters, and it doesn't seem all that unnatural.

The stones aren't a bad thing when the writers are not including rape, forced homosexuality, and binge drinking.

Does there have to be a minimum of two montages set to shitty muzak each episode?

The muzak is not the worst music in the episode, generally. It's the (I'm assuming) trendy loud song that really doesn't fit anything about the show. You can use music with a wide range of dynamics, but whoever is scoring this show apparently sucks. I shoulda stayed in the music biz, I guess. It's so easy!

You act like those are bad things.

**** FINALE SPOILERS RIGHT HERE ****

Nah, just kidding, it was horrible.
It wasn't a season's finale, it was one of those forced cliffhangers soap opera's employ before their summer break.
So much potential, such a horrible, horrible production.

That was the season finale? Yuck.

wow that show has just died a slow death

It's a shame. Things seemed to be looking up for the first few episodes after it came back from hiatus too. But they've gone full retard with those useless communications stones again.

edit : And man, they need to stop bringing Richard Dean Anderson back for guest spots. It makes me sad every time I see how old and fat he's gotten. And the writers in this Stargate series make him behave in ways that are completely out of character.

A whole new galaxy to set up villains...and they go back to the lucian goddamned alliance? Lame. I bet they ran out of CG budget for the new aliens. And how is it that they're being bombarded with gamma bursts from a binary star when the whole cliffhanger from previous was that they were leaving the galaxy and going to be in inter-galactic transit for a while - which is why I thought they brought out the lame lucian thing in the first place. Hey, let's barely skim a galaxy for plot ideas, then put our cast into the interstellar void!

It's like these writers come into work and someone is paid to smash bricks over their heads all day.

And yes, the SG-1 cameos need to stop. Ninja Daniel, Fat McGruber and Captain James T Carter. Makes perfect sense.

Just got around to watching the last episode.  I hope a lot of people die.

Also the Richard Dean Anderson was the best episode of the 2nd half.

But, I wouldn't mind some SGA cameo action.  This show needs more Rodney!  Hell, I'd take Sheppard, too!

Rodney bitching about all those supposedly intelligent retards would indeed make my day.

This is the thing that annoyed me most about the damned communications stones. You know that it would take Rodney or Sam Carter an afternoon at the most to get the damned ship working properly again.

Edit: And they'd probably manage to do it without having sex in bodies not their own.

This made me think of something that's been bothering me about SGU. Nobody is likable. Rodney was a smug, whiny and bitchy intellectual, but there was still a depth of character that made you like him. Everyone one SGU is just kind of bothersome at best.

I think Eli is reasonably likeable. It'd be better if he got over the stupid crush on the unlikeable Senator's daughter though. The rest of the major characters are fairly blah.

I just watched all the first season cause it popped on Netflix on demand. And people had said decent things.

Eli is definitely the audience. Which says what? We're fat and lazy?

I could do with a few less sex montages. But I guess, what else is there to do? Not like there's TV....or mmogs.

The first episode of season 2 aired yesterday, I think.

What? Shit.

Goddamned new Time-Warner UI wiping out ALL MY SCHEDULED RECORDINGS. Thanks, dickbags.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up. Hopefully I can catch a replay so I don't have to abandon this the way I had to with SG:Atlantis and BSG when they re-numbered the channels without updating the DVR programming.

Nothing terribly important happened this episode. It just concluded the last episode pretty much the way anyone would expect.  So it's probably too early for me to predict doom for the season no matter how much I'd like to.  It's possible the writers may have decided to graft some actual human feelings onto the Ming Na character that don't involve gay sex in a borrowed body but we'll see if it lasts.

I don't see why this ever got approved, they are in a galaxy empty of human's or even human shaped aliens, the original star trek would have had a tough time with that setup.  Not to mention that apart from a couple, the whole cast is boring. 

The only episodes I've enjoyed have had crew members dying, fake dying or being stranded forever.  At the minute it's like a poor version of big brother with the eviction exit being through an airlock into hard vacuum, no wait, I'd watch that.

I still can't understand why they don't meet any fucking aliens.  Even Voyager could manage that. 

I stopped watching once the show turned into a "use the stones to fuck past lovers" fest.

Did the show ever turn around like people were hoping?

Not so far.

There were a couple episodes in the second half of season one that had me hopeful, but then it slid right back into crapitude.  I keep hoping they'll do something good with this show, but am about ready to just give up.

Ugh, I reeeealy do not care about the nurse or her child.

I'm glad that tedious plot point is done for now.

I went in wondering how they would address Rhona Mitra, considering her new show and all.

Well, I guess that was a simple enough way to do it.

So far it's been schlock (get rid of the stones) and glimmers of promise (rush stranded plotline that could've been fleshed out, the whole struggle against the aliens) that they've squandered or just cut off.

I forgot the lucian alliance crap until I read my last few posts. Maybe it's good I didn't have this set up for this season. I'll watch some more Mike Holmes and pray to Woden that sYfY can come up with something better than sharktopus or whatever the fuck.

I got a bit worried by the miraculous healing and reincarnating dead babies on distant planets thing. Introducing the stones as relics of long gone beings with god-like powers and use them to fill plot holes is one thing. Turning those beings into interventionist gods is quite another.

The stones were introduced a few years before SG-1 ended, they were only in one mini-arc where Michael Shanks and Claudia Black used them for some reason.

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Citizen_Joe

If instead, the stones switched users with random people on earth we would at least get the enjoyment of "normal" people trying to get onto top secret military bases with a message from another universe.  I suspect the couple of decent episodes have been pure flukes, nobody from this show appears able to write. 

Ok people, we have another universe, aliens, ancient technology, a super starship and a high level government cover up concealing all this from everyone on earth, lets talk some more about the log cabin/baby scene.

I had  serious Voyager flashbacks at the end of the episode. Maqui vs Federation again ?

Stargate did this though;  In that very episode and others.
 :oh_i_see:

Perhaps I missed your point.

Quantum Leap did it too and lasted 5 seasons.  People don't seem to like the current use of the stones, last time it was beam in a medical team of doctors, whole thing took about 10 seconds.

Matthew Scott
Chloe Armstrong
Tamara Johansen
Camile Wray

Send those four through the airlock. Bring in a better (less annoying) female crew member, one that contributes more than a gaping vagina.

I dunno. This show might take off soon. Slowly they are throwing any pretense of even attempting to be consistent or make "sense" out the window altogether. Once they fully embrace the crazy, I expect we'll see some good things. Also, fuck yeah, montages! Everything benefits from montages.

In time hopefully the show will just evolve naturally into one big montage.

I'm already turning it off 10 minutes before the end due to them, so if they just added like 40 more minutes of them I could skip the show entirely! BRILLIANT!

Oh yay. A whole episode about the fucking communication stones. Again.  I'm about ready to give up on this show.

It was terrible.

I still don't understand why Rush is keeping the "bridge" a secret.  And I see they are trying to channel a little bit of BSG with Rush seeing his dead wife and another dude.

Because he wants to be captain. Commander. God. That is his motivation for most things he wants to do. If they knew about the ship bridge, they would turn it around for sure. He doesn't want that.

The head writer who came up with most of everything fun about the other Stargates for the last 10+ years finally left last season. I think we can safely assume the show is done at this point.

With Caprica just getting shit canned, it made me wonder about this following fast in it's wake. With the idea of this actually getting shit canned, I have to say I wouldn't be pleased with the prospect right now. Because as horrible as this is, it's the only good Sci-Fi show on right now that I am at least somewhat intersted in where it is going. Even if that curiosity is at times is only wondering how badly the writers can possibly fuck up the premise.

Last night's episode was the worst yet. Rather than using the wretched communication stones as an excuse to cheaply film the entire show back on earth in someone's house they had cheesy 3rd rate puppet monsters followed by 75 percent of the episode taking place in a hallucination that coincidentally took place back on earth where it could be filmed cheaply.

This show sucks and I want it to be canceled.

That reminds me of the Buffy episode where Buffy knocked this guy into a box where he came out as a plastic looking monster, thereby saving the expense of a CGI transforming sequence.

I'm positive TNG or some other ST franchise did this exact plot.  Hell, maybe even SG:1 or SG:A did this: hero wounded by alien growth, people externally frantically trying to save him/her, internal mind soap opera with some pseudo-moral decision required, self-sacrifice by friend of hero to save the day.  Seriously awful and seriously seen before.

It was one of the worst TNG episodes ever, but I can't remember the name.

God damn that was a terrible episode.  I just watched it.

I don't think I've ever watched a show where I hoped the characters would slowly die off.

This is one show that the transition to the new OS on the DVR nuked and doesn't bother me a bit.

These writers seem to like dream sequences a whole lot...
At least the last ep had some pretty exploding spaceships and a bad ass Rush right at the end there.
I even managed to watch the entire thing this time.

Well, I'm convinced Robert Carlyle -- the only reason I still watch this show -- is barely acting anymore.  His always-on, frustrated, flustered personality for Rush is probably how he actually feels still being under contract.  Great stuff, hope he kills them all (except Eli).

He can keep the hot Lucian Alliance girl around for Eli to hook up with instead of pining over Chloe too.

If Eli just got fed up and shot that douchey military guy on a mission so he could get a consolation screw, the show might actually improve.

I was so happy when I thought for a second Scott might have actually died.

Rush, Eli and Ginn is all the show needs. Everyone else is expendable.

Julie McNiven  :heart:

I think the show still needs Greer.  He's badass! 

When I first started watching this show, I thought, "Wow, the actor who plays Scott is either REALLY good, or REALLY bad! I mean, maybe the character is supposed to act like that?".


It's bad. He talks and acts like that in real life. :P

This.

Greer is pretty much the only reason I watch the show anymore.

Greer needs to beat the shit out of and then space the Alliance guy who is picking on Eli's girlfriend.

I find it funny that on this site the consensus seems to be this show suxors (or is at least mediocre) while at another site (which basically serves the same niche as this imo) thinks it's a great show.

Personally, I like most of the characters, I just think the show overall is lame.

I don't think think it's the characters that annoy people per se, it's the bland scenarios.
They have an incredible potential to tell a good sf story with the setting they got yet they tend to resort to soap opera drama and cheap storyline tricks in a lot of their episodes.
It's like The Wire in reverse. There they told a fantastic story in a mundane setting, here they are telling a mundane story in a fantastic setting.

Actually, I do hate many of the characters. Matt and Cloe, for example, should also be spaced by Greer.

I would dispute that The Wires setting was mundane.

But this show sucks balls and from what I've seen you all just pop in here every now and again to remind yourself of that fact.

Give it up.

The problem to me is that, unlike the other two Stargate series, they seem to be focusing primarily on the personal relationships and the drama, instead of having the action, the "science" and the fantastic situation take front stage.  The parts of the show that I find interesting tend to be pretty much 90% of what involves Rush, because he's the only one whose focus is pretty much entirely on the cool stuff that's going on around.

In SG-1, for instance, the characters personal lives were present, but tended to be restricted to one or two scenes per episode, with a handful of episodes being much more focused on that sort of thing.  This kept the focus on the awesome, rather than the mundane.

Just to echo what Koyasha said, in SG1 O'Neill was in charge but thought everything complicated was somehow done by magnets, Carter balanced him out being a super nerd because he just asked her what to do.

In this thing all Young wants to do is get people home, but I can't stop watching because it's so very bad.  If it was boring like Star Trek Voyager, then sure I'd stop watching, but the plot does advance unlike Voyager .  In Blakes 7 they found the bridge of their stolen advanced star ship in episode 1, in SGU it took 27 episodes to get them all on it.  It's also not like they don't know Rush is the far more interesting character as he had access to the bridge a full 5 episodes earlier.

Ahhh, Blakes 7.  Now you're talking...

Well, Blakes 7 until the Liberator went tits up.

 :heart:  (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/BlakeLiberator.jpg)   :heart:

All of the earlier Stargate series had some humour as well.  It was the rarest of episodes where you didn't see the main characters enjoying themselves and having fun between bouts of universe saving.  SGU is inhabited entirely by depressing humourless twats.

It's DARK!

Apparently there is no one in that universe that can kick ass and chew bubble gum. Going to pop a watch out of morbid curiosity.

When SG1 was on, it was really fucking on!  Especially with those self deprecating episodes.. Wormhole Xtreme and stuff.. As a whole, the series was awesome until those dreadful last seasons with Merlin and all that stuff..

It's Grimdark.

The problem is that "Dark" means 'good looking obnoxious unlikable assholes sleep with everything in sight and moan about how awful everything and threatening is, incessantly' rather than something really bad like, say, losing a limb or having to go 3 weeks without food.

Both of which happened in season 1 of Farscape. Which had both good humour and was far darker than this.

But pilot regrew the arm in like three episodes. 

But yea, when  part of me was thinking, I'm shocked they have not lost like two people every boarding.

Well yeah, but you didn't know that when they were chopping his arm off.

DAMMIT!

 :heartbreak:

I bet poor Eli would feel better if Matt and Cloe went out the airlock don't you think?

All I can think of is the Friends episode where Joey ad libed a line and the writers got mad and made his character fall down an elevator.

While checking on wikipedia to see if that damn cliffhanger was a season, or mid season finale, I happened upon this:



Let's hope Rodney's time on the show was better than Daniel Jackson's! 

I'm not fond of these "mid-season" breaks.

I hate them too - it's a tool to sell the series DVDs in two parts instead of one set per series.  I'm kind of torn - it's admirable as clever marketing (I work in marketing) but it's shitty as a consumer.

The last few episodes have really been picking up.

Got to agree on that one.

Although I wouldn't mind if they'd actually find something on one of those derelict ships they happen to come across. While the show is picking up pace enough to suite my taste lately they are chafing my lootwhore numbits with all those empty alien wrecks they come across. Some non story breaking (read stones) and sufficiently camp gadgetry might add some extra life to the story.

I still either actively dislike or am bored to tears by almost all of the characters.

Yes, but did you check the tits on the tit-bearing one, kemosabe?

Lt. Tits is a hit!

I'm still pissed they killed off Eli's love interest.  :heartbreak:

I mean, damn, he's the best character on the show and he can't catch a break?

Ever.

She was a hotty too. I knew she was done for!

The oh shit we don't have a shuttle on the ship anymore episode was terribad.

Other than that I've enjoyed the last few.

Not as bad as the "Oh shit, we suddenly have a shuttle again" episode.

The defining bad decision over all the bad decisions of this show is to use this amazing setting for a soap opera. You can put in a wealth of sci-fi contrivances without any concern for continuity (hey, that was BACK THERE).

And the show needed a lot more of Lt. Tits. I'm normally not so sidetracked by the bazooms, but holy hell. She's got talents.

Red shirt, red hair. Same shit.

I meant from the writer's perspective. So yea - same thing. Terrible.

It was bad, but in a funny way.

I mean, there are totally advanced and benevolent aliens that give us everything we need to survive. We have bunch of Scientists (well, what passes as scientists after all the brightest heads of the world were sent to antarctica) settling there. And they die in way that every redneck soldier with an IQ of 60 and the tendency to call his cousin brother would have prevented. Not strange diseases, no dangerous animals, but the good old "we forgot to build shelter and make a fire before the winter comes". The aliens must be laughing their heads off about us.

That said, while the last episodes have improved, they still crawl their way up from a deep deep abyss. The plot comes to a screeching halt every time they insert their daytime soap plotlines into the series, and hey don't have continuity for shit. Elis (I'm assuming here but he is the audience stand-in, isn't he? :)) first and only girlfriend dies and the episode after he is quipping again?

All other characters might be written inconsistently as well. I don't know, apart from Greer I don't care if these awful awful people die. (I would have excepted Scott, but telling Young to his face he is a good leader and believing it, speechless. Up to that point I thought he was competent, but too loyal to say anything). And the fact that the writers know that these people are basically raping the soldiers giving them their bodies (as shown by Elis outrage when Rush almost does it) makes the Lesbian abduction plotline on earth worse every time it happens.

Yes, I had the flu and don't wanting to watch things I had to think about in a fever haze I watched the Second Season of SG:U. Busted. And failed. The stupidity penetrated the fever haze.

It's an absolutely horrible show but I can't stop myself from watching.  I guess I just want to see how awful they manage to make it.  Not since Star Trek : Enterprise have I seen such damage being done to a valuable franchise.

And now shitcanned

http://www.fusedfilm.com/2010/12/stargate-universe-cancelled-season-2-will-end-franchise-run-on-network/

Syfy will end its original action-adventure series Stargate Universe when the show returns with the final 10 episodes of its second season in the Spring of 2011. The Stargate franchise — consisting of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe — has aired on Syfy since 2002.Syfy has a slate of new sci-fi/fantasy scripted projects lined up for 2011 including the series premiere of Being Human on January 17, the recently green lit one-hour drama series Alphas and the much anticipated Battlestar Galactica prequel pilot movie, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome. Warehouse 13, Eureka and Haven will also return with new seasons next year.”

Good, now I can justify to myself why I stopped watching this and feel absolutely zero urge to ever start again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

Kind of glad to hear they're ending it overall.  I love the concept of the show, but the fact that they're writing it as a soap opera, basically, has totally ruined it.  If the personal shit was kept to a secondary thing like it was in the previous Stargate series, it would have made a great show, I think, cause there's a lot of really cool potential in the whole setup.

Good. Then syfy can pick up Fringe when Fox inevitably shitcans it because "we don't know why therez no ratings, since we moved it to friday, lolz".

Oh thank god, i was about to ask how the fuck this show can still be on the air.

They did the same thing with Caprica. My guess is they were trying to go with the BSG character drama over action type of show in both cases but executed it poorly.

I just watched the last 4 episodes that were sitting on my DVR.  It was actually getting a bit better there towards the end.

Ah well.  The rest of the Syfy shows are terrible though.  Warehouse and Eureka are ok, but aren't really great. The new BSG show might be cool, but how long can that really last?

I don't know what Being Human and Alphas is though.  

Edit: Alphas is a super heroes show?  Yawn?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Human_%28U.S._TV_series%29

Being human is a story about three friends in their twenties who happen to be a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf?  How can that ever fail?  :uhrr:

The UK version of Being Human was pretty good. That's no guarantee they won't go ahead and fuck up the American version like they did Life on Mars though.

Yeah, Being Human was very good, think I missed the last few though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLN0HSVjbfk

You haven't seen the underworld movies, have you.

There were ghosts in that one?

The ghosts were supplied by the audience jabbing knitting needles into their brain in order to ease the pain.

The only thing I remember about those movies is Kate Beckinsale

She was so hot in the first one, and then I caught part of another one and she blimped her fucking lips. What a numb tart.

She was in Whiteout though:

I'm turning this into a Kate Beckinsale thread. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74kIRvQgqj0)

Oh, it wasn't even Kate in the third one lulz

The first episode of the second half of this last season aired yesterday on Syfy. It wasn't half bad either.

No, I liked it, despite a few holes.

I lurrve Kate Beckinsale.

I thought Underworld 1 was pretty good, then again I'm a sucker for that kind of movie.

Also how could you confuse Kate Beckinsale with Rhona Mitra?

Wow.. they managed to even munge an episode with Rodney in it..

I have no idea what you mean, I have been enjoying this season.

Did it get any better?  I stopped watching when they cancelled it.

Meh, not really. I'm just watching because they got enough notice of the cancellation that they're making an attempt to tie up loose strings, and because I've watched all the other Stargate series so I might as well see all of this one as well.

it's bad when you can strip away every other narrative and the core story -- how do we get home -- doesn't even make sense.  Who are the Lucian Alliance?  How can they get on board (again)?  Why not put the Stargate outside?  All those plots of "stop the bad guys from getting in" was solved in mutliple SG-1 episodes.   Disappointed.

What?

Who are the Lucian Alliance?

    "They're a human coalition made up of various Milky Way planets formed in the power vacuum left behind by the Goa'uld. They're criminals, mostly... Street gangs with spaceships."
    —Nicholas Rush

How can they get on board (again)?

     They had an Icarus site. And Info from the brainwashed Colonel David Telford. They were the first group to even TRY to dial the 9th chevron.

Why not put the Stargate outside?
  
     What one are you talking about? Many have been distroyed over the years. I don't even believe earth has one anymore.


Some of this was defined in other series, some, in this one.

non-slap fight reply:  ultimately, this is just about personal taste.  But one question: Why is Destiny important again for the Alliance? 

Arms race. To quote the stargate wiki:

None of this explains why they can't just put a cover on the Stargate like they did starting in like episode 3 of the original series.  :why_so_serious:

As far as I remember, the metal of that cover in the original series is far from trivial.

Cover what stargate? The one on the ship? Lucian Alliance is not attacking through the gate on earth, they are close enough to fly in and attack the planet. AFAIK.

Alpha (Movie) Gate is the only gate left on earth, Beta was destroyed.

In the movie it stopped working by being toppled over on its face and worked again by being lifted upright and assembled again.  Any "omg it has to be a special metal" that the series introduced just makes me feel better for not having watched any of them.

Isn't the Pegasus gate currently on earth too?

AFAIK, those gate types only exist in the Pegasus galaxy.

Not when they plunged Atlantas into San Francicso bay... This is like the best nerd slap fight ever!!! Actually the thing I enjoyed most about stargate was what it said about humanity.  The Don Davis character as the general was all of us at our best. I can see why they were able to get a few actual air force members to put their faces on the show.  I think the joint chief of staff appeared once actually.

See, I missed the last few seasons of Atlantis.

Also, I'm not fighting, I thought we were discussing cannon?  :headscratch: Just pointing out that some of his questions are covered in other shows. I personally like this show, originally I did not like the drama take, and missed the humor from other casts, but i do like the mystery around the ship and such, its a shame it is over.

I'd agree sgu is a lot "darker" I hope they have a chance to fit in a fun episode before the end. It also hasn't really given the same message of "if we keep our principles and do the right thing everything will turn out ok."

Some episodes are good, some are bad, but that last one - why throw in the subplot about a place we've never heard of before (in this series, at least), who don't seem to fit into the getting them home overall plot? Was it to distract from the Rush schmoopy schmoopy scenes?

Fuck me sideways, the latest episode was damned good.

If the writing and characterization had been of this caliber even half the time, the show wouldn't have been cancelled. Hell, even the plot device worked.

I said something similar to my wife. I think what I said was "If they'd had these kinds of episodes from the start instead of the fucking 'I'm using the stones to talk to my wife about adultery' episodes this show wouldn't have been canceled!"

They really ramped up the quality of this show once it got canned.

Sounds like another Dollhouse endspurt to me. I guess I have to finish the season then. Thanks for the heads-up.

Watched the last 4 episodes, still thought it was pretty bad.  Funny how they needed to introduce humans into the local area, you'd have thought someone would have pointed out how this would never work without them, before the pilot script was finalised.

The show had so much potential to be great. Rush's faction pushing to explore, the rest trying to get home. End the series with everyone dying off after having many adventures halfway across the universe with no human antagonists outside the cast. Final shot: Rush's skeleton in the observation room with Destiny continuing its journey.

This series sucked from the second they introduced those stupid stones and just went down from there. A few flashes of interest, but crushed beneath the weight of pointless, rambling incoherence.

It just occurred to me that this was Asheron's Call 2 in space, no towns, no npc's and a real lack of content.

Because entire galaxies are completely devoid of any content.

No, just somebody cheap to stand in front of it.

I dunno. I felt they ended this pretty strong, considering how bad the show was for the most part. They started using the stones more like they should have been used, just for communication with SGC and whatnot. The stories started feeling like they had some substance to them. They found a valid enemy for them to fight. Characters started developing, well, character. They even got me to care about what happened to them.

Just a shame they didn't get around to all that until it was too late.

Rather sad this got canceled. Was growing on me, sad way to end as well.

I disagree that this was Asheron's Call 2 in space. I would agree that it's about the same caliber maybe, but if this was ac2 in space they would have nuked the terrain in episode 2, removed all perching(they would probably have to walk everywhere), then they would add in that grouping made everything tougher.

Just finished the last six episodes. I was disappointed. Way to leave it open for the movie that will never get made.