Television Review: Stargate Universe

It was coming and you had to say, 'Not another Stargate show'. It would seem that Stargate has a never ending run on SyFy Channel. But the question has to be, will this be worth watching?

Well having seen the opening episode, the answer is unclear. This is just another in a long string of Stargate spinoffs. But it has elements of something new and better (than the pervious Stargate spinoffs) as well. Not a lot of them, but some.

The show is focused on remnants of a dozen other sci-fi television shows and movies. Like most things from Hollywood these days, this is unoriginal rewriting of what you have already seen.

Obviously there is a huge reference to Stargate SG-1. Add to that a general feeling of the recent revisioning of Battlestar Galactica. A touch of Star Trek, a dash of Lost In Space (the television series and not the movie) too.

The show is focused around a group of people forced to run to an alien ship "several hundred billion light years from Earth". The people are a mix of techs, soldiers, mid-level bureacrats, and miscellaneous others. In total we start with 80 people and are down one before this episode ends.

The reason why they ran to this ship is unimportant. Suffice to say they beamed up to a ship on automatic pilot, that is on a mission of exploration of the Universe. They have no control over what the ship does, other than opening and closing various doors and looking at a schematic. Oh, and asking it for help.

The ship, called Destiny once translated, is 1000's of years old. It has been through a ringer, and as such has various holes in it - mostly bloclked by sealed doors and a force feild. It has air, though its air filtration system is broken after milenia of constant use. And we hit the first snafu in logic as well as the initial problem that must be resolved.

If this thing is as old as they say, and it has been constantly running, with a constant leak, how is there any air left? And how ironic that it is just enough to keep these 80 people alive for just a couple of hours before someone makes the ultimate sacrifice. Which was supposed to be dramatic and pull at your emotions, but winds up being just another plot device that you really don't care about.

But logic is not a big requirement in most sci-fi shows these days. Which is funny as that should be the most important thing in a show of this nature. Setup rules by which viewers can understand how things work in this entertaining fluff, then stick with them. But back to the program itself.

Skip to the characters. This is sort of like Gilligan's Island. We have a professor - who happens to be the morally ambiguous twin of the revisioned Giaus Baltar (Battlestar Galactica). We have a Maryanne - the daughter of a Senator. We have a Gilligan - Eli the kid who won a trip that he was never ready for. We have a Skipper - the Colonel that will run things (actually he is more like Adama from Galactica). The rest have yet to be sorted out yet.

The acting is bland at best. You really don't care about any of these people at any point in the show. You never get a sense of imminent danger or doom. If they all died you wouldn't care, and you know they won't because this is only episode one.

The writing for the show is basic. Even with lots of speeches by the major characters, you never hear anything that grabs you. The lines are by and large forgetable. Which matches the tone and acting.

The scenery is a nice Star Trek-ish warp speed rip off. And you get multiple chances to see that as the show moves along. Beyond that it is basic as well. Big box rooms with some gadgets here and there. It could easily be the extra sets of Galactica, and/or several other sci-fi shows and movies.

This has a lot working against it. But as I watched the program and caught problem after problem, I admit that I kept watching. More than once I was waiting for someone to get killed, usually because they were messing around with some alien device they did not know or wandering somewhere that has a function they don't understand.

The inclusion of Eli (Gilligan) is perhaps the most vital character at this stage. He is the viewers that haven't watched every episode and spinoff of SG-1. And thus he is told various vital items that a viewer at home would love to know. Though he also takes all of this very well considering he just found out about spaceships aliens and being on the other side of the universe in about 48 hours.

I suppose that is one of the reasons I kept watching. To see what Eli would do next. That and waiting for Baltar.. excuse me, the proferssor - Dr. Rush - to screw over everyone in the pursuit of exploration and science.

There are 2 seperate love stories in the series. There is a bunch of political and leadership issues. There are a surprising number of women, and a bit of diversity in the cast. So most general factors are covered.

Basically I think this show needs to pick up on everything by episode 3 or they will lose whomever is left after this preimere. The slow pacing, the copied characters, the overall blandness and boring acting just aren't enough to capture viewers.

Battlestar Galactica has ended

Well at least the Sci-Fi Channel (or now more accurately SyFy) revisioned version has ended. And I can’t say that I’m not happy about that.

Honestly I did not like the series. It’s not Battlestar Galactica. Some of the core elements were there, like the look of the ship and the names of some of the characters, but the heart of it was some other sci-fi show. Had they completely changed the name I might have even liked it. Though I doubt it.

Yes, I’m one of those guys that couldn’t get over the fact that the show wrecked the characters. From taking leading characters and changing their race to changing their sex, the show was about putting a new idea in an old shell. Which I dislike.

But on occasion, when I was really bored I watched an episode or 2. Mostly I watched to see one thing. The relationship between Baltar and Six. That’s it. To me they were the most interesting characters in the whole show. Everyone else was just mostly a waste of time.

So in seeing that Baltar was a messed up kid that resented his father and his past, and yet came full circle to become exactly that was interesting. To see that Six and Baltar ultimately were to be together, because they deeply love each other was a welcome end to their story arcs.

I do have to say I find it interesting that most of the surviving people were all in Africa, yet not one of them are Black. Funny how that works out.

And Kara Thrace is a ghost, or angel, or some other wacky unexplained thing. I can enjoy that since I couldn’t buy her character as Starbuck or anything else and she is gone.

It’s funny to see the series end in the way it did. I mean the very last scenes. Where the internal head Six and Baltar, rip-offs of Harvey (as in Farscape), turn out to be weak versions of The Architect and Oracle (Matrix). With a bit of quasi-religious meaning thrown in. I found it especially humorous that the Six was taking the Oracle route in proclaiming that it won’t be an endless cycle, that it will change and essentially,

“Everything that has a beginning has an end.”

Preachy and a rip-off. But that is the nature of the show. Maybe if I could have been sucked into the show I would think otherwise, but I wasn’t. I’m sure fans will have lots to say about all the characters and meanings of it all. I’m just stuck with the plot-holes and copying of other, far better, sci-fi work.

Of course it all won’t end here. This is the SyFy Channel after all. There are going to be spin-offs and other takes on the story forever. Kind of like the way that Stargate will never end. Talk about repeating forever.

Maybe the Caprica series will be good. I doubt it from what I have heard. But at least that will be a fresh start. It may be a spin-off but at least it’s not a revisioning.

At least Eureka still looks to be going forward. So far.