SGU 1.5: A different show?

[Robert Maxwell]

Recently, I went back and watched all the episodes of SGU thus far. What can I say? I was bored.

Something struck me, though, as I moved from the first half of the season into the back half. There were a lot of criticisms leveled at the show in its early episodes, and many of them seem to have been addressed by the more recent run.

Don't get me wrong, the show still has its issues, but I have noticed the following improvements in season "1.5":

* The whole Young/Telford thing with Young's wife appears to have been summarily dropped, or at least moved offscreen.
* Casual use of the stones has stopped. Instead, they're being used to bring talent on board when it's needed.
* Chloe has started to make herself useful, rather than just being something pretty to look at (and for Scott to bed.)
* Eli got to show off some of his vaunted intelligence, specifically during the "Lost" arc.
* Rush has been humanized and made into a bit less of an asshole.
* TJ got some character work. The pregnancy thing was dictated by real-life circumstances, but at least they are trying to evolve her character with it.
* Wray has become less conniving, at least on the surface.
* They finally encountered some aliens, and they're actually alien, particularly by Stargate standards.
* They've found evidence of other cultures, hopefully setting up some mysteries to be delved into later.
* The whole notion of the crew being divided along military/civilian lines seems to have been pushed aside as both factions realize fighting over the damn ship isn't going to do anything more than get them all killed.

I could go on, but I think all these things are positive developments for the series. It's almost like the writers listened to the things people complained about and actually tried to improve them. Not everything has worked out well--I am getting fucking sick of the pop music montages--but I see signs that they're making an effort to get the show on its feet and go somewhere with it.

Other than the most recent episode (the one with the hallucinogenic ticks), the back half has been pretty strong, and I'd like to take the opportunity to say so and give credit where it is due. While I'm skeptical about the end of this season and the beginning of season two, based on what I've heard, I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as the show really has made a marked improvement in terms of story direction and characterization.

What do the rest of you think? Has the show actually gotten better, or have the writers just been slipping crack into my morning coffee?

 

[JonathonWally]

Rush needs to get cranked back up to 11

They need to bring back the Young/Telford/Wife thing

And they need to bring back more of those disjointed/alien camera angles, especially the ones Peter Deluise used in Darkness and Light

I liked the feel of the show more when it was more "unfamiliar" and cold.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm all for Rush going nuts again. That shit with the pipe was awesome. But it's cool to have some more dimension to his character, too.

I hadn't thought about the camera angles. The direction has gotten more subdued, which isn't necessary.

Maybe they can find the best of both worlds--keep improving the writing, but don't lose the alien feel they had early on.

 

[JonathonWally]

They're SOL on an alien ship, keep the shit alien and scary and nerve-wracking and antiseptic.

Let's not be dumb and turn this into Stargate Atlantis 2.0

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Keep the stones away from reckless personal use, keep some of the crew tension without it exploding into silly mutiny nonsense (unless they're going to do a good job with it.)

I want the show to keep throwing alien shit at them. The first appearance of the Blue Meanies was cool, the way their ship just showed up and demanded they surrender, and the Destiny crew have no idea what to do.

I'm still waiting for them to accidentally activate a system they shouldn't and have all hell break loose on the ship.

 

[Pauln6]

Modern shows often have arcs and its tough for writers to feed into that when they never know how popular an arc is going to be until they get half way through it. Modern audiences can't have their cake and eat it and different viewers get different things from different shows. I'm happy for SGU to be a bit different and a bit more thoughtful. I think they have establshed the chararacters in the way they did precisely because they want to misdirect us about where the plot arcs are going. The stones are a good way to introduce fresh blood and expertise on an ad-hoc basis and I hope they do that more often, possibly even doing a 'permanent' personality swap story at some point to introduce a new regular character of some kind.

 

[The Wormhole]

Honestly, SGU hasn't really improved that much at all. The problem is is that the writers want this to be character drama, under some belief that character drama is what sells. The popularity of shows like Grey's Anatomy or nuBSG on the sci-fi side are generating this belief. However, I don't really think character drama is what these writers are into. We have the same basic writing staff we had throughout SG-1 and Atlantis. As evidenced by those shows, these writers are more into doing action/adventures with the occaional comedy mixed in and that is fine. It's what works, it's what they do best.

When a writer/producer is presenting something they find genuinely entertaining, it shows and the quality of the work is that much better for it. Now they're doing character drama because it's what they believe is popular, not what they find entertaining, and the result is half-assed and most of it just comes off as painful to watch.

People say that Stargate was getting stale or campy. I won't deny that SG-1 in its final season was probably my least favourite season of that series, or that Atlantis in its final few years left much to be desired. But SGU was not the solution.

Another issue: they're taking their sweet-ass time to do anything. If it's one lessen we should have learned from serialized shows like Lost or Heroes or once again BSG, get to the point quickly. The first ten episodes were literally nothing happening, S1.5 is contact made with an alien race which is virtually ignored after their first appearance. Having your show develop at a languid pace doesn't automatically make it "deep" or "intellectual." Indeed, under these circumstances it is boring. No other word fits.

The characters haven't really improved that much. Most have simply benefitted from having something more prominent to do in a 1.5 episode than they did in a 1.0 episode. I'll admit, some excellent work was done with Sgt. Greer in the episode Lost (for once character drama that actually worked) but that was undone in the episode Pain by reverting him back into a trigger-happy psycho who has no use for non-military people.

To be honest, at this point it is only because it is Stargate that I'm bothering to watch this show. And even then, it's barely Stargate anymore. Stargate was fun sci-fi action at its finest. So they ships went too fast, the aliens all spoke English and were obviously guys in suits and everything was resolved within the hour. So what? That was entertainment. Being on a ship with FTL that takes weeks to get to another solar system (ignoring the recent development where another galaxy was reached in no time), aliens who are computer generated and don't talk, and having your story stretch out 20 episodes isn't really entertainment. It's just bad television.

 

[Caliburn24]

The show has definitely been much stronger in the second half.

But I'm pretty sure the bulk of the first season was filmed and in the can before the first half of the season aired. In which case the writers and producers recognized much of the same weaknesses that fans pointed out, before the fans even had seen the episodes.

I've never doubted the intelligence of people like Cooper and Wright and whoever else is running the show these days. They've been in this business for a long time and they know what fans like and dislike. On the flip side, because they have been doing Stargate for well over a decade it is really hard for them bring anything original story-wise to SGU. Their best ideas have all been used in years past.

Right now the two things that would make SGU so much better in my opinion is to bring in a new batch of writers, maybe keep one veteran writer to ride herd and keep the mythology intact but other than that give free rein to the young guns.

Oh, and of course the second thing that would improve the show dramatically would be to drop the communication stones entirely. One day they just stop working, boom, show improves instantly.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Oh, and of course the second thing that would improve the show dramatically would be to drop the communication stones entirely. One day they just stop working, boom, show improves instantly.

I would be all for that. One change that I think would be pretty daring is to completely cut them off from Earth. Up to this point, they've been allowed to live with the illusion that they still have a viable chain of command. Young is in charge, the other military folks are under his command, and the civilians (theoretically) set the agenda.

If the stones are ruled out, then there really is no effective chain of command anymore, not even the illusion of it. Young can't go to Earth and get orders from O'Neill. Neither can Wray go talk to the IOA. Totally cut off, they would have to figure out where they really stand. I think of the stones as a bit of a "security blanket," so have that removed would really disrupt the current dynamics of the show. I would be all for that.

 

[Tyson]

SGU is still as crap as it was when it started, the writers simply don't have the talent to pull off what they're trying to do, and the result is a show that comes off like a BSG knock off.

It also doesn't help that Stargate has been campy action adventure for a decade and now they're trying to get us to buy it as a serious drama. I mean I'm all for change but come on, that's a stretch.

 

[TEH BABA]

Stargate is kinda slowyly turning into wingcommander and bsg

 

[Kpnuts]

McKay was punchable in every scene he was in during the first couple of seasons of SGA. Thankfully, they toned down his fucking pathetic attitude, and made him likeable.

Hopefully the same has now happened to Rush and they've finally learned their lesson.

 

[Harvey]

I've noticed some improvement, but things like the peculiarly motivated mutiny in "Divided," and the reversion of Greer's character in "Pain" prevent me from being overly optimistic. The writers still don't have a handle on what they're doing.

Take the aliens introduced in "Space." They've been nothing but a plot device so far (and judging from what the three-part finale is supposed to be about, we won't be seeing them again this season). We don't know what they want or who they are. People complain about the nebulous motivations about the Cylons, but we knew a hell of a lot more about them then we do the aliens on Stargate Universe at this point.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I think a lot of shows use the 1st season to kind of throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

Some shows have awful 1st seasons (TNG) and others hit the ground running (TOS).

I would like to see a little more of the 1st half of season 1's plot points picked up on though.

I don't know if I'm ready to say the 2nd half as been better. Sometimes I feel in the minority here, but I've enjoyed the whole season thus far. Really only 3 episodes have let me down.

I think part is that is because I wasn't a fan of the previous SG series (in fact I hated them) so I didn't come into the show with a lot of expectations.

I see a lot of people here who were huge fans of the previous series, and I can understand that SGU might not be what they were expecting or looking for.

I love what they've been doing, and for me the further they distance themselves from SG1 and SGA the better.

 

[1001001]

I like the show, and agree it's improving. I really enjoy the pacing, and some of the odd conflicts and situations (like Wray in a paralyzed body). In some ways, and I hate to say it, I think this is what people wanted Voyager to be. But without going overboard the other direction (are you listening, BSG??!?!?).



Now all they need to do is work Major Rack into every scene.



Sorry. I'm a pig. Oink. Oink.

 

[bullethead]

I have to admit that the way the show has developed paints the writing staff in a poor light. From the stupidity of how the crew uses the stones, the slow pacing, the boring relationship melodrama, the practical wholesale incompetence of the characters aside from a few standouts, and the abandonment of many interesting plot points, this show is in many ways a clusterfuck. I applaud the writers for trying something different, but the final product certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

The biggest problem for me is the sloppy writing. For instance, in an early episode we saw Lt. James as the spokesperson for a pretty big group of soldiers and civilians who were dissatisfied with Colonel Young's cliqueiness, yet this was forgotten by the time of the mutiny. Despite James having every reason to turn against Young for his incompetence (not including her in the chain of command, not working with NCOs aside from Greer and Riley, the suspicious circumstances of Rush's disappearance that lead to his capture by aliens, not giving the civilians some latitude in what they can do, etc...), she obediently follows orders instead of refusing or joining in on the mutiny. Not only that, but Eli sides with Young despite his misgivings over spying on everyone, instead of trying to stay neutral or being conflicted.

Then there's the whole thing with the aliens. It takes about seven episodes from seeing their tracking ship detach from Destiny to the crew finding out that there are aliens in the galaxy and Rush being stranded there. Then the next episode, which happens a few hours to a few days after the last one, has the aliens show up in their badass ship and kidnap Chloe, which is kind of lame but make sense as the aliens would want to gather as much intel on Destiny's new crew as possible. Then Young orders Eli to open fire on the ship after finding out Rush is on it and the aliens run away. The next episode, the aliens come back and attack Destiny in an attempt to capture the ship, probably banking on Rush's low opinion of Young; Eli saves the day by pointing out that Rush is right about letting the automated defenses handle things. Then two episodes later, we're teased with an all out ship invasion, which we've been primed to receive with the aliens coming through the gate scene in the S1.5 trailer, and it never happens because Franklin does some shit in the chair and the Destiny jumps to FTL at five minutes before the end of the episode, leaving the aliens behind in their galaxy never to be seen again. And that whole cool looking invasion of Destiny turns out to be a hallucination in the following episode, whose only redeeming points were Rush freaking the fuck out, Greer hunting Rush, and Rush beating the shit out of Wray, Greer, and Scott with a screwdriver and a pipe.

 

[TEH BABA]

I like the show, and agree it's improving. I really enjoy the pacing, and some of the odd conflicts and situations (like Wray in a paralyzed body). In some ways, and I hate to say it, I think this is what people wanted Voyager to be. But without going overboard the other direction (are you listening, BSG??!?!?).



Now all they need to do is work Major Rack into every scene.



Sorry. I'm a pig. Oink. Oink.

Thats lt juggs.

 

[The Habs Fan]

It's almost like the writers listened to the things people complained about and actually tried to improve them.

Most of the episodes of Season 1 (all 20 episodes) had been filmed before the Pilot had even aired. I guess they saw these problems themselves and corrected them.

 

[Star Wolf]

It's almost like the writers listened to the things people complained about and actually tried to improve them.

Most of the episodes of Season 1 (all 20 episodes) had been filmed before the Pilot had even aired. I guess they saw these problems themselves and corrected them.

Gay and disabled rights activist started screaming bloody murder as soon as the first drafts of the Sabotage script got leaked.

The question is did a tweak job occur or did they really use the entire first half of the season as "verse" building hoping for a payoff according to some five year plan like Babylon 5 had.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It's almost like the writers listened to the things people complained about and actually tried to improve them.

Most of the episodes of Season 1 (all 20 episodes) had been filmed before the Pilot had even aired. I guess they saw these problems themselves and corrected them.

At least that would mean they are self-aware and paying attention to what they're doing, which is a good sign.