The Stargate Franchise - A First Timer's Watchthrough

My wife and I gave Universe up after 6 episodes

 

OK, context: Stargate Universe was being planned as Battlestar Galactica was winding down. While never a big ratings winner, BSG was a critical darling that brought a lot of attention to the network, so they were casting around for a new show to fill that gap. As the ratings for the Stargate shows had been declining (as they do in long running franchises), SciFi went to the producers and worked with them to create a Stagate show that was more in line with the current zeitgeist (more character focused, modern music, more cinema verite style camera work). The result of that is Stargate Universe. Personally, I like it, but I get why others don't since it is a radical departure from the established look and feel of the franchise.

 

While I am liking SGU, it's so different in scope that I think I can already say it's my least favorite of the 3. It feels like Battlestar with an occasional use of Stargate just so it can match the name. I like the character drama, but these characters are just not up to what was seen in SG-1 or Atlantis. Those were memorable characters. These I probably will forget a few weeks after I finish the series.

 

SGU was ahead of its time. I know how stupid that sounds but it’s the only one of them that’d do fine if it came out today. SG1 and SGA haven’t aged as well.

 

Why haven't they aged well? Because they are less dark than SGU? I found SG-1 and Atlantis just fine and I wish more shows like them were on today.

 

Ironically, I think SG1 and SGA would fare better now than SGU because they had the humor and wasn't as dark.

Shows and movies have gotten so dark and apocalyptic that it starts to wear on you mentally. Why would you want to escape into a world even darker than the one you live in, unless you're a masochist? Shouldn't entertainment be an escape from our lives? SG1 and SGA are fun escapist adventure shows, and are better than SGU for basically this reason.

(I did become a fan of SGU in season 2, so I'm not knocking them. I just find it the least of the three shows for me. Sort of like STAR TREK shows... I love them all for various reasons, but my favorite will always be DS9.)

 

Even for the grittiness of DS9, they still had a ton of humor and I still don't think it's as dark as people say it is. Compared to other series, sure, but there was still plenty of humor and levity to the point where it was still enjoyable to live in that universe.

 

I think I did too. The pilot was 3 episodes and I made it 3-4 after that. But then watched the whole thing on DVD during my epic rewatch several years ago.

DS9 did it perfectly, they would play baseball. Sisko left his baseball on the desk to show that he would be back. They had little things that made it not so dark and gritty to be dark and gitty.

 

I think if Universe hadn't been canned it might have eventually become the best of all the Stargate shows. I also think the show had plenty of humor in Eli and some of the other scientist. None of them were as funny as Jack or Rodney of course but the show was able to be funny. I felt like it walked the line of being edgy but not overly grim. Eli and some of the scientist always kept it from going to dark.


Jason

 

There is a time loop episode in SGU and you are only telling me this now? LOL
I guess I must have stopped watching before that.

I watch every time loop movie that comes along on my TV screen. I watch time-loop episodes of series I otherwise don't watch. I watched the X-Files one long before I watched the show, I watched the Supernatural one without ever watching the show.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I came to Stargate SG-1! For years I had tried to convince my brother to watch MacGyver, but he never did. Likewise for years he said I should watch this funny show SG-1, but I was not interested in sci-fi. Then one day he read in the TV paper that MacGyver was played by Richard Dean Anderson and thought, wait, isn't that Jack? So he told me that RDA is in SG-1, by the way.

I said, why didn't you say so sooner! I had no idea. That was somewhere in season 3. I zapped in a few times, just wanted to check what he looks like now, but whenever a Goau'ld or Tok'ra opened their mouth and spoke with this weird voice I was zapping away again.

But then season 4 and "Window of Opportunity" came along and it was the first episode I ever watched in full. And after all the fun bits were done, the scene at the end with Jack talking about his son, and them showing Sam's reaction, closing her eyes in sympathy, that's when I became a fan as I realized these people are caring for each other.

My local video library had a sale of old videos around the time so I was able to get some season 2 ones as I did not want to wait for TV to start from the beginning. Two episodes per video. DVDs did not exist yet.

Man, I'm old!

At a German convention Michael Shanks once asked why we started to watch Stargate. Was it a general love for sci-fi? Only two arms raised up. Was it a love for the Egypt mythology? Another two arms raised.

So in mock desperation he asked, why did you all start to watch Stargate?

And a room of 500 people chanted in unison: RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON!

 

Robert Carlyle really got to play two great characters almost back to back with Rush in Stargate Universe, and Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon A Time. Both were major highlights of their series.

 

The show was only planned for 3, MAYBE 4 seasons, but the basic idea was miniseries. If you can't get to the point of the show after 2/3rd of the episodes than you shouldn't be making the show.

 

IIRC, the idea originally started as a plot for a potential SG-1 DVD movie, then they began feeling there was more story material than could fit in a 90 minute to two hour movie. Then I remember when the show was on the air, the writers saying they had a "five year plan which could be condensed into two years if necessary." Which made it sound like they were padding the shit out of the show. Which as it turns out, was one of my main problems with SGU, it felt padded AF.

 

SG-1 killed(-sh) Apophis and saved(-ish) Sha're and Skarra less than a third of the way through their run. Premises can evolve.

 

Calling DS9 dark was always an issue for me, because if you look closely, out of all the STAR TREK spinoffs, it stayed truest to the original series. I can say this in one sentence.

It balanced dark and comedy.

TOS had a lot of dark if you look closely, especially given the era it was produced. A portion of the list...

1. Having to kill your close friend and Academy mate.

2. Killing the last of a sentient species to save your captain because it was salt hungry.

3. A teenager forced to live a life in exile because of powers he didn't originally want.

4. A scientist using a mind-scrubber for his own purposes.

5. A woman murdering the last witnesses of her father's genocidal doings decades earlier.

6. A man sacrifices himself to his alternate universe bloodthirsty counterpart for eternity.

And that's just the first HALF of season 1.

But TOS had a LOT of comedy, especially little scenes and moments peppered throughout.

DS9 did this in spades. They balanced the difficult, dark episodes with light, comedic episodes.

 

I think the blasé humour and complete detachment from the horrors of the modern U.S. military and politics makes it a tough sell for me to even recommend. Those aspects are a product of its time. It would need to have a knowing approach to the context, not too different to Netflix's Space Force, otherwise it would only have niche appeal.

If Apple reboot Stargate, they would likely position the Air Force as (at best) morally grey, or completely remove that aspect entirely.

 

Yeah it was I mean some of the plot was like 'What was the point of this?'. More ship, less side shit. They should have done a one and done limited series. If they wanted to continue it in the future you just end the story at season 1 and then you can just gate to the ship again down the line.

 

I read that in Jack O'Neill's voice

 

Faith

After a few episodes of action, this was a nice change of pace. I think Young is realizing how authoritarian he is and he's trying to make it work, especially with Rush. That's one of the things I am liking about him. He's very nuanced and I think he's a good person put in a really bad situation. I wish more was explained about on the planet, such as the light and the obelisk. I also would have liked to know, other than Caine, how many did Destiny actually lose to the planet. I like that they are "thinning the herd" so to speak because I still think the cast is a little bit too large. Also, I've really liked TJ this season as a stand out character, but I'm not sure how ready I am for yet another pregnancy storyline. Maybe it's just I watched Season 4 of Atlantis just a couple weeks ago and you had that whole thing with Teyla and in air date time it's been a year or two, but it might feel repetitive. What makes it more interesting is it's Young's baby.

 

This episode was interesting too because it presented the concept of aliens that can assemble stars and planets. But also, this episode had the one character who had a very spiritual perspective. I don't know if you noticed but SGU does take a more overt pro-religion stance, even showing Scott as a catholic and praying with some other crew members in one episode.