Worth watching SGU?

[Harvey]

Seasons 3-5 are generally considered to the best years of STARGATE SG-1. By season three, the show had sharpened its writing, improved its visual effects, and set a number of long-term plot threads in motion. It also helps that this was before Don S. Davis got sick and had to be reduced to a recurring role (seasons 8-10), and before Richard Dean Anderson reduced his filming time to spend more time with his young daughter (seasons 6-8, before departing as a regular completely in the final two years).

 

[MilleniumLance]

^^^ Don was awesome in seasons 7 and 8... especially in Lost City!

 

[Agent Richard07]

By season 8, it was pretty clear that RDA was phoning it in. They even made fun of that fact in the 200th episode.

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

yeah, season 7 was pretty awesome.

anubis' super soldiers
great finale

 

[Gary7]

Thank you Caliburn24, PsychoPere, and Harvey for the feedback on SG1 episodes. I'll keep my sights below season 6.


Shame about SGU...

Pilot episode...we need to find food, water and gain control of the ship...20 some episodes later...we need to find food, water and gain control of the ship.

Wow, that's really sad. A shame considering all of the resources put into making a show like that, to have it accomplish so little.

I saw the pilot and it looked really cool (around the time my living situation changed and left me without cable channels). The concept of a mysterious but more advanced alien ship heading on an unknown course... really piques the imagination. They could have done so much with this.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

The biggest overall agreement regarding Stargate SG-1 is that the third through fifth seasons are the strongest, but nothing is unwatchable. There is your expected contingent of fans who proudly proclaim the last two seasons as absolutely terrible, of course, given the cast changes. Personally, I find the ninth and tenth seasons not only decent but very strong overall, despite the near-lack of the terrific RDA.

The first season is, indeed, uneven. I actually found some of its generally more well-received episodes -- "Cold Lazarus" and "Singularity" among the worst of the entire series' run; much too forcefully melodramatic and just cheesy in execution.

You won't see that so much after the first year, and classics like "Torment of Tantalus" and "There But For The Grace Of God" keep even those early days afloat. It's a surprisingly even show overall.

 

[MPH]

Thank you Caliburn24, PsychoPere, and Harvey for the feedback on SG1 episodes. I'll keep my sights below season 6.


Shame about SGU...

Pilot episode...we need to find food, water and gain control of the ship...20 some episodes later...we need to find food, water and gain control of the ship.

Wow, that's really sad. A shame considering all of the resources put into making a show like that, to have it accomplish so little.

I saw the pilot and it looked really cool (around the time my living situation changed and left me without cable channels). The concept of a mysterious but more advanced alien ship heading on an unknown course... really piques the imagination. They could have done so much with this.

Give it time as this series is a very slow burner apparently in a few episodes time we get to find out that the Destiny is actually on a mission.

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

The biggest overall agreement regarding Stargate SG-1 is that the third through fifth seasons are the strongest, but nothing is unwatchable. There is your expected contingent of fans who proudly proclaim the last two seasons as absolutely terrible, of course, given the cast changes. Personally, I find the ninth and tenth seasons not only decent but very strong overall, despite the near-lack of the terrific RDA.

i agree with this.

you can really see the difference between the 90's of season 1 and season 10.

 

[Saquist]

I'm a SCI FI FAN.
I 've read books like Foundation, Enders Game and considerable portion of the TNG Books from the 80's with the great writing.

I enjoyed ST:V STS9 ST:TNG and ST:TOS. They all had their strong points and the a few weakness. I could not tolerate ENT.

I got into SGA first and then SG-1 and I loved both. I LOVED SGA but SG-1 was better on the writing side.

I watched SGU's first season and gave it try and I walked away with an extreme dislike. I'd rather watch Space 1999.

 

[Star Wolf]

I'm a SCI FI FAN.
I 've read books like Foundation, Enders Game and considerable portion of the TNG Books from the 80's with the great writing.

I enjoyed ST:V STS9 ST:TNG and ST:TOS. They all had their strong points and the a few weakness. I could not tolerate ENT.

I got into SGA first and then SG-1 and I loved both. I LOVED SGA but SG-1 was better on the writing side.

I watched SGU's first season and gave it try and I walked away with an extreme dislike. I'd rather watch Space 1999.

I guess you haven't made it to the second season of Space 1999 yet?

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

i'm watching S7 of SG1 and this is great. why couldn't they make SGU as good as S7 of SG1?

strong foot soldiers (super soldiers)
great villain (anubis)
new technology (anubis' tech)
great stories

they didn't need to put in all the action as i understand they wanted to move in a different direction.

 

[Caliburn24]

After season 7 of SG1 plots begin getting recycled, made even worse when Atlantis starts doing the same things. Villains never quite can match Anubis, and the originality and creativity of the franchise starts to wear out.

SGU is trying to do stuff differently, unfortunately the same writers are writing the same type of stories, just told at a slower pace with less action.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I really liked the Ori and their Priors. They were great villains.

 

[FPAlpha]

I've had 4 years of BSG and i'm set for dark, desperate SF drama shows.

SGU took what was popular and well done about BSG and remade it with a Stargate spin only to fail at getting the mix right.. with BSG the dark theme worked because of the entire background. When your race is wiped out to near extinction and you are hunted across the galaxy you can't party and make hip one-liners constantly.

Additionally BSG had some awesome characters.. Olmos as Bill Adama had a commanding presence onscreen which SGU characters lack completely.

To sum it up.. SGU clearly tried to copy the style of BSG but failed at it. I've stopped watching sometime after the first half of season 1 and won't plan on returning.

SG1 and SGA may have been campy and light entertainment (and had some pretty awful bottle episodes) but at least they were entertaining most of the times.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

No, don't watch, it's awful. Maybe now that MGM has filed for bankruptcy they'll turn Stargate over to a new creative team because the current clowns are just making a bad situation worse by moving from the fluffy, brainless approach - which they could pull off at a tolerable level - and attempting to ape BSG, without having the remotest clue how to do it.

btw, the casting seemed terrible as well. why did they choose an overweight kid for the role? surely putting overweight kids on TV and calling it 'cool' is sending out a terrible message to the youth of today where obesity is becoming an increasingly critical health problem.

The casting is terrible overall but the fat kid is okay. At least he's playing an interesting character. And he really isn't all that fat compared some some tubs of lard I've seen. Fat by TV standards is very different from fat by real world standards.

 

[Saquist]

I'm a SCI FI FAN.
I 've read books like Foundation, Enders Game and considerable portion of the TNG Books from the 80's with the great writing.

I enjoyed ST:V STS9 ST:TNG and ST:TOS. They all had their strong points and the a few weakness. I could not tolerate ENT.

I got into SGA first and then SG-1 and I loved both. I LOVED SGA but SG-1 was better on the writing side.

I watched SGU's first season and gave it try and I walked away with an extreme dislike. I'd rather watch Space 1999.

I guess you haven't made it to the second season of Space 1999 yet?

That was an incredibly....odd show for about 3 seasons and them the producers got crazier and tried to spruce it up. I thought it was hard to get into on the first season but the later seasons were...like WTH....60-ish...

To me that's what SGU is like.
It feels time oriented...in 20 years we'll be able to look back at it and say this show was stuck in it's time. Obvioualy it is because it's placed in our current time but the concepts are so...shallow despite the upbringing of the last 10 years of stargate.

 

[AJ86]

While I enjoyed them, I actually found the other two shows to be more shallow. They were fun, but nothing was ever really explored, both relationships and the sci-fi elements for the most part were just plot devices designed to get us to the action beat. I love that SGU is taking it's time, but I can understand why it's not going down well with a casual audience. The title doesn't help either, if you go in expecting an action pay-off in every episode then you're going to find the show coming up short when the real pay-off is the impact on the characters, and that aftermath. I'm unsure where I'd rate SGU among the other shows, I don't think it tops SG-1, but for the most part I find it more compelling than SGA, and I if they're to make a movie, I'd rather have one to wrap up this story when the times comes than Atlantis, and I don't think SG-1 really needs one.

Anyway back on topic... I think if you go in fully expect and sci-fi character drama that takes it's time and not an action romp you might love it. Best thing to do is a marathon of the first season I think and see if you want more at the end.

 

[Starbreaker]

hey guys, I was a huge fan of SG1 and SGA. i particularly enjoyed the space battles in both shows. i've seen the pilot of SGU and man, I really struggled to finish watching it.

does the show get better and become more action packed?

btw, the casting seemed terrible as well. why did they choose an overweight kid for the role? surely putting overweight kids on TV and calling it 'cool' is sending out a terrible message to the youth of today where obesity is becoming an increasingly critical health problem.

thanks

David Blue is not overweight. Go check out his website. He probably doesn't weigh more than 220 lbs. He's still wearing that oversize You Are Here t-shirt and is in poor lighting for most of the episode. He's lost some considerable weight since the pilot.

And it's not like he's the only person not a stick figure on TV.

 

[PsychoPere]

^ An excellent comparison, in fact, would be almost any of his scenes onboard Destiny with his Earth-based scenes in "Cloverdale."

 

[Saquist]

While I enjoyed them, I actually found the other two shows to be more shallow.

You may mean shallow as less meaningful in the personal interaction. I mean SGU is actually morally shallow as a show but on top of that the characters aren't being developed at all.. It caters to the negative humanism.

What is meaningful?
Meaningful is...issues like Jack's son death by his own hand gun. Meaningful is Teal'c having the balls to stand trial for his atrocities. Sam wrestling between her job and love, not to mention the countless decisions Hammond had to make that truly walked the line between insubordination and morality.

I've never seen SG-U or Atlantis impossibly explore up close an personal the effects of a stargate connected to a black hole with such dedication to modern physics. Time travel through solar flares, who can forget SG-1's ground hog day. What about the archaeology that was almost in every single show, you've no idea how much of that was actually real.

I mean somehow you missed the depth of the show because it was entertaining and funny but it really did hit on all cylinders. And to look at SGU as though it's doing even marginally as good is mind boggling to me.

I've read deeper stories than this. Try reading Xenocide or Foundations waiting for the ball to drop...but it does and when it does...it was mindblowing and SMART. I can't say that for SGU. I don't it taking it's time. What I mind is it wasting my time.

What was the purpose in learning about Scott's past in a Church? It was just in the middle of and episode like it meant something. Why did we spend so much time with Young and his wife? It amounted to nothing...and it's repeated over and over again.
85% of what we see on screen should be dedicated to the plot but we've had entire episodes of FILLER that have nothing to do with the situation on Destiny. They spent too much time developing relations on Earth that have nothing to do with Destiny. They should have spent that time having the characters on Destiny interact.

I'm telling you this because this is why the show is doing badly in ratings. It's not because it's slow, it's because it's been slow and pointless.

TI love that SGU is taking it's time, but I can understand why it's not going down well with a casual audience. The title doesn't help either, if you go in expecting an action pay-off in every episode then you're going to find the show coming up short when the real pay-off is the impact on the characters, and that aftermath. I'm unsure where I'd rate SGU among the other shows, I don't think it tops SG-1, but for the most part I find it more compelling than SGA, and I if they're to make a movie, I'd rather have one to wrap up this story when the times comes than Atlantis, and I don't think SG-1 really needs one.

Yeah, right now SG-U doesn't even have a cult following like Alias. And worse I think the SGU-sucks compaign and a remarkable effect against the series because it was targeted at the fans so the Fans are now divided and the general public is show what I would call an "understandable disinterest"

You can't blame people for not wanting to waste and hour of their time on what may or may not be revealed in SGU when they can get much more entertainment out of dozen other shows.