Wednesday 16 December 2009

Stargate: Universe

It's hard to sum up my feelings towards the Stargate: Universe premiere the other night. A co-worker pointed out that the premise is quite similar to Stargate: Atlantis, at least at the start. They are lost a long way from home in a place that's not theirs and is barely functional, but with access to a stargate.

I found it difficult to get involved in either the story or the characters. The story was fairly standard, and was just there to establish how the crew got lost, so no big surprises there. As for the characters, most of them got so little screen time it was hard to get a handle on them. Doctor Rush, the lead scientist, is cold, analytical and secretly very excited to be on an ancient spaceship many galaxies away from home, which all add up to everyone else hating him or at least distrusting of him. Eli, the kid genius, hardly knows what's going on and spent all his time playing with a remote-controlled flying camera.

Being the first Stargate show for a while, and following 15 seasons of the original plus the spinoff, it's got a lot to live up to. I think they can probably do it, but there's got to be more to it than in the pilot.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The further they get from home, the more power they'd need to dial Earth.
PPS - And an exploding planet was what it took to get there in the first place.

4 comments:

Miv said...

Perhaps a different perspective...

Personally I quite liked the pilot. I haven't really watched any of the other two series but decided to give this one a go.

I'm not sure what it was about this series that appealed but I felt more interested as the show progressed.

I posit then that while this series may not offer much in the way of original premise (I did think of that as I watched it as well) but instead provide an opportunity for those not as well versed in the SG fictional universe to get interested in teh franchise.

Not that I watch much regular TV these days, but if compatible I may find myself watching more of this one.

John said...

I hadn't considered new fans. Good to hear it has something to offer you. I plan on continuing to watch, so I'll probably get more hooked as time goes on.

I'm finding more people that don't watch much TV lately. Maybe it's too passive for our generation, or maybe our attention spans are shortening.

Stuey said...

It does get better, and they really focus on a core group from the people who arrived on the ship, plus the Keenos are really important to some of the stories, and so cool too

John said...

Good to know.