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Stargate Universe
Last night I finally scraped together the two hours to watch the premiere of Stargate Universe. Since the last two series really ran their course and deserved to end, I was skeptical. At first blush it appears that the show is just Atlantis + Voyager, shot in the documentary style that practically every sci-fi show since Firefly uses. But I enjoyed it, and figured we should have a place to discuss it. The TV landscape needs more real, good sci-fi: there's not a lot of it left, even on the moronically renamed Syfy channel. But maybe this one will have a solid season. I just hope that future episodes don't have so many commercials. I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
I liked the show... but they they still need some thinking writers. Why not use a "Keno" to close the hatch?!
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
I'd still like to see a B5 feature film. Too bad that JMS hasn't been up to it since the passing of Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs. I still think that B5 is rather underrated/unknown in the general population (although it has a large following here on /.) and suspect that it could do very well at the box office with the right storyline.
I've watched a lot of Sci-Fi but I always wind up coming back to B5. It's the only series that I care enough about to invest the money to buy up all the DVDs. I can still pick up new things when I re-watch the series. How do you go wrong with characters like Londo, G'Kar and Garibaldi?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Who still wastes their time watching commercials?
Dr. Nicholas Rush seems to just be playing the part of D. Zachary Smith from Lost in Space.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
Yeah really, luckily I watched it via DVR after it had started recording for at least 40 minutes before I began watching it. I haven't seen so many badly (and annoying) placed commercial breaks in a pilot airing since the Star Trek: Enterprise premier. After getting a 720p torrent of the show and then watching it again, it is far more enjoyable (Thanks SiTV!).
This space is not for rent.
I don't get why Firefly was canceled. It was popular among geeks and trend-setting. It even had the potential to be the next Star Trek-like franchise. I suppose bean-counting overrode "buzz". They didn't give it time. Shame
Table-ized A.I.
All the contrived, pointless tropes of Stargate with none of the cheeky self-deprecating humor.
Also, Gaius Baltar has no place in the Stargate Universe. Honestly, practically every sentence that came out of Robert Carlyle's mouth it felt like he was being fed his lines by an invisible woman in a red dress. Only he wasn't. His character just has zero definition, and there's no way to sympathize with him.
Sadly, it's all we have.
I don't have any official source for this, but just from watching the show, it seems like anything requires a little bit of a "push" to move through the gate. I suppose if the wind was blowing directly to the gate they could get some fresh air. The problem is, they are in another galaxy and don't know any of the gate addresses for that galaxy. I don't even know how they are going to get back to the ship after they arrive on the planet in the next episode. How do they know the symbols to use to get back to the ship?
It was on Fox.
I wish it was more complicated, but there it is. US network TV has no patience for a new show, especially Sci-Fi or Fantasy. If it doesn't get good ratings (top 3 in time slot) within its first month, its more or less dead in the water.
I didn't like it. Seemed as if they rounded up the disfunctional people; from military personnel with discipline issues to an MMO geek who's living with his mom (who seems like a Wesley Crusher stand in for the show), and decided they'd be an exciting group of people to sail across the universe on a ship that's about as functional as its crew. I find the makeup of the "crew" absurd, and expect they'll spend the time SG-1 would have used to explore the galaxy, make friends, and fight bad guys to backstab each other and generally angst their way across the universe. Say what you will, but with Jack, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel doing their job, I felt like the people of their universe could at least know they had quality people on the line. Even the Atlantis group seemed to be made of folks with extraoridinary levels of competency in their fields. These guys...well...these guys open sealed doors with flashing red lights on busted up spaceships.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
I have not seen this show. But it is likely one of two things.
1: its an outgoing wormhole? stargate wormholes are one directional, with the exception of a feedback signal from the destination gate.
2: its programmed into the bios of the stargate to filter what goes through. The standard programming prevents atmospheric pressure from venting through the gate for a variety of reasons (some gates are miles below the ocean at huge pressures and some are in the vacuum of space)
I downloaded the 720p High Definition Bit Torrent version Saturday morning and watched it with commercial free with my friends that evening.
The SiFy logo and animated banners, however, are still annoying.
I though that the Dr. Rush taking control was actualy more pragmatic on his part. He wants to see what is out there, at any cost. This can be seen before they leave in his disappointment in Eli want to to go eat instead of work, and dialing the gate even though it means they will probably be stranded. He tries to take control to make sure they stay out there, instead of going back right away, if they could. as he "knows" they can't dial back from the milky way galaxy. At least that's the way I read it.
Stargate worked because of Macgyver. His wry humor made it easy to take the logic faults of the show. Tilc also evolved into a very interesting character.
But in the end, it was Macgyver who made Stargate. If Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't end up being as wooden as Edward James Olmos, I'll be (pleasantly) shocked. The good space shows need to have an actor who can portray inspirational leadership. People would follow Macgyver, Kirk, Picard, or Janeway anywhere. Avery Brooks and Scott Bakula, not so much.
You forgot Eureka! If genre mixing shows like Lost and Dollhouse get included as sci-fi, then so should Eureka.
a better way is to build a mythTV box and simply let it strip out the commercials.
far better to watch it in HD on my 42" plasma than the tiny 22" monitor on my computer at a less than SDTV resolution from HulU.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are many things that make B5 awesome, but the single most compelling reason for its awesomeness is the cohesive storyline. It is the only video (tv/movie) that feels like you are watching a book. Great arc episodes, fantastic writing of dialog, and growth of characters that you have never seen before make it unique and memorable in TV history.
The StarGate Universe however has always felt like a high-school writing class in comparison. SG:U could develop into a good show, and as my TV sci-fi choices are limited I will watch it.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
It detracts from the ratings. Unlike movies, where they claim torrents steal money from their pockets, shows depend on their viewers. The more legitimate viewers they get, the more likely the show will stay on the air. They can watch the viewers on TV, adding in +3 and +7 for DVR counts, and find out how many times it's been watched on iTunes and Hulu, along with other websites. What they can't count is how many people have torrented the show. More people torrenting mean less people being counted, which means lower ratings, which means cancelled shows. Torrent may be great for people outside of the country who won't see it, but within the viewing areas (in this case, US, Canada, and the UK), it hurts more than helps.
What they can't count is how many people have torrented the show.
Then how do they come up with all those estimates about how much piracy is costing them?
We found a way home!!! Oh crap it didn't pan out at the last second!!!
Gilligan!
I'd agree with you, and yet struggle with the fact that the incredibly mediocre Dollhouse managed to get a second season and is also on Fox. I can't help but recall the story of Gilligan's Island and how it was cancelled as a top rated show to make room for Gunsmoke which was a favorite of someone in the programming head's family. I think more than any diabolical plot or general statement about shows that will or won't survive on TV, it comes down to literally one or two keys guys at a network liking a show - so it lives - or they don't like it - and it dies.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
You're probably of the LCD generation but go and set up a CRT with interlaced scanning and get back to us when you figure out that viewing 540-line fields is inferior to a progressive scanned image.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Wait for someone to re-edit it into chronological sequence and download it off the 'nets.
Jumping back and forth with the flashbacks was annoying as hell.
Does anyone know a free VPN server in the US that had sufficient bandwidth to watch Hulu?
Well even if they did I guess it wouldn't have sufficient bandwidth if they posted it here. Catch 22!
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Stargate worked because of Richard Dean Anderson. His wry humor made it easy to take the logic faults of the show. Tilc also evolved into a very interesting character.
But in the end, it was Richard Dean Anderson who made Stargate. If Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't end up being as wooden as Edward James Olmos, I'll be (pleasantly) shocked. The good space shows need to have an actor who can portray inspirational leadership. People would follow Macgyver, Kirk, Picard, or Janeway anywhere. Avery Brooks and Scott Bakula, not so much.
Fixed it for you! Seriously, IMHO if you enjoy and respect the guy's work so much isn't it worth a minute to find-out his real name? Oh and I left the last "Macgyver" intentionally, because that sentence was clearly about fictional characters.
I watched it without reading a single review or press release. I had no expectations of what was to come. Warning some vague spoilers may be below.
Within 5 minutes it is clear that this is an attempt to graft BSG onto SG and in an attempt to milk both fan bases for the combined monetary gain. No doubt this idea seems brilliant in the board room.
But the execution is the worse of both worlds. It sucks all the fun, and chemistry among lovable characters out of Stargate and replaces it with a superficial BSG veneer of angry distrust and melodrama. Nothing is left of Stargate, but the gate mechanism and some tired cameos.
The have nothing of BSG world that made it great. Instead they assume dark, dire, angry, whiny = deep. It doesn't. It just equals annoying.
This seems like what you would get if your made your writers watch a few episodes of BSG and make a list of BSG items. Then crib the ones you can get away with (IE nothing to do with Cylons).
So we get dark dingy sets, angry distrusting characters, angry mob scenes, obligatory pointless sex scene, heavy flashback, heavy melodrama. None of the the heart and soul from either show.
After seeing this appear to be a cheap BSG knockoff a quick bit of googling revealed that they at least admit this is what they were trying to do.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/08/tca-press-tour-stargate-universe-producers-aiming-for-battlestar-galacticalevel-quality.html
"creators of "Stargate Universe," the upcoming spinoff of the long-running "Stargate SG-1," took the stage today, panelists promised a fresh, more "Battlestar"-like take on the space opera."
I am annoyed by the cynicism and lack of originality in trying to give Stargate a BSG makeover and by the end result which felt like punishment to watch.
YMMV of course. Some people apparently loved it.
Mckay was a much better stand-in for the viewer. He was sort of an aspirational stand-in, what the annoying fat gamer dude could be in the best of all possible worlds. Eli just feels like what the gamer dude actually is in this world, except he magically is a genius motivated to solve problems and not play silly games all day.
Personally, I think it's more annoying, but it probably depends on the person. As a lifelong Sci-Fi fan, the new "SyFy" name really irks me, and I suspect a lot of people here on Slashdot would agree with me. If you go ask a bunch of random people on Facebook, you probably will find they don't care.