Stargate Universe Cancelled

Torino writes "SGU has finally been cancelled, with the remaining 10 episodes to air in Spring. Apparently, the cast wasn't told ahead of time, and some of them learned of the cancellation via Twitter. SGU has had its share of problems, even spawning a community of people who dislike the show. Can it be saved via fan support, given the steadily declining viewership numbers? Do you think the show had the potential to improve?"

Comments

good

[greymond]

The Stargate series started off great, but it should have ended long before Atlantis even kicked off, let alone Universe.

Re:good

[flowwolf]

What was wrong with Atlantis? While it was airing, there was nothing better on TV. I challenge you to provide reasons why it shouldn't have gone that far.

Re:good

[commodore64_love]

Well I agree with you in principle, but not your timing. I LOVED Atlantis, mainly because of quirky characters like Dr. Rodney McKay. The last two seasons of SG1 (the Or'i seasons) were lousy but I enjoyed watch SGA.

And SGU had me on the edge of my seat for the first 10 episodes or so, but then you could tell the story writers ran out of ideas. The ship "deep in space & out of contact" setting didn't work just as it didn't work for Star Trek Voyager.

So yes cancel Stargate SG1 and SGU, but not Atlantis.

Re:good

[metrix007]

Everything was wrong with Atlantis. It was like a cardboard copy of the original without any of the soul. Shepherd was like a copy of Jack, Rodney was a stand in for Sam, Ronin was a satndin for Teal'c etc. It was worse because while the original characters were likable and had history, the Atlantis team were cliched and forced. I mean, they called the muscle guy Ronin FFS. The only original episode they ever did was when the shuttle was stuck halfway between the gate. That was it.

And what the fuck was with the last episode where they just wormholed across time arbitrarily? Why the fuck has that not even come up in SGU as a way to get them home?

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

No it hasn't.
At least not as a Stargate series.

Stargate was always about one thing.
Explore other worlds by people who want to do it by their free will.
Show how humans explore the galaxy solving riddles of great age.

Stargate Universe is basically a survival horror series.
And a bad one as well. You can see all plot twists from a mile away and
all the characters act like they are all stupid to no end, just like a old horror
movie.

Good it died.

Re:good

[God'sDuck]

My new rules of sci-fi:
 
1) Never, ever, EVER allow time travel. Every single timeline can be undone. Nothing is believable.
2) Just because the special effects are awesome doesn't mean you don't need great writing.
3) Episodic shows are sitcoms (Star Trek I), and each episode needs to stand alone in a compelling and memorable way. Progessive shows (BSG reboot) need to have a sense of progress in each episode. Using episodic episodes in a progressive shows is OK for a break, but not because you've run out of ideas for progress. If you have run out of ideas for progress, KILL THE SHOW now, on your own terms, before it is cancelled. Take a few months off, pick a new story arc, mix up some characters and start again. If you don't, be sure to buy lunch for your writers so that they will proofread your resume at the end of the season.

Re:good

[skids]

"What was wrong with Atlantis?"

1) Dreadlock surfer-dude badass strained credibility -- and ability to suppress gagging
2) Villiains stolen wholesale from Earth Final Conflict's Season 5 -- incidentally the worst travesty of a final season till she ruined Andromeda, too.
3) Once you thought the lame humanoid replicators were finally gone, here they come again! (Bring back the legos!)

Re:good

[interkin3tic]

My opinion: the first series' only asset was an oddly funny MacGyver faced with alternate realities, usually having to shoot his way out. The show really seemed like a one trick pony. Without MacGyver or the humor, what do you have? Sliders with alien gods that are incredibly advanced but somehow so incompetent that they always lose to 4 people with guns?

Re:good

[commodore64_love]

I can tell you never watched beyond the first few episodes (but I'm just guessing - could be wrong). Yes SGA was pretty "blah" to start but it got better towards the end of the season, and seasons 2,3,4,5 were almost as good as SG1's first five seasons.

I especially liked the concept that the Bad guys were humans that had been bitten by a bug, and the two genes intermingled to create a new species. I also liked learning more about the Ancients, the further development of the replicators (which were an invention of an Ancient scientist), and the exploration of ascension.

SG1 fell into the trap of being a war show, but SGA was free to explore a new idea in each episode (like reading a Short short anthology). Reminded me of the greatness of Star Trek DS9 or the original trek.

Re:good

[Tiger4]

I liked Universe, but they could have skipped Atlantis altogether.

There are only so many times you can go to the formula well and pull up a winner. And apparently the "fans" punish you if you decide to try a different formula. One where characterization and plot and growth and unpredictability actually mean something.

Re:good

[pooh666]

It is people like you that made BG a horror.

Re:good

[arth1]

What was wrong with Atlantis? While it was airing, there was nothing better on TV. I challenge you to provide reasons why it shouldn't have gone that far.

One reason is that, like BG, it turned into a soap, where character interaction became more important than plot and vision.

Re:good

[flowwolf]

They cover the time travel wormhole physics in the final SG movie. You can't just rewrite the time line because the people in alternate time lines are separate people. The original stranded time line of SGU would still be stranded. Ronin and Teal'c are nothing alike. The back stories are richly different. Almost every character in the show had depth and development through out the entire season.

I don't think you truely understand what makes characters flat or developed. Cliche Ronin may have been, but cliche's are a powerful literary tool and carry much weight with them.

Re:good

[lennier1]

The fact that said horror show also felt as if written by soap opera writers didn't exactly help either.

Re:good

[elrous0]

It's people like you that make scripts and acting tertiary to FX and big, cool 'spolsions!

Re:good

[metrix007]

I *loved* sliders until they killed the professor and introduced the Kromags. A damn shame to see a show gone so wrong.

Re:good

[Z00L00K]

I would say that SGU was at least something different from Atlantis, but it also looped back on itself. It's a closed environment that is hard to develop.

But in a way it's more psychological than action. Unfortunately the writers have never been able to keep the tension for the viewers right. Too much negative feelings.

And SGU is certainly not for the same audience as the original Stargate series. It's completely different. And I think that the "stones" feature where the minds are swapped between Earth and the starship is just degrading the story rather than improving it. I really dislike the parts where someones mind is transferred to Earth, it just blows the suspension completely.

However some kind of communication with Earth could have been a good feature, just ordinary voice/video would have done better. More viewer suspense and a broader spectrum of acting and more progress with the ship would have pushed the story forward a lot more.

Mind - you can do a lot of good stories with only a few special effects and simple costumes. And SGU at least have mostly simple costumes aside from a few aliens.

Re:good

[Opportunist]

It was worse than that, if you ask me.

There's like a billion generic sci-fi series today. So you have to have a twist in yours to make it interesting. The whole "Ancient Egypt Gods travelling through ancient world gates" angle worked great for Stargate (the original). It was great Sci-Fi without a lot of space opera. Their main angle, at least for me, was "plausible today sci-fi". You could believe it, stretching your imagination a bit. Usually, when you try to place a sci-fi setting into our current reality, you're facing a few plausibility loopholes. How comes no amateur astronomer finds the space ships? How do you mop up and hide all the fights happening on earth (after all, what's a sci-fi show without lasers?)? How do you keep governments from wanting all that spiffy alien technology and using it against other countries?

Stargate solved all that pretty well, originally. The Stargate is hidden in an underground base, and traveling to other planets is done through that gate, where we conveniently also place all the fights. Great solution. Nice plausibility.

It went downhill when, for some godaweful reason only the script writers could explain, we had to add starships. Why? We had a formula here that worked and that was refreshingly different from the usual "aliens vs. humans, fighting a battle in space" generic formula.

Seriously. The series died for me a long, long time ago. When the "explore strange planets and fight the Goa'uld" formula was replaced with "oh hey, let's have space battles".

Re:good

[Rick Genter]

Not to be a total geek, but:

In SGA, the "Pegasus Galaxy" is supposedly about 3 million light-years from the Milky Way Galaxy.
In SGU, the Destiny is supposedly 7 *billion* light-years from Earth, or ~2300x as far.

So the Wormhole Drive would have to run for hours instead of seconds....and as we all know, the dipolarized unobtanium that powers it goes supercritical if used for more than 30 seconds and destroys the universe, so SGU *obviously* couldn't have used that... ;-)

Re:good

[ph0rk]

No it hasn't. At least not as a Stargate series.

Stargate was always about one thing.

Sucking as hard as possible with sophomoric humor and mediocre rehashed music? A solid B- sci fi show, sure, but really not that great.

Just because there aren't a lot of A level sci fi shows doesn't mean we should worship a mediocre one.

Re:good

[Rick Genter]

traveling into the future is, from a narrative standpoint, fucking boring.

Actually, Futurama handled this really well. Just go forward until you loop through the next Big Bang cycle. Then stop moving forward when the new universe it up to the point in its history where the old universe was and where you want to change things. Oops! Missed Hitler; quick, fast forward to the next cycle!

Re:good

[i_b_don]

Yeah, but i'd rather have a mediocre one than none at all. Now granted, I don't watch much TV, but the last time I looked, the SyFi channel just played Ghost hunter bullshit. Where the hell IS good Sci Fi?

I for one enjoyed the Stargate series. It's not exactly deep.... but if you've seen today's TV lineup, it doesn't appear that "deep" sells these days, if it ever has.

d

Re:good

[GooberToo]

And here is your geek card!

Stand proud!

Re:good

[omnichad]

I really don't find the addition of starships to be a huge problem or all that forced. It was also always a story of the underdog Earth, beating the odds using technology that they don't understand. The one planet among many that overthrew their oppressors even in ancient Egypt. think it would be harder to believe that the military DIDN'T try to build fighters and starships, especially with the looming thought that Earth is now a target.

Re:good

[Abcd1234]

where character interaction became more important than plot and vision.

Yes. God forbid one should build a show based on character interaction...

Let me guess: you're a B5 fan, aren't you?

Re:good

[lgw]

The space ships didn't bother me until parhaps the final season, when they had started to replace the "go through the stargate an discover something" theme entirely. I really liked the fact that the setting evolved in SG1. We started capturing all this cool tech from the enemy, and we learned from it, and some of that was game-changing. I can't think of another SF show that has followed things through to some (vaguely) logical conclusion like that.

Re:good

[IgnitusBoyone]

You took a sci-fi show that was famous for not taking itself to serious and turned it in to Battlestar Galatica style drama it wasn't going to work out. Half the characters didn't trust each other which ruins the team dynamics that fans of SG-1 and Atlantis liked and while I don't think you need a single alien race to make a SG-1 series having nothing isn't idea either. I watched the show, but I can tell you I am thankful it was canceled. Maybe the show would of worked with a more Voyager style set-up, but I found the we don't even know what were looking for time and time again dulling.

Re:good

[drinkypoo]

You had to have starships because it's dumb to think that only one race would conceive of them or that everyone with them would disappear.

Re:good

[johanw]

Well, Babylon 5 comes to mind. Earth eventually learns a lot from the Minbari and something of the Vorlons to build cool new ships like the Excalibur.

Re:good

[Amouth]

I watch SGU because as you said it's the best sci-fi on the air right now..

but sadly there have been times i felt like i would rather watch Lexx just to try to figure out what the writers where thinking..

it would be the same experience as watching SGU.

although i'm sad they are pulling it i'm still more annoyed by them yanking Atlantis in two episodes with zero warning - and leaving a huge story line just sitting out there.

it all comes down to money.. SG1 did well and made them a lot of money - Atlantis took that idea and added a lot more special effects and Cost to it (i'd hate to see their costume bill compared to SG1) but adding all that didn't make the profits come in any better so it is shown as less profitable (even though it was doing well). so they cut to SGU to try and change that - dumb it down and try to pull a BSG - and they have just failed..

Re:good

[dgatwood]

although i'm sad they are pulling it i'm still more annoyed by them yanking Atlantis in two episodes with zero warning - and leaving a huge story line just sitting out there.

Really? They pulled it at the last minute? You'd never know it from the way the show ended. I sort of expected it to end after the standard 5 seasons, just as it did. They didn't do a season-by-season contract extension for five more years like they did with SG-1, but it was pretty clear from watching the finale that they at least somewhat expected the show to end. The season 5 finale wasn't a cliffhanger like most or all the previous seasons. It ended with the wraith attack stopped and Atlantis sitting safely in the San Francisco Bay. They even wrapped up most of the minor plot lines---whether McKay would get together with Keller, who Ronan's love interest would be, etc. All in all, it felt like a really solid way to wrap up the show.

Re:good

[Dachannien]

Actually, this concept was mentioned on Lexx several years before Futurama started.

Re:good

[RLiegh]

Battlestar Galactica was sort of derp

Indeed it was, indeed it was...

Re:good

[Black Parrot]

I think what the producers/writers don't understand is that we loved SG-I because it was mostly about some lovable characters. The sequels put unlovable characters into some of the major roles, and frankly I don't enjoy watching shows about assholes.

Re:good

[dgatwood]

Voyager's ratings sucked compared with previous Trek shows. On a broadcast network, in an era when cable networks were only beginning to gain steam and cut into the networks' ratings, it got barely 2.1 million viewers on its next-to-last episode (the lowest rated episode for that series). Stargate Universe is doing almost that well in a much more fragmented market and on a cable-only network with many fewer potential eyes. Voyager was a flop by comparison. It ran for five seasons in spite of its ratings because Paramount execs were scared s**tless of going down in history as "the guy who cancelled Star Trek again". It took Enterprise being a similar dog to convince them that they had worn out the franchise.

SyFy isn't canceling Universe because of poor ratings. It's one of the higher rated shows on the network, last I checked, comparable to Atlantis in its last couple of seasons. They're canceling it because NBC Universal doesn't give a flying f*** about science fiction; they know they can make ten times as much money by showing professional wrestling and absurd paranormal crap like Ghost Hunters. The same company that cancelled the first Star Trek series has once again shown exactly what they consider entertainment, and it's reality TV shows, paranormal shows, and other such dreck.

I say screw 'em. By pushing science fiction fans away, NBC Universal is sealing their fate. Science fiction lovers, being highly technically savvy, are far more likely to find a way to make internet distribution work, eliminating unnecessary middlemen like the NBC Universal and going straight to the production companies (mostly in Canada). Once such a model is proven to work for one genre, it will only be a matter of time before the other genres follow, and dinosaurs like NBC Universal will shrivel up and die. No great loss.

Re:good

[captjc]

Then again, I kind of like anti-heroes, like Dr. House, Rick Deckard and Thomas Covenant.
And even well-developed antagonists like Dexter Quinn and Angus Thermophyle. As long as I get a glimpse into why the characters are as they are, it gives me much more than any number of goody-two-shoe heroes or one-dimensional Bond villains.

And you don't like B5? The characters are well written flawed human (ok, aliens too) characters. It takes a very different approach from Star Trek where you have the best and brightest solving problems or as someone put it "A bunch of pleasant people going happily about their day." The leads of the Captain and Ambasador Delenn kind of followed the old formula, though Bruce Boxleitner's character was way more colorful. We also have An XO with daddy issues who starts coming off as Mrs Chekov with a hatred of telepaths (especially one played by, ironically enough, Mr Chekov), a Doctor who was a hippie Galactic hitchhiker who becomes a drug-addict and Two security chiefs with questionable backgrounds, one of who is easily the most likable character suddenly turns into an asshole then into villain. The best parts of the show were Ambassadors G'Kar and Londo. G'Kar journeys from a character fueled by anger and revenge against Londo's people to a spiritually filled holy man advocating peace. Londo is the most tragic of all of them as he does many questionable things and downright horrible acts with the best intentions of helping his people.

Even the Villains are very morally ambiguous. The main antagonists, The Shadows, are not evil and have the best intentions in mind by doing horrible things--using chaos and conflict to spur survival of the fittest. Hell, the Vorlons and the Shadows later come off more as squabbling sibblings fighting over the best way to take care of their pets. Then we have one of the best Sci-fi villains, Bester. A Man who will do anything for his fellow telepaths but has little regard for human life as he sees them as we would see monkeys. In a place where the Psi-corps is Mother and Father, one can see why.

Babylon 5 is far from a Black and white world. I see it more as Star Wars meets the West Wing. Everyone has their own agendas and many will do what is necessary, good and bad, to complete their objectives. BTW, Season 1 is very slow, but season 2 onward is where it really comes into its own.

Yay. more money for mansquito II!

[skids]

Seriously, it was no BSG, but other than Caprica, what exactly does SyFy have going for it now?

A watered down remake of a barely-two-year-old BBC series (Being Human) which will lose all value without the fun accents?

And

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing of value was lost.

bad writing, bad acting.

[Anonymous Coward]

shitty characters who make stupid decisions (e.g. not dumping nerve gas into the ducts when your ship is being overrun with superior forces ? wtf? this guy is a general ?, leaving your only scientist with any knowledge of ship systems stranded on a planet ? etc), crappy acting and dumb dialogue, shitty plot.
kill that show and bury it.

Re:bad writing, bad acting.

[Manos_Of_Fate]

wtf? this guy is a general ?,

He's a colonel. And the show's basic premise was "these are the wrong people in the wrong place".

Re:bad writing, bad acting.

[GooberToo]

That's a great premise to defend some of the horrible writing, but it quickly breaks down once you apply even a modest amount of critical review.

He's such a wrong leader that he's been selected to travel to one of the most important events within a super secret, most important project known to man kind. Really? In such a situation, even the worst would still be far better than average - and most here border of flat out ineptitude.

In that situation you might have people make decisions which seemed bad after the fact, but these are bad decisions both before and after for absolutely no reason other than to create a poor story in hopes of hiding a poor writing style.

I actually believe most of the acting is okay. The primary problems I've seen is when the actors have had problems choking out some of the horrible lines and idiotic sub plots.

Universe could have worked if they had decided that details such as plot and story arch mattered. But rather than do that, they decided that they'd be dumb and trendy and follow JJ Abram's poor plot style; which fails to deliver almost every time. Ultimately, the "just make shit up every episode and the viewers will believe you're really fucking deep and mysterious", is what ultimately doomed Universe.

Re:bad writing, bad acting.

[Tiger4]

and that was a great premise. "Everybody into the lifeboat, we'll deal with the other problems later!"

That sets the stage for all kinds of good interaction and dynamics in the crew. Which I thought were playing out pretty well. the main leadership had worked up a truce in hostilities, the secondary characters had mostly worked out their personal frictions and hook ups. Then the writers had the option of playing on those notes again, or introducing new external threats. Which they did.

A bit too much recycling of soap opera style plots, but in the end a good mix of character development, external threats, and sense of unknowns. A multi-faceted adult sci-fi show, with some T&A for the fanboys. But apparently not formulaic enough.

Re:bad writing, bad acting.

[ArhcAngel]

You've hit the nail on the head but failed to realize that this is probably EXACTLY how real humans would act in this situation. It's like a fiction reality show. Don't tell me you have never been faced with a situation where you had a right and wrong decision and you chose the wrong decision for personal/emotional reasons. Smokers do this every day. Hell I'd beat the snot out of Rush myself on a regular basis just for recreation. I must admit I was off-put by the first season but the recent episodes are starting to gel better and they actually have a "mission" even if it is chasing after ancient static noise. I think they should give it at least one more season to flesh out all of the plot elements they've set in motion to see if they can improve viewership. I mean are there actually that many people watching these ghost shows?

Re:bad writing, bad acting.

[omnichad]

When nothing changes from episode to episode, it's easy to have a 5 year story arc. The first few disaster survival episodes were interesting, but draining to watch. Then there were mostly episodes where nothing important happens, followed by a crappy music video. Then, at the beginning of the end, they come up with a plot. The funny thing is, when you want to make the show about the characters, you need to give them something to react to, AND have an outcome. Essentially, you still need a plot.

It was just okay

[elrous0]

Heavily influenced by the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, SGU felt much more "adult" and real than any previous SG series (some of which were just downright hokey). And the characters and actors (especially the always-reliable Robert Carlyle) were interesting and pretty well fleshed-out. But the stories were a little weak and it was only moderately interesting viewing. Like Caprica, it kind of felt like Battlestar-lite. And at least Caprica had a powerful pilot. SGU never really had a stand-out episode. It was just sort of there, sort of mediocre. With a great cast, a decent premise, and okay writers--it certainly had the *potential* to be a lot better. But I suspect that if it had stayed on, the Scfy inclination wouldn't have been to smarten it up--but quite the opposite, to go for more action and tits and less character development and moral dilemma.

Re:It was just okay

[PhxBlue]

Heavily influenced by the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, SGU felt much more "adult" and real than any previous SG series (some of which were just downright hokey).

Only if, by "adult," you mean "emo."

Re:It was just okay

[AfroTrance]

The BSG 'style' that was used in SGU is lame. Dark lighting, shaky cameras, overly melodramatic, unrealistic pointless interpersonal dilemmas, etc. I only saw the pilot of SGU and it was like an episode of Days of Our Lives in space.

Re:It was just okay

[Have Brain Will Rent]

I agree that SGU was more adult. It had better acting, 3 dimensional characters and plots that weren't totally linear. That's why the ratings were so bad - if it is any guide take a look at the comments on Episode World... almost all complaints were that there wasn't enough shooting and there was too much "soap opera" and "drama" (I guess that's the term for anything involving emotions). The real problem is that most of the SF audience is juvenile - and I don't mean physically.

Yes it had some problems - most shows have growing pains. But I think it was the best of all the SG series. The people were more believable as real people. There was none of the virtual invincibility displayed by the characters of other SG franchises every time some technological problem was faced.

For example compare Rodney McKay to Nicholas Rush. MacKay was completely two dimensional - I think the actor playing MacKay did a great job with what he was given but the character was ridiculous. Rush was more believable as a human being, had motives that weren't completely transparent, showed a bit of the dark side of human nature etc. Or compare Rush to Carter on SG1... same thing, Rush is far more interesting and believable.

Remember the scene where Rush has been abandoned and regains conciousness to look up at the alien night sky, all alone half way across the universe. Great scene - it wasn't hard to imagine how you would have felt in his place. Yes I wasn't impressed when I found he had gotten off the planet and how but I can't think of anything as good as that scene in any of the other SG franchises. Given a bit more time to mature it could have been a great show. Oh well - RIP SGU.

it was getting better

[ShaggusMacHaggis]

I do think it was trying too hard to be Stargate: Galatica , however it was getting better as this season went on. I think it's a shame that SyFy seems to be cancelling all of the 'serious' shows.....they are left with only the super-cheesy shows (like Eureka, Warehouse 13, Haven...all got renewed..I don't understand how anyone can watch Haven...it's awful) - these cheesy series, along with their b-movies seem to be the only shows that get ratings. It's a shame.

Re:it was getting better

[Surt]

I'm pretty sure it's all about budget. From what I hear the budget on a Eureka/Haven is 10% of the cost of a SGU. That's a drastically lower threshold for advertising profitability. The cost / episode of WWE is even lower.

Re:it was getting better

[elrous0]

Every time I've tried (God knows I did try) to watch Eureka, all I could do was feel sorry for the cast. Poor Joe Morton went from great roles in movies like Lonestar and Terminator 2 to that turd--what a sad way to end a career. The premise of the show actually wasn't that bad. But the dialogue, writing, and some of the acting were so horridly, horridly godawful that most of its laughs were unintentional. I think the final straw was when they brought in poor James Callis. Yet another actor capable of so much more who has been wasted on that altar of shit.

Re:it was getting better

[MoldySpore]

Agreed. It was getting better. The direction they have been going for the last 5 or 6 episodes was shaping up to become a really good show. What is SyFy's problem? They have shit ratings on all their other TV shows...not sure why they can't let the show try to live up to its potential.

I am so confused. It seems as if there is this unspoken rule about Sci Fi shows (on any network) that if they don't pull down the MOST AMAZING RATINGS EVER IN THE HISTORY OR SCI FI it gets cancelled, usually before any kind of resolution to the storyline can be gracefully made. This really pisses me off.

Re:it was getting better

[Jahf]

Agreed. This was the last show on SyFy I cared to watch. It wasn't great but it was better than the other shows that tried the "ship stranded away from earth/home" storyline. This was the only one of those types of spin-offs I actually enjoyed watching. Oh well.

HBO has suffered lately too, which was the other channel I really enjoyed weekly (Rome, Sopranos, etc). I pretty much don't have any story arc dramas left to watch.

Re:it was getting better

[l0ungeb0y]

What's wrong with Eureka? it's a fun show that doesn't take itself too seriously, I always viewed it as a sci-fi sitcom.
Granted, I haven't seen the last season since I cut cable in favor of streaming, but seasons 1 - 3 were ok by me.

About time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched every episode of SG1 and Atlantis, and I couldn't stand SGU. It had way too much drama, infighting and incompetence to be an enjoyable series.

I think they were trying to make something like Battlestar Galactica, but forgot to add a plot.

Re:Yay. more money for mansquito II!

[Nadaka]

Pro wrestling and 7 flavors of fake reality ghost hunting shows.

I can answer that question for you:

[Weaselmancer]

Can it be saved via fan support, given the steadily declining viewership numbers?

Firefly.

If the rabid Firefly fans couldn't resurrect that show, then you guys don't have a prayer.

That being said, I welcome you all as brothers and sisters and feel your pain. You can't take the sky from me.

Re:I can answer that question for you:

[LoyalOpposition]

Well, there was always the question of where Book learned so much about crime. And shooting. And hand-to-hand combat. Then there was the question of why Inara would leave the, supposedly lucrative, inner planets for a ship filled with miscreants. And what was in that hypodermic. And whether she had a way to keep from dying. Then there was the question of whether Malcolm would ever return to his Christian faith. And how he really felt about Inara. And whether he could get a steady source of income when seemingly every one of the border planets were against him. And why he entered the war. Then there was the question of why Jane seemed to get along so well with Book. And why he sent so much money home to his mother. And whether he could ever respect Simon. Then there was the question of what the Hands of Blue represented. And how the Blue Sun corporation was involved. And what exactly they were doing with River. Then there was the question of whether River would ever get well. And find true love. And live a normal life. And how Kaylee's relationship with Simon would work out. And whether Saphron would come back. Or Jubal. Or Badger. Or Niska.

I'm thinking they could have made it through season two.

~Loyal

Re:I can answer that question for you:

[EdIII]

No shit.

I kind of like SGU, but it is no FireFly. Not by a long shot. Acting was superb on that show. Characters developed well, you really cared about them all by the end of the season. Everyone pulled their weight on that show. Then there were the sets and the production value. That always blew me away. Better than Stargate Atlantis by far, and that is saying something.

If it came down to a choice... FireFly.

Re:I can answer that question for you:

[Fnkmaster]

Man, reading that list just made me sad that they never made a second season. I enjoyed the Serenity movie thoroughly, but there was so much more to be done with this show. I figure two more seasons before it jumped the shark.

On the other hand, I'll never have to hate the show or become disgusted with what it became like I have with so many other shows that had good first seasons then went down the crapper. In fact, maybe the *reason* so many of us still love Firefly so much is that it didn't get crapped on in later seasons, with played out plotlines, bored writers, and desperate attempts to keep things interesting.

Re:I can answer that question for you:

[H0p313ss]

Firefly.

If the rabid Firefly fans couldn't resurrect that show, then you guys don't have a prayer.

I'll call your Firefly and raise you one Farscape.

Firefly > Farscape > Waterboarding > SGU

I guess I'm the only one who's bummed.

[type40]

SU premiered right when I needed it. I had just moved to a new city half way across the county to be a Police Officer in a pretty rough area. I kind of related to the whole being away from family/ friends and not knowing if you were going to see them again.

Watching SU Saturday mornings on Hulu was one of the little things that kept me sane.

Latest episodes getting better

[lp_bugman]

The first season as plain wrong and awful. Watched 2x9 and 2x10 last night they are getting much better. Now that the crew has control over Destiny and the top dogs made peace.

Saw it coming when they renamed the channel SyFy

[Winchestershire]

More proof that SyFy is well on its way to become just another SpikeTV/MTV/G4 clone. Remember when the Sci-Fi Channel showed showed Science Fiction B-Movies and TV shows (I sure miss Mystery Science Theater 3000)?

This is the 21st century for Frak's sake

[Mindragon]

How many more? How many more uncompleted series, idiotic product placements and other Brainwashing Network TV Executive decisions are we going to face before we finally get away from the middle man? I’m probably going to disconnect my DirecTV box now because there really isn’t anything left to watch on network TV. The networks keep eliminating anything resembling creative content and continue to deprive America of some of the finest writings out there. How much longer do we have to wait before enough of us get together to form an online media company that works? I’ve got a nice monitor / computer setup. For what it costs of DirecTV for one year, I could afford a very nice Computer / Monitor setup. And if I’m patient enough to time-shift my TV, I could do the same for online content. The model would be extraordinarily affordable if folks were to band together. One million regular viewers of a TV series on network TV is laughable. One million regular viewers of online content is a smash hit. Add in some micro currency ($0.99 cents a month / viewer) and for twelve million a year, anyone certainly could put together a creative and production team that works. I don’t know why Network TV folks don’t take content and put it in web only mode if it works better. For example, SGU and Caprica maybe is a better model for the online universe. That is where the audience is anyway. So put ads up on TV saying “Exclusively online”. If viewer-ship rises enough on the web then maybe transition it back to TV. Why the hell does everything need to be TV centric anymore? This is the 21st century for frak’s sake.

Re:This is the 21st century for Frak's sake

[ScentCone]

. Why the hell does everything need to be TV centric anymore? This is the 21st century for frak's sake.

Yup, the 21st century, with an entire upcoming generation that thinks everything should be free, on their terms. Your post reads like the classic meme:

1) Get idea for show
2) Get some online people together
3) Make the show using consumer electronics and desktop software
4) Remember to do some excellent writing
5) Post on YouTube
6) ???
7) Profit!

The thing you're missing is that the networks and studios risk piles of money up front when they launch a show. The cash has already left the barn, and it's buying talent, studio and production time, post, etc. Typically, all of that money is lost. Once in a great while, it pays back in the form of advertising sales. You're suggesting that it will pay back in $0.99 transactions (say, about $0.20 after transaction costs). You'd need 200,000 people agreeing to pay in order to gross $1m, and we haven't even touched on things like taxes, insurance, etc. If you're not selling advertising, you're going to need people to pay a lot more for their subscriptions, and you're going to have to do a lot to prevent your content from being instantly and widely ripped off.

Groan, SCIFI channel is clueless

[haplo21112]

I refuse to use that other stupid name.

The Series had a highs and lows, I think the thing that killed it was to much character development, not enough conflict and exploration. Its a show about going to some unknown place, but they have never gotten anywhere. And for Christ sake, turn the DAMN lights on! The Ancients could build Atlantis and the Destiny, but they couldn't equip the ship with a decent f**ing light bulb.

Only "Stargate" in title

[HikingStick]

It was such a departure from the previous two shows that it really bore little resemblance to the other two. I realize the trappings were there--space travel, alien races, military teams--but from the start the show seemed like it wanted to be more "soap opera" than sci-fi. Some have said it was trying to copy BSG. I just think it, like SyFy, was just trying to distance itself from its original sci-fi base (and, yes, that meant that the originals appealed more to sci-fi geeks than to a general audience) and reach to an audience that it assumed would be there.

Well, I guess they couldn't get a lock on that final chevron, because this Stargate is going nowhere.

Re:Yay. more money for mansquito II!

[skids]

frak.

Um.

[Jethro]

Of all the shows AciFi has cancelled (*cough*Farscape*couch*), I really don't think this is the one we actually need to save. They should never have started it in the first place, it was a pointless Milking The Franchise show. I hear it eventually got "better" but I kinda gave up on it midway through. I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters.

As someone who watched SGU regularly...

[SheeEttin]

As someone who watched SGU regularly, I can say it wasn't too bad (it was getting better), but it didn't have a theme of its own. Sure, you're on a ship, but you're not trying to get home... You're basically just along for the ride. It's not that interesting. At least be human and try to build on what you've got...

I miss the planet exploration of the old Stargates. :(

Now they can...

[Hangin10]

afford to make more than 12 Warehouse episodes a season.

I was a huge fan of SG-1, and Atlantis was better than nothing, but SGU was about to lose my interest. The reveal of the bridge ALMOST took me back in, but it was not enough to overcome the poor writing. Death of Ginn. QED.

Oh, and not to mention that the premise of them being "the wrong people" doesn't jive with how they got to be the scientists and the defense of one of the most secret bases.

Good!

[ericdano]

Ok, first, the story lines SUCKED. And they had access back to Earth. That was lame. And Eli is a terrible character acted by a terrible actor.......I so wished for him to just die......

The whole Civilian vs. Military thing in the beginning was stupid. And the whole "I lost the baby but the aliens took it"......really? Who writes this BS? It's like it was written by a 16 year old nerdy girl who's at an away camp missing her family and her female lover. Sorta like if the Twilight series author wrote SciFi (or SyFy).

So much potential and it was squandered.

Ridiculous... I hate network execs

[anlashok]

The channel had great ratings for BSG, and had a lot of potential wasted by execs that didn't understand or care about a scifi audience that built the channel up. Could have done a better budgeted B5 show, or one of the many Fox shows killed too early like Firefly. Why the heck is wrestling and ghost stories on a scifi channel?
I actually like SGU more than many of the episodes of the SGA episodes. Previous commenter was right in calling it more adult. It could be great, but NBC doesn't know what it has. Its a good money maker for a niche that doesn't have competition in the subject matter.
I'd invest in a new SciFi type channel if I could. Maybe Speilberg, Lucas, or Cameron would see the possibilities.

The A-Team

[ProfBooty]

While one must admit that SG1 did have quite a bit of the A-Team feel about it, I am unsure why SGU coopted the Stargate Name. audience expectations might have been a bit better without the history attached to Stargate fans.

I'm not sure why so many people think watching "whiney" adults who are acting like teenagers is adult content. I guess its more adult than wish fufillment fantasy, but not that much. The show might have had a better chance if they dumped the first 6-7 episodes and moved those events forward to give the show purpose.

The reasons for failure

[rar]

My take at some reasons for failure:

1. Most of their viewers identify with Eli (the slacker nerd genius), but he ended as a minor support character, often just tangentially involved in the plot. He should have been SGU's Rodney.
2. Unlike previous Stargate iterations and BSG they tried to pull off 'crew against nature' plot lines rather than 'crew against enemies' . To get such plots feel like 'action' is really hard. A lot of them (especially in the beginning) was "crew lands on planet, somehow gets stuck, must get back in time before the ship leaves". There is only so many times you can do that before it becomes repetitive.
3. Point '2' got even worse since the planets often were ridiculously uninspired, "Desert planet", "Freezing planet", "Jungle planet", etc.

All this said, I think the show was heading in an interesting direction. I'm sad to see it go.

Re:The reasons for failure

[omnichad]

Agree with all your points. Well-written. I'm definitely an Eli-identifier. I just want to point out that if it were more crew against nature than it was, it might have been better. It was really more crew vs. crew - whether militarily or romantically.
 
The problem is, Stargate SG-1 made you love the mythos. Atlantis fleshed it out. And SG-U has them on what is ultimately the last remaining legacy of the Ancients, and nobody cares. It's even less than a minor plot point. You can waste half the episode on soap opera, and still come out with a good fan base if the sci-fi storyline at least inches forward in each episode. The ship, where it's going, and what it means for those who are on it.

Re:The reasons for failure

[TheRaven64]

And number 4: They completely ignored the international market. I just checked, and there's still no region 2 DVD, even though they're half way through season 2, and season 1 finished in June. When there is, it will go straight on my rental list, and they'll make money from me. Well, it would have done - if the show is going to end in a cliff hangar then I might give the whole thing a miss (at least it will get a low priority flag in my queue so I only see it when I've run out of things that don't finish in the middle to watch).

I'd imagine most people in the UK who want to watch it have already seen torrents. Other shows manage to get out the DVD for the first half of the season during the mid-season break. It's amazing that they're in the cycle of trying to find funding for season 3, and still aren't trying very hard to make money from season 1. Quite a few SciFi (sorry, SyFy) shows over the past few years have barely broken even on TV, but made significant profits on DVD sales and rental. You'd have thought they'd have learned by now: Geeks don't like adverts, so if you make shows aimed at geeks, you make them available in an ad-free medium as quickly as possible.

Fuck Syfylis

[otis wildflower]

I hope they turn into the Wrestling With Giant Insects channel and leave room for an actual Sci-Fi channel.

Also, "History" can eat a dick, and change their name to the Ice Road Truckers network.

Plus, IFC, you suck balls with commercials now, and have no worthwhile series to show for it. I can barely tolerate or forgive AMC, and only because they have _Breaking Bad_.

Why do channels even have themes anymore? Why not just 'Network Blue' or 'Shazbot' or something stupid? TLC did that, there's no more Learning there (and I fuckin miss the James Burke series' they used to show regularly)..

Meh, who cares, the only 'network' that matters anymore is eztv.it ..

Re:Fuck Syfylis

[zero0ne]

AMC has:

Breaking Bad
Mad Men
The Walking Dead

all 3 are amazing shows and have seen some awesome highs and lows
**except walking dead, which is the first season with only 6 episodes... but it was still some of the best 6 episodes of a Zombie themed TV series I have seen)

Re:Fuck Syfylis

[StikyPad]

The Science Channel sticks to its theme, but it's about the only one. It's also relatively young at 11 years old. Soon it will experience teenage angst, lash out against the people who created and cared for it all these years, and seek acceptance from anyone who shows the slightest signs of interest.

Dr. Who

[Viewsonic]

Who would have thought that Dr. Who would be the only scifi show on the air at one point?

Where did the market go for shows like Star Trek and ST:TNG?

What is going on?

Re:Dr. Who

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we (people who like this kind of sci-fi) just started watching all of our shows online. And by online i mean torrents, not Hulu or something else officially licensed.

The epic return of Farscape!

[Narcocide]

Admit it, you clicked here hoping I could at least claim it was true.

damnit

[tibman]

Damnit syfy. It's a great show! Keep it on and make some money with it. I read that the writers already have five seasons written out with a true ending. People comparing SG:U to Galactica obviously weren't watching either show. SG:U is more like Farscape than BSG.

SG:U's timeslot was taken by WWE wrestling or something and moved to Tuesdays. Also a big portion of SG:U's fanbase doesn't watch it on normal TV. Syfy will either have to cater to mindless TV watchers or put the episodes on their website. I would pay 5-10$ for each episode as it comes out if i could watch it ad-free on my media-pc (without pirating). Having to wait 1-2 weeks to watch an episode on Hulu is stupid.. what tech-head is going to sit patiently and wait when they can torrent and watch it within 20min?

I'm actually really pissed if it's canceled. Listen to me, i'm in disbelief saying "if it's canceled". Fucking syfy.

A terribly flawed show.

[Anonymous Coward]

The characters and writing were horribly flawed from the start. They were all largely unlikeable, so why should I care what happens to them? The premise of the show was supposed to be that the wrong people got sent on this mission, and now they're all stuck together on this ship. The characters were all essentially a series of individuals with no sense of group among them. The writing was such that they constantly pitted one character against another, but none of the characters had any particularly admirable qualities. With no sense of group purpose, we're only left with individuals to latch on to.

Which one am I supposed to identify with? The megalomaniac brilliant doctor guy who's unpredictable and can't be trusted to help anyone, but has to be since he's the only one that knows anything? The crappy leader who nobody respects? The brilliant nerdy guy in the dumb shirt whose only purpose seems to be lusting after the young hot chic? The young hot chic who's only purpose seems to be hot? The backstabbing hot lesbian chic? The other leader guy on earth who makes the crappy leader guy who nobody respects look good by comparison? They're all two dimensional cardboard cutouts that I couldn't care less about. Having a few unlikable, horribly flawed characters is fine, and adds to the quality of the show. Having a whole cast of them is a disaster.

I watched the first season, hoping it might get better. It never did. I bailed and decided the series was hopeless. Looks like I was right.

Wasn't up to the challenge.

[tempest69]

It was pretty. But it was missing on too many spots. The writing was bad, poor plot, poor dialogue, and they didn't connect the audience to the characters. The Sci-fi parts didn't have solid thinking parts. The enemies were boring and just kinda there. It seemed that ammo was super abundant.
The characters didn't develop, with the exception of Greer. And given the alien infestation and lost baby I would have expected some depth of character to start coming out.

Compare it with Firefly or BSG.. Most of the principle characters have some depth, the dialogue worked. And enemies were everywhere and complex. SG1 managed some solid character development.
I liked the FX, the acting was good, and I'd still probably keep watching, because there isn't jack out there to watch in space based sci-fi genera . But they can do better.

Well, it's all been downhill...

[forkfail]

... since Babylon 5 got cancelled anyway...

Re:If it sucks then why save it?

[Tebriel]

Because now the view antisocial diehard SG fans that liked it have nothing to do on a Tuesday night.

They could always take a page from you and troll threads. But then again, they'd have to free up the rest of their nights to compete with you.

No comedic relief

[spectro]

I don't know you but I watch TV to be entertained. The formulas that always work on long running TV series have some sort of comedic relief in there. Goofy characters or funny moments no matter how dark a situation they are going through.

Galactica managed to pull off a dark drama but their ratings felt season after season. I for one didn't feel like watching much of the last 2.

I don't think SG-U (or BSG/Caprica) before it really reflects how human beings really deal with adversity. Even in the darkest moments we manage to at least laugh about it, it's part of our psychological makeup.

Do you want to know why both SGU and Caprica got canceled meanwhile Eureka keeps going?, just thing about when was the last time you saw someone on both these series smiling.

Forget the soaps, gimmee the scifi!

[NewtonsLaw]

I watched the first season of SGU and have recorded subsequent episodes but really, I doubt I'll ever watch them because even watching paint dry is more interesting to me.

When I watch SciFi, I want something that makes me think, something that presents truly possible scientific scenarios in an exciting and entertaining way, a sneak peek at what could be in our future.

SGU struck me as being just another daytime soap opera, using space as a backdrop.

Too much "deep" character interaction, too much angst, anger, human emotion.

Call me old fashioned but I like a good dose of *science* with my fiction and SGU just didn't deliver.

There isn't even any real comic relief (like that which made SG1 so enchanting) to relieve the unending tension between the characters in SGU.

I've got the entire SG1 and SGA series on DVD (store-bought, not downloaded) and, apart from the obvious episodes when the writers were clearly in a "oh my gawd, I'm clear out of new story-line ideas" episodes, they're all a good watch. What does pee me off however, is that the DVDs seem to have episodes out of sequence and the disks are littered with promos for other SG episodes, movies, etc -- plus the obligatory, unskippable copyright warnings. When I get time, I *will* rip these disks to DVDR so I don't have to sit through all that crap!

I wouldn't buy SGU -- in fact I wouldn't even wast the bandwidth required to download it.

And in future, I'll check out any TV series DVDs I might wish to buy before I lay down the cash. If they insist on selling me advertisements and treating me like a criminal -- I'll just find a friendly P2P network and show them that: if you treat me like a criminal, I will behave like one.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Any show has potential to improve

[roc97007]

Any show has potential to improve, but I don't expect it to happen. The current vogue appears to be to (1) Insert copious amounts of "gritty realism" which, since the writers appear not to understand what that means, rapidly devolves into soap-opera melodrama, (2) String out the main story arc as long as possible to (2a) save on writing costs and (2b) increase the number of episodes available for the rerun market, and (3) pull plot threads out of their arse like tapeworms and then drop them unexplained and unresolved.

These features combine to make the series (1) boring, (2) more boring, and (3) incomprehensible.

Everything meaningful that has happened so far could be condensed into 13 episodes, *including* reasonable amounts of characterization. But they chose to string out a few pages of plot for one lugubrious episode after another after another after another until we were ready to watch *anything* else (except Caprica, which had exactly the same problem). The root problem is a production system where the cast and crew can lose sight of the purpose of the show -- entertainment -- and nobody corrects them on it.

Re:Yay. more money for mansquito II!

[EdIII]

Fuck SyFy.

I am little upset that SGU has been cancelled. I got into the first season... but on Netflix.

SGU would have at least one more viewer if those cock monkeys at SyFy had stopped those annoying animated overlays. They are so much bigger than any other network and so damned intrusive. They cover up to much of the scenes and one time covered Rodney's face as he was talking on Atlantis.

I'll take the opportunity to complain again about those fuckstick retarded executives.... but seriously..... viewership must have taken a hit when people can't stand watching it because of the interruptions and choose Hulu or Netflix over the more lucrative cable company fees.

I was worried about this. This could happen to not just SGU, but any other really good show out there for the same reasons. They have no real handle on the statistics and demographics of the cord cutters out there and the only way they can speak (at least myself) is by renting and purchasing full seasons of the shows while they are still on the air.

I liked but did not love it.

[Maxo-Texas]

I had trouble keeping up with it, even with a DVR.

I found the character conflict realistic but unpleasant.
I didn't like adding the new characters- it was already a huge cast.

I thought it had a few really original episodes and ideas.
I thought it handled the "lost out in space on a dying ship" handled better than voyager.

I think part of the problem is just salaries and expenses. Would this series have been cancelled if union rules allowed cheaper salaries for everyone involved (not just actors- everyone) with the series?

I see this last problem in so many areas of life these days. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s (hell even part of the 80s) many things were "too cheap to measure"-- getting space to do things was dirt cheap.

Now, you maybe looking at $5000 to put on a small convention which might have run $500 back in the 80's. Meanwhile, strip centers and malls sit empty. It may be liability? Or perhaps people's standards are "too high".

Anyway, sad the series is gone. But there are more I haven't seen yet. Not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything coming out.

Re:I didn't even know it was in trouble

[doodlebumm]

Well at least there were three of us. I quite looked forward to the new episodes each week. I think that there was more to the show than most people cared to figure out. It was definitely more gritty and more of a moral dilemma show. Not many shows would have written a story where the captain suffocates one of his men to make it so that he didn't have to die alone when he was left behind. I thought much of the stuff was very thought provoking. I'll miss it.

Says you.

[KingSkippus]

The sad thing is that it's probably the whole "Stargate" aspect of the show that killed it, that it's its own fans that are twisting the knife.

I never watched the original Stargate series (well, maybe two or three episodes here and there), and I didn't watch Atlantis, either. I saw the movie way back when, thought it was moderately cool, but never really associated Universe with it because it was so long ago.

But I was looking for something on Hulu to help me kill time, and I started watching Stargate Universe. I really liked it.

Maybe as a "Stargate series," you think it's a bad one, but as someone who isn't invested in the Stargate, um, universe (lower-case u), I thought just as a series, it rocks pretty well. It holds its own very well against the state of the dreck that is pretty much all sci-fi on television these days.

It was definitely getting to the point where it would have to change to stay interesting, but that doesn't change that to date, it has been interesting. I'm sorry to see it go, and if this is how fans of the other series think of Universe, then it really turns me off of wanting to go back and watch those series. If watching those series makes me so elitist that I will no longer like Universe, then to hell with it, I'll just quit while I'm ahead.

SG Fan

[rossz]

I loved SG1. I liked SGA. I own the complete DVD sets for both series and the various movies (Continuum, etc). I absolutely hated SGU halfway through the very first episode. Decided I was being too harsh so struggled through two more episodes before giving up entirely.

TV executives are morons. MTV doesn't play music, and SciFi doesn't do science fiction. It's appropriate that they've changed their name to Syphilis.

Did people really miss the story? I mean, really?

[kriyasurfer]

Holy crap, maybe the main theme of Stargate Universe is so subtle, people just missed it. I thought it was subtle as a sledgehammer.

The story is about walking up Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs, starting from the most fundamental need at birth: Air. Then water. Then food. Predictably, we’d expect it to progress through “safety”, “love/belonging”, “self-esteem”, and “self-actualization” and beyond. The seventh episode of Season 2 is the major turning point in walking up this tree when the crew (as it represents humanity as a whole, or a single individual) takes conscious control of their destiny.

The melodrama and the edgy anger and despair was put in context of the most incredible environment — humanity’s “destiny”. You think about your own life and what kind of petty, dark desires. How many people wake up and really think about how improbable life is? Or how most people grow up not knowing who they are, what they are here for, or feeling they really shouldn’t be here at all. And yet to continue living?

Come on people, wake up. Look deeper into the story. This is classic Robert A. Heinlein stuff, of ornery, disagreeable, petty, violent animals called humans that for all that has some incredible moments.

BattleStargate Voyager : A Human Drama

[urbanriot]

Originally, Stargate was a show with open ended possibilities. You had doorways to an *unlimited* number of worlds and the possibility of occasionally peppering a season with the sci-fi wet dream of temporal malfunctions. Create a team of four people with unique personalities that most viewers could relate to, toss in some humour and we had an enjoyable, adventurous romp through space that started and ended with practically every episode. How can you go wrong!? How can you not have 10 seasons of fun!?

Fast forward a few years and we take that formula, add in an overarching story line with an evil warring race, maybe a few extra characters to the team and, while it's not the same, it's still pretty damned good.

Fast forward a few more years and we take the mythos, remove the humour, and apply what we'd seen in the successful Battlestar Galactica franchise minus the deadly yet cool robots, and we have... a cancellation.

It seemed as though we were moving in a decent direction at the end of the most recent season, where they were finally gaining control of the ship and moving in a Star Trek Voyager direction but maybe it's too little, too late. Where's the sci-fi? Where's the space exploration? They're in deep space for crying out loud, why aren't they encountering bizarre worlds with amazing effects, aliens with odd customs and why are they continually engaging in human drama. How many episodes of Rush friction do we have to deal with?

All just a little bit of history repeating ...

[old_fortran]

For me it is all quite simple.
- SG1 is like ST-TNG / but "Doorway to the stars" instead of "Wagon train to the stars". Biggest issue is they were supposed to have done the Stargate concept because ships were costly; this was cheaper (at least initially).
- SG Atlantis is like DS9 / "Gunsmoke to the stars". Both involved setting up in a remote alien environment with new enemies and new friends, and using that as a base for exploration.
- SGU is like ST-Voyager / alone and far, far away from home, under constant threat.

Unfortunately, SGU (a) doesn't seem to have any ability to get the cast members home, and (b) the ship is heading away from earth. I also think they should have brought the Lucian Alliance in much earlier / maybe by show 8 or 10 in year 1. Remember - Captain Janeway and Chakotay basically buried the hatchet by the end of the the 2 hour pilot; we are in season 2, and Colonel Young still has his counterpart locked up under guard.

I do agree, however, that it was worth a shot. BSG was just a great show, and much better than I ever expected when I heard the news originally that it was going to be redone. Just as Star Trek didn't want to just keep doing the same show over and over, StarGate needed to do something different. My problem with the show was it was so sparse; almost all desolate planets, or deadly jungle planets. How many times did they find even ruins?

Secondly, they have killed too many possibly good characters. What the hell happened to the leader of the Lucian Alliance? She was introduced as a major character, and was gone in two shows. Then there is the quadriplegic scientist from Earth who just died, and the guy Colonel Young had to kill with his bare hands.

SiFy - have a talk with the BBC folks doing Dr. Who. The last 5 years have been wonderful (mostly), and quite "modern" compared to "Dr. Who - TOS" (Doctors 1 to 7 in my book). IF they can extend the life of a show originally broadcast in the early 1960s yet again, you folks ought to be able to get something else going (just no submarine shows please).

"Eth needs more b!"