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

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.

[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?

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

[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: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.

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.

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: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.

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: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?

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. :(

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.

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 ..

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:good

[lennier1]

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

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.

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: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.

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

[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.