Staring at "Stargate SGU," one senses the folks at Syfy approached the guys who made “Stargate Atlantis” with this pitch: “‘Battlestar Galactica’ is easily the least crappy thing on the channel, but Ron Moore is one pricey writer-producer. You think you could maybe make something like that ‘Galactica’ show? The critics sure do seem to like it a lot better than your Stargate series!”
And so, I imagine, the “Stargate” guys came up with “SGU,” which (in its pilot at least) has “BSG”-like lighting and “BSG”-like music and "BSG"-like outer-space CGI camerawork and doesn’t seem to boast any actors with appliances slapped on their foreheads pretending to be extraterrestrials. Plus they got to hire Lou Diamond Phillips, a three-named actor who worked with Edward James Olmos on “Stand and Deliver.”
The series follows a group of military, political and science types who find themselves forced to escape what looks like a Cylon sneak attack by jumping through a special stargate – a stargate that connects only to an ancient starship in another galaxy far far away. The Cylon-like attack wrecks the special stargate and everybody’s trapped on the highly dilapidated and impossibly old space vessel.
Just as it took a little time to figure out that secretary of education Laura Roslin was now president of the BSG colonies, it takes some bickering to figure out who reports to whom when there’s military men and a senator and a high-ranking bureaucrat all tumbling though the one-way wormhole. There’s also a longhaired British superscientist played by Robert Carlyle who’s nowhere near as interesting or fun as Gaius Baltar. None of this, in fact, is terrifically compelling.
While there’s promise in the premise, the “Stargate” writers don’t demonstrate any more faculty for crafting thought-provoking drama or complex characters than they did on their old “Stargate” shows. There’s a lot of schlocky shouting for the politicians and the soldiers and a lot of unfunny shtick for the chubby civilian genius who gets trapped with the more experienced gate-jumpers. Take away the Galactican pretensions and it all seems no better or worse than the “Stargate” shows Syfy cancelled to make room for this one.
… may not start fresh, but it does start over. … The cast (including Ming-Na, Louis Ferreira and Brian J. Smith) is good and the concept is a proven winner. And given how long these Stargates tend to stay open, the show certainly has time to improve. …
… People come hurtling toward us through a stargate in quick succession, crashing on top of one another in a bloody scrum. We don’t know where they’ve been or where they’re arriving. The answers follow in a series of flashbacks that sap most of the momentum of that nifty opening. … All this stress affords abundant opportunities for the overacting that characterizes “Universe,” as it does most large-cast cable dramas. …
… I've now seen five hours of the show and still don't feel all that invested in the the fate of 1st Lt. Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith). Theoretically, I should -- he's one of the show's lead characters. Two characters do stand out … but the rest of "Universe" feels like an awkward mishmash of genres and tones. Though I had been cautiously looking forward to another iteration of the "Stargate" franchise, at this point I'm not sure its creators are taking Scott and his fellow survivors anywhere interesting.
… Two things strike me, beyond "Stargate Universe's" stiffened pace: the predictability of the action and the characters, and the apparent tolerance for borrowing that the sci-fi genre treats as a matter of course. Plagiarism is the notable rhetoric, down to how things look in space and what people out there ever say to one another. What, exactly, gives "Stargate Universe" the right to beam its heroes from ship to surface the way "Star Trek" does? Why, except for budget and/or lack of imagination, do the interiors of the enormous starcruiser here bring to mind the dank hallways of "Alien" and the neo-brutalism of George Lucas's "Star Wars," with LED-bulb gizmo decor from "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica"? …
… quite a bit of this series feels like “Lost’’ in space, and it is - early “Lost,’’ before things got all Others-y and time-travel-bogged, when it was largely about unlocking characters’ mysteries and playing with grand themes. “Stargate Universe’’ isn’t quite so ambitious, but it’s intriguing in its way, down to the ship, bathed in blue light, that emerges as a character in its own right. The ship is more interesting thus far, alas, than any of the female characters, but perhaps that will change over time. As “Battlestar Galactica’’ proved not long ago, deep mythology is much more fun if it surrounds a lot of complicated people. …
… The series is competently produced and has all the cinematic bells and whistles you would expect from a member of the "Stargate" family. But if it is to be more than that -- if it is to establish itself as an intelligent drama that, for example, explores the military-civilian dynamic -- it has light years to go. … True, "Stargate" fans likely will climb aboard this spaceship. But if this series is ever to really take off and become stellar, it will need more surprising stories and more intellectually challenging drama.
… a plodding two-hour opener that does little but explain the circumstances of the series, none of which are that complicated. The opener also introduces the cast, none of whom are that complicated, either. …
