Stargate Universe Premier (Air 1 & 2)

The cast of Stargate: Universe

Syfy’s latest product from the Stargate brand looks promising even if the two-part premier Air seemed to be trying to do more than it had to–or should have tried to do. Great stories don’t do a data dump about the characters in the first two chapters. The people, their back stories and their motivation are doled out in pieces, bit by bit, over the course of several chapters. I think the only characters I really needed to know much about from the start were Eli, who is clearly supposed to be the viewer’s point of view character; Dr. Rush who seems to be the mastermind behind what goes on; and possibly Col. Young, the military leader of the refugees on the Ancient ship Destiny. I suppose we did need to develop an attachment to the Senator and his daughter, as well, but to tell you why would mean spoilers and for once I’m avoiding those in a review. As it was, I felt overwhelmed by having to learn too much about the characters too soon. For the premier, I don’t know if that much back story was necessary to make the story or characters more interesting at this point.

For example, I wish they’d done more of what they did to introduce Rush: We don’t learn much about him as a person, but we do learn from the action and what other characters say about him that he’s not well liked. From a single scene we learn that something painful happened between him and woman in a picture he keeps in the drawer of his bedside table, something that’s hinted at in later dialog between Rush and the Senator’s daughter, Cloe. That’s how it should be done early on. In Col. Young’s case, we get a little bit of his back story in the form of a dream he has when he’s knocked unconscious. I liked that way of getting information, too.

Eli is introduced through an important bit of action, and the issue with his mother is introduced through dialog. We’re not hit over the head with it. I could have lived without the way Lt. Scott was introduced. I’ll spoil just this one thing: He was having sex with a comrade, but it really did seem gratuitous. Perhaps his relationship to her will become important in future, since I think he may have been breaking a regulation. Still, the sex seemed like a gratuitous attempt to distance this Stargate from its more lighthearted predecessors and align it more closely with Battlestar Galactica with all of its frakking and talk of frakking and its through the roof ratings. This could also explain the shaky camera which was thankfully used less than I feared it would before I actually got to see the show.

I also had trouble following the story when I watched it the night of the premier. This was due to a number of factors, not the least of which was the ridiculous number of commercial breaks and Syfy promos throughout. Syfy oversold the show, then to add insult to injury they also ran at least one to two minutes of Syfy promos on top of the commercials and chose some very awkward points in the story to break.  It wasn’t until I downloaded the show from iTunes and watched it again, commercial-free, that I was able to follow it better. Of course, it didn’t help that I was taking part in the Twitter-palooza that went along with the premier. So, watching it without commercials and giving it my full attention, I realized it boiled down to just a few important points: They’re on a ship bajillions of light years from Earth and it’s life support system is going kaput (which makes sense since it’s many thousands of years old and hasn’t been maintained since the ship was sent out unmanned). Also, it’s a mix of military and civilians, they brought very little provisions with them, many of them are injured–some severely–and so far none of them seems to like Dr. Rush who got them there in the first place instead of evacuating them to Earth. Right. Got it. On a ship, far from home, low on supplies and air, and the ship sometimes stops at planets with stargates on them, so maybe food can be found there.

Joel Goldsmith, who scored the other two shows, delivers a tremendous score for this one. The acting is superb, but what else can you expect from people like Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Carlyle, David Blue and Ming-Na? We even get some old favorites–bones thrown to long-time gaters–Richard Dean Anderson (General O’Neill), Amanda Tapping (Col. Carter), Michael Shanks (Dr. Jackson), Gary Jones (Chief Master Sgt. Harriman) and Bill Dow (Dr. Lee).

Console aboard the Destiny (photo from Gateworld.net)

The special effects are feature film quality with the Destiny really standing out from everything else. The ship is obviously old, corroded and deteriorated and seems to have endured some kind of attack. There are holes in it that the ship’s force shield is trying to keep plugged, but it’s mostly air tight bulkhead doors that are keeping airless space out and breathable air in. The ship was meant to be manned, as Dr. Rush discovers in the database, but the Ancients never followed through. They never recalled the ship, either, in typical Ancient fashion (we’ve discovered all sorts of things in the other two shows that the Ancients left lying about when they ascended and left this plane of existence). The tech aboard Destiny looks amazing, though it seems to be from the same family as the stuff used on Syfy’s big Summer hit Warehouse 13. Then there are the Kinos, the flying camera orbs that Eli finds and deploys (and uses for his personal vlog). It makes me look forward to the refugees exploring the ship in future episodes and figuring out how all the cool tech works.

Eli shows Lt. Scott the Kino (photo from Gateworld.net)

I need to see more episodes before making up my mind about this show. It really is a far cry from SG1 and Atlantis in look, tone, and theme, but that’s actually more refreshing than off putting. It’s Stargate, so for the love of Stargate and the chance to explore that cool ship every week, I’ll keep watching.

Next week on SG:U Air part 3, we check out that planet the team from Destiny went through the gate to explore and see if they can solve the problem of the gunked up CO2 scrubbers on the ship. SG:U back-to-back with Amanda Tapping’s Sanctuary means Fridays are geeky once again!