Stargate: UniverseThe Stargate franchise has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. There has always been something about the show... sci-fi which doesn’t take it self too seriously, perhaps? It’s creators, Brad Write and Robert C. Cooper, were able to take sci-fi and fantasy mythology, combine it with a Jess-Wedon-like self-effacing sarcastic whit, add in some healthy doses of not to shabby action, and package it all into a single quick moving serial sci-fi series. No matter how you felt about the show, the original Stargate series, Stargate SG-1, despite many “series finales” in it’s final years, managed to continue on for 10 full years, an impressive feat.
Despite how long the series ran, there were issues with the show. Issues which only got worse with age. Richard Dean Anderson decided to leave the show in its 8th season, and while his replacement was Ben Browder (of Farscape fame), the show just wasn’t the same without Andersons cranky attitude and unwillingness to listen to authority. The spinoff, Atlantis despite having a fresh universe to explore, new characters and some very strong actors, also failed to capture a massive audience and struggled through most of it’s 5 seasons. Add to this, that Battlestar Galactica had brought serious Sci-fi to the front of popular culture and Stargate’s demise was all easy to predict. In the end, Stargate just seemed to light and campy in comparison. What at one point made the show enduring, now suddenly aged it. And so one day in the middle of March 2007, Stargate SG-1 went the way of Startrek: reruns. Less then 2 years later, it’s spin-off, despite frequent appearances from cast-members from the original show (and a certain doctor, from a certain Startrek becoming a regular) Atlantis also came to an abrupt end.
But this wasn’t the end for Stargate. Two direct to DVD movies were used to finish off the storylines of SG-1 that were left open by the shows sudden cancellation. (There are rumours of more in the mix, but those have apparently been postponed). And believe it or not, the movies weren’t that bad, but in comparison to BSG, they just didn’t have the same grit and realism and in the end they didn’t have the ability to the draw audience in.
But this still wasn’t the end because Write and Cooper weren’t done with the Stargate universe yet. They had the idea of a new series in which a group of individuals would be trapped millions of light years away from earth on a ship. The show would follow this group as they struggled to survive and find a way home (sound familiar?). Originally pitched prior to the writer’s strike, the show finally went into production earlier this year and just reached air in early October. Now, here’s the real surprise….it’s really good!
Sure, the plot isn’t exactly original but everything else about this show feels fresh and new. Ok, maybe fresh and new are not the write words…because quiet frankly everything about this show feels like a combination of Stargate and Battlestar Galatica. Despite that, it works. Write and Cooper have obviously learned from BSG. Stargate: Universe is darker, meaner, and generally more human. Characters, rather then tech, drive the stories forward and aliens have only made minor appearances so far. The show is, at least for the moment, not episodic, but instead many of the major story arcs take place over several episodes. While the plot doesn’t have the complexity of BSG, SGU has found a nice medium between serial and episodic storytelling. Here’s hoping they keep it that away.
Another BSG influence is the inclusion of a more realistic vision of space travel. Earlier Stargates relied on a Startrek style of space: big ships moving slow, small ships moving only slightly faster. There were almost never any scenes of real movement or energy in any of the Startrek or Stargate series'. BSG, on the other hand, used the model of realistic Newtonian physics for movements in space. Suddenly ships appeared to react to actual physics and no longer moved on a single plane through space. SGU, in an attempt to not forget where it has come from has taken it’s old model of space and added some BSG elements into it. Suddenly ships are moving faster and in three dimensions. As well, large ships are finally being given a context on screen that makes them look as large as they are suppose to be. Add to all of this that they are doing some very nice CG work and space in a Stargate has never looked so good.
Also making the transition from BSG to SGU is the documentary style camera. BSG’s camera work has always been hard to explain, but it basically felt as if a documentary camera crew was embedded within the BSG world and was filming events as they occurred. The camera was almost always handheld which meant shakes, missed focuses and plenty of mid shot zooms. The camera reacted to whatever was occurring on screen (such as shaking with explosions) and had a very organic feel to it. It was kind of like watching one of the Borne Trilogy movies… however I always felt that BSG had a less intrusive and less nauseating feel. SGU has taken BSG's camera work, missed focuses and intimate closeups and all, and made it their own. Visually speaking, SGU doesn’t have the same rugged feeling as BSG, and sometimes some of the camera movements feel a bit too deliberate, but in the end, it works with the show and that’s what matters.
All in all, the new series is worth watching. It feels like a mash up of Stargate SG-1 and Startrek: Voyager but grown up a bit. Sure it’s not perfect, but nothing is. Give it a few episodes and see if you can turn it off…I can’t. While it doesn’t fill the hole that was left in my heart at the end of Battlestar Galatica, it’s a step in the right direction. And I’ll take what ever I can get with this really weak season of TV.
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