SGU S02E10 Resurgence (SPOILERS)

[Freefall]

Obviously it can be justified. I mean, you could justify it simply by saying we have no idea what the firepower of the drones actually is, and why couldn't they just be that dang powerful?

My point is more that I just dislike it thematically; a bunch of no-name drones built by the alien of the week come from out of nowhere and beat the crap of an ancient ship in no time. Logically impossible? No, not at all, but it just feels like a very weak and cliche way of doing things.

The show in general frustrates me like that. The writing ranges from very good, to completely derivative. Sometimes within the same episode. It is just jarring and makes me wonder what the deal with their team is that they can oscillate in quality so rapidly. Do they have like a quota for good ideas, and once they hit that they just go, "okay, we've put in enough real work for this episode. Let's just pull something out of the cliche hat and call it a day."

[Adrian McNair]

Obviously it can be justified. I mean, you could justify it simply by saying we have no idea what the firepower of the drones actually is, and why couldn't they just be that dang powerful?

My point is more that I just dislike it thematically; a bunch of no-name drones built by the alien of the week come from out of nowhere and beat the crap of an ancient ship in no time. Logically impossible? No, not at all, but it just feels like a very weak and cliche way of doing things.

Isn't it a bit much to assume that we're dealing with mere aliens of the week in the drones? Telford did say that the Ursini stumbled upon them and accidentally re-activated them triggering a full-scale war. Besides, there are still ten episodes left. I'd rather wait and see than jump to conclusions.

As for Eli's grief over Ginn's passing, the problem isn't David Blue's acting or how it's being conveyed (from a writing stand-point) but the fact that Ginn was killed off after such a short period of time. They killed off a likable, useful character (an expert in Ancient systems, no less) instead of the most useless, shallow and obnoxious person on the ship (Chloe). It was just a sloppy move meant to generate more drama and it marred the quality of an otherwise decent episode (The Greater Good).

It didn't hurt that she was quite easy on the eyes either.

The show in general frustrates me like that. The writing ranges from very good, to completely derivative. Sometimes within the same episode. It is just jarring and makes me wonder what the deal with their team is that they can oscillate in quality so rapidly. Do they have like a quota for good ideas, and once they hit that they just go, "okay, we've put in enough real work for this episode. Let's just pull something out of the cliche hat and call it a day."

That brings me to the other reason why I made this post. I'd like to go on a tangent and open up this thread to the detractors of the series (that is the people who usually give an episode a rating somewhere in the 0-2 range) or anyone else and ask a question. If you were in charge of the series what steps would you take to improve it?

[adam_grif]

If you were in charge of the series what steps would you take to improve it?

I can't really say because my problem is partly rooted in the drastic change of format and near-dismissal of the Gate mythos. I would probably enjoy this show more if it was called "Universe", and had no relation to the Gate series at all. It gains nothing by being a Stargate show, it uses the Gate itself so sparsely, and the communication stones don't seem to be acting like I remember them acting from when they were actually used on the show in the Season 8 premiere. The writers are really shoving a square peg through a round hole by setting this in Gateverse, imo.

Killing Ginn so early is a dick move on the part of the writers, but of course it's extremely transparent that she existed for no other reason than to die and give Eli something to angst about. Taking Perry with her was the writers really grinding salt into the wound, because they took out two useful, competent, likable characters at once and left us with the crap that we had going on. Writers: killing off characters for drama can be good, but not if they are the only likable ones. Now I'm watching the show for... Rush, sometimes. He can be annoying too.

This image from 4chan was something I found highly amusing.

[PREDATOR490]

The show in general frustrates me like that. The writing ranges from very good, to completely derivative. Sometimes within the same episode. It is just jarring and makes me wonder what the deal with their team is that they can oscillate in quality so rapidly. Do they have like a quota for good ideas, and once they hit that they just go, "okay, we've put in enough real work for this episode. Let's just pull something out of the cliche hat and call it a day."

That brings me to the other reason why I made this post. I'd like to go on a tangent and open up this thread to the detractors of the series (that is the people who usually give an episode a rating somewhere in the 0-2 range) or anyone else and ask a question. If you were in charge of the series what steps would you take to improve it?

People keep comparing this to Voyager / Battlestar Galactica but I find it far more akin to Farscape / Battlestar Galactica. Farscape managed to do reasonably well with the 'lost in space' and I liked that series quite a bit. It has dark moments but it was still fun to watch much like SG-1. SGU is NOT fun to watch because all too often its slow, dire and depressing. That might appeal to some but when your franchise was based on SG-1 / SGA being fairly jovial I dont think its unreasonable for the fans of Stargate to be turned off. Congratulations you just nuked a substantial amount of your potential viewers.

I get they are trying to do something new but putting 'STARGATE' in the title AND basing it off the same universe they have created a direct link to the 'old' series.
DS9 did the same with Star Trek and even THAT was weak during the opening when they were trying to find their feet. The Dominion War is what really carried that series to the finish.

So far SGU seems to be a hilariously bad attempt at trying to copy nBSG with the 'dark' 'realistic' approach but putting it in a Stargate setting. However, they have to distance the show away from the original series so they slap it on a ship fuck knows where and then they have to apply the same nBSG 'Epic Journey' but also include the 'Must get home' concept.
Result = Lame attempts to get home followed by pathetic allusions to finding God while playing out stupid drama onboard a ship of characters that have been written to cause maximum melodrama.

As it is, there seems to be at least 50 people onboard Destiny and while they keep bitching they are the wrong people. The simple fact it is inherrantly retarded that Icarus base was staffed with so many incompetant personnel. Its also stupid that with the stones available they have access to ALL the expertise they need and with so many nameless folks around they could easily have a rota of 5 people being brought in regularly.
Alternatively, the SGC is so full of retarded people that Rush is the ONLY one seemingly capable of operating Destiny or understanding Destiny systems.... when even ELI is capable of doing so ?

Sorry, having a random kid being able to do what the SGC is unable to do with the resources depicted in the previous series is unacceptable and is all too similar to Wesley in Star Trek.