My thoughts on SG:U (Spoilers)

[Transbot9]

So, I've seen every episode so far...and I just can't quite get into it. I think it is because so far SG:U is too similar to New Galactica: shit happens and almost everything they do is an exercise in futility. At least this week showcased actual problem-solving skills. If the writers actually allow for some headway to be made towards making things better instead of nerfing all progress at the end of every arc, it can grow on me. If the writers have masochistic treatment towards characters by continually kicking them when they are down, I'll probably stop watching it much like I stopped watching Galactica.

It does earn points for
-believable characters who have growth
-portraying a believable survival situation in space
-using basic real-science mixed with broken down crazy god-tech instead of just crazy god-tech
-Not rehashing plots (so far) from Atlantis/SG:1

So I want to like it, but I just can't at the moment.

[NecronLord]

So, I've seen every episode so far...and I just can't quite get into it. I think it is because so far SG:U is too similar to New Galactica: shit happens and almost everything they do is an exercise in futility.

Err, what? They fixed the air, they fixed the power problem (well, the ship did that) they solved the water problem. Every story so far has had a problem come up, which is solved at the end of the story.

[Bilbo]

My big gripe is this constant "oh no we are going to die in 2 hours" or wait we saved the day format. There is no real tension. I know they wont run out of power. I know they wont run out of water or air. These very short term threats are just not tension building, nor do they do anything longterm.

As for the crew. I now like Greer. Beyond that I feel like I am watching the move "American Pie" where I walked away wondering who I disliked the least. Rush is interesting to a degree, but he just seems like a less likeable Rodney. Young rubs me wrong, just no interest there. The Colonel wishes he wasnt there and is close to breaking.

Overall this is not Stargate, this is an "edgy, dark, and cool" emo show that is pulling itself along via the name recognition of Stargate to survive into a second season. I doubt this show will run as long as SGA did.

[Starglider]

nBSG benefits from the fact that fairly major characters can and do die; you really don't know that everyone will get through a crisis. SG:U played up the 'people will die' line before the series launched, but so far that just seems to mean the odd expendable nameless mook. Actually this is partly a characterisation issue; the SG:U writers are so desperate to 'flesh out' the main characters, they spend 20 minutes at a time delivering gobs of backstory on them, and that leaves no time for secondary characters. Just spending a minute here, a minute there humanising secondary characters would make it more of an impact when they say get sucked dry by a swarm of dust-bugs.

[Vympel]

* It's a bit much to expect people to be killed off a few episodes into the first season. Who did we care about in nBSG that died this early in its first season? I'm pretty sure noone.

* As for this not being Stargate - good. Stargate's format was getting tired, and SGA was thoroughly lame and boring by the fifth season. I wasn't even paying attention during the final episodes. Literally - I was doing other things and just alt-tabbing back to see what was going on, periodically. That's behavior I reserved for Voyager, not quality TV.

[saveyour]

Overall this is not Stargate, this is an "edgy, dark, and cool" emo show that is pulling itself along via the name recognition of Stargate to survive into a second season. I doubt this show will run as long as SGA did.

i guess the stargate producers weren't being all that tounge-in-cheek when they made the 300th " parody " episode of sg-1.. seems more like they were testing out their future sg:u plots on us unsuspecting fans

[Starglider]

Who did we care about in nBSG that died this early in its first season?

No central characters, but they do kill 2000 people in the first episode. That was a pretty defining decision, destroying a whole ship because it probably contained cylons and/or a tracking device, and it did have emotional impact. A whole bunch of trainees die in episode 4, and those characters were given some screen time prior to their deaths. Three more people die in episode 6 when Adama and Tigh nearly get blown up - the point is that BSG conveyed imminent threat pretty well. In this episode the bug swarm was moderately threatening, but the stuck-in-the-ice plot was just too cliched to have any danger to it.

SGA was thoroughly lame and boring by the fifth season.

SG:A's primary problem was bad writing for the villains. SG:1 had a series of evil masterminds with distinct, flamboyant personalities that were alternately threatening and entertaining, plus monsters of the week and the creepy implacable replicators. SG:A's three villains - the Wraith, Geneii and Asurans - were all pretty bland and generic. They all had potential, but it was largely squandered. The Asurans having no personality would be ok if they had the uncanny valley eerieness of the original replicators, but they didn't. The only villain with real personality was Michael, and his emo-angst was annoying. The Asurans went down a bit too easily, and after that the SGC ships were so overpowered the others weren't really a credible threat.

[Bilbo]

The only villain with real personality was Michael, and his emo-angst was annoying.

If Michael's emo-angst was annoying then have fun. Emo-angst is going to going to be a central character in SGU.

[Transbot9]

So, I've seen every episode so far...and I just can't quite get into it. I think it is because so far SG:U is too similar to New Galactica: shit happens and almost everything they do is an exercise in futility.

Err, what? They fixed the air, they fixed the power problem (well, the ship did that) they solved the water problem. Every story so far has had a problem come up, which is solved at the end of the story.

Air - Destiny pointed them in the right direction, and a sentator who was dieing anyways sacreficed himself (which I did like how that part was done). Inially gave them a day, then gave them a bit longer so long as the water holds out. At least they didn't handle asphixiation the way Star Trek does.
Power - A predictable ending, with all the issues surrounding the lotto of survival rendered moot. The whole shuttle thing was redicules.
Water - Reserves are still lower than what they were before the flying razorblades.

So far, it is a matter of maintaining status quo rather than a general improvement with the situation with nutshots thrown in for dramatic effect.

SG:1's Orai crap was stupid, mainly rehashing old SG:1 plots. SG:A was obviously "phoned-in" and became a patchwork of rehashed SG:1 plots. Both shows were probably murdered by the writers because they wanted to do SG:U.

[Vympel]

Power - A predictable ending, with all the issues surrounding the lotto of survival rendered moot. The whole shuttle thing was redicules.

I'll agree it was predictable, but why was it ridiculous [note the correct spelling please]?

[Transbot9]

It was silly extra drama following up the previous silly drama which was over nothing. At least nobody used a cosmic undo button.

[NecronLord]

By 'silly extra drama' you do of course mean actual drama that added some uncertainty, fit perfectly with the situation and technology base, and was well excecuted?

[Bounty]

By 'silly extra drama' you do of course mean actual drama that added some uncertainty, fit perfectly with the situation and technology base, and was well excecuted?

I'll grant him that the shuttle docking felt tacked-on; it wasn't out of place, but it did have little to do with the main emotional thrust of the episode.

That said:

with all the issues surrounding the lotto of survival rendered moot.

The goal of a work of fiction is not to move all character along to their eventual fate as fast as possible. Whether the people on the shuttle lived or died is not what the episode was about; it was about the path they took to get on the shuttle, and the way they dealt with that path both personally and as a group. Had the episode ended on Destiny flying into the sun, it would have been an accomplished piece of fiction too.

[Shrykull]

I don't really like it sofar. Pretty much everything has been about fixing technical and resource problems. I wonder if they're going to get beyond it and actually be able to pilot the ship and do something with it.

Are they going to spend the whole series on the ship traveling from place to place like a space cruise and taking sojourns on planets with gates for resources? It's kind of like Voyager in a way, they're lost in space with no way to at least get physically home in their own bodies. I'd like to see the ship get intercepted by some other ship. We haven't really met a single enemy yet.

I wonder if we'll meet another race out here that also was able to ascend, either good or evil, like the Ori and Ancients did.

[Starglider]

Are they going to spend the whole series on the ship traveling from place to place like a space cruise and taking sojourns on planets with gates for resources? It's kind of like Voyager in a way, they're lost in space with no way to at least get physically home in their own bodies. I'd like to see the ship get intercepted by some other ship. We haven't really met a single enemy yet.

One series (20 episodes) of that would be fine with me. Come on, people think Lost is hot shit and they did far less in their first season. However multiple series of it would get tedious. Looking at the spoilers, I'm pretty sure they're planning to change the focus over time.

[Shrykull]

Speaking of the Destiny getting intercepted by another ship. I wonder why that hasn't happened before. It's was an automated ship before the people from Earth arrived on it, and has been traveling through space for hundreds of thousands of years and never been intercepted by another ship?

[Xon]

The Destiny is going fast, intergalactic FTL has shown to be highly uncommon and an artifact of super-advanced technology.

Without galaxy wide sensors and posibly intergalactic sensors, tracking it would be extremely difficult to imposible.

[Starglider]

Speaking of the Destiny getting intercepted by another ship. I wonder why that hasn't happened before.

What makes you think it hasn't? I'm pretty sure the characters speculated that some of the damage was from being in combat.

The Destiny is going fast, intergalactic FTL has shown to be highly uncommon and an artifact of super-advanced technology.

Fast intergalactic travel (on the scale of days, or hours for the Asgard) is uncommon. Slow intergalactic travel (on the scale of centuries or millenia) is much easier; you just have to make sure the ship has enough energy reserves. The Destiny has been around for something like a million years, I don't see any reason to believe that it's particularly fast - it doesn't need to be.

[Xon]

Fast intergalactic travel (on the scale of days, or hours for the Asgard) is uncommon. Slow intergalactic travel (on the scale of centuries or millenia) is much easier; you just have to make sure the ship has enough energy reserves. The Destiny has been around for something like a million years, I don't see any reason to believe that it's particularly fast - it doesn't need to be.

Please read what I wrote. I never claimed the Destiny had fast intergalactic travel. Effective intergalactic travel is bloody uncommon because it requires massive energy reserves to keep maintaining FTL for so long and reliability which is quite simply unbelievable.

And the Destiny is going quite fast. Between galaxies you wouldn't have a hope in hell to catch it and once it is a galaxy you would have only short windows when it is out of FTL to actually catch it.

[NecronLord]

Speaking of the Destiny getting intercepted by another ship. I wonder why that hasn't happened before. It's was an automated ship before the people from Earth arrived on it, and has been traveling through space for hundreds of thousands of years and never been intercepted by another ship?

I'm pretty certain it has. Remember the pod? That looked rather alien, and that the producers have said isn't part of the Destiny?

Fast intergalactic travel (on the scale of days, or hours for the Asgard) is uncommon. Slow intergalactic travel (on the scale of centuries or millenia) is much easier; you just have to make sure the ship has enough energy reserves. The Destiny has been around for something like a million years, I don't see any reason to believe that it's particularly fast - it doesn't need to be.

Please read what I wrote. I never claimed the Destiny had fast intergalactic travel. Effective intergalactic travel is bloody uncommon because it requires massive energy reserves to keep maintaining FTL for so long and reliability which is quite simply unbelievable.

I note that Apophis and Selmak were quite confident of goa'uld ships' ability to travel for centuries in hypersapce, which would indicate that it's not that fuel intensive.

[Xon]

I note that Apophis and Selmak were quite confident of goa'uld ships' ability to travel for centuries in hypersapce, which would indicate that it's not that fuel intensive.

It could also mean Goa'uld ships are massively over provisioned. Thier staff weapons can be used for centuries without changing the batteries after all.

Goa'uld tech is strongly derived from Ancient tech, and in general Goa'uld tech is fantastically reliable. It helps Jaffa lifespans are easily over 150 years and Goa'uld can push 10k with luck, so the crew can keep doing maintaince as required.

An automated ship like the Destiny is different matter.

[[R_H]]

I note that Apophis and Selmak were quite confident of goa'uld ships' ability to travel for centuries in hypersapce, which would indicate that it's not that fuel intensive.

It could also mean Goa'uld ships are massively over provisioned. Thier staff weapons can be used for centuries without changing the batteries after all.

Goa'uld tech is strongly derived from Ancient tech, and in general Goa'uld tech is fantastically reliable. It helps Jaffa lifespans are easily over 150 years and Goa'uld can push 10k with luck, so the crew can keep doing maintaince as required.

An automated ship like the Destiny is different matter.

Perhaps the Destiny's self-repair capabilities were exhausted, incapable of repair the damage (because of the scale or what was damaged) or otherwise incapacitated?

[Shrykull]

What makes you think it hasn't? I'm pretty sure the characters speculated that some of the damage was from being in combat.

It would be kind of hard to say how a manned alien ship would react to it. Perhaps it has some kind of automated message it sends to any ships that tries to contact it, or it just doesn't respond at all (in which case it could make an alien ship very nervous, as they wouldn't know it's intentions are, and perhaps fire on it.)

But, whoever intercepted it would have to have the sensors to detect there are no life forms aboard, or board it and see it's an automated ship (in which case they'd probably try to access the ship's computers and I think they would succeed, as the current destiny crew was able to- but only access some systems) But, anyway surely the Ancients must have thought about this occurring. It must have some mechanism to deal with it: Try to fake them out with false video of a crew, FTL away, etc. Or, maybe yes it is undetectable in hyperspace.

[Shrykull]

Fast intergalactic travel (on the scale of days, or hours for the Asgard) is uncommon. Slow intergalactic travel (on the scale of centuries or millenia) is much easier; you just have to make sure the ship has enough energy reserves. The Destiny has been around for something like a million years, I don't see any reason to believe that it's particularly fast - it doesn't need to be.

Please read what I wrote. I never claimed the Destiny had fast intergalactic travel. Effective intergalactic travel is bloody uncommon because it requires massive energy reserves to keep maintaining FTL for so long and reliability which is quite simply unbelievable.

I wonder how long the energy reserves would have lasted, if they didn't try to intentionally deplete them last time to try to dial back to Earth. The destiny at least must be programmed to gather enough energy to make the next intergalactic jump, as there are no stars in between they can stop at to refuel. But, I don't think that even an intergalactic jump is a big deal. Didn't it only take the Prometheus and the Daedalus a week or two to travel from Earth to the Pegasus Galaxy?

[NecronLord]

Indeed. And later period Atlantean drives (on Atlantis itself) took less than a day or so to make that journey.