Stargate Universe
After much hype, the new Stargate series has launched. The previews hinted that the series would be a bit darker, a bit grittier. We saw glimpses of a group of people that seemed at odds with each other, lacking in hope, and overall ill equipped to deal with the position they found themselves in. Having seen the first episode, so far we're right on the mark. But the series has problems. Not the characters, the series.
For starters, the camera work is bad. It has that handheld camera feel that for some bizarre reason has become popular. A small amount of movement isn't that bad, at times, but it's overused here. Then there's the transitions in and out of commercials, or rather, lack thereof. One moment we're watching a scene, and suddenly, there's a commercial, and then, without warning, we're back in the show. No theme music fade out, no fade in, I thought I had sat on the remote or something and switched channels.
Next, we have the flashbacks. I don't have a problem with these in general, usually a character in a show may be talking, retelling a story, and we'll fade into the flashback. These are just cut in here and there without warning. Yes, the writers had a backstory to tell, that's great. But I'd rather had sat through 3-4 episodes of backstory before we had this bunch traveling through the Stargate, let the story build, let us learn a bit about the characters, know the folks a bit, before them embark on their grand adventure. The audience is overwhelmed trying to take in all of the details of the characters and keep up with the story, the quick bits of dialog, one person talking over the top of another at critical times. I've watched the episode three times now and I'm still catching bits and pieces that I missed the first few times through. And even though I've watched this two hour episode several times, as I'm writing this, I still can't recall a single one of the new character's names, except for the main scientist, Dr. Rush.
And speaking of theme music, this is terrible. The mournful dirge reminds me of Galactica, but without the drums. Some improvement there, but a concept this grand, a long ship exploring the universe, should be more uplifting, more awe inspiring. Instead, it just seems a bit too depressing.
Getting into the story, there are a few strange bits. At first, it seemed like Rush was the only person who could really read Ancient, with the Gamer geek able to read an apparently dumbed down version that wasn't quite right. I would have thought that anyone who could read Ancient would have been hard at work on the computer system figuring things out, but only Rush seemed to be doing that. But then we have one of the military officers figure out how to dial Earth (or so he thought) from info on one of the consoles, and later after the ship causes the gate to dials up, the IOA person is able to read all of the environmental data (displayed in Ancient) from this same console. So why aren't these folks busy figuring out things, maybe finding a manifest of what is in all of those containers they aren't opening, or simply reading what labels might be on those containers?
Rush seems downright creepy at times, like when he first comes through the Stargate onto the ship, doesn't lift a finger to help all the injured crashing onto the deck, and slowly makes his way up some stairs to overlook the gate area, almost seeming to relish in the suffering he is seeing below. Early in the episode, we learn that he's carrying around a great deal of baggage, but we aren't privy to all the details. But he certainly doesn't seem like the type of person to be put in charge of an expedition like this, as supposedly General O'Neill has done. And did O'Neill really put him in charge? The base commander should still be the one in charge as far as I can tell. And were there actually any stones on the ship? We saw the stones in use on Earth, but never actually saw them on the ship. Certainly it wouldn't have hurt for someone to use one of them to confirm Rush's story?
Oh, and before I forget to mention it, the soft core porn early in the episode was totally uncalled for. Some romantic activity could have been implied without showing all the thrusting, I'm glad now I taped it to watch later rather than watching it live with the kids as I used to with the other Gate series. If this sort of thing keeps cropping up, this show will have to be off limits to the kids.
There are other minor nits all throughout the episode, a number of things that just didn't work, things that need more explaining, but my biggest problem is that, right now, I really don't care much for any of the characters, which was my biggest problem with Galactica (I was happy in the end, since they were all dead), and I'm hoping that the writers manage to make us like at least a few of these folks pretty quick.