I'm going to list a few reasons why the show sucks. I've previously covered my dislike for the jerky-cam footage, and all the gushing over the human drama... Time for some new reasons.

1) These are the wrong people. Yeah, we get it already, if I have to hear that phrase pop in in one more episode, I'm likely to throw a brick through the screen. The only hero so far was the senator that gave his life in the first episode to save the others, I have no fondness for anyone on that ship, the only smiles I get are at the new miseries they have to endure.

2) Where the hell are the right people? Seriously, they've got the communication stones, where are the Ancient experts who can pop in and get the ship's systems up and running, crack the master code, etc? Why isn't Captain Carter borrowing a body and getting some repairs underway? Why isn't Rodney McKay getting the computer to give up its secrets? Why isn't any other SG-1 or Atlantis expert popping in to help?

3) Who's in charge? In the first episode, Rush claims that General O'Neill placed him in charge, nothing ever seemed to officially contradict this, but everyone is still acting like Colonel Young is the one in charge. Which one is it?

4) How can Rush so easily manipulate the computer, yet not have access to major systems? He has simulated a Gate misdial making the ship appear to be moments from exploding, and planted records in the computer about a (fake) planet that gives the others hope, and he can do this while still being locked out? Surely such an insecure computer system could be easily hacked to give access...

5) How did Young wind up with such a sorry group of folks under him? We've always known that SG teams are the best and brightest, top soldiers, top scientists, team players, etc. How did so many weak folks end up on Icarus' Base?

6) Eli needs to learn how to man up and grow a set. Same applies to darned near everyone else on the ship.

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.

As with many movies and TV shows, I usually have a pretty good idea going in if I'll enjoy them or not. From the first preview I saw, I hated it. I did my best to avoid reading spoilers or other information which would have tainted my judgement before seeing the movie, and overall did a great job. I finally broke down this weekend and caught it at the local discount cinema (tickets $1.50 each), and would have ended up walking out at least three different times if it hadn't been for the fact that I had taken my wife with me, and she was enjoying the movie.

Let me pause my rant for a moment and say that I did, for the most part, enjoy the younger versions of the characters portrayed, a movie set in the established Trek universe featuring their early exploits should have gone over well with Trek fans. I also enjoyed the action, though the effects were laid on a bit thicker than they really needed to be. Effects can really enhance the movie experience, but they can also be a crutch for a poor storyteller. I didn't even have a problem with the Spock/Uhura romance, with a younger, less logical Spock, it certainly could have been something that was plausible. The makings were there for a pretty good movie. They blew it.

There were little things that bugged me, there were big things that bugged me, let's start with the use of black holes for time travel. Nowhere in the Trek universe (movies and shows, at least, there are a great many books I haven't read) is there an indication that a black hole can be used for time travel, getting caught anywhere near them is always considered to be a bad thing, and generally accepted relativistic effects are accounted for. Seeing a ship emerging or slowly being pulled into a black hole without being torn to bits is totally contrary to what has been shown before. Had the writers instead chosen a wormhole over a black hole, that 'hole' issue would have gone away.

The reason for this black hole was apparently Spock had created it to prevent a supernova from 'threatening the entire galaxy', which also makes absolutely no sense from a scientific point of view, and even allowing that perhaps Spock meant this politically, even losing their home planet, the Romulans must surely have enough colonies elsewhere in the Romulan Empire that this would not be as disastrous as it sounds. Also, we had pretty much the same plot line in Star Trek VI, when the Klingon homeworld was 50 years away from being uninhabitable, an awful long time for a big spacefaring race to not be able to do something about the problem. Anyway, the Romuman sun was heading towards supernova (a process normally taking thousands of years and (according to Wikipedia) quite common in our galaxy, occurring about every 50 years), Spock for some reason was the one to rush to their rescue in a fancy new ship, and was going to use 'red matter' (huh?) to create a singularity that would somehow avert this. Why this wouldn't have just sucked in the sun (like it did with Vulcan) is beyond me, but according to ST:TNG the Romulans already possessed the technology to create quantum singularities, and should have been able to use their own technology to do pretty much the same thing. Like a black hole, as a plot device, this one sucked.

Now, since the timeline we've come to know and love changed at exactly the time of Kirk's birth, it would be assumed that events prior to this are unaffected, but sadly, that doesn't appear to have been the case. Technology has, overall, apparently progressed rapidly since events in Star Trek Enterprise, the futuristic look of the USS Kelvin's interior, for example, and later the look of the USS Enterprise, looking far spiffier than even ships we have already seen from a century or more later, including 29th century models. From a continuity perspective, this is really a bad thing, and more than anything was the thing that turned me off in watching the trailers.

But, despite that great technology, the USS enterprise for some reason has water powered turbines? WTF? Obviously these aren't steam powered, or Scotty wouldn't have survived his little trip through the plumbing. Nothing about that scene made any sense, especially that Spock would have let Scotty beam into such a solid object as a tube full of water.

And speaking of beaming, in this movie Scotty has managed (almost) to beam things from one planet to another in the same system, something not seen even in the series 100 years later (with minor exceptions), but certainly not with equipment of that era. Further, we learn that Scotty would later perfect transwarp beaming, which could be used to beam onto a ship traveling at warp. Combining these two, Spock manages to beam Kirk and Scotty onto the Enterprise, which is traveling at warp, on it's way to Earth, having left the vicinity of Vulcan what may have been hours before. The ship should have already passed several star systems by this point, making such beaming, even with the flimsy explanations of the movie, totally impossible.

Along with other impossible things, we find the newly constructed Enterprise to have been built, not in a space dock, but instead on the Earth's surface. Not until Voyager have we seen a vessel of such size able to take off from a planet's surface, or even fly through a planet's atmosphere (no prior Enterprise had apparently been able to handle this task), and Voyager is a much smaller ship than even the Enterprise from the original series. I was groaning at this almost as much as I'm sure the engines would have been trying to take off.

Next, why would elder Spock, having reunited again, for the first time, with Kirk and Scotty not have tried to hatch a plan to restore the timeline, traveling back to the past to stop Nero when he emerged and preventing the changes in the timeline, thereby saving Vulcan, the future, and most importantly, using that fancy ship of his to head off the Romulan supernova over a century before anyone had a clue about the danger? We'd have had a great Trek movie (two, even!), a classic plot, old fans kept happy, new fans brought in with the fresh actors, win-win all around.

Finally, my biggest nit, and surprisingly it's not a technical one, but it is in several parts. Scotty seems to be the older of the crew, having already served enough time to earn himself a post on Delta Vega, where Kirk and Spock catch up with him. Spock is next oldest, which is reasonable. Next, we seem to have everyone else. Several members came directly from Starfleet Academy, and having not seen a graduation ceremony anywhere in there, presumably all these folks are still cadets, no commanders, no lieutenants, no ensigns. Just Captain Pike, and his crew of cadets. In the original series, there would have been a few years difference between several of these folks, but not here. Fine, I can live with that. But next, we have Pike having to leave the ship, and turning over the reins to Spock, his First Officer, and already an Academy graduate, though I don't recall his exact rank being mentioned previously. Next, Pike gives a lowly cadet the position of First Officer. Sure, it moves the plot along, but does that actually make any sense at all? There was nobody else with more experience on board? Not even the plumber looking after all those turbines?

Things only get worse, when later, the victorious crew returns home, and Kirk, still apparently not having graduated from the academy, goes straight from Cadet to Captain. Seriously, in what universe does this make any sense whatsoever?

This could have been a good movie, had all Trek references been removed. The plot could have worked, it wouldn't have had the baggage of keeping continuity or keeping with established principles, it could have existed in its own universe and stood apart, and it would have been well liked. Science geeks would still have dissed it, but everyone else would have taken in the eye candy and been happy. As a Trek movie, it sucked, and I can only now wait for the reboot to itself be rebooted.

My first thought is that the acting sucks, but then I thought it might be the writing that sucks more, which itself made the acting look bad, and now I honestly can't decide which is more to blame. Neither of the principal actors are believable as Secret Service agents, and the nutty caretaker of Warehouse 13 fluctuates wildly between total incompetent and blathering genius, neither of which are endearing qualities. There is also nothing new to the male/female partnership that is brought to the table, they seem to be equal parts Mulder and Scully, Booth and Bones, and Gilligan and Mary Ann.

Why is such a goof entrusted with the running of this oh so important warehouse? Where's the staff? Where's the maintenance budget? Siffy might as well have made a new series about Area 51, and revealed that the entire base is staffed by a single man, who also happens to moonlight as a crop duster for local farmers. Actually, I think I'd like that show better.

I'm not even going to get into the various goofy gadgets and their inventors, the breakthrough devices never known to the public, and more importantly that could never have been created with the technology that existed at the time.

It's just as well that Siffy has dropped the 'Sci' from their name, as anyone that does take an interest in science would find this series to be a total train wreck. Actually, I think I'd enjoy watching a train wreck more too...

Their new slogan, though, 'Imagine Greater', instead shows an entire lack of imagination. If I were to indeed imagine greater, I'd end up canceling about 90% of the network lineup. Probably more.

True to form, the episode sucked. Adama leads a huge rescue mission to find Hara, the little girl who is somehow the key to human and Cylon survival. Many lives are lost, Galactica is now totally busted, but they managed to save the cheerleader, err, little girl.

They manage to find a NEW Earth with a primitive human culture already in place. Abandoning their technology, they decide to settle down to a nice primitive lifestyle, living in log cabins (did anyone see them bring hatchets along in their packs?) and hiking across the continents living off berries and what they can kill with pointy sticks.

Is it just me, or did none of these folks seem like the outdoors type? Yeah, sitting on a beach or on a scenic overlook sounds pretty nice, but after a few days when you realize the ration bars have run out and there's no food in sight, things are going to start sucking pretty quickly.

What happened with the primitives that were found? Did they breed with the new inhabitants, or did they coexist? The final scene implies that everyone alive now came from Hara, not the primitives, not the new arrival humans. Or was it Hara, the words only said Cylon mother and human father, maybe other offspring from this pairing were born, that led to the 'new' humans?

The first few seasons, we were told at the beginning of each episode, the Cylons have a plan. Funny how they seemed pretty clueless through most of the series, as far as I can tell their only plan was kill a bunch of humans and screw as many survivors as they could.

Towards the end of the series, it seemed that God was the one with the plan, not the Cylons, all the various signs from holy texts, prophesies, angels(?) guiding the way, etc. Seriously, what was the point of all that then? If God wanted Hara to get to the new earth, all he had to do was arrange for an FTL drive malfunction that stranded her there, and then just supernova everyone left. Problem solved.

Too many questions unanswered, the only satisfying thing is that I actually got my wish that I posted earlier. Ultimately, none of them survived. A happy ending, I suppose.

Seriously, there isn't a single character that I'd like to see survive, human or cylon. After seeing character flaws exposed and exploited week after week, I can't help but wonder if the universe would be better off without this whole bunch. Actually, I don't need to wonder. It would be.

Just when the show was starting to get interesting, with an offshoot of the Asgard race showing up, the Wraith on the ropes, it looked like things were being set up for another season or two of regular conflict and exploration in this new galaxy that we'd barely begun to explore.

Bummer.

I've never cared for their brand myself, but other family members use them from time to time, but not anymore, I'm refusing to buy their brand any longer, all their over-advertising has done is burn me out on the brand. Kind of ironic that a product to keep someone cool has me so hot under the collar...

I could probably rant further if I'd bothered to watch an episode or two, but I have no interest in watching lame programming.

SciFi had this big thing that this was going to be Galactica's final season, and I was rather looking forward to the show being over. The snails pace at which the plot moved was agonizing, but that's probably mainly because I cared so little for the human drama that unfolded each week, and even more for most of the characters in the show. Sure, I wanted humanity to survive, but frankly most of the humans on the show were pretty pathetic, you secretly ended up rooting for the Cylons.

Anyway, big press about 2008 being the final season, nothing exciting about the commercials for coming episodes, nothing at all about a countdown to the final epidodes, then suddenly, they've found earth, they have an alliance with the Cylons, and everyone's pissed because the planet they found is a wasteland. Laughed my ass off.

As finale's go, this one was, I'm sure, a huge letdown for fans. Maybe they'll go do a DVD or something now, who knows. At least now they've got a prime spot for some new show, or maybe just run old Farscape episodes. But that would be too much to hope for...

I found the original version of this flick to be quite entertaining, and laughed my ass off through most of the last half of the movie, but this 'sequel' just plain sucks.

This still just drives me totally nuts... I really wish their parent company would stop pushing all this other crap onto SciFi, and just start up another network to deal with this fluff.