Stargate Universe, anyone?

[Aquarius]

So who's been watching this show?

So far I like it. I've seen commentary from SG fans saying that they're concerned that the grittier direction this series will "ruin" what made SG1 and SGA special (the humor), but I'm not so sure about that. Granted I've only seen maybe half the SG1 episodes and only one or two of SGA, but I'm thinking that just because they don't follow the same formula, it doesn't mean it's going to be a bad show.

Anyway, I was just wondering what everyone thought so far, who the favorite characters are, etc.

[WarpGirl]

I'm SG'd out. After 15 years, and a lot of fond memories, I'm just done. SG1 will always be the best as far as the franchise goes but as soon as Vala showed up I was just not mad in love or lust with the show anymore. I think it was because they pushed the Daniel/Vala romance and to me it screamed FAKE. Plus little to no Jack O'Niell and the magic fizzled. Don't get me wrong, I liked Cam Mitchell, and I kow they didn't hook him up with Vala because of the Farscape thing. But they looked like they wanted to jump each other anyway. Besides Carolyn (the new doctor) was Micheal Shanks wife. So it got a little screwy. Plus we Sam/Jack shippers have been forced to accept that out OTP (on that show) will never ever be together in SG RU.

SGA I really liked until they killed off Elizabeth Weir and that ended that for me perminently. Oh sure I watched the Micheal episodes but that was it. I thought it was pretty dark compared to SG1 and I liked that.

As for SGU Elessar convinced me to try out the premier, and the young LT. guy was everything he said. I liked him, one itty-bitty problem... He looked and sounded almost exactly like my younger brother. Um can't drool over that no matter how beautiful. The other characters were rather cardboard to me. And don't get me started on the Lost In Space/VOY concept, it's too old for me. Basically it felt like a SG version of the BSG revamp, and I hated that anyway. So nope not going to do it.

If the SG1 and SGA movies get made, I'm loyally sticking to those. But SGU came too late with much too little.

[Aquarius]

Well, it's probably different for me because I rarely watched SG1 when it was in production, and I've never been active in that fandom so I'm not emotionally invested in it. I started watching it as a latecomer and I find it entertaining and all, but so far it doesn't seem to be anything that would motivate me to write fic or anything like that. I appreciate the shippy Jack/Sam moments, but again, there's nothing there that makes me run off to write something.

So being that I don't have that emotional investment in the franchise, I can say that I found SGU entertaining, some of the characters compelling (so far I find Eli, Tamra, and Greer the most interesting), and the stories in and of themselves are interesting enough that I want to come back next week and see what happens. Beyond that, whether or not I get all emotionally invested in this show in a fannish way remains to be seen, but it's got enough going for it that I'll tune in week to week unless it starts to severely disappoint me with stupid stories or lame characters.

[WarpGirl]

I got "emotionally invested" in SG for two reasons FIRST AND FOREMOST my Grammy! Yep that's right, my sci-fi loving, Richard Dean Anderson lusting, Grammy. She would not Shut up about this show that my 10 yr old self thought was pretty lame. It boggled my mind that she wouldn't "skip" this show when I stayed with her. She skips anything for us grandkids. So my spoiled 10 yr old self said "What The Heck?" Reason number 2 Micheal Shanks/Daniel Jackson, really the hormones do it everytime, but I really think he's the cat's meow when it comes to a dream guy. So unselfish, so loving, genius smarts, ocasionally badass, and HOT! What was not to love? Everything just grew from there.

SGA let me down, a little but not too badly. But frankly I don't see SGU being compelling in any way shape or form. I saw no magic. Really I'm rather devestated.

[Aquarius]

Well, that's kind of what I'm saying...fans of the other shows may not like it because they have preconceived ideas of what it "should" be. I have no such preconceptions, so I'm just kind of taking this show for what it is, independently of the others. I have a feeling that this show is going to mostly attract viewers who just didn't get into the other two for whatever reason, or those who maybe liked the other two but are hungry for something different.

[WarpGirl]

Well the thing is my opinion of the show would be the same even if I had no "preconceptions" the fact that I found the premise overused, and the characters dull except for 1 kind of blew that away. Even if I had never heard of SG before, I wouldn't watch it.

[Aquarius]

That's cool.

Who else wants to weigh in on this show?

[Distracted]

The only episode I've seen is the one on the desert planet, so I don't know the characters well enough yet to form an opinion. I'm recording it on TIVO and plan to watch it when I get the time, though. We shall see. I wasn't a huge fan of the other ones, so I have few preconceptions. At least this one seems better than Defying Gravity.

[WarpGirl]

On a purely superficial note, if the young Lt. didn't look like my youngest brother, I might be able to try harder. But come on it's bad enough my brother is so sweet and cute, and girls loved him. Now he's got his wifey. But I just can't drool over someone who looks and has more than a few personality traits in common.

[Aquarius]

The only episode I've seen is the one on the desert planet, so I don't know the characters well enough yet to form an opinion. I'm recording it on TIVO and plan to watch it when I get the time, though. We shall see. I wasn't a huge fan of the other ones, so I have few preconceptions. At least this one seems better than Defying Gravity.

That was the second episode. What I liked about that one was how realistically I felt the chaos was that ensued, people not recognizing "authority" because the situation was so messed up, some of them going off and doing their own thing while others challenged authority but backed down.

I also found Greer getting progressively interesting from the pilot to this episode. I really can't wait to find out what the rest of his story is. He's one tough SOB.

[Elessar]

Which one is Greer? The guy on the desert planet escorting the scientist back who like knocks him down?

[WarpGirl]

Hey wait a minute if you can't remember who is who Elessar then there is no way I can ever deal with this SG. You know more about SG than anyone I know of.

[Distracted]

Greer's the black guy who was in the brig in the first episode.

[TPoptarts]

Okay is there like ANYONE who didn't find the latest 2 episode arc thingy like totally PREDICTABLE. I mean like come on.

SPOILER!!!:

Who didn't know the Destiny was flying into the sun because it's solar powered for crying out loud. Like the way the "Darkness" episode ended, with the supposed "change" in trajectory that supposedly wasn't supposed to happen etc etc etc, I'm like dude of course it's gonna fly into the sun, it's out of power where in Tartarus do you think it came up with all the power it needed to run for the kajillion years it's been out there before y'all came along. And then we get the "Light" episode where they're all preparing to meet their maker, and I'm like oh yobshigurth it felt like a time stretcher, like come on get to the point already, we all know how it's gonna end and that chick having sex with that dude before they "die". Yeah cuz we saw them talk to each other for like 5 seconds, and all of the sudden she's never felt closer than that to anyone, whatever. Not that I'm a shipper of anyone with anyone but that's exactly the point, we hardly know anything about those characters with no sufficient development this early in the show, and the whole thing felt really stupid and fake to me anyway.

But still better than Defying Gravity.

[Distracted]

Yep. Much better. That's not really very hard to do, though.

SPOILER!!!:

The "nerd likes the popular girl but she only wants to be his friend" thing gets kinda old, though. More like DeGrassi than a SciFi show.

Next time, on Stargate: Degrassi... The lieutenant dumps the senator's daughter for the busty marine and the senator's daughter sleeps with the nerd to make her boyfriend jealous...