Old Stargate Fan wondering if SGU is up to par

[Sami_]

It depends. Did you ever enjoy reading classic SciFi literature? Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Herbert, ET Al? Then yes, you will most likely enjoy SGU. IT is classic character-driven SciFi.

I think you do those great writers a disservice including SGU in a category of "classic character driven Scifi" with their works. Thats certainly not a criticism of SGU but they were responsible for the greatest science fiction of all time - which SGU is not.

[Scott7070]

Here is how it goes:

The first nine episodes are (while occasionally interesting) boring, crappy, cheesy, embarrassing, and disappointing.
Episode ten will make you go, "Oh... that wasn't bad..."
Episode eleven will make you freak out.
Every subsequent episode will make you wish the season had started out this good.

In summary, it starts out pretty boring and bad, but picks up, and gets better and better and better and better.

Definitely worth sticking through the bad episodes. Great payoff.

What?! There were some great episodes in the first half of the season (e.g. 'Light' was an epic episode, though I don't want to spoil anything for the OP).

Anyway, MajorWoods, what I would say is to think about SGU as a seperate entity to SG1/SGA but set in the same Universe and with a stargate of which you know how it works. I think that is the best way to go about it. It is a great stand-alone series. Please give it a try, you will enjoy it!

[KEK]

I think you do those great writers a disservice including SGU in a category of "classic character driven Scifi" with their works. Thats certainly not a criticism of SGU but they were responsible for the greatest science fiction of all time - which SGU is not.

Prove it.

[Shadow_7]

In the absence of new Trek's or new Gate's episodes from the other ends of the franchises, it's great in that it is NEW content. And it doesn't involve vampires, zombies, or the usual suspects (yet). It's a bit slower paced than what most of us have gotten used to. But it is new, even if it takes us to episode 42 to meet the first sentient beigns. Okay, not 42, but not episode 1-6 either. It's sort of the Field and Stream version of Stargate. Versus the other flavors that are more Nascar-ish in comparison. The pace has picked up a bit in the last TWO episodes. But still a bit too much... Mom... They're shooting at us again... Make them go away... Definitely worth a look beyond the 30 somethings acting like Teen somethings. It would probably be better if it was a weekly series that actually happened weekly. But I digress as I wait till LATE September for the next NEW episode. I like Eli, I like Rush, I like Lt. James. Everyone else that was semi-cool has either died or gotten off the bus.

[Sami_]

Prove it.

[PG15]

Well, I'm convinced.

[Puddle-Jumper]

So many people on this forum give SGU a hard time for being more character focused... which I think is really unfair... sci-fi shows like Star trek were great where it was all rerouting power and aliens, which SG1 had to a degree but in a more realistic modern day setting. But didn't anyone think that SG1 and SGA were fairly lacking on the character aspect, 15 years of SG1 and SGA and there was never a decent love story and very few true emotional moments, plenty of epicness but after a certain point thats not enough. Not to mention SGA had several awful awful episodes.. like irresponsible, not to mention it basically became the "McKay Deus Ex Machina hour" after a while.

SGU is a great character driven sci-fi drama, in the same vein as BSG, but with much much more sci-fi to it.. aliens, time travel.. etc

[Phenom]

It reallly isn't the kind of show you can take on the referral of someone else. I have found a lot of the episodes as boring as doing your tax, but others have been really good. I think a lot of people fall somewhere in this category but you will also find others who are in love with every single teensy little bit of the show, and others who are the complete opposite.

Give it a crack and see how you go!

[yanna]

there's plenty of the things i like.


indeed you won't find ALL the things but then it would be a shameless copy, wouldn't it? IMO it's not darker, it just lacks the glimpse of hope on the horizon.

there is humor in it, contrary to popular belief. but more of early SG1 and not shameless crack a joke from SGA's later seasons.

I can count on one hand the times that I have laughed with the show and not at its absurdity, blatant sexism or occasional terrible acting (BJS's ridiculous scream in Tme pretty much ruined an otherwise pretty good oldschool type episode)

there is action, although the second half has more. we can't be going full speed all the time IMO.

There is some action but unfortunately in many cases it has been pushed in the background of all the drama instead of the two co-existing.

there are likeable characters, it's just that not everyone has equally likeable traits. yes Young's marriage problems IMO weren't a very likeable aspect but so what, he has plenty of awesome in store.

Your opinion. He's easily the worst military commander ever, psychotic, violent and stupid. The only thing that would be awesome would be if he accidentally walked out an airlock.

Greer grows a personality beyond the Teal'c type of SGU,

I don't see it. He's an angry black man stereotype and Young's attack dog. He intimidates and preys upon people who are weaker than him. He's nothing like Teal'c.

Scott ...

l
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wray is stupid IMO but we have to hate someone.

"We have to hate someone?" Speak for yourself. I like Wray. Ming-Na is one of the few things that makes this show watchable and I love her and Sharon. She's weak at times but she has shown courage in the hostage situation and in the bodyswitch situation.

Eli has some bad jokes but got rid of them.

He's ok. I never even minded his jokes.

Chloe is useless yes, but we all agree on that.

I like her. She showed some interesting sides in the second half of season 1.

Telford is just plain evil but we learn why later on, and he grows a proper pair. and he grows awesomeness, the current height being in Incursion.

Telford should be in charge.

no you won't like all of them. do you have to ?

No, you don't have to like them. What I was trying to say is that in SG1 and particularly SGA the plots were often weak but the characters carried them because the actors were so charming and the characters well loved that we would get through them. In SGU, so many of the characters are not that nice that the plots need to work better. It is all in my very humble opinion of course. As you can see, our list of favourite characters is drastically different.

no this is not SG1. no this is not SGA. the writers kept their word, we've known it since it was green, we knew ALL THAT TIME that it was different. they kept their word. IMO it's great.

It's definitely different and stirring passions, OP sorry for the hijack

[Phenom]

Greer and Teal'c are nothing alike. Completely agree with that.

[EllieVee]

I think you do those great writers a disservice including SGU in a category of "classic character driven Scifi" with their works. Thats certainly not a criticism of SGU but they were responsible for the greatest science fiction of all time - which SGU is not.

So you're saying that Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury and Herbert et al didn't write character driven works.

[Commander Zelix]

SGU is so different that stargate fans of previous series needs to make an opinion on their own.

What I really missed is good sci-fi plotline every week as SGU tend to dwelve on character issues we don't care about instead of the plot. Still SGU improved a bit during the end of the season.

At the risk of repeating myself, episode like Time, Space have a better balance between a new Stargate storyline and more serious tone and exciting and faster paced sci-fi stories. Those are different but in the right way. Those are not the only episodes I like but they are good examples of a good balance in the style of the show.

[Shadow_7]

So many people on this forum give SGU a hard time for being more character focused...

That would be fine if it was more than 4 characters (I know it is, but it doesn't feel like it a lot of the time). And if they met other people besides those ON THE SHIP. Which they just can't do in SGU without the use of the stones. I really liked the ginger girl from the very first non-pilot episode. But she got left behind on that episode. IMO her role should have been the a-typical female role in SGU. But it appears that she was an exception. I kind of liked the philosopher on that synthetic planet. But he got left behind on that episode. I kind of like Kiva, but she got shot and will probably be missing from most of the first half of season 2. I kind of like Riley, but he spends most of his time recovering from head trauma off camera. Character drama involves more than just cameo appearances of people never seen in previous or subsequent episodes. Or characters that appear to have no purpose or job on the ship. At least Chloe admits as much. The others appear to be too dumb to figure out that they should be doing more than reading books and listening to their iPods. Or just fluffing the sheets.

Not to sound so harsh. I like the series. It's my cup of tea, up my alley, and all that jazz. But in terms of people I'd choose to go camping with, most of these characters were better left on the dock. Which I guess means lots of drama ahead. And trauma. Which would be fine if it was a daily soaps kind of deal. But with 3 months between episodes..., err seasons...

[Selene1212]

The show is "deep". It's one I need to watch over several times (and don't mind doing so) to catch certain elements. If you watch TV with a lot of chaos going on, talking, checking your facebook, texting, etc you are not going to enjoy it. You're going to think its boring with passing interesting aspects. If you can watch it and focus and try to relate to the characters and their motives you are going to enjoy it much much more. Just my opinion of course. Please come back after you've checked it out and let us know what you thought about it.

[Sami_]

My view is that science fiction is science fiction. It doesn't matter whether it is television or books.

This just isn't the reality, the problem with mixing science fiction and character drama is that both are very time consuming and with the limited time available for a movie or an episode either or both are easily neglected. The setting in science fiction is so important and because it can differ so dramatically from our everyday lives it has to be explained and takes time, for movies in particular this seriously hampers the ability to dedicate meaningful time to characters when the plot, visuals, action etc.. have to be addressed.

We've seen all of these problems in SGU in my opinion and it left many with the feeling that the first half of the season was slow paced because the writers obviously felt it was important to flesh out the characters. In the second half of the season the character drama has taken more of a back seat in most of the episodes and people like myself have been happier because the action and visuals are more important to our enjoyment of the show.

All this of course is vastly different from science fiction in literature and even writers that take huge amounts of time to describe visuals like Asimov are not limited in the same way that television writers are and can give readers more than enough character drama to satisfy them.

In short the reason that they don't mix well is time and I don't feel 40 minutes is enough to make a quality show about both. I actually think that the science fiction drama type show is possibly the hardest thing to succeed at in television (which Caprica creators may be realising also) and what we have seen from SGU so far has been good considering the difficulty of what these guys are trying to accomplish but they are fighting an uphill battle in my opinion that they may never win.

Ironically one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time is Gattaca which does an amazing job with mixing science fiction and character drama but it still flopped because for the mainstream viewer science fiction is about action and visuals, the two genres are almost contradictory as far as television and movie viewers are concerned and as a result the story and characters in all the most popular science fiction works are very one dimensional, simplistic and cliché - essentially rehashed stories in a future setting.