So now even less great travel.

[Mr. Jack]

While I understand some people like having the gate in the show since the whole discovery of new worlds aspect is what drew them to it in the first place, wouldn't it get a little old if this was the only formula time and time again?

[Keeper]

While I understand some people like having the gate in the show since the whole discovery of new worlds aspect is what drew them to it in the first place, wouldn't it get a little old if this was the only formula time and time again?

star trek mostly flew around in ships.

andromeda... mostly based from the ship andromeda (season 5 based from planets in a star system for the most part, but while trying to repair the ship)

babylon 5... centres around the station.

leaving scifi - law and order... police units.

the simpsons.... huh, who'da guesssed?

friends

cheers

umpteen reality shows





there's many ways to change the formula while retaining the show. star trek proved that when they were able to retain the spirit of the franchise while going onto a space station - and i vaguely remember around that time that people thought the show couldn't work - because it was on a station, rather than a ship.

they retained a sense of journey, of exploration, travelling through the stars even while sitting at the edge of federation space - essentially retaining the right to call itself star trek. even enterprise (and i didn't have a clue what was happening in that, though i wasn't able to sit down to it regularly) retained enough trek to fall within the franchise.

universe, for me, feels... well, like it's capitalising on a franchise that it doesn't want much to do with, but that was easier to use as a starting point than trying to break into the market by itself. my problems with the show are greater than just the lack of the stargate, but for me, the universe is a bit too broad a concept for it to work as the titular tie-in with what's going on in the show. stargate: destiny would have been better, because the title would have tied to the ship. instead, the title ties closer to the stargate, which causes disassociation when the stargate doesn't even get shown in some episodes, let alone used.

as i say, i've more problems than just the lack of gate usage. it's an extra problem that has helped reduce the show's quality as a whole, in my personal view.




for the folks saying we can't bash lack of a gate, when the story isn't finished - and that it may have been used more next season? 2 problems:
1. speculation - for all we know, the gate might have been blown up in season 3. the story so far has set the gate back a bit too often to be sure.

2. characters can be developed without getting rid of the gate. in fact, i've not really seen much development of some characters - chloe had to be smurfed to become useful, for example. young dipped into and jumped out of alcoholism so fast that it didn't seem to do anything for him. scott and chloe's relationship was hardly developed - it went from 'hi, whats your name' to 'can i have your babies' so fast that it felt forced. young and tj's relationship is so underdeveloped that it seems hard to understand how she got pregnant. rush and eli seem to have some of the strongest development, with greer and wray getting some attention - but brody, volker, park et all are still relatively unknown.

contrast: SG1. by the end of the first season, it was clear that jack and sam had feelings for each other, and a general feeling of actually 'knowing' major players (all of sg1, hammond, even major whats-his-name - samuels? - who worked from the pentagon)

atlantis - again, a better feeling of knowing all the major folks from a single season.

neither show sacrificed gate travel, exploration, or meeting new folks - while universe feels like it's trying to develop cardboard cut-outs while trying to drop the franchise. yet there's a great deal of potential - it just seems wasted in gimmicks like 'lets panic while we fly into a star.'

for me, many problems, the gate being only one of them - and the rather dubious character development being another - the only thing that would have gotten me to watch season 3 was an incredible cliffhanger. in fact, season 1's first half nearly made me stop watching anyway, the second half picked up enough for me to watch season 2. but the show shouldn't yoyo so much, and if the gate isn't a major prop now, it probably isn't a major prop in the future.

[Mr. Jack]

Well I respect your opinion on the matter, to me as long as a show is entertaining I don't really mind what it's called or what they do. In my eyes, the Stargate was always a tool to get characters from point A to point B for the sake of exploration, combat, or something else. Sort of like the hyperdrive in Star Wars.

In fact, two of the best episodes of Stargate SG-1 barely used the Stargate: Jolinar's Memories and the other one after it that I don't feel like looking up. Enemies didn't use the Stargate at all and didn't even feature any exploration. Be All Thy Sins Remember'd featured no exploration nor any Stargate.

While universe didn't seem very Stargate like to me at first. I think it's retained its sense of identity while trying something completely new. I guess it really comes down to what aspects of Stargate appeal to you. To me it was always:

1. Modern day humanity interacting with alien cultures. We don't really have that much in SGU, though lately it's gotten better.
2. A keen sense of optimism for humanity in general. After the latest episodes I think SGU really pulled this off brilliantly. They brought forth the cynical man's best arguments and completely shattered them with the latest episode. "It must break your heart to know we got along just fine without you, Dr. Rush."
3. Humor. SGU uses a different, more subtle sense of humor but I think it still has it.
4. Likable characters. At first I didn't really like the characters all that much, but as the show progressed I think many of them have shown their truly heroic sides. These are realistic characters who aren't flawless and always up to following their ideals. They are very, very complex and emotional beings. Yet in the end, they still reveal that they are good at heart. I guess this ties into the whole optimism thing.
5. Lots of problems and clever ways to solve them. Again, SGU was kind of lacking on this somewhat. In a typical SG-1 episode you had plenty of problems pop up and plenty of clever ways of solving them. In SGU there's usually one big problem and then some convenient solution at the end of the episode. Lately it's gotten better though.

Now for the stuff that's completely new about SGU that I love:
1. ****ing realism. We've got realistic physics in space, aliens that don't speak English, and planets that don't all look like Canadian forests. We have realistic, emotional characters who can't solve every problem right off the bat.
2. A true sense of exploration. I'm loving the edge of the universe thing. Quite frankly I was getting tired of every single thing in the Milky Way or Pegasus being related to the freaking Ancients. This is why I loved the earlier seasons of SG-1. We got some other aliens with unique cultures who weren't humans at all. Later on it was all about the Ancients and nothing else. Now, we're on the edge of the universe where the whole place is wild. There's no terraformed planets or leftover ancient goodies: everything is completely foreign.
3. Survivalist Aspects. I've always been a survival geek to some extent. I like the fact that they have to make due with what they have. It makes every mission through the Stargate more than just exploration; it's a matter of life or death in some cases.