Stargate Universe & Syfy today?

I never really commented on Stargate Universe while it was one, mostly because I was too busy, but also I was disappointed overall. It has a lot of potential, but it started out way too slow and then it could not find itself after trying to fix the speed.

The first season was nothing more than a strong of events that happened one after another, each episode serialized. The problem is that it was way too much like BSG and did not feel like Stargate anymore. It has way too much drama and not enough Sci-fi. It was a soap opera with a few sci-fi trappings that just so happened to be there (and don’t get me started on my BSG rant because it was worse).

The end of first season and the start of second season really started in a direction that looked promising but they floundered. Going from a serialized format to now fairly episodic did not seem to work for them. They did not have fresh ideas. They brought in new aliens, which was cool, and took on challenges that previous Stargate series ignored, like communication and the natural dangers of space travel. That was getting back to some of the hard science that was Stargate, and I liked. There was still drama but enough sci-fi balanced it out that I found it acceptable. The problem is they wasted so much time first season it was like watching another first season. They were just now trying to establish new bad guys when they should have done that first season. They were introducing new dynamics when they could have been done first season. The first season could have been handled in 2 to 4 episodes. I felt like it dragged on.

So now Stargate Universe is over, which I saw was inevitable. The Sci-fi channel is now Sy-Fy. The new shows – Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Alpha– are converging to the same universe with multiple crossovers and growing to be the new franchises. I am not all that thrilled with any of the new shows because there is more drama and less sci-fi, but I still watch them because some of the characters are fun to watch. Stargate is now distant history to Sy-fy.

What could SGU have done? Travelling as fast as they were, they woudl have past through different regions of space with diverse opportunities for encounters. They could have encountered new alien empires, and new aliens ever episode.  They could have encountered Star Trek-style space anomalies and discovered something new about the Destiny in taking them on.  Something other than what they did. They seemed so very alone out there. Coming from a franchise that in previous series had aliens almost everywhere, it seemed disconnected from its predecessors.

Where can it go from here?  I would like for it to fall back to its original premise of aliens visiting our world thousands of years ago and connecting legends to alien races.  They really departed from that in Stargate Atlantis, which is why I felt it did not last as long as SG1.  Advance things a few hundred years and show us a world after we have had the gate for few decades? (Not Stargate Infinity!).

Unfortunately, I hate to say it but it needs a reboot of some kind.