stargate caned?
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posted on October 28th, 2011, 12:45 am
Syfy defends canceling 'Stargate Universe'
Syfy defends canceling 'Stargate Universe' | Inside TV | EW.com
Is this true?
Syfy defends canceling 'Stargate Universe' | Inside TV | EW.com
Is this true?
posted on October 28th, 2011, 1:29 am
Tragic. I watched this show a few times, it was pretty good all in all.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 2:54 am
Sad but true. The numbers don't lie. Ill confess my wife and I (who've enjoyed all 3 series) only watched it on netflix. So we didn't help the ratings but we don't have TV service anyway.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 4:56 am
I thought it had a lot of problems. Storyline, characters, overall plot.
There was nothing really exciting or original. You had a body switching device of sorts.
There was division among the crew, and between two lead characters, a scientist and military leader. (In my view this is a bad way to go...) While conflict can lead to resolutions and entertainment, the way they played it out... it was just horrible. They needed the scientist for the ship. And they needed the military leader for social cohesion. Social cohesion which was farther beaten up by a civilian group and the military group.
Every show was about the ship losing power, and needing either Science Genius Young Guy to fix it, or Resentful science genius old guy to figure it out. And they could have done so much more. Yes, the ship had those portable moving devices, but overall... it had so much more potential. I mean, the ship was huge... but instead of writing a storyline where the ship could do stuff, it was just about an old relic falling apart, so what is there for a large audience to hold on to?
Who were the characters we were supposed to like again? They were all either corrupt, or looking to back stab,
Really, to put it mildly and without making harsh comments, it was just a really really bad show.
Some of the overarching plot might have been reasonable... if you gave the audience something to chew. But no, every single episode I saw was, old scientist vs young scientist. Military vs civilian. Military leader vs scientist genius. Ship falling apart and needing to restock resources at a planet, and ship falling apart and under attack! it was just horribly ridiculous. And the previous series were substantially better... so I can find no fault in the cancellation.
There was nothing really exciting or original. You had a body switching device of sorts.
There was division among the crew, and between two lead characters, a scientist and military leader. (In my view this is a bad way to go...) While conflict can lead to resolutions and entertainment, the way they played it out... it was just horrible. They needed the scientist for the ship. And they needed the military leader for social cohesion. Social cohesion which was farther beaten up by a civilian group and the military group.
Every show was about the ship losing power, and needing either Science Genius Young Guy to fix it, or Resentful science genius old guy to figure it out. And they could have done so much more. Yes, the ship had those portable moving devices, but overall... it had so much more potential. I mean, the ship was huge... but instead of writing a storyline where the ship could do stuff, it was just about an old relic falling apart, so what is there for a large audience to hold on to?
Who were the characters we were supposed to like again? They were all either corrupt, or looking to back stab,
Really, to put it mildly and without making harsh comments, it was just a really really bad show.
Some of the overarching plot might have been reasonable... if you gave the audience something to chew. But no, every single episode I saw was, old scientist vs young scientist. Military vs civilian. Military leader vs scientist genius. Ship falling apart and needing to restock resources at a planet, and ship falling apart and under attack! it was just horribly ridiculous. And the previous series were substantially better... so I can find no fault in the cancellation.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 6:29 am
Yes, there will be no more stargate universe... for now...
A shame really, some will say it is nothing new, but I have a better word for it: a classic! They also said that 2 million viewers isn't enough, while this the size of my entire country's population!
So in the end they decided that they were going to reinvest the resources into their phony reality shows!
A shame really, some will say it is nothing new, but I have a better word for it: a classic! They also said that 2 million viewers isn't enough, while this the size of my entire country's population!
So in the end they decided that they were going to reinvest the resources into their phony reality shows!
posted on October 28th, 2011, 6:34 am
SGU was pretty well doomed from the start. It changed the nature of the show to be more drama and long-term continuity-oriented. The result is that people who weren't SG fans didn't want to get into it initially and probably couldn't follow once enuff continuity had been established, while not all fans of the old SG series liked the new style.
If it had started out more like the old series and changed rather slowly it would have done better.
The conflicts being overdone were not helping either. Having a jerkass genius is one thing, but to then have the one who opposes him pull a huge jerk move and thus be even more of a jerk just pushes the audience from caring about the conflict at all. The conflict about civilian vs. military was just stupid to begin with (protip:don't lead a revolution against the people who actually have the training to survive while trapped with a limited number of people on a ship that nearly falls apart once per week or more due to both outside and inside threats. Especially don't ask for the new gov't to be very democratic when all those threats require immediate down to the seconds decisions.)
@godsvoice: you raise some good points, but the whole ship losing power and similar plots are a sci-fi cliche that it just inherited from the previous sg series. Would be nice if writers actually took to more interesting plots like those of Babylon 5, but networks want what has worked for them. The resource-gathering episodes I actually liked because they did break with tradition with those. Remember Voyager's magic reset button that refilled their everything (crew, shuttles, torpedoes, etc.)...
If it had started out more like the old series and changed rather slowly it would have done better.
The conflicts being overdone were not helping either. Having a jerkass genius is one thing, but to then have the one who opposes him pull a huge jerk move and thus be even more of a jerk just pushes the audience from caring about the conflict at all. The conflict about civilian vs. military was just stupid to begin with (protip:don't lead a revolution against the people who actually have the training to survive while trapped with a limited number of people on a ship that nearly falls apart once per week or more due to both outside and inside threats. Especially don't ask for the new gov't to be very democratic when all those threats require immediate down to the seconds decisions.)
@godsvoice: you raise some good points, but the whole ship losing power and similar plots are a sci-fi cliche that it just inherited from the previous sg series. Would be nice if writers actually took to more interesting plots like those of Babylon 5, but networks want what has worked for them. The resource-gathering episodes I actually liked because they did break with tradition with those. Remember Voyager's magic reset button that refilled their everything (crew, shuttles, torpedoes, etc.)...
posted on October 28th, 2011, 10:34 am
Last edited by robin1983 on October 28th, 2011, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
lets face it. The script writing when all over the place and didn't go anywhere.
I've seen better writing from the 70's Canadian Sci Fi show Starlost. And it had a similar theme. They had Cryogenic people found, Aliens that tried to take over the ship repeatedly, Equipment that was broken. People that where lost on the ship, Survivors of the original crew etc etc etc
So that is how bad SGU where
The Starlost:
(And it had Walter Koenig as an evil alien in it)
I've seen better writing from the 70's Canadian Sci Fi show Starlost. And it had a similar theme. They had Cryogenic people found, Aliens that tried to take over the ship repeatedly, Equipment that was broken. People that where lost on the ship, Survivors of the original crew etc etc etc
So that is how bad SGU where
The Starlost:
(And it had Walter Koenig as an evil alien in it)
posted on October 28th, 2011, 11:16 am
i happened to like sgu a lot. it wasnt perfect sadly, the clichés are common to a lot of sci fi these days as sci fi has been done a lot already.
the conflict was one of my favourite parts of the show, voyager promised so much but turned out to be tng in another quadrant. each season was almost completely a sequence of bottle episodes. ds9 at least had arcs, it treated them ridiculously, but at least it had them. that's probably what contributes to me loving ds9 more than voyager even though i grew up on voyager.
in sgu some also say they ended up not liking some characters as they had flaws, i enjoyed that part of the show. these were a bunch of people put into a situation they were not prepared for. people not handling the pressure was something i appreciated, especially the suicide of that marine.
and by the late second series they were more used to dealing with it, and BECAME a tight community. with voyager they were a family so quickly it seemed worth far less as you didnt see them connect, you only saw them connected. with sgu it was a good perspective to see the people form the connections.
personally i think the old sg1/sga fans were too quick to put sgu down cos it was different. part of me wishes sgu wasnt part of the stargate franchise, it might have stood better on its own without all the haters forming sites with the single purpose of hating on sgu and calling for its cancellation. some of them were deluded/naive enough to think that sgu being cancelled would bring back sga. well they got their wish, sgu died, and now mgm has all but abandoned the franchise.
the conflict was one of my favourite parts of the show, voyager promised so much but turned out to be tng in another quadrant. each season was almost completely a sequence of bottle episodes. ds9 at least had arcs, it treated them ridiculously, but at least it had them. that's probably what contributes to me loving ds9 more than voyager even though i grew up on voyager.
in sgu some also say they ended up not liking some characters as they had flaws, i enjoyed that part of the show. these were a bunch of people put into a situation they were not prepared for. people not handling the pressure was something i appreciated, especially the suicide of that marine.
and by the late second series they were more used to dealing with it, and BECAME a tight community. with voyager they were a family so quickly it seemed worth far less as you didnt see them connect, you only saw them connected. with sgu it was a good perspective to see the people form the connections.
personally i think the old sg1/sga fans were too quick to put sgu down cos it was different. part of me wishes sgu wasnt part of the stargate franchise, it might have stood better on its own without all the haters forming sites with the single purpose of hating on sgu and calling for its cancellation. some of them were deluded/naive enough to think that sgu being cancelled would bring back sga. well they got their wish, sgu died, and now mgm has all but abandoned the franchise.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 1:16 pm
Last edited by Quatre on October 28th, 2011, 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The main problem of the series was the compleatly overacting of the whole series.
Ship is falling appart, ship is loosing power, food, water and air are low, conflicts between leaders, ship is under attack, conflicts between other people (on the ship and ship/earth), problems at a planet, explorring new fetures of the ship and litte things about the other random persons arround.
Its ok to have all these things together. But NOT all together in just 1 45min episode! Even BSG was not that hard to the audience. And even there people could like some of the charakters. The only halfsympatic guy was Eli. And sometimes the marinepup. The others where assholes most of the time or just annoying.
At the final of the first season the show lost me.
The ship was overtaken bei these guys from our galaxy. The hole military personal (including the commander) was short before executet, the young woman was dying, the young genius was certain death outside of the ship, the marinepup was running to help him (with no chance) and something was with the old genius. And there was more I think.
1 or 2 cliffhanger are ok. But 6+! at one time!
And (i noticed somewhen later) they all survieved and all! attackers died somehow.
Ship is falling appart, ship is loosing power, food, water and air are low, conflicts between leaders, ship is under attack, conflicts between other people (on the ship and ship/earth), problems at a planet, explorring new fetures of the ship and litte things about the other random persons arround.
Its ok to have all these things together. But NOT all together in just 1 45min episode! Even BSG was not that hard to the audience. And even there people could like some of the charakters. The only halfsympatic guy was Eli. And sometimes the marinepup. The others where assholes most of the time or just annoying.
At the final of the first season the show lost me.
The ship was overtaken bei these guys from our galaxy. The hole military personal (including the commander) was short before executet, the young woman was dying, the young genius was certain death outside of the ship, the marinepup was running to help him (with no chance) and something was with the old genius. And there was more I think.
1 or 2 cliffhanger are ok. But 6+! at one time!
And (i noticed somewhen later) they all survieved and all! attackers died somehow.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 3:59 pm
SGU was the most watched sci-fi show in canada, so you can't say anything about its popularity.
The reasons for its cancelation are entirely financial, the drop in ratings was only an excuse to drop the giliotine.
Sure it had uninteresting parralels with already known TV shows, but what interested me the most was the fact itself that that they were eeking out a living on that broken down bucket. If you look at past shows you will see that is quite rare:
TNG: Brand new galaxy class starship
DS9: A little messed up but there was minimal structural damage repaired already after the 1st episode
VOY: Brand new intrepid class starsip
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: Old, but functional, begins to fail only towards the end after massive abuse!
STARGATE ATLANTIS: May have been power problems, but the place itself is immaculate
What we have here is a typical argument between 2 camps, one seeing only the faults while the other sees only the advantages... yes, well... just wanted to say that...
The reasons for its cancelation are entirely financial, the drop in ratings was only an excuse to drop the giliotine.
Sure it had uninteresting parralels with already known TV shows, but what interested me the most was the fact itself that that they were eeking out a living on that broken down bucket. If you look at past shows you will see that is quite rare:
TNG: Brand new galaxy class starship
DS9: A little messed up but there was minimal structural damage repaired already after the 1st episode
VOY: Brand new intrepid class starsip
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: Old, but functional, begins to fail only towards the end after massive abuse!
STARGATE ATLANTIS: May have been power problems, but the place itself is immaculate
What we have here is a typical argument between 2 camps, one seeing only the faults while the other sees only the advantages... yes, well... just wanted to say that...
posted on October 28th, 2011, 4:13 pm
Not as rare as you might think:
Firefly: seems to constantly need repairs
Farscape: frequent need of resupply and often spends several episodes recovering after being damaged in battles
Star Wars: the Millennium Falcon
Firefly: seems to constantly need repairs
Farscape: frequent need of resupply and often spends several episodes recovering after being damaged in battles
Star Wars: the Millennium Falcon
posted on October 28th, 2011, 4:16 pm
Quatre wrote:At the final of the first season the show lost me.
The ship was overtaken bei these guys from our galaxy. The hole military personal (including the commander) was short before executet, the young woman was dying, the young genius was certain death outside of the ship, the marinepup was running to help him (with no chance) and something was with the old genius. And there was more I think.
1 or 2 cliffhanger are ok. But 6+! at one time!
And (i noticed somewhen later) they all survieved and all! attackers died somehow.
you got a couple facts wrong there. young genius guy (eli) was inside the ship doing running, 2 marines were outside.
and the attackers didnt all die. one of their scientists (ginn) performed a mutiny against the aggressive leader and surrendered them all. most were dumped on a planet, a few were kept behind as part of a deal for flip flopping. created some interesting stories later.
that was another thing i liked about sgu, non main characters were still important. riley's death had emotional impact on me because i cared about his character and formed an emotional bond with it. on star trek a dozen red shirts died each week, rarely knew their names, they rarely had lines, rarely did i care.
the first 9 episodes of season 1 had a lot of character development and less pew pew, some people weren't too fond of that, i loved it, since it set up some characters that the audience could bond with. characters the audience cared about, and more importantly, characters who they could hurt/kill believably. on star trek we bonded almost entirely with the main cast, and they couldnt be killed because they had contracts. it was very rare that we saw main characters die. tasha yar died early, and the death was rather plain/boring it seemed like they rushed her out, so it was weak and didnt make an impact much. similar with the jadzia dax death, although that was better than yar. better done deaths/exits were rare, i think the kes exit was ok.
bug on sgu i was genuinely impacted by riley's death, and by the blinding of dr park. they paid the price of slower character development episodes, but had the benefit of characters who the audience bonded with and didnt have contracts.
posted on October 28th, 2011, 8:32 pm
Cabal, if you proved anything then it is that such series are more exception than the case, and putting farscape aside, Firefly was again too short, but the ships problems were in the background except for one episode and the millenium falcon was never the center of attention in the movies!
My belief is that stargate universe failed because it was too much stargate and not enough destiny-ish. I mean a little longer and all the stargate series would have ran as long as that beverley hills 902...yuck.
The only magic that SGU caught was the fact itself that everything wasn't ok, that these were people who didn't sign up for this and didn't train for this and aren't some nerves of steel borderline superheros. You had a half way broken down piece a can, where half the people were panicking every time somebody farted on board, a coffee junkie crazy scientist, a girl who was abducted by aliens they and did who knows what to her, an average "couldn't get a job" kid who gets pulled in to this because he solved a prefixed video game, a military officer who barely survived getting on board this thing and has problems at home, a lesbian supervisor sticking her nose into everything, a military nhut who was supposed to be in jail.... (if I were speaking this instead of typing I would be out of breath by now)
Every one of them individually isn't anything special, but together they make a toxic combination where half of the time you don't know wether the ship is gonna fall apart first or the crew is gonna go crazy.
To make a long story short, im not saying its the greatest TV show i ever saw, what im saying is that SGU is worth continuing, and the reason they shut it down was because watching ppl cry for real on tv instead of actors using tear inducing agents is more profitable!
My belief is that stargate universe failed because it was too much stargate and not enough destiny-ish. I mean a little longer and all the stargate series would have ran as long as that beverley hills 902...yuck.
The only magic that SGU caught was the fact itself that everything wasn't ok, that these were people who didn't sign up for this and didn't train for this and aren't some nerves of steel borderline superheros. You had a half way broken down piece a can, where half the people were panicking every time somebody farted on board, a coffee junkie crazy scientist, a girl who was abducted by aliens they and did who knows what to her, an average "couldn't get a job" kid who gets pulled in to this because he solved a prefixed video game, a military officer who barely survived getting on board this thing and has problems at home, a lesbian supervisor sticking her nose into everything, a military nhut who was supposed to be in jail.... (if I were speaking this instead of typing I would be out of breath by now)
Every one of them individually isn't anything special, but together they make a toxic combination where half of the time you don't know wether the ship is gonna fall apart first or the crew is gonna go crazy.
To make a long story short, im not saying its the greatest TV show i ever saw, what im saying is that SGU is worth continuing, and the reason they shut it down was because watching ppl cry for real on tv instead of actors using tear inducing agents is more profitable!
posted on October 28th, 2011, 10:33 pm
Sorry, haven't read all the post fully, but:
I think these are mostly related to Myles comments, maybe a couple others.
When it comes to conflicts, and survival tales... you run into the problem of Battlestar Galactica... which was just such a phenomenally well acted show, with great story lines... all except, 'and they have a plan'.
They had to deal with resource shortages, and did so incredibly while through the entire series, but it never took an entire season to focus on it. The battlestar.... was a battlestar, it had huge storages, and they had civilian cargoes to help.
They also had conflicts, but just played so well. Athena... Boomer, was the only character I had a problem with... but for the part she had to play, I thought it was decent enough. So many other were just great.
Voyager did have some cohesion problems at the beginning, conflicts with maquis and federation, but I thought chakotay did a decent job of reconcile. They put him as first officer over tuvok... so I dunno.
And, can't comment on individual shows, cause I stopped watching after a few, and then only saw a couple episodes here and there.
One thing I will compliment SGU on, is the first couple shows and how they recruited eli. It was an online game or something, and he had to solve it by seeing symbols that meant nothing unless you played the levels a lot. And he solved it.. then got whisked away on a matter of national defence or whatever. And I was like, interesting way to go... but then yeah, you meet the science leader guy who feels bad about some kid who solves it and I dunno it lost attraction for me.
But yeah, for the conflicts, I think other series have just set the bar to high for some of the plot lines SGU had. Characters were just flat. Eli, the one young military officer seemed ok too, and maybe one of the younger girls didn't seem to bad to start, but as it went on... just wasn't enough.
For ship falling apart: Battlestar galactica. The ship was being put into retirement in the first episode... and then they run into the Pegagus and had her for a couple seasons. And near the end she did fall apart, and could no longer jump, and they flew her into the sun. So, living up to that yikes... But even from the beginning, they played it out with having a good engineering crew, a good commander, a GOOD SHIP, and yeah... They even put her into the conflict resolution at the end, because the cylons could help out Galactica. So, in short, BSG was amazing as a story, not just a sic fi show, but in characters, plot, ethics, everything. Not to mention humorous and emotionally sophisticated, although near the end it was turning sort of into a soap opera... it was just so good who could care.
I think these are mostly related to Myles comments, maybe a couple others.
When it comes to conflicts, and survival tales... you run into the problem of Battlestar Galactica... which was just such a phenomenally well acted show, with great story lines... all except, 'and they have a plan'.
They had to deal with resource shortages, and did so incredibly while through the entire series, but it never took an entire season to focus on it. The battlestar.... was a battlestar, it had huge storages, and they had civilian cargoes to help.
They also had conflicts, but just played so well. Athena... Boomer, was the only character I had a problem with... but for the part she had to play, I thought it was decent enough. So many other were just great.
Voyager did have some cohesion problems at the beginning, conflicts with maquis and federation, but I thought chakotay did a decent job of reconcile. They put him as first officer over tuvok... so I dunno.
And, can't comment on individual shows, cause I stopped watching after a few, and then only saw a couple episodes here and there.
One thing I will compliment SGU on, is the first couple shows and how they recruited eli. It was an online game or something, and he had to solve it by seeing symbols that meant nothing unless you played the levels a lot. And he solved it.. then got whisked away on a matter of national defence or whatever. And I was like, interesting way to go... but then yeah, you meet the science leader guy who feels bad about some kid who solves it and I dunno it lost attraction for me.
But yeah, for the conflicts, I think other series have just set the bar to high for some of the plot lines SGU had. Characters were just flat. Eli, the one young military officer seemed ok too, and maybe one of the younger girls didn't seem to bad to start, but as it went on... just wasn't enough.
For ship falling apart: Battlestar galactica. The ship was being put into retirement in the first episode... and then they run into the Pegagus and had her for a couple seasons. And near the end she did fall apart, and could no longer jump, and they flew her into the sun. So, living up to that yikes... But even from the beginning, they played it out with having a good engineering crew, a good commander, a GOOD SHIP, and yeah... They even put her into the conflict resolution at the end, because the cylons could help out Galactica. So, in short, BSG was amazing as a story, not just a sic fi show, but in characters, plot, ethics, everything. Not to mention humorous and emotionally sophisticated, although near the end it was turning sort of into a soap opera... it was just so good who could care.
posted on October 29th, 2011, 1:37 am
its canned but nothing says for good all it needs is a channel to give the 3rd season a shot i am a huge stargate fan i have every episode and every movie on dvd watched them more times than i can count and i must say universe had some massive boots to fill and i think it did well for its first 2 seasons however could have been a little better the story did flop at some points but all round very good show that should be brought back even if its to do the last season to give it a proper finish
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