I might be the only one mourning the loss of this show tonight, but I figured with about a million viewers there’s gotta be a few dopers out there still watching. I understand why it was cancelled, it started out pretty rough, and it was hampered by the fact that it has very little in common with the other Stargate shows. Still, I got really good this season, especially in the second half, and I feel like it could be downright amazing if it came back for another season.
In the end though, it had a really good finale (it’s obvious the writers knew they were probably going to be cancelled). A little bit sad, a little bit happy, and open ended enough that you can imagine what might happen next. Plus, they already had an “epilogue” a few episodes back. It was nice that they ended the show with Eli, since that’s how the show began.
That’s all. You can go back to talking about Firefly now.
The show went on hiatus (already planned) in November until March. In December they announce they weren’t going to order Season 3, but they still allowed them to finish.
I enjoyed the tail end of both seasons, however there was hardly any build up to them. They just spent to much time not in control of the ship, that should’ve taken half a season at most to resolve IMO. They also spent about half to three quarters of most episodes dealing with interpersonal relationships, which seriously condensed the action/sci-fi bits. Another problem was the fact that they used/mentioned the communication stones about twice as often as the Stargate, but I suppose that ties in with my last point. They also rarely used any technology other than the set (Example: Ship doors/pannels). One last rant, in 40 episodes they only ran into only one intelligent alien life form, the ones that kidnapped Chloe, which was a very weak plot point IMO.
Despite everything I just wrote I did enjoy this show, I just saw a lot of untapped potential which is a shame considering how many episodes were filler. The series finale was a notch above most episodes, it jumped right into the action, unfortunately the last 10-15 minutes were fairly calm and predictable. Once they returned with the metal (14 minutes remaining) the only plot left was the earth visits and the pod failing.
They only had food and water left for about a month. And using life support consumes too much power so they wouldn’t be able to make it to the next galaxy.
I agree. First season, I wouldn’t have cared if they’d cancelled it, now I was kinda sad.
Anyway, after everyone was in the stasis pods, I just had this image of Eli tripping over a wire and hearing (shades of Andy Dick in that one weird Newsradio episode set in space) Lifeform 1: expired. Lifeform 2: expired. etc. Now that would’ve been a different way to end a series.
I really don’t think this felt like a series finale as much as a season finale. If they had been picked up another year, it wouldn’t be some big deal to have the premiere be Eli figuring out some genius new plan right before podding himself, or having Earth find a viable gate planet, or even just picking up when they wake up.
You’re not the only one. I’m going to miss it also. I stuck with it all the way in the hopes that it would improve and it got much better. The problem was that they got off to a bad start and didn’t recover in time to save it.
I’m going to miss the end of the entire Star Gate franchise.
There doesn’t seem to be any decent science fiction TV on the horizon. Nothing else currently on SyFy interests me much. I can watch Eureka, but I can’t get excited about it. Warehouse 13 and Sanctuary simply don’t hold my interest. Alphas doesn’t look that interesting to me, but I guess I’ll check it out.
SyFy is straying into more and more wrestling and chasing ghosts, and less and less science fiction.
Agree on all your points. Ended quite strong with good storylines. It still amazes me how much potential they squandered by focusing on the early soap opera angles and the andless personal angst with so many plots being Chloe-centric. It makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking.
In a meta sort of way, I found it to be a fitting ending. Somehow this show, for me at least, managed to make mortality scarier than most shows do. I think it’s because so many characters died “wrong”; like with Ginn and Mandy having the stones glitch things. Going into the pods and not knowing if they’ll die in them (and what kind of death that would be) carries with it that sort of uncertainty that I associate with the show.
SyFy has 2 hours of wrestling per week, on a generally weak TV night. Why do people keep harping on it as if half the programming is wrestling? We get it, you don’t like wrestling. Every network has shows you don’t like. WWE is low risk/high return programming for NBC Universal (owners of SyFy and USA), produces ~50 weeks of original programming annually, and WWE even brings in its own advertisers. Also, the additional viewers allows SyFy to effectively cross promote its own programming.
As for the ghost programs, they keep producing those for the same reason the networks keep coming up with new reality programs. They are dirt cheap to produce and are profitable. Enough people must believe in ghosts to keep watching. I think I’ve seen about 10 minutes of one of the programs - it wasn’t for me, buy fortunately SyFy isn’t the only channel on my cable system.
I was watching Stargate: Universe and enjoying it, but the truth is that original scripted programming is much more expensive and has higher viewership hurdles than the ghost shows. It’s not the first SciFi series I enjoyed that died (IMO) an early death, nor will it be the last.
We all understand the economics behind it, it’s certainly been harped on enough, and we’d understand it even without the harping, but that doesn’t mean we like it or won’t complain about it.
Your philosophy seems to be that the market has dictated it and we should shut the hell up about it. Too bad, because people are going to bitch about things they like being taken away (whatever the reason), and that’s as certain as market forces.
I agree with pretty much everybody. It started out weird, and to me it seemed they were under heavy pressure to “do it like Battlestar Galactica” but they never could get that to work. Season two got better and they seemed to eventually find some comfortable footing. I joined the Facebook “Save SGU” page.
I’d have kept watching, and I hope they figure out a way to make a TV movie, although I heard the sets are all scrapped. That hasn’t prevented other shows Farscape from coming back.
Ending with Eli was great. It seemed like he was the only one other than crazy Rush who was telling the truth when saying despite everything, he was happy where he was.
Sniff.
I loved it when Eli was explaining how their descendants from 1,000 years in the past would have had time to colonize many planets with varying degrees of technological development. No! Not more generic vaguely medieval human worlds every week! That’s always been one of my SG gripes and it was like the writers were teasing me with what they had planned. Then they decided to just skip that galaxy.
At the end of last season I lamented how Eli had been treated and the way they’d neglected that he’s the super-genius on board, not Rush. They finally came right out and said it, yes he is the more powerful genius problem solver and I felt perfectly comfortable knowing the Destiny and all the lives aboard were safely in his more than capable hands.
They still didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with Lt. Boobs and her character, but they did let her act and prove her presence there wasn’t just her boobs. Lt. James was starting to get interesting.
Any speculation on where they might have been headed with the different characters? Subplots that needed more?
For instance, I’m curious why Chloe is all human again except she can do crazy FTL calculations in her head.
You’re not the only one. Or maybe you are and I just haven’t noticed.
If you want to say that wrestling (which I like) thematically doesn’t belong on a channel devoted to science fiction (which I like), I will agree with you. However, the braying millions don’t say that. They say that it is “taking over” or that SyFy is all about wrestling now or other phrases to that effect. That is factually incorrect and is just whining because SyFy is showing something they don’t like (and getting some of their best ratings from it).
Because they needed her to be useful in order to validate her character getting as much screen time as she did. Also it removed most of the potential conflict between Rush/Eli regarding who had to/got to crunch the numbers, sort of took the wind out of Eli’s sails IMO. Beyond that I think they were making Chloe’s story arch up as they went along. The whole Chloe turning alien arch really bugged me as either unneeded or just poorly written, depending on the episode.
While this is true, it is sad to me that they no longer have a show set even partially in space. My biggest problem with the wrestling isn’t its minor presence but the fact that it coupled with everything else ‘not science fiction’ makes for a network which does the bare minimum to be considered sci-fi. Oh and anytime recently that I’ve watched the channel wrestling gets more commercial time than anything which could be considered sci-fi, which makes it feel like a much larger presence.
I agree. Thematically, it is wrong, and I too would like to see less emo vampires and more space/fantasy programming. It also gets a lot more advertising (though I’ve noticed with Eureka, Haven, and Warehouse 13’s imminent return, they’ve ramped up their advertising), but I think in part it is because it is new 50 weeks a year versus ~13, so the advertising is year-round.
SG:U had its fair share a predictable archetypes and wasted storylines. I understand, even if I didn’t like, why they focused on interpersonal relationships (it’s cheaper), but at least they could have mixed up the personalities a bit. Too many broad strokes, and too much wasted time with useless plot lines. Didn’t get enough of the good plotlines (and I would have preferred if, for once, Robert Knepper hadn’t turned out to be the bad guy).
Remember, it’s not SciFi, it’s Syfy. There’s no “thematically” in their thinking anymore. Cooking show, shows about guys buying memorabilia, whatever. “Syfy” is meaningless, so anything fits.