This past Friday the atrociously named SyFy channel premiered Stargate Universe, the never-ending cash cow of science fiction television. I must admit, I did enjoy SG-1 throughout the first eight seasons and felt Atlantis had the potential to be a better show during its stellar first season. However, immediately after this point the writers seemed to have run out of good ideas.

Instead of just ending SG-1 at a good spot, with the main threat finished and all the loose ends tied up, they instead chose to create an even bigger and badder enemy that only tread the same old grounds. Only this time space magic was involved!

Meanwhile, whatever jerks were in charge of Atlantis decided all the elements of isolation and lack of resources that made the show interesting in the first place needed to go away. Now all of a sudden the settlement could communicate with Earth regularly, making them just another expedition force with a completely different foe. As the series continued a lot of the episodes began to seem awfully familiar, which they should have. All the same tropes and concepts were being recycled from older SG-1 episodes.

Hearing SG-1 was canceled was music to my ears, as it was about time they ended the damn show. Of course, by this point I had even lost interest in Atlantis. I wasn’t even aware that had been canceled until I saw advertisements of Universe, and I’m overall curious to see how that series ended. That is, assuming they didn’t make more disappointing and sub-par DVD specials.

So here the franchise comes again, and at first to me seemed like a complete and sudden reboot by the people that did Battlestar Galactica. Some research later I found this wasn’t the case, just that the Stargate writers wanted to do something more serious, adult and dramatic. Now part of the fun of Stargate to begin with was the fact that it was fun in the same sense the original Star Trek was fun. There were serious ideas in there, but it never took itself too seriously. It allowed you to be amused, to like the characters and still be interested to see where the story could go.

Typically when someone says they want to make something “more adult”, they just mean it has a lot of blood and sex that appeals to a demographic aged 13 to 24. That or every character is a selfish asshole and the director just loves to use handi-cam close-ups on people’s faces for dramatic effect. Still, I figured I’d give it a shot.

All in all, the premiere wasn’t too bad. Part of me certainly wishes it was a reboot, as at this point the Stargate canon has expanded way too far for its own good. It’s just like Resident Evil 5 using Umbrella as a bad guy again. A company performing experiments in a small lab on the grounds of a rich guy’s mansion outside of a city is something that I can buy. It makes sense for a corporation to do that. However, it’s like this company decided to expand their efforts worldwide without seeing if it’s even worth the cost. I could even buy Racoon City in its entirety being some sort of massive laboratory, as outlandish as it may be, but once you start putting facilities in Alaska and Africa you need to wonder when the company actually researched useful products.

Now we have more and more Ancient technology popping up. For all this ancient race did it’s a wonder they died to begin with. A space ship going from one galaxy to the next, seed colonies spread across two separate galaxies, and the ability to attain a higher state of existence. What didn’t these people do, and why isn’t there evidence of another race with the same capabilities?

Of course, this is all nit-picking the canon the new series takes place in. The real question is, does the two-hour pilot episode suggest that the series will be worth following?

Well, the writers are certainly trying to stick to what made Battlestar Galactica popular while also trying to maintain what made Stargate popular as well. A sense of humor is still intact, as well as those willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. So far not every character is someone I hate, an issue I could never get over in Galactica. However, the entire two hours doesn’t do much to prove that the show has much room to go somewhere. The writers intertwine the story of how our large cast is going to survive on the Ancient ship they’ve been stranded on while telling how they got there in the first place. This is an excellent tactic that is certainly more entertaining than merely telling the tale linearly, but in the end you don’t know if you actually like the show yet.

What I do know is some of the same archetypal flaws are still present that haunted SG-1 and Atlantis, something I was able to forgive since the shows never took themselves too seriously. Here, however, the scientist that lost the love of their life willing to label human beings as expendable for the sake of some discovery is, well, trite as can be. All that has been accomplished is, like every other archetypal character used before them, making an asshole. Still, nice to see a scientist being the asshole instead of the religious leader for a change, something even more trite in Stargate.

Stock photo to say “I’m writing too much, better give them a picture to keep them from getting bored.”

What has me worried here is the new attempt to be edgy, or however the entertainment industry tries to appeal to an “adult” audience. A sex-scene with few bed sheets that approaches the level of softcore pornography going on for what felt like a minute is not “adult”, it’s sophomoric and gratuitous. Yes, I get it, adults like to slam each other in the naughty-nudey bits. But only a child with little actual experience performing the act would actually enjoy watching characters do it on television. That is, if their parents aren’t in the room. I know people doing things as a family hasn’t been hip since the 90’s, but there are quite a few people that were probably watching this with siblings, parents or even children in the room. Hell, even if I was watching this with my friends it would have become uncomfortable.

There are better ways to let everyone know that, yes, these two characters are having sex, than zooming in to barely covered crotches head-butting each other.

Having a character that is a lesbian, and announcing it to fans to describe the character, also seems gratuitous to me. However, thus far the character’s sexuality has yet to be thrown in my face, and therefore I’m going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt. You see, I like gay people when there’s more to them than that. When I can talk to them about stuff and forget which side of the gender fence they like to prowl. It means there is much more to them than their sexuality.

Most gay people, unfortunately, do not fall into this category. It’s like a cheerleader who can only think of their popularity and status in school. They are about as deep as the kiddie pool and define themselves through the most shallow means. Therefore, by creating a character and flaunting the fact that, yes, they’re gay, you have thus developed a character with absolutely no depth. Therefore that character is annoying.

Yet throughout the first two hours there was little, if any, perceived sexuality of the lesbian character. With luck, the writers will actually handle her sexuality in a mature fashion and no one will care.

Oh who am I kidding. The writers are going to have her going totally softcore porn with another woman while the unseen members of the crew whoop and holler like a bunch of drunken frat boys.

Stargate Universe may be an interesting show, but I’m still completely skeptical of how it will turn out. You can never trust anyone that throws buzz words like “edgy” or “more adult” around, because it only suggests the complete opposite. I can only hope that the Stargate writers truly want to do something more worthwhile than “ok, now zoom in on their crotch so you can catch all the flabby ripples in their thigh as they thrust”.

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