User reviews

I have loved, LOVED all the previous Stargate incarnations. But SGU is just so DULLLLLL! Jeez. The characters are both dull and dull-witted (some are saying stupid).

I've watched every episode from the pilot to episode 22. Now, I'm trying to get thru episode 23, and I just can't. 20 minutes into "Aftermath" and I'm fighting off sleep from boredom. I give up. This show might have had potential if it weren't such a soap-opera. Are the writers trying to mimic Lost? General Hospital? Not the shows I would have chosen as models. Yuck.

The plots are silly, the acting can be described as routine, at best, and the writing is just dreary. There is not a single likable character. And it's not at all an interesting show.

Time after time, writers/producers seem forget that a show is good ONLY with 1. good scripts (stories), 2. good acting, and 3. likable characters. If a show doesn't have those qualities, it's going to die. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. And sadly, SGU has none of those three traits.

The writing is on the tombstone, guys. IMHO, SGU is already dead. It just hasn't realized it yet.

SGU is not just terrible it is below horrible. I gave it the lowest rating available. SGU should not be given any stars. SGU is not an evolution of the franchise. It was a dreadful attempt to turn Stargate into a dark mimic of Battlestar Galactica. Clearly the network doesn't care about fostering a quality sci-fi series. A poor imitation of BSG is not an expansion of a franchise.

The casting for SGU is below horrible. Similarly none of the characters were qualified to be on the "Destiny". References to SG-1 and Atlantis technology were inaccurate and not plausible. SGU is a miscarriage of the Stargate franchise and a slap in the face to the science fiction genre.

The trailer was a turn off and it went downhill from there. SGU's premiere only drew in 56% of the audience that SGA had. The ratings continued to decline week by week. Thirty seven percent of viewers who tuned in, turned it off before the episodes ended.

I have never felt so compelled to join a site just to write a review, but this time it was a moral obligation. Stargate Universe is a poorly written soap opera which is set on a derelict spaceship out in the boonies of the universe. The show has had an entire season to grab me and it failed in a very big way. I was a big fan of the Stargate movie written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, and then I was treated to an excellent 10 years of the Stargate: SG-1 series. After that, the even more enjoyable Stargate: Atlantis series came out and followed the same exciting action/adventure format. But then something terrible happened. The producers of this show (Brad Wright, Robert C Cooper and Joseph Mallozzi)saw the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series which was trying to create a space based soap opera niche within the science fiction genre, and it has been a dismal failure. That style killed the new BSG, and also its spin off Caprica which was canceled last week. Stargate Universe is a soap opera, make no mistake about that. Its not a very good soap opera either! The ratings for this show in season 1 dropped from an almost acceptable 2.4 down to 1.2 million viewers, and this season it has dipped below 1 million viewers...TWICE. There is a reason for that: the show sucks. Most of the reviews for this show on IMDb are spot on, and the vast majority of them are negative, and that is because the show sucks. Why does it suck? Well, the characters are totally unlikable, there is no science in the show, but there are "visions" and magic stones which can swap the consciousness of people on this ship with people on earth. But are there scientists brought aboard? No, there aren't. Those stones have already been used for the "stranded" crew to go clubbing and get drunk in other people's bodies, to deal with soapy lesbian relationship issues (yes, lesbian relationship issues), and to check up on cheating wives. The stories aboard the ship are uninteresting because they make no sense and they leave too much unresolved. Its forced drama involving unlikable characters on a boring ship which has no real purpose.

BOTTOM LINE: This show was created as a marketing trick to draw in the orphaned Battlestar Galactica fans by taking the already successful action/adventure format of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, dumping that for soapy drama and gratuitous sex scenes and religion and politics, and FAILING to either draw the BSG fans or to keep its original Stargate fanbase. As a result, the show is on the verge of cancellation due to horrible ratings, and the producers have evidently HIRED people to go out and write reviews and pump up the shows. I found proof that they are doing this here: http://sgurocks.com/?q=node/226 and IMDb is specifically mentioned.

This show is not art, it is not for thinking people, it is not for science fiction fans, and its not good enough for the soap opera fans. I suggest you simply check out an episode free on Hulu and see for yourself. Don't waste an hour of your live viewing time watching this awful show. And if you do decide to watch an episode on Hulu or elsewhere, do it before going to bed. It will bore you to sleep.

Let me just say…it's about time.

Don't get me wrong, I gave the show a chance - they just wanted to make a Battlestar Galactica version, with darker characters and a more "human" touch, but they utterly failed.

I acknowledge that we live in the Age of Showbusiness – where 15 minutes of crying people is the latest craze and gets our slurry of hormones and chemical*receptors geared up for tear- jerking. If anything, the series producers were smart enough to milk off our crave for all things socially transient.

Honestly, I'm happy that it is finally getting canceled. Let me jump in there with a disclaimer: I REALLY WANTED this show to succeed, I really did, but the show turned out to be just an incredibly *crappy* soap opera that happened to take place in space. The SGU fans complain about, "well it sucks because I have a brain...and the old SG1 and SGA fans just want dumb action..."

Well, yes, I want action...because that's what the series is about - going on an adventure in space with lighthearted fun, humor, and a generally fast-paced atmosphere. Don't assume that just because I enjoy 60 minutes of minor character development in favor of attention- grabbing excitement, I *must* have sub par intellectual capabilities and mind geared toward inane reality TV shows (I do watch reality TV, but I watch things like Ice Road Truckers...mostly occupational shows - not things like Celebrity Rehab or game shows just RIPE with the Horatio Alger myth. But...I digress.)

Science-fiction is about discovery, adventure, excitement, technology, and unimaginable concepts made into realities. SGU is not Sci-Fi – it's a DRAMA, plain and simple. I'm not saying to make the show 45 minutes of explosions and technology*pr0n, but stay true to the genre of "science-fiction", darn*it!

I know they wanted to make the show "more adult", but cramming angst down our throats is not the way to make that happen. Well, that would work if that was what SG fans wanted...but it's not. The entire first season was spent having nothing to do with science fiction at all, just a bunch of whiny people lost in space. Some people on here claim that the characters are "in-depth" and "deep", but the female characters were cliché at best, and the other characters spent most of the time doing borderline pure evil to each other.

I get it - they're miserable, lost, want to go home, and sick of each other, but 20 episodes of overdone angst and unnecessary sex scenes and I'm just too disgusted to care. Guys, you tried to make the characters deep - I respect that...but I didn't care about the characters, no matter how brilliant of actors they were - after watching each episode thoroughly, all I wanted was to have them killed to put *ME* out of my misery.

I'm an intellectual – so I know that I'm predestined to mitigate the whole human interaction aspect, but if anything, I should walk away from this show instilled with a sense of something, well…"scientific." Simply put, this series lacks even the "science" aspect in its name. What on the show had any major relevance to "science" – I ask you? The technology shown was lackluster at best, proving to be nothing more than a method to lampshade the individual characters' flawed natures (again, having little relevance to science.) To summarize – I get the fiction, but where's the science?

My analogy is to Coca-Cola. SG-1 and SGA are the regular cola flavors.

SGU came along and decided to go in a completely different direction, but this is like making Fish-Flavored Coke and expecting everyone to drink it just because it says, "Coke" on the label.

Making that worse was Brad Wright outright saying (paraphrased, of course), "well tough *crap*, this is what you get and if you don't like it - fine - because we're making it better than your old *crap*. Nyah! Nyah!"

Their biggest mistake was their arrogance in alienating their fan*base in favor of this *amazing group of hardcore new fans*...which didn't happen. Face it - no one likes being told that their baby is ugly, but when parental fondness meets reality...well...whoops. Maybe they DID need those loyal fans since the 1994 movie... But, by the time they had realized this, they had already trudged on the sacred ground of the two former series - no fan will take them back after that, especially after the insinuation that all fans of SGA lived in their mother's basements (even if this were entirely true, it's still not intelligent to slap your audience in the face.)

I'm sorry, but SGU is a complete failure, and the fact that Brad Wright (in his latest interview) claims that SGA fans "sabotaged" SGU, even though beforehand, he claimed that, "SGA fans only make up a small minority and have no overall bearing on the series as a whole." Again, paraphrased, but you get the point - blame someone else.

It just sucks that the last spin off of the series gets washed up before kicking the bucket. The show has hit a wall and it's come to the point where the writers/producers need to stop blaming the fans for their shortcomings and own up to their failures before the *crap* on the fan drips onto the floor – I'm looking at YOU, Brad Wright. I'm looking at YOU.

(Note: I added asterisks to words that the spell check system didn't recognize for whatever reason.)

To get right to the point, this show completely sucks. I was laughing at the recent reviews from the past week or so who are giving it all sorts of praise and over the top 10 stars and such. Are they hired by the producers and the Syfy Channel? They must be, because whatever show they are jumping up and down about cant be Stargate Universe! If you like science fiction,you wont find much of it in Stargate Universe. Its basically a standard character drama in a serialized format (a soap opera), only the backdrop is a dark and gloomy spaceship in the outer reaches of the universe. But that is ruined by annoying deux ex machina called the "communications stones" which allow real time swapping of consciousness between the people on the ship and earth. But its done in a very soapy way involving who is sleeping with who, and weak overdone character backstory. The writing almost seems to be coming from a completely different source than that which brought us the very enjoyable Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis shows. How could they get this SO WRONG? From what I can see, they were going for a meld of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Firefly, Dawson's Creek and Survivor. Hate to say it but it came out like that dog creature from The Fly II.

These over the top reviews are not from fans of science fiction, they are hired shills paid to pump this awful show just before the season premiere on Tuesday, September 28th. They are telling people to ignore the vast majority of negative reviews on IMDb, and "give the show a chance"? You will be wasting your time. Go ahead and watch one episode free on Hulu and you wont bother with this garbage. The sooner they cancel this mistake of a show, the sooner we can get a proper reboot of the Stargate franchise. Clearly, its writers are burned out and out of ideas. Time to pass the torch, guys. I can live with NO Stargate for a few years until these writers have moved on. Seeing this soap opera imposter calling itself Stargate is painful. Please make it stop.

From reading the reviews here and seeing the show for myself, I can now see why the vast majority of reviews for this show on the internet are disparaging and negative. This show is written for people who enjoy watching survival shows, American Idol and Survivor, and daytime soap opera fans. There is a little of 90210 and Dawson's Creek in here, but especially BSG in the look and feel.

But this is no Battlestar Galactica. Even that show was only good for the first season and a half, and then it sank below soapy waters and became almost exclusively drama with religion and politics thrown in. But we are talking about Stargate Universe.

Why did they name it Stargate ANYTHING? Its not related to Stargate in any fashion, the characters are all new and although the acting seems rather well done, the stories and the scripts and the look of the end result is underwhelming to say the least. I dozed off on several of the episodes aired last season. Others that I missed, I went back to watch and they were even worse. There is no continuous arc, and since the characters are completely unlikable, I don't really care about them or what happens to them. I was a fan of the original movie, and then SG-1 and then Stargate Atlantis. But this new show is not Stargate, and its not entertaining In the 16 years that Stargate has been on the air, it took this vapid soap opera called Stargate Universe to deliver the three lowest rated episodes ever to air for the franchise. The viewership has dropped off a full 2/3 since premiering October 3rd of last year, and is currently hovering around 1 million viewers a week. How can they afford to waste the Tuesday 9:00pm timeslot? I wasn't surprised to hear that Syfy cancelled Caprica, but I was surprised to hear that Stargate Universe was not canceled at the same time. But that is coming soon, I hope.

NOTE: The few positive reviews here seem to have been written by hired poseurs who are trying to trick people into watching this show so that it wont be canceled. But the show is really quite bad. One of the worst shows ever created, since it is definitely not science fiction, but also not very good drama. This show is for emo angsty teens who don't know what real life is about yet. Pass this up, its a waste of your time.

Not much more to say.

If you have to sacrifice a human in the first Episode, for a task that can be done by a paper weight, just for the dramatic effect, you have already lost all credibility.

Also a ship, that is designed to fly trough a suns corona, but is in mortal danger from a few small laser cannons.

Calling this Science Fiction is an insult to the genre. It's just a daily soap that plays on a star ship.

It has nothing to do with SG1 or Atlantis. It only has this name to fool consumers into thinking that this is worth their money.

I am both sad & mad about this show. Sad that they ruined a franchise that was entertaining in every way - could make you laugh & cry, give you something to think about, adventure & characters to love and to really dislike. SGU gave us self absorbed hedonists with no sense of wonder or camaraderie & no humor. The only thing that made me want to cry was what they'd done to this show! I'm mad that this is what they promised us to replace SGA. I'm mad that the ratings are dismal compared to other shows canceled on other networks that I enjoyed so much more: Firefly (4+ million viewers) & Defying Gravity (just under 4million)to name two. Yet SGU averages 1.7 million and gets renewed. Do ratings count or not? I'm also mad that they would appeal to baser story lines in order to try to appeal to people who normally don't watch Science Fiction. What? So, you take the science fiction out of it, copy a scifi show that at least HAD a scifi element but keep the taudry carnal lustiness, power grabbing/acts of betrayal and use those damned cheater stones to check up on cheating wives? MY GOD man, you're billions of LYs away from Earth, what does it MATTER if your wife is cheating or not? By the way, those stones make no sense. They work across billions of LYs from a ship that's MOVING at some multiple of light speed? Um, I thought they were only supposed to work at fixed locations within a galaxy which is pretty HUGE, by the way.

In short, this show is a GREAT disappointment and I recommend re-watching all 10 seasons of SG-1 and all 5 of SGA. Maybe even check out other scifi shows.

I confess I am SG fan, however, what I enjoy about shows is the dynamic between character. The characters in this show (I watched 4 episodes) do nothing but fight for power or just throw fists among each other. That makes this show boring as hell for me... The show started as Atlantis, they get somewhere, all goes wrong they have to fix the ship, but instead of working together, going through stargate, meeting anyone, they go through stargate, shoot each other, kick each other and get some of their people killed. Well what fun is in that.

PS: Has nothing to do with any SG besides few original cast cameos and the big circle thing on the ship

If you read the notes on Joseph Mallozzi's blog (producer and writer of SGU), he has admitted more than once that the show does not aim to be science fiction.

Basically he is using the Stargate name to create some twisted reality show in space, and he not only admits it, but seems quite proud of it.

His motives unknown, but it seems he has come to terms with the fact that Stargate will lose all its SG-1 and SGA fans.

He admits the plot to thicken in the soap operish direction, this is just the beginning.

The saddest thing is that he's doing an awful job with the soap opera thing itself. I mean, it's a lousy soap opera, even as a pure soap opera.

Once again not sure what he's trying to achieve. So far he's created a very poor copycat of battlestar galactica.

All good things come to an end.. it will take a few more episodes for the disillusionment from the series to totally sink in, we're all still in 'I don't believe it' mode.

So we have to move on to a new good thing, since not much is waiting for us here.

As Joseph Mallozzi (producer/writer) clearly wrote on his blog, people who don't like the new concept of the show, should stop watching, because this is the new show and it is not going to change.

Our Stargate is no more, I guess we'll have to come to terms with that.

I fail to see how this is rated so high considering there is so many bad reviews. This really is an absolutely brutal spin off when compared with the SG1 and Atlantis. It's like a cross between Battlestar Galactica and Coronation Street. Not one of the actors has any redeemable qualities, I don't like them, I don't want to like them, I don't care what happens to them. Even the plot itself boggles the mind, generally I like watching SCI FI to see them discover new races, technologies, ever more advanced and interesting. This however, 2 races a season, a ship that's falling apart and far more primitive than Atlantis, nothing new to be learned, no super cool technology, even the human ships are more advanced, so why do we even care about the Destiny? I think even if it was real life I'd be pretty ticked off to find myself on the Lada of spacecraft.

Where do I begin here? I didn't start watching Stargate until about 5 years ago, and immediately fell in love with the show (SG1, that is). I soon caught up and watched the show end, enjoying nearly every minute of it. I also liked SGA, and was very disappointed when it was canceled. When I heard about the new series, Stargate Universe, I was really looking forward to it. And then I watched it...and I was speechless. Yes, speechless (and you'll see if you read the rest of my review here, I'm rarely at a loss for something to say). And on that note, I don't think words can ever do justice to just how bad this show really was (yes, was!).

It has been said by many wise folks of yore that change is the one constant in the universe. And more recently, a very wise lady named Wendy Pini said the following statement in the wonderful comic series known as Elfquest: "It was not only his ability to accept change, but to take advantage of it." I may not have it word for word, but read that passage over a few times. Then let us get back to Stargate Universe...

SGU, daresay I almost refuse to admit, was a noble effort in one sense. They tried something different...but in the process, they lost the nucleus of what made the previous Stargate shows so entertaining. It seems that all these years later, no one seems to take heed of just how important it is not to forget that. Remember George Lucas...remember Jar Jar...and don't forget your humble beginnings. Thankfully, it seems the creators of SGU were smart enough to throw in the towel, and I thank them for that. But I'm sorry, you still get only one star! I did try to give this show a chance. More than once. I watched every episode until about mid way into Season 2...and then, mid episode, I finally had enough. I do not think I have ever in my life (all 36 years) stopped watching a Sci Fi show mid episode. I love Sci Fi...but SGU was something else, Drama, etc, whatever you want to call it. And it was bad. Very bad.

Someone commented early on that they actually cheered when what's her name's father died early in the series. Now then, I do like drama, but in its right time and place. I will admit I get misty eyed when I see people die on TV (heck I still get tearful when I see ol' Optimus Prime die in the 80s Transformers movie!). But when the afore mentioned guy died in SGU...I had to admit...I WAS HAPPY! GLAD TO SEE HIM GONE! I knew at that point, that we were going on a one way trip up you know what creek in a canoe full of holes.

As you can see, I barely remember any of the names of the characters. Unlike Star Trek, SG1, SGA, Firefly and many others...I can watch those shows again and again. SGU I could barely stand to watch at all...and after each episode, I knew I would never torture myself again by doing so. It's like eating broccoli as a kid...getting a prostate exam, stood up for a hot date...wait...no, it's worse than all of those things combined! I didn't care about the characters. There were too many of them. The stories were scattered to the four winds. I'm sorry, but I don't care to know so many intimate details of the gay lady's personal life. How about using that STARGATE a little more (yeah, it's in the title for a reason?). How about some real aliens? Nope, just more crap.

And yes, the BSG wanna be thing was impossible to ignore. They even had the strange kooky megalomaniac Doctor with long hair, an accent and yes...THE ABILITY TO SEE AND TALK TO INVISIBLE PEOPLE! After I saw that...I wanted to put my fist through the screen. The only time this show ever got close to being sort of good was when they brought in characters from the other series. And even that wasn't enough.

Well, that's enough ranting. I procrastinated about writing this review for weeks and then months, but now that this show is canceled, all I can say is - GOOD RIDDANCE. Bad writing. Bad acting. And whomever created this abomination seems to have some real ego issues...

In closing...hopefully this will not be the end of the Stargate franchise. If they resurrected Star Trek after the dreadful train wreck known as Enterprise...they I'm sure there's hope for something good in the future. And please - NO MORE INSIPID DRAMA! This is Science Fiction - not a trashy Harlequin Fabio Fantasy! If I want drama in my life, I'll try dating another girl in her 20s again. And when I want to watch good Sci Fi, I will definitely not watch garbage like this thankfully deceased show.

Stargate Universe - may you rest in pieces, and be forgotten for all eternity. Amen. :)