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Review of Stargate Universe (part 1)
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Stargate Universe logo. Credit: SyFy/MGM
Last week, the third installment in the Stargate television franchise got off the ground and immediately left the galaxy. Stargate Universe aired its pilot episode, appropriately titled “Air,” on the SyFy Channel on Friday, October 2nd. The new series is a collaboration between MGM studios and the SyFy Channel.
If you missed it, relax. The SyFy Channel will reshow the pilot episode at least once every day over the following week. Check the network’s website for show times… and stop reading this article because it contains some major spoilers!
This review is intended for regular fans of either prior series (Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis). In other words, I won’t attempt to explain every bit of “Gate techno-babble.” You’re on your own.
A new Universe awaits
Since most of the new Universe characters seem unique from those in SG-1 or Atlantis, rookie and veteran viewers will enjoy a level playing field as they attempt to learn the idiosyncrasies of the new cast. Veterans will latch onto the familiar Stargate backstory immediately, but the pilot episode uses a creative technique to help the rookies.
Some early scenes introduce us to Eli Wallace (David Blue), a young MIT dropout with a talent for solving difficult math puzzles. As a quick primer to the Stargate franchise for newbies, these scenes border upon genius. We meet Eli as he completes a difficult puzzle in a computer game after a month of effort. His prize? Nothing … until the following morning when General Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson, a star of Stargate SG-1) knocks on his door.
The game was a red herring, and Eli’s solution to the puzzle has provided the US Air Force with a way to activate a seriously overpowered stargate on a planet 21 light years away. We (Eli) are beamed aboard a spaceship and shown a human resources training video to complete the backstory. Then off we go toward a universe of new adventures.
On the planet with the super-gate, Eli rolls up his sleeves and assists Dr Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), an enigmatic scientist obsessed with unlocking the secrets of the ninth stargate chevron. They succeed in opening the gate, just as an attack by the Lucian Alliance causes a cascading power surge that (somehow) destroys the entire planet. Eli, Rush, and 80 other refugees escape through the stargate to points unknown.
The Destiny, a better Voyager
The refugees find themselves trapped on an alien starship with the translated name “Destiny”, an ancient vessel in a distant galaxy many billions of light years from the Milky Way. The Destiny used to be one sweet ship, but a series of battles and eons of neglect have left it a massive wreck. The rest of the pilot episode follows the refugees as they attempt to preserve their precious air supply, introducing several new characters and interesting sub-plots along the way.
The episode accomplishes the main objectives of any series pilot: introducing the setting and characters while hooking the audience on an exciting and plausible theme. The overall theme of Universe closely resembles the disappointing UPN/Viacom TV series Star Trek Voyager. In both series, a stranded starship crew clings to a desperate hope of returning to Earth someday.
While the plot of Star Trek Voyager seemed full of initial promise, it quickly fell apart and lost many viewers (like me) due to a simple but unavoidable inconsistency. The Voyager crew kept meeting the same alien races and villains over and over again. How is this possible when the ship is racing home at maximum warp? Plausibility can only be stretched so far.
As the premise for Stargate Universe, however, the same “lost explorers trying to return home” plotline may just succeed. The Universe backstory enjoys one critical advantage over the Voyager backstory: networks of stargates allow instantaneous travel between known, fixed locations regardless of the physical location of the starship Destiny. Therefore, viewers of Universe should expect to see the same alien characters and dastardly villains repeatedly – we hope – all within a consistent and credible series plotline.
Proceed to part 2 of the review...
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