Stargate Universe Finally Feels Like The Stargate Of Old

Well, I’m officially a Stargate Universe fan. I’m hooked and for good reason, too. The show’s damn good.

I’ve wrote extensively about SGU here and started out as a skeptic like many of you. It’s totally different than either SG-1 or Atlantis that came before it. I think it took everyone off guard. Instead of being a continuation of the previous series, it’s a total reboot. The episodes are no longer shot clearly for syndication and full of quirky dialog riddled with inside jokes. No, Universe is more Battlestar Galatica than SG-1; it’s more Lost than Atlantis – and I like, but it took me a season and half to get here.

That’s the problem with throwing out the mold and trying something new. It alienates the core audience. Universe doesn’t have a Jack O’Neill, Meredith McKay or even a trademark alien like Teal’c. It’s totally different and managed to trudge through the first season with an unnecessary amount of backstory nonsense. There was always the trademark Stargate story arc of this ancient ship casing the edge of space that kept me watching week after week. After all, I’m a die-hard Stargate fan, ranking SG-1 only after Top Gear as my favorite shows of all time.

It wasn’t until the last episodes of the first season that the backstories were replaced with classic Stargate storylines. Suddenly the Lucian Alliance was in play and attempting to reach the Destiny. It finally felt like Stargate again. It got only better this season, too. The ridiculous use of the communication stones stopped almost entirely. There was more aliens, crazy worlds, and just tonight, a out-of-body experience that casts the shows main characters as random townfolk in a story located in a random midwest town. Stargate is finally back.

I stuck around partly because of my Stargate allegiance, but also because the story showed so much promise. It just works for me that there’s this massive and mysterious spacecraft traveling for millions upon millions of years that’s suddenly occupied by dozens of seemingly unqualified personal. It’s almost like the traveling into the unknown part of Star Trek Voyager with the home base aspect of DS9 and staffed with the crew from Enterprise. And finally, with season two, it has the Stargate storytelling.

I’m sold although it really doesn’t changes anything for me. I would have continued to watch the show even if they killed off Jack in some sort of fishing accident, let Samatha Carter get pregnant, and found a way to allow the Destiny to turn around and reach Earth within a couple of episodes — but I wouldn’t have liked it. No, I gave the show its fair share of criticism when it first started and so it’s only fair to offer up my humble praise when the show is finally getting it right.