ALL DRAMA & NO ADVENTURE | Stargate: Universe | AvidCat! (Review)
227
Published 2023-07-31
The 9th Chevron is dialed, Alliance attacks,
the volcanic Icarus planet explodes leaving an
unfit crew of military and scientists stranded
in a distant galaxy...
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The basic blueprint of the show:
A ship out in deep space and
a crew trying to get back home like...
Star Trek: Voyager
Highly advanced ship that's antiquated...
like Andromeda but less philosophical.
like Star Wars and its prequels...
Trapped because of an ego-scientist like...
Dr. Smith of Lost in Space
With the dark look & wobbly camera of...
Battlestar Galactica (2000s)
or NYPD Blue... The Shield
Using the improbable time-limits of...
Sliders
All set in the Stargate "Universe"...
Should work?... but...
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The "good" things about it:
Acting: good to outstanding
Special Effects: excellent
Storylines: a dose of science, then infighting and yelling.
Title sequence: short (finally)
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The rest that haunts me:
Devoid of a central foe except themselves.
Lucien Alliance & blue aliens
(grays & drones in 2nd) are rare enemies.
No goa'uld or wraith or replicators.
Not an "alien of the week" show.
No planets have a DHD (use Wii-U pad).
No small nahqahdah reactors or crystals.
No teleport rings or beams.
No tractor beams or ZPM.
Only a brain-torture chair and no squids.
'ST: Enterprise' had similar issues at start.
Still incomprehensible data interfaces.
Exploration of the ship is used slightly more than Atlantis.
Rarely shows beyond 20ft of the gates.
Flies through stars to recharge, but has holes like Swiss cheese. Tries to get home by using star as fuel for gate but... Time Travel and destruction awaits. Duh.
They don't obey their own rules.
Gives hope only to be slapped later.
Episodes end w/ cliffhangers or montages.
Relies on sequential stories yet...
Nothing gets resolved and people
constantly switch sides on whims.
No camaraderie btw anyone, even lovers.
Hides its own answers bc... reason tbd.
Overuse of Ancient Stones...
other people's bodies are NOT yours!
Chloe is a unused secretary until DNA upgrade, similar to O'Neill but slower. Or like River from Firefly.
Mostly just replays the "hits" of the prior SG series, with mild twists. However, some stand out and deliver a good punch. Still has the problem of convenient answers.
Some hilarious dialogue.
Abandons too much from the original? Original movie and series/sequels are bad too, but are ultimately hopeful. Remains in a state of depressive apprehension,
but leaves a dim light on in a far corner.
Feels like Torchwood, devoid of the Dr. Who magic. Macguyver & Jackson are magic when available but not enough to save it. Ferretti returns kinda (Stewart).
Ends with everyone, except Eli,
getting into freeze-stasis pods.
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Overall Pointless Score: 6.9 (nice)
Should've been its own IP.
Should've finally added the Furlings.
Has potential near the end
when they stop fighting each other
and against threats but...
too little and late to save?
I hope not.
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Host: Sir StormChild @AvidCat5000
Editor: Invisible Carl @brokeciaman or above
**************
Merch 📚: (*) warning ⚠️ (*)
Absurd & Dangerous: a novel
JC Wolf
www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2SCKY77
Empty Rat-Traps Eat Mr. O'Brian
J.C. Wolf
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B5G929JJ
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👍
All Comments (8)
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‘Sliders, it was good till it wasn’t’. I feel like there’s an entire class of shows that can be summed up with this quote. Like the opposite of ST Enterprise.
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At least Robert Carlyle got to play basically the same character but WITH MAGIC on Once Upon a Time. I guess in SGU his character can be summed up as Dr Smith in Lost In Space but sexy.
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Stargate was such a great show. Stargate Atlantis was great too. I have not seen Stargate Universe yet because of reviews. After the Disaster of Startrek Discovery I can't bring myself to waste more time on SciFi unless it has good reviews. I'm still in shock because Discovery was so god awful bad.
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Its a shame that sgu only really started to get good around halfway through the second season, which was too late the save the show.
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Most of the episodes were just drawn out, boring fetch quests. A typical episode goes: X is broken, so we need to find Y to fix X. But to find Y we must defeat Z. But to defeat Z we need to build Q. But the instructions to build Q are written on ancient scroll V. They finish the quest with about 10 minutes to go in the episode, and something else goes wrong with X.
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ST: Universe killed off the series. Very slow and about 20% of each episode was just panning to a person to do a headshot for over a minute and then have them start talking. It is if the needed to fill the runtime and just added more slow shots to fill it up. Could have been a half out instead of an hour and still get the premise of each episode over.
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I really liked that show's premise and setting... but when i watched it a second time I ended up skipping like 50% of the scenes and getting doublemad at the cliffhanger.
