Stargate Universe: Series Premiere

A new Stargate series! Yay! Despite its shortcomings, I liked "Stargate: Atlantis" (SGA) a lot, and so with its cancellation I was looking to maybe the latest in the franchise for my weekly Stargate fix. First off, "Stargate: Universe" (SGU) looks amazing. It really looks like SyFy Channel pumped in a lot of dough into the premiere, as the visual effects look better than anything on SGA and SG1. The premiere also moves at a nice clip, though the action sequences (e.g. the evacuation from the base to the Ancient ship) lack suspense or generate any significant levels of excitement. Indeed, even the final reveal of Robert Carlyle's Dr. Rush on the central concept of the show (the Ancient ship automatically drops out of hyperspace whenever it detects a world where it deems is suitable for the placement of a Gate, and drops back into hyperspace after 12 hours...which means the team only has a limited time to do their trademark Stargate trekking) doesn't really register as big an impact as what the writers (Brad Wright and Robert Cooper probably intended. Critically, despite the dire situation of a failing life support system on the ship, I found I didn't really care for any of the characters, and found myself missing SGA in the middle of the premiere. Eli as the resident geek comes across as irritating and annoying, where SG1's Sam and SGA's McKay were easily my favorite characters in those respective shows. Young is just mirthless instead of imposing, and Rush is just so holier-than-thou it's off-putting. Though the creators probably wanted a show that isn't a clone of its predecessors, I found myself missing the the levity of SG1 and SGA. SGU seems like its aiming for "Battlestar Galactica"-scale gravitas, and just coming off as a poor imitation, and abandoning what really distinguished the "Stargate" franchise (at least for me)...a fun sci-fi show where one can just tune in each week to watch the team's exploits without thinking too much. It's only the first episode, of course, so I could very well be too harsh in my opinions and harbor unrealistic expectations...perhaps I did indeed expect to find an SGA clone. It'll be intriguing to see how the show develops itself both in terms of tone and its characters over the coming weeks.