Yay, a new sci-fi show!
(May contain spoilers!)
I sat down yesterday and watched the first double episode of Stargate Universe. I have to say they made a pretty good first episode there. I also liked the first episode of Atlantis, but this one was much better told. They used the familiar story device of jumping between present and recent past in the introduction phase of the story (probably the whole first episode of the two, didn’t pay attention to when the story became linear). Although the self sacrifice scene towards the end was very very clishé, most of the story was quite well done. I also loved the scene where they were looking at the map and the path the ship had travelled over the millennia. They did a decent attempt to tie the show into the existing Stargate universe, and O’Neil’s “we’re gonna beam you up to our spaceship” comment at the start was hilarious 
Basically the story takes place on an ancient space ship that were sent from earth a few thousand years ago, and is travelling through the universe by itself. The first episode explains how these people ends up on the ship after discovering a specially designed stargate that leads there. I do dislike the whole ancient ascension bit. (“The Anscients” is the name of an old race who lived on earth, for those unfamiliar with the Stargate universe.) Too religious-ish for my taste, and it made the reason why the ship was abandoned in the first place a little cheesy. I like the concept of an ancient race who made all this technology, but I prefer the way the Asgard-race disappeared over the way the ancients did. However that’s a rant for another time.
Also, I doubt this show is going to turn into a BSG (Battlestar Galactica, i.e. a space soap) ripoff as some accuse it of. I didn’t really see much in this episode that reminded me of BSG besides a few details. The power struggle may be a part of the story, but in no way like in BSG I hope. This is more like the Atlantis power struggle that popped up now and then. In Stargate such story devices are short lived. Also, I doubt this show is going to be about on-board drama either (I truly hope not). I see people criticizing the show for its characters too, but character development is very important for a good show, and can be done without ending up as a soap like BSG tended to. Babylon 5 had a brilliant balance between character development and action. In any case, Stargate is traditionally (after 15 season we can use the word traditional) a “us vs. evil alien villains” kinda show, and I doubt they’ll deviate from that path. They’ve already set the scene when introducing the secondary usage of the on-board stargate for resource gathering. I bet this will be a much used plot device. This will make it more a Voyager-like show than a BSG-like show. That is not necessarily bad, it is hard to invent a plot from scratch without using anything that has been used before. Atlantis did remarkably well in that respect though I think, so the creators certainly have the skill needed.
Looking forward to the next episode, and the eventual DVD releases!
