[Liberator]

Now, in the last few years, TV SF has caught up to literary SF, and stay away from techity tech stuff. As a result, the writers have more opportunities to write about the things that writers find interesting, which (unsurprisingly), is people. And since happy people make for bad drama, we get something darker.

But where does that leave those of us who find the techity-tech stuff to be far more interesting than people?

Watching reruns. 

The thing about character driven drama is that you can have it without being angsty, depressed and so broken that you are barely functional, re: Babylon 5.  I mean that to me is the holy grail of SciFi television, it's fast paced and epic in scale but you still get the fabulous characterization, 'course Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik carried the rest of the cast but still.

[Mars]

I like SGU

There, I said it.

[NGTM-1R]

Agreed. While I too want to see Chekhov's Starship fired, I find the character stuff quite fun. And while "lighthearted fun" is, well, fun, it is just a little snack compared to the meatier drama that a darker series can provide.

The problem is SGU, like BSG did, accepted the credo that dark situations make for dark people. I'm all for serious and crap like that, but I didn't drink that particular Kool-Aid.

So that was the story Star Trek and B5 and even SG-1 wanted to tell. The fight against evil and injustice is a battle without an end, but if you fight it well, if you stand to your guns, sometimes it can be won for a little while.

BSG wanted to tell that story too, at first. It would have told it in a gritty way, no doubt, but this is not a bad thing. Sometime though, standing in the mud, it lost its way. And it never really found it again. Stargate Atlantis did something similar, though its swings were more abrupt and extreme.

SGU was never on the right path.

[General Battuta]

There's a pretty decent correlation between stress and depression. People can cope with just about anything (as the stories from concentration camps prove), but it's not an effortless, graceful process.

Dark situations may bring out the darkness in people. That doesn't mean there's no hope in them either.

[Ashrak]

stargate universe is puuuuure soap, your better off watching i ono mentalist? even THAT has more Sci-Fi than universe its just sooooo booooring noone ever shoots anyone etc no enemies just BLAH BLAH BLAH talk talk whine whine cry cry GAWD, down the drain i tell you.

[BloodEagle]

stargate universe is puuuuure soap, your better off watching i ono mentalist? even THAT has more Sci-Fi than universe its just sooooo booooring noone ever shoots anyone etc no enemies just BLAH BLAH BLAH talk talk whine whine cry cry GAWD, down the drain i tell you.

Well said. 

Though I do agree that SGU isn't sci-fi, as of yet.

[NGTM-1R]

There's a pretty decent correlation between stress and depression. People can cope with just about anything (as the stories from concentration camps prove), but it's not an effortless, graceful process.

Dark situations may bring out the darkness in people. That doesn't mean there's no hope in them either.

Except, what we get is both effortless and graceless. We don't even get attempts at effective coping.

And it gets worse, too. BSG had an excuse since they were all on a Battlestar about to deactivated. A higher-than-normal proportion of screwups and people who can't handle it is to be expected. SGU expects us to believe the same things about the BSG cast are true of the best and the brightest. None of these folks would have passed muster as an SGC recruit in any of the other Stargate shows.

If I wanted to watch normal people in ****ed up situations, I'd be tuning into Big Brother or Survivor. I came to see extraordinary people in ****ed up situations. BSG managed to deliever on that promise, but SGU can't.

[General Battuta]

stargate universe is puuuuure soap, your better off watching i ono mentalist? even THAT has more Sci-Fi than universe its just sooooo booooring noone ever shoots anyone etc no enemies just BLAH BLAH BLAH talk talk whine whine cry cry GAWD, down the drain i tell you.

Well said. 

Though I do agree that SGU isn't sci-fi, as of yet.

Huh? It examines the effects of a technological situation on human beings.

[BloodEagle]

You say technology, I say magic.

[Blue Lion]

Not all of them are messed up. Some of them are just fine. I would say most people there are acting pretty much the same as they would otherwise (based on what little evidence there is)

If I wanted a campy or lighthearted pretend sci fi show, I'd watch Eureka.

[Liberator]

Not all of them are messed up. Some of them are just fine. I would say most people there are acting pretty much the same as they would otherwise (based on what little evidence there is)

True, if they were a bunch of nueurotic, self-absorbed, narcissists who had no business on a research project of Icarus' apparent importance.

[Blue Lion]

Not all of them are messed up. Some of them are just fine. I would say most people there are acting pretty much the same as they would otherwise (based on what little evidence there is)

True, if they were a bunch of nueurotic, self-absorbed, narcissists who had no business on a research project of Icarus' apparent importance.

That's actually exactly the kind of people I would expect to find on a project like that.

[Colonol Dekker]

I watched a bit of this on youtube, i do not like it at all........

[NGTM-1R]

That's actually exactly the kind of people I would expect to find on a project like that.

Further proving your ignorance of the relevant background, with the sole exception of Rodney McKay.

[BloodEagle]

That's actually exactly the kind of people I would expect to find on a project like that.

Further proving your ignorance of the relevant background, with the sole exception of Rodney McKay.

Who is tolerable (by SGC, et al.) only because of the results he brings.

The crew (aside from Eli and, perhaps, Rush) is of average capability or, usually, less. And therefore should not warrant tolerance for their collective incompetence, thus bringing into question how they were ever assigned to a freaking top-secret operation.

[General Battuta]

What? In what way is this crew incompetent?

I think you people have watched too much Stargate.

[TESLA]

What? In what way is this crew incompetent?

I think you people have watched too much Stargate.

Of course they are!

Sure they have yet to defeat god-like enemies, super duper replicating things, Ascended beings, change the course of history, travel to parallel universes, all within a 60 minute timeframe!     

[General Battuta]

Yeah. I keep feeling like people are saying 'incompetent' and meaning 'lacking in technobabble.'

They've already accomplished a few pretty major feats.

[TESLA]

Yeah. I keep feeling like people are saying 'incompetent' and meaning 'lacking in technobabble.'

They've already accomplished a few pretty major feats.

You mean like staying alive in a 100,000 year old space ship at the far flung end of the universe? 

[Blue Lion]

That's actually exactly the kind of people I would expect to find on a project like that.

Further proving your ignorance of the relevant background, with the sole exception of Rodney McKay.

I meant in real life