By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Stargate has never been as popular as Star Wars and Star Trek, but both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis ended up finding a large fanbase precisely because they were different from the big two. Embracing a fun spirit of adventure and a cast of characters that bonded together, learning to work together, and accepting one another, both shows maintained a degree of positivity even at their darkest moments. This is why the sudden turn the writers took with Stargate Universe, the third series in the franchise, jettisoned everything good about the franchise in favor of embracing the dark, gritty aesthetic of Battlestar Galactica.
Dark And Gritty Sci-Fi
Stargate Universe was released in October 2009, at the height of Battlestar Galactica’s pop culture success, and SyFy wanted the show to be their next big thing. They went so far as to cancel Stargate Atlantis, so there was only one series in the franchise on the air.
Tossing aside the “planet of the week” formula of the first series, Universe dealt with one story for most of each season, so you had better get used to hearing about the Ancient communication stones. The dark, gritty visuals weren’t the only change. To match the new aesthetic, the writers dropped the “action” part of the first two shows and turned in a straight-up “sci-fi drama,” which could have been fun, but they also forgot to include likable characters.
Instead of exploring new worlds, Stargate Universe was confined to Destiny, an Ancient spaceship built for a mysterious purpose that constantly hinted at exciting, off-world adventures, but they never happened. Viewers were stuck in close quarters with a cast of characters that seemed to hate each other and watched as everyone backstabbed everyone else at least once a season, alternating with an attempt at romance that felt more like Riverdale than SG-1.
For example, Colonel Everett Young’s (Louis Ferreria) downfall and subsequent rise could have made for compelling television. Unfortunately, before the show gets there, we see him cheat, lie, and argue with the rest of the crew in a way that O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) would never have behaved, even if alien spirits possessed him.
One Complex Character And A Bunch Of High-Schoolers
Young was opposed to one member of the crew, in particular. Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) was supposed to be something new for the franchise: a character that existed in shades of grey. Richard Woolsey (Robert Picardo) looks like a hero compared to Rush, who the audience is able to understand as acting for the greater good (mostly) even if his actions were (mostly) questionable.
The problem with including a complex character that, to put it politely, owes a lot to Battlestar Galactica’s Baltar (James Callis) is it doesn’t work if everyone else on Stargate Universe considers him to be evil.
Rush frames Young for murder, defies his explicit instructions not to mess with Ancient technology by doing exactly that the moment he has the chance, and yes, he takes advantage of Chloe Armstrong’s (Elyse Levesque) alien infection to further his own research, but the seeds of a great character were there. Stargate Universe tried to do something different, with Rush as the physical embodiment of embracing the dark side of sci-fi, but it lost the adventurous spirit of the franchise in the process.
Fans of the overlooked franchise didn’t want high-school-level drama; they wanted bold new worlds, alien encounters, and a dash of uncovering a galactic mystery. All of this they had in the first two shows and lost thanks to SyFy executives cashing in on the new wave of gritty, prestige TV.
