by hisbabydoll

Created on: November 25, 2009

Battlestar Galactica(BSG) meets Star Trek Voyager = Stargate Universe(SGU). And it works!

The premise of the show? A mixed group of civilians, politicians, scientist and military personal working on a distant planet are forced by an emergency, through a stargate onto an anciant exploration ship. They want to return to Earth, but must figure out how to do so. The starship continually moves at warp speed farther and farther away from Earth. Every now and then, it drops out of warp to open up a "stargate" to a planet containing something the passengers of the spaceship need for survival. Contact with Earth is achieved through alien communication stones allowing people on the ship and people on the Earth to temporarilly switch minds.

I have to say, I'm enjoying this show depite the fact I have never watched Stargate before and am unfamiliar with many things the characters on the show take for granted. For instance, Stargates. A stargates, as far as I can tell, is an ancient alien transportation device humans (during Stargate the Movie) discovered with the help of "the ancients". Stargating seems to be a cross between "Beam me up, Scotty" and jumping through the wardrobe into the world of Narnia. Gates open up onto distant planets, and stay open for a set amount of time. At least this is how stargates generated by the ancient ship work! During this time you can jump back and forth through Stargates, even bringing items back and forth. How people figure out which gates to open, and why some gates are permanent while others are temporary - I'm going to have to figure out by watching the show or perhaps past series! I'm assuming this is basic stuff for people who watched the dozen or so seasons of Stargate and Stargate Atlantis.

Stargate Universe reminds me of Star Trek Voyager in that the show involves a ship full of people far from home, trying to figure out how to get back. While a similar theme runs through BSG in that Galactica is search for Earth, Stargate Universe reminds me of BSG because of the format and acting style of the show.

Like BSG, Stargate Universe focuses on the lives and issues of the cast of characters. The plot to get home, or the state of affairs on the starship are secondary. The focus of SGU lies more in the polical, scientific and miliatary strategies employed by the characters, as well as in relationships and conflicts between the characters and different character factions. Also like BSG, military, politicians, scientists and civilians are trapped together by unforeseen circumstances, leaving an unclear line of ulitmate authority. The different groups have conflicting aims, and conflicting ideas on how the ship should be run on a daily basis. They struggle to work together to solve crisis as they come up, and to solve the mystery of how to get home.

Characters are highly developed and played by truly talented actors. Stargate is shot in a documentary style of filming. The director partially employs a plot device (the use of alien recording technology) to further the documentary-like atmosphere of the show. For instance, characters often use the floating recording orbs to document their personal diaries, messages to home, and daily events. I'm very impressed with Stargate Universe. Admittedly, I've been feeling a void since the ending of Battlestar Galactica. Stargate Universe, almost fills that void.

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