BLOG Stargate Universe gets some life

The feedback on Stargate Universe around these parts has been generally positive – but does blogger Laura McConnell agree? Here, she shares her thoughts on recent episodes [WARNING! Spoilers]:

Stargate Universe Gets Some Life

Well, we’re nearly to the halfway point of season one of Stargate Universe, and I’ve got to say that so far it’s been a disappointment. Or rather, it would have been if I’d had any positive expectations about SGU to begin with. Since I frankly wasn’t expecting much, though, the show has actually managed to surprise me a bit. While it’s not blowing me away, we could do worse. And in the latest episode, something happened that actually made me sit up and take notice.

I don’t think that’s happened yet for me. Sure, I get a little happy when us long time gaters get thrown a continuity bone, like solar flares causing wormholes to jump through time or arms stuck through event horizons keeping wormholes open, but for the most part, SGU just hasn’t cut it for me. It’s just talking and whining and mindless sex scenes that are supposed to make us care about the characters because they’re human beings with needs (or something like that?) but seem more like pointless drivel.

Until this last episode, the only thing keeping me watching SGU was curiosity and the chance that I might see Jack O’Neill lay the smack down on the IOA, as he did in “Earth” by immediately siding with Young.

But the key words there were “until this last episode.” The episode in question is “Life,” and it finally managed to hook me on an SGU character. This particular character had been mildly interesting up to now, and along with TJ (the medic) was the only person who even blipped my radar a little bit. After this episode, though, I’ve become quite a fan.

Which character is this, you ask?

Colonel Young.

And why do I like him so?

Because he injected SGU with a much-needed dose of testosterone. I was pretty tired of the whole “human drama” angle that SGU was trying to play up. That only works if one cares about the characters, which I didn’t. And even if I had, it’s still pretty boring to watch a bunch of what feels like teenagers sit around and act emo all the time. Now, I hated Transformers as much as most, and I’m not asking for big booming explosions every ten seconds, but can we get some sort of action here? All this moping about and visiting home and all that? Ugh. The Stargate 90210 joke is feeling decidedly unfunny. I understand that the writers have to establish the characters and those characters have to fix the ship and want to get back home and all that, but can’t we get that without endless exposition? Can’t we have a bad guy or two to fight while we do all that? Sure, the little dust bug alien things from “Air, Part 3” and “Water” gave us some fun, and there have been some other signs of life here and there on SGU – like when Rush pulled a fast one on the IOA in “Earth“ – but it sure would be nice to have a bad guy in this series.

Oh, wait. Perhaps we do. It’s Colonel Telford, who appears to have his own agenda regarding everything from command decisions to Young’s wife. We saw a bit of this earlier in the season, when he blatantly abused Colonel Young’s body during a consciousness swap to the point that TJ (oh, there’s that name again – yes, I think I might like her) had to sedate him, but now we’re seeing more of it.

This intrigues me, but not as much as it infuriates Young. And so our dear Colonel, bless him, actually did something about it. He took action, which I find to be a rarity on this show (yes, I know Greer throws a lot of punches, but they’re so indiscriminate that I hardly notice them), and he did so using that wonderful character flaw I love so much: moral ambiguity.

He lied about his identity during a body swap and then attacked Telford without warning.

Yes! Way to go, Young! Somebody needed to knock that Telford down a few pegs! And now I’m actually curious about the fate of at least one character on the Destiny! I’m interested in the guy who might actually do something instead of just yakking all the time! Thanks for that! I was starting to feel like SGU was never going to move past mediocrity, and now I have a glimmer of hope that one day I might actually care about you as I have some other Colonels. Okay, so maybe half as much as some other Colonels – but as much as I love Jack, that’d be doing pretty well, there, Young. Try to keep up the good work, will you? I’d hate to not have a Stargate in my life, and you’re the biggest thing keeping this one spinning for me.

Though I have to say that if the SGC doesn’t body swap one of your guys out for Carter, McKay, or Zelenka soon, so that an experienced expert can at least take a stab at trying to fix the ship, I’m going to stop feeling sorry for you. Oh, wait. I’d have to be sorry to begin with. Huh. Never mind.