Well done Von. Yes – very well done.
You’ve gone and started watching another very, very average science fiction show haven’t you?
You’ve been Sky Plussing Stargate Universe since it started, and I think you should own up.
Ahem. Yes. I have been watching Stargate Universe. And I don’t know why. It’s not actually very good. Even for tea time sci fi, it is a bland, grey, hour-filling tub of space Pringles. It’s not good for you, the consumption of it makes you feel a bit ashamed but, the fact is, you keep jamming your hand in to grab at those last crumbs.
Taking the general premise of the Stargate franchise (big stone circle things can transport you through space) and then entirely ignoring it, SGU throws together a bunch of mismatched soldiers, – square jawed American GIs, naturally and also scientists – including Robert Carlyle – prompting me to shout ‘Begbie in spaaaaaccceee’ whenever he appears. There are also civilians, normally represented by a fat nerdy kid and a Senator’s daughter who seems to be used as eye candy rather than as a functional character – and sticks the lot of them on a huge, run down space ship on the other side of the galaxy.
The plot has been done to death. Voyager, Battlestar even Space 1999 – all have a mismatched crew struggling to survive in the coldness of space searching for a place… to call… home.
But what makes SGU different?
NOTHING!
Therein lies the problem. The plots so far have been straight from major sci fi franchise writer’s playbook.
Low on resources? Send your characters into mortal danger to get it! The clock is ticking!
The ship is going to explode! We can only save so many! Noble sacrifices all round!
There is even an episode where some characters on a shuttle have to use a planet’s gravity as a slingshot so they can catch up with another ship. This technique was lifted wholesale from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation first seen twenty years ago! (Booby Trap, Third Season – yes I am a nerd).
I’ve established that it’s awful, so why am I watching it?
Robert Carlyle is very good as Doctor Rush – a character in a sci fi show who is not a goodie, or a baddie but simply a guy trying to have his own way. Carlyle is clearly having a great time hamming it up and yelling at the Americans. And David Blue is likable enough as Eli, the fat nerd who acts like any nerd would in his situation – saying ‘woah’ a lot and be amazed by everything.
But the characters aren’t the deciding factor. I think it’s because there isn’t a huge overarching plot structure. That’s why I like it. I’ve burned through many a box set and series where you MUST see every episode to have some idea of the plot.
This is far gentler. It’s a self-contained, crap story every week. I just hope they don’t get any worse.
59 Comments
Good morning to everyone.
I am a bit of a sci-fi fan and rather enjoyed this play which was on R4 yesterday..The Loop.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nvtzn
Apart from being a quite a good story, it is based in an area rather dear to my heart.
Recommended!
Looks quite good. Radio is good for ‘idea’ sci fi, but it’s hard to beat great big space battles on screen.
Pffffffffffffff …
Wise words Vons…and of course grizly aliens hell bent on destroying the World.
“Space Pringles”! Fantastic.
I’ve been told to listen to The Loop too, and I will be attempting to do so and to write a review of it elsewhere on this, our very own world wide web.
Does it have “inertial dampers”? They’re always playing up…
Good morning.
Best Sci-Fi was that one with the cleaner who was captain of a massive living space ship that could destroy planets, a “dead” assassin and a sexy bit of fluff. Loads of sex and nudity and some great story-lines…probably. It used to be on Ch 5 and I may have been the only human to watch it.
Stan his name was, the cleaner….who was the captain.
Um, if you’re interested in sci fi on the radio, then you could lend your ears to this episode of Planet B, of which I am the proud writer. So it’s episode 9 of 10 and you didn’t hear the others? Like I care.
*unplugs plug*
Lexx?
That’s the one. Best Sci-Fi ever, ever.
damn good name too…
I’ll listen later Pilch, fantastic. Does it have any puns?
while we’re on the subject, I was recently required to watch every single episode of Andromeda at work. Yep-every single one, that’s well over 100 episodes of Hercules fighting a vagina-headed alien. I wouldn’t mind, but I started to enjoy it and get the in jokes by about series three…
All the puns were removed in the edit, Nick, in the hope of making the story make some kind of sense.
Bastards Pilch….
Oooh, Lexx was excellent. Utterly mental, mind.
*longs for the days of Quantumn Leap*
NoTT – be my Facebook friend! Tis I, Badger Madge xx
Aha! I guessed it might be you. Your choice of religion…
one day, we will rule the world.
If you don’t die of TB first….
Hmmm… There is that. And the farmers.
Try the mineral lick
*knows about badgers*
*is blown away by NoTT’s knowledge of badgers*
*scans special badger book*
Can you all stop breaking the bookmarks in my Word VBA add-ins? Thanks.
Of course fourstar.
(eh?)
Well, someone’s doing it, Nick.
Perhaps it is those big kids from off the estate, 4*.
Good afternoon all.
hello.
i had an ex-boyfriend who liked Lexx. that makes me well sci-fi.
my fave sci-fi memories are:-
(i) listening to hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy on t’bbc radio a few years back every sunday afternoon, late,
(ii) first ever read of ursula le guin’s earthsea trilogy and every subsequent read thereafter (of which there have been lots),
(iii) cs lewis’ less known space trilogy – out of the silent planet, perelandra and that hideous strength. bloody aces, all.
thanks for listening.
*eats lettuce, wants burger*
I read all those Dune books. “the spice melange…
Just had a lemon tart with cream, marvelous..
I am eating apple crumble and a close enough approximation of custard as we type, Nick. (NB this is from the work canteen, i did not make it or the custard would be perfect!)
Tart is from canteen. Now tucking in to bag of almonds from the trolley…
Riveting stuff this eh?
WHADDUP.
I think I will enjoy dipping into SGU in about 10 years on Sky 15 (presumably, by then, on the actual moon) when it looks hopelessly dated. Good on self-contained stories.
I had the Dune computer game as an adolescent. I think I bloody won it as well. I ruled with an iron FIST. And pure blue eyes. I was confused, however, because it didn’t have any boobs in it – my other favoured games at that time being the Leisure Suit Larry series.
Nick – you have a trolley! How very exciting and ’70s/Special K advert. Do you work in the ’70s or in a Special K advert?
JRME – i really thought that leisure siut computer game was something that Nappers made up. Are you sure that you are not joshing with us?
Boyle and Herring on NMTB tonight. Christ, what time is it on, 2am?
*offscreen whispering with Napoleon* Um…
Alas no. More disturbing fact – my dad bought them for me. Can anyone say “all types of wrongness”?
The trolley comes round once a week and had cheap natural goodies. I’d rather work in the 70s R Whites lemonade commercial…in the kitchen…
I definitely remember one of those R Whites adverts when he found Mr Benn in the fridge. I was very young at the time, but I do remember it. I mention the latter fact purely so that you vcannot accuse me of being on all drugs.
FYI: I stuck a review of The Loop here.
NPA!
i played leisure suit larry. for a short while. until i broke the monitor cause the bastard wouldn’t obey me.
I played Leisure Suit Larry. It was around the time that the flying toasters screensaver was the thing in computing.
I played it too. When you’re that age, you’ll endure any grief to feast your eyes on some rumoured pixellated titties.
*sings* # We’re all…pervs…together! # *thumbs aloft*
Ah, flying toaster. Were you on Compuserve as well, Pilch? Or anyone else? *reminiscifunk*
The only flying toasters i remember where in Jetset Willy, off of the spectrum
*were, tsk.
Dear website, I will not slow my comments down, you are being too patronising, get bent!
I was on Cix, JRME. And – get this – I used it for work. And before that I was on, um, Telecom Gold.
Yowsa. Maybe you’ll remember Prestel then. I think before that it was just all black monoliths everywhere?
Crumbs yes, I remember Prestel. They had a terminal in the public library. There is (at least there was) a thing called the “Commercial Library” in my home town which housed things like books on engineering and shipping. (I tried to understand LISP from a book I found there, and can still remember the thrill of complete bafflement.) Anyway, they had a Prestel terminal and it was BWULLIANT. This would have been around 1843.
The first computer game I played was Wumpus. This ran on the mainframe at the university, and I went to an open day there and just sat there playing it all day. All the output was on paper – there were no screens. I was forced off my terminal for a bit by Bigger Boys (ie students) and had to spend half an hour pretending to be interested in the Department for the Study of Sparsely Populated Areas, which was as sparsely populated as you’d expect. This would have been around 1489.
I would love to see your transcript for a show, fr all the insulting you do of SGU. I personally like it- a lot. Yes, the story line is used, but its pcliches are clices because they’re good and true. I find the acting to be excellent, I can see a lot opf potential for chloe’s character, and i find the intersecting of a religious character to bring a lot more interest to the GI’s.
Jealous.
Would you? I wrote something called ‘Black Sabbath in Outer Space’ with Interceptor while drinking heavily a few years back – I can send you that. It’s shit.
Do you really think that critics are jealous of people who write shows? We’re not all frustrated creatives. Some of us just like writing ABOUT stuff.
You may also notice that despite insulting the show – I watch it.
Obviously you are jealous of me. Especially my hair. Which is ace.
Black Sabbath in Outer Space was fucking brilliant. I’d like to see an episode of SGU brave enough to end with a battle between Bowie’s Spiders from Mars and Ozzy’s genital herpes…
ps “I find the acting to be excellent”.
BWAH ha ha ha ha – very good Heather, very good indeed..
@ nick the of the T- not really trying to be nitpicky here but there is no such thing as an “inertial dampener”, I get irritated with that terminology from time to time ( imagine some uninformed writer changed the nomenclature from inertia to inertial one time & succeeding writers thought nothing of checking facts).
But Evets…there’s no such thing as an Inertia Dampener’ either…
Evets..
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/startrek-0331.html
@Yoda, the nosy one ( kidding u ) & T-man -You guy’s is FUNNY!
@ Interceptor- I thank you for the link , not sure exactly what kind of enlightenment i was supposed to gleen/glean/glene ( ?) from it but i suppose i should appreciate the thought behind it.
lol I love how O’Neil is holding a lemon at the start of episode 7 after announcing that they may have found a way to bring them back to earth.