Stargate Universe

[StarRider1701]

Well unless they shift to a more Science Fantasy format it's likely that humans placed in that situation will carry all of their earth bound baggage with them. To me the weakest and worst feature of this new series is the communication stones. I agree they need to shape up into a functional crew with one captain. The problem with the three personalities vieing for control is they all have serious personality flaws and I think maybe the writers have painted themselves into a corner.

No, the Colonel knows what he must do, he just needs to find it within himself to release total control and allow something like a council to be formed. I think his last lashing out at Rush was so Rush wouldn't be in control.

Also, a couple of episodes ago one of Rush's guys sat in the "chair of knowledge." When are we going to start getting results from that as far as learning how to better control the ship and its systems? Haven't even seen that guy in 2 episodes...

 

[nimbus]

See Deadwood for a show full of flawed alpha personalities that doesn't suck. Any of the masters' SF books for stories of humans out in space doing more than acting roles and reading dialog out of a soap opera dressed up in SF esthetics. Virtuality was another SF show that didn't have plastic characters in unreal situations pretending it was credible.

There's countless things wrong at almost all levels... The blue aliens design is crappy. The stalking aliens versus hyperspace timer is the same as battlestar galactica. Almost every single scene is so blandly scripted that it's like seeing them rehearse unfinished script with generic, placeholder dialog. "I'm commander and I assert authority in this sentence. / I look back at you in silence while emoting resent". And so on. You can tell what's going to happen before it begins happening at the start of the scene, and often enough at least a scene ahead. Most of the acting/writing is so bad that you could almost confuse some scenes with others because the character reactions/emoting is exactly the same.

There's a few gems every now and then, but overall it's a mediocre excuse for scifi. Especially given such a great premise. SF is supposed to be about something different. A soap opera that's only SF because the set decoration is a spaceship isn't SF, it's a ripoff.

 

[nimbus]

From Baxter's Titan.

<<
"Just look at the view, kid."
She looked at the view.
She was flying up towards Africa. The clouds piled over the equator seemed to reach down towards her, clearly three-dimensional and casting long shadows. She could see the Nile, and the ribbon development along it, surrounded by the baked-hard surface of the desert; the dependence of the people on the Nile's water was clear.
She was extraordinarily comfortable. The suit was quiet, warm, safe. She could hear the whir of her backpack's twenty-thousand rpm fan—it sounded like a pc fan. She heard squeaks and pops on the radio, as she drifted over UHF stations on the ground. In her bubble helmet she had a hundred and eighty degree vision, and she had a great sense of freedom. She knew that when she returned to the cabin, after the EVA, it would seem constricting, absurdly confining.
As she gazed at Earth—at all of humanity, save for the six on orbit with her on Columbia and a handful on Station—she felt some of the tension drain out of her, as if it was being drawn up to the planet. She felt lifted out of the web of concerns that dominated her life: the difficulties of her career, the frustrating pace of the space program, her unsatisfactory relationship with Jackie, her daughter, the blizzard of hassles that made up every day, mail and balky technology and her car and her apartment and accounts she had to pay and...
No wonder people get hooked on this, she thought.
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