I read an interview with Brad Wright a couple months back where he said that the new Stargate series would be a show that fit in with the already-established continuity of the first two shows (SG1 and Atlantis) but that viewers wouldn’t need to already be fans to follow it, and in fact, he hoped it would bring even more people into the fanbase. I found it hard to believe that would work; Stargate has been around for nearly two decades, and most viewers are scared off by continuities that are this vast who know nothing about them. But now that I think about it, Star Trek’s third series, Deep Space Nine, hoped for new fans, and got them, because it was such a different kind of show from the first two. Stargate Universe, much like Deep Space Nine, is a Stargate series that is quite different tonally from the others. It feels reasonably fresh but is still very true to its roots. At first, I was worried a series set on a ship would never actually use the Stargate, but it turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

I’ve always like Stargate for much of the reasons I like Trek– it’s usually very thought-provoking, tries to use its plots to discuss relevant issues for the viewers of its time, and has a very rich and deep continuity. The concepts in this franchise seem to constantly get bigger. SG1 was set on Earth and the characters went to planets in their own galaxy through the Stargate. Atlantis was set in another galaxy and they explored it. Universe is set on a ship that can travel across galaxies, so the Stargate will take its characters to places all over the… well, universe. As cool as this is, if there’s ever another show, I can’t help but wonder how they can possibly make it bigger. Plus, the gate’s kinda out of chevrons by this point.

The basic premise is that a college-age kid, Eli, cracks a code hidden in a video game by Doctor Rush that solves the Ancients’ mathematical equation for unlocking the ninth chevron, so he’s recruited to go on an Ancient ship the government has found in order to use its Stargate to find out where the ninth chevron leads (because apparently that gate is the only one they can do that with). The ship gets attacked– I’m fuzzy on whom by but it doesn’t seem especially important– while they’re having a hard time getting the ninth chevron to work. They plan to set the Stargate to go to Earth, but they can’t because it might make Earthvunerable to whateve is attacking them. At the last minute, Rush figures out why the formula wasn’t working and is able to open the ninth chevron. Because they may never get the opportunity to do this again, Rush opens the gate and they all go through, even without knowing where it will lead. Turns out it goes to another Ancient ship that is badly damaged and galaxies away from Earth. So with little food and only one day of air left, the group has to figure out how to survive while the atomated ship takes them wherever it decides to go and stops when they’re in gate range of a planet that might have supplies they need.

The script tries very hard to make the premise believable– once again, they didn’t have to use the ninth chevron. They could have opened the gate to anywhere in the galaxy, but to make the show’s premise work, they had to get to the Ancient ship somehow. The writers never pretend like this was the only possible solution (as Star Trek: Voyager did when Janeway stranded her crew in the Delta Quadrant) and I really appreciated that. The unfortunate part is that means most of the characters really hate Rush, and you can’t completely blame them. He endangered all their lives even more than they already were to satisfy his own scientific curiosity. Despite that, I actually liked Rush quite a bit myself. He takes huge risks, justifies them as well as he can, and though he’s a bit amoral, he sometimes manages to get me to take his side a little bit and that’s fascinating.

The show has one extremely interesting character in Rush (and isn’t that a great, memorable name, Rush?) and one spunky and witty (albeit on the nerd stereotype side) in Eli. Because those two are such strong characters, I found it hard to latch onto anyone else. That’s not a problem for me, though, and I actually think it’s intelligent writing. Instead of trying to set up every single character as a huge ensemble cast (as was done in the pilot forFirefly), Universe instead gives us a lot of character stuff for the two characters that are most important to the story it wants to tell. I have no doubt that the others will be more rounded out when the plot of the show unfolds and they become important to individual episodes.

I was thrown at first by the non-linear format. We see the crew come trough the gate at the beginning onto the broken ship, and then we go to a flashback where Eli is being visited by Col. Oneil. This kind of thing goes on for about two thirds of the two hour pilot. The sequence the scenes were put in was ultimately justified because it helped the pacing while giving us reasons to care about these people’s probems by giving us relevant background information. I just wish there had been tags saying something like “twelve hours earlier,” or some transition so it was obvious that the next scene wasn’t a linear progression.

All in all, I think it’s a solid premise and a very intelligent show that relies on more than action scenes to keep the audience interested, and I highly anticipate a very intriguing season.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

I spent this last weekend at the long-anticipated Trek Expo 2009 in Tulsa. The best part about it for me was getting to take a group (that’s me at the top in the Q judge’s outfit next to my wife and about half of our group) from my club, Trek Forever. We met and listened to a really fantastic set of guest stars over the weekend, including Leonard Nimoy, Avery Brooks, John DeLance, Tony Todd, Phil Morris, Garrett Wang, Marina Sirtis, Chase Masterson, and lots of others.

The conn was extremely well-attended, and on Saturday, it was almost more than the folks running the convention could handle. That was the day Leonard Nimoy was there, and the place was packed. It was hard to do anything but stand in one place or stay in your seat in the area where the stage was– my wife and I had to do all of our shopping on Sunday because it was nearly impossible to look at anything as packed as it was on Saturday.

But when I finally did get the chance to check out the vendors, they were fantastic. I saw lots of collectibles and artwork I didn’t know existed, and we bought a lot of great stuff. The coolest booth there had lots of awesome prop replicas, including a knife from “Mirror, Mirror,” a life-sized, $1000 replica of Nomad from “The Changeling,” and the staff weapon from Stargate. Suffice it to say, I didn’t buy anything from them this time, but I’m saving up. You can check out their stuff at ArgonEmpire.ecrater.com.

I got to talk to Tony Todd, Phil Morris, Anthony Montgommery, Garrett Wang, and Denise Crosby at length. I liked how intimate a venue it was– sometimes it was a bit crowded, but it was set up so that several actors signed autographs all day, and you could simply walk up and talk to them if you wanted to, even if you weren’t getting an autograph– although I did buy several. Most of the actors at this show were very personable and happy to talk when there wasn’t a long autograph line. I got my picture taken with Tony Todd, who has always been one of my favorite character actors. He’s been in almost every show I’ve followed in the last decade at one time or another, and he and I talked about 24 and Chuck for a good 20 minutes. He’s also the sixth Klingon actor (he played Worf’s brother Kurn) to sign my large bat’leth– in the past, I’ve also had it signed by J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Robert O’Reily (Gowron), Spice Williams (Vixis), Todd Bryant (Klaa) and Mary Kay Adams (Grilka). I wish I could make it to the Las Vegas Creation convention in August so I could get Michael Dorn and Christopher Lloyd. 

I didn’t get to talk to Leonard Nimoy face to face, but I did get a signiture from Avery Brooks. I told him how his rendition of “The Best is Yet to Come” got me into jazz, and how my wife and I used that song title as the theme for our wedding reception– it was even the first song we danced to. Avery Brooks loved that story so much that he sang a few bars of it for us right there before we left.

What I didn’t particularly appreciate was that most of the presentations with the actors were Q&A sessions and a lot of fans had really bad questions, especially for Nimoy. Again, letting people ask questions made it feel like more of an intimate occasion and allowed more fans to meet the actors, and I loved that, but too much time was taken up by people on the microphone who wanted to listen to themselves talk.

There was this weird preoccupation with some people about wanting to bring Data back from the dead– fine, fine, we all love Data– but the actors usually have nothing to do with the story process, and the ones that did have anything to do with Nemesis’ story (i. e. Brent Spiner) weren’t there. Plus, there won’t BE any more TNG movies. So why on Earth would anyone ask Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, and ESPECIALLY Leonard Nimoy if Data is coming back from the dead? Of course he’s not– there won’t be any more story from that timeline, much less TNG. The actors were mostly very respectful to fans with these kinds of questions and very politely– no matter how many times it came up– told them they had nothing to do with those kinds of decisions. I’m not sure I could have been as polite. Marina Sirtis had the best response– she asked the guy why he was so worried about Data and not upset that Troi wasn’t coming back.

One of the most memorable moments over the weekend was the Cabiret, in which several of the stars performed (including a rap concert by Anthony Montgommery and some jazz numbers from Chase Masterson). John DeLance was first up, and he performed an excellent poem by Shel Silverstein called “The Devil and Billy Markham.” When he was through, he walked through the curtains at the back of the stage, and a few seconds later, the entire scafolding came tumbling down. The stage crew hurried franctically to fix it, and Garrett Wang, who was master of ceremonies, had to stall. So he started talking about the great Power of DeLance and how it could bring scafolding crumbling to the ground, and all the other amazing things it could apparently do. So the rest of the weekend, everyone was talking about the Power of DeLance. Apparently there was even somone whose car wouldn’t start, but then they “invoked the Power of DeLance” and it started right up. I know it’s kind of a you-had-to-be-there moment, but I couldn’t help but mention it.

There weren’t a lot of homemade costumes, at least compared to the number of attendees, but the ones that were there were fantastic. The best costumes, in my opinion, were the Borg (who tried to assimilate me when I was Q). And some of my Trek Forever members, I’m happy to say, had some of the best costumes. Look especially for the female Klingon, Lwaxana Troi, and the Orion slave girl (the really good one standing next to Lwaxana Troi). There were also some great costumes from things other than Trek, including some fantastic Ghostbusters, complete with the car, Mal from Firefly, and a Jedi with Leia in the slave outfit. And I also have to say thanks to a couple of my club members who took photos– these don’t all belong to me. They know who they are.

 Enjoy!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan