Product Description
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A group of soldiers, scientists and civilians, fleeing an
attack, is stranded billions of miles from Earth on an Ancient
ship known as the Destiny. Locked on an unknown course, they must
fight to survive and find a way home. The danger, adventure and
hope they find on board the Destiny will reveal the heroes and
villains among them.
.com
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If it isn't already apparent that Stargate Universe (a.k.a. SGU)
is not your big brother's Stargate, all doubt disappears when a
Nick Drake sound-alike song called "Don't Forget to Breathe"
makes its way onto the soundtrack near the end of "Air," the
three-episode pilot that unveils this new series. The stargate
itself--an artificially created "wormhole" through which one can
instantly travel to different worlds light-years away--is still
around, but much else has changed. Gone, for the most part, are
the rough-and-tumble adventures that were the specialty of SG-1
and Stargate Atlantis, SGU's popular predecessors. Gone, too, are
insouciant but charismatic and intrepid leaders like SG-1's Col.
Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson does make several cameo
appearances in that role in the course of these 20 episodes,
offered here on six discs) and Atlantis's Col. John Sheppard,
along with such memorable and monstrous alien nemeses as the
Goa'uld, the Wraith, and the Replicators. In their places, in
addition to a new ongoing story line, is a rather less
conventional approach, featuring a more minimalist vibe and an
entirely fresh cast of earnest, intense, mostly youthful
characters battling personal demons and complex interpersonal
relationships (including some involving, p, gay couples),
along with a myriad of technical issues more typical of sci-fi
shows. Sprinkle in a few more sensitive tunes of the kind you'd
encounter on a nighttime soap opera, and you've got what might be
called the emo Stargate.
If this all sounds very serious, well, these folks have a lot to
be serious about. Very early on, the "Icarus Base" is under alien
attack, forcing and civilian personnel alike to escape
through the stargate. They end up aboard Destiny, a massive ship
that's millions of years old and was once the property of the
omniscient master race known as the Ancients. Not only do our
characters barely know how to operate the ship, they also have no
idea where they are, except that it's billions of light-years
from Earth. It's the responsibility of the two main men, Col.
Everett Young (Justin Louis) and scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush
(Robert Carlyle), to figure out how to get everyone home safely,
a task that dominates the series' overall arc. That dicey
proposition is complicated considerably by ceaseless internecine
conflict on the ship, much of it between soldiers and civilians
(typified by Young and Rush, both of whom are self-righteous,
utterly humorless, and not especially likable). Much of the
action takes place on Destiny, but there are occasional
excursions to various planets in search of water and other
supplies; there are also trips to Earth made possible by magical
"communication stones" that allow users to exchange bodies with
folks on the other end. As is the case with many new programs,
SGU takes a while to hit its stride, but when that happens about
a third of the way into the season, the results are often quite
exciting; SGU may not be as much fun as the earlier shows, but
it's still well written and entertaining, with excellent
production values, good special effects, and some two hours'
worth of bonus material. --Sam Graham