SGU Cancelled

Richard Dower

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/11/stargate-universe-syfy-.html


“‘SGU’ seems to be a love it or hate it sort of show. You obviously fall in the latter camp, but fortunately there are enough viewers and reviewers who think ‘SGU’ is neither boring, poorly plotted, or sexist to keep us on the air long after ‘V’ is just a letter in the alphabet again.”

SGU was already cancelled and it is nice to see, that “V” is still more than a letter in the alphabet!

noodler

Jesus, what a stupid thing for Wright to say.

GarethWA

Richard Dower wrote: »

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/11/stargate-universe-syfy-.html


“‘SGU’ seems to be a love it or hate it sort of show. You obviously fall in the latter camp, but fortunately there are enough viewers and reviewers who think ‘SGU’ is neither boring, poorly plotted, or sexist to keep us on the air long after ‘V’ is just a letter in the alphabet again.”

SGU was already cancelled and it is nice to see, that “V” is still more than a letter in the alphabet!

Richard, as you expressed to the rest of us on more than one occasion...
MOVE ON!

It's bad enough you decide it's dead before it is, posting threads that annoy almost everyone else that uses the SG forum, but then you come here telling us to get over it when we wanna look to the future and the possibilities of something else after season 2.

As if that wasn't bad enough, you decide that a news article from 2 months ago is just about enough 'moving on' for yourself, but the rest of us need to shut up about SGU?

You are not better than the rest of us for correctly predicting that SGU would not get renewed for a third season, you are merely a negative, pessimistic pain in the @$$ that happened to get something right!

noodler

GarethWA wrote: »

As if that wasn't bad enough, you decide that a news article from 2 months ago is just about enough 'moving on' for yourself, but the rest of us need to shut up about SGU?

Ah here now, scale it back their Gar.

Antar Bolaeisk

GarethWA wrote: »

snip

The easiest and best solution is just to add him to your ignore list, that way even if he does come in here baiting everyone we don't have to read it

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

GarethWA wrote: »

You are not better than the rest of us for correctly predicting that SGU would not get renewed for a third season, you are merely a negative, pessimistic pain in the @$$ that happened to get something right!

actually i think you'll find that he is. while the rest of you were beating your heads against the wall to convince yourselves that sgu was the new best and brightest richard actually went and looked at the figures and in the end was proven correct. Whereas you with all your faithful devotion got nothing except an obvious sense of bitterness that he was right and you were wrong.

GarethWA

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

actually i think you'll find that he is. while the rest of you were beating your heads against the wall to convince yourselves that sgu was the new best and brightest richard actually went and looked at the figures and in the end was proven correct. Whereas you with all your faithful devotion got nothing except an obvious sense of bitterness that he was right and you were wrong.

He didn't want to discuss the episodes, he just wanted to talk figures and annoy people. When other people were discussing the merits and pitfalls of the writing, acting, and other key aspects that make up any tv show, he brought the tone down with constant pessimism and defeatism.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

he did discuss the episodes as they happened, fairly often

and in light of recent events it's hard to view his pessimism as anything other than justified.

all thats happening here is a load of fans of the show losing their objectivity and lashing out at a person that tried to drag them back down to earth so they'd have a softer landing when they eventually crashed back down to earth

Overheal

I just dont understand why he continues to post. When I lost interest in Heroes (ie. when it really began to suck) I didn't stick around the forums an extra 6 months just to cheerlead it's demise. I just stopped watching and stopped reading, found something else to do with my time. At most I popped in between seasons to see if it ever returned to greatness, but by that time too many people were obsessed with Lost to give a damn either. .

ixoy

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

all thats happening here is a load of fans of the show losing their objectivity and lashing out at a person that tried to drag them back down to earth so they'd have a softer landing when they eventually crashed back down to earth

I think what some people are seeing is that it isn't a sense that it's done to be nice to us, more that it's a case of "Told ya so!" with a sense of superiority because of an interest in ratings (not limited just to SGU).

People now want to have some hope - after all possiblities have not been exhausted.

If you think it's all over and there's nothing new than you've made the point: fine, leave the thread and stop posting as it adds nothing new.
If you're interested in seeing if there's something up next, then that's what the thread is now in place for until there's an absolute definitive.

Anita Blow

Malozzi has posted that they are expecting positive news by next week but the way he's been talking about it, saying it'll be positive news for the franchise seems to me that it mightn't be SGU-related, but maybe something to do with the other series

hightower1

Lads if someone has an issue with a posters attitude then report a particular post. If its against the charter then it will be dealth with by a mod. If its simply annoying you but not against the charter then deal with it .... its a free world and a free net, you will NOT like everything your going to be told or shown but you accept this everytime YOU post. If you dont accept it then dont visit the thread again.

Overheal

Anita Blow wrote: »

Malozzi has posted that they are expecting positive news by next week but the way he's been talking about it, saying it'll be positive news for the franchise seems to me that it mightn't be SGU-related, but maybe something to do with the other series

Probably the next SG-1 Movie. Brad Wright was already close to securing the green light before the bankruptcy proceedings.

It was supposed to be an O'Niell movie.. I wonder how he'll fit into that role again

ixoy

hightower1 wrote: »

Lads if someone has an issue with a posters attitude then report a particular post. If its against the charter then it will be dealth with by a mod.

Posts have been reported a number of times (by a number of users) and I'm posting on the thread to try and lessen the aggravation they're clearly causing. One of the ideal ways there is to try and discourage conversation that adds nothing but annoys other (i.e. that which could be perceived as flaming) or judge if it has merit.

stevenmu

When I saw how many new posts there were on this thread I thought something interesting had happened. I am dissapoint.

Overheal

stevenmu wrote: »

When I saw how many new posts there were on this thread I thought something interesting had happened. I am dissapoint.

where have you been? http://www.gateworld.net/news/2010/12/mgm-reboot-complete-financing-secured-for-new-productions/

Johnmb

Overheal wrote: »

Probably the next SG-1 Movie. Brad Wright was already close to securing the green light before the bankruptcy proceedings.

It was supposed to be an O'Niell movie.. I wonder how he'll fit into that role again

While I'm not heartbroken that SGU has been cancelled (or surprised really) I do watch it, which I wouldn't do if I didn't enjoy it. However, if the choice is between another season of SGU and an SG-1 movie, I'd much prefer the latter! I just hope it is going to be an SG-1 movie, and not an SGU movie using SG-1 characters (i.e. I want humour and sci-fi, in abundance!).

Re SGU, what US channels/networks are there that this might fit in with? Who exactly is SGU appealing to as a demographic? A lot of the channels in the US (outside the main networks) seem to aim at specific audience demographics, so it should just be a matter of matching it up with one of those channels, taking into account the viewership of SGU and the expectations the channels in question would have. If any are big enough to afford it, then SGU may have a future.

senordingdong

I hope it's not about the movies.

The last two were so bad.

LeixlipRed

Only seen this now, gutted. This is actually the best show on tv by a country mile, madness.

somuj

Richard; a dose of reality is never a bad thing. But the majority of us here indulge in a world of fantasy and scifi so ya gotta let us live in that world a little bit longer if only just to come to the same realisation as the rest of the non-super stargate addicts. Its makes us feel a little bit better just to have that glimmer of hope. Its not really a bad thing.

Elohim

senordingdong wrote: »

I hope it's not about the movies.

The last two were so bad.

At first I thought they were just about watchable but I chanced across one (the time travel one with Baal) on tv the other night and found I couldn't stop watching it. I thought it was actually quite good.

Conor108

I hated Ark Of Truth, just seemed like a messy rushed end to the Ori storyline. I know some people love it though. Continuum was pretty good though I thought! It wasn't like massive epic thing but it certainly wasn't bad imo.

Goldstein

Why is SGU still being compared to SG1 & SGA?

The former two, great as they are, are basically the A-Team in space, the former is an (albeit flawed *) attempt at a serious science fiction show involving real protagonists.

* complete absense of leading & supporting female roles.
* took too long establishing characters, it needed to be done, just in a slightly more protracted way.
* Bowed to fanboy "space battles FTW" pressure. It's one ship, it'll never be on the same level in terms of space battles as SG1 & SGA, it was silly to even try. It's like Voyager trying to compete with DS9 in space battles. That's not to say they shouldn't have them - on the contrary, they should. But they need to be more emotionally involved, original, cleverly constructed and conposed so as not to downgrade the danger the protagonists are facing this time around.

* No overall plot direction - where are they? where are they going? Are they still in the same "new" galaxy etc.

I applaud SGU because it was a lot closer to real speculative fiction (I.E. NEW ideas) but they had too many fillers (One is too many these days and they had more than one) and lacked overall direction.

After seeing the mid-season finale episode, contrary to those who were placated by a nonsense deus ex machina retun from colenel Telford just to justify a meaningless"space battle", I saw the writers sell themselves out.

They were aiming for much higher cerebral levels in the peaks of the show preceding that and I was dismayed to see it dumbed down to that level. If you want that go watch the start of episode III on a loop.

I hope SGU gets revived and they adjust for the mistakes of the past but long term there are not enough people in the Nielson system to appreciate real science fiction even if they do so it'll be more of: V 2009, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary etc - sci-fi for people who don't know anything about what constitutes actual speculative fiction.

don ramo

there were no antagonists, that was probably the biggest problem, they attempted to have antagonist with wray and rush, but it was just retarded, stranded on a spcae ship billions of light years from home, theres a group of 50 people, theres a set chain of command, and the glorified HR specialist thinks shes should be in command, and rush thinks he (still for unknown reasons why) should be in charge, he cracked a code (sorry eli did he tried, and failed), hes hardly a leader,

it went on for a whole season, the command is simple right from the IOA young is in charge, untill the IOA commitee (not some guy talking to wray on the side of the road) say otherwise thats the case,

season 1 took so long to get going for this exact reason, it was just retarded and made no sense why they were fighting, theres no rule book for this scenario, but there is a chain of command,

only reason it worked in BSG was that it was the entire human race was trying to survive, they had to have some sort of functioning goverment, had to maintain 30 odd ships, and escape an alien race out to finnisht the job,

Memnoch

Don - Not trying to be facetious but I believe you mean there are no real antagonists. Which is the biggest weakness in the storytelling apart from the endless melodrama and piss poor characterisation.

Goldstein - Excellent post. I too mourn the death of "real" sci-fi on television and fear I might be an old man before the trend resurfaces again. It's like people have traded in curiosity for drama, hence the rise of endless reality offerings. I don't understand what's happened to it(sci-fi). It can't be that the audience that loved shows like TNG, DS9, Babylon 5 etc has simply vanished or grown old and died off?

Have people lost interest? Or is it the case that the newer network heads and people holding the purse strings are trying to oversimplify and mainstreamise the genre to the point where they alienate the fan base (as with SGU) and the mainstream masses don't really care about sci-fi anyway since they're too busy with One tree Shrill or whatever.

Sometimes I think it's just a question of, if you build it, and if someone with guts and a bit of talent really put something new and intelligent out there, then people will watch it. But then I remember the demise of Firefly, and once again lose hope. Yes it might have been the network heads who were the chief architects of that show's downfall, but it's just another piece in the pattern that seems to have accompanied a sea change where the genre is concerned.

It's not like good, scripted TV shows are dead. Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire show that quality can still shine, and that there's an appetite for it out there. We need something similar to revive sci-fi on TV, but I fear it's already too late, at least for a decade or two.

I dunno, maybe I'll write that epic sci-fi pilot I've had in my head for ages but at this stage, I'm wondering if I'm better off turning it into a novel.

edit/ps: I tried watching V(2009) by the way. Couldn't take any more after like three episodes. It was just too idiotic.

senordingdong

Elohim wrote: »

At first I thought they were just about watchable but I chanced across one (the time travel one with Baal) on tv the other night and found I couldn't stop watching it. I thought it was actually quite good.

Nah, AOT was a terrible rushed, rip off of already used SG1 stories/plot devices.

Continuum was just another lame time travel/alternate reality story in which we got long drawn out introductions of every character, get so the characters be out of character, we get to see dead characters back again, aaaaaaaaaaaaand then we get a massive hit of the reset button.

ixoy

Memnoch wrote: »

. I don't understand what's happened to it(sci-fi). It can't be that the audience that loved shows like TNG, DS9, Babylon 5 etc has simply vanished or grown old and died off?

Have people lost interest? Or is it the case that the newer network heads and people holding the purse strings are trying to oversimplify and mainstreamise the genre to the point where they alienate the fan base (as with SGU) and the mainstream masses don't really care about sci-fi anyway since they're too busy with One tree Shrill or whatever.

I'm not too sure either. I mean I watch many of the "liter" fares ("V" is quite funny, but it's not intended that way) and wonder why we can't have more complex sci-fi and themes, longer and more intricate plots.
I believe that the audience was not there ever in significant amounts. "Babylon 5" scraped through and barely made it to a fifth season for example. "Farscape" got axed. DS9 and TNG did fine, but they were in a popular franchise.
Nowadays there's a few things in play. The sci-fans may be there, but they're a smaller number than the reality TV crowd and it's a more expensive genre.
I'd also imagine they're a more discerning crowd and a little wary - why waste time investing in a series now if it's only going to be cancelled? It's the way I'm beginning to feel. Then again since there's no epic sci-fi / space opera on TV it's something I don't have to worry about.

Odd thing is though that sci-fi is still popular on the big screen - look at "Avatar" and "Inception". Not sure what gets lost in the transition to a smaller screen.

I dunno, maybe I'll write that epic sci-fi pilot I've had in my head for ages but at this stage, I'm wondering if I'm better off turning it into a novel.

Novels for me, nowadays, are generally the best way to get epic sci-fi.

senordingdong

ixoy wrote: »

I'm not too sure either. I mean I watch many of the "liter" fares ("V" is quite funny, but it's not intended that way) and wonder why we can't have more complex sci-fi and themes, longer and more intricate plots.

I think it's the lack of syndications.

don ramo

Memnoch wrote: »

Don - Not trying to be facetious but I believe you mean there are no real antagonists. Which is the biggest weakness in the storytelling apart from the endless melodrama and piss poor characterisation.

damn thats a bit embarrasing, im gonna put it down to being locked inside my 4 walls all week with man flu,

Pepe LeFrits

Just saw this now. ****ing great.

... just need The Walking Dead to be cancelled and I'll have no scifi-ey stuff at all to watch.

Back to BSG DVDs, I suppose.