Why Stargate:Universe failed and the future of SighFy programming.

[K1052]

NextGen's biggest problem was its large ensemble cast. You wanted to follow ALL of them. But noone was gonna believe that the entire command staff of the flagship didn't get offered promotions during their 9+ year career, if they were that good.

You then have the task of following Picard, Riker, Worf, Beverly, Data, etc... as they go off on different career paths.. making it a confusing story. Who wants to watch a movie that follows Ambassador Picard... then jumps to Captain Riker, then moves to Chancellor Worf, then jumps to CMO Crusher, then back to Captain Data... you can't develop story... and if you try to integrate their story... it seems far-fetched, even for Star Trek.

They ultimately killed the franchise by making so many characters so likable.

The movie plots started to get thin too, Nemesis was terrible. The only thing I really liked was the nod to Voyager at the beginning.

Also I would have hoped by now that Picard would know better than to let Deanna drive.

 

[Kadarin]

It was a reasonable way to reboot the franchise and make it accessible to a wider and new audience. It might not be canon but it will ensure the continuation of the idea. There really was nowhere left to go NextGen was more than played out for movies, the original Star Trek cast is dead or close to it, and Voyager/DS9 didn't lend themselves to a movie.

They could have come up with something new. However, that's risky in that you don't know if audiences will accept it.

 

[darkxshade]

Reason #5 is a huge peeve of mine... what's worse is that every SG series always end their seasons on cliffhangers. I know they're trying to hook me to come back when the new season airs but all it does is piss me off to no end.

 

[K1052]

They could have come up with something new. However, that's risky in that you don't know if audiences will accept it.

Yea, especially for such an established franchise. They used Spock to pass the torch and I think it was a great choice.

 

[herkulease]

It sucked period. Some shows just do. The stargate franchise expanded so much it started getting thin on ideas.

Mid season breaks? USA does fine with them.

Not counting the 1st season of Burn notice.

Both Burn Notice and Psych until this season would show maybe half to 2/3 of their 16 or so episode season, go on break until January of the following year and not start new season until another 6 months later in the summer.

DVR/Online viewing? All shows on all networks face this no just Syfy.

 

[Modelworks]

The writers were one of the biggest problems. The episodes that were really good and rated high were from writers that had been with Sg1 since season 5 and done multiple seasons. The episodes that sucked were written by writers that had written a few episodes before. Never take a chance using unproven writers on a new series.

the episodes that sucked were written by Carl Binder - he wrote a total of 2 SG1 episodes,the guy wrote for the series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Little Men ? That makes him good at scifi ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Binder



the good episodes were written by joseph Mallozzi, over 40 episodes of Sg1 and Atlantis


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mallozzi

As well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mullie

 

[ViRGE]

I see only 1 reason: it sucked.

Ditto to this. Gateworld can (and will) make all the excuses they can muster to stay in the good graces of TPTB, but it doesn't change the fact that all they're doing is placing the blame on the network. All of those "issues" have not been problems for other shows - Warehouse 13 did 1 million viewers better than SGU the week before and after the first half of SGU S2 aired. SGU didn't have anyone watching it because it was a miserable show that was 2 minutes of CGI and 40 minutes of human suffering every week.

And if SGU is the "future of science fiction programming" then I want no part of it. Perhaps Lucas will finally get the Star Wars TV show off of the ground; at least Clone Wars proves he understands the idea of properly rooting a spin-off in the universe it's based on.

Edit: And Carl Binder may have been responsible for most of the worst SGU episodes, but he wrote a lot of good SGA episodes. He deserves at least some credit (though I admit creating Pocahontas doesn't help his sci-fi reputation).

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

SGU was enjoyable for me to watch, but not in the same way SG1/Atlantis were. SGU was a drama more than sci-fi. It had a great premise, but failed on execution/delivery.

ST would be fine to continue on the canon story. Pick up after the Dominion war of DS9, with a series that's like TNG but has the story arc of DS9 (just not so dark).

 

[techs]

SGU was enjoyable for me to watch, but not in the same way SG1/Atlantis were. SGU was a drama more than sci-fi. It had a great premise, but failed on execution/delivery.

ST would be fine to continue on the canon story. Pick up after the Dominion war of DS9, with a series that's like TNG but has the story arc of DS9 (just not so dark).

A huge difference is SG1/SGA are watchable as reruns. I tried to rewatch a first season SGU and I fast forwarded thru the Stones parts, so the show was like 20 minutes.

 

[techs]

btw the newly unemployed T.J. will make an appearance as Black Canary on Smallville:

 

[ViRGE]

btw the newly unemployed T.J. will make an appearance as Black Canary on Smallville:

Heh. Every half-decent actor in Vancouver has been on that show. I suppose some SGU actors were due.

 

[techs]

fixed the broken pic link

 

[JujuFish]

Universe sucking and getting canceled just makes me more frustrated that Atlantis was canceled for this show.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Did anyone else hate the dark CGI graphics as much as I did?

It was horrible visually, the charachters were too conflicted and dark, plot devices were lame (using the stones to go back to Earth al the time was lame, and just one example of how they cheated the rules)...

 

[techs]

Did anyone else hate the dark CGI graphics as much as I did?

It was horrible visually, the charachters were too conflicted and dark, plot devices were lame (using the stones to go back to Earth al the time was lame, and just one example of how they cheated the rules)...

Yes, I commented on that too. I especially hated all the kino views that basically blurried out everything except the middle. In the age of HD this was unforgiveable.

 

[Exterous]

Yes, I commented on that too. I especially hated all the kino views that basically blurried out everything except the middle. In the age of HD this was unforgiveable.

Haha - yeah - that was the best the Ancients could come up with? Starships traveling across Universes for millenia, gates linking worlds lightyears apart in seconds, mind interface devices but they can't get decent video quality on a screen?

 

[techs]

Yes, I commented on that too. I especially hated all the kino views that basically blurried out everything except the middle. In the age of HD this was unforgiveable.

Haha - yeah - that was the best the Ancients could come up with? Starships traveling across Universes for millenia, gates linking worlds lightyears apart in seconds, mind interface devices but they can't get decent video quality on a screen?

Explains how they ascended. They obviously didn't waste much time watching crappy SD television.:biggrin:

 

[zinfamous]

SiFy programming has always sucked, and has never been worth considering.

Thinking otherwise is a sign of delusion or pitiful taste. Likely both.