As I write this I’ve just come off a couple of hours marathon of Stargate SG1 where I finally finished revisiting the entire ten seasons.  That’s a lot of Stargate let me tell you!  But ultimately it was worth it because prior to watching it over I didn’t really care for SG1 all that much and mistakenly had written it off as a planet-of-the-week show.  It handled over arcing story lines quite well and even corrected mistakes it had made in the earlier episodes (three shots and you disintegrate…).  So I’m feeling a little bit of a Stargate expert, having now recently watched all of SG1, Atlantis and even sitting through three episodes of Stargate: Infinity.

I thought I might make some guesses then about the upcoming Stargate Universe show based purely on the trailers and footage I’ve seen:

1. Lou Diamond Phillip’s character is going to die within the first season if not the first couple of episodes – the precedent here is probably Robert Patrick’s role in Stargate Atlantis, a kind of big genre star playing an irritant military guy who is too gruff to live in the Stargate world.
2. The ship that they’ve been transported to is falling apart or something, I suggest that they’ll have the majority of the falling apart aspects sorted by the tenth episode and then the damage to the ship will only rise up as a plot device every once and a while when they want to save money by filming entirely on set.
3. Friction between the military and the civilians/scientists… yawn.  It was kind of a theme every once and a while on Atlantis, it never really interested me but conflict means drama.
4. The brilliant geek guy with the hoodie will solve problems at the last minute just because one of the military types will yell at him to do it even though it’s impossible… I know I’m really shooting fish in a barrel with that one. But I figure it will probably be the idea that the ship can’t stop so they only have a finite amount of time on each planet, he’ll find a way to override that when it’s convenient to the storyline.
5. One alien joins the crew, somehow some alien dude or woman will be introduced to the recurring cast, maybe not even in the first season but at some stage an alien will join the crew.  But only one, it won’t be a group of them or refugees or another ship, too hard to integrate into the show which is a shame because change can be good.

I know these predictions are all mainly negative observations/guesses but I am approaching this show with a huge amount of caution.  Atlantis really burnt me towards the end with its five fillers and then one good episode policy and I think they missed what could have been some really interesting science fiction.  I’m also noticing the shadow of Star Trek Voyager floating around, it’s hard not to compare the two and I hope the writers pay attention to the problems that show faced in its narrative.

Oh and I also think that the whole darker, grittier, more political, bleaker Battlestar Galactica formula has also been peeked at and not necessarily for the better. Oh yeah that’s right I don’t think BG is the greatest science fiction show ever, not by a long shot!

But I am hopeful, cautiously hopeful that SGU will be awesome and I’m happy if none of these predictions come true, more than anything I’d love them to surprise me.

Bonus sixth prediction: Flashbacks, lots of flashbacks.

So what are your predictions for Stargate: Universe?

Related posts:

1. I have nothing bad to say about Stargate: Universe
2. Stargate Universe Air Pt 3: dudes wandering the desert plus spoilers
3. Final thoughts on Stargate: Universe season one
4. Stargate Universe: Light – spit lines are gross… spoilers ahoy
5. Stargate Universe: Water – Just like The Abyss except less water and not really very good