SGU-The Nerd Rage holocaust (spoilers)

*I will open that this rant will contain expletives.  I know, it’s very base of me and I do actually have the lexicon to overcome the common for letter word.  But there is a visceralness to the expletive that means it must be used to convey the sheer depth, loathing, and soul wrenching screaming that I must let out*

SGU had promise.  It had the backing over ten years of sci-fi nerdom behind it.  My fellow nerds we’re foaming at the mouth, and yes a few of us were even doing inappropriate things to stuffed animals in sheer excitement.

The premise was kind of phenomenal and revolutionary to the franchise of Stargate–that a new team unlocked the last digit of the infamous Gate and dialed into an Ancient ship.

But the real kicker was that the ship was actually ancient.  Like, archaic.  Jankity.  Broke-ass.  Yeah, up until this point Ancient technology was like a finally tuned relic.  Sure it was old, but it always looked shiny and it generally tended to work within 30 mins.

No, the Destiny was broke as hell.  And I loved it.  It made sense, it was beautiful, and there was an air of survival (survivor?) to it.  No way home, and the ship they were on literally had pieces falling off.

How could you fuck it up?

I must pause for a moment in my rant to explain, in what I think at least, is the some genius of the original Stargate franchise.   In the first episode (technically two, for anyone who wants to split hairs), we find out every pertinent story element.

You know who the good guys are.  Space MacGyver, the perky intelligent blond, the witty-know-it-all, and the renegade alien.

The bad guys.  Tyrants enslaving space humans hell bent on intergalactic domination.

And a StarGate.  A mythical device that let people travel through space (and in time, in a couple of episodes).

Done.  First episode (Children of the Gods) is still one of the singular greatest sci fi tv ever.  Outside of the Entirety of Battlestar Gallactica.

However, Sgu deviates entirely from this tried and true method.  We have no clue who the hero is.  The know-it-all is an asshole who vascilates between good guy and bad guy I kept hoping he died horribly in every episode.  I one he gets his ass left on a planet, a la Khan from Star Trek.

We didn’t even know entirely what the premise of the show is (you find it mid way through season 2 btw, so if you’re just starting out with the series you have a long way to go).

They rested everything on the fact that they could sell a show to fanboys of the franchise.  And, honestly, that’s all the show had going for it.  There really wasn’t a lot of StarGate involved.

Now, I still think the premise the used in season 2 for motivation could have made a decent show.  We needed to have found it our around episode 4.  The first three episodes were good (they stabilized life on the ship).  I would have liked to have seen more exploration of this ancient ship that had been around for millions of years.  But they dropped the ball on nearly everything else.  Protagonist, antagonist, aliens, too many subplots, and the ancient speaking-stones were used but they detracted from the whole concept of being lost in space.  If you can make a long distance call home, there’s no real sense of urgency

Argh, I can’t even finish this coherently I’m filled with so much nerdrage.  My wife was begging me to stop watching the show.