I had a housemate back in Perth who was a big fan of the sci-fi series called Stargate SG-1. For those of us who’re not in the know; the TV series was a spin-off from a 1994 so-so sci-fi film made by the then darling purveyors of pop-corn sci-fi films – the Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin duo who’d go on to make the alien-busting Independence Day film next. The film and series essentially covers the discovery of an ancient ring-shaped device in present-day Earth that serves as one-end of an interstellar wormhole that in turn makes possible travel to distant planets and galaxies.
The first series that followed the film – Stargate SG-1 – turned out to be quite the success, and ran for a whopping 10 years, becoming the longest-running American sci-fi TV series ever before getting recently surpassed by Smallville. The series was well-regarded for its adventurism, cast chemistry, and story arcs that evolved and ran for years. In fact, the producers themselves seemed surprised by how loyal a fan-base the series created – the series was to have been wrapped at several junctures, but kept going on because of its fans.
On the down side, the show – especially in the earlier years – was also rather campy at spots, with the occasional ‘alien of the week’ episodes showing up. Stargate SG-1 itself had its own spin-off. The equally successful Stargate Atlantis, which ran for five years, and most recently and the topic of this post: Stargate Universe.
Stargate Universe (SGU) is a pretty recent TV series that ran for just two seasons before getting discontinued because of development timing constraints. It follows the adventures of a multinational exploration team which is stuck on a massive starship after an offworld base they were based in is destroyed (the planet explodes in a spectacular scene). The starship, Destiny, unfortunately, is also billions of light years away from home, and the series tells the story of their difficult journey home.
Continued in the next post.=)
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