After two seasons as the executive producer of Stargate Atlantis, Joseph Mallozzi — now consulting producer on Stargate Universe — says that the new series will move away from the “monster-or situation-of-the-week” format and focus on larger story arcs.
“We’re focusing less on — in fact, we’re not even focusing at all on going to the planets and meeting the humanoid, English-speaking aliens,” Mallozzi said in an interview with About.com. “It’s less that focus on Our Hero and more on an ensemble cast.”
Staying accessible to new viewers was “one of the things that Stargate did well in the past,” Mallozzi continued, “and even though we still will be arc-driven, we will always take pains to ensure that first-time viewers will always be able to jump on at a certain point and get caught up fairly quickly, and be able to enjoy the show from there.”
With some of television’s most popular shows moving away from the stand-alone episodic format, Universe promises to break new ground for Stargate storytelling. “I want to liken it to something on TV,” Mallozzi said, “but I can’t really — I guess you can liken it to Battlestar Galactica, in that it’s science fiction and it’s more arc-driven. But in terms of tone, in terms of situation, in fact in terms of the story it is very unlike Battlestar. I’d say it’s more Lost than Battlestar, but even then I’m reluctant to make that comparison.”
Regarding his new role as consulting producer, Mallozzi said, “I really enjoyed being in charge with Paul those past two years, but there are some elements I definitely will not miss. Being just a consultant on Universe is somewhat of a relief. I’ll be able to work on other things, relax a bit — sleep in more.”
View About.com for the complete story! Stargate Universe begins filming next week.
abit late though, that interview as out there for a while
So…more like a soap opera? It’s just going to keep going and going? I’m still going to watch, I’m loyal like that, unless they piss me off. ;P
I agree with Duneknight. Good information to have, but it is old news. I have been seeing a lot of this lately. Oh wells. Some people might have not seen it so I guess it is good for them. Lol.
So let me get this straight, no focus on going to planets, no focus on meeting aliens no focus on being stargate. I truly hope this show gets canceled. what a frelling Joke to ruin a franchise like this.
I have remained optimistic and tried not to judge this show but this interview more or less ruined it. It seems like what I have loved about stargate is being thrown out the window. My favorite part was going to different planets and meeting the inhabitants. I will still stay faithful and watch the first few episodes before deciding if I completly hate the idea.
hmmm i feel like this is going to be a a tv drama that just happens to take place in the stargate universe, which is taking away from the essence of stargate is about. stargate was about traveling to worlds, experiencing new or unfamiliar scientific situations, or running into human and social issues. this show doesn’t seem that interesting, just something cheap. the writers sure are not making a very good description of the show. are they trying to make Lost with a stargate makeover? lol mallozi sounds confused a little himself in the article
I’ve always preferred a sort of OUTERLIMITS TYPE FEEL, for a proposed Stargate Project, only down side is, it will continually deal with the same crew. Human driven stories can work just as well as any space faring battles ever could. What bothers all of us, is that they’ve taken the paradigm we’ve grown to love and switched it on its head, meeting alien species is imperative, but perhaps, it could be akin to a relative innocent coming across a character like Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Now that would be fascinating.
“So let me get this straight, no focus on going to planets, no focus on meeting aliens no focus on being stargate. I truly hope this show gets canceled. what a frelling Joke to ruin a franchise like this.” Another clear-cut case of ‘reading what you want to read’ I see. Let’s take a look at what Joe actually said: “[W]e’re not even focusing at all on going to the planets and meeting the humanoid, English-speaking aliens[.]” In other words, they’re not going to keep going to planets where everyone is human and speaks English. This is a /good/ thing.… Read more »
What a JOKE, HELLO! its called Stargate! not StarHOTEL! or LOST. The purpose of having a show called stargate is about THE STARGATE! not days of our lives or lost! you know, people can say…im loyal i will watch it but i have other dramas to watch…its like saying we are having star trek but we are having no space travel! lol this guy is stupid! ohh yes we are having a new show called StarGate UNIVERSE hello! UNIVERSE! Translate!!!!!!!!! what is a universe! it has worlds and aliens! what are they just going to sit in the lounge room… Read more »
I disagree with what most of the people are saying in these comments. I personally thought Atlantis needed to be canceled and i hope this show can improve on Atlantises major flaws. At the same time, im not gonna get my hopes up. I’m remaining pessimistic until i see the pilot. I am, however, so glad that they’re demoting that man to “consulting producer”. The only place he ran Atlantis was into the ground.
I tend to agree with TwiceBorn. Atlantis was getting bad, the Wraith were an old enemy we didn’t even really fear anymore and that we defeated every time we met them, and the plots were getting retarded. My main gripe with Atlantis was how they wasted the last season with fillers instead of going like BSG and making high quality ones and go out with a bang. I have my doubts, even though I will watch it anyway but I won’t hold my breath since it’s the same writers which means we get episodes like Brain Storm and the countless… Read more »
I agree with HBMC… And the fact there there will be a major story-line and not only monster or situation of the week, sounds realy good to me. In my opinion, some of those those episodes ar exactly what made Stargate lose its quality.
Well, I’ll just wait and see then =)
I knew this was coming. I actually LOVE monster of the week stories (they are becoming unpopular at the moment), I think that’s what TV is for, I understand now because of Tivi and recorders etc… people will never miss an episode, so big arc shows are more popular but I prefer the good old, each episode focusing on a new problem or planet. Maybe that’s why I like the new Terminator series when no one else does. I don’t see why stargate has to become the same as everything else on TV, my favourite episodes were of SG1 on… Read more »
I think fans should be more ambitious and less stuck to OLD stuff. SG1 and SGA had an OLD format, the “monster-or-situation-of-the-week” is the less artistic one, and keeping this way we would get ALWAYS THE SAME EPISODES. A quarantine one, a clone/doppelganger one, a ‘monster-of-the-week’ one, and so on. STOP WITH ALL THIS STUFF. Maybe I’m the only one, but I’m very EXCITED about Mallozzi’s interview because it seems that producers FINALLY understood what was wrong with the old format (the “English-speaking umanoid aliens”, for example), and made their steps to a more serious dimension. The (even if ‘reluctant’)… Read more »
We’ll see if TPTB have the talent to pull this off. If they do and they were just holding back on Atlantis (why?) it will be great. If they don’t then Universe will fall flat on its face.
Here is what will happen if they don’t go to planets and have lots of guest stars… If it is successful then it will get to expensive as the cast will get to powerful as they own the screen time. Then Sci-Fi will do what it does best, CANCEL UNIVERSE… Why don’t they get what we the fan, the buyer of product gets? Maybe most of their employees are too young and stupid.
If they can make this half as good as Battlestar it’ll be worth watching.
There aren’t going to be aliens because they’re gonna end up on the ship that populated the universe.
I’m really excited about SGU… I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt until I see it.
I like the “planet of the week” format. I don’t like serialized shows where everybody has their own agenda and it gets more and more convoluted by the episode, that’s why I gave up on the new BSG and Heroes and I can’t stand Lost. I liked SG-1 and I adored SGA – until they tried to apply this “character based” format on it – everybody (including the one lesbian character on the show) romancing Keller and not enough team is what ruined my enjoyment of the last season. If this is what they plan for SGU then no, thank… Read more »
Yay for not being a forested-planet-of-the-week show… but riddle me this… will they be focused, even slightly, on using the actual stargate? I felt the centerpiece of the show’s name was largely lacking in much of Atlantis post season-one. Though I recently recalled, for those nay-sayers who think a stargate show based on a ship is a bad idea… its the gateworld forum-member’s fault.. they ran a poll shortly after Atlantis premiered asking what we’d like the next spin-off to be about. Stargate Prometheus won fairly overwhelmingly. Unlike the X-303, the Destiny at least has its own stargate (and probably… Read more »
Oh yay, everyone is freaking out and being judgmental again. Seriously people, just chill and wait till it starts.
This sounds like a rather bad show to relate to Stargate when the last two series were about defeating the enemy overcoming obstacles which made it interesting and I don’t think that the writers are good enough to write even a decent really long human interest story. No offense to them but the underlying human interest stories in the later seasons of SG1 and in Atlantis were very generic. I agree to get rid of the people who live on other planets and speak english because it is rather ridiculous to have no excuse as to why they speak english.… Read more »
Joe Mallozzi said himself this show will be more of a (SPACE OPERA), more relationship based, less monsters and situations of the week. So for all of us that dont want
ONE TREE HILL on a space ship, we arent wanted.
Well it sure looks like a Space Opera. If you have not watched it in weeks it doesn’t matter where you jump in again, because you have not missed anything. I dont like that at all. LOST is fine, but sometimes I thought FCOL go on please or I dont watch. To bad they wont meat any new english speaking Aliens on planets. And showing more from the characters in the series well it may not be very bad, but if you only see this with some exiting moments in between, then no thanks its not what I expect. What… Read more »
Atlantis needed better bad guys…the wraith was never going to be as awesome as the gould or the Ori, hell the ori were a great bad guy being the time we had to watch sg1. Atlantis was a very good show and needed more episodes. I know the wraith were boring at times but in my view that was the story writing…the ancient replicators were the best for atlantis. They need to make a MAjor sg1 movie not a tv movie as Star Trek is due out soon and i take my hat of to them…for makijng a big budget… Read more »
Stop frelling calling it Stargate dammit. If you are not going through a stargate, there’s no monster of the week, and not meeting any “englisg speaking aliens” it’s just days of our lives while lost in the Delta Quadrent
Stargate: This Was The Days Of Our Lives. LOL
i will not watch thank god that true blood or the tudors will be on repeats until sunday night when the new episode airs.
lol on Stargate: This Was The Days Of Our Lives thats a good one. but i like stargate 90210 that sounds good too. btw when the hell is mallozzi and the others going to work the on the sga movie! oh thats right it got SHELVED! now we can see that they lied to us mmmm by telling us that sga will be better off with movies than on tv. liars!
SG1 and SGA:
Stargate Thirty Something Plus (targeting the baby boomer, midlife crisis generation)
SGU:
Stargate 90210 teeny boppers (targeting the puberty, zits generation)
SGID (StarGate Infinite Dimensions):
Stargate Pre-School / Stargate Romper Room (targeting the diapers generation)
sorry, couldn’t resist. :)
guess only thing I’ll be watching will be the atlantis and SG1 movies coming out. Although some things in the interview are multi-interpreable. Not focussed on humanoid aliens speaking english can mean 2 things: Not much aliens or much more bizarre aliens. I hope the 2nd one that woud make it interesting if its the first case however I fear the only audience that will keep watching the show will be housewives in their mid 30thies who just love the beautifull actors… -_- Sound like the whole Beverly Hills 9021 CRAP all over again Let’s hope I’m wrong otherwise fuck… Read more »
Many of you agree: This ISN’T “Stargate.” Only in name. Its a new show indeed, but not a Stargate show very obviously. They cancelled Atlantis for this crap? They’re J.J. Abrams-izing Stargate now…sick just sick…Battlestar Galactica…Lost…soap opera crap…good God…this means Stargate will lose its relevance, but then again, this isn’t really Stargate at all is it, just like AbramTrek isn’t really Star Trek…Stargate was Stargate, which is why people liked it, it WASN’T Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica, or Love Boat…it was its own formula…world…universe…etc. To change that is to completely misunderstand it, or perhaps in the end, this is… Read more »