“Life” was not an episode of Stargate. While it had all the potential in the world to be a really good episode, it faltered.
As much as the start of “Life” was a warning of things to come with the catchy music (something that was actually enjoyable, despite its message), I was hoping that this episode would remain fairly Stargate-oriented despite what was shown during the preview. Instead, viewers were treated to a show that somehow seemed more like an episode of The O.C. or Days of Our Lives. From Lt. Scott’s revelation that he had a child to the triangle between Colonel Telford, Colonel Young, and his wife, this episode was just way too much drama.
“Life” had such great potential, with the discovery of the Ancient chair/repository. I really hesitate to put it this way — but if this was SG-1 or Atlantis, that’s what the show would have been about, with a possible B story. Even the character development with Wray and her partner back on Earth felt right because it was still, in a way, dealing with what was going on on board the Destiny. If that had been the entire B story with the chair being the A story, “Life” would have been a completely different episode.
Instead, Scott and Wray’s lives on Earth became the A story (or stories) with the Destiny and the chair becoming a partial B story.
Rush’s discovery of the chair was important, and what little the writers did with that story was so interesting that it left me wanting so much more. You could see Rush’s complete lack of care for other people’s lives, played so well in his desire to obtain the ship’s master code. In contrast was Young going against him trying to do the right thing. Everything happening on board Destiny was interesting: the chair, T.J. doing psych evaluations, and Spencer going crazy because of withdrawal from his medication.
This is what SGU should be focusing on — not the characters’ lives on Earth. It’s good writing when you have your medical officer doing psych evaluations on the crew when they are billions of light years away from home. That’s good drama. Having a man go crazy because he’s taking pills and all of a sudden has none left is good drama. Who’s sleeping with who back on a planet that is now so far away … well, it’s not.
An episode like “Life” makes it evident that SGU is catered toward a new audience. While I can say that I do like drama (and watch some really bad TV on occasion), in the end, what Stargate fan cares whether Lt. Scott has a kid or not? Even the Telford/Young/Emily triangle got a little less interesting. The producers could have put a great sci-fi twist on that — if Telford was, in fact, pretending to be Colonel Young — but instead they turned it into a weird love triangle.
The episode was close to being a complete disaster, but “Life” had a couple of saving graces in Colonel Young and Dr. Rush. Both are very powerful men. Young is a complete force to be reckoned with, which came out a lot in this episode. Hopefully, the chair room will have some prominence in future episodes — which would make a lot of Stargate fans happy. “Life” also had a hint of more I.O.A. scheming with Strom’s brief appearance, which was one more minor saving grace.
Unfortunately, nothing mentioned above redeems “Life” from being the worst episode of SGU to date. Next week is the mid-season finale, and one would hope that SGU makes some kind of impact before a long hiatus. While the show has been pretty reliable and enjoyable thus far, “Life” was a step in the wrong direction.
Episode reviews represent the opinion of the author, and not necessarily that of GateWorld or its owner.
@Julian: I agree on just about everything you said. The chair should have been the A story and Wray the b story and nothing else. This instead turned out to be an episode of just character development and the science ended up being the E story. I don’t mind character development but they tried to develop EVERYBODY in this episode! That could never ever work! They should always have a sci-fi story being the A story and have ONE character develop, maybe two if their stories intersect. Like LOST, they concentrate on just one character per episode, everybody else might… Read more »
with ingredients in this case being every character
I agree that the scenes on Earth tainted the episode.I’m personally not a massive fan of this ”drama on Earth” idea that the LRC stones have brought up, however in saying that I did think that these Earth scenes were more bareable than the Earth scenes from the episode ”Earth”. I thought that the going-ons onboard the Destiny were the highlight of the episode. I feel that the discovery of the chair could pull SGU back into being ”Stargatey”. IMHO I found this to be on of the best episodes yet. To put this in perspective this is only the… Read more »
I really find this the first review for SGU that I flat-out disagree with. To me, this was one of the best episodes yet, and I didn’t mind for a second that the “In your face science” moments were taking a backseat to more subtle uses of technology and character development.
I totally agree with the review. IMO, this was one of the worst episode of all three Stargate series. The whole time I was hoping for the chair to be something, but it never was … they only focused on the relationships back on earth. Maybe by season 4 I would care about things like this, but so far I don’t even like these characters. If this was SG1 or SGU then someone would have sat down in that chair and some big things would have happened. My favorite episode of the season so far has been “Time”, but all… Read more »
I completely disagree with this review. I will contend that it may be the weakest ep of the series but it was still a great ep with plenty of character development, exploration, intrigue and drama. I quite liked Life.
Yes, it was bad.
One thing I have to disagree with is “Rush’s complete lack of care for other people’s lives”.
Rush never said anything about forcing someone on the chair. Someone might have been willing to take the chance, Greer even offered it although possibly in jest.
Imho Young has shown himself as quite an incompetent military leader.
What I like about SGU:
– new camera style
– high budget digital effects
– great new sets and set pieces
– The kino which allows for a more direct interaction with characters
– The premise of a crew that is not ‘up to par’ stranded on an incredible ship many light years away
What I loathe about SGU:
– Lack of any sense of adventure
– Constant drama
– Incessant ‘hooking up’ and body swapping rape
– Lack of action
– Molasses like pacing
A good review of a terrible episode. The Sci-Fi really has taken a back seat to the drama. Personally, I think they’re trying too hard to create drama even just on Destiny itself – let alone all this garbage on Earth. The sheer fact that government actually allows all these people (inc civilians) to use the stones to go out and mingle and get trashed in public just blows my mind. It reeks of desperation to create extra drama that’s completely unnecessary for what’s apparently a Stargate show. It’s very disheartening to me knowing that they’ve already finished with Season… Read more »
Kinda disagree on this review. I would agree that it is one of the weaker episodes of SGU thus far but it wasn’t bad, there were some aspects that I liked. We got an insight on what the day to day life is like on the Destiny, the beginning of formations of “camps” for control of the ship, the introduction of the chair etc. Would agree that they really should stop going to Earth so often though, if they do I hope that there’s larger gaps between visits that we see on screen. I would rather have more time seeing… Read more »
Way the writers trying to force all the “character development” meh nonsense thing is not boring at all. I’m curious what else they can so easily put out of their… closets.
I’m still care about the one frikkin’ person – Dr. Rush. No more, no less.
This episode would have been great if not for the hopeless amount of time wasted on Earth drama scenes. Maybe one day someone will show versions of all the SG-U episodes without the Earth scenes, then it would probably be an extremely enjoyable program to watch.
Short, but very entertaining.
There is so much potential in this series, but it is being so badly wasted with the plain boring teen drama angle.
I have to admit I find your review rather ironic considering fan complaints of both SG1 and SGA largely centred around a lack of character oriented storylines in the past. I agree, the chair is an extremely interesting and important discovery, but spending an entire episode focussing soley on it, and a debate on if someone would sit in it/who would sit in it would have soon become trite. SG1 already did more than one episode involving the consequences of sitting in it, so that would have been repetative and then fans would be complaing about recycled plot lines. Not… Read more »
What Stargate fan cares? I do. You obviously have never watched the O.C. or Days of Our Lives. Unfortunately I’ve been subjected to them repeatedly, especially the later when I lived with my sibling. If you watched them at all you wouldn’t make that comparison, not about this episode. There’s no accounting for taste but an untruth is an untruth. By the way, I didn’t think someone on psych meds could be in active duty military, at least not front line combat, nor special forces, and definitely off world (if it was real). @Bemused: You see the right of it.
I largely agree with the above review. Although I liked LIFE, and, in its own way, thought it had outstanding moments, I also thought the CHAIR or something like that should have been the focus. I really like SGU,and while the various backstories exploring each character have been important and good, this last episode has really hopefully finished that strong emphsis and, indeed, it’s time that SF things and STARGATE things return to the focal point. So, while I thought LIFE was good, it was also my least favorite episode to this point as well. Acting was great, nice to… Read more »
I disagree with the review in almost every respect. The episode was called ‘Life’. It’s goal was to show life aboard the destiny. The way the episode was bookended with the song and brief glimpses and everyone was doing was the whole point of the episode. And ‘too much drama’ is a silly thing to say. It seems that when people don’t get character development everyone complains. Then when they do it’s ‘too much’. I thought the revelation of Scott’s son was a good way to develop his character as it impacts him on the Destiny (he now has someone… Read more »
Horrible review, it read like the rantings of a bitter Atlantis fan, since when did Gateworld stoop to posting this kind of crap? Over-opinionated, full of mistakes, ew, I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come…
I am a loyal fan of Stargate, have bought both boxsets… I am so sorry, even as a most loyal fan, I am bored to death and cannot continue watching this series…. perhaps I don’t like so much drama, and miss the adventure. There are a few likeble charachters (Young and Eli), but even they can’t keep me watching this every week. For the first time in my life, I have fallen asleep during 2 episodes and where Stargate is concerened, that is seriously a problem for me. I used to be so excited for SG, waiting anxiously for the… Read more »
Finally, a review that flat out came and said “this was garbage” (okay my words, not his). I had always wondered if people associated with Gateworld was hand tied in expresing actual sentiments about an episode, for fear of reprisals either in loss of freebees (backstage passes, meet and greet offers, Presskits etc.,) or complete cut off from getting any info via the show runners. I would think first and foremost, if one runs a website such as Gateworld, there has to be some affinity to Journalism. so unless one writes to a gossip rag, Journalistic integrity has to come… Read more »
Forgot to add my 2 cents on the chair. After watching SG for well over a decade, we only knew the “Ancient Repository” to be a face grabbing, brain munching device. so how come Rush with his “clearly ancient” (and he probably wasn’t referring to the pile of dust on it) dentists chair, which we the viewers were made to believe on all previous episodes, to be some kind of Control Chair (Weapons, Star Navigation etc.,)? To me it was almost like walking down a corridor of Destiny and finding a candy bar (if one could identify a hundreds of… Read more »
@US06154: We not only have a good amount of studio support for the site, but we count many of TPTB as friends, to greater or lesser degrees. So it certainly puts us in an awkward position to run an occasional negative review, and talk on the podcast about those elements of an episode we didn’t like as viewers. I hope that folks on both side — the fans who love SGU and think it can do no wrong (as well as TPTB and the cast), and those who hate SGU and think it can ‘do no right’ — recognize that… Read more »
I’ve seen a lot of Stargate episodes in my life. I’ve watched all of SG1 and all of Atlantis and both had good, bad, and downright awful episodes. But SGU’s “Life” was just plain garbage with 1 good nugget in it: the chair. I agree with the reviewer that the chair should have been the primary storyline with more debate and characterization around it. And the psych evaluations could have been a great way to look more into the characters, even ones that aren’t the main cast. There was a little in it, but not that much, which was a… Read more »
@ Darren Sumner: I understand that you’re friends with some of TPTB at SGU and you feel weird telling them an episode was bad. I feel weird telling my friends when they stink at something too. BUT, you have to say they’re bad at something when its true. This episode, for example, was awful. The acting wasn’t good, the storylines were boring, and the most interesting thing in the episode was a chair. Sure, its a cool Ancient chair, but its a chair. Not the people around it discussing it, not the drama around it so much, but the chair… Read more »
@dauntless: See, I think that “garbage” is not constructive or tactful. The rest of your post was specific and engaging the content of the episode. It didn’t need the pejorative, and in fact the pejorative made the rest hard to read with an open mind. You invited prejudgment and dismissal in the way you opened. I don’t mean to pick on you in particular, but it demonstrates what we will be addressing in comment threads and on the forum between now and the end of the year. I feel no responsibility to ring up Bridge Studios and tell them what… Read more »
This is not the only person that thinks SGU sucks check out this review at
http://www.cinemaspy.com/article.php?id=3600
Why One ‘Stargate’ Fan Has Stopped Watching ‘Stargate Universe’ A regrettable farewell to the latest installment in one of my favorite franchises By Michael Simpson.
@US06154 Nope I gather info from the 24sec clip, 1:47 sneak peak and any mention of it in writers blogs. Just had to lol at being accused of being a mole though. You’ve ranted on every episode thus far, I could easily ask “are you a mole from another network trying to get SGU cancelled” but I don’t. Anyway agree with Darren above, if the powers of be ever did come on here and read the comments on these articles to get fan feedback, then there just going to jump right past ones saying “It was garbage” since that’s just… Read more »
I’m so glad it’s not just me.
When I want to watch sci-fi, I want to watch sci-fi and not a depressing, no action drama.
Sorry but SGU is a great idea but at the moment almost not worth watching. Even the drama has little drama!
Please… More sci-fi, more action, more excitement and at least some humor!
If not, I imagine this will be canned by season 1.
Dump the stones, drop the soap opera who’s sleeping with whom.
I would just like to make a couple of points as since I have been doing these reviews for the past couple of weeks. I feel as if I have looked at each episode with an objective eye. I’m not taking sides as I look at each episode as an individual. I happen to really like SGU. I was never a bitter Atlantis fan, but occasionally there is going to be a bad episode and I am going to talk about it. It’s interesting to see how polarized people are with such opinions on both sides. I would just hope… Read more »
@Scott Watson, you made me LOL! IMHO SGU is the nerdy kid in school, Why the heck would the Football team (Other Networks) go after him, as he is no threat (to other networks who has superior shows)? hmmmm?
@Julian L-B: I hear you bro. But it irks me that to some “other folks”, come rain or shine, SGU is the best thing that happened after sliced bread. As I had mentiioned before, must be wonderful to live life wearing Those rosy glasses.
I didn’t hate this episode, in fact liked a lot of it. I’m personally OK with a slightly less SG feel, i.e., slightly less sci-fi… wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I’ve seen some glimmers that this series might be able to pull it off… let’s face is, BSG was FAR from SG1 and SG:A in that regard, and most loved it. The reviewer caught my one HUGE problem with this episode though: they writers missed an absolutely GOLDEN opportunity to do something really interesting: Telford should have been pretending to be Young. That would have been, to me,… Read more »
@Darren Sumner Hi Darren, while I agree with you that some maybe horrible comments you must understand that since we were told that SGA was cancelled, we were very angry and were told there was no chance of a reprieve but there was a film coming soon. Where is that film? Then they told us about the new show, alienated most of us by stating it would be for the more younger and intelligent (my interpretation) viewers, we were horribly ridiculed by other fans for being upset that our show was gone and another was to take it’s place. If… Read more »
Sadly All who say “nothing can be done till the next season because season 1 is already shot.” I don’t think there will be another season. I loved SG1 and SGA and I watch SGU hoping that the franchise would not be destroyed but I think it has been. I want to enjoy a good Syfi not a poorly written soap opera. I even think (I may be wrong….) but I think this may even kill the chance of seeing any more SG1/SGA movies. :( Just my 2 cents.
@Julian L-B: You have hit the proverbial nail on the head. I had a look at the fan ratings here for the first time and notice we are either rating this show 1, (lacking a zero option) or, 10. Your comment about SGU being a polarizing series is valid and your efforts appreciated. That link: http://www.cinemaspy.com/article.php?id=3600 via Buddybear sure covers most of my gripes. I thought I was the only one falling asleep in the early ones. I just don’t watch now. Something about “clawing my eyeballs out” from a writer. Not going to happen. I started listening to the… Read more »
I agree with the reviewer. The drama is unnecesary forced. The mean plot focus of this ep is charbuilding. The A story thing here is char drama. This is barely scifi. For every one who accepts that SGU is tad more drama en char centered. But in decent dosis. This drama crap is just to much. And out of place. But every one who find this gay thing and charbuilding, who humpin who thing, great. They are right to. This show is just aimed at that kind off audience. Wich I totaly not belong to. I don’t mind a bit… Read more »
The episodes just keep getting weaker and weaker, it’s like they’re taking liberty with the whole “arc” thing and NOT doing anything in the episodes. If this doesn’t pick up, I won’t be re-newing my iTunes subscription for Season 2 (which I’d be surprised if they got). It’s a pity, as SGU will become the death-knell for all Stargate… it had such awesome potential at the beginning and I was always open to new things… but this show is really starting to just suck, and truth be told – the only reason I’m still watching is because I spent $60… Read more »
“But it irks me that to some “other folks”, come rain or shine, SGU is the best thing that happened after sliced bread.” @US06154 no offence but your exactly the same but from the other side. The only slightly positive comment you’ve made was for ‘Time’ and it was more or less just was “it was better than the rest but still bad”. I agree that thus far this has been the weakest episode of SGU but I still honestly believe that SGU is going to be a success. Ratings wise even though the on the day ratings are a… Read more »
This show is way too dark, depressing, and filled with unlikeable and dull characters. I find myself wishing for their demise each week. This is not an entertaining show like SG-1 or SGA, or even BSG. The sex/romance, crying, and overall unsavory nature of each of the characters does not compel me to want to watch it. This will be the one and only season for this poorly written, poorly developed show.
I just signed up so that I could express my disappointment in this show. Fair enough, it’s different — I like different — it’s just not sci-fi. It seems to be character drama with a bit of sci-fi tacked in. I was becoming frustrated as I watched this episode because I wanted to go back to the chair. I like character drama, I just like it when it’s working together with the science fiction, as opposed to replacing it altogether. I think it’s great they wanted to go somewhere different, but if the genre really is changing so much that… Read more »
“I” being the stargate itself. Oops.
@Scott Watson: My point is, I am not the only person who’s “irked” about the direction of the franchise. Wait, only haters write about how they feel, Right?
On a different note, “I’m personally OK with a slightly less SG feel, i.e., slightly less sci-fi…” Well, okay, that stumped me. To this person all I have to say is, I think you are watching the wrong channel at the wrong time, Daytime soaps are on NBC around late lunch time. These shows are all “less SG’y and less SciFy’y”
I would also like to add that SGU isn’t the first Stargate to get hostility from fans. SG-1: fans upset at Daniel Jackson’s departure, the rise of the anti-Jonas faction, complaints of not enough team, complaints of not enough gate travel, complaints of too many Earth-based episodes, Carter fans vs. Vala fans, Carter fans vs. Mitchell fans, fans who hated seasons 9 and 10 because they felt it was no longer Stargate. Atlantis: Fans upset at Weir’s departure, fans upset at Beckett’s departure, fans upset at Carter’s inclusion, the anti-Keller faction, complaints of not enough team, complaints of not enough… Read more »
You may not have the barometer Darren, but I do – and its bad.
And I would call them if
1. It made the slightest difference.
2. It wasn’t long distance ;)
It took me about 12 minutes to watch “Life” after skipping past all of the non sci-fi stuff. I’m beginning to wonder if I will really like seeing the old Ancient tech. I have never really liked prequels. I could never get into Star Trek Enterprise for this reason. I really don’t think we will see a lot of exploration of the ship. After all they are the “wrong people”, plus these same writers barely scratched the surface of Atlantis. That was thwe Ancients flagship and we never really got to see what it was capable of for 5 seasons.… Read more »
My problem with SGU is that I find the characters so boring and uninteresing. I really havnt come to care about any of them. I don’t find anything unique or interesting about them. RDA brought something special to the character of Jack as did Joe Flanigan to the character of Sheppard. The actors made the characters interesting and even if the writing wasnt up to scratch I enjoyed their performances. McKay was unique as well whilst Eli is just a pale imitation IMO. There is no strong leader to carry the show. Robert Carlyle is a good character actor but… Read more »
That’s just the point blackhawlk, people need to care about the characters before they give you backstory, and giving backstory doesn’t just do that. Curious story telling flaw here.
For me the best sci-fi show on at the moment is V. Great acting, lots of good characters, no boring sex-up scene’s and yes it was made before but this one is so much better.
SGU is on a par with defying gravity, slow, drawn out and boring with characters that make you want to see their demise, even cheer for it.
MGM just pull the plug, the patient is brain dead and there’s no hope.
I want to like SGU. I really do but the pacing is so slow. They want to make it more character driven? Great but not at the expense of the plot or the sci fi. In the end it is supposed to be a sci fi show, it would be nice to see a bit more… well sci fi. The episode Time was good, personally I still found it a little slow in places but there was a story and you wanted to know what happened next. But this episode was so difficult to watch not just the slow pacing… Read more »
I think the biggest problem is the stones. They’re overused. Why set a SCI-FI on a spaceship all the way across the universe, only to have most of the episodes based on Earth? SG-1 spent more time away from Earth than these episodes do, and the SGC was ON Earth. Ironic, don’t you think? I want to see some sci-fi, and I think the only reason I even watch this at the moment is because of the name “Stargate” in the title. But I fear that eventually I will stop if the soap-like drama continues to kill the sci-fi element… Read more »
I’m sorry, but I think this review is just too generous. I honestly don’t think there’s one single redeeming point for this pathetic excuse for an episode. If the next episode wasn’t the mid-season finale, I would have stopped right after that episode. Sure, the chair *could* bring something interesting to the show in the future, but in terms of this episode… The Earth scenes were just horrible drama, and easily the worst episode of a series I’ve seen in years (and I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff). I could put up with the somewhat adolescent drama that was in… Read more »