If you haven’t seen the final episode of Stargate Universe yet, beware of big SPOILERS below!
Fans of Stargate Universe tuned in for the show’s final moments this week, and saw Eli Wallace risk — or perhaps sacrifice — his life for his friends, volunteering to stay behind and try to repair Destiny‘s last statis pod while the rest of the crew went into stasis. But the ending was originally very different.
Executive producer and “Gauntlet” co-writer Joseph Mallozzi revealed on his blog that in the story’s original pitch, the identity of the person who stayed outside of the pods came down to a coin-flip … and was to be left ambiguous at the season’s end, setting up a fascinating character study for the start of Season Three.
“The original pitch had Young and Rush as the last two men standing,” Mallozzi said. “With one, lone serviceable pod remaining, they argue, then make the decision to let fate decide. They flip a coin. Winner makes the sacrifice and stays out; loser goes into stasis. The coin flip is made and, as it descends, we FADE OUT, not knowing the results.
“One of the possibilities this particular ending set up was a Season Three opener which finds Rush, three years later, a little loopy from his time alone. As he goes through his daily maintenance of the ship’s systems, he converses with members of the crew who, it turns out, are hallucinations. Suddenly, the gate activates. A bewildered Rush hurries to the gate room in time to see Telford lead a rescue op through. Turns out, after several years, Earth finally acquired a means to dialing Destiny. Of course, the rescue turns out to be short-lived as it ends up being a hallucination as well when, in the episode’s final turn, we discover Rush in stasis (he was the one who lost the coin toss), evidently dreaming, while Young maintains the solitary existence as Destiny‘s caretaker.”
Mallozzi said that, while it was a cool idea, it suffered from a number of problems that eventually prompted the show’s producers to rule it out. In addition to the fact that the antisocial Rush would be quite happy to live by himself on the ship, it suggested a season opener that was low on action.
Making Eli the one who sacrifices himself in the end brought the fan-favorite character to a new point of maturity, bringing his journey full circle.
In the full post, Mallozzi also discusses possible solutions to the conclusion that they ended up writing and filming. Though the writers hadn’t settled on how to resolve the fate of Eli and the rest of the crew, or how much time would have passed when they woke up, they brainstormed a lot of different scenarios, including:
Check out the full story now at Joseph Mallozzi’s blog!
"T.J." actress Alaina Huffman reveals the other role she auditioned for, and why she fought…
Actor David Nykl looks back on Stargate Atlantis, being part of the fan community, and…
EXCLUSIVE: A classic Atlantis ship is now in the works from Master Replicas – one…
Fans in and around Vancouver, B.C. can attend a live recording of YVR Screen Scene…
Pre-orders go live this week for the next ship in Earth's fleet, set to ship…
Get ready for a cast reunion this spring in the U.K., with actors from across…
View Comments
Seriously, they wanted to end the season with a coin flip? Not the most exciting of season cliff hangers is it really?
not a series or season finale in any way. that goes for both versions.
@ Jedi_Master_Bra'tac: Let's be happy they didn't do that then ;)
A lot of these idea's sound great. The last one might actually be the coolest.. a military contingent of the descendants!
JM's past few blogs posts have been very interesting. Take a look at today's post where he calls BS on most of Craig Engler/SyFy's reasoning behind why they cancelled SGU. I doubt he cares if he is burning bridges since they killed the franchise that gave him a steady writing job for 10+ years.
http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/
If anyone from SyFy is reading this you do know it's not just hardcore Stargate fans that hate you now, right?
You're the Sony of broadcasting companies. You pissed of the fans that made your network a success. It's us, not the lot that watches fake wrestling :P
I really do hope MGM doesn't let the franchise die like this. Start a new series set anywhere between 3-1000 years in the future, and have some or most of the crew from Destiny on it....at least Eli :)
That coin-flip sounds very JAG-like ;)
I think I would have enjoyed the final Young-Rush facedown and the season 3 opener sounds pretty cool, but honestly? I think the ending with Eli was even better. I truly loved it and I'm glad TPTB made the choice they did.
@ Lee_Machine
Im totally with you, If they left it on Friday night and advertise it abit better Im more then sure we would be seeing season 3 right now! .... Ok we all know season 1 was a lame but season 2 ROCKED IT...
Im very Fracked off and will no longer watch SYFAIL channel AGAIN
I see people complaining about the advertisement - the show got a theatrical trailer, it was promoted high and low all over the place before its premiere, it even got a huge press event that went with the premiere. At some point, the show has to stand on its own legs, like every other show. It got a big push to draw outsiders to sample it - after that, it's up to the writers to keep the attention of the masses. The show was turning into a money sucking black hole even before the first hiatus. A series with such a huge budget - over 2 mil. per ep according to R. Carlyle - needs to deliver big time!
I don't live in the US so I don't know how advertising was, but they should have counted online downloads, and DRV recordings. SyFy should have put it online at Syfy.com with ads like what ABC did with LOST. They could even charge and be ad free. The point is they didn't care enough to try. I understand anything but live viewers didnt make SyFy money, but rather MGM. Well change your model to fit the changing in viewing habits. Since they didn't do that they have this horrible PR that will taint the network for many years to come.
Fox is still getting s**t for cancelling Firefly, and that was 10 years ago. IMO this is MUCH more damaging then canceling Firefly. Firefly aired what, 12 eps then died. SGU had 40, and the 17 year strong franchise behind it.
What really baffles me is ok, Syfy cancelled SGU, but then MGM really killed it. What ever happened to that 500 million set aside during the bankruptcy for the Stargate franchise? Let me guess, they gave that all to another Bond film so they can total another DB9 :P
SYFy is a bunch of liars! People say the numbers for the series was off, and yes they were, but SyFy went above and beyond to do the show injustice. Why didn't they bring back tough enough, or whatever that wrestling thing was from last season to contend with Tuesday nights, and just leave, SGU on Friday nights. Answer, well apparently, they grew tired of paying top dollar for SGU, and decided to do exactly what they did with SG1; use that money for cheaper shows. How do we know this? Well, we're watchers and observers of which ever night this show or that show comes on. But, for these people at SyFy, this is their livelihood. To put it simply, SYFy could be compared to Wall Street, and those who know the market by heart: Investment banks would use the magical concept of dividends to add value to objects or concepts, to justify investing the money of investors so as they could be paid their commission for investing, and not necessarily even making a profit off that investment. As brilliant as these investment banks, and others are to crook investors out of their money, that's how brilliant people are at SyFy when considering the numbers. These guys and gals are Statistics majors; numbers and reports to them are as viable as a 3D image that once you see the pattern, you can't un see it. They knew the numbers were off for SGU, and saw this as an opportunity to kill the show. Let's say they're paying a million five an episode, but pays only six hundred thousand for eureka and warehouse 13, they'd estimate it's better to let SGU die, than to allow the show time to build an audience and they'd be stuck paying double for one instead of for two. So they waited months to bring on Season 2, and they moved it from Friday nights (which would have more than likely kept the 1.45 million viewers, and moved it to Tuesday night, where they knew it had no chance, since, most of those shows, are open air shows, and one doesn't need a cable box for it. As we all know word of mouth is a powerful thing, so one person in a building of 300 that has the Neilson box is being bombarded by everyone else who doesn't have cable,but continually promotes an open air show. Remember, SyFy plans this stuff months before they do it, so to think, they made last minute decisions is incredibly naive. They wanted out of the Stargate Franchise, to produce lack luster shows. Why wasn't Eureka pitted against Network shows, or Warehouse 13, if their numbers were so awesome? Don't be fooled people!
I wonder if there was any plans to have a 4th spin off, not so much about gate travel (although could of been a feature at some point)
Its just with all the references to Homeworld Command, to me it sounded like they were plugging something..
Maybe it's something they could to combine all three series in the future, why does it always have to be set in one area of the universe, use all 3... Maybe even announce to the world about the program, would be very interesting to see the struggles after that, whether there'd be uproar or even acceptance, people using it every day like the ep with The Ashen..