(Originally was on my Old blog, it now lives here)


The new Stargate series started this week, titled Universe and as a fan of both SG1 and Atlantis i was eagerly awaiting its launch.

While the series was new, most of the story concept isn't, obviously there was going to be some continuity from the Stargate Franchise and i am expecting at least a few episodes of the first series to be about finding supplies in the same way Atlantis was. The concept, being stuck far from home has been used many times over the years one of the most recent being Star Trek Voyager and even Atlantis from within the Stargate franchise, i'm a bit of a trekkie too but Voyager was my least favourite series so i'll be interesting to see how they compare.

There are other examples too of being far from home in the Sci-fi world, Farscape which starred SG1 alumni Ben Browder & Claudia Black and going back further i can cite Buck Rodgers, far from home in terms of time rather than distance and i'm sure there are more examples.

Anyway the series opened with aa moody opening of the Destiny booting up so to speak and then a Stargate which flings out Brian J Smith playing Matthew Scott followed by the rest of the main cast before the Stargate shuts down and a visual effect most Sci Fi fans will understand as jumping to hyper space before the story jumps back in time to Explain how they got there. I don't want to go into every detail because thats a waste of time I'm sure there are full scene by scene reviews out there.

The first episode included Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter and Daniel Jackson from previous Stargate series to add a bit of continuity and i believe there are a few more guest appearances as the series progresses. The first 2 episodes were mostly setting the scene and beginning to develop the characters.

The majority of the first 2 episodes was given over, as the title suggest's, to Air or rather their lack of it, we quickly learned there was hull breaches which needed to be closed off and the air scrubbers were not working. The last breach was found within a shuttle which the door could only be closed from the inside which lead to Senator Alan Armstrong sacrificing himself. They also had an introduction to the Stargate realm via a video explaining to David Blue's character about that the Stargate is, this helps anyone who hasn't seen previous series to still enjoy this one.

They also explained that the Destiny was several billion light years from earth and that other ships had been sent to seed the galaxies with stargates and to gather information which is relayed back to the Destiny

As the 2nd episode was drawing to a close some of the scientists tried to dial Earth against Rush's wishes as it might deplete the power although this failed the ship dropped out of Hyper space and began to dial itself which Rush explained he had told the ship what they needed and it had found it for them. The episode went off as a team was going through the gate to find supplies to repair the air scrubbers against the clock before the ship took off again.

Air part 3 will cover this mission and set in motion the rest of the events for the series. All in all i enjoyed the 2 episodes and i'll be looking forward to episode 3 next Tuesday and more imporantly seeing how the Crew developes and how much more we see of the Destiny. The series will need more than just random stops at planets and random encounters with aliens and hopefully there will be a secondary story arc rather than just trying to get home.