Space Channel in Canada aired this tonight. It was a two-hour premiere and I have no idea if it was both parts of Air or not. There were so many commercial breaks that I think we might have had an hour of actual show.

So far I am not overly impressed. The going back and forth in time at first was annoying. So far I do not like Dr. Rush at all. Actually I did not 'warm' to any of the characters. I thought Lou Diamond Phillips was supposed to be a regular but I only saw him a couple of time and then is appeared he had been killed while still on the planet - ? The little bit of RDA and Amanda Tapping was interesting but Michael Shanks was basically just a voice.

I will give it a few episodes before I call in the jury for its verdict.

Beth - ;)

They are also airing, for a limited time, the episodes on Hulu.

http://www.hulu.com/stargate-universe

I really didn't watch it in nitpicking mode, basically I had it playing while surfing the web, so I probably missed some stuff, but what I did see didn't impress me.

I agree with Beth about the flashbacks being annoying. I wonder if they wrote it sequentially, then realized it was boring, then thought they could spice it up by moving scenes around? ;-)

Seems weird to see this Dr. Rush come out of nowhere, but he's treated by others as if he was always a part of the Stargate program (just conveniently off-screen apparently.)

They assume that because the Stargates have a ninth chevron it must be there for some purpose.
Not necesarily, they might have put it there as a placeholder just in case they needed to add a feature to the gates.

A chain reaction that blows up a planet. Yeahhhhhhhhhh... the estimated amount of energy that it would take to blow up an Earth-size planet would be the energy output of the sun... in a week.

So they did show Parts 1 and 2 and Part 3 will be next week? At which point did Part 2 begin?

I just checked my TV magazine and saw that Space aired it again this morning at 11 a.m. and will again tonight at 5 p.m. I was planning to watch the Jays game then but will watch SGU and switch to the game for an update every ten minutes when Space has its commercial breaks. I am really disappointed that Movie Central did not pick it up since it had SG-1 and Atlantis, without commercials so I knew I was getting the entire episode.

(Section below whited out as it is a spoiler to a major plot point for part 2. Highlight to read only if you have already seen part 2)
I agree with the comment about a politician sacrificing his life, especially when his constituents will never know what a noble thing he was doing. (sarcasm here) I have no love for that species and was happy he was the one to go; now the IOA person can be next since she is also of that ilk.

Also, I felt that the sex scene was completely superfluous (wonder if Space cut out part and it was even more explicit?) and have no idea who those characters were.

Beth- ;)
in Calgary

See the announcement box above for where Episode 1 ends. (Sorry I didn’t have a chance to post this earlier.)

Boy, Jack’s let himself go since becoming a general. I was startled at how much weight he’s put on since we last saw him in Season 10 of SG-1.

Was I the only one who fondly went, “Awwww!” when Rush said, “Welcome aboard The Hammond”? I know they mentioned renaming their latest battlecruiser in the final episode of Atlantis but I’d forgotten and assumed that this was Daedalus or Apollo.

Ona Grauer, who played Ayiana in the SG-1 episode Frozen and was the first Ancient to be seen in Atlantis’ Rising, plays Colonel Young’s wife in his flashback.

It seems a little ironic – and incredibly two-faced – that the Executive Producers of the Stargate franchise recently made such a fuss about proudly releasing a new child-friendly version of the SG-1 pilot episode – even taking out the “reproductive organs” lines – only for them to promptly follow it with this pilot which shows two characters shagging.

Who names these military things? I remember Jack complaining that Prometheus was a lousy name for a ship because it came from a Greek tragedy; and who thought that Icarus was a good name for a base when he was someone who overstretched himself and failed dismally?!

So is this Doctor Rush supposed to be a better mathematical genius than Sam Carter or Rodney McKay or Jeanie Miller? Otherwise, why haven’t one or more of them been drafted in to help? Why was the only way of solving the Ancient puzzle putting it in a video game for a kid to solve?

Riley, the technician who dials the Icarus Gate for the first nine-chevron attempt, does a lousy job. He doesn’t announce the locking of all chevrons, and only occasionally throws in an “encoded” for some of the chevrons! Clearly they’re lost without Walter Harriman!
Also the chevrons lock in a bizarre order – chevron 1 locks at the top of the Gate, chevron 6 on the left-hand side somewhere, then both chevrons 7 and 8 lock at the top again.
For that matter, if they’ve got a working D.H.D., why do they need all that “Chevron Four locked” nonsense in the first place? Just punch the symbols on the D.H.D. and get it done in a third of the time!

Chevron 9 – which I assume is the Point of Origin chevron – is Orion. Does this mean that Icarus base is somewhere within the constellation of Orion?

I loved Eli repeatedly yelling, “Save!” to Rush as he started wiping off the whiteboard.

When Rush works on the whiteboard while Eli’s having dinner with the officers, Rush’s watch shows 11.05. Either they’re having a very late dinner, or Nicholas forgot to re-set his watch to local time.

Why would Icarus Base have a dedicated detention wing? If the staff at the base so regularly need locking up, perhaps someone needs to considering vetting them a bit better before sending them there!

How and when did the Lucian Alliance – whose forces were dramatically reduced in the battle for the Supergate – have the time and money to tart up their Goa’uld motherships? They look very different to the ships we’ve been used to. Just because the CGI people probably got some new shiny programmes since Season 9 of SG-1 doesn’t mean they have to use them, especially when it’s not really appropriate.

How did Eli get to the Icarus Gateroom so much quicker than the Senator and Chloe? All three of them were entrusted to Scott in the Officers’ Mess, so how did they get separated?

On the Ancient ship, Rush tells Eli that he (Eli) doesn’t understand the Ancient language enough to know what he’s doing because Rush put only a rudimentary version of the Ancient language into the Prometheus game. However, when he first approaches Eli on his front doorstep, he tells him that he had to solve a millennia-old mathematical proof written in another language. I find it hard to believe that Eli could have solved the maths proof without a really good understanding of the language.

I’m sure the writers would claim that ninth-chevron addresses can have a totally different set of rules to seven and eight symbol addresses, but I nevertheless declare the theory that the ninth chevron can be anything other than the Point of Origin a complete load of [word that ends in “ollocks” and begins with a “b”]. Claiming that because the address ought to be dialled from Earth, you can use Earth’s Point of Origin anywhere in the galaxy is utter plot-convenient rubbish!

Amazingly, the actor who plays Doctor Sims gets a credit in the IMDB listing for this episode. But as far as I can tell, all he did was lie on the ground dead while Johansen administered CPR to him! That man has an awesome agent!!

During the evacuation of Icarus base, marines hand boxes and cases to the evacuees and they carry them into the Gate. I didn’t notice anyone lobbing boxes through the Gate, so how come so many boxes were flying through on their own at the beginning of the episode? Do nine-chevron wormholes also break previous rules and allow people to drop stuff mid-journey for it to travel on alone?

Considering the excuse Rush gave of not dialling Earth – i.e. the logical fear that the energy from the exploding planet might translate through the wormhole – why did the wormhole then obligingly shut down as soon as Young hurtled through?

Presumably the scene between Jack and Sam took place (on Jack’s side) in the Pentagon because all the Stargate Command sets have been packed away and it would have been too expensive to get them out of storage?

Sam says that they beamed “most of our people” off the base. If the 12 casualties and the 80+ missing people is only a fraction of the expedition, just how many people are now on board the Hammond, using up all its air?

By the way, Beth, Lou Diamond Phillips (Colonel Telford) is, I believe, going to be a recurring character. He was radioed by the George Hammond to get his F-302 (and the others) on board before they jumped into hyperspace.

Boy, Jack’s let himself go since becoming a general. I was startled at how much weight he’s put on since we last saw him in Season 10 of SG-1.

Not only that, but he got the third star pretty darned quick. Remember, he was a 1-star in S8. I think he was a 2-star in the made-for-TV movies, but I'm not sure.

I watched it again tonight since Space Channel obligingly aired it again . I thought I saw Lou Diamond Phillips in an F302 but figured I was mistaken since if he is now on the Prometheus how can he be a recurring character? I also saw that it was a different character who was killed on the planet - he just looked like LDP lying dead on the floor.

And I also noticed how different Jack looked at Eli's place.

Callie, you noticed that Eli got to the Gateroom quicker than Chloe and Scott; was that not because C and S stopped when her father was trapped? I did notice that Dr. Rush came through the gate onto the ship earlier than he appeared to go through from the other side. I wondered too about all the flying boxes coming through the Gate.

I missed the "Hammond" reference last night but did hear it tonight. I also missed both last night and tonight why the sergeant was in lockup.

Beth - ;)

A chain reaction that blows up a planet. Yeahhhhhhhhhh... the estimated amount of energy that it would take to blow up an Earth-size planet would be the energy output of the sun... in a week.

Possible anti-nit: Didn't Rush say that the only reason they had enough power on Icarus to try the nine-chevron address was because they were tapping the power from the planet's unstable core? If the attack merely triggered an event that was going to happen naturally in the near future (geologically speaking), would it still have needed to match the energy of several suns?

Callie, you noticed that Eli got to the Gateroom quicker than Chloe and Scott; was that not because C and S stopped when her father was trapped?
I don't think so. Eli was already in the Gateroom by the time Chloe and the Senator were walking along the corridor just before it collapsed.

The reason for Greer being in lockup wasn't specifically explained, although when he released him Young told him to take his anger out on the enemy, so I assume he'd been picking fights with people.

he got the third star pretty darned quick

He must have got it for eating donuts above and beyond the call of duty ...

Or cake.

TomM - Possible anti-nit: Didn't Rush say that the only reason they had enough power on Icarus to try the nine-chevron address was because they were tapping the power from the planet's unstable core? If the attack merely triggered an event that was going to happen naturally in the near future (geologically speaking), would it still have needed to match the energy of several suns?
Missed the info on getting energy from the planet.
My information on destroying Earth comes from this site, method #7.
Although, if I recall my Stargate Science^TM correctly, if the planet had veins of naquadria that might increase the explosive potential of the planet?

The TVTropes page (see episode 2 for the link) points out that, if Daedalus can get to Atlantis in three weeks, then Hammond should get to Icarus - which is 21 light years away - in half a minute, which is hardly enough time for Eli to watch umpteen videos made by Daniel Jackson, let alone time for him to get bored with it, make a phonecall to his mum and have a chat with Chloe.

Just to clarify, Gateworld have now corrected their earlier assertion (which I knew was wrong, because that's where I instinctively ended the transcript before they said otherwise!) about where episode 1 ends. The episode finishes after the conversation between Sam and Jack and not one scene later.

Like bugs on a windshield

There's another link to that here somewhere.

My mistake, then. I didn't spot the other link.

You can never link to that video too much - it's brilliant, and I say that despite my affection for this series.

Mind you, (minor spoilers for future episodes - highlight to read) isn't it strange to look back to that first episode and see Rush and Young so clean shaven and short-haired?!