It's over folks, Stargate Universe has been cancelled.


http://www.deadline.com/2010/12/syfy-cancels-stargate-universe/

And now that it is cancelled I wonder how many people will bother to watch the second half of the season, which will not air until spring.

I think Sci-Fi (I refuse to call it by that other name) moved it to Tuesdays deliberately, knowing ratings would drop and so they would have a good excuse to cancel it.

Beth - ;)

And now that it is cancelled I wonder how many people will bother to watch the second half of the season, which will not air until spring

I'll probably watch them to the bitter end. Heck, why bother holding the second half of the season back now. The show is cancelled, it seems just pointless now.

I hear the Stargate producers have plans for a new spinoff that the Syfylis channel will love.

Stargate: Wrestling
About a select team of wrestlers who go to different planets to wrestle alien invaders into submission.

D@mn. It was almost inevitable, but d@mn. I was really loving this series and it was bedding in nicely this season.

I share Beth's cynicism about Skiffy's reasons for shifting it to an unwatchable time slot. What a bunch of morons: why renew it in the first place if they didn't want it?

When SG-1 was cancelled, the fans sent empty tissue boxes to Sciffy's Chief Executive with "Thanks. Send more" written on them. When SGA was cancelled, they sent lemons. So how will the campaign run this time? With the mood I'm in at the moment, I'm tempted to suggest we all turn up at their offices and say savagely, "We'll never be done," while headbutting the appropriate people. Insert wink here. I suppose.

What the heck am I gonna do with myself at weekends in future if I'm not typing transcripts?!

I know the Sci-Fi Channel is run by idiots for cancelling this show, but one also has to ask, have the Stargate creators made the same mistake as the Star Trek ones did, namely going to the well one too many times?

From what I have heard, fan reaction to this show was mixed at best. Some liked the idea, but others said: "Humans stranded in deep space again!? Didn't Star Trek cover this about fifteen years ago, to also mixed results?" Voyager was not one of Trek's most popular shows and I think fans might have seen this as Voyager Mark II.

Also a lot of Stargate fans seemed pissed that Atlantis got cancelled and seemed to think Universe was the blame (I'm not one of them, didn't SG1 and Atlantis run at the same time for a couple of years). This was another strike against Universe.

However, the main problem was the writing. For a while it seemed they didn't know where they were going with this show. It was all over the map for a while. For example, in the second half of S1, they introduce the blue aliens. We wonder who are these aliens and what do they want? I thought the season end would deal with that, but then they turn around and have the Lucien Alliance invade Destiny? The Luciens!? Why bring them in? That just came right out of left field. The Lucians wanting Destiny made no sense to me, why devote time and troops to invade a ship gajillions of light years away from your galaxy? It would be like the Romulans wanting to invade Voyager. It's just not on. It seems the Lucians only purpose was to bring in more characters. Why? Didn't they have enough already?

The sad part was that in Season Two, once this Lucian nonsense was out of the way, the show started to get better. It seemed the writers have finally decided where they were going. However, by then it was far too late. Sci-Fi moving the show to Tuesdays and splitting the season in half certainly didn't help.

So, like Lost In Space and Space: 1999, we have another "humans lost in space" show that will end with no resolution (I think Star Trek: Voyager is the only show of this genre to end with everyone getting back home to Earth).

I wonder if Stargate will do what Star Trek did after Enterprise got axed and take a break for a few years. Give the creators time to recharge their creative batteries.

Only time will tell.

Whew! Haven't been on this site in a LONG time. I guess news of Universe's canecellation sent me looking for somewhere to vent .

I was really starting to enjoy the show. The producers made a lot of positive changes in season 2, and the midseason finale was excellent.

I wonder what's next for the Stargate franchise? I know the movies are being held up by MGM's bankruptcy and the collapse of the DVD market, but how about a miniseries? That way, Sci-Fi would foot the bill and we could get some closure for our series.

I've heard rumors that the producers want to do a Universe movie as a wrap-up but, really, come on? MGM and Sci-Fi aren't going to front money to wrap up a failed series unless it develops a Firefly-esque cult following after it ends, which seems unlikely.

The only way I see Universe getting any closure is if the producers find a way to tie it in to an SG-1 or Atlantis story. Ideally, I'd like to see an epic, 8-hour miniseries featuring the casts of all three series tackling a single threat. Destiny would get home, Atlantis would go back to Pegasus, and the whole thing would end with Jack & Sam getting hitched .

David - you need to start writing that script right now!

You're absolutely right: if we can't even get an SG-1 or Atlantis movie, there's no way there'll be money available for a Universe one. A three-way mini-series is a brilliant idea and would get massive support from three groups of fans. The DVD sales alone would make it worthwhile.

A three-way mini-series is a brilliant idea and would get massive support from three groups of fans. The DVD sales alone would make it worthwhile

I'd sure watch it

I think the SG:U creaters took the line "Boldly going forward / Still can't find reverse" a little too seriously.

Callie, I'll get started as soon as the producers agree to my $5 million salary ;).

I agree that Sci-Fi should at least commission a TV movie to wrap up the storyline. Get them back to Earth at least.

I hate shows that end with no resolution. Hell, even Gilligan eventually got to leave the island!

"I wonder if Stargate will do what Star Trek did after Enterprise got axed and take a break for a few years. Give the creators time to recharge their creative batteries."

What worries me about that approach is that Stargate isn't a cultural icon like Star Trek, and other shows that disappear for a long hiatus tend to fade away, judging by the failure the most recent X-Files movie and the Babylon 5 DVD "The Lost Tales".

The only other Stargate project I've heard chatter about is the sequel to the original movie, but that would ignore the TV shows entirely. Unless SyFy opts to give the producers another shot soon (and they're willing to take it), I think we may have seen the end of Stargate as we know it.

What worries me about that approach is that Stargate isn't a cultural icon like Star Trek, and other shows that disappear for a long hiatus tend to fade away, judging by the failure the most recent X-Files movie and the Babylon 5 DVD "The Lost Tales


I was under the impression that Stargate had become the Star Trek of the 21st Century. I wonder if that is true, does it have the staying power that Trek does.

Trek has had it's up and downs in the nearly fifty years since it appeared on the scene. There have been two "dark ages" for Trek. The first was the decade between the end of Classic Trek in 1969 and the opening of the first movie in 1979. The second was the four years between the cancellation of Enterprise (2005) and the premier of the JJ Abrams movie (2009).

Doctor Who is another example. It went away in 1989 and didn't come back until 2005, but when it came back, it did so well that it has spawned two successful spin-offs.

So maybe we shouldn't count Stargate out yet.

The fans are definitely pushing more for an SG-1 movie, with Atlantis a close second. Now that the producers have three series to wrap up, it would certainly make more sense to do something which incorporates them all, but it would need to be a five hour movie to give each member of the enormous cast a role worth getting out of bed for. A mini-series therefore makes more sense than a single movie and would justify charging more for the DVDs.

Much as some of us here have grumbled about the prospect of a Lucian Alliance attack on Earth, it might actually work as a plot point which would fairly easily incorporate all three series: SG-1 have always been part of the defence of Earth; the city of Atlantis can be dragooned into being part of the defence while also trying to persuade Homeworld Command to let them go back to Pegasus once the threat is defeated; and Destiny’s crew ... um ... know about the potential Alliance attack. Maybe Varro comes up with some good ideas of how to exploit the Alliance’s weaknesses, and the Alliance might have some super-duper new energy source which can be tweaked to do a nine-chevron dial to Destiny and produce the first two-way wormhole in existence. Everyone who wants to leave leaves (and surprising members of the crew decide to stay) and a new volunteer group of well-trained non-whiney scientists gate onto Destiny to join Rush in the ongoing mission ... thereby leaving things open for a second mini-series if the DVD sales are good enough.

David and I need to get our heads together on this one – we can write a far better script than the usual bozos!

You two better get busy

Nothing against David or Callie, but the monkeys at the zoo could probably write a better script than the usual bozos.

Syfy Script Editor (reviewing monkey script): I like the part about Rush & Young throwing poo at each other, but it really needs a stoned trip and a sex scene.

Given the way monkey's act, wouldn't the scripts already be replete with sex scenes, without input from SyFy? Come to think of it, maybe monkeys were responsible for most of season 1.

Dammit.

*crosses out the poo-throwing scene*

Brad Wright exploring "other avenues" to finish SGU

Not to beat a dead horse too many more times, but you just don't get to make more of a failed series.

ABC Exec: So, Brad, tell me about this great show of yours.

Brad Wright: Well, its been on the air for about two seasons and has incredible production design. The cast has great chemistry, and we're building a complex plot with a terrific payoff down the line.

ABC Exec: Sounds great! You must have huge ratings!

Brad Wright: Sure do. We average one million loyal viewers per episode!

ABC Exec: Wait...did you say one million?

Brad Wright: Um, yeah. One million.

ABC Exec: I hope you haven't gone below that.

Brad Wright: Well...we've dipped to 800,000 once or twice.

ABC Exec: Doubles over in fits of laughter. Brad...no offense...you seem like a great guy, but my big toe could get more viewers than that. In fact, it did. Pulls up YouTube video of big toe.

Brad Wright: face turns red. I'll just show myself out, then.

Funny.

Still they should find a way to wrap things up. How about a couple of TV movies or a mini-series. Or are the crew of Destiny, like the Robinson family and the people of Moonbase Alpha, doomed to be left wandering space without resolution.

Not much of a Happy New Year to Stargate fans.

You're right about that. I just got through watching season 1.5 on DVD (didn't see a lot of the episodes when they aired), and I'm enjoying the show more than ever.

Mallozzi flat out said that there were no other series ideas on the table at this point. Given that it seems to take 2-3 years to put one together (I believe they were talking about Universe even before SG-1 was cancelled), I suspect that the earliest we could see a new Stargate is Summer-Fall 2012.

Actually Universe is to blame for the cancelation of Atlantis. The creators ended it so they could write universe.

More than one Stargate show could have been made. They were making two Trek shows back in the 90's, after all.

And SG-1 and Atlantis ran alongside each other for, what, three years? But that was back when budgets were more easily available, of course.

And when the still respectable Sci-Fi Channel was less willing to blow said budgets on making rubbish movies (yes, Asylum, I'm talking about you).

There was a limited comic series, a few years ago, that did give closure, of a kind, to the series:


https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Stargate-Universe-Back-To-Destiny

Ooh, it was awful. I looked at the first few pages when it came out (and had another look just now) but couldn't stand the artwork.

Yeah, the artwork was horrible. And I'm not sure about the storyline either.

The artwork does improve as the series goes on.

Anyway, this is probably as close as we're ever gonna get to a resolution to this series.

So is the glass half-full or half-empty?