A good premise
The idea seems so cool – an ancient space ship, some mysterious “intelligent” signal coming from the start of time that seems intelligent. A mission to find out the answer to everything. All really great ideas.
Overall (critical) review of the series
The problem with the series is its plodding, depressing, complex and at time just monotonous. One fatal flaw is there is no really uplifting aspect to the series. Eli provides a little comic relief but that’s about it. Rush is just beyond a jerk and pathological and doesn’t really seem like a real character. All the characters seem to be too one dimensional – the writers try to develop them but it just never works and it’s hard to really fall in love with any of the characters.
The other major issue with Stargate Universe is the characters go through a series of ongoing challenges that just seem impossible. Ok, yes we fully admit the original Stargate series had characters going through all kinds of crazy things. But in this one it just seems to drag them down and down and down – it’s too real, too human and in short NO FUN. It seems a lot like a soap opera in space heading towards the ultimate answer of life, the universe and everything.
If you compare Stargate Universe to other series such as Star Trek, Battle Star Galactica (the new series) it lacks the balance, continuity, “realism” and deep and broad character development. Universe could have done so much more with the stones and jumping back and forth and great ideas of exploration, etc. But instead the battle between Earth leadership and Universe leadership and the Alliance and on and on and on and on.
Way too complex, too far fetched
Which leads to the additional flaw of the series – it’s just way too complex. There is no way this group of people can handle all the issues thrown at them. There is no team – the ongoing battle among the factions on the Destiny gets to be ridiculous and completely unrealistic. There is just no way a team of people can keep guessing at some ship they never used, etc. It just seems way too far fetched, even for sci-fi. Eli apparently a super math genius can somehow now “run the numbers” on everything and be accurate? It’s all just too much and makes the shows laborious to watch. It’s a lot like work and not a diversion from day to day.
Verdict: “Stargate Universe” has a good concept, ruined by poor execution
Given all that – it would be nice to get the whole story completed and find out the big picture. Does Eli make it (of course he does now that he is the smartest man in the Universe). So is it God that Destiny is looking for? A huge computer? Just randomness? A cruel joke by the auto-robot alien things? Some closure would be nice to see what they were thinking and how they would pull it off (think Lost in the end or Battlestar Galatica) and if it would have worked.
Bottom-line – great concept – poor execution. If the writers and producers could have just dialed it back a bit, made it more fun, developed a lovable character or two (think Hurley on Lost, Data on StarTrek, the Dr on Battlestar Galactica, Walter on Fringe, etc.) and had some more happy endings this series might have stuck.