Last month, I had one of the saddest days of my life…okay, that’s a lie, but shut up, I’m trying to make a point here. For you see, last month featured the series finale of Stargate Universe.

Stargate is a franchise I’ve loved for the past ten years. I remember watching SG-1 when I was younger, fascinated by how they took a modern-day setting, with relatable characters, and merged it with interstellar space exploration. While other shows like Star Trek and Star Wars had awesome space battles and encounters with alien races, they lacked relatable characters. Even though Captain Picard was human, he was a human from 300 years in the future, after human society has undergone several changes. Still relatable, but not by much. Plus, while there were many human characters in Star Wars, they weren’t humans as we know them. They were humans in the sense that they looked human, but they were not from earth and had no concept of any element of human society as we know it. About as human as a Time Lord. Again, not very relatable. Then, there’s Stargate. Where three out of the four main characters weren’t simply relatable, they could be people we know.

Plus, Stargate stayed grounded, because of the designated plot generator, the Stargate. Even though it’s a science fiction about space exploration, the main characters never really needed to go in space, and rarely did. They sort of skip past that. The show was more about guerilla warfare than anything else, at least during the early seasons. As I’ve said before, in season six they got the Prometheus, and that dramatically shifted the series. But it still remained good, and remained alive and breathing for the past 14 years. A terrific run. But now, with the cancellation of Stargate Universe, the franchise is over, and it’s not coming back. Continue reading →