STARGATE UNIVERSE starts with a group of survivors from the destroyed Icarus base.   They end up on an Ancient spaceship billions of light years from home.   This group of soldiers, scientists, and civilians try to adjust to a ship they have little control of with a set of communication stones their only contact with earth (the stones allow them to take over the body of whoever is on the other end).   Colonel Young (Louis Ferreira) doesn’t want the job of leading this group of the wrong people, but he has the job of making them survive while Dr. Rush (Robert Caryle) is trying to get them home (or is he holding out because he sees the Destiny as the find of a lifetime).   Young has a rival in the form of Colonel Telford (Lou Diamond Phillips) who switches bodies with Young more than once through the communication stones.   Telford starts a friendship with Young’s wife and Young doesn’t like that. Also you have Eli, the MIT dropout who is on Destiny.  He is about as smart as Rush and he is in love with someone on the ship who is involved with Colonel Young’s second-in-command.   The show does have some soap opera elements, but it is bound to happen since this small group of people are brought together in such an unexpected way and being far from home.

What is different from other STARGATE shows, STARGATE UNIVERSE has no central alien bad guy (they don’t even meet a big alien menace in the first ten episodes).   The show is about their survival and their struggle to cope with little chance of getting back to Earth.   The show has a uniquely different style than the other two shows (STARGATE SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS) from the writing and music to the way it is shot.   STARGATE UNIVERSE has taken the STARGATE saga into a different direction and I love the show more than I ever did the first two shows.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Audio commentaries for all episodes-

AIR (extended version) by Brian J. Smith, David Blue, and Elyse Levesque

DARKNESS by Brian J. Smith, David Blue, and Elyse Levesque

LIGHT by Brian J. Smith, David Blue, and Elyse Levesque

WATER by Director William Waring and Actors Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith,  and Elyse Levesque

EARTH by Brian J. Smith, David Blue, and Elyse Levesque

TIME by Executive Producer Robert C. Cooper & Actor David Blue

LIFE by Actors Ming Na, Brian J. Smith, & Louis Ferreira

JUSTICE by Director William Waring and Actors Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith, Elyse Levesque, & Jamil Walker Smith

DESTINY SML feature interviews with all of the cast members while the KINO DIARIES feature small moments from the lives of the people on the Destiny (including 5 Kino Diaries exclusive to DVD).   STARGATE 101: PRESENTED BY DR. DANIEL JACKSON has Dr. Jackson talk about the various things in the STARGATE Universe in a lecture format.

FINAL ANALYSIS:   STARGATE UNIVERSE is a different show from the other STARGATE shows opening it up to more than just STARGATE fans.  Check it out.  The only minus from this set is that they didn’t include a preview for the second half of the season.

This DVD review is (c)2-18-2010 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com