Reminder: SG:U is Back! Tonight! At Nine! On Syfy!
Posted on April 2, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 32 Comments
Or, if you want to be Canadian about it: SG:U is back! Tonight! At Nine! On Space!
Either way, don’t want to miss out on all the science fictional goodness. And aliens! Because there will be aliens. Oh, yes. And they will be alien — none of that “oh look, we have a head ridge, now we’re totally not human” nonsense. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
In any event: Hey, nine o’clock (eight central and mountain). Be there or… well, watch it on your DVR, I suppose. But it would be nice for you to be there.
Also, for those of you who use the official SG:U comment thread here, I put up a clean comment thread so you’ll have a fresh start for the second half of the season. Don’t worry, there are links to the previous comments. Have fun!
So far the only aliens in the show have been non-nose-ridge types, right?
Yeah, all very well and good for you people over there on the north american continent, but when is it coming back over here in little old England?
But seriously – sorry about being negative – not sure how much I want to watch it, I want to know what happens but if it clashes with CSI at 9 on tuesday, i’m gonna have to pass.
If you really want to be Canadian about it, it’s:
SG:U is back! Tonight! At Nine! On Space! (Ten Thirty in Newfoundland)
Is the “none of that ‘oh look, we have a head ridge, now we’re totally not human’ nonsense” rule one of your contributions? Because that sounds like the kind of stance a real SF creative consultant would demand.
Forget aliens…
Is there any communication stone nonsense?
Please say no…
@Musereader
When I can see Dr. Who in America without having to have BBC America on my cable system…
Dave H:
No, actually the producers are the ones behind the “aliens should be alien” thinking. Naturally I’m for that as well. I don’t really have a huge problem with humanoid aliens, mind you, but they should be in the mix, and not all the aliens you have.
I’m glad to hear this, thanks for the reminder, John. I enjoyed most of the first half-season.
I’ve seen a couple pictures of the Aliens, and they look very cool. I’m very excited for this show to return!
Man, the Canadians even have better channel names than we do :).
gahhhhhh. I have to wait until Hulu posts iiiit.
boo.
The wait is finally over! Grab your kinos and slice up a lime for the Coronas, people!
Woo! I greatly appreciate the reminder. Now, will Hulu still be running it next day or am I going to have to go through alternative means of acquiring the show?
I, for one, am counting down the hours to see it. So far SG-U has been a matured (& watchable) version of its previous incarnations. The twisted scene w/ Young/Telford & the communication stone/hyperdrive (for a lack of a better word) glitch bumped SG-U up to one of my all time favorites shows. Can’t wait to see how the Rush cliff-hanger plays out.
I’m liking the half-seasons of new shows in alternation. Caprica”s off so SG:U is on; when SG:U is off, I get some more Caprica. It’s brilliant, at least if you like both shows.
It’s an Easter Miracle. Huzzah!
Thanks for the reminder; my home-brew PVR has to have its channels manually changed for the cable channels.
I’ve been looking forward to the continuation of the story.
@#2: The nice thing about basic cable is that they run it twice on the same night so that it’s on at the right time for each coast. Plus, they do a ‘multi-view’ several times through the week, so chances are, you can catch it.
I am VERY excited to see the 2nd half of season 1…even more so now that I have learned that they have an excellent creative consultant on board! :)
I actually discovered SGU before John Scalzi, (I had time to read almost all of his published works THREE TIMES EACH during the break!) and had no idea Mr. Scalzi was consulting on the show before this week. After learning this, I have much higher hopes for the show.
My main problem so far has been that the show seems to have whole heartedly embraced the look and feel of Battlestar Galactica. While I love interpersonal drama and good CGI (even with shakycam viewing enabled), I worry that they are being to formulaic with their approach. They really need to differentiate the show with its own unique feel and quit trying to copy BSG.
My secondary problem is with Chloe (and her taste in men), I keep rooting for Scott to get killed in a horrible and hopefully painful manner! :) Since this “problem” means that I already have some emotional attachment to the characters, I would say someone is doing something right!
Keep up the good work John, I am really hoping SGU can find its “groove” in the 2nd half of this season, and HOPEFULLY keep us all along for the journey for years to come!
If you don’t have that fancy new-fangled cable teevee, is there some place one can buy an episode the night it’s on? I’ve been picking them up next day but it’d be nice to watch it when everybody else did.
Thanks for the heads up! My DVR died a few months ago, and I lost all my programming. I might have missed this episode. Which, of course, would have just ruined my life!
It looks like for the UK (i.e. Sky One), it returns on April 13th, which will allow them to show it ten weeks in a row without getting ahead of SyFy when they take a break over Memorial Day weekend (the last weekend in May).
Ooo, V starts on the 13th April too, hope it doesn’t clash with that either. My dad (who hates SF) wants to watch V, because it’s a remake of something he watched first time round. Did I mention he hates SF? Talk about burying his head in the sand – “it’s not SF ‘cos I like it” grr. It would be nice if they showed it at 8 again like before, but all the things i’m finding say 9.
I actually discovered SGU before John Scalzi,
No, I’m almost certain he discovered it before you.
TV aliens have really improved—these looked as good as most I’ve seen in big budget films.
And they actually included the communication difficulties when encountering aliens instead of just having the aliens speaking english (an even bigger pet peeve of mind that putting pointy ears on someone and calling them an alien). I hope they stay on this track in that regard.
I think I just saw some head ridges.
But maybe those aren’t the >>real<< aliens… :)
Ep 11 was a really good episode, and was a great one to return to after the long break.
Although there are a few quibbles, it is really starting to hit it’s stride in terms of the characters development. The retrospective with Rob Thomas singing in the background was nice. Soothing after all the angsty fighting and stuff.
My wife and I are SG:SG1 fans from almost the beginning and are about to give up on SG:U. Really, there is absolutely no humor (humour) to the damned thing (unlike SG1). It’s so unrelenting depressing you could stock it with every alien from the lido deck of Deep Space Nine and it would still bring you down. It’s TIVO’d and I may get around to the new episode but maybe not.
I enjoyed that. Nothing gets you through morning grogginess like blue-alien water-tank experiment-watching. One thing: do creative consultants get to suggest that montages are boring? But apart from that, nice – particularly the space battle.
“none of that ‘oh look, we have a head ridge, now we’re totally not human’ nonsense”
I’ve just been discussing this over the past week with some friends of mine. Hopefully you’ll be gratified to know that your name came up as an example of someone doing something right.
I have the good fortune to be friends with a few bio geeks, so we’ve been discussing in particular the biological restrictions on alien life (does it even have to be organic?) and how changing things on the molecular level can produce vast changes in physiology.
Sadly a lot of that talk is a bit over my head, but I’m still fascinated by the potential. (I’ve linked to our discussion post on aliens if anyone wants to help us with some ideas.)
The main thing that struck me was how so many things are related: environment, dna, physiology. It’s impossible to create a truly scientific system without making it the work of a lifetime. So I suppose my question is, where does the science end and the fiction begin? How much is pure imagination and how much is based in biological fact?
I just moved and now *finally* have access to a cable provider with SyFy. Fortunately, SyFy re-ran all the earlier episodes last Friday so I can catch up.
I watched the first two hours last night (Air pt1&2) and was impressed. It was nice to see that you didn’t have to be super-knowledgeable of the earlier Stargate series to follow what was going on.
Looking forward to catching up on SG:U. =)
-Ed
SGU, SGU. Where to start. The drama…the conflict …is so forced. You can see the writers setting up little fights between characters and groups of characters. But that conflict is not springing from the characters. It’s forced. So we can have some ‘like Battlestar Galactica’ moments down the line.
The characters on this show just do not ring true. I always believed Jack was a hard-ass military type who wanted to do the right thing and save the day. Colonel Carter was a really brainy scientist – despite Amanda tappings stunning looks, they made that believable. Dr. Daniel Jackson…brainy, sweet, archeologist…believable.
Ming Na is a beautiful woman and a talented actress. But her character on SGU, is – to put it kindly – paper thin.
Sadly the writing on SGU is pretty weak across the board. The Stargate team are great at writing action-adventure, but now they are trying to do something else. And it’s really not working. I hope they get better at it, or get back to what they ARE good at. It’s not that SGU is not ‘good Stargate’. It’s not good drama and the characters do not ring true. I’ll stick with it because I’m a fan, but I hope it gets better soon.