The first episode of the new Stargate series aired this past weekend. As a fan of SG1 and Atlantis, I was particularly interested to see how this new series would go. Of course, I knew from promotional material that it would ultimately be set on a very old Ancient ship which was tooling through space depositing stargates and that a band of refugee types would end up aboard it trying to survive. The premise itself is hardly original; the lost in space theme is very common.
The introductory episode is, unsurprisingly, somewhat heavy with exposition as it sets up just how the refugees ended up on the Ancient ship and as they deal with their initial crisis. Based on the first episode, I have to admit that the series has potential. However, it could very easily go wrong, turning into a clone of Star Trek: Voyager or something similar. It seems unlikely that this will be the case, though.
In this series, we see Ancient technology that looks ill used and old. The ship’s systems are failing. The ship has been damaged, possibly in a battle. There is no simple solution to survival like Atlantis surfacing; the refugees will need to repair damaged systems and maintain the ship just to survive. And, unlike in other series, it seems unlikely they will ever be able to return to Earth; after all, it took the power output of a planet’s core to open a wormhole to the ship. It is also unlikely they will hear anything from Earth since said planet was destroyed in the attack the refugees were escaping from.
To make the situation more interesting, the cast does not consist of a hand-picked, trained team of experts. Many of the refugees are people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This provides potential for situations that would have made little sense on the other Stargate series.
All in all, if the producers are able to follow up on the setup with compelling stories, the series will at least meet the standards set by previous series. It may even be able to draw an audience different to the original Stargate series simply due to the differing premise. Here’s hoping the rest of the episodes live up to the potential of the first.