The SyFy Channel premiered the latest installment in the ongoing Stargate franchise two weeks ago with a feature length pilot. I loved it. Here's some thoughts:

Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. Stargate Universe is the offspring of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and Star Trek: Voyager. It's impossible to deny the obvious similarities (heck, they even mention FTL – faster than light – more than once, a term that, while not original to BSG, is certainly readily associated with it), but fortunately, it remains faithful to what's gone before, and never feels like it's ripping off its influences. It's appropriated BSG's dingy interiors and handheld work, adopted Voyager's sense of isolation and general narrative thrust, and already made them its own. Actually, it's surprising how much it still feels like a Stargate show: there's the ever-present Stargate itself, of course, the continual discussion of the Ancients, the race that built the Stargates, between Dr Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) and Eli Wallace (David Blue), the design of the Destiny, the ship they find themselves on, nicely captures a pre-Atlantis feel, and the cameos from Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks all help as well. Basically, it ties in directly with established canon. So yes, to answer the obvious question, this is still Stargate.

It's also the next logical step for the franchise to take. At least in terms of aesthetics and tone. Fans are already criticising Universe's moral ambiguity (check out the comments from SciFiCool's review, for example), citing the franchise's sense of a firm moral foundation clashing with the narcissistic, unlikeable and constantly fighting characters of Universe. But honestly, can you blame these people, given the situation they find themselves in?

Before I get too ahead of myself, let's recap that situation:

The SGC (Stargate Command) has established the Icarus Base on a planet where they discovered a Stargate with nine chevrons, one more than the usual eight. Dr Rush assumes the ninth symbol to be the point of origin, as the eighth is on a standard gate, but can't get it to work. What he does know is that the gate is tied into the naquadriah-rich planet core and concludes that it must require huge amounts of energy to power it. He hides the mathematical problem in a MMORPG in the hopes that a player will unlock it. Enter Eli Wallace, an MIT student/graduate/dropout (which one is unclear at this stage) who solves the problem, is recruited by the Air Forceand whisked off to Icarus.

While trying to get the gate to work, the base is attacked by three Goa'uld motherships. The attack set off a chain reaction in the planet core and the personnel are forced to evacuate. They can't dial Earth, though, for fear of the massive amounts of energy translating through the gate's wormhole and destroying the base on the other side, so in a last ditch effort, Rush and Eli manage to open the gate's ninth chevron address and everyone is forced to go through to whatever lies beyond. This turns out to be the Ancient seeding ship Destiny, which jumps to FTL travel as soon as everyone is through and the gate shuts down, and which seems to have sustained a large amount of damage during a previous battle. The survivor's first order of business is to fix the life support systems or they'll be dead in a matter of hours. Without warning, Destiny drops out of FTL around an unknown planet and automatically dials a Stargate located on the surface. From what he's been able to deduce from the ship's computer, Rush informs everyone that this is a pre-programmed stop and they should find the parts they need to fix the damaged systems. The pilot finishes with a team going through the gate.

So, as you can see, the situation the survivors find themselves in is urgent and life threatening. Because Colonel Everett Young (Justin Louis), who was in command of Icarus Base, is injuried and unconscious for those important first hours aboard Destiny , there's some confusion over whose in charge, with Rush claiming he's been in contact with the SGC via a set of Ancient communication stones and that he's been put in charge, while Young's 2IC, Lieutenant Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith) maintains that he is in charge, at least until Young gets back on his feet. Basically, no one trusts the megalomaniacal Rush, who seems to have an agenda of his own, or Eli, since he's the least experienced of anyone, and it seems that Camille Wray (Ming-na), a representative of the International Oversight Advisory, a civilian committee established to monitor the SGC, is going to throw a spanner in the works as well. Like Battlestar Galactica proved, it doesn't take much for a society to break down. Unlike BSG, however, the chain of command that seemed so indelible at Icarus quickly breaks down aboard Destiny; accusations are made, tensions are high and sacrifices are made.

But enough with the comparisons – what worked with Universe? Well, for starters I loved the non-linear presentation. It's not something I expect to be sustained throughout, but the use of flashbacks was very well integrated, opening up character back stories while maintaining a brisk pace in establishing the show's central conceit. The effects work is also a step up as well – the Goa'uld attack looks stunning, thanks again to some ideas from BSG, the Stargates themselves seemed to have been redesigned and are more detailed, and the exterior of Destiny is very detailed and gives a great sense of the enormous size of the ship. There's space on this ship for plenty of mysteries to be unravelled.

Robert Carlyle is another highlight – a fantastic piece of casting and a very conflicted character should combine to make for some very interesting moments.There's already been a few: the photo he kept in his drawer (his wife, I assume), the nefarious smile from the gantry, the uncertainty about his communication with SGC (we see him take over Bill Lee's body at SGC using the communication stones, so we know he made some kind of contact, just not the details), and most importantly, I feel, his apology to Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque), which summed up the dichotomy of the character extremely well:  the driven scientist vs. the deeply scarred and lonely man. The rest of the cast we are introduced to seem well-suited as well, though none stand out yet as much as Carlyle.

Downsides: there's about 80 or so survivors, but we were only introduced to the absolute core characters. I just hope that the other 75-odd people, who appear to be mostly civilians, don't just fade into the background. They worked at the Icarus Base, so they must be highly qualified in a range of fields. There's plenty of time for more survivors to emerge as main players and broaden the scope and emotional depth of stories the series can cover though.

The pilot also did a great job of incorporating all those BSG influences. If it can continue in this way, or, better still, forge a distinctly Stargate-ish taken on those influences, then there won't be any problems. It'll be a balancing act to ensure the series maintains its own identity though. My only other criticism is – what happened to Richard Dean Anderson?! The once athletic, sprightly Jack O'Neill is now a jowly general! Oh, some of the spark is still there, but he suddenly seems so old.

Unlike some fans, I didn't have any problems with the early word we were hearing about how Universe was shaping up. There was a lot of concern that it was going to stray too far from the tone of SG-1 and Atlantis, and I picked up on the BSG and Voyager similarities like everyone else. But I felt that the idea, if balanced well, could be a nice injection of spark into the franchise. Not that there's any glaringly obvious problems with the two previous series, but a third series in a similar vein would've been dull. I agree that a show doesn't have to be morally ambiguous, dark or gritty to be quality TV, but these days it certainly helps. The only other way I could imagine the Stargate franchise going is a series set maybe 100-150 years in the future, with the Stargate Program fully disclosed and Earth integrated and actively participating in a galaxy-spanning network of planets, much as we saw in the episode 'Space Race' from SG-1 season 7. In other words, a genuine space opera.

My one big hope for Universe, though, is that it can avoid becoming another military SF, avoid the idea of solving everything by force of arms and turn to the other survivors, the civilians, for solutions.