Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Stargate Universe 1.5 Blu-ray Movie Review

The second half of Universe's first season starts to cash in on the series' potential...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 1, 2010

When we last convened, I hosted a spirited round of "Name That Show!" and argued Stargate Universe, to its detriment, took one too many of its cues from Ronald Moore's Battlestar Galactica. What a difference a season break makes. SGU still unfolds like an ongoing love letter to BSG, but series creators Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper have gone to great lengths to widen the gap between the two. Colonel Everett Young (Louis Ferreira) and Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle) no longer evoke Adama and Baltar at every turn, their shipmates are given more room to breathe and grow as characters, and recurring alien races, the proverbial bread and butter of the Stargate universe at large, finally blast their way into the franchise's fourth iteration. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of unresolved issues -- chief among them, a nagging sense of dark-SyFy-drama familiarity and notable tonal inconsistencies with previous Stargate outings -- but I think I just might be falling for Stargate Universe. At the very least, I'm intrigued enough to give its upcoming second season (set to arrive this September) a coveted spot in my TiVo queue.

"We are going to survive. We are going to make it home."

Perhaps a refresher course is in order. After narrowly escaping certain death courtesy of a Ninth Cheveron and a one-way Stargate, a small but skilled team of military personnel and civilian scientists find themselves aboard the Destiny, an automated Ancient ship designed to explore and catalog the far corners of the universe. Banding together, the team members -- among them respected USAF Colonel Everett Young (Ferreira), thorn in Young's bloody side Dr. Rush (Carlyle), perpetually disgruntled IOA accountant Camile Wray (Ming-Na), temperamental USMC Master Sergeant Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith), resident medic Tamara Johansen (Alaina Huffman), recruited fanboy and bipedal thinktank Eli Wallace (David Blue), Air Force Lieutenant and second in command Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith), walking love triangle Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque), and astrophysicist Dale Volker (Patrick Gilmore) -- race to gain control of the Destiny, gather supplies from nearby planets, and establish some sense of order aboard the ship. But without any control over the Destiny's heading, their travels become a game of survival. In the second half of Season One, Dr. Rush makes a near-miraculous return from the grave (no surprise given Carlyle's prominence on the front cover), Colonel Young is forced to deal with a civilian mutiny and mounting distrust, Chloe is thrust into their conflict, a relentless alien race begins pursuing the Destiny, the military butts heads with the civilians, and Eli finds himself caught in the middle of it all.

The most compelling aspect of SGU -- the tense, tit-for-tat relationship between Colonel Young and Dr. Rush -- is all the more captivating in the series' second batch of episodes. Young, after doing the unthinkable in Season 1.0's planetary cliffhanger, is left scrambling, and Rush, suddenly in a position of legitimate influence, evolves into a more unpredictable power player. As their dynamic shifts, so do their allegiances, motivations and, ultimately, their roles aboard the Destiny. And the ramifications of their conflict? Immediate and dramatic. Rush finds an unexpected ally in Chloe; Eli is left with good reasons to distrust both men; Wray manages to take advantage of the situation and further root herself in the ship's hierarchy; Young's soldiers slowly realize how fallible their stoic leader is; and every random accident breeds suspicion. Allegations are leveled and coups are thrown. Blood is spilled and loyalties are questioned. Relationships are altered and bonds are tested. And the arrival of a mysterious race of aliens (hellbent on capturing the Destiny, of course) only intensifies matters. While the lanky conquerers are of the Fire in the Sky variety (not to mention a bit too conventional for a Stargate series), their mere presence pits the entire crew against their own, and makes the in-fighting that erupts that much more volatile. I wouldn't go so far as to call the aliens a game-changer, but they certainly breathe some ferocity into the we all just need to hug sentiment of the series' first ten episodes.

The entire cast embraces Wright and Cooper's vision. Given leave to deconstruct and reassemble their characters, Ferreira, Carlyle, Smith, Levesque, Huffman and Blue revel in the newfound complexities of their characters' emotional states. They not only blur the line between the ship's protagonists and antagonists -- nearly every crewman is someone else's enemy, and for good reason -- and only Ming-Na seems to strike the same note again and again in the series' swelling symphony. (Albeit by no fault of her own. As written, she plays her part perfectly.) Even so, SGU isn't out of the woods just yet. Without the quippy charm and snarky humor of SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, or the spirit of planet-hopping adventure that has dominated every previous franchise entry to date, Universe still feels like the angsty, brooding teenager of the Stargate family. At times, it works, lending weight to the crew's dissent and consequence to every heated exchange. Sometimes though, particularly as a fan of the oft-unappreciated and prematurely aborted Atlantis, I find myself wondering if SGU is ever going to lighten up. Every dust-up doesn't need to feel like a world-ending event. (Ahem... unless you're dealing with the last remnants of humanity who just so happen to be a breath away from extinction at any moment. My hypocrisy knows some bounds.) SGU sometimes goes against the Stargate grain so much that it ceases to feel like a Stargate spin-off, and more like the bastard child of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek Voyager. Then, like a cold slap on a chilly November morning, the appearance of a cheveron-dotted ring serves as a jarring reminder that wormholes do indeed lie in wait for Destiny's denizens.

And so it is that Stargate Universe 1.5, and by extension Stargate Universe: Season One, earns a hesitant recommendation. It hasn't proven itself entirely, at least not as far as this Gater is concerned, but it has proven itself worthy of further attention; attention I'm willing to give its second season come September. Wright and Cooper still have some identity crises to work through, but if SGU continues along its current trajectory, I have a feeling I'll be calling myself a fan by the time its third season rolls around in 2012.

Stargate Universe 1.5 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Stargate Universe: Season 1.0 offered ten episodes on just two discs, but Season 1.5 spreads the same number of episodes over three BD-50 discs, all but eliminating the already faint artifacting and banding that affected the series' first release. In fact, the Blu-ray edition of SGU: 1.5 features a technically proficient, wholly faithful 1080p/AVC-encoded gem; one that leaves little room for improvement. Noise and crush still rear their unsightly heads from time to time, but each instance traces back to the series creators' darker, grittier intentions. Otherwise, all is as it should be. Colors, be they tinted by icy planetary light or the orange glow of a Destiny console, are healthy and able-bodied, black levels are exceedingly deep, skintones are relatively lifelike, contrast is impressive, and depth and dimensionality are convincing. Detail is exceptional as well, rendering budding stubble, facial pores, rust flakes, errant hairs, uniform fabrics, planetside foliage and cave-in dust and debris with ease. Special effects shots are no longer prone to compression anomalies either, and the presentation is more consistent and stable. (Not that there were any serious problems before.) But it isn't just artifacting and banding that are kept under control. Smearing, aberrant noise, ringing and other nonsense is rarely, if ever, a factor. From beginning to end, episode to episode, SGU: Season 1.5 looks fantastic.

Stargate Universe 1.5 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Like Stargate Universe 1.0, the Blu-ray release of SGU: 1.5 hurls itself through your home theater wormhole with a hull-rattling, chest-thumping DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that makes the most of the Destiny's every stop. Whether fielding the thoom thoom thoom of ship-to-ship cannons, the tata tata tata of small arms fire, or the powerfully familiar, unequivocally effective implosion and eruption of a stargate portal, Fox's lossless offering takes full advantage of the LFE channel. The rear speakers are just as eager to please, granting every distant alarm, console chime, sliding door and expansive interior a realistic presence in the mix. Directionality is precise as well, and Eli's Kino device glides from channel to channel without an audible hitch (God bless silky smooth pans, every one). And dialogue? Be it shouted in the heat of battle on a stormy world or whispered in the confines of a cramped shuttle, voices are crisp, clear and intelligible, and prioritization is spot on. If anything, a handful of scenes sound a tad flat compared to the series' showcase sequences, but I suspect any such shortcomings are attributable to the show's original sound design, not the quality of Fox's track. Fans and newcomers will be equally smitten with the results.

Stargate Universe 1.5 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Stargate Universe: 1.5 follows in the footsteps of SGU: 1.0, arriving with ten audio commentaries, a slew of extensive but somewhat short production featurettes, several in-character videos, and an exclusive interactive game. On the whole, the second set's supplemental package is more informative and entertaining, but only by a moderate margin.

• Audio Commentaries (Discs 1-3): Ten tracks are included, one for each episode. Director Andy Mikita, VFX Supervisor Mark Savela and Producer Joseph Mallozzi discuss "Space," Actors Louis Ferreira, Elyse Levesque and Julia Benson shoot the breeze on "Divided," actors Brian J. Smith, Alaina Huffman and Patrick Gilmore cover "Faith," Executive Producer Robert C. Cooper and Director of Photography Michael Blundell dissect "Human," Gilmore and Brian J. Smith return with Actors Peter Kelamis and Jamil Walker Smith for "Lost," Ferreira, Levesque and Benson tackle "Sabotage," Brian J. Smith and Gilmore team up on their own for "Pain," Brian J. Smith, Huffman, Gilmore, and Jamil Walker Smith handle "Subversion," Huffman and Levesque deliver ladies-only tracks for "Incursion - Part 1" and "Incursion - Part 2." Unfortunately, the cast commentaries tend to be as chatty and tangential as ever, with only a few standouts. Don't get me wrong, the humor, chemistry and rapidfire anecdotes are a blast at times, but I often found myself longing for more details about the production itself, the series' storylines, the special effects, and Universe's role in the greater Stargate mythos. All of those topics are there, mind you -- especially when it comes to the tracks with the showmakers themselves -- but the actors dominate the commentaries, and leave listeners with far too many nagging questions.
• Destiny SML (Discs 1-3, HD, 68 minutes): Three interactive star-maps (now in high definition, with a "Play All" option to boot!) grace the set, each one home to several "Destiny Log Entries." What are these fifteen log entries, you ask? A quality-packed collection of production featurettes, cast-hosted interviews with Wright and Cooper, set tours and "Chatting with the Cast" shorts, most of which prove to be well worth watching. Just avoid the feature's cumbersome menus. They're a pain.
• Kino Video Diaries (Discs 1-3, HD, 20 minutes): The set's in-character Kino confessionals are a bit cheesy and heavy-handed, but should still entertain series diehards (or anyone who wishes SGU had been conceived as a fictional sci-fi Reality Show).
• SGU: Survival Instinct: An exclusive, interactive arcade game of sorts that requires players to advance through a series of time-loops to make it back to the Destiny alive.

Stargate Universe 1.5 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stargate Universe: 1.0 left me curious, and SGU: 1.5 stoked that curiosity even higher. I'm not a wholehearted convert, but I am looking forward to the series' second season and am quite anxious to see what Wright and Cooper cook up come September. The 3-disc Blu-ray edition of 1.5 is even an improvement over the 2-disc release of 1.0. Its video transfer is faithful and striking, its robust DTS-HD Master Audio track further bolsters the set's value, and its supplemental package, though a tad disappointing, includes ten commentaries, a batch of high definition production featurettes, and more. Universe devotees, franchise purists and casual stragglers alike will get their money's worth.