by Aaron Viner

The only mission is survival.  This is the tagline for Stargate: Universe which premiered on Friday October 2, 2009 with a 2 hour premiere event on Syfy.

This show was a good representation of the Stargate series and left many loose ends for future episodes.  It referenced some of the past series, when the Lucian Alliance attacks the off-world base in which the characters are residing.

For those that don’t know, a Stargate is a circular device that with a combination of seven symbols, or chevrons, creates an artificial wormhole between itself and another Stargate on a different planet.  This allows for almost instantaneous travel between planets.  In 2004, it was realized that there was a potential for including an eighth chevron into the dialing sequence, which led to the spin off show, Stargate: Atlantis. Now, there is a possibility for a ninth chevron to be dialed.

Stargate: Universe begins with Dr. Nicholas Rush, who has been working for years trying to determine the meaning of the ninth chevron on the Stargate.  During his studies, his off-world base is attacked by the Lucian Alliance (introduced in Stargate: SG1).  Instead of dialing back to Earth, Rush dials the ninth chevron on the gate and leads the evacuation of the base to the starship Destiny.

This ship was sent out by the Ancients, the race of people who inhabited Earth before humans, to plant Stargates on habitable planets. This ship is currently located millions of light years away from Earth, and to top it all off, the life support systems are failing.

Dynamite performances by actors new, and young alike, provide for an entertaining and dramatic premiere.  Robert Carlyle provides a moral aspect to the show playing the introspective Nicholas Rush.  Carlyle has appeared in 24: Redemption, and portrayed Renard in The World Is Not Enough.  David Blue plays the naïve, yet genius Eli Wallace.  This character creates a parallel on Dr. Rodney McKay from Stargate: Atlantis.  Wallace was unemployed computer whiz who solved a problem on a computer game and was installed into the Air Force suddenly.  As a relatively young actor he doesn’t have many credits to his name, however did appear in an episode of Scrubs.  Louis Ferreira portrays Colonial Everett Young, the head military staff on this detour.  Young tries to do everything “by the book.”  This provides for conflict between Rush and himself.

If you are interested in finding more about what this show is all about, it airs at 8pm on Fridays on Syfy channel.  Their only mission is survival: yours is to watch.