In an unexpected bit of casting news, Robert Carlyle has signed up to take the lead in upcoming sci-fi spin-off series Stargate Universe. Following in the footsteps of Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis and short-lived animated series Stargate Infinity, Stargate Universe will see Carlyle as Dr David Rush, one of a number of survivors who pile through the nearest Stargate when their secret base is attacked. Finding themselves on an ancient starship left adrift in space, they must unlock the ship’s mysteries to find a way home.
Call us cynical, but that doesn’t sound a million miles away from the plot of Stargate Atlantis. Just swap ancient starship for ancient starbase and Dr Rush for Dr Weir and you’re in rather familiar territory, which is especially odd considering that Atlantis was recently cancelled. Have we lost you? Sorry. For those of you unfamiliar with the Stargate universe post Roland Emmerich’s 1994 sci-fi opus, here’s a brief recap:
A year or so after the events of the film, Earth’s dormant Stargate reactivates and an alien who is not Jay Davidson comes through accompanied by guards wearing giant cardboard snake heads (the morphing headdresses of the film being beyond a weekly series budget). Earth summons Dr Jackson back from holiday on the desert planet, replaces Kurt Russell with MacGyver, adds a hot scientist and a formerly evil alien guard called Teal'c and forms a sqaud of space-going commandos called SG1. They discover (rather handily) that the universe is littered with Stargates on enough different planets to roll out one an episode for ten full seasons and two TV movies.
Over the years our heroes spend most of their time encountering lost human civilizations who, in the greatest Star Trek tradition, all speak perfect English, while fighting the Goa’uld – a race of space snakes who take human hosts and generally go around pretending to be gods. They also encounter another race of aliens called the Asgard who are small, grey and possibly leftover comprised of props left over from The X-Files. Aside from a nasty bunch of theocratic warmongers called The Ori, the other regular antagonists are an uber race of marauding robots who are made entirely out of Mechano.
Meanwhile, the city of Atlantis is discovered on the other side of the universe and another intrepid bunch of Earth folk take up residence there. Once there, they can't get home but do find all manner of nifty alien artefacts and pass the time by fighting off attacks from a race of long-haired space vampires. All of which brings you pretty much up to date. And if all of this sounds a bit sneery then do bear in mind the only reason Emprie knows all this is because we’ve watched every single episode. It’s still not as good as Farscape, though.