There’s a line in Home Alone when Kevin ventures into his scary basement and conquers his fear of the boiler whereby he exclaims, “I’m not afraid anymore!”

I felt like this while watching the last two episodes of Stargate Universe. Well, mine was more like, “I don’t hate it anymore!” I’ve mentioned all the reasons I didn’t care for it in a previous post, but I would say the most prominent reasons were that it undeservedly bore the name Stargate and that the acting was crap. I don’t know if it’s the hiatus that gave me time to cool my dread, or if the acting actually did get better, but “Space” wasn’t too painful at all. I still grit my teeth at this being part of the SG family, but what can I do?

I’m still not able to care enough to actually learn the characters’ names. I’m still thinking of them like this: David Tennant +20yrs as the leader, NOT!Ford as the Black guy, Ni-Chloe (ANTM meets Sci-Fi…for real) as the weepy girl, David Blue (ugh, but less ugh than before) as the can’t even touch Rodney gu), That Guy That May As Well Have Been In Avatar Since I’m Never Going To See It Anyway as the young military guy, That Guy Who Thinks This Is BSG as the older military guy, That Blond Chick Who Is So NOT Carter (but I like her) as apparently a doctor or something, and Ming Na (shrug). Hey, isn’t Lou Diamond Phillips supposed to be in there somewhere?!?

I’m not going back to watch the rest of the first half of the season, but I’m going to keep a watchful eye on this series in hopes it will join my list of fandoms.

Going into the premiere of Stargate Universe, I held three truths: I love the Stargate franchise, David Blue (Ugly Betty‘s Cliff) is awesome, and Robert Carlyle seems like a dick.

Well, after this week, one of my truths is clinging to life while the other two are overstated. With the exception of a few cameos (*Hi, Sam! Hi, Jack, Daniel, Walter!*) and a gate, this is not Stargate. SG-1 and SGA had fun and never really took themselves too seriously. Stargate Universe has no heart, no joy, no interesting characters (yet), and the ones I *thought* would be favorites, quite frankly, suck.

Eli Wallace is played by the aforementioned David Blue. I made the mistake of following David on twitter for a couple of days around the premiere. His constant posting and ranting turned me off so much that now I don’t even think I’ll like Eli that much (not that I cared for the character AT ALL in the two-hour premiere). The other big surprise was how much I wanted Robert Carlyle, as Dr. Rush, to kick everyone’s shins and show them all what’s up. Easily my favorite character of the show, largely because he’s the only one with more than 1/2 of a dimension, but still, a favorite. I’m still not sure what Lou Diamond Phillips’ role is, but I’d like to see more of him, too.

The overacting of two cast members was so atrocious that I can see them being the reason I tune out if they don’t get it together. Jamil Walker Smith is Master Sgt. Ronald Greer and acts like he’s never been on camera before. His pacing and volume elicited laughs and groans during the premiere, and I hope he was only overacting because he was directed to, and not that this is how it’s going to be all the time. Elyse Levesque as Chloe Armstrong was ridiculous as well. First off, she needs bangs. I said it because it needed to be said. Now, she gets a pass because I believe my true annoyance with her truly was script-based. That crying scene went on way too long; literally, MINUTES too long. We get it, she’s sad. We understand. It’s not some foreign concept to be sad if your parent dies. Sad. OK. We didn’t need to see the snotting and the nasal flaring. Sick. She reminds me of ANTM Cycle 5 Winner, Nicole, but with no charm.

Overall, I’m going to watch at least a few more episodes because the two-hour premiere and next week’s episode are actually considered a multi-part arc, but if we don’t get some fun or interest in the characters, I’m out.