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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 4959491" data-attributes="member: 115">The reason it's not working is because, as Rykion stated, Rush is pretty much the opposite kind of scientist as Carter/Daniel/McKay.  The latter three were very open and amiable to being part of a team.  Even McKay, who was arrogant, still cooperated well with his team, and with other scientists.  That lends itself to long bouts of exposition, as they'll explain what is going on to the others.Rush, on the other hand, is very closed off and very independent.  He seems to actively resent most of the SGU crew (see below).  That does not lend itself to expository dialogues.  He even stated in this episode he doesn't feel like he needs to explain himself.However, I agree that I think it's necessary for there to be some exposition.  I'm hoping that it will come from a few directions.  First, I think we'll see Eli explaining some of the more basic concepts to the other civilians.  Second, I expect that some of it will come from Rush teaching Eli.  Finally, I think a good portion of it will come from Rush/Eli/others discovering it as they go along.  Case in point, why some addresses were locked out of the dialing computer.More over, he seems to actively resent the majority of the SGU crew, most likely because he feels like an outsider.  In the first parts, he got very upset that Eli was openly welcomed into the group by everyone (especially the dinner scene).  It's clear that the SGU crew wasn't particularly fond of Rush either, especially the military folks.  I don't think we have enough context for this relationship to really understand what's going on.  It could be that Rush is supremely arrogant and looks down on the others.  It also could be that Rush is a loner, and very private, and so no one really trusts him.  It could be Rush has had bad experiences with teamwork (as a lot of scientists I know have).  It could be that it's a simple communication breakdown.  It could be that the military resents being away from home, and take it out on Rush.  There are a lot of possibilities.I think he adds an interesting dynamic to the show, even if the character is set up so that we dislike him.  One of the guiding principles of the Stargate franchise has been the idea of science as a savior and scientists as heroes.  SGU seems to be on the other side of that; scientists are people too, very flawed and sometimes having what are essentially different ways of thinking than non-scientists.It's not just scientists I've noticed this with though.  We're also seeing the military personnel acting contrary to how we think of O'Neill/Carter/Sheppard, as the warrior heroes.  They're certainly more heroic than Rush/Eli, but we've got one who's basically crippled, one who is severe anger problems, one who is grossly under-qualified and under-supplied, and one who's struggling to fill the hero role.  The changes open up a lot of possibilities with the types of stories they can tell.   They're not tethered by the heroic nature of the other shows, while still allowing characters to fill those roles (especially the younger characters).  That's opposed to, for example, knowing O'Neill wouldn't have joined the NID because he's a hero.  It essentially opens up more room for them to play.  I've read that they felt after 10 years of SG1 and 5 of SGA that they pretty much exhausted all the stories they felt they could tell with those archetypes.  Regardless of it that's necessarily true, if they felt exhausted, then it needed to be changed up.I would also point out that, for the type of set-up that SGU has, I don't think that the standard Stargate formula works well.  To provide a somewhat analogous example, I think one of Voyager's biggest problems was to take the premise of lost travellers and hang TNG on it.  That is to say, it wasn't particularly different enough, which diminished the premise of the show.  If they had instead written the show on it's own, letting the premise and the characters grow naturally instead of forcing them into the TNG situation, it would have worked a lot better.  I think that's why, while DS9 has it's fans and it's detractors, overall it worked better than Voyager.  Bringing it back around to Stargate, I think that SGU will do better than SGA, because they're not attempting to hang the premise on the SG franchise.  They're attempting to take the basic ideas of the mythology, integrating it with the premise, and letting it go from there.</blockquote>

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