Rewatching the show now...
Every now and then I rewatch Stargate... this time while watching Stargate Universe (and even though I personally love the series), I realized how much I HATED many of the characterizations of the FIRST season, and that this possibly was mainly the reason to why Stargate Universe wasn't given a chance by many. Also, I know it aired on an odd worknight.
The first season spent a terrible amount of time on Camille, her politics, apparently the IOA makes BAD television; I'm surprised she wasn't simply an accountant actually. Same personality type, I'm surprised she didn't bring up the budget (then they'd really have no use for the IOA in space). She wouldn't have had as many scenes if they hadn't showcased her Republican/conservative viewpoints and distorted everything going on with a mad dash of liberal radicalism as well. They just had to make her cry whenever she berated someone and was wrong, people's lives could be lost, and she realized she really only cares about herself, and the next shot she is back to doing all the yelling on the ship. There were times she was so hostile I felt perhaps they miscast Young or Ronald because the two seemed far less conniving than the way she was sniping at their every moves. I still* can't deal with her, major blood constriction... I felt like they were in high school and 'the bi@ch' from a bad home showed up to poke at people who were recovering from a hard/traumatizing day/who were actually just trying to do the best they could with their training as designated for such harsh and unpredictable scenarios.
Consequentally, a LOT of negativity/slow down occurred as a direct result of the time they spent on backpedaling any progress to their Stargate* journey. The first few episodes were good, but then comes along made-up political issue #5: 'military tells us where to sleep.' Possibly due to lack of shielding on other sides of ship? To conserve resources? No? No response, and then no response for made-up military threats #'s 5, 6 or 7 either. As if no one on the ship cared to realize that the military hadn't been actively working against them at all! They just HAD to make it all about how typical Americans are spoiled and we complain about every little thing. It was too political, I can get a taste of that in real life, but I wanted my Stargate scientists to grow the hell up quite frankly.
And seriously, the next time they pick an bureaucrat (just don't, HR only helps their *own company against lawsuits, *not individuals, duh), at least have them chart out REAL ideas (not raging biased accusations w/them evil eyes), if they must have said bureaucrat run the ship, (to run an entire alien space ship, really, HR/accountant?) bring them in QUIETLY* and professionally so as not to distract the colonel trying to piece together everything and everyone getting bent up over having no forks or whatever. So that the two of you can *actually* work together instead of HR lady trying to bully/manipulate every thought process from *everyone* too stupid or written too weakly to speak for themselves! I could turn on the news to watch the American Congress in action for that sh$$. I would have liked it if she weren't a totally different person during her scenes with her partner. But I think they tried too much to make her seem 'atypical,' like her sexual orientation ever only served another purpose. I was thinking, are they just trying to tell me that lesbians can be **ks too??? Or just women in general? I don't get it. They also preached about God with the IT Tech, (this is where I groaned how I hated BSG for this crap too) also had to fast forward that tripe. Not in my Sci-fi, please.
Season 1 was all about an unnecessary power struggle and it killed their viewership, IMO. They did that in season 1 with Weir in Atlantis too, I think they shouldn't toss in their chips about the conflict of power in the first season, the politics removes ALL exciting prospects of the fiction/adventure element.
The Stargate movie made a crack at Dr. Jackson, but he *smartly ignored it and kept working. It wasn't until AFTER his ability to crack the 7th chevron that we got hooked on the story. Nothing held that back, the writers did not LET anything hold the main arc of science fiction back.