Too many characters?
When season one of Stargate Universe drew to a doosey of a cliff-hangerific close with an incursion of Lucian Alliance forces, I thought they were in for trouble of the my-eyes-are-crossing kind. Adding more characters to the already over-large cast seemed risky. I wondered how, short of jettisoning them all into space, these newbie villains would be worked into season two. Then one Tuesday night, the new season aired and put all my worries to rest. Most of the newbies might yet be left to fend for themselves on the next habitable planet, but two or three will surely make their mark and, I hope, stick around for the long term. The season premiere gave them some great defining moments.

Meet the newbies!
First, when the blood thirsty leader of the Lucian Alliance, Dannic, leaves Scott and Greer outside the ship to be sizzled by the next pulse of gamma rays (hey wait, I like those guys, or at least I like Greer) and orders all of the captured military crew executed (OMG we sent all of season one learning to give a rats ass about those guys), Varro argues for the more merciful option of sending them to the death-storm planet (no really, this was a nice gesture). Later, he repeatedly argues to save the injured medic (TJ is in my top three favs on the show, you better not let her die!).

Then Ginn, who had been repeatedly badgered by Dannic, does something totally awesome to save the day (no I’m not going to tell you, go watch the show).

Ta-da! The wise writers of SGU have given us two characters to lovingly welcome to the cast. The other characters may take a little more time to warm up to them, but I immediately tossed aside bygones and pushed them to the top of my much-loved-characters list.

What’s ahead for SGU?
According to spoilers released at Comic-con (what? You didn’t go watch the interview when I told you about them here) some of the major character vs character conflicts that made the show so juicy in season one will be resolved this season. Being from the hated Lucian Alliance, the newbie characters are sure to infuse the show with a whole new set of juicy character conflicts (at least for five or six episodes). Happy days ahead for us viewers, not so much for the characters, but that’s okay because this is SGU and dark is the show’s DNA.

If you haven’t tried SGU yet, you can watch this great adventure-drama online on the SyFy website or on hulu.com.