Two months after SyFy announced that the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica was coming to an abrupt end, another franchise staple for the network has been given a pink-slip. After much speculation, SyFy announced today that they will not be picking Stargate Universe for a third season.

Fortunately, fans of the series will not have to worry about a sudden disappearance of their favorite show from the television schedule, as SyFy still plans on airing the 10 remaining episodes of the second season. Of course, on what day and in what time-slot those episodes will air is still yet unknown.

The Stargate Universe series premiere garnered a respectable 2.4 million viewers. Unfortunately, as the series continued, it began to lose viewers week after week. When the second season took its hiatus on November 30, the show was averaging around 1 million viewers per episode - which is slightly higher than the ratings Caprica was receiving when it was canceled.

With news of Stargate Universe being canceled, one has to wonder how this will impact the subsequent episodes and inevitable end of the series. While everything has been planned for Gauntlet to be the second season finale, the producers may choose to tweak the last remaining episodes in order to get a proper send off to Nicholas Rush, Everett Young, and the rest of the Destiny crew.

Of course, with no real knowledge of Stargate Universe’s production schedule, one can’t really know how many of the episodes have already been completed - or if a last minute shift in the seasonal plot-line would even be possible.

Now that Stargate Universe has been canceled, it begs the question whether SyFy will attempt another series based on this popular franchise. While Stargate has been a staple on the network over 8 years, the ratings of this latest installment haven’t been promising.

Stargate Universe Cast

Even though Battlestar Galactica has been given a resurrection after Caprica with Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, another series from Stargate is unlikely. With Caprica, many cited the complete disconnect from the original series, and lack of Cylons and Cylon fighting, as their reason for not tuning in. Fortunately, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome picks up in the 10th year of the first Cylon war, which should interest those that originally passed on Caprica’s overly dramatic storylines.

Unfortunately, in the case of Stargate, there’s no real time-line of events that producers could fall back on and cite as being something they know would work as a television series this time around.

Hopefully I am wrong. Whether you’re a fan of Stargate or not, the series has had a rich and diverse run. It would be extremely unfortunate if it simply came to an end.

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Stargate Universe is expected to return in spring 2011, on SyFy