X-Files was also a masterpiece. Stargate is your run of the mill scifi (With comedy encouraged), X-Files was your run of the mill Twilight Zone (With comedy accepted).
I don't get it, I thought people liked character-driven stories?
What everyone seems to be missing is the fact that SGU was an unsure thing from the getgo, it was so radically different in terms of the Stargate flow (Much like Voyager actually, hurrdurr, not in the "OMG WE'RE OUT HERE STRANDED" sense) TV is rubbish these days, and if it doesn't sell immensely well straight up, the idea is thrown away and people are paid to come up with new ideas, or rehashes that the current generation can stare at the TV like the desensitized zombies they are and enjoy it for a while before they get bored again.
(This following is not typed in bias) I really don't blame anything on SGU for the first half of the season being purely for scene-setting and character backstories, writers just doing what they can to get as much in as fast as they can not only to keep themselves afloat but to try and appease the radically varying opinions that nitpickers and the generic scifi viewer/nerd will jump on (Inconsistencies, for example, or information that is just very fortunately divulged a minute before it becomes important, or technology that can solve a universe of problems "Why didn't Voyagers amazing deflector dish just send her back home?")
IMO, when we get to see this half is when we'll be able to see the show start to shine. Just watch.