The writers and producers of Syfy's Stargate Universe could've played it safe and got along just fine with their latest series.

After Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's 1994 feature film from MGM, the series' first TV adaption (SG1) arrived in 1997. When you throw in the follow-up series, Infinity and Atlantis, the Stargate franchise has run on TV in one form or another for more than 12 years.

When the time came to invent the next step in the franchise, show-runners Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper could have trotted out more of the same and done perfectly well. Instead, they upped the ante -- bringing a bigger budget and updated production techniques to Stargate Universe.

MGM and Syfy welcomed journalists to Vancouver's Bridge Studios to explore the show's starship Destiny set and discover how this series cruises beyond its successful predecessors.

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Okay, today we really are having a field trip with the Television Critics Association. It's called a "TCA Day" -- the first one was on Saturday, which consisted of a membership meeting and the TCA awards.

This morning, the TCA membership is boarding a bus outside the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills and heading out to Burbank and Hollywood for set visits at The Closer, Heroes, TMZ, Two and a Half Men, and Brothers & Sisters.

As great as the previous two set visits were, I think to most us us they were just appetizers for the main course. Hold on tight -- it's a doozy.

A tour of the sets of Battlestar Galactica

Back to Vancouver Film Studios, where once again we'd start with a panel discussion with members of the cast before embarking on the set tours (you can see the video of the panels here and here.) Before entering the flight deck where the panel was held, we walked through a huge open set that was mostly surrounded by a black curtain with what seemed like small holes in it meant to make it look like a star field. Behind that and exposed off to each side was an enormous green screen. In the center of this room was a large rotating platform, the floor and platform totally black. I should have asked, but I assume this is where they'd occasionally place a Viper for certain scenes.

I've been sitting on announcing this for over a month now, since there's all sorts of things that could go wrong and, well, plans can change. But now that I'm finally here I can let you in on what's going on. I'm flying clear across the country for a very good cause -- to visit the sets of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka and Flash Gordon, complete with Q&A's with some of the cast and crew. Oh, and I hear we're going to see a little bit of that Wizard Of Oz reimagining, Tin Man, while we're at it.

Stay tuned here at TV Squad for more updates as soon as I'm able to get online and throw something at you. I start out bright and early tomorrow morning, so if you've got any questions you'd like to ask folks involved with any of the above mentioned shows, fire away in the comments below. I'm hoping I'll be able to shoot some updates via our Twitter account, too, so be sure to check that out to see what I'm up to for the next few days, or you can follow the tiny widget after the jump in this post. Needless to say, I'm pretty frack'n pumped!