I think you are right.. This was a bad case of them trying to copying another show.
Would that other show by any chance be SyFy's own Battlestar Galactica?
When BSG first premiered, and after its first few episodes, I thought that it might well become the best SF program on TV. By the time it had ended, I was sick of the continual depressive atmosphere of the show, the moral darkness and ambiguity, and the general sense of doom (not to mention the contortions of plot and the general sense of having been narratively screwed).
The producers of Stargate Universe wanted them a "grown-up" Stargate series (meaning morally ambiguous, depressive, generally despondent--BSG-flavored, in other words)--and completely contrary to the bright, sunny, fun world of every other Stargate incarnation--which was one of the major reasons that most of us loved the series that came before SG:U.
Did not follow SG:U beyond the first season, for the same reasons that friends and fellow Stargate fans that I knew quit: it was a betrayal of everything that Stargate was about.
Cannot but be relieved at SG:U's demise--apologies to those who liked the thing.