You should try the SGU series.
I was the same way. Really never liked the other two series.
SGU is completely different.
A very cranky, brilliant and ultimately hurting/haunting genius, working for the government on translating star gate runes and technology needs help to decode a new set of extra runes found on a stargate found a distant world.
So the government setups a video game that requires one to solve one of the runes to completely win.
The winner is this young,overweight young nerd, living at home with his dying mother.
They tell him about the SG program (and the fact that space travel is real and there are lots of aliens) and recruit him to help decode the new stuff.
They drag him to the distant Star Gate, which is a huge project with all sorts of bigwigs and dignitaries.
Star Gate uses the planet's core to operate because it requires incredibly massive energy. They get gate open. Alien enemies attack, everyone is forced to jump through the gate to who knows where before the planet blows up.
Long story short (first episode) the gate leads to a seeding starship in a distant galaxy, the unmanned ship is depositing star gates on distant worlds, and waiting for the ancients to show up and take over the expedition. They never showed, ship is hundreds of thousands of years old and decrepit barely has life support.
Now these people, divided into different factions: scientists, military, dignataries are trapped millions of light years from home with no way back. But they do have these stones that they can use to astral project back home. (Brought them with them)
So the entire story takes place on this dying ship which is mostly in hyperspace, but periodically drops out, and the people use local gates to try to find a habitable planet to live on, or just get basic supplies to live on.
Tensions builds, intrigue builds, it's a very tense drama.
I actually think it's one of the best space travel dramas out there.