SGA cancelled

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Stargate Atlantis will end this season

Wednesday - August 20, 2008 | by Darren Sumner



UPDATE: MGM has advised us that an official press release will be issued Thursday, which will hopefully answer many questions. Stay tuned to GateWorld.

The SCI FI Channel is ending Stargate Atlantis after five seasons, Multichannel News reports.

The show will go on, though, with a 2-hour movie that will air on SCI FI in 2009, and be released on DVD by MGM. The film will be written by executive producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.

It's intended to be the first of an on-going series of Atlantis movies, according to the report. Stargate SG-1 has released two very successful movies direct-to-DVD this year (Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum), though neither has aired on U.S. television yet.

"The show will live on as a network franchise," the report also says. This could indicate that future Atlantis movies are a lock for SCI FI, or it may be a general statement about the cable network's commitment to the Stargate franchise.

Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, who created and executive produced Atlantis, pitched a third television series in the 11-year-old TV franchise to the network last year (story). While SCI FI has not yet announced a green light for that show, the end of Atlantis may clear the way -- the dollars available for original programming, that is -- for the next series.

Though Stargate Atlantis has been a solid ratings performer for SCI FI -- and was its highest-rated original program ever when it premiered in July 2004 -- in recent years series like Eureka have supplanted it in the "Live" ratings.

Atlantis remains an extremely strong performer in DVR-delayed viewing, though, often building as much as 25 to 30 percent on its premiere night audience.

Season Five will go out on a cliffhanger, with "Enemy At the Gate" expected to premiere in January. Expect the first Atlantis movie to wrap up that hanging storyline.

Stay tuned to GateWorld and the GateWorld Podcast for the latest developments and comments from the show's producers, and hopefully for some big Stargate Universe news in the weeks ahead. Discuss this story now at GateWorld Forum.

Stargate Atlantis airs Friday nights at 10 p.m. (9 Central) on SCI FI.

(Thanks to Michael and Becky for the tip)

Frankly, who is not surprised?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Good. It lost a lot of its luster after Ford was written out, and it's been pretty downhill since. It's time for the Stargate franchise to seriously slow down, lest it strive for Star Trek levels of infamy.

[Adrian McNair]

I can't say that was unexpected. On the whole Atlantis was really bland. It pretty much reached its height at the end of Season 1 and then declined from that point onward. It had cookie-cutter plots that Voyager could be proud of (What problems with the base will we be having this week? What generic aliens or cultures will we encounter offworld?) and an uninspired foe (At least the Goa'uld had personality).

As far as I'm concerned, it always sat in the shadow of its parent series. It never truly reached the heights of SG-1.

[Zac Naloen]

It's been cancelled to make way for Universe, if not for universe it would be carrying on. This rumour has been circling for a while now.

[Crazedwraith]

On the one hand. I'm not suprised at all. On the other hand didn't we have the exact same story about SG-1 circa Season 6?

[NecronLord]

Humm. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. I like the series, but I'd rather see it go out with a conclusive bang than be drawn out too much.

Personally, I thought that some of Atlantis' potential was lost by under-playing its villains (personally, I think the worst thing they did was consistantly reffering to the AI villains of seasons 3 and 4 as 'replicators' which just made them look less original and made the audience less interested) which in the form of the Wraith, was probably from never really having a sufficient sense of scale; if you're going to do individually destructible enemies, then you'd better make sure they come over as having massive numbers. Given how, in recent series, the protagonists can just stomp Wraith vessels individually, I would have made it many thousands of hive-ships; at least.

[Zac Naloen]

Humm. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. I like the series, but I'd rather see it go out with a conclusive bang than be drawn out too much.

Personally, I thought that some of Atlantis' potential was lost by under-playing its villains (personally, I think the worst thing they did was consistantly reffering to the AI villains of seasons 3 and 4 as 'replicators' which just made them look less original and made the audience less interested) which in the form of the Wraith, was probably from never really having a sufficient sense of scale; if you're going to do individually destructible enemies, then you'd better make sure they come over as having massive numbers. Given how, in recent series, the protagonists can just stomp Wraith vessels individually, I would have made it many thousands of hive-ships; at least.

I don't think their viewership was less interested as you claim. Viewership went UP in season 3 and 4.

[PREDATOR490]

I expected this coming regardless of SGA's performance. It seems to be an industry standard to finish series at the 5 season mark but SGA really is in dire need of finishing.
Season 1 - 2 were the highlights of Stargate Atlantis and from then on it rapidly went downhill in conjuction with Stargate SG1. They started off this show with the completely wrong premise and intention to keep it seperate from SG-1 but they took so much baggage from SG1 that it simply wasnt possible.

I am less than impressed with the decision to make movies. The SG-1 movies have been nothing more than episodes with a bigger budget and I find that pointless. I would much prefer them to deploy movies that are more significant than pushing a reset button or finding a box. That said, the name of the cliff hanger episode 'Enemy at the Gates' gives me the feeling a new seige of Atlantis or maybe Earth is coming.
Since Season 1's Siege was literally the highlight of SGA then I can only hope they will be able to pull that off again with the movie spending its budget on some really awesome battles in the arc finish.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Too bad, hopefully a similar flippat SF-series shows up soon as stuff like nBsg is not really my thing.

[NecronLord]

Humm. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. I like the series, but I'd rather see it go out with a conclusive bang than be drawn out too much.

Personally, I thought that some of Atlantis' potential was lost by under-playing its villains (personally, I think the worst thing they did was consistantly reffering to the AI villains of seasons 3 and 4 as 'replicators' which just made them look less original and made the audience less interested) which in the form of the Wraith, was probably from never really having a sufficient sense of scale; if you're going to do individually destructible enemies, then you'd better make sure they come over as having massive numbers. Given how, in recent series, the protagonists can just stomp Wraith vessels individually, I would have made it many thousands of hive-ships; at least.

I don't think their viewership was less interested as you claim. Viewership went UP in season 3 and 4.

Well, less interested than they could have been. I've seen a lot of people dismiss the S3-4 'replicator' arc as 'they brought back replicators again. Except these ones aren't nearly so scary' *yawn*

I think a better handling could have been done than just calling them replicators, and making senselessly evil villains (destroying human worlds? Seriously, that's the way to kill the wraith? Sure, it might be if you were to say, just distribute biological weapons through the gate, or build a dakara esque thing. But flying around in ships and pummelling villagers; we know they've the technology to find Wraith ships easily enough, so really, it makes no sense as a 'tactic'). I think they'd probably have been more memorable if given a product identity distinct from the humanform replicators of SG1. Of course, there's a risk of, by making villains too nuanced, making them ineffective as villains, too. But I found them best handled in season 3, where, later, they just seem to be moustache twirlers.

But then, I'd have put the 'big battle against the replicators' episode at the end of S4, so I could bring in some former-Ori ships to make the success of the attack on their massive and industrialised home planet seem less like plot induced stupidity among the villains.

[CaptJodan]

Got mixed feelings about this. Atlantis was, for me, a poor shadow of SG-1, especially the earlier seasons. SG-1 had the charm about little-ol-Earth taking on a vastly technologically superior force, and for much of the show Earth was always playing catch up. Any technology they did get usually never came ready-made.

Atlantis seemed to be in many ways a bastardized version of SG-1, but with far less "we're so puny against a massive superior foe". The enemies were underwhelming, and I felt the writers had to do a lot to ensure those on the city didn't get a true upper hand, sometimes leading to shear incompetence, or just plain writers fiat. Then SG-1 threw in the Asgard tech, making the situation even more underwhelming, and making the situation basically shit either way you go (either Earth is way too powerful to make the bad guys worthy adversaries, or make yet another uber bad guy that makes all previous technology useless).

Add in the lack of development for either Tayla or "other guy", (other guy being either Ford or Ronon) and it just wasn't up to par. And the more seasons go by, the more I worry it's just turning into another Voyager-Enterprise.

Having said all that, it was something to watch, and there was some good. I'll miss McKay and Zalenka, and I'll miss the POSSIBILITIES that the show could have had.

I do not hold out much hope that SGU will be better, but we'll see.

[JME2]

Hmm. Wel, I'm of two minds. Part of me's relieved because the show has been in serious trouble for a while. Season 1 was interesting and Season 2 was even better. It was when we got to Season 3 that things started going downhill in Season 3 for a number of reasons (chief among them, the introduction of the Asurans, but let's also factor in killing Beckett and setting up the write-out of Weir). Now, I've been rewatching the Season 4 DVD's and it's generally better than I gave it credit for at the time. Season 5's been similiar, but it probably is time to put the show out of its misery.

At the same time, I have a better connection to SGA than SG-1. I came into SG-1 during Season 8 and scrambled to play catch-up. With SGA, I came in during the middle of Season 1 and have been watching it since; it's kind of strange to think that the show started during my first year of college and will be ending in my final year of college.

[Covenant]

Damn, now I'm going to have next to nothing to watch on mah TiVo. I know Atlantis wasn't world-class entertainment, but it was a fun show and it was worth the 45 minutes or so it cost me to watch it. It's not like I had anything else I liked better around, I honestly believe that it's one of the better shows on Television, even as middleground as it is.

[Lord Relvenous]

For me this is a "meh". Don't feel much either way. I enjoyed the first season, and found the rest watchable, but never really gripping. Kill the series now before while it still has the legs to be remembered fondly in the future.

[Meest]

Anyone have numbers on the "movies" success? I hope the new series adds some fresh writers, the original and main guys are clearly out of juice.

[PREDATOR490]

I am really loathe at the idea of another series frankly and even more so if the rumours are true about it. I am really not going to be impressed with a Stargate style rip off of Star Trek and it seems like an epic step backwards for the franchise.
This new series has all the makings of becoming the next Crusade for Babylon 5 and will equally suffer the same abysmal fate.

That said, I would really hope for Mckay to get pulled over onto the new show because he is easily the highlight of Atlantis and it makes sense to have him due to his expertise. I cant say I will miss Ronan, Tayla or even Shepard that much though.

[Anarchist Bunny]

I actually really enjoy Sheppard and McKay's interactions a lot. Its a shame they sort of fell flat with the other two teammates(dropping the potential Ford had for Teal'c 0.7, and then doing nothing with Teal'c 0.7.

Although maybe this is a sign that rather then doing those awful awful Sci-Fi presents movies, they'll invest a little bit more and do movies of tired TV shows. Step in the right direction atleast. Now if only they could make those good.

[Big Orange]

Good. It lost a lot of its luster after Ford was written out, and it's been pretty downhill since. It's time for the Stargate franchise to seriously slow down, lest it strive for Star Trek levels of infamy.

I personally thought it was in some ways worse than much of Voyager and Enterprise with a similar bland "meh" feeling, it was aired on Channel 5 a few years back and when I saw the handful of episodes I just never got into it on any level like I did so easily with the earlier (and far superior) Stargate SG-1. Not surprisingly Atlantis soon sunk without a trace on the terrestrial Five by the time of it's second season (never becoming popular on terrestrial like SG-1 did for many years) and it was only shown on Sky One.

To avoid the creative entropy that dogged VOY and ENT, the people running the Stargate franchise should probably take a hint from NuWho and shut most things down for a few years, then inject gallons of new blood into the next series.

[Timotheus]

If money is an issue on the Sci-Fi channel then kill all the lame ass monster movies: Sharkman, Mosquitoman, T-Rex eating Aztecs.

Oh and lets not forget the six million giant snake movies.

Stargate is the only reason I was Sci-Fi though the new Amanda Tapping show might get my attention. Nothing else on Sci-Fi does.

[Anarchist Bunny]

On the whole Atlantis = Voyager thing, is there a website somewhere that monitors how many jumpers they go through? I know they've started out with a lot more than Voyager's Shuttle Craft, but fuck do they loose one every other week.

[Timotheus]

On the whole Atlantis = Voyager thing, is there a website somewhere that monitors how many jumpers they go through? I know they've started out with a lot more than Voyager's Shuttle Craft, but fuck do they loose one every other week.

They have also found replacements including a shitload of them in a ruined Atlantis city being used by a Lord Protector to terrorize the locals with drones.

[Cecelia5578]

I actually really enjoy Sheppard and McKay's interactions a lot. Its a shame they sort of fell flat with the other two teammates(dropping the potential Ford had for Teal'c 0.7, and then doing nothing with Teal'c 0.7.

Although maybe this is a sign that rather then doing those awful awful Sci-Fi presents movies, they'll invest a little bit more and do movies of tired TV shows. Step in the right direction atleast. Now if only they could make those good.

Jesus, Ford was on the show for a single season, the first. If you don't like the show because a bland character got written out of the first season...

[Commander 598]

Jesus, Ford was on the show for a single season, the first. If you don't like the show because a bland character got written out of the first season...

You really shouldn't state your opinions as fact. Also, incomplete sentences.

[Zac Naloen]

On the whole Atlantis = Voyager thing, is there a website somewhere that monitors how many jumpers they go through? I know they've started out with a lot more than Voyager's Shuttle Craft, but fuck do they loose one every other week.

They have lost about 12 I think, but they have two jumper bays on Atlantis which seem to hold about 20 each plus they replaced their lost ones up to that point after The Tower, I believe.

[Revy]

Damn shame, IMO. I can't say the series has been fantastic, but I enjoyed it for the most part, unlike the two utterly crap SG1 films. Given the choice of continuing with a mediocre series or making one or more shite extended-episode films, I'd pick the former, simply because I'd at least get a bit more viewing enjoyment from it.

I think people are being harsh comparing SGA to VOY. I've been watching those opinionated video reviews of Voyager online from sfdebris, and it just goes to show how utterly moronic, nonsensical and stupid many of the VOY episodes were. At least SGA episodes made sense, bland and cookie cutter they may have been. I could understand the plots and I liked some of the characters. I can't say the same for VOY, which I did use to watch when it originally aired on TV.

Still, if (or rather when) they do make an SGA film, I'm sure it will not only be worse than VOY but every bit as bad as the SG1 films.