The Worst of Stargate (spoilers?)

[Cecelia5578]

I know its popular to rip on the later seasons of SG-1, but have any of you actually watched Atlantis past its first season? I'd say Atlantis has been much more enjoyable to watch than SG-1 seasons 9 and 10.

[PREDATOR490]

If by more enjoyable you mean mindless amounts of decent fillers then yes. SGA managed a fair share of standalone episodes, this is mainly due to the Rodney / Shepard duo they have going.

Ronan is nothing more than a bulked up version of Teal'c without even a decent amount of character behind him. Teal'c at least had some characterisation behind being a former Jaffa with a family. Ronan is a loner who has been entirely limited to having his cool gun.

Teyla was good at the beginning but her usefulness has rapidly been reduced to Wraith centred situations. The new angle they have with Michael seems to be a desperate attempt to give her some screen time worthy of actually being in the show.

Overall, Atlantis has had absolutly NO direction compared to SG-1 and it REALLY shows. SG-1 had the clear premise of fighting the Goa'uld and trying to bag the technology to do so. Atlantis began with a good premise of fighting the Wraith but it has quickly degenerated to the point the Wraith have achieved nothing against Atlantis except the loss of many hives.
The only time Atlantis actually had a decently paced arc was the first season in which you had the clear build up to Siege. That still remains my favourite highlight of the entire SGA series but after that they just seem to have went down hill for lack of anything to do. They have left more than a few loose ends over the course of the show, starting from "Lost Boys" and continuing with "Be all my sins remembered"

The one thing both shows have recently shown is a rather arrogant attempt at rotating familiar cast members into their show for what is really trivial roles. Lexa Doig had almost no significane in SG-1 and was a very weak replacement to Dr Fraiser.
Ben Browder was a pretty bad import to bring in as well, his character was being portrayed much like Crighton from Farscape with the constant quips etc. Claudia was better simply due to the distinct difference in personnality from Farscape.
The recent season of Atlantis was pretty much the weakest from my perspective. They seem to have spent way too much time playing out cheap looking out fillers and blowing the budget on a few decent episodes which broke a lot of the pacing for me.

[CaptJodan]

If by more enjoyable you mean mindless amounts of decent fillers then yes. SGA managed a fair share of standalone episodes, this is mainly due to the Rodney / Shepard duo they have going.

Ronan is nothing more than a bulked up version of Teal'c without even a decent amount of character behind him. Teal'c at least had some characterisation behind being a former Jaffa with a family. Ronan is a loner who has been entirely limited to having his cool gun.

Seconded

Teyla was good at the beginning but her usefulness has rapidly been reduced to Wraith centred situations. The new angle they have with Michael seems to be a desperate attempt to give her some screen time worthy of actually being in the show.

Additionally, I feel that Ronan stole her thunder. She was kind of the muscle prior to his arrival...the so called Teal'c of the group. The alien warrior, but with a much different style. When Ronan arrived, she basically had few places to go. The fact that a no-personality, no-background, no-interest character has actually been able to smother what she DID have going for her is pretty bad.

Overall, Atlantis has had absolutly NO direction compared to SG-1 and it REALLY shows. SG-1 had the clear premise of fighting the Goa'uld and trying to bag the technology to do so. Atlantis began with a good premise of fighting the Wraith but it has quickly degenerated to the point the Wraith have achieved nothing against Atlantis except the loss of many hives.
The only time Atlantis actually had a decently paced arc was the first season in which you had the clear build up to Siege. That still remains my favourite highlight of the entire SGA series but after that they just seem to have went down hill for lack of anything to do. They have left more than a few loose ends over the course of the show, starting from "Lost Boys" and continuing with "Be all my sins remembered"

They've made a lot of mistakes on the way, in part due to SG-1. While the fanboy in me loves the fact that Earth has all the knowledge of the Asgard, in terms of storytelling, it's hurt Atlantis. Earth's a major player now. Are they invincible? No, but it's not the fight for true survival that it used to be, even for Atlantis. They have Earth support, they have ship support. The biggest problem these days is keeping the ZPMs coming.

I think there's a lot of opportunities missed to deal with some real moral issues, as well. Earth sent two battlecruisers to deal with the Replicator problem, and they pulled out all the stops to finally, once and for all, destroy the replicators. Yet when it comes to the Wraith, we don't see nearly the vast resources being applied.

I'm just wondering why there aren't more conversations about how the Wraith, a species that cannot survive without using humans as food, are not being considered for wholesale extermination, as the Replicators were. The taste of a holocaust of any kind would likely be pretty bitter to our "moral" heroes.

So what is the goal of the Atlantis expedition? New technologies? Surely there's a way to ship back anything they learn about on the city back to Earth. Keeping Earth safe from the Wraith? Then act like it! Take the gloves off.

The one thing both shows have recently shown is a rather arrogant attempt at rotating familiar cast members into their show for what is really trivial roles. Lexa Doig had almost no significane in SG-1 and was a very weak replacement to Dr Fraiser.

Indeed.

Ben Browder was a pretty bad import to bring in as well, his character was being portrayed much like Crighton from Farscape with the constant quips etc.

I liked Crighton. He was enjoyable in Farscape, and a good match. Cameron, on the other hand, I despise. And you're right, they're very similar characters. Yet it worked fine in one show, but just doesn't work in SG-1. Hindsight being what it is, I would have preferred Moebius be the last episode(s).

[Ethereal41]

As for my pick, I'll throw up "Entity". The first half I actually rather like, but then it all goes downhill. For one thing, we've already done the whole "Carter is possessed" thing... if you want to do something like that, why not continue and flesh out the Jolinar storyline a little? Then there's the ridiculousness of Carter being in the computers which made me want to weep tears of pain. The whole episode was basically retconned out of continuity except for brief, off-hand mentions of the incident in "Ascension" and one other Simmons episode. Yech.

Aaah! Another classic!

(Stephen Hawking) You will not harm this one!(/Stephen Hawking)

My house has a glass table in the sitting room. I think I ended up cracking it a little as I slammed my head into it while watching that episode.

BTW I think that the episode with the celery and alien mimes was Season 2 Episode 19.

[Ford Prefect]

The worst episode was Space Race.

[weemadando]

The worst episode was Space Race.

Oh hell yes. I turned on one night and saw that and just going: "what the fuck, is stargate on? Oh, this is stargate? Wow."

A friend of mine managed to tune in for their first ep in a while during the battle of the Antarctic episode. They were wondering what the fuck had happened to the series. Understandably so if you were used to (and enjoyed) the early days of small teams fumbling about against nearly insurmountable odds.

That's what made Stargate awesome.

[Stark]

It's sad, but cable started playing the really early Stargate again... and it's kind of neat. It's silly, but it knows it, and it's about exploration and danger. Not 'whoa check out our bitchin space fleet' and stuff; I've seen some of the much later SG-1 now, and it's nowhere near as much 'fun'.

[Ford Prefect]

It's relatively minor, but something I missed about earlier Stargate was that it just felt more ... spacey. Even though there was actually more space in later seasons, instead of problems with black holes and time dilation and the Aschen doing something cool like turning a gas giant into a sun, we have space gods and space priests using space magic.

I was actually pretty pleased that Atlantis shied away with that initially, beyond 'Wraith suck out your life force somehow'. There was stuff like using lightning strikes to power the shield (I still think The Storm and The Eye two parter is awesome), and stuff like that. I mean, there was some space magic, with that episode with the Ancient chick, but it otherwise felt more like science fiction thna 'hallowed are the Ori'.

[Zixinus]

I did like it when the charecters got a spaceship and did shit in space. I mean, when SG-1 got a mothership from Cronos or whoever, that was awesome.

SG-1 had compotent writing, which is what really made the otherwise bad episodes barable. They knew some rules of drama that they sticked to as best they could (unlike some other series).

I stopped watching when the writers started running out of ideas, which is about Series 6-7, I think. Then the newage wanking got less and less subtle, which is when I stopped.

[DrMckay]

Early Stargate was campy, and it knew it was campy. Include RDA's add-libbing lines, and you're gonna have a good time watching it, regardless of the inherent silliness or odd writing. Early SG-1 had heart, and the later episodes forgot about it. first season enders and 1969, anyone?

[PREDATOR490]

I actually liked the first season ender and the entire SG-1 series built up nicely to the showdown with Anubis's fleet. Season 8 manged to at least pull a decent theard out of SG-1 and finish it well.
(Moebius not withstanding)

Stargate SG-1 maintained a delicate balance between being campy and serious. I think the main thing that changed was the increasing popularity Stargate went to their heads. The first season was essentially written so that it could stand alone very well because I suspect the crew werent sure it would be a hit, because of this they were much more willing to go 'all out' and take risks. This same principle is what made the build up to Lost City much more enjoyable.
Killing main characters, shoving them in ice boxes, showing new people taking over operations while the old crew get bumped off creates suspense because you dont know if the next staff blast WILL actually get through the character shields. This kind of action is more interesting than copying the Voyager style reset button and strict attempts to maintain the status quo at the expense of risk.

RDA and Shanks are much like Rodney and Shepard. Browder was obviously an attempt to create a replacement to RDA but failed miserably due to the different acting styles. I like Farscape and think Browder was superb acting as Crighton but the writers seriously made a mistake in thinking Crighton's kind of personnal humour was equal to O'Neil's. Most of the other guest appearances they have are just pointless wastes and stink of "lookee lookee, we got <name> from another cool show/film".
Lexa Doig is a prime example of this and SGA has recently done it with the doctor on Atlantis, although that has actually turned out well because they arent trying to replace such a well established character like Fraiser with a character that barely gets lines.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Lexa Doig is a prime example of this and SGA has recently done it with the doctor on Atlantis, although that has actually turned out well because they arent trying to replace such a well established character like Fraiser with a character that barely gets lines.

That isn't really fair there. I think the essence of what you're saying is true, but that particular example doesn't really work on account of Doig being Shanks's wife.

[CaptJodan]

Stargate SG-1 maintained a delicate balance between being campy and serious. I think the main thing that changed was the increasing popularity Stargate went to their heads.

There's a very Star Trek-ian type feel to the newer areas of the series. The main characters can't have questionable morals, they must be the shining beacons of morality for the rest of the universe (on average. Let's face it, a Trek character would never have killed Kolya when and how Shepard did). Technobabble solutions (see Ancient Plot Device Factory) became much more common later on in the series. I always secretly wondered if the producers just started to realize that they were picking up a lot of old Trek fans who were turned off by Voyager and especially Enterprise, and started to cater to a crowd more familiar with those themes (and thus missing the point).

[Ethereal41]

There's a very Star Trek-ian type feel to the newer areas of the series. The main characters can't have questionable morals, they must be the shining beacons of morality for the rest of the universe (on average. Let's face it, a Trek character would never have killed Kolya when and how Shepard did).

The scene where Jackson machine-guns a tank of helpless Gouald Larvae stuck with me for a long time. He's no jedi.

[Chris OFarrell]

Stargate had its high points and low points. As Stark mentioned, local cable over here has been playing all the early episodes again, and it really takes me back watching SG1 creeping around Goa'uld motherships knowing one false step and their screwed, watching SG1 meet the Tok'ra for the first time (and screaming for Jack to just shoot them now!), the first time we meet the Asgard in person, watching Bre'tac do his 'Bre'fu' moves ("Now THAT was a grenade!")....

All those moments are just awesome.

At the same time, the show DID and HAD to evolve and I accept that. I don't like the bigass Earth starships, at least not how an unaware Earth just keeps chugging them out one after the other with the public blissfuly unaware, given that each probably costs as much to build as a Nimitz class Carrier, if not way more, but I can put that aside.

There are still gold episodes throughout seasons 6-8. Season 8 was the PERFECT time to end it. It started off a little weak, but it hit its stride with RDA's reduced schedule and I think it ended perfectly with Reckoning / Threads. Anubis? Gone. Goa'uld? Gone. Replicators? Gone. Jaffa? Free. Earth? Kicking ass. Perfect place to end it and concentrate on Atlantis, then some direct to TV movies like Arc of Truth, but BETTER. Mobius I really didn't like for plot reasons, even if a lot of it was great fun ('Evil' Aphosis, Ra, Horrus Armor...), but it still worked to end the series.

Then they went into season 9 and 10 and brought in the bloody Ori. UGH. Some episodes were great, but most just....

You know, the Ori MIGHT have worked, if they had been a clear and present THREAT. Instead, we got the Jaffa/Goa'uld Mk II, which just did nothing for me at all.

I don't entirely blame the Writers for this, they were screwed around every single year.

They thought the series was going to end at the end of Season 6....then it got renewed by SciFi, so they adapted the movie into 'Lost City', and prepared to focus entirely on the spinoff Atlantis.

Then they got renewed for Season 8 and RDA stepped down saying he had had enough, he needed to concentrate on his family. No worries! We'll run Atlantis in parallel for one last season, letting us wrap up the Goa'uld, Jaffa, Replicator, even lots of small storylines, all with a neat little package!

Then they get ANOTHER season after wrapping up everything, so they have to completly reinvent the damn show.

Hell, the funny thing is by mid season 10, they thought they were going to get another year again, then got killed WAY too late in the planning process to properly write the second half of the season to end the series, I think they had written and prepared all but 3-4 episodes by that point, hence the Arc of Truth to help finish it all off.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I like early Stargate, I like old Stargate and I think the end of Season 8 would have been ideal to end it...but they kept it going for 2 seasons too long.

[Zac Naloen]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I like early Stargate, I like old Stargate and I think the end of Season 8 would have been ideal to end it...but they kept it going for 2 seasons too long.

It should have been a serperate series, like atlantis, without the major tie-ins to SG-1 other than the set.

However, I think Scifi just wanted to get their record.

[Chris OFarrell]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I like early Stargate, I like old Stargate and I think the end of Season 8 would have been ideal to end it...but they kept it going for 2 seasons too long.

It should have been a serperate series, like atlantis, without the major tie-ins to SG-1 other than the set.

However, I think Scifi just wanted to get their record.

Actually the Prelim planning WAS a new series called 'Stargate Command', but it got mutated into 2 new seasons of SG1. Too bad.

[Darth Nostril]

Recently bought the SG-1 complete boxset off Amazon and been working my way through all 212 episodes .....

For me 'Spirits' is way up there as worst episode in the entire lot, I literally cringed my way through the entire episode (I forced myself to watch each episode all the way through, not even fast forwarding through the worst parts or skipping an episode I knew was naff)

Second worst .... when Selmac dies
When Jacob agreed to become a Tok'ra host he did so to cure his cancer, gain access to two thousand years of knowledge and looking forward to a life span of double the human norm
Just four years later Selmac dies of old age ..... WTF??

The last two seasons ... well they're just not SG-1, I would have been a lot happier if they had been Stargate Command instead, the name SG-1 brings with it the weight and responsibility of living up to the standards of the previous eight seasons and they fail miserably
The character Cameron ... I liked Farscape & Chricton, I would have probably liked him as a member of SG Command but he just doesn't live up to the legacy of RDA as commander of SG-1
Flip side of the coin Claudia Black is just fucking brilliant

Best episode ..... Solitudes, when O'Neill & Carter are stranded in Antartica, mostly because of the behind the scenes documentary where we get to see Tapping fluff her lines and ad-lib with "I'm stuck here with McGuyver fer christs sake!!"

[DrMckay]

Over 1969? or Window Of Opportunity? Are you mad?

[NecronLord]

Speaking of Ronon, I was watching First Strike the other day. Where he was talking about having to learn some science; and it struck me, that that'd be a really neat miniature character arc. It'd be interesting to see him in that hologram room (suggesting there are several) on Atlantis some time, doing Ancient science lessons, (because after all, all of the scientists around are busy) possibly with the actress who played Morgan back for a cameo. You could possibly even do it with an Asgard core (hanging a lantern for the wraith not being able to detect it) and say, Odin. Obviously, there'd need to be a payoff on such scenes, a few episodes down, to have him come up with the sciencey-idea.

[Darth Nostril]

Over 1969? or Window Of Opportunity? Are you mad?

Was that a rhetorical question

That episode just sticks in my mind solely because of the behind the scenes part, overall it wasn't amazingly good .... but I can't watch it now without mentally replacing the dialogue with that from the bhs docu

1969 .. I loved that one .... once I've finally managed to finish watching season ten I'm going to go back through and rewatch the classics

[Darksider]

Speaking of Ronon, I was watching First Strike the other day. Where he was talking about having to learn some science; and it struck me, that that'd be a really neat miniature character arc. It'd be interesting to see him in that hologram room (suggesting there are several) on Atlantis some time, doing Ancient science lessons, (because after all, all of the scientists around are busy) possibly with the actress who played Morgan back for a cameo. You could possibly even do it with an Asgard core (hanging a lantern for the wraith not being able to detect it) and say, Odin. Obviously, there'd need to be a payoff on such scenes, a few episodes down, to have him come up with the sciencey-idea.

that sounds like an interesting character direction for ronon to take, at least for maybe a half-season arc.

Too bad that the writers are apparently going for *Spoilers*

a "dark" and "gritty" ark for him that looks to copy all the wrong parts from neo-bsg

[PREDATOR490]

Colour me surprised at the writers deciding to try that for Ronan...

I think it is fairly obvious Ronan is a dead-end character who is never going to be written out of being the macho alien. That said, it would be a lot better to lighten him up a little like that little scene when Teyla tells Shepard about the child.
His macho act with Teal'c really made me loathe him with a vengence because he had no reason to pull that crap on someone trying to help him. Nevermind, the cheap-shot he pulled on Teal'c when they were told to stop.

Much as I like Selmac and Jacob, I think it was fitting for him to die. The show WAS supposed to end at this point and his last act is telling Sam to go for what she wants (O'Neill). In hindsight, the Tok'ra were used WAAAAY too fucking much over the course of the show and it is unlikely Selmac could help with the Ori anyway.

[Darth Nostril]

Much as I like Selmac and Jacob, I think it was fitting for him to die. The show WAS supposed to end at this point and his last act is telling Sam to go for what she wants (O'Neill). In hindsight, the Tok'ra were used WAAAAY too fucking much over the course of the show and it is unlikely Selmac could help with the Ori anyway.

Don't have a problem with Selmac dying, say as exposure to the Ancient device, but old age after saying there were decades to go
Just smacks of poor writing

Yeah they were trying to tie things up after being told the show was ending but could they at least have come up with a death that actually fit the facts established in earlier seasons

[Skylon]

It's sad, but cable started playing the really early Stargate again... and it's kind of neat. It's silly, but it knows it, and it's about exploration and danger. Not 'whoa check out our bitchin space fleet' and stuff; I've seen some of the much later SG-1 now, and it's nowhere near as much 'fun'.

One of my favorite parts in the season 2 premiere is where, O'Neill and Carter are in a damaged Death Glider, in a degrading orbit...Carter is listing off the damage to O'Neill, finally Jack looks out the window and just tells Carter to look...and she does and her and O'Neill quietly look at Earth and comment that "We saved it."

It was a nice moment of wonder. Very down to Earth. In Star Trek the characters kinda forget that stuff, as Starfleet officers see that shit constantly. O'Neill and Carter are characters living in our present, and when they saw Earth from space they were just as awed as we would be. The show kinda lost it as it dragged on.

A lot of SG-1's credit goes to RDA's flippant mannerisms. Yet, he still made you believe he was a hardened special forces vet, despite his joking nature.