Ok, for the record the series absolutely does dig into more long storylines that introduce a more sci fi bent in later seasons. Seasons 3&4 especially you start to get more into the morphology and mythology of the Goa’uld, their relationship and struggles of the Jaffa against them. Asgardians are brought in, spaceships come, get blown up, etc. Basically you start to see the transition from the Star Trek style self contained danger of the week, to the more longform storytelling that Battlestar Galactica etc. would run with in the early 2000’s.
It’s interesting because a lot of those 90’s sfi fi and fantasy shows laid the foundations for this, prestige TV before that was a thing. Babylon 5, the later half of SG1 and Atlantis, Farscape clearly paved the way for modern serialized TV I think.
Agreed with pretty much all of the above comments on Atlantis. I found it to be the most “fun” of all the Stargate shows, both because of the cast and the freedom granted by the setting.
Atlantis took it’s queue from the final few seasons of SG:1. In those seasons, the SG teams had matured from just hurtling themselves willy-nilly into the gate and having a weekly adventure to mapping out the entire stargate system, establishing relations with multiple civilizations throughout the gate network (including being at war with at least one), and eventually having their own starships which could travel to other systems. The show took on a more Sci-Fi feel, and I enjoyed it. Atlantis then multiplied that Sci-Fi feel by having it’s characters travel (via gate) across the known universe to “Atlantis”, which was a hub city of the ancient civilization that created the gate network. Once there they become trapped, so they have to get by using their intelligence, wits and cunning, while slowly exploring Atlantis and discovering how to use everything contained within. As mentioned above, that eventually includes shuttle-type ships, the gate and a bunch of other technology. Contact is made with new races and new planets, and new characters join the cast. It was a very enjoyable show, if a bit ridiculous at times.
Universe was a turn to a more hard science Sci-Fi approach, and I never felt like it worked as well as SG:1 or Atlantis. While I liked several of the characters on Universe, and the writing was often solid, it just didn’t hold that same Stargate magic that the other shows did. Cancelling Atlantis at the height of it’s popularity was a dumb decision that helped kill the franchise for many long-time fans. So far I don’t see anything in this new series that looks like it would bring me back, especially if I actually have to pay a monthly subscription to view it.
That’s actually kind of true. The main connection is using the Stargates as a transport mechanism. Although Stargate Atlantis also has large sized space ships that are sometimes used for transport – the humans have ships maybe about the size of the Voyager (definitely smaller than the Enterprise) and the bad guys have Battlestar Galactica sized ships chock full of fighters. So while the Stargates are still used for transport for most episodes, they do have other ways of getting around.
The whole Egyptian thing is gone. Although the idea of exploring and meeting new cultures is definitely there. And the idea of teams combining military with scientists is definitely very in play.
Occasionally Stargate SG-1 characters will show up. Most notably Samantha Carter shows up occasionally (used for both her astrophysics PhD, as well as her military leadership) and then later she becomes one of the regular show members. [Also for Firefly fans, Jewel Staite joins the Stargate Atlantis cast midway through the run.]
But for the most part it really is pretty disconnected from the movie. It’s clearly a shared universe, although since I haven’t watched the last 9 seasons of SG-1, I’m not entirely clear on the connections. The human FTL space ships are clearly something that was developed at some point in SG-1, and there are occasionally references to SG-1 discoveries. I was curious how the Stargate Universe got from a modern technology level to a level where we have FTL space ship, which is why I made yet another attempt to get into SG-1. But you really can just take them as a given as how the Stargate Atlantis universe works and really enjoy the show without any idea how it all connects to the move.
Will do. I’m currently on S2 Ep9. Glad to hear that episodes start getting more interconnected with longer storylines.
I figured it had to get good at some point. You don’t have 11 seasons of a TV show without people reallly liking it. That’s an awful lot of seasons.
And speaking of audiences and audiences loyalty it’s kind of sad to read on the article I linked in the OP, that Atlantis wasn’t cancelled because of low ratings. It was cancelled because SyFy decided it wanted to shoot for a younger audience:
Despite a loyal cult following, Stargate: Atlantis — which launched on Sci-Fi in 2004 and overlapped with the SG-1 series — was canceled in 2009, midway through its fifth season, arguably not due to its dwindling ratings but rather to the then-newly renamed Syfy’s wish to appeal to a younger audience. That objective led to the 2009 launch of SGU Stargate Universe, a gambit that failed in 2011 after only two seasons.
Sadly, the cancellation of Atlantis seemed to derail the acting career of it’s leading man, Joe Flanigan, who played Lt. Col. John Sheppard. He and David Hewlett were my favorite actors on the show, and the only ones to appear in all 99 episodes.
After Atlantis Flanigan pretty much dropped of the face of the planet, with a couple of one-off appearances on shows like Fringe and Major Crimes, and a handful of parts in movies nobody’s ever heard of. I always thought the guy was a decent actor in terms of that “handsome wise-cracking likeable rascal” character that is still very popular in TV and movies, and he certainly made a good addition to any ensemble cast. I always wondered if he said or did something immediately after Atlantis that made him toxic to work with for awhile, or maybe he went on a bender for a couple years or something. It’s a shame, because he and Hewlett were great together, and I don’t think it would have been hard for him to find chemistry with another TV show cast.
Joe Flanigan has worked pretty steadily since '09 when the show ended. He just hasn’t worked in anything high-profile. The only notable gap was 2013-2016 and I think that was because of a rather ugly divorce and custody battle.
I know in 2014, he tried to buy or lease the Stargate rights from MGM, but the deal fell through.
One night, I was out at game night and came home early. I needed to go to the ER (my intestines had ruptured). I had a huge, huge crush on Amanda Tapping.I got home and my now-ex wife was watching Atlantis. She asked if I could wait until the show was over before bringing me. A somewhat logical request since I had driven for an hour.
This was the episode where Amanda was in her underwear while some compartment flooded. “Look,” she says. “Amanda in her underwear.” I said, “Yeah, that’s nice. Can we go now?”
Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter is great. Nothing like a smart, highly competent woman, added bonus for looking sharp in an Air Force uniform. Then Jewel Staite shows up as Dr. Keller and my cup really runneth over.
The movie is a must watch if I stumble across it on the tube, and SG-1 was one of the few shows me and the wife would watch together. I never got into the later shows.
If this was on Hulu or Netflix I would probably give it a try, but I am not paying for one show.
It’s not even really a show. It’s ten “episodes” that are ten minutes each. It’s essentially a YouTube series or a cheap movie being divided into ten parts.
So as a kid (and also now), I was a big ancient history nut. Loved Greek, Roman, and Egyptian culture and history. I read the Age of Empires manual front to back a dozen times.
So a cool scifi movie about a scientist helping the clueless military uncover ancient secrets about Egyptian history using bitchin alien technology? That was basically everything my young brain wanted!
Ah. Didn’t realize they were 10 minutes each. That makes more sense than 10 full 40-50 minute long episodes about the 1920s.
I could see this as a good way to draw people to a free non-subscription website on Stargate, just to drum up interest. A subscription Stargate-only website is just bonkers though.
Yeah, I have no idea how they think they can launch a streaming service about Stargate on the back of a show when no one ever goes through the Stargate.
Well you see, the movie was incredibly stupid Devlin/Emmerich trash, while the series actually had some thought, continuity, and world-building put into it.
I’m actually in the middle of watching Atlantis now. Very happy that McKay is more of a main character than anyone else (love Beckett too - yay accent). And now I learn that Jewel shows up at some point (haven’t gotten that far yet). I’m still more of an SG-1 fan at this point as I found O’Neal, especially as time went on, absolutely hilarious and Ronin/Tela kidna irk me.
Disappointed to find out that things will end abruptly in season 5. That won’t go over well when my son finds out. He still rightly fumes about Eureka.
I still really don’t get their model here. The FAQ on their website says there’s a one-time $20 fee to access everything (which I think includes all the shows and the movie), which sounds pretty reasonable (certainly makes more sense than a monthly fee, which would be crazy), but then it proceeds to say that it’s only good until May 15, 2018 and doesn’t say what happens after that.
