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Stargate: Atlantis ends...I forgot to care

Sadistic Bastard

Sadistic Bastard

No Mercy
So, I missed the season finally of Stargate Atlantis.

The Original, Kurt Russel movie was good for a Saturday Afternoon popcorn/sci-fi flick.
The original series was ok for a few seasons...then fell apart under it's own additional story-lines. Teulk did a decent "Spock", but overall the series was only average.
Why they even created Atlantis was beyond me. I kept wanting the Wraith to win. I watched it only when I saw it channel surfing, and as such the story "arcs" were fragmented. Individual episodes weren't good enough to make me follow the series.

Now I hear they'll do a THIRD series, "Universe"?

Why?

If they can cancel Farscape and Serenity, why does this mediocre franchise live on?

-SB
"You see, Mal, that's why I never kiss 'em on the mouth..."
 
Atlantis had its moments. The first season was okay, the second season was alright, the third kinda sucked for a bit then got really awesome. Fourth season was meh for the first half, then had a couple of brilliant episodes (anything involving the travellers or Todd basically).

If you look at Joe Mallozzi's blog you'll see another couple of decent episodes that never happened.

I'd say there were a few things that they just didn't kill quickly enough after they didn't work:
- Genii - they just fucking sucked, let's be honest. The basic idea might have been a good one but the execution sucked
- Michael - I have no idea why but they somehow must've liked him because they KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK. Really don't know why, again, it's probably that I dislike the "dirty" thing he and the Genii had going on. He just didn't seem like a serious opponent.
- Characters - Weir, in retrospective, just wasn't good enough. Might've been the actress, who knows. Same probably goes for Teyla and the Ethosians (those definitely), partly for Ronon as well. Ford would've been a lot better in my opinion because he brought the audience's viewpoint ("woah, this is cool, this is neat, this is new!") to the show but they didn't expand on that.

I'm not sure about their replicators but the latter aspects were a lot more interesting and (this was probably why I thought they were more interesting) a lot more complex.

Apart from that, they really managed to figure out how to handle the Wraith. The whole faction wars was a great idea, the background they worked out was decent and Todd was probably the single most brilliant addition to the entire show. As soon as they started introducing Wraith with actual character (think Steve in season 1) stuff started getting better.
Dr. Keller was a great addition as well and Robert Piccardo worked out surprisingly well in his new role.

I'm not terribly devastated to see the show go but it was decent overall with sparks of brilliance in between. Vegas was fucking awesome, too.
 
For me, in many regards, the Stargate franchise paralleled the Star Trek franchise.

The movie was the equivalent of TOS (although it never became a huge part of pop culture like TOS). Then the series was like TNG--it started a little slow, got really good, and then eventually got silly and formulaic. (If TNG had run another 3 years and Picard and Riker had both eventually left the show and been replaced with cardboard stand-ups, this would be even more true.) Atlantis was like VOY: a nifty premise--stranded far across the universe--that quickly became a boring tepid version of itself.

My Stargate canon is the movie up through the defeat of Apophis over Antarctica. And really the rest of Season 7 was mostly filler anyway.
 
I saw the finale, and not to get too spoilerish, they totally blew the perfect opportunity to final make the whole Stargate program public, and have the series go on with a big bang and to really shake up the franchise, and they copped out.

And that's one of the really really hard to swallow parts of this show....when you think of the thousands of people in the minitary and civilian life, and from politicians around the world to the folks who build the X-whatever fleet, to the guy who mops the bathrooms on the Apollo, it's just wildly unbelievevable that a program of that magnitude would remain the complete and utter secret that it has.
 
The Vegas episode was the best Atlantis EVAR.. all the rest was mostly mediocre. I liked Todd, I like a little bit of the Michael story arc, but they stretched that one out too far. Basically they wasted every chance they had to make the show something new and interesting and just kept reusing the same old tired themes and cheap sci fi theatrics.
 
While I agree that Vegas was awesome I disagree with the rest of your statement. Let me try and list a couple of the awesome episodes with had over the last five years. It probably won't be more than 10 both because of my shitty memory and because there weren't that many more. Using this page:
Brilliant episodes:
The Siege Part I & II (but definitely not III) (S1)
Common Ground (S3)
McKay & Mrs Miller (S3)
The Game (S3)
This Mortal Coil (S4)
Travelers (S4)
Be All My Sins Remember'd (single best episodes, probably) (S4)
Spoils of War (S4)
Midway (S4)
Vegas (S5)

Good episodes:
Rising (S1)
38 minutes (this one's close to brilliant) (S1)
Aurora (S2)
Tao of Rodney (S3)
The Queen (S5)

Stuff just I liked:
Sanctuary

Great Episodes I didn't like:
Anything good with Michael
The Shrine (S5)


See, I did come up with 11 episodes that I consider pretty awesome. The second half of season three was pretty good and season 4 was probably the best season they had. Season two pretty much sucked and S5 was unable to maintain the quality of S4 but eh, what are you gonna do?
 
I actually liked the final season better than any of the previous ones, for some reason. Different vibe, I guess.

I hated Dr McKay, I hated the way he constantly complained, even when he only had 5 seconds to save everyone's lives. I hated the way Sheppard always, always questioned what McKay was doing no matter how many times McKay figured something out at the last minute to save everyone.
 
I'll have to catch up on season 5 via Netflix. I don't have cable and that is how I've watched the past two seasons. It's a shame they don't show it on hulu.
 
Of all the episodes I have seen, I would say there are more good ones than bad ones, just a lot of the bad ones seemed concentrated in season 4.

Mind you I have barely seen any in season 2.
 
Sadistic Bastard said:
So, I missed the season finally of Stargate Atlantis.

The Original, Kurt Russel movie was good for a Saturday Afternoon popcorn/sci-fi flick.
The original series was ok for a few seasons...then fell apart under it's own additional story-lines. Teulk did a decent "Spock", but overall the series was only average.
Why they even created Atlantis was beyond me. I kept wanting the Wraith to win. I watched it only when I saw it channel surfing, and as such the story "arcs" were fragmented. Individual episodes weren't good enough to make me follow the series.

Now I hear they'll do a THIRD series, "Universe"?

Why?

If they can cancel Farscape and Serenity, why does this mediocre franchise live on?
Click to expand...

I'm glad they're doing a 3rd, if they weren't Sci-fi would probably just another godawful Ghost Hunters spinoff into Stargate's slot.
 
Yeah, I don't get the bitching about "Universe" either. The whole "Stargate: 90210" criticism is quite likely total bullshit. We'll see whether the old team can pull off the new approach and still has enough ideas left to build a decent show but I'm pretty confident they can.
 
Its probably the bitter 30 year old geeks still living with their parents who critisise the idea of young 20 year olds getting laid.
 
Pretty much, yeah. They're complaining rather loudly though. ;)

TPTB are taking their sweet time announcing the casting decisions though. They're supposed to start filiming at the beginning of February and according to Mallozzi they're pretty much all done so I have no idea what they're waiting for. Maybe giving one of the inside magazines a scoop? Ah well, we'll know soon enough.

Personally, I hadn't heard about the one cast member they've already announced before - even though he's supposed to be famous.
 
Probably more famous over here, but it does help if you are a fan of the things he has been in that might have brought his attention to a wider audience.
 
Sci-Fi's done some good work, BSG comes to mind immediately, I could probably watch several "spin off's" of that franchise.

It's ALWAYS the writing, however. Any show needs good writing (Evidence Babylon 5 vs. Crusade). The real issue is when the writing either gets farmed out (Voyager, anyone?) and the idea diluted.
Of course, good writing vs alien-cleavage or special effects seems to be a rare thing.

SG hasn't really impressed me. Serenity Impressed me.
If that makes me sour-grapes, so be it.
-SB
 
The golden gate bridge and having Picardo comment on it really hammered the point home.

Apparently it was also Picardos idea to mention the star trek experience in the vegas episode.
 
I have them all on DVD, I plan on watching them all with my son when he is older, but there are plenty of episodes I wouldnt unleash on a four year old.
 
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