Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis Renewed

scifi451 writes "Both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis have been renewed for another season, 9th and 2nd respectively. All of the key cast members are coming back for Atlantis, where as SG-1 stars are in negotiations, with Amanda Tapping expecting a baby in March right as filming begins. Also Richard Dean Anderson might look for an even further reduced role in the show. More news can be found here: Gateworld & Scifi-Wire"

All I have to say is:

[Masami Eiri]

w00t!

I just hope the main cast is back, even if characters, like Jack, are reduced in screentime. SG-1 isn't SG-1 without... SG-1...

Re:Slashdot ruined this for me

[Unkle]

I can no longer watch SG-1 with a straight face.

You mean you could before? Andersen's O'neal is much different than Kurt Russel's in the origional movie. He is much, MUCH funnier, while Russel was more serious (But, of course, in the movie O'neal had just lost his son...). The show would not be the same without him.

Jumping the Shark?

[Rosyna]

I'm worried that prolonged existence of SG-1 might make it jump the shark. AFAIK, it was never supposed to exist past its 7th season but the ratings that year were so good they scrapped the plans for the movie and made it into that year's season finale (which also explains its awesomeness and why the good Doctor had to die).

SG-1 and SG:A were never meant to coexist, also why Atlantis was moved to another galaxy. The creators/writers never meant for them to show at the same time and they didn't want the easy way out whenever SG:A had a problem and just get SG-1 to fix it. I think this simultaneous rushing for two shows is also why the first half of each of the most recent seasons sucked compared to season 7.

Re:All I have to say is:

[wertarbyte]

I just hope the main cast is back, even if characters, like Jack, are reduced in screentime. SG-1 isn't SG-1 without... SG-1...

In my opionion, SG1 has lost much of its appeal with O'Neill becoming brigadier general. It's just not the same anymore. Stargate-Atlantis has the advantage for bringing fresh new ideas (and a fresh new cast) the the concept of the series

Re:3 fans?

[JPelorat]

Because Enterprise generates its fanbase from the horny teens who watch in the hopes of seeing some more Vulcan skin. Writing, plot, acting, can all fall by the wayside when softcore TV porn is involved in getting ratings.

Bad softcore at that, but they don't know that. Nor do they care, apparently.

Re:Slashdot ruined this for me

[paRcat]

So many people think they're actually funny rehashing a joke that wasn't funny to begin with.

Anyway, if you'd actually sit down and watch the show, you might be surprised that RDA can in fact be something other than the 80's TV show. He's really an amazing actor... to the tune that I don't believe the show would ever be as good without him. Of course, he's one of the producers too, so the show may not even BE without him. :)

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Re:All I have to say is:

[T-Kir]

Even though RDA (hoho, we need a Recommended Daily Amount of Richard Dean Anderson in SG1) had a reduced schedule for season 8, I feel he has had a much better presence since the promotion... mind that may be due in part that all his filming is done on the main set.

Even if there are cast changes for season 9, I think the Stargate series has developed such a strong mythology and sheer amount of storylines that it could keep goign for a while longer. Plus, I'm extra happy that they aren't permenantly stranding the Atlantis team... and looking forward to seeing the Daedalus and Atlantis showdown with the Wraith hive ships. w00t! indeed! :-)

Re:Nooo not SG-1 :(

[canwaf]

I actually complained about SG1 being renewed too, I think Stargate SG1 needs to be retired. Not much you can really do about it though, they can milk out money for that extra season.

But onto the subject of 'Avatar' (The episode where Teal'c is stuck in that gaming chair), this episode was created as advertisment for Stargate's new video game. Which made the episode feel cheaper than it was originally. I'm not certain, but the game footage in the episode could possibly have been done through the game engine used in the to be released video game.

Fixing SG-1

[Erasmus Darwin]

What they really need to do is get the SG-1 team back on track in the show. To do this, they need to replace the opening left by Jack and start doing off-world missions again. Too many of the current shows have had them futzing around Earth, giving a "filler episode" feel to almost the entire season.

As for filling Jack's shoes, a suggestion I liked from another forum was to let Adam Baldwin reprise his role from "Heroes". He'd be good at providing the aggressive, militaristic mentality that'd help keep the same brain vs. brawn balance that the team had before.

Re:Atlantis is terrible

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Sadly I must agree with this. I always thought the strength of SG-1 was the characters. Not just O'Neil, but many regular and recurring. Even the scenery-chewing goauld had some individual personality to them. I can't say the same for Atlantis. Those few characters that are even distinguishable tend to be stock types lifted from other sci-fi (genre-not-network) shows.

Re:Mixed reactions to this

[The Angry Mick]

While I love SG-1, I also feel that the show is slipping noticeably now that Anderson's role has been reduced. He presence is what really made the team feel like a "team". When he's not around, you kinda get the feeling that the others are just out on a beer run for the boss - the missions don't feel as satisfying, and the drama drops somehow.

What I'd like to see them do, from a plot perspective, is to begin wrapping up the series by tying up all of the loose Goa'uld storylines into a single, massively long story arc that airs over several episodes. Instead of a two-part season finale, how about a seven or ten parter? It'll guarantee ratings as the viewers couldn't afford to miss one episode of the arc (even with Sci-Fi's neverending repeats), and you'd wrap up the series with a bangup sense of accomplishment.

Re:Atlantis is terrible

[CoolCash]

Go back and dust off your season one DVD set of Stargate SG-1. Compare those characters to the characters of today's episodes, completely different. Back then they were the stereotypical, cookie cutter, typecasts. It took a couple of seasons before the actors found their nitch. Also, if you looked back when The Next Generation aired, many of the same people said the same things about that show.

Re:Atlantis is terrible

[Richard_at_work]

I dont think they are badly acted, I think they come across as 'real'. None of this acted emotion crap. And the camera work is meant to be like that, its shot in a documentary way, which I kind of like.

Re:Smart decision

[TheRaven64]

I think the best thing about SG-1 is their attitude to technobabble. It seems quite common for writers of similar series' to fill in gaps with long strings of technobabble which anyone with even a moderately scientific background can tell are just nonsense, and try to base the plot on these. Most of the time in SG-1 when this happens, Jack's blank stare or interruption stops them before they get started. One of my favourite lines was from (I think) the first episode of Atlantis, where someone tries to explain something about the stargate and Jack replies with `Well, that was a waste of a perfectly good explanation'.

Re:Slashdot ruined this for me

[Richard_at_work]

How come they both have the same dead son and Daniel Jackson knew O'Neill in the series 1 episode pilot by sight, as well as several others on Abidos? That and a few other things prove they are the same character in the series and the movie, regardless of the inconsistent spelling of the name.

Re:Atlantis is terrible

[TheRaven64]

I really have trouble taking the Wraiths seriously in Atlantis (and not just from the fact that both they and the Ancient weapon in Antarctica make me feel that one of the writers has been playing Escape Velocity: Nova too much). They supposedly defeated the Ancients 10,000 years ago. Since then, they have had 10,000 years to develop their technology. Let's assume that they sleep for 90% of the time, and that's still 1,000 years. And yet, their ships can still be shot down with a bazooka (even the Gou'ould have better shields than that, although only on slightly larger ships), and they can't get past the Ancients' iris-shield (which I'm fairly sure the less advanced Tollan could do).

I'm really hoping that these people are going to be revealed to be minions of the `ancient enemy' (Babylon 5, anyone?), because at the moment they seem a lot less impressive than anything in our galaxy. Next to the replicators, they are positively laughable.

Re:Richard Dean Anderson has a reduced role?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, since it was an Ancient who built a Stargate out of Carter's microwave, and stuff he ordered over the internet, and O'Neill is the one who allways ends up with the knowlege of the ancients stuffed in his head, I'd say he's the one most likely to build a stargate out of stuff they find lying arround.

Re:Slashdot ruined this for me

[the gnat]

That and a few other things prove they are the same character in the series and the movie, regardless of the inconsistent spelling of the name.

I think this is the creators poking fun - at the audience or Russell, I'm not sure. It's like the classic DS9 episode where they worked the cast into the original episode "The Trouble With Tribbles." Someone asks Worf why the original series Klingons look so different, and he says "We don't like to talk about it."

There've been many Slashdot threads trying to explain this, but the answer is really quite simple: it's an in-joke, a nod to all the fans who've been worrying about this for years. Think of it as a shout-out to all the Comic Book Guys of the world. SG1 had another of these in the pilot where they use "MacGyver" as a verb.

They're just TV shows, there's nothing that dictates that they have to be absolutely 100% consistent over the years, and little throw-aways like this are the writers' way of acknowledging that yes, their internal consistency is sometimes not perfect.

Re:All I have to say is:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yeah- but it will happen after time. After all- the only character with pain in the original Stargate Movie was Jack O'Neil- fresh from the death of his son, ready to blow up himself with a nuclear weapon to prevent the Gua'uld from coming to Earth.

Good.

[BoneFlower]

Things are going to heat up in the latter half of this season, but there are still some threads that need tying up. Klorel for one, he needs to be dealt with to fully resolve the Apophis storyline. The Aschen arc was supposed to be three episodes. I also don't see the Replicators being finished up this season. And... Think back to "The Fifth Race". I think it would be a great final episode for O'Neill, Thor, the Nox chick, some Furling, and Oma Desala to meet at Ernests planet, or perhaps the place where O'Neill first downloaded the ancient library, to restore the old alliance and admit humanity.

Re:Atlantis low points

[DavidTC]

The Wraiths are in most of the episodes? Are you even watching the show? We just had the two part mid-season arc about a hurricane that almost destroyed Atlantis, and, in the middle for the evacuation, the Jenii took over. It wasn't about the Wraith at all.

No Wraith in '38 minutes', no Wraith in 'Hide and Seek', no Wraith in 'Home'...

That means slightly less than half the episodes could have taken place without the Wraith at all.

Of the other six, half those just had the Wraith as a long term enemy that had effected society: the Jenii, the 'Don't trust anyone over 25' world, and the world that was poisoning itself and thus the Wraith. It was 'How would the Wraith affect society', not 'Let's go and fight us some Wraith'. You know...the kind of questions science fiction asks?

One remaining was about a spy, and would have literally worked in a non-scifi enviroment.

And the other two were the opening of the series, where, duh, they needed to explain the Wraith.

I have no idea how someone could watch that series and think it was all about the Wraith.

Re:Atlantis is terrible

[mdfst13]

"Have you considered that a significantly more advanced race might not actually use it's shields out of contempt for a preagrarian race?"

I would say that a better argument is that an advanced race might not actually have shields that are effective against physical weapons. If no one uses physical weapons against them, why would they shield against physical attacks? All their weapons were designed to work against the Ancients, who were presumably well past the need to use physical weapons.

Notice how the humans are more effective against the replicators than are the Asgard. This is despite the fact that the replicators have incorporated all the tech that the Asgard have. The replicators are still damaged by the guns of the humans while they simply absorb the energy of the personal weapons used by the Asgard and the Goa'uld.