Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis Renewed 357
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"
Nooo not SG-1 :( (Score:5, Interesting)
Mixed reactions to this (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart decision (Score:5, Interesting)
And now... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let a million references to the recent potential discovery [slashdot.org] of Atlantis ensue.
Re:Jumping the Shark? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:3 fans? (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, I just started watching Stargate a month ago. I blasted through seasons 1 through 7 in that time and I'm just about to start with S1 Atlantis and S8 SG1. I've thoroughly enjoyed the series.
Re:Slashdot ruined this for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Atlantis is terrible (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get too happy... we already have it here.
Badly acted (where do that *find* these people!), badly scripted (at times it seems like they're trying to ad-lib and failing), and worst of all the camera work was done by a trainee they grabbed off the street - half the time the camera is looking at the roof or floor not at the actors!
Also the sound treatment is horrible - going from so quiet you can't hear them to blasting your ears out within the same scene.
I watched 3 episodes and canned it. Couldn't stand any more. Nice try, but next time try to film with an actual budget, and real actors.
Re:Atlantis is terrible (Score:3, Interesting)
Season 2 was good too, especially some episodes such as the Fifth Race and Tok'Ra -- it wasn't just about fighting aliens, it was being out there and there was something special about humanity's deepest aspirations to be out there, and do cool stuff.
I somehow find that missing in SG Atlantis.
Thats good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Teal'c and O'Neal were in cahoots in the 80s (Score:3, Interesting)
Daniel Jackson Married Rommie. The reason why Rommie isn't in much of this new season is because their child was born recently.
I am to busy(lazy) to look up the actual actors names at the moment.
Re:Atlantis is terrible (Score:3, Interesting)
That's deliberate. They are using the documentary-ish technique that Firefly had. Kind of a 'what happened? where?' attempt for TV.
I would say give them more time, but you've indicated that you aren't. YMDV (Your Mileage Did Vary) I try to give a new show a season to work itself out. It takes time for the people involved to see what works and what doesn't. The lead time for production means corrections aren't going to happen in just a few episodes.
Re:Thats good (Score:2, Interesting)
Not only Firefly.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:3 fans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed, it had good storylines too -- but then so does Enterprise, for that matter even (eww) Voyager. But the way the characters handled it was what made it better.
I mean, I simply love Patrick Stewart's speeches, and the way he handles situations. It's... impeccable. Ditto for Brent Spiner and a lot of other characters.
The characters in ST:TNG were strong, and they felt real. The characters in Voyager felt ridiculous. Enterprise tries, but sadly they do not have the kinda cast that TNG did.
I guess that's one of the reasons SG:Atlantis is failing too. While SG-1 had a good cast -- not exemplary by any standards, but good for sure -- SG Atlantis has a mediocre cast. The difference shows.
And whos' the guy behind the camera of SG:Atlantis? Half the time he's showing the sky and not the faces.
Re:All I have to say is: (Score:5, Interesting)
I enjoy Atlantis quite a bit. However, I don't feel like they have achieved the character depth of SG-1. The four SG-1 characters all carry pain, which makes them interesting to begin with, but what is fascinating about them is their pain is connected -- they've hurt and healed each other. Example: Daniel carries the with him the loss his wife, but what's worse is that she was ultimately killed by Teal'c, which adds betrayal. Killer lines:
TEAL'C - Is there not some form of human ritual by which I can ask your fogiveness?
DANIEL - No.
Their relationship does heal over time, but there is always something between them in the background. That is an astonishingly complex character relationship for a science fiction series. All four of those characters are interconnected in similar ways. There's some tension between the Atlantis characters, but I'm waiting for something more, er, painful between them before it gets up to the level of SG-1.
Re:Richard Dean Anderson has a reduced role? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sam Carter: It took us fifteen years and three supercomputers to MacGyver a way to power the gate.
Re:All I have to say is: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Atlantis is terrible (Score:3, Interesting)
Empires fall, people lose interest. Greece was once the center of civilisation. Don't apply your little window of history across the whole universe and enjoy the show.
Umm, not really sure what you're trying to say here. My point was that even counting their long hibernation cycles they should have had 1,000 years of awake-time to improve their technology. Even if they had done nothing other than sleep, then their tech level should be higher than the Ancients (hence their victory). If they spent any time awake, it should be an even bigger gap.
"their ships can still be shot down with a bazooka"
Stinger SAM, but we'll let that one pass for the moment. Have you considered that a significantly more advanced race might not actually use it's shields out of contempt for a preagrarian race?
Okay, I was using Bazooka in the common usage as shoulder launched rocket projectile. Perhaps I should have been more precise. Yes, they might not be running their shields out of contempt, but this is unlikely, since (if it were the case) they would have activated them when they were fighting the puddle jumper (which had Ancients weapons). Note also the ease with which the puddle jumper destroyed them, in spite of the fact that it was technology made 10,000 years ago by people defeated by (presumably) the wraiths.
"they can't get past the Ancients' iris-shield (which I'm fairly sure the less advanced Tollan could do)."
With a titanium iris, not a forcefield, and the inference was that the Tolan were a lot more advanced than the Gou'ould, and roughly on a par with the Nox, which is why the Tolan were wiped out after the contratemps over the warheads. Certainly nobody else apart from the Asgard could create the ground based cannons.
While the Tolan were highly advanced, they were less advanced than the Ancients in at least one area (contrast their cannons with the system used at Antarctica - one stopped by Anubis' shields, the other goes through them as if they were vacuum). On the other hand, the difference in complexity of travelling through a force field and a lump of titanium is something I have no direct experience with, so I'm willing to concede this point.
"because at the moment they seem a lot less impressive than anything in our galaxy."
Well, you wouldn't want them to go and 'pussify the borg' like Star Trek did, would you?
Personally I think a race that views humans as animals is a tad more realistic than having aliens that simply mimic human nature with cartoon inflated attributes. Certainly the introduction of the Tokrah made the snakeheads slightly more fluffy than they needed to be.
Don't get me started on the Borg (perfect communist society for frightening capitalists transformed into yet another hierarchical group with slightly more advanced technology). The Gua'ould (sp?) were somewhat too human, but they made a fairly respectable enemy. I'm not sure there is much difference between a race that views humans as hosts and one that views them as food (and personally I'd consider the possibility of having to live for hundreds of years watching someone commit atrocities in my body to be more frightening than someone killing me). Food is also not an entirely compelling motive, since any race with technology that rivals the Ancients must also have the ability to synthesise food indistinguishable from the real thing on a molecular level at a negligible cost. The only reason they would have for hunting humans is that they enjoy hunting. This hardly seems likely - the humans are so far behind them technologically that it's not exactly a challenge - similar to fishing with drift nets in terms of difficulty. This would be more credible if they had teleported to surface and hunted on foot, rather than using semi-random tractor beams.
A more likely