Save Stargate SG-1

SG1 > Atlantis for the most part, and I feel they should do away with the spin-off and pretty much merge the shows to extend the story lines for the original.

 

It always takes a few seasons for Sci-Fi shows. Atlantis has been getting better. The clif hanger for last season was really good. The new replicator baddies are much more interresting than the wraith.

Considering how much they make on SG1 dvd season sales, I defintely expect them to push hard to keep it on the air. I think if they try and finish up the Prior storyline (since its not working that well) this next season and come up with some fresh new ideas they could keep things going for a while.

Direct to dvd movies are ok, but if they can't get it back on the air then move it to the big screen for sure.

 

SG-1 needs to hurry up and die, it's been on the air so long it's stagnant and its story has gone from decent to absurd. There are only so many supreme beings you can fight without losing a single main character before it just becomes comical and impossible to take seriously.

Open ended, character driven sci-fi is why the genre is never taken seriously anymore. Which is sad, because it has more potential then any other genre to explore possibilities and issues, but instead it just turns into petty, simplistic moralizing (i'm looking at you star trek.)

That and they lost Macgyver, he was pretty much the only reason to watch the show in the first place. Atlantis is only watchable because of Rodney, and only just barely, Dr Wier ftl.

 

You can only suspend disbelief so long before it changes from a neccesary aspect of storytelling to a crutch writers use to keep hobbling along without innovating.

Lost killed quite a few, Boon, his sister and mr ecko off hand, and thats one of the most popular shows on tv. Battlestar killed Ellen Tigh (huzzah!), Billy and Crashdown. Granted not many, but you don't need to kill many, the only regularly reccuring (good) character i can think of stargate killing, over 10 seasons, is the doctor, although i'm sure theres a few others, probably been someone on the ship they lost could be counted.

 

I hadn't realized they killed of Jacob Carter, who was pretty substantial character, but that doesn't really address how people die, or the consequences of their deaths. Crashdown might not have been in the opening credits, but he'd been around from the start and Baltar murdered him, in a combat situation, and everyone there COVERED IT UP. Ellen Tigh was executed for treason by her own husband, and Tigh's less then useless as an officer now because of it.

The only death on stargate that had anywhere near that severity and starkness was Martouf's, and he was pretty much forgotten within the next episode or two. Skaara the writers dodged and ascended instead of killing.

It's kind of a moot point though, because the question is whether Battlestar will still try to keep hobbling on in 7 years, and what will it look like then if it does (although i've heard good noises about the writers limiting themselves to 5 or 6 seasons.) In that situation, I can safely say i'd be pretty happy if it got cancelled and the funding and timeslot diverted to something fresh, rather then just continuing on with the same old thing over and over again, steadily creeping into absurdity.

 

No Sci-Fi show that runs 6+ seasons is going to regularly kill off 1 or 2 main characters regularly just to keep things fresh. Its the characters that people develop a bond with and watch every week. How far do you think TNG would have made it if they killed off Data or Picard on the 4th season.

I do think something like an SG2 or SG5 show would be good to. But it would start off with low ratings and they would deserpately bring back originals to try and boost the ratings. So instead bringing in new secondary characters is a good alternative and keeping your mains nice and healthy is the smartest way to keep a show going 10+ seasons.

These last couple seasons Ball has been great. The liason guy for the International oversight group has grown into a much better character in both SG1 and Atlantis. The Captains of the ships had also started to become better known so when original ship was lost in the fight the Priors it was pretty serious.

 

Thats my point though, once it goes on so long it's not about science fiction or interesting and thought provoking stories, it's about fans being overly-attached to their favorite characters and the writers killing the person standing next to them (figuratively and literally) 100+ times without them being ever being permanately "damaged." That will keep a show limping on for a looong time, but it also hamstrings the entire genre and never allows it to develop any further. Sci-fi is the best vehicle possible for exploring almost any issue, war, politics, morality, anything. Instead it's relagated to "planet of the week" boredom and petty moralising that an educated person would expect to hear from a pre-schooler, but that always manages to work out just fine in the end (for the people with a contract.) Why? Because people don't want to see anything bad happen to their favorite character.

TNG... I think you may need to go back and watch it again. It had some extremely good episodes, but many if not most are almost laughably bad, or incredibly stupid. It would have been massively improved if, for instance, the away team never included the bridge crew, but instead they cast relatively high profile guest stars and it was more of a revolving door. Instead of everyone knowing Ensign Ricky was dead the second he hit the planet, there would have been real, genuine suspense and a real question about whether they would have had to, say, sacrifice the entire away team to avoid losing the ship. But they never did that, or anything remotely like that.

No matter how bad a situation they we're put in, you ALWAYS knew everything would be back to normal in an episode or 3, with no cost but a few redshirts nobody had ever seen before anyway. You even got such laughably idiotic decisions such as passing up the chance to wipe out the entire borg collective because the crew became overly attached to one rogue drone. So Star Trek fans slowly bled away, and no-one else started watching, and now the franchise is dead in the water and dragged the entire sci-fi movie genre down with it.

Think about how awesome a movie series the original Homeworld would make, or the A Song of Ice and Fire books, or even something like Oblivion. Instead we got another shitty Star Trek movie, because the movie studies think sci-fi fans are just a cult of personality around there favorite characters. Or they hand us a pile of shit like Doom because that means they can write whatever the fuck they feel like and just capitalise on the name, or rape a classic like Starship Troopers because they can't stand to produce a story where people who even looks vaguely look like fascists are the "good guys."

On a side note, Baal was great when he first showed up, he was by far one of my favorite bad guys. He wasn't the OMFG INSANELY POWERFUL being from another universe, he was just another Goa'uld, not even a particularly powerful one, and he always tortured people with a smile on his face. The last time i saw an episode with him in it there were 12 or 14 of him standing in one room. Note the was part earlier.

 

I always enjoyed The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, etc. But all Sci-Fi tv series can't be like those. Sure I wish studios would let writers take more risks and throw out wild and crazy ideas more often. And some shows are starting to do that like Lost.

You have to remember that its a business and building a franchise that can sell dvds, toys, posters, books, etc. All the writers, directors, producers, actors, staff, etc are very happy to have a steady job and paycheck. They all want job security just as much as you do. Is it the best environment for great science fiction? Obviously not, but its what we got.

I think its not so much that I would hate to see SG1 completely gone, but instead the Stargate franchise. I would hate to see it just fade away once Atlantis is canned to.

 

True, but I wish instead of focusing on one single show in a franchise at a time, like they have done with Stargate (Atlantis is a step in the right direction, but its still basically the same thing with new faces) or to some extent Star Trek, it would be much better if they made many short, 2-3 season shows within the franchise. You said something similar earlier, but I'm going to take it a bit further. Alot of the story arcs they spend 2-3 episodes on on stargate they could easily spend 2-3 years telling if they didn't feel the need to have one group of people do everything.

If they made shorter run shows within a franchise they could create much more believable characters and tell much more nuanced stories, instead of just "how will SG-1 overcome overwhelming odds for the 14 or 15th time this year." Since individual characters are part of a larger whole and not the end-all be-all of the show, they could really develop and expand and wouldn't have to be continually "re-centered" to keep from changing the formula. A character could pick up a love interest that doesn't just disappear next episode, or make a mistake that kills their teammate, because that person was just a part of telling a story, not having a story about them told. It would cost more, but as long as they kept them more or less contemporary, they could reuse most of the props, sets and quite a few of the characters (with the exception of the trigger pullers, they'd have short contracts for obvious reasons) so it probably wouldn't hurt nearly as bad as it seems like it would at first. Both in terms of financially or in terms of job security. Best case scenario they would have to stop making those shitty sci-fi original movies to pay for it.

Instead of just creating a cult of personality around a few main characters, which is undoubtedly a great way to hold onto a certain portion of the market, they could create and incredibly rich universe and backstory that would do the genre credit, with all sorts of twists and turns. The bad guys could make geniune gains that really cost the good guys and put victory in doubt in any given battle. Stargate, which I should point out really was a fantastic idea for a television show imho, has ended up with a giant list of times SG-1 saved the world, or the universe.

So to end the rambling, yes i would like to see SG-1 gone, quite badly. That doesn't mean i want to see the Stargate franchise gone, but I think that they're basically riding their horse until its dead, which is a very bad idea, because then you're short a horse. Far better to bring 3-4 weaker horses and rest them intermittently, that to bring one strong horse and ride it into the ground. It costs more, but it has the potential to work waaay better. This is actually quite an entertaining debate and apologies to anyone reading with strong feelings about which there (their, they're?) people are supposed to use.

Also, last night they were showing ECW wrestling, which doesn't say much of anything good about the channel and I would hope everyone here can agree on that at the very least. Maybe that they've got plenty of free air time, but thats stretching.