Stargate SG-1: Cancelled!

[Mark Fletcher]

Bleh.

Ok so this show is beginning to shows its age, but damn I still like it and its a shame to see it go. In retrospect, it should have been cancelled at the end of Season 7 when Anubis was "killed". They *really* should have cancelled it at the end of the Season 8 when Anubis was reallly finished off, and Richard Dean Anderson left the show.

Season 9 was supposed to be the shows "reboot" with the arrival of the Ori. In the latest season the war is just heating up. Now while I agree with cancelling the show, I just dont think 10 episodes is enough time to wrap up a storyline involving near godlike invaders from another galaxy .

It reminds me of a similar situation with Bablyon 5. The "war" in that series was supposed to be wrapped up at the end of the 5th season. However at the time of the production of the 4th season, the 5th season was looking unlikely, so they wrapped it up there. Then we had the 5th season, which was effectively (IMO) a bunch of crap filler episodes.

What Im trying to say is that wrapping the whole Ori thread up in 10 eps isnt enough. I hope they make a spinoff movie tho. At least Atlantis is still going

All of you non-scifi geeks wont get this. Thats ok. Nobodies perfect

[Mike Van]

Mark,

Could you post a link to whatever message you have announcing the cancellation?

[Mark Fletcher]

Theres a posting over on Slashdot and also Gateworld.net

[Jeroen T Wenting]

it should never have been made into a TV show. The movie was nice, but the TV show was rather pathetic IMO.
Constant repetition of the same basic storyline.
Team finds planet with primitive human culture. Culture shows signs of Guaoult tampering. Enemies appear. Team fights. Enemies destroyed and humans freed. Episode ends.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:
it should never have been made into a TV show. The movie was nice, but the TV show was rather pathetic IMO.
Constant repetition of the same basic storyline.
Team finds planet with primitive human culture. Culture shows signs of Guaoult tampering. Enemies appear. Team fights. Enemies destroyed and humans freed. Episode ends.

Yet, the same thing can be said for shows like The Honeymooners, The Flintstones, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, Kind of Queens, The Jetsons....

Goofy unattractive man with mediocer job marries young hot wife. Man does something to make wife mad. Man finds someway to apologize. Wife forgives man. Rinse and repeat.

But the shows are still fun to watch.

[Jim Yingst]

The cancellation was also announced yesterday on the Sci Fi Channel website, scifi.com.

Personally I think the series has been pretty good over time, better than the movie that spawned it. Yes, there's been a fair amount of repetition of some plotlines, particularly in the first few seasons - though many episodes aren't anything like what Jeroen describes. They've done a good job of keeping the series varied, I think. And Richard Dean Anderson was always fun to watch, with a great sardonic sense of humor. I was sorry to see him go a couple years ago, but now we have Ben Browder and Claudia Black, and it's great seeing them onscreen again. Claudia in particular seems to be having a blast playing a completely different sort of character from what she did on Farscape. Ben however still reminds me of Crichton - I keep expecting him to open up a wormhole, rather than dial up the gate.

As for wrapping up plotlines - well actually I've fallen behind in my viewing of late, so I can't say much about the most recent episodes. I can say that I haven't cared much about the Ori - they seem to be used for rather heavy-handed metaphors about the worst aspects of organized religions. Not that I necessarily disagree, but the writers were laying it on a bit thickly in season 9, I thought. And the whole Arthur/Camelot/Merlin stuff was a bit silly for me. So anyway - I don't think it would be that difficult to wrap things up in ten episodes, wherever they are. Just have the Ancients finally get off their butts (almost said "encounter-suited butts" there!) and have a nice big battle with the Ori over a couple episodes. The Ori needn't be completely destroyed, just weakened substantially. Or yes, the Wraith could get into the fray, and then the whole plotline could just transfew over to Atlantis instead.

Anyway, ten years is a pretty good run for a science fiction series - I think only Doctor Who has it beat. And while there are a number of other shows I ultimately enjoyed more than SG-1, I still have to say: they did a good job, and the series will be missed.

[Fletch]: It reminds me of a similar situation with Bablyon 5. The "war" in that series was supposed to be wrapped up at the end of the 5th season.

Mmmm, my understanding was that season 4 would have ended with Sheridan's capture by the Earth Alliance (Shadows and Vorlons having already departed). Removing Clark from office would have occurred within the first four or five episodes of season 5, followed by the formation of the Interstellar Alliance and new problems in the postwar period. In terms of timelines, not that vastly different than what we saw. The main problem is that impending cancellation made them complete the existing plotlines, and omit any setup for the new plotlines. So season 5 began with little in the way of existing plots to address, extra time to fill beyond what was originally planned, and JMS was really pretty burnt out by all the effort spent on the previous seasons. So yeah, we agree that season 5 was mostly pretty sucky - I'm just disagreeing on some of the details.

[Mark Fletcher]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
The cancellation was also announced yesterday on the Sci Fi Channel website, scifi.com.

[Fletch]: It reminds me of a similar situation with Bablyon 5. The "war" in that series was supposed to be wrapped up at the end of the 5th season.

Mmmm, my understanding was that season 4 would have ended with Sheridan's capture by the Earth Alliance (Shadows and Vorlons having already departed). Removing Clark from office would have occurred within the first four or five episodes of season 5, followed by the formation of the Interstellar Alliance and new problems in the postwar period. In terms of timelines, not that vastly different than what we saw. The main problem is that impending cancellation made them complete the existing plotlines, and omit any setup for the new plotlines. So season 5 began with little in the way of existing plots to address, extra time to fill beyond what was originally planned, and JMS was really pretty burnt out by all the effort spent on the previous seasons. So yeah, we agree that season 5 was mostly pretty sucky - I'm just disagreeing on some of the details.

Youre most likely right - I didnt read any official sources as to what the plotlines for S4 and S5 were originally meant to be, but I base my assumption on the fact that at the end of S3, the Shadow war was really beginning to hit its stride, and concluding it part way through S4 seemed premature.

[Jim Yingst]

Here's a chat transcript, addressing the issue in the first few questions. And here is more discussion. It's still a bit ambiguous when the shadow war would have ended, but I seem to recall a JMS post years ago indicating it would've been in the latter part of season 4. Which seems consistent with the other numbers. I think JMS was heavily influenced by Lord of the Rings, with its rather extended denoument after the climax at Mount Doom. Think of season 5 as being like the hobbits taking on Sharkey back in the Shire.

Also, I remember JMS commenting a few times that he thought it was important to show not just the war, but how the societies got into the war in the first place, and how they got out of it. That the choices made during these transitions were important to him, as much as the battles.

Ah, here are some quotes sorta along those lines:

It's often the aftermath that holds the greatest interest. The Civil War tells one kind of interesting story; the Reconstruction that followed, which endured for many years longer than the war, tells another, just as interesting story.

There's a line one of the characters will say soon, "The duration's going to be a lot longer than the war." It's a very true comment.

One of my favorite books is "Alas, Babylon," by Pat Frank, which is about a nuclear war (written in the early 60s). But the war happens entirely off-stage, way in the distance...and the book focuses on one small township dealing with the after effects, and the day-to-day realities of surviving in a changed world. I've always been partial to that kind of storytelling.

...

As for the story being over...not by a long sight. Frankly, some of what's coming in the latter part of this season is more intense than anything we've done previously. We really focus in on the characters and the after-shocks of the war, in ways usually ignored.

After all, we all know how nice and calm and civilized Europe was after the War To End All Wars came to an end...we hardly heard a peep from that part of the world thereafter....

[ August 22, 2006: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

[Jeroen T Wenting]

Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:


Yet, the same thing can be said for shows like The Honeymooners, The Flintstones, Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, Kind of Queens, The Jetsons....

Goofy unattractive man with mediocer job marries young hot wife. Man does something to make wife mad. Man finds someway to apologize. Wife forgives man. Rinse and repeat.

But the shows are still fun to watch.

Yup, most of those are also repetitive after a few episodes.
Watching the Flintstones or the Jetsons once a month or so is nice, but twice a week?

[Mark Fletcher]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Here's a (Mucho snipped Mark F)

[ August 22, 2006: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]

Thanks for clearing that up, I hadnt heard the offical line.

[Angela Poynton]

One day Jeroen, one day I will see you post something positive. You are so wrong and are only proving that you never really watched it. Obviously with the Goa'uld being the main nemesis there are a lot of Goa'uld related plots, just like Star Trek and other such shows did with their main nemesis, but there was plenty of other enemies and dangers to avoid and the characterisation was fabulous. Excellent mix of characters and "types" that provided ample humour and tension.

SG1 is my favourite TV show and I'm gutted to say the least.
I can't keep up with it on TV here cos it never seems to be showns regularly anywhere anymore, so I wait for the series DVD box-sets and am a number of series behind, think Season 8 is the last one I got, for me Richard Dean Anderson MAKES it so I can't begin to imagine it without him and was already upset to hear that that was coming to me, and now it's gone completely I'm really sad.
I've tried watching Atlantis but it just doesn't do it for me.