Holy shit, that's a ton of content you went through there.
I could never get into SGA, but SGU looks interesting.
Any Stargate fans?
- Thread starter Riverside2233
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I could never get into SGA, but SGU looks interesting.
This pretty much sums up my feelings about SG-1.
I really liked Atlantis at the time of the original airing, but over this past winter I did a full re-watch of Atlantis, and it doesn't hold up as well as I originally thought. There are too many flawed bottle episodes, the whole Michael storyline was terrible, and the way the killed off Beckett was a bad joke.
I really hated Universe, especially the first season, but the last several episodes of the second season rank up there with some of my favorite Stargate episodes.
The SGU characters aren't really all that "gray." The series tried too hard trying to convince the audience Dr. Rush had a shady agenda for the weakest of reasons. Burnt out and worn out Colonel Young had his personal problems resolved too quickly and abruptly to be any kind of meaningful. Colonel Telford was brainwashed and turned out to be a decent guy after being de-programmed. Sgt. Greer may have had anger problems but he was achieving a level of redemption and wasn't that different from Teal'c or Ronon, minus he's from Earth. Everyone else on the show was pretty straight-laced.
My problem wasn't with them killing off Beckett, but rather with how his resurrection was handled. Really, I would have done it with the actual Beckett being captured by Michael and replaced with a clone who is sent back to Atlantis. The clone then fills in for the real Beckett with no one the wiser, and is the one killed by the exploding tumour. Then a year later, the real Beckett is found and rescued. If you're going to negate the character's death, might as well go all the way.
I only started watching Stargate a couple years ago, got the boxsets for SG-1, Atlantis and Universe, then binged as many episodes as I could at a time. Though going by what most others say, I realise that I'm somewhat odd in the SG fandom, as I love Universe and really enjoy SG-1 after Mitchell takes over (sorry RDA fans but he really doesn't do it for me).
I really liked Universe. It took a few episodes to sort itself out, and it didn't really take off until the second season, but I started enjoying it about halfway through season one, once most of the "resource of the week" episodes.
I think it was a mistake to have Colonel Young survive past the pilot, and not just because he was one of the weaker characters. It would have been far more interesting to see a junior officer like Lieutenant Scott (but maybe not necessarily him) forced into a command role because they were the highest ranking military person left on Destiny, and to see how they would have dealt with Doctor Rush (and vice versa).
I think it was a mistake to have Colonel Young survive past the pilot, and not just because he was one of the weaker characters. It would have been far more interesting to see a junior officer like Lieutenant Scott (but maybe not necessarily him) forced into a command role because they were the highest ranking military person left on Destiny, and to see how they would have dealt with Doctor Rush (and vice versa).
I only liked the acting by the non main cast. The main cast... way to be phoning in O_O.
I don't have problems killing off characters, but 'exploding tumor' should have been a joke that never made it out of the writers room. Besides, it was just a rip off of Grey's Anatomy, so that makes Beckett's death stupid, and lazy.
I won't even go into the whole episode preview for when they brought him back.
I hated the whole Beckett thing. I'm all for killing characters, but don't do it if you don't have the courage to stand up to the fan outrage and stick with it.
But it's generally not a good idea to antognise your fans. From memory Beckett was one of the more popular charactes on the show, so killing off popular characters is not a good idea to begin with, and the manner in which they did was a joke. Of course whilst killing off a popular character might not go down well some of those issues can be overcome with the manner in which it is done.
Rush would have walked all over them, but wouldn't a junior officer stepping into the senior role just be a rip-off of SG:A when Sheppard stepped in for Sumner after he was killed in the pilot.
But couldn't you make a case for Young stepping in for Telford. It's been a while since I watched the show but I got the impression that Telford was senior to Young and was supposed to go through the gate when they had unlocked the 9th Chevron.
Majors, like Sheppard, aren't inexperienced junior officers.
Telford was the one who was supposed to go to Destiny, not Young, but they were both of equal rank, though you're right that Telford might have had seniority. Still not the same, though.
I'd rather watch a show where the writers have a solid artistic vision and I'm along for the ride than one where the writers are going to pander to me. It would be fine if they had just never killed Beckett at all because obviously they did not have an artistic vision in that regard, but if they had killed him off for a good reason, they should have committed to it instead of caving in to fan whining.
Fans that whine and act entitled whenever a show makes a turn they don't agree with are the worst kind of fans, they shouldn't be the ones in charge of a show's direction.
I'd rather watch a show where my favorite characters die than one where the only reason the characters didn't die is that the writers scared of my reaction. Double backing on your decision to kill a character because fans got mad is creative cowardice.
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One thing unfortunatly trumps creativity, ratings. It's one thing to kil off a character in the service of a story, they did in effect kill Ford off and that didn't generate the same backlash from fans as killing off Beckett did. But as you say it comes down to artistic vision, it was almost as if they were doing a tonight somebody dies episode. Nothing wrong with Beckett's replacement Keller but perhaps it's just me but I think the show lost something when they killed Beckett off. When they in effect killed Ford off and replaced him with Ronan they added to the show. Same to a certain extent with Weir esp. when we got to Woolsey
It was quite a bit of binging during surgeries and recoveries over the last year where I couldn't do much else, so I decided to geek out on sci-fi series that I have always wanted to watch/read.
I like them taking the chance with the CSI homage. The only frustrating thing in hindsight is that it was the next to last episode (i think) of the whole series. I guess they really did not know they were getting cancelled until the last minute since they had all those plans for S6.
I remember just thinking..."this is it??" I'm glad the books are carrying on the SG1 / SGA universe to some degree.
Exploding tumors were a thing as far back as SG-1's first season, the whole thing with Cassandra.
Beckett's death was creative bankruptcy anyway. He was only killed because the writers thought they could shake things up and get people watching by killing a beloved character. Unfortunately, they underestimated how beloved he was and realized they could drive viewers away by getting rid of him, so he was brought back.
Young was in fact senior to Telford. Young was Icarus Base's commanding officer, Telford was commanding the team which was meant to go to Destiny and still had to answer to Young. Indeed, in season 2 when Telford is on Destiny, he is subordinate to Young. It is true, Young was O'Neill's first choice to lead the Destiny team, but turned it down, resulting in Telford getting command of the team.
I've seen all 10 seasons of SG-1
I plan to one day do a watch through of Atlantis and Universe.
I'd call myself a modest fan.
I plan to one day do a watch through of Atlantis and Universe.
I'd call myself a modest fan.
Holy crap, I forgot about that! I guess the difference (at least in my mind) is that SG-1 handled it better, especially with Sam's reaction to leaving Cassandra down in that bunker. SG:A just made it seem like an overly cheesy sci-fi episode.
Still, exploding tumors are a dumb idea.
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