SG:A Series Post-Mortem

[Temis the Vorta]

So? Whaddya think?

First thought: the existential despair that alt-Shep displayed in Vegas - and was hinted at throughout the series for reg-Shep - never really amounted to much.

Too bad. It's intriguing to me that to volunteer for a mission like Atlantis requires that people basically either abandon their ties on Earth or not have any to begin with. The latter would be less of a strain and would probably work out better in the long term, but then what kind of people do you end up with on this mission?

And if this aspect of Shep had been explored - not just the prototypical "lone wolf" type but someone more dysfunctional than that - how would he have interacted with a character like Ronan, who used to be happily a part of a larger society that was stolen from him? Would Ronan resent Shep for having discarded something that Ronan had lost through no fault of his own? Would Shep envy Ronan, that he had that to begin with?

 

[Morpheus 02]

Good thought to begin this with, Temis. i'd agree that except for Weir, that issue has hardly been touched on, at least not as a major sotry line. We did see glances of Radik & Beckett missing their families over the show; while Rodney seemd a perfect fit for this mission, socially.

i think there were a LOT of concepts that were thoguht up but never explored..perhpas the sum of our post mortem will echo that.

My aspect would be that the characters didn't really have a story arc. They were perhaps different enough to be distinct characters in a movie. But beyond that, there seemd to be no thought how to grow them, or make some of them grow in relationship.

One major one to me would be Lt. Ford. When we see him in the pilot, he does a backward dive into the gate, like he's done this before & is an experienced vet of Stargate Missions. This would have been a great counterpoint in the 1st season, where the subordinate is far more experienced than his immeidate commanding officer, and winds up teaching SHepard a thing or two.

It wold have been nice for Teyla to grow into something that she can become later, like a true leader fo the Pegasus galaxy.



One last gripe-- the humans seemed so...UNalien. Any reason why they looked like Western europeans of 1 millenium ago...i mean nearly ALL of them???

One the plus side, we did see some great actors, such as the actors who played Shepard, McKay & Beckett.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

But beyond that, there seemd to be no thought how to grow them, or make some of them grow in relationship.

Yeah these people all needed arcs. At least the major characters needed them.

Shep - Start out highly dysfunctional, far more so than meets the eye, since he has become adept at hiding it. Arc is for him to find a family on Atlantis. That might seem far too "easy" of an arc, so for him, the obstacle will have to be some deep-seated dyfunction. Fear of abandonment, perhaps. I never bought the backstory of him as a rich boy. I could more easily see him as a semi-abandoned offspring of very messed up parents.

McKay - He starts as an arrogant coward; his arc is to become more humble and less cowardly. All the arcs don't have to be particularly surprising or profound.

Ronan - Given his backstory, I could see him as a nihilistic killer, someone who starts out not giving a shit about the Atlanteans, and gets drawn into their struggle despite himself. But there should have been more of an initial barrier to this. It was too easy and natural for him.

Teyla - No idea what her arc could have been, but she sure needed something.

Woolsey - Actually did have a decent character arc.

One major one to me would be Lt. Ford. When we see him in the pilot, he does a backward dive into the gate, like he's done this before & is an experienced vet of Stargate Missions. This would have been a great counterpoint in the 1st season, where the subordinate is far more experienced than his immeidate commanding officer, and winds up teaching SHepard a thing or two.

I like this idea. I would have introduced a different character, someone older, who was a veteran of SG missions. Remember, Shep ended up in Atlantis more or less by accident. Why wouldn't there be far more experienced people around, who had been on many missions parallel to SG-1?

 

[DarKush]

I'm a casual watcher of Atlantis, and I didn't realize the lack of character arcs. This is a pretty interesting conversation.

I think that Rodney did have something of a character arc. He started out way more of a self-important jerk in the beginning and mellowed enough over time to get a relationship with Dr. Keller. Other than that, I struggle to come up with character arcs for the rest of them.

As for Teyla, perhaps they should've not started her off as the leader of the Athosians. Perhaps she was the one Athosian that wanted to help them while the rest of her people were afraid, and because of that they shunned her, she was willing to risk that. And the mutual discarding of their peoples/homes could've been something that Teyla and Shep shared. Her conflict between choosing her people and the Atlantis team would've been ongoing for her, perhaps also the clash of cultures.

Her arc could've been growing into a person, a leader, willing to reconnect with her people and teach them all of the wonderful things she learned as part of the Atlantis team.

One other thing, I definitely agree with the lack of creativity for the Pegasus denizens. I thought Teyla should've been far more alien for example.

 

[Hermiod]

My post-mortem analysis ? Death by bad scheduling. Bit of an epedemic of that going on on Sci-Fi these days.

 

[Captain Shaw]

To me Stargate Atlantis is a bit like star trek voyager a show that start out with some much promise but was badly let down by the writing.
I think they got in contact with earth to soon.
I think the first season was the best season mainly because it had a mini arch from brotherhood up to the siege after that they did not seem to know what to do with the show.
I loved shows like letters from pegasus ,critical mass and the shine and i wish the writers could have come up with more gems like this.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think that Rodney did have something of a character arc. He started out way more of a self-important jerk in the beginning and mellowed enough over time to get a relationship with Dr. Keller.

I never really bought his relationship with Keller - seemed really shoehorned in. I don't think McKay had much of an arc, but in a way, I don't know if I'd have wanted to see that. He's more of a character "type" and would be perfectly okay just as a backdrop character to the ones who do have arcs. Because for a character to have an arc, they have to have other characters to play off of, so you see their progression over time. If everyone has a major arc, that can get complicated.

Here's another key topic: Michael. The episode where he was introduced is probably my favorite of the entire series, despite the fact that the plotline worked only because Our Heroes were written as idiots (not an isolated example of that, either). I thought it was intriguing that Michael was presented as being in the right or at least not obviously in the wrong. But that angle was dropped in favor of simplistic villanous characterization. Even then, the villany angle might have been okay if other tired cliched aspects of the character - the haunted house makeup and distorted voice - had been dropped.

How about if Michael learned how to re-establish his ability to feed without altering his human appearance? Or if he were accepted by the Wraith despite his altered appearance? Either way, he would have been able to infiltrate human societies without raising suspcion. Maybe more Wraith could have been altered in this way, effectively turning the Atlanteans' experiment against them.

These human-appearing Wraith would have been a more interesting fifth column than the Wraith worshippers, and come to think about it, what ever happened with those guys? That plotline was never put to any good use that I noticed.

As for Teyla, perhaps they should've not started her off as the leader of the Athosians.

Or go ahead and make her a leader but have that lead to conflict with Atlantis. It was unrealistic and boring that there was never any real conflict between her role as leader and her alliance with Atlantis. How about taking the same dynamic as with the Genii and giving that role to Teyla?

This would work better if the Athosians hadn't been so technologically limited. Or if their contact with Atlantis and being protected from the Wraith led to quick technological advances that made them more demanding of the alliance - less happy to just go along with any hare-brained scheme, perhaps resentful of a bunch of interlopers from another galaxy taking over their fight.

Why wouldn't the Athosians feel they had more of a right to be the leaders of this fight? Why would they feel indebted to the Atlantis crowd, whose ability to fight the Wraith was gleaned largely from Ancients tech - not anything they developed on their own, and which would just as rightfully belong to the Athosians? Teyla could have benefitted greatly from being more Koyla-esque. Lack of conflict is the thing that kills drama.

Teyla's arc could have been her realization that she doesn't need the frakkin' Atlanteans, evolving from an ally into something more like an enemy. Character arcs don't have to be "nice," and an arc like that would have given Teyla an important role in the story instead of just being this person who tags along in a fight or needs to be rescued.

And since a lot of the arcs I've been thinking of are "good" - Shep learns to deal with people, McKay becomes less of a dick - having a "bad" arc for some of the characters will avoid the whole thing being too pollyanna-ish.

 

[USS Kongo]

To me Stargate Atlantis is a bit like star trek voyager a show that start out with some much promise but was badly let down by the writing.
I think they got in contact with earth to soon.

I agree. They should have stayed lost from earth for far longer than they did. The first season was all the better for the fact that the Atlantis team had to rely on themselves. It just made it more interesting, overall.

Sean

 

[steveman]

One of the show's biggest problems? Not accepting that the Genii were the show's best, most interesting adversaries. Not having the guts to say "Frak, the Genii are more interesting than the Wraith! Gosh, well... let's bite the bullet and do what's best for the show."

Of course, you can't cut the Wraith out of the show completely; too much money was spent on costumes, props, sets, etc. But you don't do something as patently absurd as trying to cover up your happy accident (the Genii) with an onslaught of uninspired Wraith and... (gulp) Replicator stories to make the audience forget the Genii existed.

I think the show itself, in a funny, organic way, was trying to tell the writers exactly this. In the episode this season where Sheppard, Woolsey, and McKay saw their inner thoughts/emotions mainfested in "physical" form (Woolsey thought of an attractive woman, McKay thought of Zalenka) Sheppard, whose thoughts concerned his fears, thought of Kolya.

Not any of the countless Wraith he had encountered. Not the replicators. Kolya. A Genii.

I find that pretty damned ironic.

And even though we became more friendly with the Genii after Ladon became their leader, there was nothing stopping the writers from having him overthrown or turning against Atlantis. I would've loved to have seen that.

 

[Hyperspace05]

SG:A was slowly killed by the consistent inability of the writers/showrunners to take any kind of risks. At all. Now that is a constant theme running throughout the televised SG universe shows, but for some reason it seemed to be amplified in SG:A.

Perhaps the showrunners were getting tired of SG:A. Why do I say that? Because they simply made no effort in trying to create an arc for the closing episodes of season 5. Most seasons had some threat building over the last few episodes that reached a crisis point, yet they just filled the latter parts of season 5 with standalone episodes. Fillers. Just inexcusable IMO. Thus, when the cancellation came with two episodes left - they were in deep trouble. They had no arc in place which they could resolve easily in a finale. So what do they do? They were so invested into doing a fun "Vegas" episode that they went ahead with it anyway. Idiots. But when they don't seem to care, why should we?

In retrospect it is clear that season 1 was my favorite season. The tension of being cut off from Earth was on display, and it had some of the IMO best episodes of the show: "Rising I/II", "The Storm", "The Eye", "Before I Sleep", "The Siege I/II"

My favorite villains: The Genii (complex enemies with their own agendas are much more interesting than the over-the top Wraith acting like savages)
My least favorite villains: A tie between Michael (ducks and runs ) and Replicators (did we really need this SG:1 rehash???)

My overall favorite episode: "Before I Sleep"


Oh I forgot to add one thing... I truly hope to never see the Ren-Fair set again. Ever.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

One of the show's biggest problems? Not accepting that the Genii were the show's best, most interesting adversaries.

Forget the Athosians altogether and have the Genii be the people Atlantis first makes contact with, and blunders into the awakening-the-Wraith scenario with. So there are recriminations all around from the start and they are forced into a mutually irritating alliance to clean up their joint screw-up.

And of course the Genii care a lot more about protecting their own world than the Atlanteans' insistence on saving all of Pegasus (a quixotic goal that requires the extermination or genetic alteration of an entire species).

Kolya, or a character like him, can take Teyla's place in the show, at least for as long as the alliance persists. Because of course it's doomed sooner or later. Maybe instead of Kolya, it's one of his underlings, who develops divided loyalties as the show progresses.

Sheppard, whose thoughts concerned his fears, thought of Kolya.

Shep can identify with Kolya - he represents the natural end result in doing what Shep does everyday, namely using violence to defend his home planet. Shep can't identify as much with Wraith and Replicators, so he naturally fears something he knows he can become.

You could even say Shep's envisioning of having his hand lopped off represents a fear of losing an essential part of himself in becoming as ruthless as Kolya but now I think I'm giving this show too much credit again.

 

[Gotham Central]

One of the biggest problems with Atlantis was the complete lack of introspection and reflection. The Atlantis Expedition did ALOT of really stupid and careless stuff. Yet they never ONCE seriously considered the fact that they were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands. The writers had one opportunity to address that this season, and instead they blew it off and made the residents of Pegasus seem petty and vindictive for brigning up their wrong doing.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Atlantis Expedition did ALOT of really stupid and careless stuff. Yet they never ONCE seriously considered the fact that they were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands.

I don't think the writers intended the characters to be that stupid; it was just how they got written. Otherwise, why would the IOA allow them to continue their epic incompetence?

I knew long before it happened that the Wraith were bound to get the directions to Earth from the Atlantis computers. Why couldn't anyone involved in the mission predict that too? Because the writers didn't want them to, not because it was realistic that anyone with the Atlantis expedition's level of responsibility would be so massively stupid.

For Atlantis to be deliberately written as incompetent and careless would have been an interesting direction to take. But then how could we have a shred of sympathy for them? Characters need to be smart and competent or we lose respect for them.

A better idea: Atlantis is in Pegasus solely to safeguard Earth from the Wraith (perhaps assuming they'll find their way to Earth eventually so exterminating them while they are still far away is a smart idea). In the process, some Pegasans get killed or endangered. Couldn't be helped, but I can see how they'd be annoyed. That way we can have the same storyline but nobody needs to be stupid.

 

[steveman]

Sheppard, whose thoughts concerned his fears, thought of Kolya.

Shep can identify with Kolya - he represents the natural end result in doing what Shep does everyday, namely using violence to defend his home planet. Shep can't identify as much with Wraith and Replicators, so he naturally fears something he knows he can become.

You could even say Shep's envisioning of having his hand lopped off represents a fear of losing an essential part of himself in becoming as ruthless as Kolya but now I think I'm giving this show too much credit again.

Definitely too much credit.

And I don't think Kolya ever truly used violence to defend his home planet. I look at almost everything Kolya did and see a man who was only ever fighting for himself and his own self-interests. Both he and Shep were soldiers, but I think that's were the comparison ends.

 

[bigdaddy]

I'll keep it quick..

Huge letdown.

 

[Harvey]

I have a hard time with any discussion about Teyla that states, "maybe if the writers did X instead of Y she would have worked..." because, even when the writing for her character was half-decent (season one), Rachel Lutrell was still a terrible actress. Sometimes, there's no saving a bad performance.

Ford being dropped completely was a mistake, after four guest appearances in season two (haven't seen his few seconds of screen time in season five yet). He should have remained a constant, recurring threat/ally to Atlantis.

Ronan never should have joined the team, and never should have been a regular. He would have been far more interesting as a character with his own agenda that could switch from being a friend/foe. In the end, they brought in Todd to fill this role. Perhaps Todd could have been brought around a lot sooner, or Ronan could have filled the role instead.

Keller was a big mistake. The writing was weak, and I don't think Staite's performance ever gelled into anything interesting. Making the character so young made her completely unbelievable. For all the talk about it being important to keep the Stargate Earth the same as our Earth, it seems awfully easy to graduate medical school in record time and get the best posting in the universe to me.

Weir's exit was poorly planned, and the departure of the actress due to the producer's treatment of her left the storyline without any satisfying resolution in my mind.

Beckett's death was executed fairly well, I thought. But the crew didn't mourn him at all past the last five minutes of "Sunday," leading me to wonder what the entire point of his death was?

 

[Barbados Slim]

All roads lead to piss poor writers. The premise was sound and ripe with potential for high adventure unique from SG-1. But they blew their was with The Siege, didn't plan out where the characters or The Wraith should go and the rest was meandering with a bit of good stuff in the middle.

 

[DWF]

In the end Stargate Atlantis was something of a throwback to space operas of the '90s including SG1 and it showed at times and people have gotten alittle tired of that kind of storytelling. They told serious and comedic stories as well as having story arcs and alot of reaccuring characters and some nice visual effects.

 

[cylkoth]

I'm not tired of good old fashioned space opera. Franchise fatigue my Auntie Loo. What I did grow tired of was the work from the mostly same group of writers. No matter how good a writer you are, you can. over an extended period of time, run out of interesting plotlines to spin within the confines of your own personal tastes. This is what happened here, just as it happened with Star Trek.

I love the show, the concept of the show. There was so much that could have been done better, different, or not at all-Lucius Loven... Gak! My choice for 2nd worst decision of all, was making the Pegasus humans so backwater..I mean the entire galaxy, save a few exceptions? Because the humans were so flaccid, it became frustrating watching the Expedition wasting their time and energy trying to save them. Where were the roguish adventurers, the Wraith fighters, the soldiers? The humans that searched for Ancient tech, and didn't lose it, or blow up a solar system? And then the poor saps go and put them on trial, driving a wedge between them and the most technologically advanced group around?

And the No1 most aggravating thing ATL did was turning the Gatebuilders into total morons. And then have the characters badmouth them whenever they discovered an age old experiment that didn't conveniently work to solve their current problems with the push of a button. It just seems incredulous that our Earth heroes with a meager 12 years of interplanetary experience, could pull off feats that the people who created the technology being used couldn't. People who lived for millions of years, in multiple galaxies.

 

[DWF]

I'm not tired of good old fashioned space opera. Franchise fatigue my Auntie Loo. What I did grow tired of was the work from the mostly same group of writers. No matter how good a writer you are, you can. over an extended period of time, run out of interesting plotlines to spin within the confines of your own personal tastes. This is what happened here, just as it happened with Star Trek.

So you must've gotten tired of Star Trek after about three or four seasons of DS9 then. And yeah that's called franchise fatigue.