Favourite Stargate Colonel

[Bry_Sinclair]

Following discussions on another site about SG-1 there were some who were quite shocked to hear that I'm not a fan of O'Neill and that I'd rather watch the Mitchell years instead. So I was just wondering of all of the Colonels (both full and lieutenant) who were main characters in all three Stargate shows, which one people preferred.

You can vote for either one or two, depending on how you yourself rate them.

 

[Jayson1]

I liked all of them but for me Mitchell has got to be my least favorite of the bunch, but I think that has more to do with the show not being as great as it once was. Well that and Browder is always going to be John Crighton before all else.
I went with Richard Dean Anderson's O'Neil. I do think his character is hurt more in the later years when the actor was ready to move on and he couldn't even be in many scenes in the episodes he was actually in.
I think Carter has got to have the biggest stretch of greatness. Only reason she isn't number one is O'Neil is just super funny.
Also the poll should probably be adjusted so people can vote for Kurt Russell's version of O'Neill as well.
Jason

 

[dahj]

Kurt Russell's version of O'Neill

One 'L'

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think Carter has got to have the biggest stretch of greatness. Only reason she isn't number one is O'Neil is just super funny.

Too funny, actually.

That's why I like Carter better than O'Neill. At least Carter gets serious sometimes.

 

[Jayson1]

Too funny, actually.

That's why I like Carter better than O'Neill. At least Carter gets serious sometimes.

Actually I think O'Neill was serious a great deal more than we give him credit in the early seasons. I'm not sure were the divergent point was when he became a comedian but I feel like their is one. Perhaps it's when he hair was allowed to be all grey.
Jason

 

[Claudia]

O'Neill

Mitchell and Sheppard were mere copies IMO. Carter was great as well, but she doesn't have that innate leadership-qualities. She's a scientist, and she can lead if she has to, but it's not her natural habitat.

 

[bigdaddy]

O'Neill by a mile. Charter is second, she had a bunch of bad years in the early show.

Sheppard and Mitchell are not mere copies. Sheppard is a copy of O'Neil mixed in with the poor writing that Mitchell had.

Mitchell is just completely useless, just filler. Yes the last few seasons weren't great, season 9 is almost unwatchable. However a lot of my issues come from Mitchell being such a horribly bland, useless, poorly written character. I honestly wish Stargate had the guts to kill him off 6 episodes in when Amanda Tapping came back from having a baby. They could have had a three or four person team depending on where Vala was.

Vala saved the post O'Neill years. It's some of the best writing and acting the show had ever seen because they took a scummy character who stole a ship and actually made her being able to join the team somewhat 'realistic'.

 

[Jedman67]

I thought Mitchell was pretty good. Certainly, he had his issues, but the writing was already getting a little stale and he didn't suffer any worse than the others.
For me, O'Neill is the Colonel, his humor was more dry than comedic, and he knew how to use all the tools at his disposal. I think making him the general after Davis retired wasn't the best move for his character, but it worked out. It was like he was half on SG1 and half CO at the same time.
Shephard was a cross between Vala and Mitchell; a military guy with some black spots in his past. He was purposefully written as someone O'Neill could relate to, with the same smart-mouth but a little more respectful of authority.

 

[John Clark]

O'Neill though Carter was close. I did like Sheppard (and Mitchell) but O'Neill was my favourite.

As for Everett Young, I wasn't a huge fan of the character, but I have liked the actor in this and a few other things I've seen him in.

 

[Tom]

O'Neill
Sheppard
Mitchell
Carter
Young

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Colonel Maybourne. He showed up enough times to be the Garak of the Stargate universe. And he ended up being the king of his own planet. Gotta love him.

After him, Makepeace. He was a jerk at the end, but until that point, he was awesome when he showed up. And he DID command SG-1. For like one mission. So for me, he counts as a "main" Colonel.

Mark

 

[USS Firefly]

O'Neill by far

 

[B.J.]

O'Neill definitely by far. But since @Mark_Nguyen mentioned Maybourne (a guy you love to hate), I had a look through the list of non-main character Colonels. I had forgotten a lot of them, but I did see three that I remember liking:

Steven Caldwell - commander of the Daedalus, bit of a hard-ass
Lionel Pendergast - second commander of the Prometheus, seemed to me like a very nice guy, gave his life for his crew
Chekov - Russian liaison and counterpart

 

[Jax]

O Neill is untouchable, he's the stand out character of the franchise for me because RDA plays him so well.

 

[John Clark]

Of the other non main cast Colonels, Pendergast was decent, and I also liked Dave Dixon - the heroes two parter (though he also appears in several of the novels)

 

[kirk55555]

I'd go with Mitchell followed by Jack. I like Carter but don't really consider her a leader, just someone who happened to have the rank. Sheppatrd is ok but not as good as the other two, and I don't know who Young is (probably from SG Universe).

 

[captainkirk]

I don't know who Young is (probably from SG Universe).

He's a jerk who pretty much tries to murder members of his crew.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

O'Neill, easy. He's got plenty of serious moments when the situation calls for it, he pulls out the hardline military side whenever it's needed and he gets heavy in emotional situations. Carter is close though.

Mitchell was a bit too wooden. Shephard was good but kind of generic hero type. I like Young but he didn't get the best writing.

 

[EmoBorg]

5) Jack O'Neill - Richard Dean Anderson played the role for years but i found that he phoned in his performance in the later seasons. You can see that he wanted to leave the show as a regular. I also did not like his light hearted attempt at humor in the series. He was a career military guy who lost a son to gun violence. He was not supposed to be making jokes in almost every scene.

4) Samantha Carter - The most consistent character from the SG-1 team. She was not a natural military leader but as a scientist, she used her brains to save the team and Earth so many times. Perhaps the most valuable SG-1 member.

3) Cameron Mitchell - Ben Browder always reminded me of Farscape along with Claudia Black. He made the later seasons of SG-1 watchable. I don't understand the hate for him but i actually liked him more than Jack O'Neill. He played a more straight up military guy who made the occasional joke.

2) John Sheppard - I actually liked him alot. John Sheppard, Rodney McKay and Carson Beckett made an interesting team when they went through the stargate on missions. His Jock military persona complimented well with Elizabeth Weir's civilian/scientist role in Atlantis. He was a natural leader.

1) Everett Young - I liked him the best. SGU was the darkest series in the stargate franchise and he played the role of a military commander stranded on a ship with a small contingent of soldiers and civilians. It was never gonna to be easy for him as a leader.

He did assault and leave Nicholas Rush to die on a planet but Nicholas Rush was a massive douchebag who framed Young for murder. He also mercy killed Hunter Riley at Riley's request.

Young did the hard things and he was having a unhappy family life at the time when he got stranded. He even assaulted David Telford after suspecting that Telford was having an affair with his wife.

He was a conflicted man and i kinda liked him for that.

 

[The Wormhole]

Mitchell and Sheppard were mere copies IMO.

Mitchell might have started as a copy, not just of O'Neill but even John Crichton was in there too. But by the end of season 10, the writers or Browder seemed to be getting a better handle on the character, unfortunately the show ended. Cameron Mitchell vastly improved the moment someone realized to stop treating him like a comedic character and start treating him as a serious one. Although he still got his share of sarcastic one-liners that are the due of a Stargate lead, the character seemed a lot more serious than O'Neill and Sheppard. One of the few reasons I think SG-1 should have gotten another year is just so we could have gotten to further flesh out and develop Mitchell into something other than a clone of the previous Stargate leads and Browder's other famous character.

He was a career military guy who lost a son to gun violence. He was not supposed to be making jokes in almost every scene.

In the early seasons O'Neill really was a rather serious minded person who simply had a severe problem containing his sarcasm, which according to former USAF Chief of Staff General Michael Ryan (who had a cameo in SG-1's Prodigy) is very common among USAF Colonels. It was later years when RDA grew less interested in the role that he turned into a goof-ball, though that had an entertaining side to it, IMO.

Anyway, my ranking of these characters:
Jack O'Neill, is simply the best. An entertaining guy to watch on weekly adventures with and an all around compelling character.
John Sheppard I like they intentionally made him sort of "anti-establishment" or at least as much of one as a military officer can be. He had definite skill and talent, but took a laid back approach to military lifestyle that would have ended his career had he not had the Ancient gene. Basically, an everyman thrust into a position of authority he didn't really want, but pulls it off all the same.
Cameron Mitchell, as I said earlier started off too much of a clone of Sheppard, O'Neill and Crichton. While the character vastly improved once everyone decided on a different direction to take the character, we didn't get enough of the improved Mitchell to warrant a higher ranking.
Samantha Carter, though there is much to like about the character, her time in the Colonel ranks was a bit of a disservice to her. When she got promoted to Lt. Colonel things started out okay with her rightfully taking command of the SG-1 team. Then she gets shoved back to second as Mitchell takes command and when the character gets promoted to "full-bird" Colonel and transferred to Atlantis, she's basically reduced to being a substitute Dr. Weir.
Everett Young had potential and I do have a bit of a soft spot for people burnt out at their job. Unfortunately, inconsistent writing throughout SGU and ham-fisted attempts at making the character so disinterested in his job he became incompetent really were a detriment,
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