How does SG-1 rank amongst all-time sci-fi TV shows?
- Thread starter indolover
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For myself its nothing much more then mindless empty fluff to waste an hour on. The material just never seem to treat itself that seriously even when in very serious situations. While most of the cast was likable (its strongest selling point), the actual material of the show was rather pedestrian.
Roughly the equal to Voyager and ENterprise in my book.
Roughly the equal to Voyager and ENterprise in my book.
It's fluff, good fluff for seven years but fluff nonetheless. It certainly wasn't reaching for anything beyond "here's a good way to kill an hour."
I never watched more than the occasional episode, but Stargate: SG-1 was a thoroughly competent sci-fi show. It does feel a little like a second-tier program during that brief flood of sci-fi shows in the 1990s, but it was a largely consistent one for ten years running.
Definitely one of the strengths was the cast, particularly Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel O'Neill and Christopher Judge as Teal'c. Having a likeable group of characters went a long way to making tuning in seem worthwhile.
Definitely one of the strengths was the cast, particularly Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel O'Neill and Christopher Judge as Teal'c. Having a likeable group of characters went a long way to making tuning in seem worthwhile.
Agreed. I loved the movie, but I felt the series didn't quite capture the same feeling. It had a lot of potential, something that the series never seemed to take advantage of, and in the end it seemed like they were being too safe, and it felt very repetitive.
I could never get into it, and it wasn't for lack of trying. I saw all of the first two seasons, and when that didn't catch my interest, I also watched the first season of Stargate Atlantis hoping that show would be better. It wasn't.
I don't know, the Stargate concept is interesting and very appealing to me, but nothing truly spectacular has been made out of it. In the first movie, we go through the Stargate and wind up in a stock movie desert with stock movie natives in rags and an animatronic yak monster. In the series it's just a bunch of trees and recycled TNG scripts. Budget limitations aside, the sheer wonder and storytelling potential of a literal doorway into the unknown has been almost completely lost, save for the first twenty minutes of the Roland Emmerich movie, when anticipation for what could be on the other side is effectively built.
Then they actually go through the damn thing and it's all downhill from there.
I don't know, the Stargate concept is interesting and very appealing to me, but nothing truly spectacular has been made out of it. In the first movie, we go through the Stargate and wind up in a stock movie desert with stock movie natives in rags and an animatronic yak monster. In the series it's just a bunch of trees and recycled TNG scripts. Budget limitations aside, the sheer wonder and storytelling potential of a literal doorway into the unknown has been almost completely lost, save for the first twenty minutes of the Roland Emmerich movie, when anticipation for what could be on the other side is effectively built.
Then they actually go through the damn thing and it's all downhill from there.
Outer Limits and Star Trek stand above the other. Babylon 5, Third Rock from the Sun, Alien Nation, SG-1 are the rest of the scifi series that are actually good. The Daniel Jackson character delivered the occasional drama they slipped in, but Richard Dean Anderson gave an outstanding performance in an action comedy series. That performance alone makes all the talk about mediocre nonsense.
It got even more awesome!
I love SG-1 and woudl rank it right up there with the very best.
The first season was good, I was even moved to tears by one or two episodes such as Brief Candle. After that, it was watchable television, nothing bad but nothing great either. They really should have ended at season 8 with the simultaneous defeat of both the Replicators and the Goa'uld. Instead we got some wierd Stargate/Farscape crossover thingy that was neither funny, scifi-ish nor action packed.
Time travel and dead people in purgatory don't count as sci-fi??
Most Sci-Fi series season one is shit
I agree with you on that one, I see Lost as a character driven drama and not a Sci-Fi show
Well, I thought the first half of season one was bad. After Thor's Hammer, the series took off, IMO.
I didn't start watching SG-1 until season 8 (hard to believe, I know), but I enjoyed what I saw so I watched season 1-5 as they aired on Scifi. At the time seasons 6 and 7 were new on DVD, so Scifi wasn't showing them and thus I wasn't exposed to the awesomeness that is Jonas Quinn until a few years later (yes, that was sarcasm). I still don't think I have seen all of season 7.
Even though I grew up on TNG, I find most of the episodes unwatchable today. SG-1 certainly had a leg up on TNG in that it wasn't preachy, had a far more compelling ensemble cast, and didn't avoid action and combat like the plague.
It's definitely sci fi, or at least sf/f due to the heavy fantasy element, but I interpret this thread as being specifically about the space opera variety of sci fi, where aliens and space travel take center stage (or at least space travel in BSG's case.)
And speaking of BSG, did I really forget to mention in when I listed the space operas that are better than Stargate?
Bad me.Stargate has a lot of great potential, but it would require a reboot and a new creative team. It's perennially at the top of my Needs a Reboot list. With the right approach, there's nothing stopping it from truly being on par with Star Trek.
There's nothing stopping a sci fi show, or a space opera show, from being character driven. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
Well, I think space opera is taking center stage here for two really simple reasons:
1. Stargate is basically a space opera, and a contemporary of many space opera TV shows. It's true the show largely elides the space travel part of the genre via the gate, but the rest of the bits fit. As such it's easier to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the program with Star Trek: The Next Generation or Farscape... although I suppose being a secret American group who are engaging with aliens you can compare the show to the X Files if one wanted to.
2. Star Trek forums. We like our space opera, no?
I find that it's an enjoyable series, for the most part (it has a clunky, inconsistent start for the first two years and goes out with a slow whimper once Richard Dean Anderson begins to scale back his role more and more, starting in season six). It was never something I would rank as great, though. Merely... competent. It was almost always best when it played things for comedy, and worse when it took itself too seriously. I have bootleg copies of the first five seasons, and legitimate copies of the last five. That seems good enough for me. It would hardly be worth buying on Blu-Ray if MGM ever paid the money for the upgrade.
The spin-offs aren't worth much, though for some reason I have all of Stargate Atlantis on DVD.
The spin-offs aren't worth much, though for some reason I have all of Stargate Atlantis on DVD.
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