How would you have done SG: Atlantis differently?

[PorthosShadow]

I don't know if I can come up with anything different than what has already been posted so far but here is my wish list...

1. Keep the cast together for the entire run of the series or at least let one or two of them go by year 4 or 5 so we actually miss them instead of saying "I wonder if he/she might have..."

2. More episodes focused on the city and it's "mysteries" that apparently are still mysterious.

3. Col. Sumner doesn't die and becomes a kind of mentor of Shepard over the course of the series.

4. The expedition discovers a group of earth like advanced civilizations that have managed to withstand The Wraith over thousands of years.

5. In about season four they find either all the ZPM's they need or an equivilent powersource so they can finally use the entire city the way it was meant to but it causes more problems than it solves.

6. No more rustic villages.

7. Richard Kind never gets to guest star on the show, ever.

8. The Geni play a far more prominent role if for no other reason than Colm Meany can be a longer re-occuring guest star along Robert Davi.

9. Handing out the ancient gene to everyone has some serious consequences or stops working after a while forcing them to find another way to interact with the ancient technology.

10. Finally, in order to power the shields some random guy replaces all the 1000 watt light bulbs in the city.

 

[cylkoth]

10. Finally, in order to power the shields some random guy replaces all the 1000 watt light bulbs in the city.

As beautiful as the city was during night scenes, I was wondered why the lights were on in every building in the city when the expedition only numbered around a couple of hundred....

 

[tharpdevenport]

First off, I would have had some better writting and plotting. Some serious recasting, better leads, more interesting characters. And I would have made it out to be this exciting new thing -- that they were going to be exploring a new area of space that would be nothing more than scientific research -- no bumping into bad guys.

They run into the same situation that they did in the pilot with the Stargate and having to get there in emergency. It's then I throw in the firt moinous sign, the last few people in the wormhole are killed when it collapses while they are mid stream, and one person makes it half way threw the event horizon when it shuts off, cutting him in two, sending him down dead. Personnel lost, some supplies lost.

Atlantis is a mess; it's been plumdered and damaged by unknown persons; power is down and it looks grim. Everyone goes to sleep for the night.

BOOM! There is an explosion. Somone has sabotaged the mission. Atlantis is now sinking. The leader immediately orders three parties to search the station for an esacpe pod(s) or ship.
Atlantis start fililing with water, bulk heads collapsing, areas being cut off. A big ship is found -- maybe a long range cargo vessel. There's enough room for everybody.
They're about to be flooded. With tears in their eyes, they have to leave one of the three parties behind and take off. They circle the wake of the sinking, looking for survivors, but they are never found.

The ship is stripped down a bit for parts. There's no food, and not enough power to last forever. They got two weeks of rations, maybe more if they stretch it. They enter hyperspace and hunt for a planet. Two week pass and they find a planet. The air is toxic from volcanic activity -- no food, and they can't even land and exit (no space suits). Another week passes. No planets found. People start starving, rations are being rationed beyond what they should be.
Six weeks pass, food is almsot gone, one person has died from starvation, power is failing -- no power and the system can't keep making air.
Everyone is growing tired, another person dies from starvation. Then, suddenly, they are boarded. By hostile aliens. They fight for their vary lives. Another person dies in the battle. In the end they win and relunctantly, they cannobolize the ship for anything to keep them going, including computer records of the star system, so they head for a habbitle planet.

I RELENTLESSLY TORTURE these people episode, after episode, after episode, to the point where they fucking crack. Hostile aliens, peaceful alien with intentions not so positive, theaft amongst the crew, even rape. Two groups are starting to form, and we still don't know who sabotaged Atlantis or why, so they still got a traitor in their midst. Tensions are very high, murder and mutany is in the air.

That should carry the first two seasons.

 

[bullethead]

-snip-

So, you have SGU, just with more nBSG and less family friendliness.

 

[tharpdevenport]

No, I have good writting and plotting, unlike SG:U, and these are only set up moves to a bigger plot around Atlantis and what happened to the Ancients.

 

[Meredith]

I would have have REAL LIVING ANCIENTS show up, but not living in the "Planet of the Ruins" but in "O'neil Cylinder(hah hah)" type space colonies at the opposite edge of the galaxy. Have them be powerful but unwilling to do anything about the wraith problem, Have our team make a collosal blunder that leads the wraith straight to them. This ends up feeding the wraith Billions, with a Capital B Ancients to them and give them a MASSIVE powerup!

 

[bullethead]

No, I have good writting and plotting, unlike SG:U, and these are only set up moves to a bigger plot around Atlantis and what happened to the Ancients.

Actually, your plot has a massive hole in it: why would the SGC allow a science expedition to go somewhere with little to no chance of support without a major military contingent to defend them? After all of they've gone through, why would they assume that Atlantis would be some place that might not get them into trouble?

 

[stj]

No Wraith. Physical jeopardy is overrated. The Stargate system is partially shut down, especially the guidance system.

Primary focus on Atlantis, including boats in harbors, elevators to the ocean floor and subways to shore farms.

The Ascended of the Pegasus galaxy have imposed the Renaissance Faire crap as more spiritual. They're way stuffier and bossier than the Milky Way Ascended but not outright evil like the Ori. Then, the Atlantis mission becomes Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. Away missions are for recruiting new farmers and workers for the rebirth of Ancient civilization. The mission members are constantly choosing in new situations between a society aimed exclusively at Ascension, and a technological civilization with medicine, television and war.

The Geni can still be on as the evil twins of the Atlantis missions, very technological but very military. The temptation to form a permanent union that undoes the benevolent intentions of the Atlantis mission recurs.

The other end, the creation of psychic powers by genetic alterations, comes into play. A society of Priors released by Atlantis' revival of the Stargate system releases some who are not above misusing their powers for conquest. Other experiments, such as telepathic societies, are found.

Basically, it should be episodic. But the series does climax when the mission members finally decide between Ascension and ordinary civilization, when contact with Earth is finally reestablished in the last episode.

 

[tharpdevenport]

No, I have good writting and plotting, unlike SG:U, and these are only set up moves to a bigger plot around Atlantis and what happened to the Ancients.

Actually, your plot has a massive hole in it: why would the SGC allow a science expedition to go somewhere with little to no chance of support without a major military contingent to defend them? After all of they've gone through, why would they assume that Atlantis would be some place that might not get them into trouble?

Actually, that's not my plothole -- you forget I am picking up where the series really began. And I would cover that hole later.

 

[Silent_Bob]

Personally i like Atlantis pretty much the way it is. There is however one particular mistake i would certainly done differently: The death and subsequent return of Carson Beckett.

The way the show handled his return as a clone was frankly unbelievable and rendered the death of the character utterly pointless in the first place. And the attitudes of the rest of the team to his return were also completely out of character. Just because a clone arrives doesn't change the fact that Carson died, and the way McKay and co. stopped caring about the death of their friend was sickening.

So in my version of Atlantis, that's what i'd personally fix. By all means have Carson die, but i sure as hell wouldn't have listened to the various fan campaigns and brought in a clone.

 

[The Wormhole]

Well, I wouldn't have bothered killing Beckett to begin with.

But if for some reason, that storyline had to play out, I would have had it so that the real Beckett remained Michael's prisoner, and he sent a clone back to Atlantis. Then the clone gets killed by the explosive tumour, and eventually by season 4 the real Beckett is rescued.

Hey, if you're going to negate the character's death, might as well go all the way.

 

[David cgc]

That's what I figured they'd do. Make the one that died some kind of crazy duplicate. (actually, I figured they'd stuck him in Wraith Stasis with the handy-dandy Wraith Stasis Machine they'd found in the previous episode and would revive and heal him whenever they wished.

 

[Meredith]

The physical resilience of the Wraith was sure forgotten in short order, wasn't it? Remember in the pilot when all that remained of one Wraith was a hand, and it was still moving? By season two or three the largest Wraith guards were being dropped by a short burst of a small machine gun.

That is because they filled the hollow points with Garlic......

 

[Star Wolf]

The physical resilience of the Wraith was sure forgotten in short order, wasn't it? Remember in the pilot when all that remained of one Wraith was a hand, and it was still moving? By season two or three the largest Wraith guards were being dropped by a short burst of a small machine gun.

That is because they filled the hollow points with Garlic......

Did they ever try Holy Water and crucifixes?

Real Gate Universe weren't the P90s loaded with amror piercing, not hollow points, to get through Jaffa body armor?

 

[doubleohfive]

I'd disagree with the OP's assertion that the show went downhill starting in season three. In fact, I remember being quite impressed with the second half of season three... Season 4 is where it all went to the toilet for me and the show never really recovered from it.

Not ditch Weir and Beckett after season 3 instantly comes to mind.

Given that they wound up bringing Beckett back, I'd agree with this. And while I wasn't really crazy about them offing Weir, I'm even less a fan of what they ended up doing to her character.

Better follow-through with some of the long-term storylines, specifically the Genii and Michael. They just seemed to fade away into disappointing conclusions.

Eh. The wrap up for Robert Davi's character was so out of the blue and underwhelming that I just don't care. As for Michael, his shtick got to be increasingly repetitive over the years. Irritating, too.

Tone down McKay a little bit. Sometimes I wish another character would put him in his place instead of enduring his arrogance.

I'd have liked to see Ellison chew him out a bit more. The one time I really didn't care for Rodney was when he called Radek "fumbles mc stupid." There's being angsty, there's being irritating, there's being a pain in the ass --- but that line just cross a whole bunch of lines personally and professionally for McKay and really just lessened my opinion of him.

If Carter had to be brought over, I'd have given her some kind of season-long story arc, something that would have given her something to do other than stand around Atlantis looking pretty every week. Maybe something along the lines of having to realize she's not on SG-1 anymore and that as a leader behind the desk she has to let other people take chances and do the risky stuff.

 

[Meredith]

I'd have liked to see Ellison chew him out a bit more. The one time I really didn't care for Rodney was when he called Radek "fumbles mc stupid." There's being angsty, there's being irritating, there's being a pain in the ass --- but that line just cross a whole bunch of lines personally and professionally for McKay and really just lessened my opinion of him.

If Carter had to be brought over, I'd have given her some kind of season-long story arc, something that would have given her something to do other than stand around Atlantis looking pretty every week. Maybe something along the lines of having to realize she's not on SG-1 anymore and that as a leader behind the desk she has to let other people take chances and do the risky stuff.

I loved the Fumbles Line, of course McKay was in duress at the time with another voice in his head he couldn't shut off, it was bound to make him jumpy, grumpy and just plain irritating.

 

[doubleohfive]

Duress or not, it was still a low point for the character.

 

[Broccoli]

Honestly, I would have introduced the Ori on Atlantis, instead of SG-1 during the second or third season (whenever would feel natural). The Ori would have replaced the Replicators in the "secondary foe" department (or, I guess that would be primary foe, as the Ori are a hell of a lot more of a threat than the Wraith).

 

[OmahaStar]

A few things I would have done differently ...

1 - They would have been cut off from Earth for far longer. Once they had the ships and then the big old super gates and stuff, it was instant or near-instant communication, and it went from being something unique and special to just another stargate post.

2 - Better continuity. They brought up things and at times even within the same episode, forgot it ever happened. Those big old batteries, ZPMs or whatever they were called, are a perfect example of that. They had lists of places they could be found, then suddenly forgot about them.

3 - There would never be ANY Goa'uld on Atlantis. Ever.

4 - We would have seen other city-ships. Why is Atlantis the only one? Remember Empok Nor on DS9?

5 - Weir and Becket never would have left the show, they would have continued as regulars. Carter, if she ever did show up, would be as a guest, not as the series lead.

6 - If we did meet the Klingon dude - excuse me, Ronan - it would have been in one episode and he would have been a guest. He added nothing.

7 - There would be actual research into the people who built Atlantis. Other than a few throwaway lines, and an odd strand here and there, the ancients were all but ignored for five years.

8 - The Wraith would have stuck around, but it would have been the Wraith of the pilot. In the pilot, they were almost impossible to kill. It wasn't one bullet and bam, they're dead. It was a rocket launder or chainsaw type. As it went on, it got sillier and sillier how they died. Papercuts, stubbed toes, it was ridiculous.

9 - How about we explore the city? We see little more than a handful of rooms, but we're told it's the size of Manhattan. What's up with that?

 

[bullethead]

4 - We would have seen other city-ships. Why is Atlantis the only one? Remember Empok Nor on DS9?

We did see other city ships. One in The Tower (albeit a decrepit one), as well as the Asuran city-ship(s).