I liked 'Stargate:Atlantis" better than "Battlestar Galatica"!
- Thread starter Jayson
- Start date
Whatever floats your boat.
I for one have nuBSG on DVD while I certainly won't buy any Atlantis sets (still watching it on TV though).
I for one have nuBSG on DVD while I certainly won't buy any Atlantis sets (still watching it on TV though).
I never liked nuBSG. And I watched nearly every episode, as I really wanted to like it, so I gave it chance after chance, but it just continued to never worked for me.
Atlantis, while never reaching the levels of enjoyment I got for SG-1, was still a show I enjoyed much more.
Atlantis, while never reaching the levels of enjoyment I got for SG-1, was still a show I enjoyed much more.
I like BSG's production design, but not because it's contemporary or "avoids silliness". I like it because having an alien culture that looks like our own is actually quite fascinating. It makes you wonder why their civilization looks the way it does. In short, it raises questions. That's something that a clearly alien look wouldn't have accomplished. To me, that's creative. Oddly enough, Ron Moore probably would have gone the "alien" route if he had a bigger budget, but he did stumble onto something pretty good.
By the way, I do agree that a lot of scifi fans these days tend to turn their noses up at anything that looks too creative or different from the contemporary norm. It's a trend I don't like either. As for BSG and that trend, the show has been criticized for not looking alien enough as well as praised for avoiding "silliness".
I liked both shows. 
Having said that, they are very different and I agree with the above poster who said it was like comparing apples to oranges. BSG was a hardcore drama with military and sci-fi elements. Atlantis was action adventure with a light touch.
I think at times the writing on both shows was left wanting, especially in later seasons. For all the hoopla over RDM, I was disappointed mightily in the ending and Season 4. Likewise, Atlantis had more than its fair share of goofinees and one off stories that really did nothing to further the Wriath storyline.
I disliked the whole Starbuck saves the day mode BSG got into; likewise SA dipping into the replicator well was disappointing.
As for DVDs, I own up through Season 2.5 of BSG, but the ending of the series left such a bad taste in my mouth that I won't bet getting any more. I have just started collecting Atlantis because I never saw the opening seasons. They are $19 here in the US at Sam's club and my club has them all in stock.
Honestly, I like the first season of SA a better than the last three seasons of Stargate.
As far as the Atlantis ending goes, hey, they didn't have any huge threads really left to wrap up - Wraith in licking their wounds, Michael dead, Genii a non-factor, replicators taken care of ... there ya go. I look forward to the Atlantis movie.
Having said that, they are very different and I agree with the above poster who said it was like comparing apples to oranges. BSG was a hardcore drama with military and sci-fi elements. Atlantis was action adventure with a light touch.
I think at times the writing on both shows was left wanting, especially in later seasons. For all the hoopla over RDM, I was disappointed mightily in the ending and Season 4. Likewise, Atlantis had more than its fair share of goofinees and one off stories that really did nothing to further the Wriath storyline.
I disliked the whole Starbuck saves the day mode BSG got into; likewise SA dipping into the replicator well was disappointing.
As for DVDs, I own up through Season 2.5 of BSG, but the ending of the series left such a bad taste in my mouth that I won't bet getting any more. I have just started collecting Atlantis because I never saw the opening seasons. They are $19 here in the US at Sam's club and my club has them all in stock.
Honestly, I like the first season of SA a better than the last three seasons of Stargate.
As far as the Atlantis ending goes, hey, they didn't have any huge threads really left to wrap up - Wraith in licking their wounds, Michael dead, Genii a non-factor, replicators taken care of ... there ya go. I look forward to the Atlantis movie.
I liked both shows. I say liked because they both started to bug the shit out of me. They both started spinning their wheels a lot taking time they didn't have to tell stories they didn't need to. And in the end had unsatisfying endings.
BSG is legit sci-fi. I'm not saying it isn't a legit sci-fi show. I do think though Moore likes to think because it has alot of realism, that the realism somehow, makes it a normal drama, no different from "ER" or "The Shield." I hate it when producers do sci-fi shows and pretend that there show is somehow above the genre. Why can't "Battlestar Galatica" simply be seen as a great sci-fi show. Instead you would hear people go on about how it, isn't really sci-fi because it's gritty and realistic as if those elements could never be seen in a sci-fi show.
I wouldn't call "Atlantis" as brainless. There is a difference between a show that is dumbed down and a show that doesn't have high expecations when it comes to pushing the envelope. The show wanted to be action-adventure show with some humor. The show was good at those things. Battlestar Galatica was solid at being a drama as well but it doesn't hold up when compared to stuff like "Soprano's" or "The Shield." It wanted to be a upper echelon show, and it never reached those heights. Unlike "Atlantis" it didn't really reach it's goals. It also made more wrong turns than atlantis. Atlantis was smart to keep the McKay/Shepheard friendship at the fore front of the show. Galatica sometimes took it's core characters down the wrong paths. Starbuck become annoying and then you had the love triangle from hell that never ended and Baltar lost some of his appeal in the later seasons. They made more mistakes with the characters than atlantis did, with it's characters. Atlantis also, never screwed up in making the action scenes, work. Not high goals,like it's already been mentioned, but it stuck to what worked and ran with it.
It's true that season 1, was the best season but I don't really see a huge decline in quality in the show, alot of people talk about.
Jason
Stargate Atlantis and BSG are indeed apples and oranges, in the sense they are different kinds of shows. And someone who prefers one kind to the other will prefer it. There are two questions, whether either show fails at being a good show of its kind? And whether a show that meets low expectations is to be praised more than a show that fails to meet higher expectations?
As to the first, Stargate Atlantis was much better written as a adventure show with wisecracks than BSG. If you want to downgrade Atlantis, you have to compare it to SG1. SG1 was funnier, which is natural since it was a comedy: SG1 is the Boston Legal of space opera. Strangely, when SG1 actually did drama (three, four episodes a year max!) it did it better than Atlantis. Shifting from a comedy format to one with more pretensions had to fail, because the premises of the Stargate universe (pun intended) are too silly to take seriously. Nonetheless, Atlantis did basically achieve what it set out to do.
BSG cannot be honestly praised as good. The mainstream critics who praised it did so because it gave a false appearance of political relevance to the "War on Terror." The series, and thereby the critics praising it, said nothing that wasn't simultaneously completely compatible with conventional prowar liberalism and viciously racist crusaders. The only time the mainstream critics roused from their perfectly correct indifference was to worry, briefly, over a discernible message in the Iraq episodes. They soon realized it was illusory. Since BSG aimed to be a serious drama with political implications, it is a complete artistic failure.
Should BSG's failure at a more ambitious achievement than Atlantis' modest success at a much less ambitious one, means one should rate BSG more highly? (The second question in the opening paragraph in other words.) I think not. If one cares more about the issues BSG tackled, then its grotesque failures rankle the more. If one is not deeply invested in space opera (and who is?) then the lapse in Atlantis matter less.
As to the first, Stargate Atlantis was much better written as a adventure show with wisecracks than BSG. If you want to downgrade Atlantis, you have to compare it to SG1. SG1 was funnier, which is natural since it was a comedy: SG1 is the Boston Legal of space opera. Strangely, when SG1 actually did drama (three, four episodes a year max!) it did it better than Atlantis. Shifting from a comedy format to one with more pretensions had to fail, because the premises of the Stargate universe (pun intended) are too silly to take seriously. Nonetheless, Atlantis did basically achieve what it set out to do.
BSG cannot be honestly praised as good. The mainstream critics who praised it did so because it gave a false appearance of political relevance to the "War on Terror." The series, and thereby the critics praising it, said nothing that wasn't simultaneously completely compatible with conventional prowar liberalism and viciously racist crusaders. The only time the mainstream critics roused from their perfectly correct indifference was to worry, briefly, over a discernible message in the Iraq episodes. They soon realized it was illusory. Since BSG aimed to be a serious drama with political implications, it is a complete artistic failure.
Should BSG's failure at a more ambitious achievement than Atlantis' modest success at a much less ambitious one, means one should rate BSG more highly? (The second question in the opening paragraph in other words.) I think not. If one cares more about the issues BSG tackled, then its grotesque failures rankle the more. If one is not deeply invested in space opera (and who is?) then the lapse in Atlantis matter less.
You know I use to like "Stargate" more than "Atlantis" but I think I came to eventually prefer "Atlantis" more. The Rodney McKay character, alone helps elevate the show for me. Plus I liked O'Neil more in the early seasons, when he seemed to be more gritty and had more going on as a character than the puns. Plus you know, I got to admit I grew to like some of Star Trek trappings of the show. Things like Spaceships and ZPM"s and the Wraith which were basically just space monster's.
Jason
Jason
You know, I would have a hard time really even comparing the two at all. It's a bit like trying to compare "How I met your mother" to "ER". Both are good at what they set out to do. Both accomplished what they wanted to for the most part. Both made mistakes at times and neither was perfect.
BSG was certainly a much more intellectually satisfying show with a much more dramatic, grittier feel to it and obviously SG:A was a pretty fun action/adventure with a good helping of comedy thrown in.
Honestly, I don't see how the two can be compared against each other beyond just to say which type of show appeals to each person personally. Which as another poster earlier in the thread points out will make things interesting when SG:U comes out as it looks to be a direct clone of NuBSG that the writers have promised will still have the humour present in all SG shows.
I will say that NuBSG attempted to dig a little deeper, achieve a little more in terms of depth of storying telling/drama and certainly accomplished it........not that it makes it a "better" show.......that'd be like saying because ER was more dramatic and more intellectual than Sienfeld or Friends it was a "better" show.
Personally, I'm just grateful we got both shows and just wished both would have lasted a little longer than they did.
BSG was certainly a much more intellectually satisfying show with a much more dramatic, grittier feel to it and obviously SG:A was a pretty fun action/adventure with a good helping of comedy thrown in.
Honestly, I don't see how the two can be compared against each other beyond just to say which type of show appeals to each person personally. Which as another poster earlier in the thread points out will make things interesting when SG:U comes out as it looks to be a direct clone of NuBSG that the writers have promised will still have the humour present in all SG shows.
I will say that NuBSG attempted to dig a little deeper, achieve a little more in terms of depth of storying telling/drama and certainly accomplished it........not that it makes it a "better" show.......that'd be like saying because ER was more dramatic and more intellectual than Sienfeld or Friends it was a "better" show.
Personally, I'm just grateful we got both shows and just wished both would have lasted a little longer than they did.
I have never seen StarGate: Atlantis, so I can't comment on that. I sat through four (or was it five? I don't remember anymore) years of StarGate SG-1, and that was more than enough of that franchise. I've never seen the sequels. I started out as a supporter of New Galactica, but it quickly lost me with it's relentless negativity, and outright nillhism (although, I plan to shortly rewatch it, just to see if my original opinion holds, and to see season four, which I have yet to watch), but I agree, Babylon 5, and to a lesser extent, Farscape are the shows to watch if you're gonna watch a sci-fi series that isn't Star Trek.
I'm not a fan of anything "Stargate". It simply doesn't interest me.
I enjoyed the new BSG, although at times I had a love/hate relationship with it. There are large parts of it that simply don't work for me. The entire second half of the second season, for example, is largely mediocre. And I just can't stand the character of Starbuck, quite possibly the most irritating part of a scifi show for me since Neelix on Voyager (though for entirely different reasons, of course). Still, it had plenty of successes over its four seasons. On the list of shows I consider myself a fan of, it definitely ranks closer to the bottom than the top. But it is on there, and that's more than I could ever say for the Stargate franchise.
I enjoyed the new BSG, although at times I had a love/hate relationship with it. There are large parts of it that simply don't work for me. The entire second half of the second season, for example, is largely mediocre. And I just can't stand the character of Starbuck, quite possibly the most irritating part of a scifi show for me since Neelix on Voyager (though for entirely different reasons, of course). Still, it had plenty of successes over its four seasons. On the list of shows I consider myself a fan of, it definitely ranks closer to the bottom than the top. But it is on there, and that's more than I could ever say for the Stargate franchise.
Or you can be like me and watch them all!
BSG was much better than SG-1, let alone its bland bastard spinoff Atlantis.
I could maybe understand someone liking Atlantis over BSG, in the same way I would say that I liked Atlantis more than The Sopranos. I'm not going to say Atlantis was a better show than The Sopranos though.
Atlantis is just mediocre popcorn sci-fi. It features loads of bad acting (especially from the weekly guests). The storylines are as cliched as can be, it rarely brought anything new to the table. It had no clue what to do with a lot of its characters. It wasn't really trying to accomplish anything. It was just weekly brainless fluff.
Oh, and Teyla is probably the worst regular character I've ever seen in a sci-fi show. Ugh.
I could maybe understand someone liking Atlantis over BSG, in the same way I would say that I liked Atlantis more than The Sopranos. I'm not going to say Atlantis was a better show than The Sopranos though.
Atlantis is just mediocre popcorn sci-fi. It features loads of bad acting (especially from the weekly guests). The storylines are as cliched as can be, it rarely brought anything new to the table. It had no clue what to do with a lot of its characters. It wasn't really trying to accomplish anything. It was just weekly brainless fluff.
Oh, and Teyla is probably the worst regular character I've ever seen in a sci-fi show. Ugh.
Ronan, Teyla is hot and can sing
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