Aw...I like Richard Kind, and it was kind of amusing seeing him here considering he was in the original film.
The Stargate Franchise - A First Timer's Watchthrough
- Thread starter tomalak301
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Ah, Uninvited. Despite having previously established the US President is a fictional character within the show, this episode implies Dick Cheney is the Vice President with a joke about his hunting accident.
Eh, I accept it because TV always resorts to the main characters being the go-tos for this sort of thing, though realistically, the SGC should have its own administrative with one of them taking over in Landry's absence rather than a member of one of the SG teams.
IIRC, there were reshoots for an Atlantis episode that came up at the last minute that Paul McGillion was needed for, meaning he wasn't available to shoot that scene so Brad Wright stepped in instead.
Might have been the first time we see him go through the gate on screen, but it wasn't his first time ever through it. IIRC him and Hammond were seen off-world in the season 7 premiere.
There's also a bit of an unusual in-joke in that scene. When Landry initially asks Walter if he wants to join them, Walter protests he isn't wearing the proper uniform. O'Neill says "you look fine" and Walter leaves the control room in his jumpsuit and arrives in the gate room in SG field gear. This was in reference to a weird take on strictly on screen canonical adherence that went on among Stargate fandom at the time claiming there is nothing canonically stating the characters change their clothes since we never see them changing clothes or talk about changing their clothes. We only know their clothes change, but strictly canonically speaking, there's nothing to suggest the clothes don't just magically change while they're walking around. So, in this episode we see exactly that happen with Walter.
The joke also got referenced earlier in the episode with SG-1's first attempt to go through the gate. The leave the briefing room still in their casual base clothes, then in the next scene they're entering the gate room in their field gear with Teal'c saying "I have been reflecting while we changed into our gear..." thereby establishing canonically for once that yes, they did in fact go and change their clothes.
Indeed. The puppets themselves were even made and operated by the same company responsible for the puppets in Team America. On the DVD they show footage from a "rehearsal" done with the actors themselves acting out the scene to serve as a point of reference for the puppeteers on how to have everyone moving. When interviewed, one of the puppeteers commented RDA's movements were the most difficult to duplicate with the puppet. RDA himself is then interviewed where he said he intentionally moved around in a manner that would be near impossible for the puppet to duplicate saying that he knew from watching Team America that the puppet's approximation of his movements would be funny enough.
Yeah, that's not a popular episode at all, though there's a follow up which is even less liked. I remember the idea at the time was to create a Stargate equivalent to Harry Mudd with Lucius. They failed.
200 (SG-1)
Well, that was random...
That was weird, stupid, crazy, hilarious, and I loved every minute of it. Man did they spoof so much and it was the perfect sequel to Wormhole X-Treme. Some of the things I loved:
1. The Star Trek bit was spot on. Evidently that was Brad Wright who played Scotty. I thought it was Paul McGillion. I think it should have been McGillion. I mean he's just across the hall.
2. I asked the question last night about where are the Nox throughout this whole thing with the Ori, and the very first scene in 200 we got the Furlings in the Star Wars Spoof. I couldn't believe they actually went to the Ewok movies for that but it worked really really well.
3. The Farscape spoof was a little too quick but it was basically using all the swear words of that show. They pretty much nailed Farscape here and I was cracking up throughout.
4. I know it's pretty cliche to have a big budget explosion in a sci fi series at this point, but lovely effects on blowing up Cheyenne Mountain, from the pan out to the actual explosion
5. I enjoyed the Team America segment, but I think it might have gone on too long. Still, the look of it was pretty spot on.
6. Invincible Jack was hysterical. Loved his scene with Teal'c and Teal'c comments about his transparency.
7. The stuff with the younger cast and making it look like a UPN show, I saw Cory Montieth and I was expecting them to burst into Song.
8. Instead of Zombies, I think they should have gone with Vampires and just spoofed Buffy. Oh well. Zombies was pretty big in 2006.
9. They really got a lot of milage on the fishing gag. It worked every time.
This was just so much fun. They really poked fun at themselves and at Sci Fi for showing low budget bad movies. I do have a few criticisms though. I didn't really like how they were interviewing the cast of W-Xtreme to close out the episode. When we got our crew to go through the gate, I actually wanted to see that scene all the way. I mean Jack came back, and I think this was Walter's first time through the gate. I started to get a little emotional and then they pulled a fast one and took me out of the scene.
Other than that, 200 episodes is quite an accomplishment and I was thinking how much time I've devoted to this series during this lockdown period. I started this 8 weeks ago, and I'm 200 episodes into SG-1 and 42 episodes into Atlantis. I have too much time on my hands, but it's been a hell of a ride.
I thought the Team America was great because it had so many great gags and callbacks to the SG1 pilot and even stargate movie, in particular Sam spouting technobabble about wormholes, the "sex organs on the inside" line, Hammond's description of Jack as "someone who will laugh in the face of his enemies, even when it's inappropriate", Daniel spouting off about pyramids being landing sites for aliens and writing the symbols on the screen, and of course the famous lime "I'm the general. make it spin!"
I also loved this line earlier in the episode:
DANIEL: And so by translating this tablet, we should be able to determine the most important thing in the universe.
But I also loved this meta commentary:
MARTIN: The audience isn't going to know the difference. They love: "weapons at maximum."
MITCHELL: Never underestimate your audience. They're generally sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively to quality entertainment.
Yeah, sorry everyone, I worded that wrong. I'm sure there were many reasons to end Farscape but since the Sci Fi channel buying Stargate happened at the same time fans assumed and it was talked alot about back then.
This all just proves that it would have been better for everyone involved had they made a clean cut and started a new series.
Did you know Ben Browder would have been Sheppard in Atlantis had he been free?
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/littl...e-kept-ben-browder-starring-stargate-atlantis
You know, I once was a new fan too. The third Torchwood season was made for a different channel, and a general audience, specifically written for people who never watched it before. It wasn't even written as Torchwood originally, this is why the team feels tagged on in some scenes.
It blew me away but when I went online to gush about it all I found was hate and the feeling that the series as they knew it was destroyed in every possible way. I took note, watched the rest and certainly understand everyone's point of view, especially if you had come to love those characters for years, but still I love this season as it was my first introduction and I think it works better for non-fans than for fans.
This was right after I came out of the Stargate fandom so afterwards I got quite disillusioned and realized there is hate in every fandom. Have you seen the House fandom?
I mean, probably not (so far) in the Orville fandom...
And wasn't that the biggest insult ever? "Now that we are the longest running sci-fi show in the world, you can go." That put a bummer on things.
This all just proves that it would have been better for everyone involved had they made a clean cut and started a new series.
Did you know Ben Browder would have been Sheppard in Atlantis had he been free?
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/littl...e-kept-ben-browder-starring-stargate-atlantis
Not before you start the show, but would you not want to find out everything about the franchise you are a fan of? I watched it. Can't say I enjoyed the action scenes much but it gives more insight into Sha're, Skaara and Daniel. Especially Daniel. It's not often that a series is such a direct continuation from a movie.
You know, I once was a new fan too. The third Torchwood season was made for a different channel, and a general audience, specifically written for people who never watched it before. It wasn't even written as Torchwood originally, this is why the team feels tagged on in some scenes.
It blew me away but when I went online to gush about it all I found was hate and the feeling that the series as they knew it was destroyed in every possible way. I took note, watched the rest and certainly understand everyone's point of view, especially if you had come to love those characters for years, but still I love this season as it was my first introduction and I think it works better for non-fans than for fans.
This was right after I came out of the Stargate fandom so afterwards I got quite disillusioned and realized there is hate in every fandom. Have you seen the House fandom?
I mean, probably not (so far) in the Orville fandom...
And wasn't that the biggest insult ever? "Now that we are the longest running sci-fi show in the world, you can go." That put a bummer on things.
Thank you! Still would have been nice to see it.
@tomalak301 The next SGA episode on your list is "Progeny". It sets up some big things for the rest of the series. Enjoy!
Actually, no. I've never watched Universe in this franchise, among other examples.
I also liked the bit where Hammond introduced O'Neill:
Hammond: "...the fearless Colonel Jack O'Neill."
O'Neill: "Retired."
Hammond: "Are you? I thought you were tired."
O'Neill: "Well, yeah. That too."
It was so nice to see Jack in the 200th episode. It kind of hit me how much I have missed him. Browder has done a great job in his season and 6 episodes, but it's so hard to replace what RDA brought to the role of Jack.
I've gotten the sense that that's a bit of a "Love It or Hate It" in terms of the things it sets in motion. I love the episode itself but I'm a little...undecided...regarding the things it sets in motion. I think I lean toward favoring them, but not without reservation.
Of all the horrible things Sci-fi Channel has ever done that had to be the worst. They couldn't have waited until after the weekend? The whole reason SG-1 had an 8-9th season was just so Sci-fi could brag about the longest running American (Doctor Who still much longer) sci-fi show ever and all this shit and they cancel it the day of the party.
An 11th and final season would have killed the channel? It also would have helped the franchise in other ways.
Like not having 'Sam' be on Atlantis which was a huge mistake.
This is why I stopped watching anything that aired on the sci fi channel. They didn't know how to handle their shows and most seemed to have a 4-5 year shelf life anyway. I will never forgive them for how they handled the Farscape cancellation, and now that I'm watching Expanse, how they handled that was bad too.
@The Wormhole
Thank you for the behind the scenes on episode 200. I love the bit about the uniforms and how they always seem to change so fast.
To be fair to SyFy, The Expanse is completely different. It's a very expensive show that no one watches live, the ratings didn't support it. I'm amazed they gave it three seasons. If Syfy had the streaming rights to the show then they might have a chance.
But everything else, just complete shit. At least give shows a chance to end. Like 12 Monkeys only have 4 seasons but a full story.
Canceling Atlantis was a shit move too because MGM thought they could get more money from DVD movies than a 6th season. Syfy should have fought harder for one last season at least. I can't stand Atlantis as it goes on, Progeny is exactly why I hate it, but give the show a 6th season. Even Joe Flanigan came up with 25 million dollars to make a 6th season and lease the show for 5-10 years. Still a no. Then the DVD movie market fell and the show got canceled for no reason in the end.
"Progeny" does seem to be a bit of a rehash of SG1's "Unnatural Selection". Both episodes are the first reveal of human form replicators and both episodes rely on duping a human form replicator that is naive and thinks that our characters are going to help him. And both episodes end with a similar shot of a frozen human form replicator.
But I did not mind the introduction of human form replicators. It does add some backstory on the Ancients and hints that perhaps it was an Ancient that created the android in "Menace".
The only nitpick perhaps is that the Asuran Replicators got the Borg treatment. They start as this uber advanced and unstoppable force and their attack on Atlantis in "First Strike" is impressive but then end up easily defeated whenever needed. Similar to Voyager, it seems that our characters are able to use a trick and easily infiltrate the Asurans whenever they need to like in "Lifeline" and "Be All My Sins Remembered."
But I did not mind the introduction of human form replicators. It does add some backstory on the Ancients and hints that perhaps it was an Ancient that created the android in "Menace".
The only nitpick perhaps is that the Asuran Replicators got the Borg treatment. They start as this uber advanced and unstoppable force and their attack on Atlantis in "First Strike" is impressive but then end up easily defeated whenever needed. Similar to Voyager, it seems that our characters are able to use a trick and easily infiltrate the Asurans whenever they need to like in "Lifeline" and "Be All My Sins Remembered."
Well, I have to agree with that. I tried, I really did but realized that it was not for me so I stopped after four or five episodes.
RDA has this famous saying: "Life's too short. If it's not fun it's not worth doing anymore."
In hindsight, I should have stopped with season 8 and spare myself a lot of trouble, but I would have missed that puppet scene from the 200th episode and that alone was worth trudging on. I love it. And the puppeteers did a great job with trying to match Jack's moves. Spot on.
Yeah, the gamble on DVD movies did not pay off IMO.
And, I kinda feel like maybe Atlantis needed one more season to wrap things up. S5 does seem to end kinda abruptly IMO. I will be curious to see that @tomalak301 thinks when he gets to the end of SGA.
As awful as he was, I hoped he'd have a third appearance when Carter was on the show revealing he actually was the same guy from the movie (since Sam would know him, having been part of "Project Giza" at the time, though she was, IIRC, liaising at the Pentagon during the events of the film), who'd gone through an unlikely series of misadventures that led to him making a new life as a petty con artist in the Pegasus galaxy. Sort of a non-clip-show, Atlantis take on "Citizen Joe."
Kinsey did get fired. Maybe Dick Cheney got Jerry Ford'd in the Stargate universe, either because Henry Hayes is a Republican, as a some bipartisan unity thing that TV shows like to pretend is reasonable.
I believe I heard that SyFy also took a bad deal on The Expanse where they had to carry a lot more of the costs, or got a lot less of the revenue, because they really wanted another nuBSG-style prestige hit that'd get praise outside of nerd circles, and hoped it would perform disproportionately well to match.
There was a lot of stuff in the Team America segment that was funny, like this scene, Daniel marketing up the board and monitor, and then the walking though the Stargate scene. I guess it had to be long to keep the laughs coming but it was interesting how it was the longest segment in the episode.
I liked the ending, but yes one more season would have been perfect.
I love the finale too. I just think the finale came a bit abruptly. It was like the story arc was going along and then suddenly, bam, finale.
Well they weren't planning on that being the finale, I think that what happened was what they were planning to happen in the season 5 finale anyways. I think... I have only seen season 5 once so I don't remember the pace. I've seen season 1 five times, season 2 four times, season 3 three times, season 4 twice and season 5 once.
Then I somehow watched Universe but I'm pretty sure I was drunk because I can't remember anything.
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