'Stargate: SG-1' Cancelled

Ant writes "The Sci-Fi channel has announced that it will not be renewing its (very popular) original series Stargate SG-1 for another season.The spinoff series Stargate: Atlantis will get the nod, though, airing for a fourth year. SG-1 aired its 200th episode on August 18th, and the SF series is the longest-running SF show on American television." Gateworld has further details: "New episodes of both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis continue Fridays this summer starting at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific, leading up to the mid-season finale on September 22. The second half of the season will begin in March, leading to SG-1's final bow on SCI FI in June."

So Long and Thanks

[Marillion]

Well, if you're going to go out, go out on top.

By the way, if anyone from the staff, crew or cast reads this: Thanks for ten wonderful years.

Contract costs or ???

[afidel]

I wonder if the original cast members wanted too much money, or if they simply got tired of doing the show and told the network they wouldn't do it any more. Those are the only two reasons I can think for cancelling one of your most profitable shows.

Better to burn out or fade away?

[Digitus1337]

I'm a long time SG-1 fan, but I've had my fingres crossed that they'd end the show for the past few seasons now, ever since Don Davis (General Hammond) left and they started up atlantis. Recent episodes haven't been up to par, and have weakened the canon of the series overall. We all love Firefly, as it was short and sweet. Six or seven seasons of SG-1 were gold, but it is time to hang up the hat.

Sci-Fi Does Dumb Again

[Cpt_Kirks]

Poor Ben Browder. Screwed by Sci-Fi again!

At least MGM is planning on continuing the series, somewhere else.

I guess Sci-Fi needs more space for shitty B monster movies, fantasty crap and "wrasslin'"...

Well it figures

[Pharmboy]

They add more the show, bring in three new exceptional talents (Ben, Beau and Claudia), and I finally get my wife to enjoy SciFi so it is something we can watch together, and they cancel the show.

I had thought the last year.5 had introduced some new blood and ideas into the show, after I quit watching it in Season 7. Surely I can't be the only one who thinks the show had taken a turn for the better, fresher, while still being true to the original concept.

It was time.

[Angostura]

Great series, but clearly showing its age and suffering from 'we need to keep inventing more überenemies' syndrome. I shall look forward to seeing how they bow out. Personally, I think it is about time that they found an enemy capable of destroying the earth which actually does it. Might not please some fans, but would make great television.

GAH!

[The MAZZTer]

Ah well. I suppose this is a blessing in disguise though as it means:

1) We'll get to see the Ori beaten (hopefully, according to gateworld.net the last few episodes aren't set in stone yet).

2) At the end of Episode 200 Martin Lloyd announces to the 10-season cast of Wormhole X-treme that "the movie's back on!". I like to think this extends back to that Stargate SG-1 movie [gateworld.net], but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Now that the series is over there's more hope for it, at least according to gateworld...

I wonder how long the SG-1 writers/producers etc knew the 10th season would be the last. Episode 200 makes a BIT more sense if you realize "hey, they knew they would never have another chance to pull stuff like this again".

Viewer Req.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please send Claudia "Vala" Black to Atlantis in the last scene, then make her NOT all comic relief (since you already have McKay, m'kay?), but more kick'ass, like we remember her from her introduction into the galaxy.

surprised that I'm sad to see it go

[sammy baby]

Okay, let me say it up front: Stargate SG-1 isn't a great show. In fact, most of the time I'd be hard-pressed to say it's even a good show. But I'm sad to see it go, and in retrospect here are a couple of notes:

1. Did anyone else pick this part up?

"Stargate SG-1," based on the 1994 movie starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, spent its first five years on Showtime -- which annoyed the show's producers by demanding full-frontal nudity -- before migrating to Sci Fi.

I mean, don't get me wrong, Amanda Tapping is cute as a button, and Claudia Black (who hasn't been with the cast that long), rrowl. But I was really shocked to hear this. There are so many producers and directors out there who want to push the boundaries - is it too much to ask that those who want to make a more conventional show not be forced to throw in some gratuitous nude scenes? There wasn't even anything like that in the original movie.

2. SG-1 is probably at its best when the cast & crew isn't taking itself too seriously. And with that in mind, let me tell you that if you missed the 200th episode... well, it's a shame. It was a bit uneven, but it was packed with in-jokes for the kind of people who like not only the show, but sci-fi in general, and even things "vaguely related" to sci-fi. (Veiled Firefly/Serenity references? Check. Not so veiled Star Trek, Farscape, and Team America: World Police references? Check.)

Anyhoo, if you have the chance, catch the 200th episode as a rerun. You'll be glad you did.

Re:nudity

[Midnight Thunder]

Oh, I thought they were talking about the Asgard (shameless bastards).

This is one thing I never understood. Why do advanced races no longer need clothing in out shows? Would that mean people in nudist camps are onto something? :D

were is the SciFi?

[grapeape]

Why dont they just get it over and done drop BSG and rename themselves SpikeTV2. For only being a short time after the media declared Science Fiction was going mainstream why is there so little of it? Now instead of SG1, Firefly and Farscape we get Wrestling and that who wants to dress up like a tard and pretend your a superhero show. Oh well only another year or so to wait until the new Star Wars series brings on a wealth of copycats, clones and wannabees but by that time I expect that the SciFi channel wont exist anyway.

Is there a movie in the works?

[iambarry]

Seems to me that a movie was hinted at in the 200th episode.

Would this be the first TV series spinoff from a movie to spin off a movie?

Well on the brigther side.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The good Doctor http//www.scifi.com/doctorwho/ [slashdot.org] is coming back in season 2 Sept 29. I guess the Doctor will be taking SG-1s time slot on fridays. Hopefully this will lead to the BBC making more than 13 eps per season now that they'll have American dollars lining their pockets

One of the best sci-fi series I've ever known

[lkcl]

Stargate is in the same league as 'The Matrix' and 'Dr Who', and is better than Firefly for scope.

Stargate combines technology and mysticism in an 'everyday' and transparently 'acceptable' manner
('believable' is not an appropriate word to use because it requires that you 'check in' - "do i believe this?
mmm... yep! oh drat - missed an important plotline there...)

the storyline - and the background - are breathtaking in scope: on a par with Ian Bank's 'Culture' series
but more dynamic, gripping and immediate than Ian Bank's 'Culture' series (which is more violent, thoughtful,
and explorative of technology and aliens and the origins of both).

we get to see 'real' people making 'real' decisions - a lot of them fire-fighting - so it's realistic:
humans screw up, they get duped, they get dumped on. only by the skin of their teeth, through ingenuity,
and by not giving up do they pull through.

now - you could say that a lot of sci-fi series have the same characteristics: 'Star Trek' was the first
really pioneering series which brought the same level of commitment from its characters; others followed,
but even 'Star Trek' became old very quickly (even with 78 or so episodes).

In all, there really isn't (hasn't been) any other series which has all the characteristics that make a sci-fi
series truly fantastic and a real engaging pleasure to watch and to look forward to. My guess is that
the SCI FI channel will be absolutely kicking themselves once it sinks in what they have lost, because the
Stargate shows are _so_ good at what they do that I believe that the SCI FI channel has become complacent
(familiarity breeds contempt...) and simply takes it for granted.

Sorely missed

[joeyblades]

I'm a pretty staunch critic when it comes to Sci-Fi.
However, I have to say that Stargate SG-1 has always been one of
the best. They have always had an attention to scientific detail
that was far and above other shows, with the possible exception
of the Star Trek series' (Gene Roddenbery was a master). However,
the real charm of SSG1 has been the clever dialog and witty inside
jokes. I knew I was going to love the series from the first episode
when, upon finding the first ancient dialing device on another
planet, Samantha Carter sez to Jack O'Neill:

> "Amazing. This is what was missing from the dig at Giza. It took
> us 15 years and 3 supercomputers to MacGyver a system for the
> gate on Earth."

Now I shouldn't have to explain why this is clever and funny, but I
often have to clue people in. I appologize to the 99% of you who already
get it, but for that 1% who need a little help;

Jack O'Neil is played by actor Richard Dean Anderson.
Richard Dean Anderson also played a character named MacGyver on a TV show of the same name.
MacGyver's claim-to-fame was using combinations of everyday items to "engineer" solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems...

Re:nudity

[dugjohnson]

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." - Mark Twain

Re:Killing the Goose that lays the golden egg

[walt-sjc]

The first time I saw ECW on SciFi, I thought WTF is THIS shit doing on here? Actually, I STILL wonder. The only reason I can think of, is that it's actually an infomercial where they paid SF to show it.

IMHO, the series hasn't been the same....

[8127972]

.... since Richard Dean Anderson left. One of the reasons why I started watching SG-1 is because of how he played the character of Jack O'Neill. He never took himself (or sometimes the situations that he found himself in) too seriously and always was good at breaking up the tension of some episodes with a good joke (eg: "That's between you and your god. Oh, wait a minute. You are your god. That's a problem."). I found it hard to get into the series after that and got addicted to the re-runs prior to 2005.

Save SG-1

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign the petition to save SG-1 at http://www.petitiononline.com/SAVESG1/ [petitiononline.com].

Please sign, it may help them change their mind.

Re:It's just like...

[Zenaku]

Yes, they both do excellent work on SG-1 -- by disconcerting, I just meant that it was hard for me not to see them as Criton and Aeron, transplanted en masse from Farscape, acting wierd.

For me this mental twitch of forgetting they were different characters was particularly bad because I never watched Farscape when it was on the air, I watched it on DVD, consuming the entire series in order over the course of a few months. When Ben Browder showed up on SG-1 as Mitchell, and Vala became a frequent character, I was still in the beginning of the last season of Farscape on DVD.

So from my perspective if felt like both shows were still "going on" at the same time with the same actors in different roles. That was disconcerting.

End it right.

[Shivetya]

Marry off O'Neil and Carter.

They can put Daniel over on SGA if he needs a job, but for the fan's sake marry of Carter and O'Neil.

Re:More like going out on the bottom....

[MKalus]

McKay is funny, but Weir is weak. What happened to Ford? And Talia (or however you spell it) is annoying. Sheppard and McKay make that show.

McKay is funny, and even better, the character got to grow, too bad that in one of the last episodes he reverted back to the old McKay (I think that one was written by the SG-1 writers, and McKay was whiny and bitchy again, though the joke with the lemon was good).

As for Ford, yeah, what happened? Personally the Atlantis team is pretty much a copy cat of SG-1 now, Ford was clearly an interesting (albeit "weak") character. Weir is at times a bit bitchy I'd say.

Still, I find them enjoyable and at least SG-1 doesn't take itself too seriously unlike TNG and Voyager did.

Re:Killing the Goose that lays the golden egg

[budgenator]

but then the point still stands because Eureka is supposed to be a summer season filler show; I like Eureka, but it doesn't seem to have the moxie to go full season. SciFi is killing their anchor show, SG1 is the show that they put on when they have nothing to put on, and we watch when their is nothing to watch.

Re:GAH!

[PygmySurfer]

I think they're most definitely related to the replicators, we just don't know how yet.

The Asurans (Pegasus Replicators) were of the "human form" variety, which the Replicators Reese created eventually evolved into in the Milky Way.

The Atlantis team were unable to find record of the Replicators in the ancient database. Its possible the Asurans lied about being a creation of the Ancients. The Asurans could be Replicators who escaped from the Milky Way prior to being destroyed, or the original Replicators encountered by SG-1 might've began life in the Pegasus Galaxy. Hell, maybe the plague that wiped out all life in the galaxy way back when was the virus Weir was infected with.

Tons of possibilities :)

Re:Well on the brigther side...

[Adhemar]

guess the Doctor will be taking SG-1s time slot on fridays.

That would be cool. The timeslot of the longest-running sci-fi show on American television (200+ episodes since 1997) taken over by the longest-running sci-fi show of British television (720+ episodes since 1963, although not continuously).