The first episode of SG-1 I ever saw was actually a fairly bad one. It was in the second season and called Bane. Teal’c gets stung by an giant insect whose venom starts rewriting his DNA to turn him into more giant insects. I must have seen something in the show though since I made a point of watching the next week. Thankfully the two episodes after Bane are The Tok’ra part 1 and part 2.
My biggest problem was the screwy syndication. The station I watched it on only seemed to have the rights to the second season. Only one other station I could get showed it. At 2am on Saturday night/Sunday morning. As far as I could tell, they determined which episode to air by rolling dice. I finally saw the first season when I bought it on DVD (along with a DVD player).
Stargate basically became the retirement home for actors from other scifi series, but lets face it, when you have a pairing like Ben Bowder and Claudia Black, you should keep them working together at all costs.
As mentioned though, the other advantage (in Farscape as well as SG1) was the humour. You can get away with a lot more if there’s a few jokes interspersed.
Especially when the characters are genre-aware. Because it was set in the present, all of the humans from Earth know about the standard sci-fi tropes.
Also how could the article leave out Stargate Infinity?
As a die hard SG fan…the less said about that the better IMO.
It’s only when Browder and Black appeared that I began to look forward to the mainstream series, elsewise it was just something to watch, rather like the old Time Tunnel. The final episode of SG-1 was certainly more pleasant than that of Farscape.
SGU was the only one I really liked. I could have coped with a lot more of it.
Not to fault the show but it always struck me as a reboot of Irwin Allen’s “Time Tunnel” with the secret project and the round portal that would drop the characters into a different adventure every week. BTW, this is the first show I remember seeing in color.
Probably what got me hooked on the show to begin with was that at the time, a new episode was reliably being shown each and every week. At a time when Star Trek: TNG would occasionally throw in a rerun, this was hugely gripping. (I also remember thinking, "Eh, it’s based on a movie; it’ll never last more than a season or two.)
Also, Mr. Hewlett is awesome. Too bad his movies are kind of obscure; having enjoyed Cube and Nothing, I really want to see A Dog’s Breakfast and Treed Murray one of these days.
Anyway, a vital point: Roland Emmerich is reportedly heading the new movies, and apparently he did not like the direction the TV series took at all. Let’s not forget that Mr. Emmerich brought us such delights as Godzilla, 10,000 BC, and 2012.
So… [unironic] woo. Make way for [unironic] space Gahd.
[Funny how SG1’s showrunners and principals seem like the kind of creaky old farts who should have created the kind of rah-rah military-sci-fi show that was unable to laugh at itself. Fifteen seasons later, that was not how things happened. This proves, though that there’s always room for Losangelesian royalty to play the douche-card.]
I liked the tone of SGU and was pretty bummed out that it didn’t catch on.
I feel like the new movies are a slap in the face to fans. They are basically wiping away years of backstory and lore. Now if this was a reboot like Star Trek I might be alright with that but it seems like they are going to totally ignore the show instead of being inspired by it.
Stargate is one of those weird things I latched onto when it first came out, and has never come unshaken from my psyche. It has that Star Trek: The Original Series feel of cheese, but with a Farscape edge and self-awareness. Like when Teal’c and O’Neill get trapped in the time loop and start having fun, with no fear of consequence. Or the fact that O’Neill eventually reveals that the great fishing spot that he’s been going on about for seasons and seasons, inviting friends and coworkers to, is completely devoid of fish. Stupid details, hilarious (and sometimes gritty) sci-fi schtick, and not taking themselves too seriously makes for a winning formula in my mind. (See TOS, Farscape, Dr. Who, etc)
I love it when worlds collide:
Why do retrospectives of Stargate consistently fail to acknowledge the obvious influence of Enki Bilal’s Nikopol Trilogy? I mean, the general notion of ancient Egyptian gods being actual aliens was far from original, but I don’t think Stargate would have existed without Nikopol.
I had mixed feelings on SGU. I hated their constant use of flash-backs (especially egregious in the 1st season), but really enjoyed the rest of the show. I would have liked to see it continue. Though it lacked much of the humor of SG1 and SG: Atlantis, it was still fun.
I’ve watched every episode of all the series.
I’d have to say the first series was my favorite. It mixed humor, a wide variety of adventure, and some pretty deep moments. The episode Cold Lazarus is a great example. And who wouldn’t want to travel through space with McGuiver?
Of course I also personally like the “sliders”/“time tunnel” aspect at the beginning when you didn’t know what adventure they were being dropped into, I much preferred that to the later episodes.
I was never a huge fan of the Stargate show(s), but I do really enjoy mentioning von Däniken’s books to archaeologists. Hours upon hours of apoplectic entertainment doth surely ensue!
The movie had a much better style and “new world” vibe than the series. I watched quite a bit of SG1 because I liked the movie so much, but everywhere they went looked like California. The costumes were also nowhere near as cool as the Egyptian God style warriors from the movie. Glad to see they are making the new movies in the vein of what they had originally pictured for the big screen.
Really? Everywhere they went looked like Vancouver to me 
Leonard Nemoy was the worst part of the new Star Trek movies. When he popped up in the second one I started wondering if they felt that was the right sort of fan service or if he had an ironclad contract.
But then, I think fans and fan service are pretty much the worst part of pop culture.
Whatever they do, I hope they have 15 minutes of a Jaffa walking really far, that’s movie magic.
