Back in 1994, a science fiction movie from the team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich called Stargate was released. Starring Kurt Russell, well settled into his post-Escape from New York action-hero phase, James Spader, a hip young actor who blew the world away in sex, lies, and videotape, and Jaye Davidson, fresh off his OMG, SPOILERS! turn in The Crying Game, the movie was something less than a howling success. Devlin and Emmerich reworked their planned sequel into a separate film (Independence Day), and were so unconcerned with this particular property that they sold the rights to do a TV show and didn’t even require that the series credit them or their movie as the basis of the series.
In 1997, Stargate SG-1 debuted on Showtime. Spinning out of the movie, it recast with a post-MacGyver Richard Dean Anderson as O’Neill and Canadian actor Michael Shanks as Jackson, and added Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, and Don S. Davis. The show lasted five seasons on Showtime, and then was picked up by SyFy (then called the Sci-Fi Channel), for which it was a huge hit, prompting two spinoffs, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. When SG-1 ended after ten seasons, it prompted two direct-to-DVD movies.
Not bad for a spinoff of a failed movie, huh?
The Stargate franchise is far too sprawling to do a full-on episode-by-episode rewatch, but I thought it would be fun to do a seasonal rewatch, which will still take up 19 weeks of time. We’ll start this coming Friday with the original Stargate movie, then do each of the ten seasons of SG-1, the five seasons of Atlantis, the two seasons of Universe, and each of the SG-1 films, The Ark of Truth and Continuum. We’ll go chronologically, though, so season 8 of SG-1 will be followed by season 1 of Atlantis, then SG-1 season 9, Atlantis season 2, SG-1 season 10, Atlantis season 3, The Ark of Truth, Atlantis season 4, Continuum, Atlantis season 5, and ending with Universe seasons 1 & 2.
This rewatch will be a bit more freeform than the various Star Trek rewatches I’ve done for this site, though I’ll still be doing different categories and stuff. Among them will be:
Mission briefing: A summary of what happened in the season.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Some favorite technobabble.
Wayward home for out-of-work genre actors: Many folks famous from other science fiction and fantasy shows have shown up on Stargate, from Armin Shimerman, Marina Sirtis, and Peter Wingfield in SG-1 to Mitch Pileggi, Connor Trineer, and Jewel Staite in Atlantis.
Best episode of the season: Self-explanatory.
Worst episode of the season: Ditto.
Characters will also get their own sections. For SG-1, it’ll probably be “For crying out loud” for O’Neill, “Space monkey” for Jackson, “I’ve got an idea, sir” for Carter, “Indeed” for Teal’c, and “You have a go” for Hammond. However, the only one of those I’m married to is “Indeed,” so other suggestions in the comments are welcome. Supporting characters such as Bra’tac, Frasier, Jacob Carter, and Thor (among others) may get their own categories, too.
Chevron seven locked: An overall review of the season.
As I said, this will be more freeform than the others, so there may be variations here and there.
So dial it up, and get ready to head through the gate…
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written an SG-1 short story called “Time Keeps on Slippin’,” which appeared in the Far Horizons anthology in 2014. His SG-1 novel Kali’s Wrath is scheduled to be out later this year.
OMG. My husband (crzydroid) is going to freak.
(I haven’t watched Stargate – actually, I did see and more or less enjoy the movie – but my husband loves it…and loves your posts.)
Hah, I’m so excited on his behalf ;)
I’m really excited about this. Stargate is one of my favorite shows. I’m behind in my ST:TOS comments but I’ll try to do better with this one. You could do something for Daniel like Reports of My Death…. O’Neill and Teal’c and Carter I would keep. Our Favorite Con Artist for Vallah and Let’s get the Band Back Together or Camshaft for Mitchell.
I definitely care about this more than I should.
I’ll be watching with you!! (and at the same time trying to finish my current rewatch of the 3 series in chronological order…)
Yep. Lots of Stargate in my future!!
why do I pay for cable again?
For O’Neill and Carter quotes, there’s an exchange (which I can’t remember precisely) in the episode where they lose their memory and end up in an underground work/slave camp. O’Neill says something and Carter says something like: “I don’t think so, sir”. So there’s a rhythm to the quote pair that beat the memory supression. Seems like a good candidate for quote section. How about a shipping heading?
For O’Neill/Carter if no one else.
You should do a “Rainbow Connection” bit for all the Wizard of Oz references.
I just started a rewatch of my own a few months ago – I’m up to season 9. Damn I love this show.
Ever since finding the Star Trek rewatches, and seeing rewatches for other shows pop up, I’ve been hoping for a Stargate rewatch. I still hope that one day we’ll get an episode-by-episode rewatch – after all, Stargate only has 17 seasons while Star Trek has 28, so it’s really not that sprawling :)
Heh, you are just going to ignore Voyager I guess. Anyway, psyched for this though, I really love Stargate.
Glad to see you coming over to the Gate-verse, Keith.
This is going to be fun.
Congrats on getting another rewatch, Keith, though I don’t know how you have time to rewatch the entire Stargate franchise. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do this year if I can find the time, but I haven’t managed to get to it yet.
I feel compelled to mention that it was actually a post-Legend Richard Dean Anderson rather than a post-MacGyver one. Legend, created by Michael Piller and Bill Dial, was the show RDA did betwen MacGyver and Stargate, and in my mind was the finest role of his career, a character who was sort of halfway between Mac and Jack and better than both. In this 13-episode UPN series, he played Ernest Pratt, a dissolute, drunken Old West dime novelist who posed for the covers of his books about the hero Nicodemus Legend, and thus tended to get confused with him. A genius inventor named Bartok, played by John DeLancie, managed to rope him into reluctantly adopting the hero role for real, assisted by all sorts of steampunk technology. It’s basically “Mark Twain meets Nikola Tesla — and they fight crime.” Which is such an awesome concept that I’m amazed it didn’t succeed. It was also beautifully written and produced. It had a lot of the same flavor and charm as The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., only better. And RDA was a revelation as Pratt, a fantastic character role that was as far from MacGyver as you could get, with a lot of the same cynical charm as O’Neill but far more intelligence and far less physical courage. (There’s a fantastic scene in the pilot where a gunman is sent to kill him and he talks the guy into switching sides.)
But UPN did a terrible job promoting the show. By the time they caught on that they should schedule it after Voyager and promote it as being from that show’s co-creator, they’d already decided to cancel it. And that was a crying shame. Granted, if the show had succeeded, SG-1 would’ve needed to find someone else to play Jack O’Neill; but given how much of the series RDA spent phoning in his part, I’m not convinced that would’ve been entirely a bad thing. But we’ll get to that.
There definitely have to be categories for the more camp villains, like Apophis and Anubis, and the more pragmatic ones like Baal and Todd.
Maybe a “Rush is right/awesome” category for SGU, since the only other category I can think of is a “hit the reset button” one.
@10, Agreed about Ba’al.
Perhaps O’Neill’s classic line, “Of Course I Mock You” for those villains.
Happy you’re doing this one, Keith. I’ve started watching them over, but I’m not going to get anywhere near a season a week (I’m more concerned with trying to find time for the ST:TOS episode of the week these days, especially since I’ve never seen most of those). But I’ve seen them all before, so I’ll be able to keep up (with a little help from Wikipedia/IMDB/GateWorld).
Category suggestions:
“A Snake in Your Head” for the various Goa’uld we encounter with SG-1
“You Are Here” for Eli in SGU, patterned after the shirt he wore throughout the series.
Christopher: I referenced MacGyver because it was more likely to be recognized, since as far as I can tell, you and I are the only ones who watched Legend. *wry grin*
Also your use of “rather” is incorrect, as “post” just means “after,” not necessarily “immediately after.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Lisamarie @1 – Aha, I thought so! At some point a while back I decided you and crzydroid were probably married, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you confirm it before. The family that rewatches together, stays together!
After being a die-hard SG1 fan, I faded out about halfway through SGA, and never watched more than a few episodes of SGU. I won’t have time to actually watch along with this, but I look forward to discussing the parts I know and learning about the parts I don’t!
How about “The design is clearly Ancient” for Rush quotes and “These are the wrong people” for Colonel Young?
If you’re really uncharitable to SGU, you can do a whole category about how it screws over female characters.
Oh, I wish this was an episodic rewatch… but you probably don’t want to commit to 5 years of blog posts, lol.
O’Neill’s has to be “In the middle of my backswing?”
Its his most famous line, as voted on Facebook comments on the SG-1 Fan Page. TH=hat’s a completely scientific survey, the science is at LEAST as good as the science on the show.
Indeed!
I love Stargate! Excited to hear this. Now let us watch
MacGyverJack o’Neill (two l’s) throw jokes at alien invaders.Make that three of us; I am with Christopher right down the line where Legend is concerned. (And now we see whether I can get italics to work on the tablet.)
My natural inclination is to disagree with the characterization of the original Stargate film as a ‘failed movie’. I remember all the buzz about the movie, but it wasn’t industry buzz. It was people talking about how awesome and fun the movie was. And then I went to see it with my family, and we loved it, too.
Wikipedia says that the budget for the film was $55 million, and that it made $196 million at the box office. That’s almost 4x the production budget. Isn’t that usually considered a pretty solid success?
For Jackson:
Don’t say Ka until you’ve tried it.
Actually, it was more my front side I was worried about
Direct translation? Very cool!
I don’t have a sister, Jack. And if I did, I wouldn’t let you near her.
Well, I speak twenty-three different languages. Pick one.
I loved seeing Stargate in the cinema, it was awesome.
The quote that always stuck with me:
“It took us fifteen years and three supercomputers to MacGyver a system for the gate on Earth.”
Reading Joseph Malozzi’s blog would be a powerful addition to your seasonal summaries, at least from season 4 onwards. He commented each episode.
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/
@13/KRAD: Of course, but the unjust obscurity of Legend is exactly why I feel the need to sing its praises at every opportunity. It’s a crime that it isn’t even on DVD.
Instead of “Can’t we just reverse the polarity?” (which is very generic) how about “You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.” It was a line said by Samantha Carter in an episode that came much time after they blew up a sun to destroy Apophis’ starfleet. And they never blew up a sun again. I mean, the resources necessary to actually do that are astounding (if in any way possible), yet they wanted us to believe other aliens could be a menace to Earth after that.
Well… I am just finishing my Babylon 5 rewatch this week so might as well go ahead and go for the Stargate one (a season per week is quite doable).
I actually liked the movie – not compared to the series after this bit as a standalone SF movie, it was entertaining despite its issues. And it spawned one of the biggest franchises in the genre – if that is a failed movie, can we have more of these please?
Everybody’s suggesting awfully long lines for the section heads; shouldn’t they be kept short? Sure, habitual readers probably gloss over them, but people who drop in when a rewatch comes up in their search results might get confused.
So as not to criticize without being constructive, some short phrases that stick for me are “Hallowed are the Ori,” “Close the iris!” (might do for technobabble?), “That went well,” “It’s what we do” (both Jack), “Just hear me out…” (Daniel), “Holy Hannah!” (Carter) …
If the Jaffa get a category, it would have to be called “Kree!”
Walter needs his own section (possibly with the rest of the SGC support-people bundled in): “Chevron Seven. . . Locked.” Or maybe “Incoming Traveler,” or “Unscheduled Offworld Activation.”
And we need to keep track of Siler’s misadventures. Maybe “Not the face, big guy” (when he was testing armour that required Teal’c to shoot him). Or maybe Jack’s “It’s Siler, isn’t it?” (from that time they had to abandon the base and someone got trapped).
I started a rewatch of Atlantis just recently, and have been planning to rewatch the other two shows as well, so I’m all in on this.
Just a pity we can’t do the episode by episode, as they had some really great ones that deserve extra praise across all three shows.
Of course, that would take forever, so probably best.
@29/MeredithP: I think Carter only said “Holy Hannah” once or twice, but fandom has never let her live it down.
It is nice you are not ignoring Stargate, but…
I really want an episodic rewatch. Hey, I volunteer to selflessly sit and watch SG1 episode by episode to fulfill it! Well, except for “Emancipation” and “Hathor”. Other than that, I’ll do it.
I had no idea that the film was considered a failure. I saw it at least 3 times in the theater and I’m sure it was filled each time. The audience certainly was noisy enough. I remember most of my friends and family (even my mom) went to see it. It’s still one of our favorites to watch when we get together.
I, too, wish you were doing an episodic rewatch, but I will be happy with whatever we can get. Thanks for taking this on!
So excited that you’re doing this KRAD. Long over due. I’m bummed that it’s only going to be a season by season review instead of by episode. I realize it would be a huge time commitment otherwise but maybe you can do more indepth rewatches for especially good episodes.
Also, I was a big fan of Legend too! Miss that show.
Does this mean no Voyager? Forever? :(
As much as I’d have liked to see Voyager (speaking of Tor.com programming, any chance that we’ll see a rest-of-Fables-reread starting after the final part of that comes out?), this is also a good thing. Obviously I’d have preferred an episodic one, if only because there’s no chance that anyone but a lunatic will be able to watch along at this pace.
Still, it’s about time this franchise got a little love. I mean, the Stargate people did six seasons and a movie THREE TIMES OVER, with movies to spare…
Psyched for a SG rewatch but bummed it’s not episode by episode I mean you did DS9 why not SG1 at least! I was one of those that loved Legend as well and between having Q and RDA in it and being steampunk it was awesome. Of course I loved Briscoe County Jr as well…. Man my love for failed TV shows makes me depressed at times:)
Cybersnark @30 – I like “Unscheduled Offworld Activation,” but for our run of guest stars/allies visiting, rather than specific to Walter.
I saw this and spent 5 minutes looking for the like button. then i realized i was on Tor. :)
will be following.
In connection with this rewatch, I’d love it if someone at Tor who really appreciates the original Stargate film would post on it. I routinely ask friends and relations for their personal top-ten favorite movies, and to my surprise, Stargate came up on the lists of two (otherwise unconnected) persons (ages: one 50’s, one 30’s).
I wonder if those wishing for an episode-by-episode rewatch would commit to participating through the course of it. We’re talking about 350+ episodes, plus the movies! That is a very, very tall order.
Christopher @32 – I think I just like it because I say “holy cats” myself, and for no reason (that I can discern) I associate it with Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H, whom I like…
I could also see something deferential for Carter. “Excuse me, sir” or “With all due respect, sir.”
Saavik @41 – Well, Keith is starting with the 1994 film tomorrow, does he count as someone who appreciates it?
I agree with 27 for the technobabble item, “You blow up one sun…” is a great suggestion. I’d also like to submit: “Stuck on a glacier with MacGyver”.
“Unscheduled offworld activation” should be in there for something.
How about: “Big round thing… flushes sideways.”
Edit: For everyone’s favorite stuntman/technical sergeant, there’s “Siler’s hurt, did it work?” (That’s from A Matter Of Time, which is possibly the greatest hour of tv science fiction ever made.)
I’m really looking forward to this, and am desperately trying to work out how to fit 20 hours of stargate into a week….
BrianDolan: “Stuck on a glacier with MacGyver” was from an outtake. :)
Meredith and Christopher: It was Jacob Carter who used “Holy Hannah” a lot — which is why Sam Carter used it the one time, it was something her father said. (Then again, Jacob was pretty consistently written like a Roy Thomas character from 1966….)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
You should note every time the team is quickly and easily captured. Doesn’t O’Neill have a beautifully resigned-frustrated line like “If I had a Nickel…” when it happens in a later season?
I always feel the title should have a subtitle;
Stargate SG1: The SFF actor’s retirement home.
Carter also often said, “It makes sense, sir,” whenever justifying any techno-babble that O’Neill couldn’t be arsed to comprehend.
I always loved the way O’Neill always said, “Ya think?” in that sarcastic way of his.
I’m in!
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com
Keith @45 – Fair enough, but that doesn’t explain why I associate it with Col. Potter. I think my brain may have short-circuited on that one; the wires are crossed! (Although since it was more Jacob, I’d like to point out that in my initial suggestion, I only said “Carter” without specifying which one. I can retcon myself into accuracy!)
And I agree with those proposing Unscheduled Offworld Activation as a subhead – don’t much care for what, I just like it.
Kaila @36 – Why does it have to be no Voyager forever? Keith has long since established that he won’t be writing it. That doesn’t mean nobody else can ever write it. It can come later, same as it would have before the Stargate rewatch announcement.
I never watched much of the TV Stargate (though I did see the movie), but I’ve enjoyed krad’s Star Trek rewatches so much that I’ll have to check these out. And @9, you’re right that Legend was a good show. UPN’s poor promotion means I only caught a couple episodes, but those were enough to convince me it should have been kept.
@@@@@ 43
“You blow up one sun…” is shorter and already gives the idea. I liked it!
Krad, if you want this session to be about ridiculous science of SG franchise, you could use instead “Exploding tumors” or “Tumor creation device”, in honor of that infamous Stargate Atlantis episode and the way Dr. Beckett died (for the first time, at least).
I’d love to see an overarching section defining pivital moments in each character’s arch, and how they grew through each season. Maybe some wrap up articles, or breaks? At least for SG1. The changes in especially Carter and Daniel through the series are pretty major.
+1 for the “Rainbow Connection” section.
@53 et al, it also works for Atlantis, though that case was a bit of an accident, I think.
“Ah, Crap…!” or “Or course it is.” or “Of course it does.” For O’neil.
I’m going with anthonypero’s suggestion (#17). Please, Keith? Please?
Pleeeeaaaase?
This is neat! I really enjoyed the movie. Just the other day I realized that it was a young James Spader in the main role (I saw the movie before I started noticing him as an actor, mostly through Boston Legal). I love Spader! He’s one of my new faves and finding out it was him just blew my mind haha.
As far as the TV show, the only one I could ever really get into was Atlantis–I think it’s the cast that makes me love it, moreso than the SF alone. Sheppard and McKay are just the best. I’ve tried to many times to watch SG1 or others and they just… bore me. :( Not sure why. But maybe I’ll have to give it a go again.
You absolutely need a category for the Tok’ra – the shows most awesome aliens! Who didn’t love Martouf and his symbiote Lantash?
An interesting thing to cover here would be the use of the gods/mythology (and how accurate it was/wasn’t) – it’s one aspect of the show that really made it stand out from the non-space faring sci-fi shows (your Star Treks, BSGs, etc.) and it can even be said made it stand out against those shows as well, as comparing say the Goa’uld to the Romulans, early (pre-reboot) Cylons, etc.
I would also second the questions raised in the comments about the film being ‘howling[ly]’ unsuccessful – it was the #1 on the week of it’s release in 1994 and stayed in the top 5 for a few weeks thereafter. Yes, if we look at things like where it falls on the all time list (barely cracking the top 1000, below Hannah Montana The Movie or You, Me & Dupree and yes, it also barely made the top 20 film releases of that year – but that’s also true of 1994’s Star Trek Generations).
I’ll be paying attention to this and am game to play along (until we get to SGU, like DS9, it was just something I could really not, let’s say appreciate, plus I was traveling a great deal when it came along). I would also have preferred to see some more time spent on SG-1 than one column per season, there really is way too much to discuss in the pre-Ori seasons.
Wait. People haven’t seen Legend? Wierd…
I sometimes long for a day when someone asks me “Star Wars or Star Trek” just so I can say STARGATE!
I always liked that while Star Wars took place a long time ago…and Star Trek is in the future, Stargate is set in the here and now and show what humanity is capable in the present.
Long Live Stargates SG-1, Atlantis and Universe…cringe for whatever Devlin/Emmerich wants to do with its inevitable reboot
@63: I still don’t understand how Devlin and Emmerich managed to convince MGM to let them do a revival of their original, mediocre movie continuity over a continuation of the successful TV franchise. It’s not as if either one of them has that much cachet these days, as far as I know; I don’t think their last few films were all that successful, although I haven’t seen any of them. And I know one or both of them tried several times in the past to convince MGM to let them do a sequel, with no success. I wonder what changed.
CLB, MGM has a huge library but has had no recent hits (other than the Bond films, and that only because it has, as with SG, an ownership interest in the rights), so it’s actually a natural development. Additionally, they are developing the reboot as a trilogy, in conjunction with WB, which also is interested in having tent pole action films (thus, their doubling down hard on both the HP triology based on a slim, tie-in book than can’t even be properly termed a novella, and the big bet on a connected DC multiverse).
This project may never get past the announcement, development stage, for one and for two, you’re right: in particular, White House Down actually lost a lot of money for Sony, but all that often means in Hollywood is that WB (which is probably the pocket in this case, not MGM) will keep a tight reign on the development of this. Devlin and Emmerich have lost studios money before and come back to make them money, they’re also a known quantity, they’ll probably get some slack on this to a point prior to a green light.
As far as developing the series, part of that is that there are less rights (and therefore rights-holder) involved in developing a film just on the inital film versus the various tv series, for The Simpson‘s movie, for example, Fox had to pay off people in profit participation or direct actual money in advance who didn’t even have involvement in the TV show at the time of the movie’s development or release and, particularly people who played no role in the film itself (development to production), that’s all money it has to shell out that makes the film less profitable to the studio. It’s similar to the money claimed loss on ST: TMP that Paramount claimed which is related to Phase II, to give you a frame of reference you’re likely familiar with. Additionally, the tv series hasn’t had much life so that’s another factor. The studios probably assume they will get good-will without having to actually pay anyone other than the Devlin and Emmerich.
@65/FDS: I understand perfectly why MGM would want to revive Stargate as a movie franchise. What I don’t understand is why they’d choose a reboot of Devlin and Emmerich’s mediocre one-shot version rather than a continuation of Brad Wright’s far superior, long-running version. If it just comes down to money and rights, that’s unsurprising, I suppose, but it’s deeply disappointing.
@66: I suspect that the choice of canons has to do with Hollywood’s peculiar form of selective memory. The most recent TV-franchise project — SG:U — essentially tanked, which means in conventional Hollywood wisdom that that franchise is tired and worn out. OTOH, the original Stargate movie? What Hollywood remembers about that film is that it was the launching point for a highly successful franchise.
Similar logic probably also explains why there was a certain amount of buzz a year or so back about a new feature film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — based not on any of the TV series canon but on the feature film that preceded it. The TV material was seen as having run its course, but the original movie? There was a film that sparked a fantastically successful series franchise. (Perhaps fortunately, the Buffy revival seems to have lost its momentum fairly quickly….)
@67/John: Yeah, but in both cases, the franchises only became successful when put in different hands than the ones responsible for the lackluster movies. Hollywood should pay more attention to creator names, not franchise names. Frequently they do.
I suppose there’s also a certain insularity involved. Movie executives probably interact with movie producers and directors far more often than with TV people. There’s usually a bias toward working with people you know and have a relationship with.
FINALLY!!! I’ve loved the Trek rewatches and was very disappointed in the lack of Stargate material on this site, until now. I’d also agree with a couple of other commenters on section headings, namely “You blow up one sun” and “Of course I dare mock you”. I think there should also be a section on the romantic entanglements the team gets into, something like the “No sex, please, we’re Starfleet” in the Trek version. Call it what you will; the only quote I can think of is Jack’s teasing of Caveman!Daniel: “At this rate you’ll have a girl on every planet.” Jack’s section could also be called “Two L’s”, which he specifies at least twice. Can’t wait to see more! :D
I’m excited for this rewatch; I actually watched every episode of every stargate series made, so it’s fair to say I’m a fan.
I don’t agree with your assertion that Stargate the movie was a flop. It grossed over 200 mil world wide, on a 50 mil budget.
Indeed.
:)
Looking forward to this! I’ve recently discovered this series and love it!
Ah I wish this was episodic too but my own site is doing one like that and we won’t be done until December 2020.. So I understand why you wouldn’t!
Wait, crzydroid and Lisamarie are husband and wife? :)
Nice going with this rewatch, krad, but apart from the movie, the first couple of seasons of SG1 and Atlantis, and all of Universe, I won’t be reading it much, because I have actually not watched the rest of the franchise; and I don’t want to spoil myself because I will eventually watch the whole thing.