There’s been some rumblings in the last year that MGM has been working on a way to revive its Stargate franchise with a new series. More recently, there were hints that said series might include some of Stargate SG-1‘s original crew, like Daniel Jackson. And now, it sounds as though the creators have plans to bring back another: Samantha Carter, the genius astrophysicist played by Amanda Tapping.
Tapping’s Carter was one of SG-1‘s central characters, who the team often turned to when they had problems involving physics or engineering. As the franchise expanded, Carter eventually popped up in other places as well—she made a handful of appearances in Stargate: Atlantis, briefly taking over that expedition, before eventually commanding a battle cruiser in the franchise’s third series, Stargate Universe.
While Tapping was a prominent member of the cast, she eventually transitioned into the director’s chair, helming an episode of the series in 2004 (“Resurrection”). She went on to direct for shows like Sanctuary, Continuum, The Magicians, Dark Matter, Van Helsing, Travelers, Supernatural, The Flash, Batwoman, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
In an interview with The Companion (via Syfy Wire), Tapping spoke about her work as a director and uplifting women in the film and television industry, and explained that Brad Wright, the franchise’s co-creator, had approached her to to both reprise her character and direct, whenever—if ever—it reaches that point.
Just like Daniel Jackson’s return, we can’t be sure what Carter’s revival will look like—a cameo? A regular role as part of the main cast?
In the franchise’s universe, the characters have largely moved on from their original roles, so it seems unlikely that this is going to be a rehash of the first series: Last we saw her, Carter was commanding the George Hammond in space, Jackson was working on various research projects, O’Neill (played by Richard Dean Anderson) had been promoted to the rank of Lt. General and was generally in charge of Earth’s Homeworld Security, and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) was leading operations with Stargate Command. Tapping notes that while she imagines her character will get some sort of promotion, they’d be working to get a new cast to lead the franchise into the future.
This is presuming the project continues development—efforts to revive the series last year were slowed down by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and there’s yet to be any sort of greenlight for a pilot or a season order. But Stargate SG-1 recently jumped onto Netflix, where it will hopefully find a new audience and convince someone that it’ll be worth returning to.
