I am firmly convinced people don’t realise how good Stargate is, because there’s so much of it, that few have the time to watch all of it and realise how good it is.
How long does it take before it gets good? This might upset fans like you, but I’m having a hard time getting into it, to the point that I have my doubts if it’s worth it. Before you’re asking what I’m doing here, this was randomly in my feed and I only noticed that this was a Stargate community after having written most of my comment.
I caught some of it when it aired for the first time and was thoroughly unimpressed of it compared to TNG (I’m not a Trekkie either, more of a casual viewer of Star Trek). Then I tried watching it again a few years ago. It left such a terrible impression on me that I had forgotten all about even making the attempt until I tried again recently and noticed after a few absolutely awful episodes that they seemed awfully familiar. The previous attempt had left such a bad impression that I had essentially purged all memories of it. I didn’t even know this was possible.
I want to like it (I actually liked the first episode a lot), but the writing is just so bad and everything, apart from some of the CG (which holds up quite well) and the solid acting feels cheap and poorly thought out. The mystery and intrigue gets overshadowed by sexism, jingoism, characters that can be summed up on a postage stamp and plots and scenes that are contrived and clumsy. I’m sure they’ll flesh the characters out more over time, but do they ever solve how the female token character is being treated? Does it ever stop feeling cheap and schlocky?
Not that anyone isn’t allowed to not enjoy Stargate, but maybe this will help:
I’m an embarrassingly hardcore sci-fi fan, and it even took me a little to get into SG-1 and beyond (SG Universe is a separate…argument lol) and I’d seen occasional SG episodes as it was airing, and was even living on Cheyenne mountain at that time, so there was a fun “connection”, but it didn’t click with me, it was just confusing and silly and I was all about Star Trek and book learnin’.
However, it wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that I sat down with it, with a very open mind, and later pulled it up as a re-watch when I worked through my comfort re-runs of everything else.
Upon a second watch through, and learning about it via companion trivia reading with the episodes, I fell for it, pretty hard.
Now, I work with some official ST stuff, and I’m frankly disheartened and bored by a lot of it. But I’ve never gotten that with Stargate. It’s my constant companion, and my spouse and I find more and more to love and laugh about and enjoy with each episode our dumb asses will watch over and over again.
It’s, uh, rough in the very beginning. It got so much better once they switched to Sci-Fi Channel, which is amusing really, and it just got better and better. It’s full of callbacks and continuity, referenced goofs, and chemistry that is unparalleled. SG: Atlantis is a fun journey, too, with a great cast, but it took a much larger ensemble to amass anything near the connection that the central 4 have in SG-1. Even when their roll of greatness slowed a bit, in the ending seasons, which like ST:DS9, has a disturbingly timely enemy, they took the stars of Farscape, and Ben Browder slid right in to playing Ben Browder in every role, and Claudia Black 180°s to something bizarrely hilarious when compared to her usual stoicism as Aeryn Sun (I’m 1,000% convinced anyone that is strongly against their casting hasn’t seen Farscape, or doesn’t understand campy humor, at all, haha).
The last above being said, enjoying, or learning to enjoy campy humor is pivotal for enjoying and understanding Stargate, I feel, anyhow. I probably didn’t connect with it when it was airing because I preferred deep and dark, I was just getting into reading Frank Herbert, and my depression was kicking my ass. I couldn’t have even understood its levity, at the time, let alone cared for it. Too silly, how dare they! But now? Especially knowing it was made…then? It’s just phenomenal.
Like most recommendations for a TNG era Star Trek series, “Keep watching! It gets good in Season 3!” but really, it all has good, (minus that eerily same misogynistic episode like Code of Honor, ALSO written by Katherine Powers), but I promise you, it’s worth it.
The portrayal of sexism that Samantha Carter and other female military members face is actually an overall positive part of the shows writing. They highlight how problematic it is and Dr. Samantha Carter continues to rise through the ranks as her accomplishments are recognized by the good leadership that she serves with. She is far from a token character and she provides some of the most significant contributions to the team.
So that issue you have does get better. I would argue that the writing overall is rather progressive for the time.
Feel free to not like the show though. It can be a bit hokey. Not everyone enjoys cheesy sci-fi.
I watched SG1 as a comfort show with my partner, and I am glad I did. I am glad I know the references and have experienced the ‘gems’. I am often amused at some of the bad parts, but not always.
Many of the bad parts were SO bad that I’d never watch it again, and I wouldn’t recommend you spend your time on this when you already discovered that the bad parts grate this much. Life is short and there’s a lot of other things to experience.
Many of the bad parts were SO bad that I’d never watch it again
Looking at you, “Emancipation”.
I needed three days to get through this episode.
I think if youve watched some episodes in s1 (which it sounds like you have) feel free to skip to s3 or 4. The story becomes a lot more focused and they find their groove more. After that it just keeps getting better. :)
Although around season 7 or 8 the story and pacing did became a bit stagnant as they rounded up several plotlines and it felt a bit as if the writers didn’t quite know where to take the show from there.
If I remember correctly, the last few seasons were each written in a way that they could be the last season because there was uncertainty about renewals. So more like the writers often weren’t sure if they were going to be taking the show anywhere at all.
Sounds like they’re solidly in mid-late s1 or early s2 to me.
The early seasons are not my favorite and when I watched with my wife for her first time we skipped a lot of episodes that I feel aren’t necessary for the rest of the show.
Like most shows that were in the early stages of “hey let’s make a show with continuity that doesn’t just reset to 0 at the end” they were doing a lot of bottle episodes, and really wanted to try and curb the viewers expectations with some episodes. It’s a product of its time. Men dominated action roles and women were sidekicks at best, usually arm candy plot devices.
So I understand why they wanted an episode like Emancipation but dear god does it feel like beating a dead horse by the end of the episode to me. We get it. Sam is a woman with reproductive bits on the inside, but she can hold her own. You have shown us this many times. Why do you insist on both showing and telling us over and over and over. Sam kicks ass on her own, it doesn’t need to feel forced.
I love the show but dear God is it hard to get through the first two seasons nowadays.
Sam is a woman with reproductive bits on the inside, but she can hold her own. You have shown us this many times. Why do you insist on both showing and telling us over and over and over. Sam kicks ass on her own, it doesn’t need to feel forced.
Given that most of this happens early on I always saw it as a somewhat heavy-handed approach to make it unequivocally clear to the machos in the potential audience that they aren’t welcome to the fandom. I mean have you met the patriarchally inclined? They aren’t the brightest bunch. Reading between the lines is hard for them…
Very well could be. If I were making a show i could see myself doing that. “Hey you guys who typically like shows like this for X reason? This isn’t for you. If you don’t like it go find your corner of the internet to whine with other losers” that way we don’t have that “The Boys” moment several seasons in where it finally clicks and they go “hey they’re making fun of us!”
They’re also the kind of people who whine about modern star trek being “too political”. Take your pick as to whether it’s because women are everywhere, people can be gay/bi/other, or even gasp black.
Subtlety is basically invisibility to them, and clearly even heavy-handed metaphors that wouldn’t confuse my 2 year old nephew leave them stumped.
I’d love to talk to the writers/director to see what their thought processes were when making it, or watching an interview. I love seeing behind the scenes stuff on controversial episodes, whether I liked the episode or hated it. And I just love BTS for Stargate in general.
They’re also the kind of people who whine about modern star trek being “too political”.
Shatner himself is one of those douchebros. I still can’t believe that idiot tried to pretend that TOS wasn’t political…
You don’t have to like everything. Stop forcing yourself to watch something that you don’t like
Given that you have already received some replies which I largely agree with I’m going to focus on some of the specific points of critique you raised.
The mystery and intrigue gets overshadowed by sexism,
I mean I can’t really say that this isn’t portrayed in the show, especially in the first few episodes, but I can’t recall any instance of it being portrayed as a good thing. Quite the contrary actually.
jingoism,
The show is indeed rather militaristic, but given that the antagonists are a species of parasitic aliens with a god-complex
spoiler
(a plot point which gains more nuance in later seasons as well by the way)
I always saw this as a thinly veiled metaphor for armed resistance against the divine right of kings. So I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call it jingoistic, although overtly militaristic is certainly a fair assessment.
characters that can be summed up on a postage stamp
As you already surmised this gets fleshed out a bit more later on, but stays more or less the same. Most characters, certainly the main cast in any case, stay rather archetypical with some character development happening though.
and plots and scenes that are contrived and clumsy.
This happens throughout the entire series unfortunately, but it varies a lot from episode to episode rather than from season to season. There are some rather interesting interpretations of common and uncommon sci-fi tropes throughout as well.
do they ever solve how the female token character is being treated?
Since you didn’t exactly point out your problem with her portrayal I can only guess what you mean, but yes, I do think so. There are also other women joining the supporting cast (and even main cast in the last few seasons), leading to less frequent failure of the Bechdel test.
Does it ever stop feeling cheap and schlocky?
Not quite, but the first two seasons are certainly the worst in this regard, mixed in with most of the retconning happening to their content.
All that said, there is a reason the original show has 10 seasons at 22 episodes each, three movies, and four spin-offs, and if you can stomach early Star Trek TNG (or even TOS), you will probably enjoy at least the SG-1 series overall.
IMHO the first season is the weakest, second season is not great not terrible, 3-8 is the peak, 9, 10, and the two TV movies trail off a bit although still better than the first two seasons.
If you want to skip some seasons you should be aware that most of them have a “clip-show” episode towards the end that recaps the season and embeds them into the larger narrative happening in the background. I’d say the bad episodes are worth stomaching for the context though.
Atlantis spin-off is worth the watch if you liked SG-1 overall. Chronology is a bit weird though, SG-1 season 9 and 10 and Atlantis season 1 and 2 overlap.
Universe spin-off you can skip unless you got really invested.
spoiler
Universe ends without wrapping up its underlying narrative in any way since the show got canceled.
Haven’t watched the animated spin-off, Origins was meh.
In conclusion, it’s probably worth giving it a shot if you can manage to not take it too seriously.
Universe is so weird.
I remember really wanting to like it, it’s an interesting “soft-reboot” where otherwise the franchise would have to go into near-future-scifi territory. Not saying I wouldn’t like the other thing, but totally understand from a budget standpoint why they went the Universe “lots of bottle episodes” direction. It also helps separate it from the rest of StarGate, Andromeda, Farscape, and other recent-at-the-time shows.
I remember it starting to go in interesting directions and then got cancelled. Should probably try and watch it again. Don’t think I have since it aired.
Agreed. Sad it was cancelled right when the background plot (heh) was picking up some speed and the show seemed to have found its stride, but overall it was a bit too Battlestar Galactica for me anyway.
A lot of the narrative structure was further developed by Brad Wright with the Travelers (2016) series in which it worked quite well from the start. Also sadly cancelled before its time though.
Universe ends without wrapping up its underlying narrative in any way since the show got canceled.
I was thinking that for a long time, too, but recently I have rewatched it, and now I think there was a kind of wrapping up.
Remember when Rush said that if they miscalculate the energy requirements, they may not wake up for a thousand years? Its in the last episode, at the 13th minute.
Yeah they knew the series might not get renewed for another season, so they threw this ending in as a way to be prepared for either eventuality.
By underlying narrative I meant the microwave background radiation plot though.
I watched the original movie and thought it one of the best SciFi movies I’d ever seen with an awesome premise. The series was …farirly good .
“Anyway, I’m sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it!”
What do you think?
Stargate was a hoot and a half. The “again in English, Carter?” got old though.
I disagree. Nerds geeking out and descending into a passionate rambling about their favoured subjects is a common reoccurrence that needs to be reigned in periodically. It’s for their own good.
At least in the few episodes I’ve watched it feels like they are doing it at any point something is being discussed or vocabulary is being used that exceeds that of a fourth grader. The impression is that they aren’t taking their audience seriously at all.
Never underestimate your audience. They’re generally sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively to quality entertainment.
Am I too jaded or am I detecting some absolutely dripping sarcasm?
That is a direct quote from the self-referential episode 200
I see. Thank you. Seems like the writers had their fun with this episode.
There is always “200” and “Wormhole Extreme” ;)
Thanks to this its now time to do another rewatch.
