Post by B5Erik on Jul 11, 2015 13:55:58 GMT
Stargate SG1 got a lot of love, and had an amazing 10 year run (plus a couple direct to video movies after the end of the regular series), but sometimes forgotten is it's spinoff - Stargate Atlantis.
The show was extremely well written and featured some great characters (let's face it - Dr. Beckett is one of the best, and most likeable, characters ever in a Science Fiction TV show), and the special effects were excellent. What may have turned some people off from even trying the show was the description of the recurring enemy on the show as, "Space Vampires." Visions of an old episode of Buck Rogers had to be going through people's heads as they thought about that one. Calling the Wraith, "Space Vampires," isn't completely inaccurate, but it is far too simplistic to do them justice. The Wraith were a very cleverly thought out enemy, and the show benefitted from their presence.
The one area where Stargate Atlantis was superior to SG1 was the fact that Atlantis never had a season where the quality ebbed and flowed as it did just past halfway through the series on SG1. SG1 was never less than good, but it did drop in quality when Michael Shanks dropped out of the show for a season, and when Richard Dean Anderson got a diminished role in the show after that (although the show picked up quite a bit in the last two seasons with Ben Browder and Claudia Black joining the cast, and the creation of the Ori storyline). Atlantis never had a season where you said, "Well, that was a decent season, but it wasn't as good as the show had been in previous seasons." It was consistently very, very good - or maybe even great, depending on your perspective.
Even with the changes in the cast (the revolving door of commanding officers) the show maintained an extremely high level of quality. Stargate Atlantis was one of the greatest Science Fiction TV Shows of all time thanks to some very clever writing, great characters played by a great cast, and some outstanding production values. It is definitely a Science Fiction show NOT to be missed.
The show was extremely well written and featured some great characters (let's face it - Dr. Beckett is one of the best, and most likeable, characters ever in a Science Fiction TV show), and the special effects were excellent. What may have turned some people off from even trying the show was the description of the recurring enemy on the show as, "Space Vampires." Visions of an old episode of Buck Rogers had to be going through people's heads as they thought about that one. Calling the Wraith, "Space Vampires," isn't completely inaccurate, but it is far too simplistic to do them justice. The Wraith were a very cleverly thought out enemy, and the show benefitted from their presence.
The one area where Stargate Atlantis was superior to SG1 was the fact that Atlantis never had a season where the quality ebbed and flowed as it did just past halfway through the series on SG1. SG1 was never less than good, but it did drop in quality when Michael Shanks dropped out of the show for a season, and when Richard Dean Anderson got a diminished role in the show after that (although the show picked up quite a bit in the last two seasons with Ben Browder and Claudia Black joining the cast, and the creation of the Ori storyline). Atlantis never had a season where you said, "Well, that was a decent season, but it wasn't as good as the show had been in previous seasons." It was consistently very, very good - or maybe even great, depending on your perspective.
Even with the changes in the cast (the revolving door of commanding officers) the show maintained an extremely high level of quality. Stargate Atlantis was one of the greatest Science Fiction TV Shows of all time thanks to some very clever writing, great characters played by a great cast, and some outstanding production values. It is definitely a Science Fiction show NOT to be missed.
