this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Risa
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My brother in Christ...
WATCH STARGATE!
It is probably the most well-rounded sci-fi ever made. Very good characters, very funny, and the budget kept getting bigger with each season. (Probably should've stopped after season 8, the whole Ori plot feels tacked on - it's still pretty solid, though.)
There are a lot of familiar actors throughout the series, including some from Trek.
....When you're done with that, then you can watch Stargate Atlantis which has even better characters!
Okay I lied a little. I saw two Stargate movies and I've seen a handful of Atlantis episodes. Stargate proper looks okay but not as in line with my tastes as Atlantis seems to be. Also cute dude with glasses on Atlantis. That helps. Then again SG1 has that silver fox so who knows...
I'll get to it when I get to it!
If "in line with my tastes" means what I think it means, just wait until you get a load of Christopher Judge's Teal'c. Especially in later seasons.
The first few seasons of SG-1 do feel darker (figuratively and literally). Atlantis had the advantage of taking what the main series learned along the way and employing it from the get go. The best thing about them, I feel, is how they aired concurrently and had multiple crossover moments (imagine if Picard's Enterprise regularly checked in with DS9). So you might want to find a guide online to know what order to watch the episodes of both series in, if you care about chronology.
Oh I'm aware of Teal'c. The show was constantly on TV and my parents liked it but I never watched it. So I'm familiar with the premise and most general characters but I never got into it personally. Teal'c I ended up becoming even more familiar with when I was doing research thanks to God of War. God can that man act...
Hilariously I wasn't actually being gay in this moment, although you are totally right to immediately go with that line of thinking for 'in my tastes' lol. This might sound hypocritical considering my love for Discovery, but Stargate SG-1 seems to be more action focused than Atlantis. I could be completely wrong but that's just my impression from seeing it casually on TV every now and again. DSC has a bunch of action but it's also pretty heavily peppered with a lot of really great dialogue and character development so the action feels 'earned' to me. Not just throwing it around just for the sake of it. I could be wrong but SG-1 (and again this is totally from the outside looking in with no real information/watching history) feels like it just has a lot of action. I mean that's probably due to the fact that they're going through gates to random worlds.
Atlantis seemed more researchy and talky, like TNG or VOY, which I gravitated a little bit more towards. But again I only ever saw sporadic episodes and have no idea what the hell was going on beyond the fact that they found old shit underwater and there was a cute dude in glasses.
Hmm... Thinking about it, I guess SG-1 is a bit more action oriented. But I think that's because it went on much longer than Atlantis. If Atlantis had less action, it was because it tried and failed - not because it was intending to be more "talky". One of the defining moments of Atlantis is a gigantic engagement in space. It was so important they changed the show's intro to include it.
Rest assured, SG-1 has a lot of great dialog and thought-provoking stories, too. I guess you got unlucky and saw all the "YEEHAW, MURIKA!" episodes. XD
One episode in particular is really rough because it focuses on the emotional aftermath of a single action scene.
The reason I called SG-1 "well-rounded" is because it's a terrific balance between action and character. Atlantis does the same with less on-location filming, and a smaller budget. It's really hard to pick one over the other because you should treat both as a complete set.
Okay I was actually talking with my roommate a few minutes ago, while you made this comment, and we were talking about Stargate. We're both huge Trek fans and she has seen all of Stargate. While talking to her I realized why I felt put off by SG-1 and you touched on it.
Every part of Stargate SG-1 that I've seen feels like it's Team America: Space Police. As a Canadian, I really fuckin hate that. So if you're saying that's less common then I might give it a chance. I really really despise the concept of a bunch of militarized people rocking up somewhere and suddenly and aggressively imposing their will upon the local population. Which, as I found out when talking to roommate, is sort of the concept of the first Stargate movie? Going in to kill Egyptian-esque gods that have enslaved the locals of another location?
The ultimate irony is that all Stargate series were filmed and produced in Canada!
Is it a good thing or a bad thing that Canadian writers so perfectly zeroed in on the American mentality of shooting everything until the problem goes away?
I may be mis-remembering, but I think it's a plot point of the early seasons that the Americans try to be American on other planets and slowly realize how badly that works out, forcing them to change their strategy going forward.
There are other things that cause this behqvior. Like some outsider coming in and trying to further militarize the SGC, etc. But those people are considered antagonistic by the main cast. Similar to how the crew of the Enterprises don't take well to visiting Captains and Admirals.
That said, there are moments, even towards the end where patience runs out and someone stands up and says something like, "That's it! Where's the C4?"
shrug YMMV, but I think your general opinion of both shows will end up being favorable.
For the record it wasn't going to stop me from giving it a go, just that's why I never tried it. Didn't realize that's why but it was hard to articulate. If there's some self realization in there then I'm all for it.
It's on the list either way. When will I get to it? No clue. Probably within the next couple months. Stargate is the one with the silver fox looking dude, right?
When you say silver fox, do you mean Richard Dean Anderson (the team leader) or Beau Bridges (the base commander in the later seasons)?
Oh RDA for sure.
Good choice.
I grew up watching MacGyver, so I remember his Han Solo-looking days.
Unfortunately, these days, he's not so much of a fox. I just googled his more recent pictures and didn't even recognize him.
As an American (in the US sense), so do I. It's why I didn't like SG1 but could sort of tolerate Atlantis.
Oddly, the biggest SG1 fan I knew was Canadian. He was a bit of an odd duck, though. He's the sort of guy who knew off the top of his head that the awkward woman on Breakfast Television was the daughter of Canada's military chief. I would have traded citizenships with him if that were an option. He could have his paranoia and guns and I could have some healthcare.