On August 21 2008, Stargate Atlantis was cancelled by Scifi and MGM. The current season, season 5, will be the last. It will go off the air in January.
This comes as sad news for us all, even though they have greenlit an Atlantis movie.
Atlantis in the form of movies is an excellent idea, but not at the expense of the series. Many, if not all, of us would rather have the series than a movie. With the series, we can see our favorite show and our favorite characters every Friday night for nearly an hour.
Needless to say, fans are not happy. Not long after the news of the cancellation, several web sites dedicated to saving our favorite scifi series popped up. I'll add links to those sites both here and in the links section.
All of us need to join in the fight to save our show. MGM and scifi have made a mistake. Taking Atlantis off the air is a bad move, not only for the scifi channel, but for the Stargate franchise as well.
They have given a third Stargate series a go. That series will be called Stargate Universe and will be geared toward a younger audience.
"Stargate Universe is set on board a massive Ancient ship called the Destiny, millions of years older than even the city of Atlantis (story). The Ancients launched the automated ship millions of years ago to seed Stargates throughout many galaxies, with a second ship planned to follow it up and explore those planets. But they got busy with ascension, and never followed through on the plan.
Earth discovers that the Stargate's mysterious ninth chevron can be utilized to gate directly to the Ancient ship, opening up literally the whole universe to explore. But the team will soon discover that they have no way back to Earth, and must ride the ship on its programmed course." (you can find the entire article here)
Granted, many SG1 fans thought that Atlantis was a bad move. That the show couldn't possibly be as good as SG1. Of course everyone soon found out that Atlantis was as good as SG1 and some fans thought it surpassed its parent show. It is possible that Stargate Universe could be just as good as SG1 and Atlantis, but that's hard to believe. First, it doesn't follow the same path, which may or may not be a good thing. Second, it sounds quite alot like Star Trek, Star Trek Voyager to be exact. On a ship far out in the galaxy with no way to contact or return to Earth. Some people have begun calling the new series "Stargate 90210". Is that fair? I don't know, maybe we should give the show a chance before we write it off completely. The Stargate franchise has been good to us so far, but by cancelling Atlantis during it's best season yet seems a little like they are turning their backs on us.
Turning away from an audience that has been loyal to them for more than ten years, simply to draw the attention of a younger generation, with no guarantee that their intended audience will be interested. It seems like they're giving up on a successful show just to make way for a new show that may or may not be a success. SG1 and Atlantis ran at the same time for a couple years. Doing that with Atlantis and Universe would be a smarter idea, leave the successful show on and keep your loyal audiance, and run the new show to gain a new audience and have the loyal move over as well.
MGM and Scifi say that the decision to cancel Atlantis was mutual, that there isn't one person or company to blame.
I say whoever decided to cancel it, whether it was one person or a whole slew of people, it could very well be the biggest mistake they've made.
We aren't going to take this lying down. The show and the actors deserve our support. Joe Flanigan, David Hewlett and all the others have had a steady paying job for five years. They have brought our favorite characters to life. Without them, Atlantis would not have been as successful as it is. We need to support them and the show. We need to fight for them, and let them know we appreciate everything they've done over the past five years.
Please join the fight! We have to let everyone know, we aren't going to take this!
Here are the links I promised.
Save the lost city of Atlantis
Fight for SGA thread - GateWorld Forum
On the Save our SGA page, you'll find addresses and email address of people in high positions at Scifi and MGM.
If we all work together and join our efforts, we WILL save our show!
Joe Flanigan is to star in an episode of Warehouse 13, a new Scifi series airing on the SciFi channel beginning in July.
Flanigan will play Jeff Weaver, a handsome and wealthy man “whose charm captures Myka’s interest, but he finds himself under Pete and Myka’s scrutiny when a sculpture on which he bid, vanishes in an impossible heist.”
This information came from Gateworld and can be found here.
He didn't use those exact words, but that seems to be what he meant.
Joe participated in a chat a while ago. Fans from Hungary, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, ETC. Sent in questions and Joe answered them.
Some were as simple as: What's your favorite beer?
But Joe's answer to one question inparticular spoke to what he feels about SGA being canceled....
Here, Joe repeats the two part question and gives his answer:
1. Will you take part in Stargate Universe? No. 2. If you had the chance would you take part in Stargate Atlantis again? Probably. I miss my cast members and the crew. There is a lot of unexplored elements left for Atlantis. Personally I think it could have easily gone for another 5 years. No one is really certain why it was cancelled. Every producer/executive lays the blame on the other so it’s becomes impossible to understand the true reasons. I think our cast did a truly amazing job in helping build a succesfull franchise, but I don’t think that it is seen that way by the writers and producers. If Universe is successful, the prevailing theory among the writers and producers will be that actors are dispensible and not a critical part of the show. Only time will tell. I don’t know about you, but I think there are a lot of crappy shows on the air and I really appreciate good acting and interesting characters more than formulaic and procedural dramas.
You can find the rest of that chat here.
I agree with Joe's statements about how actors will be viewed if universe is a success.
Stargate Atlantis was canceled in it's prime! There were still hundreds of stories that could have been told! The show could have gone on strong for several more years, but the writers/producers had a new shiney idea and they wanted to run with it. So instead of sticking with a show they knew would be successful for a while yet, they canned it to make a show that holds no promises for either them or the viewers!
If the show does well, then the next time they get an idea they'll take the same action.
That would mean nothing to me as far as SGU goes because I won't be watching the show anyway, but it will mean alot to the actors in it.
It would be no different than the company you work for deciding one day that they were going to change the company and hire all new employees. You would be out of a job just like the actors from SGA are.
We cannot support actions like that.
Actors are an important part of any show! A TV series or movie would be nothing without the actors playing the roles! Even something like Milo and Otis needed an actor (Dudley Moore) to do the voices!
What would TV be worth without actors? Even cartoons would be pointless as the characters would have no voices.
I fully support Joe Flanigan's views in the statement above!
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