Stargate Atlantis: Final Episode Friday

The Beckett clone is still around and appears on the show every ow and then, but is usually working on Earth most of the time.

And I don't think they'd ever kill off Mckay, if the show kept going- he's by far the most popular character on the show. A lot of people who don't even care for Atlantis that much would stop tuning in if not for Rodney. It'd be like SG-1 killing off Daniel, Carter and half of Teal'c. You'd still have Shep in the Jack/Cameron role and Ronon with the other half of Teal'c, but Teyla's a non-entity and so that's all you'd have.

 

With SGA, much like SG-1, they had plans for one more season, but the Season 5 finale wasn't going to be a cliffhanger. It's also not designed as a series finale, AFAIK- though they may have been able to tweak it towards that function. On the brightside, SGA is not currently in the middle of a massive mega-story arc like SG-1 was when it was cancelled, so it's unlikely to feel as "dangling" as SG-1's finale was.

Still, they did go into the cancellation knowing there'd be at least one SGA movie- so it's hard to say yet how things will end up feeling, but the Wraith getting to Earth has been one of the over-arching threats/dangers-to-be-prevented since the very first episode, so I imagine there will be some sense of coming full circle, and early word from leaked copies on the net have been positive- moreso than Unending for SG-1.

 

Well, the finale was pretty good- though not the best episode they've done. It suffers from "SG-1 Season 8 Syndrome" where they try to fit a bit too much into a single episode instead of breaking it up into 2 episodes, ala Full Alert or Reckoning, part 1. Things like the stupid Wormhole Drive were glossed over and end up eating up time that could ahve been better spent elaborating on the Earth defense (Earth seemed to get crippled a bit too easy- sure, no chair (why didn't they use it against the darts?), but we would've used other defenses in that case.

And where were our allies? Surely the Jaffa would have beenw illing to contribute a couple motherships or at least a squadron of alkesh to Earth's defense on short notice after the Apollo and Sun Tzu were defeated.

Because of the squeezeed nature of the content, things like the "Apollo 13 blackout" moment didn't have the impact they could have.

However, what was in there was mostly excellent for an action-packed conclusion. The Super-Hive was dangerous looking, it's battle with Atlantis was gorgeous. They thankfully did not destroy the Daedalus as I had feared. The brief character moments were pretty solid- such as the Woolsey/Ronon/Teyla scene or the superb Todd/Shep scenes (the "spite" line made me laugh loudly, soon joined in by Todd himself ).

Did Todd's makeup look odd this episode though?

Also, disspaointed there wasn't some "Scifi would thank to thank SGA and it's fans for 5 great years" like they did with SG-1.

Very brief SGU teaser at the end, though.

The Oddysey was said to be on a top secret mission that not even the Daedalus commander knew about- wonder if that's SGU, SG-1 #3 or SGA #1 related?

EDIT- After further viewing and reflection, I think it's obvious what happened here: this was suppsoed to be a 2-parter cliffhanger, but they only had enough time after the cancelation notice to squish it into one episode. It would expalin all the rushed stuff like the stupid wormhole drive.

 

The SGA finale took in 2 million+ viewers live/same day with a 1.5 rating, which tied the season-high. Factoring in time-shifted viewers, SGA averaged an 1.6 this season.

Gateworld Article: What was SGA Cancelled?

There is a bit of debate on just why the show was ended when it was. MGM and SCI FI Channel jointly announced in late August that the current fifth season would be Atlantis?s last, as the show moved to the world of TV and DVD movies. Some 48 hours later, they also announced that a new series, Stargate Universe, would premiere this summer.

Low Ratings?
The debate over the show?s cancellation has to do with how great the ratings were a factor. The show?s Nielsen numbers have fallen dramatically over the last five years. In Season One ratings were well over the 2.0 mark; today ratings of 1.2 (Live + Same Day) are typical. Like the rest of television, much of this is attributable to the rise of TiVo and other digital video recorders. More people are ?time-shifting? their television viewing, and the industry is still struggling to properly measure the viewers of a television show (and its commercials, which pay the bills).

Though the raw ratings numbers are down, viewership for Atlantis has been inching upward for the past couple of years. When DVR-delayed viewers are accounted for (though they may be skipping past commercials), Atlantis hasn?t lost all that much of its U.S. audience.

DVD Movies? Or Stargate Universe?
Instead of ratings, many fans point to the fact that the studio and network are replacing the show with the third series, Stargate Universe. Was one cancelled for the other (since the producers don?t want to do two series simultaneously again, as well as SG-1 movies)?

According to series co-creator Brad Wright, the matter seems to be more complex than that. The producers, MGM (the studio that owns the franchise), and SCI FI executives sat down in the summer of 2008 to strategize what they felt is in the best interests of the entire franchise over the long term. Add to this mix the typical life cycle for a television show and the importance of full-length movies to the show?s creators, and a picture begins to emerge: In order to make Atlantis DVD movies successful (among an audience much broader than the fan base), they should be made before general interest in Atlantis has waned. If the TV show runs long enough to be cancelled due to low viewership, in other words, the studio won?t be eager to pour millions of dollars into making a Stargate Atlantis movie.

At the same time, Universe was in development and had been pitched to the network the previous fall (and received well). Launching a new series always draws new attention to a network and a franchise, and plans are to make the third series a bit different from its predecessors. (More on that later.)

According to Wright, the three parties mutually decided to end Atlantis and make movies, and then launch Stargate Universe. This would allow the SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe ?legs? of the franchise to continue to run together, hopefully far into the future.

Make of all that what you will. The short of it is that Stargate Atlantis was not cancelled due to low ratings ? though as Wright recently hinted, significantly higher ratings would certainly have changed the discussion. Rather, when a studio like MGM has found such success in the DVD market (especially with last year?s SG-1 releases, The Ark of Truth and Continuum), the nature of what ?cancellation? means has changed. With DVD movies now a major part of this franchise, Atlantis has in some ways been a ?victim? of Stargate?s success.


Blog link & The Season 6 That Might Have Been

(episode titles are obviously just placeholders)

#1 and #2: Now What I and II?: Our big two-part premiere