2022/08/07

In 1994 there was a movie called Stargate which I believe at the time, was not expected to make such a large impact. Although the lead role was Kurt Russel, a big star. In 1997 a spin-off was created, but this was not by the creators Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich. They weren’t happy with the way the TV show went. I of course do not know what their plans were but I am very happy with the result of the TV show.

Most TV shows first had a pilot that needed to be judged, tested but not Stargate-SG1! It immediately got 44 episodes, two seasons. After that Stargate-SG1 was again renewed for another two seasons! Can you imagine how jealous every other creator of any other tv show would be!? Another big plus is of course the lead role for Richard Dean Anderson, already a big name in TV world in that period after MacGyver. The other cast members perhaps weren’t as known but turned out to be great actors, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks, Teryl Rothery and Don S. Davis. Don S. Davis who died in June 2008 at a way too young age, a year after the TV show ended, but at that time Don S. Davis no longer was a regular character.

The first season starts of a bit shaky, at least that is my opinion. The pilot is solid but after that it take a few episodes before it finds its footing. For me SG-1 started out as a TV show I watched, I liked but at first not in the same league as say Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But this gradually changed, season 4 is really strong, especially the first 16 episodes of that season and this continued to be the case for season 5, 6, 7. Although I believe that seasons 4 & 7 will always remain my favorite SG-1 seasons.

From seasons 7 onwards each season was expected to be its last but every time SG-1 got renewed for another season. Richard Dean Anderson O’Neill is my absolute favorite character of the show, the humor, the wit, the expression on his face, the often childish responses, I loved it, his humor was there from the beginning but I believe the more he felt comfortable in this role, the better it got, the more humorous the character became. I imagine that there would be a lot of laughs on the set as he was in the middle of a scene. Starting from season 6 Richard Dean Anderson wasn’t there full time anymore, to spend more time with his daughter. So in a few episodes he is absent in season 6 & 7. In season 8 he becomes the base commander, taking the place of General Hammond. This in part I believe because it made it easier to give RDA more free time. Because at that point I believe he worked 3 to 3,5 days out of 5 days.

When it was announced that Richard Dean Anderson would leave after season 8, followed up by General Hank Landry (Beau Bridges), I was concerned because he was my favorite character and I did miss him often as an off-base commander in season 8 already. Ben Browder (Cameron Mitchell) and Claudia Black (Vala Mal Doran) joined the cast, although Claudia only became a series regular in season 10. I rewatched SG-1 in 2020/2021, see BLOG about the rewatch here, and I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed season 10. Season 9 is also enjoyable but season 10 is one of my favorite Stargate seasons! I know many of you don’t share that same sentiment but perhaps the more you watch it, the older you get, you tend to see things differently than with previous viewings. So it was a shame to see Richard Dean Anderson leave the show but he did came back now and then and rest of the cast could hold their own quite well.

After the series end two SG-1 movie were made, the first one to end the series properly, called “The Ark of Truth”. The 2^nd one called “Continuum”. The plan was to keep making TV movies for the next couple of years but this never happened mainly because of the 2009 crisis which MGM barely survived.

Of course everybody knows there were two more shows with the name Stargate, Atlantis and Universe, not thinking about that awful web series from a few years ago. After 14 years of Stargate on TV, from 1997 till 2011, Stargate went off the air and hasn’t been on since. Not because of lack of trying but it still hasn’t happened yet. Last year Amazon bought the Stargate rights so there is some hope but unless I missed something, no new series has neem announced yet.

Magazines:

In the first decade of 2000 Stargate became so popular that a monthly magazine was created! Like Star Trek, Babylon 5 , Stargate also got its own magazine where each month you could read several interviews with cast and crew, previews of new episodes and so on. I myself still own 20 or so of these magazines and every now and then, when I get nostalgic, I go and look up these magazines and browse through them with a big smile on my face! Back in those days, it was the way to gain information about your favorite shows. Nowadays it is perhaps easier but it was also exciting to wait for a new magazine each month to find out more about your favorite show.

Stargate SG-1 in HD:

In 2020 Stargate SG-1 finally came on Blu-ray. Unfortunately it was not a proper HD release, only the last two seasons, because they were filmed in HD. Still I believe we won’t see a better HD release of Stargate SG-1 anytime soon, if ever. Here you can find some Stargate Blu-ray releases, they are pricy though!

Final Word:

Stargate already has 14 years under its TV belt, there is still a huge following and I believe that following has only gotten bigger the last few years. So I’m not sure what they are waiting for, bring on another new show baring the name Stargate and please let it be in the same Universe as the previous 3 shows! Happy 25th anniversary!