I'm all in a funk on the news that Stargate Atlantis will not be renewed for a sixth season. Instead, it will join parent Stargate SG1 as a series of occasional straight-to-DVD movies. That's too bad.
Stargate, the phenomena, has always puzzled me. When I heard it was going to become a TV series, I opined widely and loudly, that they couldn't last a year. The original series went 10 years. I was almost as trepidatious about the debut of Atlantis five years ago. Seeing the city rise out of the ocean is one of my favourite TV moments. I was sold.
Over the years, I think I've enjoyed Atlantis more than SG1 when it was running side-by-side. It might not have been as good as SG1 at it's prime, but it was better than the last couple of years when Richard Dean Anderson abdicated for Ben Browder. Not that Browder and Claudia Black, the Farscape escapees were bad, but they just didn't have what Anderson brought to SG1 and what Joe Flanigan brought to Atlantis, the timely quip that echoed what the audience was thinking.
However, it was apparent that the end was nigh for Atlantis. Already, talk of Jason Mamoa's departure at season's end had hit the internet. Although not an original, Mamoa had been that hulking power presence that made the away team of Atlantean explorers complete. He was yin to the yang of Dr. Rodney McKay, played with brilliant obsequiousness by Canadian David Hewlett. Brains and brawn needed beauty, and you couldn't ask for more than Rachel Luttrell. Add in Flanigan and a host of commanding officers and civilians to rail against, and you had the perfect action serial. And what was really too bad, was the fact that Robert Picardo had already established that his Richard Woolsey was going to be a most-interesting change of pace as the new chief administrator.
Darn it! The more I reminisce, the more I realize I'll be the first in line when they issue the first of what I hope will be many straight-to-DVD movies.
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