Stargate Crap-lantis.

Recently, I’ve been watching the STARGATE franchise and after going through 1-7 seasons of SG-1, I switched over to Atlantis. After just the first episode, I found the show’s characters revolting! The “leader” or top decision maker of the show- a woman, is horribly inept and the most naive leader I have ever seen portrayed as successful on ANY television show. The main “military man” is some guy who is a pathetic actor who looks perennially constipated. His character apparently is a poor imitation of Jack O’Neil from the SG-1 series but more annoying and not as clever or funny. The top “scientist” is some balding Canadian. Apparently, the show’s creators though a bellicose, petulant, sniveling ego maniacal coward was “hilarious” ! I guess the joke’s on the viewer! And lastly, the plot that they managed to conjure up is insipid and ludicrous compared to the plot in SG-1. In almost every way, shape and form, Star-gate Atlantis is a terrible terrible terrible addition to the Stargate franchise. Made by sloppy addled writers for addled masses. I would imagine they were trying to “milk” the Stargate franchise’s popularity for all its worth by cobbling together some shoddy disaster and peddling it to TV studios as a viable side-story. Unfortunately, the production studios were too slow to realize that it was pathetic and nobody was watching their disaster.

Apart from the shows incipient “death”, as the show went along there were some grossly bizarre character and plot developments. Firstly, the seemingly strange relationship between Dr Weir- the head honcho of Atlantis and the Mr GI Joe man – John Sheppard. According to the character’s story; Dr Weir is already in a committed relationship and she was just assigned with John Shepard on Jack O’Neil’s recommendation. However, strangely she exhibits some kind of bizarre affection for the man almost instantaneously and continuously treats him like a romantic interest instead of a person under her command- utterly unprofessional and nepotistic to say the least. She almost instantly favors him over other military commanders more experienced and committed and John Sheppard in turn sees her as his “sugar mommy” as he callously defies her authority and does basically what ever he feels like when ever he feels like it while falling back on her power and her position to save him from the consequences of his tomfoolery. This relationship between two colleges, superior and inferior is most bizarre for people who hardly know each other, unless the show is not letting on some significant portion of the characters lives- which is strange yet again and alludes to some sort of hostile sexual harassment in a galaxy far far away no less! As far as Dr Weir’s ability to command and be decisive, she is an utterly ponderous and petty character who’s constantly trying to salvage her ego and her “command” while possessing not even a glint of command wisdom or authority! Dull, bureaucratic, weak, indecisive and most of all extremely nepotistic in her command- all trademarks of a low level bean counting pencil pusher rather than a stateswoman and international diplomat. She is utterly incapable of taking a leadership position, much less a position of such great importance as Atlantis. In SG-1 the main head of the entire operation for the most part was Gen. George Hammond. Despite him being an outstanding leader having all the qualities of leadership in abundance, there was continuous reference to oversight and supervision. Dr Weir has hardly any critical voices against her and in Season 3 when there is an attempt at oversight she is let off scott-free based on personal feelings.

The main problem with the leadership role was tried to be remedied by adding Samantha Carter to Atlantis as the producers found out how hopeless and inept Dr Weir was, she was replaced. The problem isn’t in having a female leader. The problem is in having leaders who are weak and swayed by personal feelings to people under them in influencing their decisions and risking the lives of others who they care “less” about. That kind of partial and nepotistic leadership is the worst kind of leadership, especially for those in a military situation where they deal with life and death every day. Apparently, the show’s creators were too stupid to understand that nobody likes to work for a commander who is willing to save those people he likes at all costs will write-off others he or she doesn’t care enough about. Apparently, there is some impression in Hollywood that in a military atmosphere there is a clique of “cool guys” who all stick together and use others to serve their interests. This sophomoric sensibilities and the totally bizarre command structure are the reason this show is repugnant and so weak.

The story in Stargate Atlantis is pretty much the same as in SG-1 but only more pedestrian and senile. There is no over-arching story and character development and instead they are focused on generating sporadic plot developments that are quickly resolved and never fully explored. Be it saving an entire planet from destruction or blowing up a wraith hive ship. Apparently, they dont seem to be acquainted with the consequences of their actions and how they pan out in the long term. Instead they just wander along day in and day out doing what they please without much responsibility or care as their actions beyond the immediate gain. Another, point of contention I have with the show is the recycling of “bad guys” that they have from SG-1. Couldn’t the writers have come up with at least one decent nefarious enemy other than their main villians ?? The Asurans are a pathetic joke compared to the Replicator threat in SG-1. The Genii are again miserably pathetic hostiles who due to the inept handling of the Atlantis expedition have cost more lives than necessary.Their cheap schemes and their petty ploys are so 2 dimensional. They conveniently switch between allies and friends just to further the plot in almost clinically predictable fashion. The later development of the Wraith threat again was anemic plot development at best. The only marginally interesting “villain”, if you will was the “Micheal” wraith that offered some true challenge and some real character depth to the bad guys.  The whole Weir ascension saga was again the same hackneyed twist to the Asuran/Ancient plots.

All in all, StarGate Atlantis was a mere shadow of the wit, the action, the purpose, the scope and the story that was SG-1. This is the inevitable end result of corporate greed that tries to milk a franchise as far as they can while the “fever” is on. It’s fascinating that in the predictable spiral to its doom, nobody with any foresight or any intellectual rectitude amongst the writers tried to  even alter the direction that the show was taking. I do honestly believe the writers simply switched off their minds and tried to churn out as much mindless and implausible gibberish as they could since they already had a captive audience. I believe this very tactic is what is going to DOOM Stargate Universe as all the true marketability with the mainstream viewer has evaporated as people have come to realize that there is no real end to the endless stream of baloney that Stargate Studios is throwing at them. I hope that any and all further attempts to “mass-produce” gibberish for money should meet with utter and complete failure and ruination.