Vale, Stargate

“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

– Exodus (NIV:1984)

Vale. Farewell.

Growing up, I was a huge Stargate fan. I watched it on Foxtel. I bought all ten seasons of SG-1 and the direct to DVD movies, all five seasons of Atlantis, and both seasons of Universe. At the time of writing, there’s still an active Reddit and Gateworld.

For me, it’s time to sunset this (and thus free up the space). Also, 17 seasons of TV is on the order of 15,000 minutes, more than 10 days straight with no sleeping (thus practically months and months if not years and years). It’s not insurmountable, though it’s also not the wisest of investments of one’s limited life time; for a very rough comparison, the anthology typically of 66 books better known as the protestant Bible typically takes 3.5 days (Pawson, Unlocking the Bible) to read cover to cover, with no sleeping, so Stargate’s reached the order of 3 Bibles in effective length.

MGM sold off the props, what is in 2025 already many years ago. More recently MGM was acquired by Amazon, though there are two series ending with cliffhangers and complicated rights issues clouding any potential for a reboot. The same reason I slowed then basically stopped watching Netflix, so much cancel (far worse when it’s cancelled and starved mid-story, as the end of a matter is better than its beginning), and paying for streaming after Final Space was cancelled; so it’s a bit like Killed by Google, inevitable for anything sprawlingly large, but it hurts, sometimes too much to invest significant time in the general direction of TV, for the time being. I made no time for the games. And there are other lesser known things like Command, Origins and Fandemonium, which I’ve skipped, exposing a practical limit to my fandom.

Total aside, I have no idea what the Trump Stargate program is, beyond what’s public such as this CNN article. So something data centers to power AI?

Basically I think Stargate for TV is dead and buried. It’s not beyond resurrection as Stargate Universe (SGU) hints at; SGU directly suggests the possibility of falling short and drifting for somewhere between three and a thousand years. So, like most of the early worlds that SG-1 visited, the instruction was to bury the gate for safety against the Goa’uld. I did like how Dr Rush in SGU stated clearly “the stargate’s ninth and final chevron”, i.e. what’s been made, while incomplete in the details, is complete and satisfying in its overall architecture.

Visiting a different world required dialing at least seven symbols, manually or on a Dial Home Device (DHD). Stargate for TV or DVD was structured most typically into 40-45 minute episodes that would fit, with commercials, into an hour long slot. Combined, these highlights likely would take several days to binge watch.

Highlights of the first seven seasons of Stargate SG-1

I do like the key arc of the first seven (which became eight) seasons of SG-1 being the Milky Way galaxy’s fight against the Goa’uld, that these parasites would become:

“False god. Dead false god.” – Teal’c of the Jaffa

Additional highlights include:

• S1E10: The Torment Of Tantalus
  • Something something universal language
• S1E19: There But For The Grace Of God
  • Introduces a quantum mirror of alternate realities
• S2E16: The Fifth Race
  • Jack O’Neill, (Richard Dean Anderson, well known for MacGyver) has his dead filled with Ancient knowledge and uses it to dial an eight symbol address, and visit the Asgard
• S2E21: 1969
  • Time travel! General Hammond (Don S. Davis)!
  • Route 66!
  • Amarillo -> St Louis
• S3E8: Demons
  • Inspired by medieval Christianity – Guess what role the Goa’uld chose to play?
• S3E10: Forever in a Day
  • Sha’re, Daniel Jackson’s (Michael Shanks) missing wife is shown with what I think are the first images in Stargate portraying “ascension”, to a higher plane of existence; probably false and closer to Tibetan Monks, but that’s just my intuition
• S3E12: Jolinar’s Memories (continued in S3E13 The Devil You Know)
  • The Goa’uld System Lord, Sokar demonstrates a version of Hell
• S3E18: Shades of Grey
  • Could one steal, following orders, if it could save a friendship?
• S3E22: Nemesis (continued in S4E1: Small Victories)
  • On replicators, Thor says: “Overconfidence in our technology has been our undoing”
• S4E6: Window of Opportunity
  • Directly references 1969 and Groundhog Day. Daniel Jackson says “Anyway that’s just how I feel about it. What do you think?”
• S4E16: 2010
  • The A-Shen sterilize over 90% of Earth’s population with an anti-aging vaccine, causing SG-1 to send a note back in time
• S4E22: Exodus (continued in S5E1: Enemies)
  • A Stargate is used to dial the black hole planet (S2E15), siphon off mass from a star, cause it to go supernova and thus devastate the Goa’uld Apophis fleet, plus replicators
• S5E3: Ascension
  • An ascended being, Orlin, retakes human form and amongst other things, makes a single-use Stargate
• S5E10: 2001
  • “Tell them I’ve got iron root in my south field…”
• S5E12: Wormhole X-Treme!
  • 100th episode!
• S5E19: Menace
  • “It’s just a toy” – Reese, mother of the Replicators
• S5E21: Meridian
  • Daniel Jackson ascends
• S6E6: Abyss
  • Daniel Jackson comforts Jack while he is tortured by the Goa’uld Ba’al
• S6E10: Cure
  • Teal’c (Christopher Judge): “A queen”
• S6E11: Prometheus (continued in S6E12: Unnatural Selection)
  • Earth builds a ship, that can’t be called The Enterprise, codenamed X-303, that the Asgard all but require be used in the war on the replicators. Carter is told to deceive the human-form Replicator Fifth
• S7E1: Fallen (continued in S7E2: Homecoming)
  • Daniel Jackson returns to a lower plane of existence
  • Carter: “This is the wackiest plan we’ve ever come up with”
• S7E5: Revisions
  • Via “The Link”, a device on everyone’s head which can erase memories, a probably well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided computer program slaughters tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, erasing all memory of them
  • “… thank God for lawyers … they were still using good old-fashioned paper.” – Daniel Jackson
• S7E13: Grace
  • “Your mother … she gave my life meaning and balance … I would do it all over again. That is love. … it must inevitably end in pain and loneliness. … You deserve to love someone, and be loved in return” – Jacob
• S7E18: Heroes (concluding S7E17)
  • Farewell Dr Janet Fraiser, job superbly done!
• S7E20-22: Inauguration, Lost City (Part 1 & 2)
  • Gloriously done, this was originally planned as the conclusion of the SG-1 story arc

Highlights of the final three seasons of Stargate SG-1

NB: Season 8 is a major junction, definitely closing a chapter and arguably an ending. Seasons 9 and 10 almost stand on their own.

• S8E6: Avatar
  • Teal’c “plays” a hyper-realistic game
  • No obvious links to the James Cameron film, though people talk, so one can wonder?
• S8E16: Reckoning (Part 2, concluding Part 1)
  • Repli-Carter and Replicators invade the Milky Way, attacking the Goa’uld and Tau’ri
  • “You blow up one Sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water” – Carter
  • Every Stargate in the Milky Way is dialed and the Ancient weapon on Dakara is fired, decoupling all replicator blocks from each other, a key point in the Jaffa battle to hold Dakara and begin final defeat of the Goa’uld
• S8E17: Threads
  • Daniel meets a jovial half-ascended being in a diner
  • Jacob and Selmak pass on and Sam says no to Pete
• S8E20: Moebius (Part 2, concluding Part 1)
  • In Part 1, O’Neill’s fishing boat is named Homer, most likely a Simpsons reference
  • Time travel, uprising, ZPM; brilliant!
• S9E6: Beachhead
  • “Try super gate”
• S9E10-11: The Fourth Horsemen (Part 1 & 2)
  • Orlin returns as a child and offers a truth suggesting Origin is a cult and a lie, that does not ascend its followers, but merely saps their power by some complicated process of Prostration
  • An Ori plague escapes containment on Earth, becomes an epidemic in Part 1 and is upgraded to pandemic in Part 2
  • The Jaffa, Tau’ri and Ancients via Orlin each play their part, not exactly working together but not exactly divergent, to temporarily withhold an Ori Prior’s power, and ultimately devise a working vaccine, limiting the death toll to around 3000 souls from Earth
• S9E13: Ripple Effect
  • “We have the top minds from 18 different universes working on a way to get you home …” – General Landry (Beau Bridges)
• S10E3: The Pegasus Project
  • Crossover episode!
• S10E6: 200
  • The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
  • Scene 3 just ends because the foreign distributor went bankrupt (with the backdrop of the Global Financial Crisis beginning to unfold)
  • 1263 vs 1264 and 30185. “I’m being punked aren’t I?”
  • Team America: World Police
  • Seven Saturn Awards
• S10E10-11: The Quest (Part I & II)
  • Five values, such as charity must be demonstrated to find Merlin’s weapon
• S10E12: Line In The Sand
  • The Priors are unable to detect Sam and Mitchell when Merlin’s weapon let’s them take their building out of phase
• S10E13: The Road Not Taken
  • “Our plan was to hide the entire planet” – Carter to Hammond
• S10E14: The Shroud
  • Daniel becomes a Prior and plays double agent, pretending to Adria to destroy the Ancients while perhaps actually destroying the Ori?
  • “… but in the long run it may be our only chance to win the war.” – Mitchell
• S10E20: Unending
  • Vale, Asgard
  • “Don’t give up”, “Godspeed” – Landry

Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum are in their own right, superbly brilliant direct to DVD highlights.

Highlights of Stargate Atlantis

• S1E2: Rising (Part 2, concluding Part 1)
  • Dr Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson) leads the Earth expedition to the underwater city of Atlantis, thus introducing to us as the audience, lots of new ideas to explore
• S1E3: Hide and Seek
  • An Ancient mousetrap for ascended beings is opened by Jinto
  • Good thinking by Teyla (Rachel Luttrell) lets Dr Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) send one of five generators through the Stargate; the ascended being chooses to follow
• S1E11: The Eye
  • Just barely, saved by Teyla and Major Sheppard’s (Joe Flanigan) masterful fighting and the closing visuals of Atlantis facing a giant wave
• S1E13: Hot Zone
  • In response to a nanobot pandemic, Sheppard detonates a naquadah generator over Atlantis
• S1E15: Before I Sleep
  • Dr Weir travels 10,000 years into the past
• S1E20: The Siege (Part 2) & continued in S2E1: The Siege (Part 3)
  • Skip Part 1 unless you want more backstory (in which case do also pick up watching S1E18: The Gift) as the start of episode summary fills it in well
  • Beautiful sweeping pans around Atlantis as the super-fun action jumps from place to place
  • The Daedalus brings the ZPM found in Egypt by SG-1
  • (Lowlight: Columbia TriStar, already defunct, gets sin-binned for putting three ads before the purchased TV on DVD of S2E1)
• S2E3: Runner
  • Ronon Dex!
• S2E13: Critical Mass
  • Teyla (Rachel Luttrell) can sing gloriously!
  • Also a brilliant story and cross-over episode with SG-1
  • Boundaries were sadly crossed demonstrating nuance and shades of grey in the characters in so many of us
• S2E14: Grace Under Pressure
  • More cross-over, here comes Amanda Tapping!
• S2E15: The Tower
  • Sheppard’s team find a city that looks exactly like Atlantis
• S2E19: Inferno
  • Geothermal energy from a super volcano. What could go wrong?
• S3E1: No Man’s Land
  • “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it’s the courage to continue that counts.” … “Churchill?” – General Landry & Dr Elizabeth Weir
• S3E5: Progeny
  • Mega eye-candy of what looks like a super-Atlantis, but of replicator Ancients
• S3E7: Common Ground
  • “The gift of life”
• S3E10: The Return Part 1 & 2
  • A series of stargates are placed such that Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy and Earth in the Milky Way can connect within 30 minutes, but it looks moot when some Ancients are found traveling at 0.999c and kick everyone off the Atlantis world
  • (Dr Weir has what looks like a Buddha statue in the background of her apartment on Earth)
  • “I’ve gotta say, I’ve never met a woman this into World of Warcraft” – Dr Lee
  • The replicator Ancients take control of the real Atlantis, kill all the Ancients except their commander, Jack and Woolsey, and fire drones at Sheppard & Co.
  • I’m thinking of The Prestige – the reveal is brilliant!
• S3E14: Tao of Rodney
  • “… forgive me …”
• S3E17: Sunday
  • Dr Carson Beckett healed another on his day off, only to be killed by an explosive tumor
  • Bagpipes!
• S3E20: First Strike
  • The Daedalus flybys of the replicator planet reveal warships most likely destined for Earth, O’Neill and the IOA order a surgical first strike, to which the replicators respond by sending a satellite/stargate beam weapon to Atlantis
  • McKay suggests to Dr Weir to submerge the city, which took three hours and bought nine hours of shield time. An asteroid provided a cover against the beam weapon letting Sheppard use the chair to fire the city’s interstellar drive, which combined with turning off the shield gave just enough power to escape into hyperspace, but not without casualties
• S4E1: Adrift
  • Carter! Also the city is adrift in space with just 28 hours until the shields fail
• S4E6: Tabula Rasa
  • “THIS IS TEYLA FIND HER”
• S4E10: This Mortal Coil
  • The Seer (S4E8) vision is fulfilled, an Atlantis is destroyed
• S4E11: All My Sins Be Remember’d
  • Replicator Tori Higginson returns
  • “It can’t replicate.”
  • “FRAN. Friendly Replicator ANdroid.”
• S4E17: Midway
  • Rodney learns Todd hacked his computer, otherwise…
  • What’s not to like?
• S4E20: The Last Man & concluded in S5E1: Search and Rescue
  • 48,000 years into the future
  • Love almost all of it, though I hate the way it ended, it could’ve been dropped in a future episode
• S5E5: Ghost In The Machine
  • The replicator impression of Dr Elizabeth Weir enters into a puddle jumper and beyond
• S5E10: First Contact & continued in S5E11: The Lost Tribe
  • Michael Shanks visits!
  • “Just resting my eyes” – Sheppard or Homer Simpson in Sector 7-G, S2E4?
  • “… I have met … Loki …”
• S5E16: Brain Storm
  • Bill Nye tries to steal Jennifer
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
• S5E19: Vegas
  • Yay alternate realities

Highlights of Stargate Universe

• S1E3: Air (Part 3)
  • “He has His plan, for all of us”
• S1E5: Light
  • This ship is powered by the stars themselves

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespassed against us.
And lead us not into temptation

If I’ve heard and written correctly, I’ll suggest this version of The Lord’s Prayer is mainly the King James Version of Matthew, with a few minor variations, though dropping “but deliver us from evil” onward has vibes of Luke. Fascinating!

• S2E9: Visitation (Follow-up to Eden)
  • Rush: Do you remember, I mean your burning bush talked to Moses. Gabriel was it, spoke to Abraham? Yet you returned here with no proof of your Saviour, one way or the other. … Either he’s lost his touch, or God’s got nothing to do with this.
• S2E20: Gauntlet
  • Eli: What’s the point of having potential if you’re not going to step up when you’re really needed?

Concluding thoughts

Ultimately, it is science fiction. Many parts are grounded in believable best guesses as to truth, though ultimately the product of the screenwriter’s influences and imaginations, fed into the cast and crew, edited, and all overseen by the respective producers.