Dear Mr Mallozzi,
First of all I would like to thank you on two counts, the first being for posting on this forum and answering our seemingly never-ending questions about SG-1 and Atlantis. Second, I would like to thank you for a generally excellent franchise, I’ve been hooked since season 1 (as pretty much every poster on this board). I would like to share my feelings about the SG-1 situation at the moment though.
Firstly, as you may or may not be aware, the Gateworld forum has 2 threads in the Season 9 section: the “pro-season 9” thread and the “anti-season 9” thread, the specifics of both being obvious. As it stands, the positive thread has 130 replies, whereas the anti thread has 346. If you have not read bits of the anti Season 9 thread, you can check it out here:
http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=5708
When news broke out that season 6 was going ahead but that Michel Shanks would be leaving the show, the fan reaction was huge and a lot of people were upset. The character of Jonas Quinn was also received less than well by most fans at the beginning. However as season 6 progressed, the fans became happy, citing great storylines, a good team dynamic and a great character portrayed by Corin Nemec. In my opinion, season 6 was excellent (perhaps not the best, but somewhere up there). Full Circle was a great finale and a fitting end. But then, we learned of season 7, and that Michael Shanks would be returning. Fine, I thought, let’s give it a chance.
In many ways I wish I hadn’t. The season was without doubt the worst of the series. Enemy Mine was boring, Avenger 2.0 and Space Race were a joke, Evolution was lacklustre, Chimera was a horrible way to end the Osiris arc, Ressurection was awful. The season did have good episodes though (Lost City for one was brilliant, as was Fallen and Homecoming). Resurrection remains the only SG-1 episode I switched off before the end. I must state particular praise for Revisions though, that was very good and ‘felt’ like SG-1 (beautiful production sets as well by the way).
With season 7 out the way, we once again learned of season 8 to air concurrently with season 1 of Atlantis. This season was, for me, almost as bad as season 7, though perhaps not quite. Icon was dull, Avatar was tediously repetitive, Covenant was long, Prometheus Unbound ranks second on the all time worst episodes of SG-1 for me, Citizen Joe was boring and full of elements to please the fans (which in itself is fine, but when you try and mask a bad episode with fanboyish stuff, things aren’t right. It really was a horrible episode), Threads was 30minutes longer than it needed to be, Moebius was quite frankly a horrible, bizarre and ridiculously boring season finale with endless plot holes. To be fair, episodes like New Order, Zero Hour, Endgame, It’s Good to be King, Full Alert and Reckoning saved this season.
Now we are faced with a 9th season, and one with enormous changes in store for us.
Jack O’Neill: Brilliant leader in seasons 1-6, a sarcastic joke in 7-8. I can’t count the amount of times O’Neill seemed to just walk into a room, make a sarcastic “joke”, then leave. His character was good in the beginning because he was a strong leader who never took himself too seriously, he’s now been reduced to a bumbling idiotic cliché. I’ll never understand the wisdom of making him general (the major reason why the team dynamic has been reduced to what it is now).
Daniel Jackson appears to be becoming Jack Lite with every episode. Not a good thing. Oh and please tell him to stop talking so fast in certain scenes.
Teal’c with hair. No thanks.
Janet’s death, a pointless waste (Heroes was on the other hand, very well handled). From what we know about the CMD in season 9… oh dear.
General Hammond, again, it was stupid to get rid of him but hey. 6 years with 1 general and then 3 base commanders in 2-3 years, not really the mark of great writing.
Jack/Sam ship. I for one don’t have a problem with ship as long as we don’t start getting entire episodes about it, or references to it in certain episodes. Why does it feel like you make Sam rest her head on Jack’s shoulder just to keep the 15 year old shippers happy? Please, just END the debate and give the ship a break! Either let them get together, or not. We’re tired of incessant ‘looks’ between the characters, we’ve seen it all before.
Vala. Since it’s now a given that her “character” will be returning for season 9, it would be great if you didn’t make her out to be the ridiculous, pathetic joke she was in Prometheus Unbound. The sex talks in that episode were also quite frankly childish and immature. Sex in ‘Friends’ is handled better.
New charaters. There seems to be a belief on this board that the actors behind the new characters were only hired because of the roles they played in other series. As though, TPTB are too scared to go searching for new talent (and given the amount of recasting of previous actors, I wouldn’t be surprised).
The Ancients. Sometimes I get the feeling that the series I’m watching is “Stargate: The Ancients”. Do we really have to hear about them in every episode? And does every new piece of technology have to be “originally created by the Ancients” (fast becoming the most repeated line in the series). And now we learn that we’ll be “learning more about the Ancients”!! I could probably write a book on what we know about them already! To make matters even worse, the show’s ‘new bad guy’ will be evil Ancients. Give me a break.
Anubis. the series spent 3-4 years building up this character and the resolution in Threads is what we got?? I would have been happier if he had died in Lost City!
The Daedalus travelling from one galaxy to another in 3 days is laughable. Plain and simple.
I could go on and on Mr Mallozzi. I’m not sure if you’re aware at the general feeling of anti-season 9…-ness. Many of us are screaming for TPTB to end the season on a high while its still good and not go the way of X-Files and the like. I personally don’t care about the series lasting the longest of any SCI-FI series. That means nothing if the episodes are the quality we’ve been getting recently.
I would like to apologise now if my words were a bit strong. In writing this I got more and more worked up as it went on and I’m sorry. I won’t edit my post though because my attitude is consistent with many people on this board. I believe that in letting my irritation run wild in this thread is better than hiding behind politeness and not getting my view across. As I said, you should take a look at the season 9 thread for more opinions (I couldn’t possibly cover them all now).
Again I would like to thank you for all the effort you have and are putting into the series, for the most part it’s been one hell of a ride! I would appreciate your comments on what I have written. No doubt I will get attacked by those who will blindly accept whatever the series offers them but that is fine, at this point, all I’m interested in are your views on the current situation.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to hearing you reply.
First of all I would like to thank you on two counts, the first being for posting on this forum and answering our seemingly never-ending questions about SG-1 and Atlantis. Second, I would like to thank you for a generally excellent franchise, I’ve been hooked since season 1 (as pretty much every poster on this board). I would like to share my feelings about the SG-1 situation at the moment though.
Firstly, as you may or may not be aware, the Gateworld forum has 2 threads in the Season 9 section: the “pro-season 9” thread and the “anti-season 9” thread, the specifics of both being obvious. As it stands, the positive thread has 130 replies, whereas the anti thread has 346. If you have not read bits of the anti Season 9 thread, you can check it out here:
http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=5708
When news broke out that season 6 was going ahead but that Michel Shanks would be leaving the show, the fan reaction was huge and a lot of people were upset. The character of Jonas Quinn was also received less than well by most fans at the beginning. However as season 6 progressed, the fans became happy, citing great storylines, a good team dynamic and a great character portrayed by Corin Nemec. In my opinion, season 6 was excellent (perhaps not the best, but somewhere up there). Full Circle was a great finale and a fitting end. But then, we learned of season 7, and that Michael Shanks would be returning. Fine, I thought, let’s give it a chance.
In many ways I wish I hadn’t. The season was without doubt the worst of the series. Enemy Mine was boring, Avenger 2.0 and Space Race were a joke, Evolution was lacklustre, Chimera was a horrible way to end the Osiris arc, Ressurection was awful. The season did have good episodes though (Lost City for one was brilliant, as was Fallen and Homecoming). Resurrection remains the only SG-1 episode I switched off before the end. I must state particular praise for Revisions though, that was very good and ‘felt’ like SG-1 (beautiful production sets as well by the way).
With season 7 out the way, we once again learned of season 8 to air concurrently with season 1 of Atlantis. This season was, for me, almost as bad as season 7, though perhaps not quite. Icon was dull, Avatar was tediously repetitive, Covenant was long, Prometheus Unbound ranks second on the all time worst episodes of SG-1 for me, Citizen Joe was boring and full of elements to please the fans (which in itself is fine, but when you try and mask a bad episode with fanboyish stuff, things aren’t right. It really was a horrible episode), Threads was 30minutes longer than it needed to be, Moebius was quite frankly a horrible, bizarre and ridiculously boring season finale with endless plot holes. To be fair, episodes like New Order, Zero Hour, Endgame, It’s Good to be King, Full Alert and Reckoning saved this season.
Now we are faced with a 9th season, and one with enormous changes in store for us.
Jack O’Neill: Brilliant leader in seasons 1-6, a sarcastic joke in 7-8. I can’t count the amount of times O’Neill seemed to just walk into a room, make a sarcastic “joke”, then leave. His character was good in the beginning because he was a strong leader who never took himself too seriously, he’s now been reduced to a bumbling idiotic cliché. I’ll never understand the wisdom of making him general (the major reason why the team dynamic has been reduced to what it is now).
Daniel Jackson appears to be becoming Jack Lite with every episode. Not a good thing. Oh and please tell him to stop talking so fast in certain scenes.
Teal’c with hair. No thanks.
Janet’s death, a pointless waste (Heroes was on the other hand, very well handled). From what we know about the CMD in season 9… oh dear.
General Hammond, again, it was stupid to get rid of him but hey. 6 years with 1 general and then 3 base commanders in 2-3 years, not really the mark of great writing.
Jack/Sam ship. I for one don’t have a problem with ship as long as we don’t start getting entire episodes about it, or references to it in certain episodes. Why does it feel like you make Sam rest her head on Jack’s shoulder just to keep the 15 year old shippers happy? Please, just END the debate and give the ship a break! Either let them get together, or not. We’re tired of incessant ‘looks’ between the characters, we’ve seen it all before.
Vala. Since it’s now a given that her “character” will be returning for season 9, it would be great if you didn’t make her out to be the ridiculous, pathetic joke she was in Prometheus Unbound. The sex talks in that episode were also quite frankly childish and immature. Sex in ‘Friends’ is handled better.
New charaters. There seems to be a belief on this board that the actors behind the new characters were only hired because of the roles they played in other series. As though, TPTB are too scared to go searching for new talent (and given the amount of recasting of previous actors, I wouldn’t be surprised).
The Ancients. Sometimes I get the feeling that the series I’m watching is “Stargate: The Ancients”. Do we really have to hear about them in every episode? And does every new piece of technology have to be “originally created by the Ancients” (fast becoming the most repeated line in the series). And now we learn that we’ll be “learning more about the Ancients”!! I could probably write a book on what we know about them already! To make matters even worse, the show’s ‘new bad guy’ will be evil Ancients. Give me a break.
Anubis. the series spent 3-4 years building up this character and the resolution in Threads is what we got?? I would have been happier if he had died in Lost City!
The Daedalus travelling from one galaxy to another in 3 days is laughable. Plain and simple.
I could go on and on Mr Mallozzi. I’m not sure if you’re aware at the general feeling of anti-season 9…-ness. Many of us are screaming for TPTB to end the season on a high while its still good and not go the way of X-Files and the like. I personally don’t care about the series lasting the longest of any SCI-FI series. That means nothing if the episodes are the quality we’ve been getting recently.
I would like to apologise now if my words were a bit strong. In writing this I got more and more worked up as it went on and I’m sorry. I won’t edit my post though because my attitude is consistent with many people on this board. I believe that in letting my irritation run wild in this thread is better than hiding behind politeness and not getting my view across. As I said, you should take a look at the season 9 thread for more opinions (I couldn’t possibly cover them all now).
Again I would like to thank you for all the effort you have and are putting into the series, for the most part it’s been one hell of a ride! I would appreciate your comments on what I have written. No doubt I will get attacked by those who will blindly accept whatever the series offers them but that is fine, at this point, all I’m interested in are your views on the current situation.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to hearing you reply.
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