It's a tough question. We don't know how a rebranding would have served the series financially. There are a lot of factors involved in this sort of discussion, and ninety-nine times out of one hundred, the fans will never have all the variables in front of them.
What do we know about Stargate SG-1's cancellation? We know that the ratings were down, but not down by much. Television today is a different ballgame from television nine years ago, but suffice it to say, most networks -- SyFy absolutely included -- would kill for those kinds of numbers now. I'm often asked, then, "why end the show?" The answer, as many of us know, is that it wasn't getting any younger; production costs increase with long-running series, and SG-1 is no exception. We've heard from key sources that it just wasn't making the cash it used to, but it was still profitable. Just... not on the level that it was for a long time beforehand.
It's an incredible achievement that Stargate SG-1 lasted as long as it did. Let no one ever say otherwise. I think we all know this, but in the spirit of this conversation it bears repeating. For a decade of their lives, many fans made time to follow these fictional adventures. Myself, I hopped aboard when it switched to the new network, and plenty of others did the same. We helped, all of us, to keep the Gate active for a very long, very healthy length of time. But it's no secret that a fraction of the fanbase was less enthusiastic about the Ori years, the RDA-less years, than what came before them. Was it a huge number of people? No, but it was enough to leave an impact. For eight years some of those folks had been following, too, and it's important to consider that for them perhaps it was as simple as fatigue. Whatever the case (we've all heard the various complaints) we know that they all factored in. SG-1 went from scoring 2.2s in the American Nielsen to 1.7s and 1.8s. Still good, but not so good as they'd have been years earlier, when the show didn't cost so damn much to keep on the air.
So what then, we ask, would a rebranding have done? Would it have mitigated various costs? That depends on a lot of things. A new show is a new show, and had "STARGATE COMMAND" succeeded the flagship show bowing out after eight seasons as originally envisioned, I posit that there'd have been far more changes than we'd already witnessed leading into the ninth year. How much of the original cast would have stuck around? Would it have been prudent in the eyes of the execs to remodel the sets? Would the same staff have stuck around the writing room? How would SyFy handle royalties? Question after question after question. SG-1 ended when it did because of rising costs, not widespread ratings failure. In another life, in another fashion, maybe it could have been sustainable for another two seasons or so, and "Command" might just have been that ticket. I don't know. There's another side to the question, however: would the rebranding have had a potential negative impact? We'll never know if a fraction of the preexisting fanbase may have felt all the more fatigued by the promise of yet another new show at that time, or if the selling points of Command would have appealed in the way that SG-1 did (even if, yes, SG-1 itself had visibly transformed) or if the marketing campaign for the spinoff would have attracted people, or if the spinoff not being different enough would have caused eyes to roll and customers to tune out. Always remember, we're awesome fans for having supported the television franchise for as long as we did, but we're still just a bit of a blip versus the total audience share.
I would have loved seasons 11, 12, what-have-you. I treasure the Ori years, and I've defended them time and again. When speaking with friends who haven't caught the Stargate bug, they'll sometimes ask, "Jeff, how can you possibly grieve the loss of a show not getting eleventh, twelfth seasons? Talk about wanting it all!" But the truth is, 9 and 10 are different enough from 1-8 that it really is a new show on some levels. For some, that new show wasn't so hot. For others, myself included, it was some of the best content in Stargate history, and it was worthy of more than 42 TV hours. But hey, we got 42. We got a wrap-up with that last two, and yet another fun one-off adventure after that. Stargate SG-1 was a hell of a force to be reckoned with.
Would that I could give the same level of resolution to Atlantis, and then there's Universe which will permanently endure a cliffhanger.
What do we know about Stargate SG-1's cancellation? We know that the ratings were down, but not down by much. Television today is a different ballgame from television nine years ago, but suffice it to say, most networks -- SyFy absolutely included -- would kill for those kinds of numbers now. I'm often asked, then, "why end the show?" The answer, as many of us know, is that it wasn't getting any younger; production costs increase with long-running series, and SG-1 is no exception. We've heard from key sources that it just wasn't making the cash it used to, but it was still profitable. Just... not on the level that it was for a long time beforehand.
It's an incredible achievement that Stargate SG-1 lasted as long as it did. Let no one ever say otherwise. I think we all know this, but in the spirit of this conversation it bears repeating. For a decade of their lives, many fans made time to follow these fictional adventures. Myself, I hopped aboard when it switched to the new network, and plenty of others did the same. We helped, all of us, to keep the Gate active for a very long, very healthy length of time. But it's no secret that a fraction of the fanbase was less enthusiastic about the Ori years, the RDA-less years, than what came before them. Was it a huge number of people? No, but it was enough to leave an impact. For eight years some of those folks had been following, too, and it's important to consider that for them perhaps it was as simple as fatigue. Whatever the case (we've all heard the various complaints) we know that they all factored in. SG-1 went from scoring 2.2s in the American Nielsen to 1.7s and 1.8s. Still good, but not so good as they'd have been years earlier, when the show didn't cost so damn much to keep on the air.
So what then, we ask, would a rebranding have done? Would it have mitigated various costs? That depends on a lot of things. A new show is a new show, and had "STARGATE COMMAND" succeeded the flagship show bowing out after eight seasons as originally envisioned, I posit that there'd have been far more changes than we'd already witnessed leading into the ninth year. How much of the original cast would have stuck around? Would it have been prudent in the eyes of the execs to remodel the sets? Would the same staff have stuck around the writing room? How would SyFy handle royalties? Question after question after question. SG-1 ended when it did because of rising costs, not widespread ratings failure. In another life, in another fashion, maybe it could have been sustainable for another two seasons or so, and "Command" might just have been that ticket. I don't know. There's another side to the question, however: would the rebranding have had a potential negative impact? We'll never know if a fraction of the preexisting fanbase may have felt all the more fatigued by the promise of yet another new show at that time, or if the selling points of Command would have appealed in the way that SG-1 did (even if, yes, SG-1 itself had visibly transformed) or if the marketing campaign for the spinoff would have attracted people, or if the spinoff not being different enough would have caused eyes to roll and customers to tune out. Always remember, we're awesome fans for having supported the television franchise for as long as we did, but we're still just a bit of a blip versus the total audience share.
I would have loved seasons 11, 12, what-have-you. I treasure the Ori years, and I've defended them time and again. When speaking with friends who haven't caught the Stargate bug, they'll sometimes ask, "Jeff, how can you possibly grieve the loss of a show not getting eleventh, twelfth seasons? Talk about wanting it all!" But the truth is, 9 and 10 are different enough from 1-8 that it really is a new show on some levels. For some, that new show wasn't so hot. For others, myself included, it was some of the best content in Stargate history, and it was worthy of more than 42 TV hours. But hey, we got 42. We got a wrap-up with that last two, and yet another fun one-off adventure after that. Stargate SG-1 was a hell of a force to be reckoned with.
Would that I could give the same level of resolution to Atlantis, and then there's Universe which will permanently endure a cliffhanger.
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