Favorite Stargate Series Finale

[Snowman37]

In "Enemy at the Gate," Atlantis gets fully powered and flies back to Earth. The super Wraith hive gets destroyed, Earth is saved. No one is left in jeopardy. The episode's story is closed. The series is left open, but the episode has a definite ending.

"Gauntlet" ends with the crew in stasis, Eli unable to fix his pod (for now), and the ship spending the next three years traveling through the galactic void before reaching the next galaxy. What happens to Eli? Will Destiny make it to the next galaxy in time? Will everyone wake up, will some perish? Will the SGC or Lucian Alliance try to gate back to the ship again? Will the drones follow Destiny to the next galaxy? What happened to Destiny's descendents? None of this is addressed before the end credits role. Hence, it is a massive cliffhanger.

It's not that bad that it ends on a cliffhanger, it was only on two years. That said, I think I just demonstrated why "Gauntlet" is a cliffhanger and "Enemy at the Gate" is not.

[Ukko]

Stargate Infinity: The Long Haul

Yeah! *Punches the air* Infinity all the way!

[KEK]

In "Enemy at the Gate," Atlantis gets fully powered and flies back to Earth. The super Wraith hive gets destroyed, Earth is saved. No one is left in jeopardy. The episode's story is closed. The series is left open, but the episode has a definite ending.

"Gauntlet" ends with the crew in stasis, Eli unable to fix his pod (for now), and the ship spending the next three years traveling through the galactic void before reaching the next galaxy. What happens to Eli? Will Destiny make it to the next galaxy in time? Will everyone wake up, will some perish? Will the SGC or Lucian Alliance try to gate back to the ship again? Will the drones follow Destiny to the next galaxy? What happened to Destiny's descendents? None of this is addressed before the end credits role. Hence, it is a massive cliffhanger.

It's not that bad that it ends on a cliffhanger, it was only on two years. That said, I think I just demonstrated why "Gauntlet" is a cliffhanger and "Enemy at the Gate" is not.

The storyline of Gauntlet is about how to either defeat or circumvent the drones. That storyline is resolved. I don't see how the hanging threads and unresolved storylines left at the end Gauntlet are any different than the ones left at the end of EatG. The Wraith are still rampaging through the galaxy, the rogue Asgard are still on the loose, and we don't know what's going to happen to Todd. The only storyline that is resolved in EatG is that of the episode, everything else it left open, just like in Gauntlet.

[Snowman37]

In "Enemy at the Gate", Atlantis returns to Earth. Everyone is safe and sound.

In "Gauntlet," everyone is still trapped on Destiny. They all go into hyper sleep, except Eli. Will he fix his pod or starve to death? We'll never know. I don't know how you could possibly call that an ending.

[KEK]

In "Enemy at the Gate", Atlantis returns to Earth. Everyone is safe and sound.

Which resolves most of the storyline of the episode, and nothing more. The series arcs are all left unresolved.

In "Gauntlet," everyone is still trapped on Destiny. They all go into hyper sleep, except Eli.

Which resolves most of the storyline of the episode, and nothing more. The series arcs are all left unresolved.

Will he fix his pod or starve to death? We'll never know.

Will Todd be killed or set free? We'll never know.

[Colonel Rebel]

I liked them all, but I thought Unending was the better of the episodes, even though SGA is my favorite Stargate series.

[VampyreWraith]

Gauntlet was my favorite series finale, followed by Unending and then EATG.

[Snowman37]

Which resolves most of the storyline of the episode, and nothing more. The series arcs are all left unresolved.

That's because the show was going to continue into a sixth season. "Enemy at the Gate" was a season finale, but given it was the 100th episode, they wanted to do something big and avoid ending on a cliffhanger. The show was cancelled after the episode was filmed. That's why a lot of storylines are left unresolved. However, we're not talking story arcs of each series, we're talking the series finales of each series, three episodes.

Which resolves most of the storyline of the episode, and nothing more. The series arcs are all left unresolved.

The fate of the characters are not resolved, urgo cliffhanger.

Will Todd be killed or set free? We'll never know.

True, but the episode wasn't about Todd's freedom, it was about stopping a Wraith hive from reaching Earth.

[KEK]

However, we're not talking story arcs of each series, we're talking the series finales of each series, three episodes.

I know we are, and the plots of all three were resolved by the end of the episode.

The fate of the characters are not resolved, urgo cliffhanger.

They're in stasis and will be out again in a few years. Their fates are no less resolved than the fates of the characters in Atlantis, in fact arguably more so given that the events of EatG would have turned the show upside down, whereas SGU's dynamic would have pretty much carried on from where it left off.

True, but the episode wasn't about Todd's freedom, it was about stopping a Wraith hive from reaching Earth.

And Gauntlet wasn't about Eli, it was about circumventing the drone threat.

[Snowman37]

They're in stasis and will be out again in a few years.

Speculation, we don't know what will happen.

Their fates are no less resolved than the fates of the characters in Atlantis, in fact arguably more so given that the events of EatG would have turned the show upside down, whereas SGU's dynamic would have pretty much carried on from where it left off.

When "Enemy at the Gate" ended, everyone was safe and sound on Earth. Resolved.
When "Gauntlet" ended, everyone's gone to sleep in stasis for three years. Will they? Anything could happen to the ship in three years resulting in the deaths of many or everyone. Unresolved.

And Gauntlet wasn't about Eli, it was about circumventing the drone threat.

Eli is a main character, so... yeah... it's about Eli as much as anyone else.

[KEK]

When "Enemy at the Gate" ended, everyone was safe and sound on Earth. Resolved.
When "Gauntlet" ended, everyone's gone to sleep in stasis for three years. Will they? Anything could happen to the ship in three years resulting in the deaths of many or everyone. Unresolved.

I'm not sure how I can make this any clearer. The episode was not about going into stasis, it was about avoiding the drone threat, which they did successfully. The episode was resolved. The unanswered questions you're asking are no different to the ones we could ask about Atlantis. Will Todd live or die? Will it go back to Pegasus? etc. etc. Unanswered questions does not a cliffhanger make.

Eli is a main character, so... yeah... it's about Eli as much as anyone else.

Gauntlet is no more about Eli's predicament then EatG was about Ronon and Teyla's, who were left stranded on Earth.

And how about actually watching the episode before arguing what it was or wasn't?

[SeaBee]

I voted for Enemy at the Gate.

I didn't like Unending, I feel that it was a really weak episode to close 10 years of SG-1 on. Mind you, I have always been of the opinion that SG-1 finished with Moebius.

I have yet to see Gauntlet, so I cannot say if I would prefer it to the Atlantis finale.

[LoneStar1836]

Easily Gauntlet.

Even though SG-1 is my favorite of the three series, I hated several things about Unending. Enemy at the Gate was meh.

[Sp!der]

Gauntlet.

[Starsaber]

Atlantis was my favorite series, but I like EatG least out of the three finales.

Gauntlet was the only one of the three that really felt like a series finale to me.