Did SGA go downhill ?

[Rac80]

How many "Rodney's dying" stories did they do? In the shrine it could have been shep...why not? because he wasn't the whiner in chief! Someone (I think it was Falcon Horus) did a word count of dialogue and mckay usually had the most even when it ep wasn't focused around him! I actually didn't watch most of the first season when it was on the air cause mckay was so annoying.

[SGTB1991]

How many "Rodney's dying" stories did they do? In the shrine it could have been shep...why not? because he wasn't the whiner in chief! Someone (I think it was Falcon Horus) did a word count of dialogue and mckay usually had the most even when it ep wasn't focused around him! I actually didn't watch most of the first season when it was on the air cause mckay was so annoying.

McKay probably gets more words because he talks so much faster than everyone else.

[Rac80]

McKay probably gets more words because he talks so much faster than everyone else.

No because they liked the character and wrote more for him.... as I said ...that is when the series began to bottom out for me. couldn't stand the character.

[dolfyn]

McKay was always a favourite for me, along with Beckett & Sheppard; but there is such a concept as "too much of a good thing". Focussing too much on McKay was one of the many mistakes TPTB/writers made with the show. It would've worked so much better if they'd allowed it to be the ensemble show that it started out to be.

Feel the love.
dolfyn.

[magictrick]

I view at as when the uniqueness of Atlantis got swallowed up by endless copies of SG-1 themes and plotlines, and so I mark it at about the same time; end of Season 3, though "First Strike" was a terrific episode.

Yea for sure there were some great episodes still, unfortunately overall it declined. First Strike was definitely a good one.

[Briangate78]

I like how the title of this got modified from "Which season did it go downhill?" to "Did SGA go downhill?" to make it less negative.

If we were talking about SGU, it would be locked.

Anyway, Atlantis was just fun and entertaining. It had it all from dark drama to comic relief. It had a lot of variety and that is why I loved it so much. It followed in SG-1 footsteps very well, and it did not go downhill. I think the show was cancelled before it's time. Season 6 could of been epic.

[fumblesmcstupid]

Eh, for me it went downhill after adding of Keller to the 5th season. That pretty much put the nail in the coffin for me. *shrug*

[vszulc]

I have to agree with SaberBlade and s09119 on this. I became disappointed with SGA in season 3 due to its continous use of old SG-1 plots and enemies. Introduction of Replicators - pardon me, Asurans - was when the show lost me for good.

Hmmm... Which AG1 plotlines do you think they copied? The parallel universe-plots?
I found the Asurans to be very different from the replicators in SG1. Same concept, but still. Whereas the replicators in SG1 were these mindless robots, the Asurans were an epic story about how the ancients arrogance became their own undoing. The created rising against their masters, and so on. I even believe that they had a lot of stories that could be further developed. The tragic story of the "good" replicators who were trying to ascend for example.

While I have to admit, that there were more stories in season 4-5 that I didn't care that much for, I really don't think it went down in quality. The Michael arc kinda bored me, which might be why I prefer the earlier seasons.

As for the new characters, I liked Ford, Weir and Beckett, but I liked their replacements too. Especially Sam as commander, she was SO awesome. Weir left me a little... Unfulfilled I guess.

Overall, Atlantis is prob my favorite SG show.

[g.o.d]

it went downhill after Siege pt.3. I'm still trying to forget the rest of this show

[Joachim]

A lot of season 2 was pretty forgettable to me, if I remember correctly. Sunday and First Strike from season 3 were excellent - the first half of Season 4 was by far the best, though; culminating with Be All My Sins Remeber'd. After that, it began to spiral down - although The Last Man (i think thats what it was called), up until Shepherd got to the present, was excellent. Season 5 was pretty poor throughout most of it.; not to say that it didn't have its moments, it had some excellent moments and Woolsey was surprisingly good. The Michael Arc in the latter half of season 4 was really where it started going downhill for me, along with Teyla's pregnancy.

I don't remember much of the first three seasons, honestly.

[thekillman]

The Siege stands like Mount Everest above all the other episodes. though there were other peeks. but i don't know. it seems like it became too much "crack a joke" stuff. Mckay can be summed up with a quote of him. "hard takes a few seconds, impossible minutes". and another "I AM a science team".

another problem i had was that, no matter the beating they receive, they allways FULLY restore the next episode. Keller was transformed into a hive and she was less beaten afterwards than Ronon was. how believable is that? i like Rush better than Mckay. i liked the "intelligent but scared" and "whiney" rodney.

yes it went downhill, with technology, credibility and continuity. the wraith story makes less and less sense, the ancient story too. the technology is plenty but underused.


let me explain.


-the wraith rose up almost instantly and defeated several ancient worlds. how the hell that's possible when every ancient powersource is a supernuke, it beyond me. any city shield would've last very long against such an armada. even when the ancients have no defences and no warships, i don't see why in 5-10 million years they never found out about the wraith, or the iratus bugs. hell i don't see how they couldn't detect every wraith step and blow them up every time, having technological and strategical advantage.

-somehow the wraith beat the ancients around the galaxy. despite the fact that an Aurora can apparently lay waste to a wraith fleet in seconds, and a single ZPM can shatter a planet.

-somehow the ancients had plently of technology but never used it. tumor device? how about an autonomous drone or some missile fitted with the technology, fire it at a few wraith worlds and watch the carnage. how about shutting down the gate network and THEN activating attero?


-the writers never knew what to do with beam weapons. especially since they're the first to go in any battle since they wrote in that they're death rays to anything. smart move, fellas. so one moment it's instakill, then they again produce something uber that is indefeatable yet gets blown up by a nuke inside, even though something that large and powerful would've taken the nuke directly.

[bluealien]

Sure SGA had its problems but its still my favourite Stargate show, and it will always entertain me. I agree the writers focused waaaay too much on Rodney and didn't use the lead of their show to his full potential and sadly the rest of the team also became background fodder towards the end...but dispite all of this SGA had great moments in every season.

Season four and five had great episodes but it was also clear that SGA wasn't the focus of the showrunners anymore and it lacked direction. And it became disjointed with too many of the writers doing what made them happy and not for the overall good of the show.

But I don't think it declined it just changed and I liked most of the changes. The writers were too busy though trying to focus on their fav character.. cough McKay.. and they seemed to lose sight of who the rest of the characters were, and ended up neglecting the team dynamic, this was their biggest mistake in seasons 4/5. The team dynamic was the glue that held the show together for me.

Even though I liked the changes in seasons 4/5 and I enjoyed the new direction, its execution was handled very badly at times and the lack of effort put into many of the characters was very disappointing.

With proper care SGA could have been so much better. But it was left to flounder towards the end and it was obvious that the showrunners attention was elsewhere. But despite all of this, its still one of my favourite shows and thats mainly down to its amazing cast who managed to rise above the bad writing and the lack of enthusiasm displayed by its creators.

[JustAnotherVoice]

Theres an inverse relationship between Makay's abilities and the quality of the show, beyond S2.

[jmoz]

Yea, I still enjoyed the episodes, some more than others. Good hour of tv. Keller was too stale, personally would have liked it if they carried over some of the "cuteness/spunkiness" from Kaylee. Don't remember much humor in the later seasons from the main characters, Todd did offer some. The first seasons had a lot. McKay was great to laugh at.

[Arica15]

This will sound a bit odd given intergalactic wars etc but for me the problem was that as the seasons continued the show just seemed to get smaller.

Season 1 was epic, everything seemed to be done with a sense of discovery and wonder, season 5 - which we were told was 'epic' just seemed a very narrow show, limited in the scope of stories it would tell; at one point it was, oh it's Friday, Keller must be lost in the woods or Rodney's dying . Again.

I mean everyone says how great The Shrine was and I agree that David Hewlett put in a good showing; I might have been slightly more impressed however if I hadn't seen the same basic story in the Tao of Rodney two years previously.

The Wraith/Replicator way was idiotic - but given that it was invented for the sole purpose of getting rid of the replicators that shouldn't really be surprising (on a slightly seperate note does anyone else get slightly cheesed off by writers/TPTB moaning about how hard the replicators were to write for and how they just wanted to get rid of them.....eh.....why did they start writing about them in the first place???????)

Supababy Nope, I can't work out what the particular storyline was about either....other than a OMG Rachel's pregnant what do we do moment that went way way out of control! Though a thought did occur to me that makes me feel a whole lot kinder to this storyline......it saved us from the writers trying to write McKay as a father......yup, suddenly I feel a lot better about Supababy!

To sum up:

Season 1: Brilliant,not perfect but a good base which they should have been able to build on.

Season 2: What happens when you look at everything that works well in a previous season.....and decide to do the complete opposite.

Season 3: The year of frustration. With the exception of the character who shall not be named espidoes much better....until TPTB suddenly developed a Brainstorm and decided to wreck the show by fixing something that wasn't broke,.

Season 4. Supababy. Dark teyla who never was (well okay she got slightly grumpy for a couple of epsiodes, but really.....) The 'He's behind you' Wraith/Replicator war.......crime against intelligence, sorry Keller.

season 5: If someone detects an actual storyline would they let me know? Oh sorry...McKeller's true lurv

And I have't even mentioned the characters.........

So to answer the original question, yes, to me at least Stargate Atlantis didn't just go downhill, it seemed to decide to take a running jump off the side of a mountain, minus parachute....