"Exploring the City" Episodes

[rushy]

I think that the "regular" Atlantis exploration ended in season 1.

[xineohpinakc]

I think my viewership fell around season 3 as in I didn't really make as much effort to watch episodes first run when I realized that Atlantis didn't seem much more than a mobile drone platform. All the build up on the first episode about exploring new stuff, finding new technology and for the most part get episode after episode of primitive village shots.

For the most part earth already had all the technology that was shown on Atlantis minus of course the dodgy/unfinished/broken tech encountered. I was disappointed too when it came to exploration of the city and kept waiting for some reveal on something new (that worked).

I just rolled my eyes at the episode where Daniel came to find the lab of Janus and Mckay basically saying if there was anything like that he would know about it which enforced my belief that the city had been explored and there wasn't much more to Atlantis than it being a flying ship and mobile drone platform. The city was much more boring that what the first few episodes alluded to.

[Cerulean Entertainment]

I still wish we would have seen more of what was in the city. It seems exploring would be a priority if I went to Atlantis lol.

[The Dude]

Is it me, or did the writers drop the ball on exploring the city? The last Atlantis-based exploration episode I can think of is "Submerged" from late Season 3. There was Janus's secret lab in "First Contact," but that was mostly setting up a larger story. Most of the fourth and fifth season action was off world. Sure, we still saw plenty of the city, but it seemed to me like the exploration-based stories dropped off the map along with Dr. Weir. Does anyone else here feel the same way? I'm still miffed that they wrote her out. She gave the show this grand sense of wonder. During Carter and Woolsey's time, it felt less like the lost city and more like a base of operations. It was so much more than that!

Yeah you're exactly right and just think of all the ideas you could've used as stories just about exploring the city. And everything pretty much dropped off the map when they killed Weir. Totally [censored] way off. I remember the board back then. And how they brought back Carson? Over Weir? Unbelievable. Not that I didn't like Carson but come on. To this day I'm still of the mind that when they killed Weir they actually killed the heart of the franchise and it just withered and died. That was a while ago.

But yeah; exploring the city seems to me like an easy ticket for writers to come up with a lot of cool stories. It's like they had an ace up their sleeves that they never used. Or, not even like that- but like, like; like something I'm just not sure what. But yeah you're exactly right.

[setsuna]

it seemed kinda obvious to me that the reason they didn't explore more of the city was due to budget restraints for building sets....based more or less on the fact that pretty much every "alien" world they visited looked like a deciduous forest in north america. how exotic.... ;P

when i began watching the series i was excited about the great potential there was in the exploration of a futuristic alien city. who wouldn't be? the size of the city alone was compelling. while i love SGA and enjoy episodes from every season, the lack of reaching that potential towards the end of the series was definitely a disappointment.

[hedwig]

In "The Prodigal", McKay and Shep had to walk up the stairs in the central tower (because Michael had invaded the city and shut down all the lifts that would have allowed easier access to the higher floors), in which McKay said there were something like 70+ floors to climb. I believe the central tower was probably the tallest, but there were plenty of other towers around the city that probably had 50 or more floors to them. Who knows how many rooms were in each of those towers, plus all those in the lower almost towers and the lower levels of the city. There would likely be thousands of rooms to explore.

[mandogater]

In "Prodigy", McKay and Shep had to walk up the stairs in the central tower (because Michael had invaded the city and shut down all the lifts that would have allowed easier access to the higher floors), in which McKay said there were something like 70+ floors to climb. I believe the central tower was probably the tallest, but there were plenty of other towers around the city that probably had 50 or more floors to them. Who knows how many rooms were in each of those towers, plus all those in the lower almost towers and the lower levels of the city. There would likely be thousands of rooms to explore.

And that is what makes the lack of exploration on screen so frakking annoying.

[Darian]

Mini rollercoaster

[Krisz]

I'm another one who got a bit fed up with the lack of exploration of Atlantis. I was really looking forward to seeing this fantastic 'Lost City' of the Ancients we learned of in the latter part of SG-1.

The gate room and control centre was impressive, and I was wowed by the whole overall look of the city in 'Rising'. I loved how they wandered through the corridors opening doors in the first two seasons. Finding labs which always brought their own unique problems it seemed could have been a source of a lot more interesting episodes I felt. The puddle jumper bay was great and the discovery of the opening to the outside by accident was a good thing to see. This is the sort of thing I was hoping to see more of.

I guess budget constraints are a factor that has to be allowed for, but I did get a little fed up with how much time was spent wandering around in grassy fields, only to find yet another 'village',rather than an interesting new bit of Atlantis.

I found SGU to be a refreshing change as we learnt more and saw a lot more of Destiny in the short time that show ran. We saw the people living their lives on the ship, compared to how much of Atlantis and the people living in it was seen over 5 seasons of SGA! Although I wonder how long it would have been before we ended up in more forests or more 'human' style cities in SGU had it continued. I saw more of that creeping in towards the end of it, so I would be finding myself being annoyed by an imbalance in favour of off world exploration in SGU as I did with SGA.

OK, I know it's Stargate, and the use of the stargate is an integral part of the show, but not so much so that when another discovery like Atlantis or Destiny is made they are not explored to the extent they could have been.

I guess you can only think up so many new interesting areas of any given city and spaceship to explore! So, even with having said all this I do have to add that what we did get was pretty good, and that's why I was disappointed that we didn't see more of it.

[Arica15]

I would have loved to have seen more exploration of the city.

To be fair to the writers it would have been difficult to do a lot of exploration stories as it may have gotten very repetitive but a few more would have been good.

I don't think actually it was about budgets but rather, I think the writers got bored of the Ancients and didn't want to expand Ancient Society beyond a certain point, by it's very nature exploring the city would have meant exploring the ancients and after season two I always got the feeling that this was something the writers did on sufferance, only when they couldn't avoid it.

[garhkal]

The one thing i realy wish they explored was those 3 other towers that looked exactly like Atlantis's central spire, just shorter..
Did they have a similar control room in? A jumper bay??