New Eps VS. Old Eps.

[Athosian Death facilitator]

I've enjoyed many episodes and moments in Season 4, however, I've been frustrated with what I perceive as a lack of overall direction in Season 4. My feelings about The Last Man pretty much summarizes my feelings about Season 4 because although that episode had several moments that I enjoyed, it didn't make sense to me as a season ender.

In a factory, and it caves.

How many people survived the twin towers(lest we forget.)??
Yeah...because the asgard saved us at the last moment. (not!!)

I think it made me see how vulnerable the show could possibly be without Joe Flanigan. Unless Jason Momoa really stepped up the show is doomed if Joe does what RDA did. No matter his personal reason for quitting(touch wood) it's doomed without him.

However, Ronon would become the new "SCI-FI Rambo." A lil bit emotional at times. LOL, I can't wait for the wraith worshipping Ronon episode. I have a feeling unless it's badly written, i am going to cry(and I never cry).

Season ender... very open ended to me. not that gud tho

[Athosian Death facilitator]

I think they should have dropped either Quarantine or Harmony. I enjoyed them, but IMO three standalones was a bit too much. I enjoyed Trio more than those two though. Outcast is debatable as a standalone episode, I think it ties more into the overall Replicator arc really.

I wish they cancelled both Quarantine, Harmony, and Trio, because of how meaningless the episodes became. They should have just... made a couple of other episodes like, Outcast, two episode arcs. Maybe even they should have made midway a two-episode arc.

Start to feed on Teal'c and then END IT QUICK so me and you the viewer are like "WTF. TEAL'C??, WAIT WE'rE COMING TO HELP!"(bust through the TV set. lol)

[Pitry]

One reason why it may feel like the newer eps have less depth is because there was a run of eps toward the end of s4 (Harmony, Outcast, Trio) that had only one plot/POV and featured only a few of the team members.

I'm not sure. Some of the "deepest" SG episodes of both shows - at least IMO - had just one plot/ POV and features only a few of the team members, like Grace (with all of my dislike for this episode, I can't call it shallow ), The Real World, Crusade, and I won't say Grace Under Pressure cos I suspect I'd be crucified, but I'm whispering it. - to name but a few. The opposite is also true - as much as Irresponsible was a team episode (as much as they exist in SGA), it isn't exactly what I'd call a textbook case of depth. It's what the plot is and how the POV is used that determines the depth.

I wish they cancelled both Quarantine, Harmony, and Trio, because of how meaningless the episodes became. They should have just... made a couple of other episodes like, Outcast, two episode arcs. Maybe even they should have made midway a two-episode arc.

"Our main weapon is fear, fear and surprise, surprise and fear..." Sorry, couldn't resist

Out of these three that seem to be critisised here - and with my compelte and utter dislike of season 4 - I actually thought Quarantine and Trio were pretty decent, all things considered. I actually enjoyed Quarantine, which is a rarity with season 4....

But I have to admit that personally, I sort of agree with Jenks' sarcastic comment from the first page - did Atlantis ever have depth?... Sarcasm aside, it always had its share of shalow, blow 'em up episode - a lot more so than SG1, I'm afraid, as the season premiere/ finales tend to be CGI and explosion and fast camera movement for all seasons, while in SG1 we had a clip show(!), a comedy act, a couple of episodes where the key was the mystery and intelligent problem solving rather thanthe CGI etc. Stargate Atlantis tries to be fleshy, and sexy, and fast - and it pays in depth. That's not to say that a television programme can't be fleshy and sexy and fast and deep and intelligent - it's just that Stargate Atlantis doesn't do it - and on all seasons, the deep episodes tend to be the quieter ones, some of them even bottle episodes. For SG1 I'd say this devision of old vs. new might be more accurate even though it's not completely so - as the newer seasons do tend to be more fleshy and fast etc, and pay with depth on several occasions. But sGA was that way from the get-go.

[Crichiel]

Speaking about both shows here:

I think that the earlier episodes had a slow-burn kind of pacing that gave a lot of depth to those episodes, even the one-offs. The pace seemed to get faster and faster each season...BUT, I still thought the later episodes had a depth to them that they got from the rich history and mythology of all the shows that came before them. I always place what happens in an individual episode in the context of where it occurs in the entire series. Although, this rapid pace does to hurt the 'depth' of the episodes that are supposed to be complete stand-alones.

So, I guess if you were looking at each episode individually, and not as a whole in the series? I would say that the earlier episodes were better at this. Partly because the 'newness' of a show kind of dictates that you take more time to explore and explain what if happening. You don't have the kind of shorthand that you can use later in a series.

[fuzzylogicman]

i generally agree with the thread but i believe season 4, specially near the end has been the best so far. i mean they have finished off some great storylines and modified other ones to fit into the existing storylines. The wraith are starting to become a real enemy (before they were almost story filler) and now we see why they are more of a threat than the ori or replicators. i can see at least two more seasons out of atlantis yet to fill the holes left, specially since they are exploring more about the events in the galaxy and characters.

[Heaven]

As I stated, I came back to SGA due to Larrin and the Travelers. I was excited with all the info/spoilers that were out in the late spring and summer and that TPTB were heavily promoting the Travelers as the "new" race in SGA. My excitement was tempered when I saw the episode because I thought there were much better scenarios for the episode in the pre-airing/speculation thread here on GW than what was actually shown in episode. From all the promotion this new race had, I had hoped that TPTB would use the Travelers to give a better history of the PG after the Ancients abandoned Atlantis 10,000 years ago. Unfortunately to me, the episode was much more an action shoot-em up than the intelligent, reflective history lesson of how some Humans had survived the Wraith along with more info on the Ancient gene Sheppard has and why the Travelers had seemingly never come across any PG native who had the gene like the ruling family in The Tower. It only seemed the Travelers were a convienance in order to get more ships for the BAMSR space battle and I wonder if Alex Levine's comment in his Sci-Fi blog for Travelers about there originally going to be another episode using the Travelers' ship set ever got past the planning stage? For as much as JM & PM promoted them during last summer, it seems to me that basically 1.5 eps was not enough time to show this new race. I hope one of the things done this season is to show more history about the PG galaxy which should have been done in season's four second half instead of the weak (in my opinion) stand-alones that were presented.

I agree completely, very well put.

and I also think the new seasons have too much action and not enough story
the new episodes fall on one of two categories
"action" stories, which usually have a lot of action scenes and very little and simple storylines.
and "character" stories which usually have a lot of emotional scenes with a story that has nothing whatsoever to do with the overall Atlantis plot.

[expendable_crewman]

So, I guess if you were looking at each episode individually, and not as a whole in the series? I would say that the earlier episodes were better at this. Partly because the 'newness' of a show kind of dictates that you take more time to explore and explain what if happening.

I like the way you put this. Makes me see season one as a set-up season. In SGA, the first season gets lots of points, IMO, for building momentum, creating a problem, a very big epic-scale problem (they woke *all* the Wraith), and laying it out as a story that could not be solved in one season. The "fish out of water" idea with a fresh, vital twist, ending on a note of apocalyptic proportion. But ...

i generally agree with the thread but i believe season 4, specially near the end has been the best so far. i mean they have finished off some great storylines and modified other ones to fit into the existing storylines. The wraith are starting to become a real enemy (before they were almost story filler) and now we see why they are more of a threat than the ori or replicators. i can see at least two more seasons out of atlantis yet to fill the holes left, specially since they are exploring more about the events in the galaxy and characters.

I could re-write this, replacing the words "season 4" with "season 2" and the words "ori or replicators" with "Genii" and, for me, it would fit.

And I could do it again, saying "season 3" and leave in "ori and replicators" and get the same effect, which is to say that, IMO, all that momentum eventually becomes unsatisfying if the wave never reaches the shore. The wave, I think, is the depth a show develops in its stories and characters. For me, it's not the flash of an explosion around an enemy ship that has meaning, it's that I have an interest in seeing that particular ship stopped, or its fictional crew obliterated. The show has to make me feel, and on that note ...

But I have to admit that personally, I sort of agree with Jenks' sarcastic comment from the first page - did Atlantis ever have depth?... Sarcasm aside, it always had its share of shalow, blow 'em up episode - a lot more so than SG1, I'm afraid, as the season premiere/ finales tend to be CGI and explosion and fast camera movement for all seasons, while in SG1 we had a clip show(!), a comedy act, a couple of episodes where the key was the mystery and intelligent problem solving rather thanthe CGI etc. Stargate Atlantis tries to be fleshy, and sexy, and fast - and it pays in depth. That's not to say that a television programme can't be fleshy and sexy and fast and deep and intelligent - it's just that Stargate Atlantis doesn't do it - and on all seasons, the deep episodes tend to be the quieter ones, some of them even bottle episodes. For SG1 I'd say this devision of old vs. new might be more accurate even though it's not completely so - as the newer seasons do tend to be more fleshy and fast etc, and pay with depth on several occasions. But sGA was that way from the get-go.

I kind of agree with this, but I had to go backward to do it. In season one, I was starry-eyed over the premise and more than willing to wait for the glue, the underlying intelligence, awareness, and depth, that binds a good show, even an action show with busy stories and busy characters. Season one was, for me, so beautiful to look at. So much was new, so much to learn. Even the characters, knowing nothing about them, were fascinating to me. In season two, I was still patiently waiting for some deeper layer to emerge, thanks to wonderful portrayals by the cast. In season three, I began to lose patience. (That is not to say the cast has done less; the cast is usually quite fantastic making the most of what they are given.) When asked was the depth really there, even in the beginning, I am not sure I can say it was. But the potential, wow, the potential.

[Heaven]

For me, it's not the flash of an explosion around an enemy ship that has meaning, it's that I have an interest in seeing that particular ship stopped, or its fictional crew obliterated, and on that note ...

ahhh I wish I could have said that.
I know exactly what you're saying, and this feeling has waned completely after the Siege
the only race who still has that effect on me are the Genii, but to be honest not so much now that Kolya and Cowen are gone.

[Betelgeuze]

The last season of Atlantis was the best so far imo. I think that Atlantis has gotten deeper in the later seasons. The Wraith have gone from rather superficial bad guys to more interesting antagonists as their nature and culture is explored in more depth.

SG-1 has definitely gotten deeper in the last two seasons. The Ori and their worsippers are far more familliar enemies than the Goa'uld. The later seasons of SG-1 deal with much deeper issues such as the importance of freedom of choice and the dangers of fanaticism and indoctrination.

[Mitchell82]

The last season of Atlantis was the best so far imo. I think that Atlantis has gotten deeper in the later seasons. The Wraith have gone from rather superficial bad guys to more interesting antagonists as their nature and culture is explored in more depth.

SG-1 has definitely gotten deeper in the last two seasons. The Ori and their worsippers are far more familliar enemies than the Goa'uld. The later seasons of SG-1 deal with much deeper issues such as the importance of freedom of choice and the dangers of fanaticism and indoctrination.

Agreed. While each season of both shows has been great in their own right both shows got more exciting year after year.

[Pitry]

The last season of Atlantis was the best so far imo. I think that Atlantis has gotten deeper in the later seasons. The Wraith have gone from rather superficial bad guys to more interesting antagonists as their nature and culture is explored in more depth.

SG-1 has definitely gotten deeper in the last two seasons. The Ori and their worsippers are far more familliar enemies than the Goa'uld. The later seasons of SG-1 deal with much deeper issues such as the importance of freedom of choice and the dangers of fanaticism and indoctrination.

I dunno. THat was definitely what I thought udirng season 9 but then season 10 came along and it felt all the great potential of the Orii disappeared - a part of the problem was, in fact, that there was a lot of depth, in my opinion, and a lot of thoughtr at the question of the first half of season 9 - how do you kill ascened beings, ie real gods. How do you fight them. But they kinda cheated their way out of this question with one episode and concentrating on the "real" fights with their warriors...