Why did I only like SG1??

[Davey]

Was there something wrong with me? Of the entire Stargate world the only series I liked was SG1, and not all of it at that. I didn't like the Ascending business. I didn't much like the episodes of the last two years. And without Richard Dean Anderson it just wasn't the same anymore. But overall everything was far better than Atlantis or Universe. I admit I only watched the first season of Atlantis and only 2 or 3 episodes of Universe.
SG1 had far greater logic than either one, and even more logic than the original Stargate movie (which could not even explain why there was apparently only two stargates, one on earth and one on Abydos).
In any case, are there more like me?? ;-)

[Who Knows]

Well, to be honest, I only ever watched SG1.
I watched Star Trek, then moved to the next Star Trek spin off & was not impressed. I object to spin-offs jumping on the coat tails of successful programs, from what I have seen they are never as good as the original, and I am so over all of them.
And as you say, without RDA and the other cast members you have grown to love and respect, it is not the same. I know they used the SGI actors in cameo roles to try and push the new spinoffs, but it is not the same.
Like you I did not like the whole Ori arc. There were so many other things SG1 could have investigated on Earth & in the Milky Way Galaxy. Furlings, The Bermuda Triangle, and returns to planets already visited to see how things are going.
They make friends, then leave them for dead. Not good, but yes, better than the spinoffs.

[Gatefan1976]

Was there something wrong with me? Of the entire Stargate world the only series I liked was SG1, and not all of it at that. I didn't like the Ascending business. I didn't much like the episodes of the last two years. And without Richard Dean Anderson it just wasn't the same anymore. But overall everything was far better than Atlantis or Universe. I admit I only watched the first season of Atlantis and only 2 or 3 episodes of Universe.
SG1 had far greater logic than either one, and even more logic than the original Stargate movie (which could not even explain why there was apparently only two stargates, one on earth and one on Abydos).
In any case, are there more like me?? ;-)

The obvious answer to this is the characters.
Jack and Co interested you more than Weir and Co, or Rush and Co. Atlantis followed the same format as SG-1 for quite a bit, you could even say they lifted stories almost directly from SG-1 in some eps, so I am less inclined to say it was storytelling for SG-1/SGA.
SGU is it's own beast, with a whole different tone and storytelling style.
And No, you are not alone, there are MANY people even here on the forum who feel as you do.

[Gatefan1976]

Well, to be honest, I only ever watched SG1.
I watched Star Trek, then moved to the next Star Trek spin off & was not impressed. I object to spin-offs jumping on the coat tails of successful programs, from what I have seen they are never as good as the original, and I am so over all of them.
And as you say, without RDA and the other cast members you have grown to love and respect, it is not the same. I know they used the SGI actors in cameo roles to try and push the new spinoffs, but it is not the same.
Like you I did not like the whole Ori arc. There were so many other things SG1 could have investigated on Earth & in the Milky Way Galaxy. Furlings, The Bermuda Triangle, and returns to planets already visited to see how things are going.
They make friends, then leave them for dead. Not good, but yes, better than the spinoffs.

This makes zero sense.

[Davey]

All the points of criticism are very well taken and express how I feel. I disliked the Ori storyline very much. And once I saw the stuff about the Wraith on Atlantis I couldn't take it anymore. I found it disgusting.
One other thing I noticed after rewatching some episodes of SG1. They would go to a planet to some enemy who ruled "the planet" and found that of the enemy there were just a handful of them, and even just a handful of the subjugated population on an entire planet. Take Broca Divide in season 1. The number of the "touched" seen in the episode was about 10. And the untouched on the Side of Light of the planet was two plus two guards. I realize very well that the producers were not going to provide hundreds of bit part actors just to make it more realistic, but it seemed to stretch credulity to imagine that a few rulers exist along side just a handful of subjugated people. Another case was The First Commandment. How is one supposed to believe that there are merely a handful of people existing on an entire planet. Beyond that, if a planet were truly populated, what would it mean that a single stargate was located only in a single isolated location. It would be like Earth having its single unsupervised stargate located in Hawaii far from the rest of the entirety of the world's population. What good would that be?

[Davey]

It seems also that Origins does not solve the problem of presenting a universe with only two stargates based on the premise of the original movie. One on Abydos and one on Earth. What good is that as a storyline?

[Davey]

I forgot to mention that in addition to Ascension I wasn't especially enamored by the storyline involved the Asgards, or attempts for some reason to create association (Ori and Ancients) to Tibetan Buddhism, which I suppose the producers thought would be even more exotic than the ancient Egyptians.

[Davey]

…..and don't get me started with the Replicators, which I found totally boring even if they temporarily made allies of Earth with the Goa'uld against a common foe.

[Xaeden]

and even more logic than the original Stargate movie (which could not even explain why there was apparently only two stargates, one on earth and one on Abydos).

The movie didn't say there were only two gates, it simply told a story about Earth discovering how to connect to one particular gate. There were plans at the time to have additional gates be discovered in the sequel. And there weren't just supposed to be more gates out in the universe; there were supposed to be more gates on Earth (at least one more gate would've been found with the idea being that aliens used it to influence mythology outside of Egypt as well).

[Davey]

Well, Xaeden you make a good point, but overall I guess I am too critical and don't suspend belief enough.

[Xaeden]

This doesn't actually have anything to do with suspension of disbelief. If there was a plot point that said only two Stargates exist in the whole universe and you said that was ridiculous because why then wouldn't they connect to one another by "pushing a button" (or only having one chevron) or why wouldn't Ra put a Stargate on the third planet he came from, someone might tell you to suspend disbelief over the matter. Essentially, they'd be telling you to let go of an obvious logical contradiction for the sake of enjoying the movie.

In this case, there's no contradiction. You're inventing an explanation for why the writers withheld information about the existence of other Stargates and then getting upset with your own explanation even though it runs counter to what the plan would've been revealed in a sequel. They never once said that other Stargates don't exist, and how things were set up implies the existence of other gates.

We have to suspend disbelief over contradictions and fantastical situations (the Stargate itself, the aliens, the idea that the pyramids were built 10,000 years ago by aliens, etc.). We don't suspend disbelief when a story rations information, as stories always do in some form or another.

[Falcon Horus]

Err... Davey, don't take this the wrong way but it doesn't seem you liked season 1 to 7 (or 8) of SG-1 very much either. The criticism you describe, about the little popolus on each planet and the likes, happened in nearly all episodes.

[NickEast]

This doesn't actually have anything to do with suspension of disbelief. If there was a plot point that said only two Stargates exist in the whole universe and you said that was ridiculous because why then wouldn't they connect to one another by "pushing a button" (or only having one chevron) or why wouldn't Ra put a Stargate on the third planet he came from, someone might tell you to suspend disbelief over the matter. Essentially, they'd be telling you to let go of an obvious logical contradiction for the sake of enjoying the movie.

In this case, there's no contradiction. You're inventing an explanation for why the writers withheld information about the existence of other Stargates and then getting upset with your own explanation even though it runs counter to what the plan would've been revealed in a sequel. They never once said that other Stargates don't exist, and how things were set up implies the existence of other gates.

We have to suspend disbelief over contradictions and fantastical situations (the Stargate itself, the aliens, the idea that the pyramids were built 10,000 years ago by aliens, etc.). We don't suspend disbelief when a story rations information, as stories always do in some form or another.

I prefer to take J.R.R Tolkien's advise that there is no such thing as "suspension of disbelief", unless the writers are doing a bad job. Instead, he suggests to treat the worlds of speculative fiction as a "secondary belief". When you start reading/watching/playing, you willingly accept that you are entering a secondary world which you accept as "real". So instead of "suspending your disbelief", you accept it all as reality, a "secondary belief". As soon as something in that secondary world breaks that illusion and forces us to "suspend our disbelief", that's the point where the writer did something wrong.

Tolkien believes that by having an internal consistency, no matter how unrealistic it sounds compared with the real, or primary, world (stargates, parasitic aliens posing as gods, ascension, Atlantis the flying city spaceship), those who willingly experience the story will accept it as "real" within that world. In games (board and video) this is known as the "magic circle".

There have been many situations where even Stargate broke that illusion (minus the popular misconceptions that some people have), but overall it's a very consistent universe.

[Falcon Horus]

Interesting theory.

[Xaeden]

When you start reading/watching/playing, you willingly accept that you are entering a secondary world which you accept as "real".

This really is the way to go. I think the big mistake that people make is in trying to view fiction as existing within the real world, rather than briefly trying to forget the real world exists and viewing a fictional setting as its own world with its own rules and conventions.

People get particularly worked up, for example, if technology exists in a medieval based fantasy world that did not exist in the real world medieval era. A big one that I've seen repeatedly is outrage over hot air balloons, but this is a nonsense complaint because it's not our world. The setting is borrowed from the real world, but then elements are added to it that would naturally and logically have to change its development. Once you start adding things like magic, portals to other dimensions/planets, and gnomes that are highly intelligent and like to tinker with things, the order of inventions and discoveries is of course going to shift. If it doesn't that would be unbelievable.

Even in cases where it's trying to pretend like those elements could exist and then be forgotten in a world that is destined to develop into one much like our own or where the "magic" could happen without the public knowing as is the case in Stargate, it's still it's own world and should be viewed as such. People, for whatever reasons, want to believe these things can and are supposed to exist in our world, but then take issue with the oddest things. Magic is fine, hundreds of thousands of missing orc, elf, dwarf, etc., bones are fine, but someone invented a watch or there's a class of warrior women and all of the sudden there's a problem.

Doing this--that is, accepting that the world a writer presents to you as true--is suspending disbelief by definition. What Tolkien did was take issue with associating that definition with the term as he didn't think it was descriptive enough in much the same way people advocate for phasing out "global warming" in favor of "climate change" to try to limit confusion among people who don't understand that global warming is used to refer to extreme shifts in climate (in a nutshell: colder winters, warmer summers).

He also took issue with it as he felt it was condescending because it's also used to tell people to ignore flaws, but words and phrases have multiple meanings depending on the context. I think it's important to explain to people that context, but as Tolkien didn't try to break up those definitions by putting forth a new term that took off, I'm not inclined to go around saying suspension of disbelief doesn't also apply to what he was referring to.