Why was Dr. Weir discontinued after Season 3?

[Gatefan1976]

The same situation existed when they phased out Jack O'Neill but for different reasons. SG1 just wasn't the same without him....

Jack was not "phased out", RDA wanted out

[Falcon Horus]

Jack was not "phased out", RDA wanted out

And therein lies the difference with Torri. RDA wanted out, asked for it himself. Torri, not so much.

[Gatefan1976]

And therein lies the difference with Torri. RDA wanted out, asked for it himself. Torri, not so much.

I agree, Torri (via Elizabeth) lent a certain air of responsibility to the Atlantis team, that it can't always go the way you want, or be perfect, something that Carter (not Amanda) or Woolsey (not Picardo) never seemed to jel with.
She was the diplomat leader, even beyond Daniel because she had the guts to do it from the front.

[ReganX]

I don't understand. I assumed that when actors sign contracts for seasons it's obviously contingent on the show not being cancelled. So why would Amanda Tapper get priority over the existing contract of Torri Higginson? When actors star in shows that last only a few episodes or one season, presumably they had signed up for more than one year, and there is also flexibility in terms of letting an actor off for particular reasons. And what kind of contract did Torri Higginson have? Did they have any interest in what fans thought?

She wouldn't.

As I understand it, it's more or less standard procedure to tie actors in a new series to medium-length contracts; five years and seven years seem to be reasonably common. However, this usually means that the show runners have the option of keeping them on for the duration of the contract, assuming that the show lasts that long, not that they are required to keep them on.

TPTB had a contract with Amanda Tapping that gave them the option of putting her on Stargate: Atlantis for Season Four. They chose to avail of that option but, if they hadn't, she wouldn't have had the right to demand that they do so. TPTB stated at the time that the decision to write Weir off was made before they decided to move Sam to Atlantis, so it wasn't a case of Sam or Weir, it was a case of Sam or another character.

For my part, I enjoyed Season Four. Weir was my favourite Atlantis character, and I didn't like seeing her go, but Sam is my favourite character overall. If Weir was to be written off, I was happy to have Sam in command.

[AleksisMi]

you know what would have been amazing, a spin off, of replicater human wier traveling with some of the replicators to other worlds... we could have had atlantis, and we could have had "StarGate: Allies and Enemies"


would have had a aamazing oppurtunity, give them the quest to find the energy source of the big bang and give them tons of amazing stories etc, perhaps she has a few allies from atlantis join her like Zelinka and maybe even have a replicater vversion of thier former doctor etc, boom you got a startrek style intergalactic quest to find the origin of life and to make sense of all the worlds they find and perhaps even help others along the way, have it all based on a hybredized atlantis starship or aurora battleship, or better yet put in some plot argument for them working with the asgard and giving the asgard lots of information and in turn the asgard share one of their most impressive ships, the daniell jackson... or the oneill... or painfully ironically thier newest ship... the "Samantha Carter"

[Davey]

The Replicator story line was my least favorite in SG1.....just plain yuck...…..and just my personal preference....