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Why was Paul McGillion written out of Atlantis?

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    #31
    Agreed. Strangely I also feel like the first 2 seasons of Atlantis were its best, especially with Ford and Beckett, Weir, etc.

    I'd take Ford over Ronon, but Momoa's character grew on me so I differ on that point.
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      #32
      So, based on the things Joe Mallozzi and Paul McGillion have said over the years, at some point during the third season, SyFy wanted the writers of Atlantis to kill of a main character. The explanation was that it might be good for the ratings, and SyFy wanted to save money by scaling the cast back down to five as had it been during the first season.

      Beckett was chosen because he was popular with the fans and his death would be a big emotional punch. Also, the writers were turning their focus more on team based episodes and it was proving difficult to write Carson into every episode: the principal cast all had play or pay contracts meaning if they didn't appear in an episode they still had to get paid, so the network tends to enforce the rule that every character must appear in every episode. This was also one of the reasons Weir was written out just a few episodes later.

      McGillion did not leave of his own accord. The writer's made a creative decision and wrote his character off the show. If it had been up to him he would have remained a main cast member.

      Weir was written out of the show because SyFy wanted to bring over an SG-1 character to try and boost ratings, and because the writers were finding it hard to find things for Weir to do every week. Back in the second season, Torri Higginson actually asked to leave the show because she was bored and felt she wasn't being given anything to do. Brad Wright loved the Weir character and Higginson and gave her an expanded role in season 3, but Wright left to develop SGU and it was the writers who decided to axe Weir to make room for Carter.

      For me, the frequent cast changes on Atlantis is one of the reasons why the show doesn't work as well as SG-1 in my opinion.

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        #33
        Originally posted by timtonruben359 View Post
        Back in the second season, Torri Higginson actually asked to leave the show because she was bored and felt she wasn't being given anything to do.
        Don't know who told you that, but I'm fairly certain it's not true.

        Fairly certain, most of what you just wrote is pure speculation on your part as to why certain characters were axed.

        The only one I know for certain who thought about leaving after season 5 was Jason (Momoa).
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          #34
          I don't think it had anything to do with Amanda tapping besides she didnt have as much seniority as you give her credit for as he appeared in as he appeared season 1 as Ernest Littlefield granted it was just one episode but he was no stranger to the franchise that threw him 45 years into the story ahead of her character I think that after the first couple seasons most of his contributions to the show specifically his contributions alone were done and made sense to bring in someone new for a while since they were able to write him back in he provided a female character to couple up with one of the male characters surprisingly Rodney McKay of all people but yeah I wouldn't be surprised if maybe he had something else he wanted to work on and took a break or like I said just to creative writing aspect of it because being the doctor that did the whole Michael experiment/the retrovirus and the hoffin drug he was able to be written back in easily

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