Please join me in grieving over the sad, unfortunate passing of what was once a pretty good science fiction series, although to judge by that sorry excuse for a series finale Friday night, they pulled the plug not a millisecond too soon.  The entire episode reminded me of a scene in that stupid comedy movie “Ice Pirates”—while being chased, the spaceship goes through a time warp, the characters age rapidly in the course of a few seconds, only to have their children suddenly pop into existance and rescue them.  The ship then leaves the time warp and they all return to normal.  I kept looking for little Daniel and Vala junior to show up.  I suppose even Stargate’s writers thought that was too much (although I bet you a case of weapons-grade naquadria that they at least toyed with the idea)!

Still, I should come to praise the Stargate, not to bury it.  It had some interesting plotlines, a cast of strong centrail characters who meshed perfectly with one another, and a variety of fascinating secondary characters.  It was great while it lasted.

“I can see Daniel waving good-bye.  God, it looks like Daniel…must be the clouds in my eyes…” —Elton John

Indeed.

It was a shame to have the show end prematurely, and that wasn’t a very good series finale…

‘Least we have the movies to look forward to so it’s not entirely dead… yet.

And Carter will live on in Atlantis… though I wish they didn’t make her the leader.

Thank you SG-1 for 10 years of an intelligent sci-fi show.

Carter in charge of Atlantis?  Maybe I should join one of those Stargate forums, to get advance warning about stuff like this.

But I can’t imagine a worse idea.  In the first place, how is Rodney McKay going to keep up his position as resident know-it-all with Carter around?  In the second place, as nearly as I remember, her date of rank is about the same as Lt Col. Shepard’s To put her in command, they would have to promote her again to full bird colonel (which isn’t exactly a disaster I suppose).

In the third place, it means getting rid of Dr.Weir, and she was one of my main reasons for watching.  Elizabeth was originally protrayed as a linguist and a diplomat (sort of a Daniel Jackson equivalent), but in the Pegasus galaxy against the Wraith, she very rarely gets to use those abilities.  On the other hand, she’s also supposed to be in command (like General Hammond), but she doens’t really fit that role either.  When there’s a crisis, she always has to ask either McKay or Shepard what can be done, and basically confines herself to saying, “Let’s do it,” then standing around wringing her hands.  But on those rare occasions she decides no, chances are Shepard will go ahead and do it anyway.  Oh, and sometimes she gets to make an “inspiring” speech.  I’ve always complained that she deserves more than this.

They need to write an episode where there are two exactly equal alternatives,and by that I mean two equal chances for disaster, where no one (not Shepard, McKay or anybody) can decide which has the better chance of success.  Then Weir would apply her expertise in weighing options and make a decision.  And it turns out to be the best possible outcome.  In other words, everybody on the show has something that he or she is the best at, and Weir needs to be shown to be the best at making decisions.  Weir has to be given respect, for once.  But I guess it’s too late for that now.  Rather than rehabilitate her character, the writers have apparently decided to just dump her.

So what are they going to do with Carter?  Can you picture Carter staying on Atlantis like Weir always did, waiting for reports from off-world?  Can you imagine Carter making the kind of decisions General Hammond did?  Can you imagine her staying out of Rodney’s way, so that he can work?  They will have to completely re-write her character to make her a leader type.  That’s possible, I guess, but they could just as easily done that with Weir.  I suppose they just decided Carter was a more popular character.  Gosh, that galls me!

Okay, end of lecture.