Oh, Stargate... where did it all go wrong?

Surely, if you showed someone unaware of the franchise the film and then a recent episode of it... they would struggle to see any similarity between the two, except for the eponymous Stargate. In fact, it's entirely possible that if you showed someone an episode of the show from early on and a recent one, they might struggle to realise they were the same show.

Naturally, we've still got the same cast... well, barring Richard Dean Anderson... and of course, it seems pretty regular for other members of the original cast to just miss an episode or two while further development of the Ben Browder character is rammed down our throats... Strangely though, the format of the show hasn't changed greatly... oh, sure the show has become less Stargate and more Star Trek and of course, no everyone speaks English... but the basic premise of 45 minutes of running around shooting and/or fixing something has not changed one iota, so hardly saddening that the series is concluding shortly.

They can't complain though - ten seasons and over 200 episodes makes it the longest running modern sci-fi show and given that it has spawned not one, not two but three spin-offs... it would seem they're doing pretty well. Very well, in fact. That's getting close to Star Trek... although, it's worth pointing out that one of those spin-offs was Stargate: Infinity... a very short lived cartoon and even the show's creators have conceded that it's unlikely Atlantis will manage to last the ten years that SG-1 did. As to the third spin-off? Rumours about it are suitably nebulous at the moment but we've been promised it'll be a "whole new universe" or other such New Speak for "derivative".

For those of you who are blubbering about never seeing Samantha Carter again, you shouldn't worry... there will doubtless be an eternity of syndication of SG-1. Not only that but she'll be in the straight-to-DVD films that will make the executive producers a nice big cash bonus... sorry, wrap up the Ori story. A story which shouldn't really have started in the first place... let's face it seasons 9 and 10 were just a

Honestly they couldn't have made it a more thinly concealed cash grab if they tried... Stopping Ori storylines in episode 15 and just dolling out more filler episodes until the finale, which is inevitably going to be a cliffhanger to induce people to rush out and buy aforementioned DVDs... oh and then we get a time travel one, apparently.

It's amusing really, Amanda Tapping suggested that her contract could mean that she'd get shuttlecocked over to Atlantis until it expired - presumably after 10 years, she's gagging to go off and start working the sci-fi conferneces which will be the majority of her income for the rest of her natural life - the way she phrased it was hilarious... it was one step away from "I've got a lot of broken glass I'd rather be crawling over."

Which isn't so surprising, the shows are remarkably similar. They swapped some things around but they're still very similar... not least because they just do the same things over and over again... and the level of technological advancement in Pegasus seems to be far more consistent. Which is all irrelevant really. The thing that has killed the show - or at least given it AIDS - is the total apparent stagnation in the writing.

A lot of people would say - it's hard to come up with 200+ original stories... well, yes. Obviously. I'm not sure a team of the most original writers in the world could come up with 200+ stories all taking place in the same continuity and with the same characters. It's the wrong way to approach the problem, perhaps if the show had tried to tell more of a coherent story than deliver self-contained 45 minute packets of brain numbing then we'd not have had episodes where they went "Hey, this is just like that other episode! But by recognising it, we're making fun of it and it's not an issue!" Uh, yes... it is. Much like Star Trek, there was probably a computer program generating them... but with the addition of... HUMOUR! Oh, it didn't take itself so seriously... personally I think Stargate has gone a long way toward wholly substantiating the notion that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Not just that but if it wasn't for Star Trek, then people would probably comment more often - this is one HELL of a preachy show. It's not exactly Janeway preaching from the pulpit - mainly because it's actually fairly consistent in what it says - but it's not far off. Constantly there are messages about how all alien socieites - and indeed, alternate Earths - should all run just like present day America. If one were especially cynical, you might even suppose that it's essentially espousing the kind of "liberation" that Iraq and Afghanistan enjoyed... just comes across as rather simplistic and patronising most of the time. Non-interference is not a doctrine the SGC understand or endorse.