Stargate - where to start?

[Huw]

Been casually interested in Stargate since the first film, but never really watched enough of the series to follow the story arc. Now I'm in the mood to. What's the best way to do this? Start right at the beginning? Jump in to a later season? Go for Stargate Atlantis?

Thanks in advance.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I've actually been re-watching the series (on Hulu). You'll want to start from the beginning of the original. While most of the stories are self-contained, they'll mention stuff from earlier episodes. Sometimes it's offhand, and sometimes it's actually plot related.

Personally, I've been skipping a lot of the less important (and less well written) episodes. My guide has been Gateworld's fan ratings, skipping over anything under 7. You may want to watch all of them though, especially in the first couple of seasons to get a feel for the characters.

Also, my advice is not to bother with SG:A. It's far inferior to the original, IMO.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Start right at the beggining. Go watch the original Movie. Then the Pilot Movie for SG-1 (Children of the Gods) Then start watching SG-1 till Season 7 I think. At that point you need to start watching SG1 and Atlantis interchangeably, IMO for the best possible experience. You don't have to but you'll catch a lot more story points and easter eggs if you do. I think, though I'm not sure that Stargate The Ark of Truth takes place before the final season of Atlantis, and Stargate: Continnumm takes place after the last season but I can't remember. You can get a much better timeline at gateworld.

I disagree strongly with LightPheonix. Stargate Atlantis' weakest season was its first. Once Ronon Dex joins the cast and they start to develop the characters more Rodney and Sheppard in particular, the show really really really gets good. Many SG fans feel it was ended too early.

Good luck!

 

[Orius]

Like everyone else said, start at the beginning. There are a lot of self-contained episodes, but the storyline does advance from season to season. You don' want to jump into Atlantis until you're are the right point in SG-1 (which is season 8 IIRC). Atlantis is watchable, but I felt that after a while they really had started to run out of ideas, and the show started to feel a bit stale.

 

[Sutekh]

Welcome to Stargate then.

Id look at Sg-1 as two different shows. Essentially you have Seasons 1-5 and then the rest. The tone for the first 5 seasons was quite different to the later stuff (and very pronounced in seasons 9 and 10) Sg-1 is essentially an Adventure-action show whereas Atlantis was an Action show.

If you are going to start from the beginning, certainly see the movie, then see the Children of the Gods recut pilot movie. I think it offers a lot of improvements over the original pilot and is worth tracking down.

Id watch SG-1 before Atlantis personally. Atlantis was at time an interesting show, sadly however it degenerated too often (esp s4-5) into the 'Rodney McKay show when you were lucky to find McKay not being in the A Story or B Story. His character I didnt like to begin with which may have colored my views on those 2 seasons.

Atlantis Season 1 was interesting. It wasnt great, but it introduces the character of Aiden Ford.. a woefully underused character who well.. was sparsely used later. His replacement Ronon Dex was well, also pretty much underused and contributed almost nothing to the infrequent action lite episodes.

So yeah, id start with Season 1-5. Certainly some Gems in there.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I disagree strongly with LightPheonix.

It's a good thing I'm the "oe" version then.

As a random aside, I fully expected you to be the one to disagree with me. I don't mean anything negative by it, but I've noticed that we have very dissimilar tastes, to the point where you're one of the people whose opinions I'll look for to gauge what my reaction might be.

Atlantis was at time an interesting show, sadly however it degenerated too often (esp s4-5) into the 'Rodney McKay show when you were lucky to find McKay not being in the A Story or B Story. His character I didnt like to begin with which may have colored my views on those 2 seasons.

This pretty much sums up my problems with the characters.

The rest of the characters felt like flat copies of the SG1 characters (roughly) and never really grew out of that. Sheppard was O'Neill, Ronon was pretty much Teal'c, and Teyla was Carter's military plus Daniel's diplomat mashed together. Even McKay was Carter's science plus Daniel's quirkiness. Specifically, I couldn't stand McKay, especially once they started putting the entire show on his character, to the detriment of the others. He completely overacted every scene he was in, even in SG1. That said, he was a main character, so I would expect him to be in every story. The only one I really liked was Weir, who was different enough from Hammond to be interesting, while fulfilling the same role.

However, my biggest issue was with the writing, which I found very sub-par compared to SG1. This is especially true later on in the series, especially seasons 4-5. The same seasons in SG1 were pretty much the hallmarks of the series. SGA didn't hold up as well as SG1 either, IMO. There was a lot of promise there, a lot of potential, and a lot of neat ideas, but I think it ended up squandered because of the writing.

 

[Hammerhead]

I thought that the early SG-1 episodes, especially the first season, were subpar. The pilot/movie Children of the Gods was so bad it was almost painful to watch. Needless to say, the show improved, but its quality was rather uneven.

Atlantis starts off much better, IMO, than SG-1, even if several characters are rather underutilized. By far, the most interesting character is McKay, so episodes that focus on him tend to be entertaining. Ronon Dex, the obligatory Action Hero Badass guy, is also pretty fun to watch. Seasons 2-3 of Atlantis are very good, but the quality descends in the later seasons. It seemed to me that they stopped using the entire team and just had 2 characters in each episode (that "stuck in a pit" episode with McKay, Carter and..."Kaylee"?...was pretty painful).

In the later seasons of SG-1 (where they borrow all the stars from Farscape) they essentially rehash the same plots as before, with a different star. However, the introduction of Vala more than makes up for the loss of O'Neil, as she provides a very nice entertaining counterpoint to the "seriousness" of the rest of the SG-1 team.

I watched Season One of Atlantis without any previous Stargate experience, and I managed to keep track of everything just fine (well, I saw the movie when I was a kid). I'd probably recommend starting with that, and going back to watch the good SG-1 episodes of the past 10 seasons.

 

[Huw]

So the consensus is, start at the start, and don't worry, it gets better.

That's my sci-fi viewing sorted out for the next few months then.

Thanks again!

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Let me explain some of the quality transitions btw. Season 1-5 SG1 = Showtime
Season 6-10 = Sci-fi (Now SyFy). Originally Season 9 and 10 were supposed to be another spin-off called Stargate Command but that was scrapped.

Don't forget the direct to dvd movies after you're done, and dont forget Stargate Universe begins October 2nd, so if you have nothing else recording and have a DVR grab it so you can watch it when you're done with SG1 and SGA.

 

[Merkuri]

That's my sci-fi viewing sorted out for the next few months then.

That's what I've been doing for the last few months. I just started season 7. Watched the entirety of 1-6 on Hulu. I have to say that you really do need to have seen the preceding episodes to fully grasp what's happening in some of the later ones.

One small example that's easy to put my finger on is the Jaffa language. You pick up on a few words if you watch all the episodes, mostly because they're explained in one episode or another. It's not strictly necessary to know what they mean, but I think it adds a little something to the viewing experience.

When the show was actually on TV I watched one episode here, another one there, and I enjoyed it, but I really feel like I was missing a lot by not having seen the whole thing. It's like reading random chapters from a book in random order. You really get a better experience by reading the whole book from cover to cover, even if some of the chapters aren't as good as others.