Stargate: Atlantis

Season one definitely got to me. I didn’t expect that an SG-1 spin-off could surprise me in any way. But it happened and, despite some weaker episodes mainly in the first half, Atlantis managed to get me. Good ideas, combined with excellent acting performances (particularly David Hewlett rocks as Rodney) and mainly the action-packed finale forced me to start on season two. This season does have more weak episodes and not even the usually high quality double episodes are as good as in season one. The Wraiths remain the same and are beginning to get boring, and the same applies to the Genii. At least the wisecracking Doctor Zelenka, performed by the excellent David Nykl, gets more room. I started season three with some trepidation and that meant the result was better for me. It’s got more of everything. Relationships within the team get more depth (sometimes they are a little awkward, but marks for effort) negative characters undergo development, some new characters are (old) characters are introduced and plus, good old O’Neill puts in a guest performance. And the closing episode is one of the very best. Season four is taking off just great. The first episodes have momentum and are full of suspense. Then it all falls back into a rut where weaker and better episodes alternate until getting to the mid-season double episode, the ending of which is one of the best I’ve yet seen. This was again followed by a couple of average episodes until the crossover with Teal’c which seems to have started up a great closing stage. The double episode Kindred (especially the second half) and The Last Man (where the city is bathed in sand) made a truly excellent ending to this season. Season five and last was a success. A lot of good episodes propped up weaker episodes (I have a feeling that they were there just to give Dr. Beckett some room), we even got a couple of “classic SG-1 episodes" when the alternative Daedalus appeared on orbit and to finish, the hundredth and last episode of Stargate: Atlantis. The creators deserve praise for the ending. The CSI insert from Las Vegas was much better than I expected and the finale fulfilled my expectations, too bad that O’Neill didn’t make an appearance, but what can you do? So goodbye again to another gate series, just as I was getting used to it. (2007-10-22)

The original series was not a masterpiece and its quality had a downward trend. The last two seasons were basically garbage. Atlantis does not represent a significant quality improvement compared to the original Stargate, and though it may have better production value, the quality of the scripts is quite pathetic. Maybe I'm no longer in the right age category to enjoy a series like this, but while Star Trek in the 80s and 90s was full of ideas that certainly did not embarrass the sci-fi genre, this is a weak popular culture imitation. I have only seen three episodes, which of course cannot be objective considering the scale of the project. Overall impression: 35%. (2009-06-29)