Rant time: Stargate Atlantis season four premiere

[locker_monster]

My love for Stargate seems to be an understated one. I don't gush about it constantly, like with Doctor Who or Buffy, but I'm totally a fan. So, much ranting about Stargate Atlantis' premiere.

I think I said this when the finale aired, but I like Elizabeth and knocking her down to recurring character status just makes me angry. The only reason I could come up with at the time was the writers didn't like working her in into every story. To have Elizabeth in every episode you need to have at least one scene back on Atlantis and that can get tiresome, especially if you have a story where isolation is needed and cutting back to the city just ruins that. If that had been the reason, I would have argued you don't need to bump her from the regular cast; the writers have left out Landry a number of times over on SG-1 and he was still in the credits. But now having watched the premiere it seems they're going another direction, one I can only guess at, which, if the writers execute properly, might stop me from yelling at my screen every week.

But that hasn't happened yet, so here's me, still angry. And right off the bat: replacing Elizabeth with Sam. Like, literally. In the credits they've swapped out the actresses. When I heard Sam was joining the cast I thought it would be on a recurring basis. Guess not. Looks like Sam will go to Pegasus and take over the role as leader of the city. Because you can't have Sheppard chained to a desk, he's the main action guy, so who else is going to look after things. I just hope they give Sam a reasonable explanation for joining the Atlantis team. Like, she gets stuck there or she's taking a break from SG-1 or something. Or she's retired from the military. That had been my main theory for awhile, but someone called Sam Colonel during the episode so that theory is out the window.

The funny thing is, I shouldn't be hating this. Having Sam over on Atlantis is purely a move by the producers to bolster Atlantis' ratings. With SG-1 over, the solely SG-1 fans need a reason to watch the spin-off. Angel did it with Spike. Buffy ended so they took a popular character from the parent show and moved him over. I think this ploy actually worked, too. I remember hearing Angel was the only show on the WB whose ratings had gone up that year. And I'm used to regular characters being knocked down to recurring, too. They did that on Buffy with Giles. I think it's because this is a cast replacement, not a cast addition.

It seems like we're headed for a cast subtraction, too. It's not enough that they've made Elizabeth a recurring character. Now she's part Replicator as well. Watching "The Real World" over, I can't help but wonder if that had been the plan all along. It's never brought up again that Elizabeth still has the Replicator cells in her. They're just inert. But here they are, ready to patch up Elizabeth (and apparently regrow her hair) and make her all not brain damaged. Before Dr. Keller thought about using the Replicator cells I thought maybe they would follow her line to Sheppard about how if Elizabeth wakes up she won't be the same. That would have been somewhat cool. It seems now Elizabeth is just a security threat. But that's been done, too, with Ford. He got some of the bad guy in him and left. If Elizabeth has working Replicator cells in her, does that mean she's going to be evil? The season's villain? Or she leaves because she doesn't want to put the city at risk so the team goes out and tries to find her? Again, this was done with Ford. He left, the team went looking for him, they found him, but then, that was it. They haven't mentioned him since. Gah. I hope the writers give a damn good reason.

But anyway. The episode. One thing worthy of a yay! Jewel! Kicking ass as Dr. Keller. The only thing that bugged me is that they made her character American. Apparently they had made her Canadian in the finale, gave her a Canadian patch, but that idea got vetoed by the new show runner so she's American. What's wrong with having another Canadian character? There are two on the show: McKay and Chuck the tech. One more Canadian character is not going to ruin things. Sigh. I'm just waiting for an episode where Dr. Keller doesn't have to deal with an emergency and it lets Jewel do something else besides spout medical jargon.

The city lost in space? Created a bunch of technical problems I wasn't really paying attention to. Seriously. When Rodney mentions something about the power levels dropping to a certain point I kinda zoned out. The sequence with the Jumpers was kinda cool though. We've never seen that many fly about before. I'm just amused by the fact that the outer edges of the city are always the parts that get beat up. I guess no one really likes them since no one seemed too concerned. :-)

I liked that Sheppard was hesitant about taking on the role of city leader, but he steps up. He gets that short scene with Rodney asking to be kept in the loop and he's forced to put the safety of the city before Elizabeth's well-being. I don't know how the Sheppard/Teyla shippers manage though. Sheppard and Elizabeth got a lot more scenes where you could argue some shippiness. Like when Keller tells Sheppard Elizabeth might not wake up as the same person, he looks so distraught. But I guess this won't be too much of an issue if Elizabeth leaves for a time.

Random things: yay, Dr. Lee hanging out with Sam at the midway station in zero g. And using a barf bag. Does this mean he'll be showing up on Atlantis more? And if the midway station is complete, and they bothered to build a set, does that mean they'll be using it this season? Ronon thanking an unconscious Elizabeth was a nice touch. Rodney making reference to "Coles Notes" and Sheppard commenting why he didn't say Cliff Note was nice, too. Canadianisms for the win!

And a heist episode to follow. To the Replicator planet. That should be interesting.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sucks about Keller not being Canadian. Would have given her and McKay something to talk about. Maybe they'll try to sneak in making her half-Canadian or something - wearing the patch because she's specifically part of the American part of the expedition, but born Canadian. ;)

One thing about getting spoilers ahead of time, I'd sort of already made my peace with Elizabeth being more or less written out for the moment, and can just enjoy it as it goes without being annoyed. I don't know exactly what they have planned for her story, but at least if they were going to remove her completely, they could have done so, and specifically decided not to. So I'm hoping they've got a grander plan that I like. (For the record, I don't think Tapping's going to be in every ep, but presumably part of her deal has her appearing in the credits anyway).

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Funny story about making Keller American is that the writer, presumably the Canadian Martin Gero, thought the character should be Canadian because Jewel is Canadian and she has a Canadian accent. So they slapped a Canadian patch on her jacket and happily went about filming. Then one of the show runners, who I assume is Canadian too, said no, Keller can't be Canadian. According to the commentary of the finale, they had to go in and digitally remove the patch. But why go to all the effort? This expedition is international. It wouldn't kill them to have other characters from other countries. That's one thing they've really dropped the ball on; they really should have more characters speaking different languages.

Has there been official word on why they made Elizabeth a recurring character? It seems to me like they're heading towards a storyline where Elizabeth would have to leave due to her new Replicator cells. Like, after Sheppard and team have liberated some ZPMs from the Replicator home world, the Replicator leader is going to swoop in and kidnap Elizabeth or something. To write Elizabeth out of the show like Ford would just anger fans because there have been cast changes enough. Probably why Amanda Tapping's in the credits; she fills a spot. If she didn't, there would be a lot more extra footage to fill the gaps. You really notice it where Carson's credit should be.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's official word on Weir's leaving, no. There's a gateworld interview up where she says she wasn't in on the decision so she doesn't know for sure, but suspects that it was in part wanting to keep some of the SG1 characters alive and ongoing, and in part the fact that (in her opinion), they didn't really get too much chance to develop Weir, where she was only in most eps for a few scenes, in the background.

I hope there's a longer term plan than her to be Forded. Ford I could sort of understand that, since his only real connection, that we saw, was to Shepherd, but Weir had connections to everybody.

I wonder if the reason the showrunner wanted to make her not Canadian was for a specific reason... like she had to be from a specific part of the US for an upcoming story, or maybe (hypothetically speaking) if she was due from the start for a romance with McKay they didn't want it to be 'two Canadians in love'. Otherwise it seems a little odd to be so insistent that she be American. Maybe it was a diss on Canadian health care. ;) But yeah, it would be nice to see characters from other parts of the world in the show.. I mean even if not in the lead roles, it would be nice to see a bit more variety in the accents in the bit players.

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

But bringing Sam over seems kinda odd. She's a scientist but they already have McKay. She's also military but they've got Sheppard, and to some extent, Teyla and Ronon. Why have her become the leader of Atlantis? It's fact that Sam is uncomfortable in a leadership role. Sure, they can explore that doubt a little further now, but they could have done that during season eight when Sam was leading SG-1. The producers should have done a Spike; add to the team that's already there, not break it apart. The ideal character to bring over would have been Daniel. Atlantis doesn't have a linguist, Elizabeth just fills the role whenever they need some Ancient to be read. But I don't see Michael Shanks wanting to do more Stargate.

It'd be silly to pull a Ford with Elizabeth. They would just be repeating themselves and I'm sure there would be a lot of angry fans if she just disappeared. Hopefully I'm less outraged after I see the second part.

Since Jewel doesn't have a noticeable accent, you either have to go Canadian or American. Maybe they did it to reassure the American viewers that the U.S. is still in charge. ;-)