Not that anyone isn’t allowed to not enjoy Stargate, but maybe this will help:
I’m an embarrassingly hardcore sci-fi fan, and it even took me a little to get into SG-1 and beyond (SG Universe is a separate…argument lol) and I’d seen occasional SG episodes as it was airing, and was even living on Cheyenne mountain at that time, so there was a fun “connection”, but it didn’t click with me, it was just confusing and silly and I was all about Star Trek and book learnin’.
However, it wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that I sat down with it, with a very open mind, and later pulled it up as a re-watch when I worked through my comfort re-runs of everything else.
Upon a second watch through, and learning about it via companion trivia reading with the episodes, I fell for it, pretty hard.
Now, I work with some official ST stuff, and I’m frankly disheartened and bored by a lot of it. But I’ve never gotten that with Stargate. It’s my constant companion, and my spouse and I find more and more to love and laugh about and enjoy with each episode our dumb asses will watch over and over again.
It’s, uh, rough in the very beginning. It got so much better once they switched to Sci-Fi Channel, which is amusing really, and it just got better and better. It’s full of callbacks and continuity, referenced goofs, and chemistry that is unparalleled. SG: Atlantis is a fun journey, too, with a great cast, but it took a much larger ensemble to amass anything near the connection that the central 4 have in SG-1. Even when their roll of greatness slowed a bit, in the ending seasons, which like ST:DS9, has a disturbingly timely enemy, they took the stars of Farscape, and Ben Browder slid right in to playing Ben Browder in every role, and Claudia Black 180°s to something bizarrely hilarious when compared to her usual stoicism as Aeryn Sun (I’m 1,000% convinced anyone that is strongly against their casting hasn’t seen Farscape, or doesn’t understand campy humor, at all, haha).
The last above being said, enjoying, or learning to enjoy campy humor is pivotal for enjoying and understanding Stargate, I feel, anyhow. I probably didn’t connect with it when it was airing because I preferred deep and dark, I was just getting into reading Frank Herbert, and my depression was kicking my ass. I couldn’t have even understood its levity, at the time, let alone cared for it. Too silly, how dare they! But now? Especially knowing it was made…then? It’s just phenomenal.
Like most recommendations for a TNG era Star Trek series, “Keep watching! It gets good in Season 3!” but really, it all has good, (minus that eerily same misogynistic episode like Code of Honor, ALSO written by Katherine Powers), but I promise you, it’s worth it.
Not that anyone isn’t allowed to not enjoy Stargate, but maybe this will help:
I’m an embarrassingly hardcore sci-fi fan, and it even took me a little to get into SG-1 and beyond (SG Universe is a separate…argument lol) and I’d seen occasional SG episodes as it was airing, and was even living on Cheyenne mountain at that time, so there was a fun “connection”, but it didn’t click with me, it was just confusing and silly and I was all about Star Trek and book learnin’.
However, it wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that I sat down with it, with a very open mind, and later pulled it up as a re-watch when I worked through my comfort re-runs of everything else.
Upon a second watch through, and learning about it via companion trivia reading with the episodes, I fell for it, pretty hard.
Now, I work with some official ST stuff, and I’m frankly disheartened and bored by a lot of it. But I’ve never gotten that with Stargate. It’s my constant companion, and my spouse and I find more and more to love and laugh about and enjoy with each episode our dumb asses will watch over and over again.
It’s, uh, rough in the very beginning. It got so much better once they switched to Sci-Fi Channel, which is amusing really, and it just got better and better. It’s full of callbacks and continuity, referenced goofs, and chemistry that is unparalleled. SG: Atlantis is a fun journey, too, with a great cast, but it took a much larger ensemble to amass anything near the connection that the central 4 have in SG-1. Even when their roll of greatness slowed a bit, in the ending seasons, which like ST:DS9, has a disturbingly timely enemy, they took the stars of Farscape, and Ben Browder slid right in to playing Ben Browder in every role, and Claudia Black 180°s to something bizarrely hilarious when compared to her usual stoicism as Aeryn Sun (I’m 1,000% convinced anyone that is strongly against their casting hasn’t seen Farscape, or doesn’t understand campy humor, at all, haha).
The last above being said, enjoying, or learning to enjoy campy humor is pivotal for enjoying and understanding Stargate, I feel, anyhow. I probably didn’t connect with it when it was airing because I preferred deep and dark, I was just getting into reading Frank Herbert, and my depression was kicking my ass. I couldn’t have even understood its levity, at the time, let alone cared for it. Too silly, how dare they! But now? Especially knowing it was made…then? It’s just phenomenal.
Like most recommendations for a TNG era Star Trek series, “Keep watching! It gets good in Season 3!” but really, it all has good, (minus that eerily same misogynistic episode like Code of Honor, ALSO written by Katherine Powers), but I promise you, it’s worth it.