What Stargate Atlantis should have been...

OK. So to continue my thoughts from last night, but also to veer off a little bit, I'd like to comment on what disappointed me most about Stargate Atlantis when it first aired. Over the years I learned to like, and even love the show and am very disappointed that it's been canceled, however I still think the writers missed out on a great opportunity to remain true to the roots of Stargate while going off in a new direction.

What made Stargate SG-1 (and the original movie, too) so great were three main points:

1. It was science fiction based in the here and now. The main setting was Earth in the present day. That gave the show an aspect of reality that so many other sci-fi shows lack. It was possible that what was happening on the show might really be happening (a la Wormhole Xtreme). I really loved that so much more than the Star Trek visionary future and Star Wars made up past.
2. The science was baced on current scientific theory and practice. Sure, there were a lot of leaps, and a lot of theory was bumped up to science fact, but there was always a current scientific principal at the root. And of course there were technologies that were unknown to the Tau'ri (earthlings), but that's part of sci-fi. Over the years the stretches of hte imagination grew larger and more frequent to support the new technologies acquired by the Stargate program, but at least there was still that nugget of truth from earlier story lines and episodes.
3. The stories were rooted in actual ancient mythology. This is probably what I liked the best about the show. Mythological stories and characters were brought to life in a unique way, Egyptian, Mongol, Greek, and other gods were represented by the Goa'uld and Norse gods were represented by the Asgard. There were even hints of biblical stories and characters. Over the years a lot of the mythology was fictionalized to support the evolving Stargate timelines and stories, but in season 9 & 10 there were new inclusions of Arthurian legend, which was pretty cool.

With Stargate Atlantis all three of these premisis were very watered down. Earth began to play a very minor role in the plots (the team was basically either trying to figure out a way to get back to Earth or prevent the Wraith from finding Earth). Earth and earthly politics took a back seat to the conflicts in Atlantis and the Pegasus galaxy. This was OK because at least there was still some back and forth and Earth was still the main base of command. There was some political tension between Atlantis and Earth that could have been similar to what you might imagine happened between the original colonists and Britian in the 1700's (now that might have been a cool story line to develop, have Atlantis declare their independence from Earth...).

Because the technology in SG-1 had advanced way beyond what is currently possible, Atlantis is even less based in reality than SG1 was. I'm not big in biology, but from what I can tell that is the area where the science is still not to far ahead of actual science. Obviously there are still a lot of liberties taken with being able to alter someone's DNA and have effects show up in days, and all the genetic engineering that goes on, but I think a lot of that is still within the realm of current theory. Other scientific fields though are completely in the realm of science fiction, which is a little disappointing, but given the evolution of the show it was expected, just like the smaller role Earth has played.

My biggest disappointment with Stargate Atlantis, though, is the departure from earthly lore. I know the mythological gods thing is gone, SG1 pushed that as far as it could go. SG-1 laid the groundwork for Arthurian legend to play a bigger role in Atlantis. Unfortunately that was never developed int he Pegasus galaxy. But what I was saying since before Atlantis originally aired, and was still hoping for until it was clear after the first few episodes that this wasn't going to happen, was for the Pegasus galaxy to be the source of Earth's horror and fantasy lore.

Think of it... The back story is that the Ancients went to the Pegasus galaxy and had a long war against the Wraith before sinking their main base (Plato's legend of a lost continent) and returning to the Milky Way and Earth to complete their studies of ascension. The Wraith sound very much like vampires, just distorted over time. Maybe when the Ancients came back to earth they had a whole slew of stories of all the frightening creatures from the Pegasus galaxy. We could have been given a very vibrant galaxy full of fantastic creatures like warewolves, dragons, unicorns, trolls, goblins, gryphons, zombies, cyclops, giants, centaurs, golumn, deamons, and all sorts of other things that go bump in the night. And a lot of these could have been tied back to the mythology used in SG-1, too. Heck, the name of the Pegasus galaxy could have tied in to the story of Perseus and his battle against Medusa.(like in Clash of the Titans).

Instead we got the, admittedly pretty cool, bug like Wraith, and the not-so-cool replicators. I think the writers and producers missed out on a great opportunity to stay true to the Stargate roots. Unfortunately it sounds like the upcoming Stargate Universe series is going to stray even farther from the original premises. Now we're going to have a crew of younger adventurers on a starship with no way back to Earth. The ship is heading out to new locations that have never been visited by humans or Ancients. This sounds a little too much like Star Trek crossed with Big Brother for me. I'll give it a shot since I love Stargate, but I'm very disappointed and hoped for something more promising. Oh well, we'll see next year...