What is the sga debacle?? Did he do something specific?? I only know that he also made the shows Dark Matter and Utopia Falls which both have diversity and representation so that makes me hopeful for the same treatment in a new stargate series.
hi! whew im so sorry im just getting to this lmfao. truthfully ive been rly busy and this is such a serious topic that i wanted to make sure i chose my words carefully and laid everything out in the best way possible.
disclaimer section! im not the best person to speak on this topic ahha. I just got into the fandom last year and it was only a few months ago that i started to hear some of these issues that existed previously (so if any veteran stargate fans wanna hop in on this and explain things in greater detail, please do)! also this is not a call out post or canceling thing. this is simply a hey-these-things-happened-and-maybe-we-should-be-careful-with-who-we-interact-with-and-trust type thing. anyways without further ado, here’s some of the sketchy shit that went down behind the scenes of stargate atlantis! (all sources are posted in the comment/replies btw)
> let’s start with the decision to kill off carson beckett because thats where the first weird comment pops up. now a lot of people claim that this was a move made by writers & producers to shake up the show and “make the actors feel less secure.” i’ve never been able to find that direct quote although ive heard people say that someone openly admitted it on the audio commentary/bonus features on the atlantis dvds soo take that however you like aha.
> after the sudden exit of paul mcgillion, tori higginson left the show a few episodes later anddddd ok this is where things escalate. this is an interview she gave where she openly talks about everything that went on behind the scenes. but to summarize, the writers ignored all of her input and refused to grow the character further when she had clearly outgrown the “Hammond” role. joseph mallozzi states in his blog post that brad wright himself was very fond and loved the weir character and he claims that the decision to write her out was because of “just simple logic.”(1) however, torri tells a different story. (2)
“Honestly? I found that quite shitty, to be honest (laughs).Oops. But I found out, because I kept going to them, I kept going up to them saying ‘I have a feeling my character, you’re not doing anything with me, and you guys have me for six years and I don’t want to, you know, be here not doing anything. Let me know what’s going on.’ And they kept saying “no, no, no, it’s great. We love you. We love you. Things can be great.’ And I said ‘well, if that’s the case, can we do something with her’ and they kept reassuring me that nothing - and the very last day of filming season three, as I finished filming the last scene on the last day I was called up to the office and was told that my character was going to become recurring if I chose to be. So, I thought that was not very, um, dignified, way to deal with it, and I was a bit surprised. So I was—so my reaction was one of yeah, I was a little bit surprised. I was a little bit upset by how it was dealt with. But I wasn’t upset at the decision because I understood it. I kept going to them saying ‘I get, I get what’s going to happen, just give me some notice so I can pack my apartment and move back to L.A. Really. So I wasn’t upset with the decision. I was upset with how it was handled.”
she was led on and told her role would be reduced after the filming of season three which is uh. absolutely insane to think about considering she’s the main female lead of the show. And this is just my personal opinion but i think its interesting timing that as soon as brad stepped down, joseph mallozzi and his writing partner, paul mullie got rid of her. It’s also pretty telling that there was some bad blood behind the scenes because she didn’t even reprise her character in season five for the ghost in the machine aka the episode where they “kill elizabeth” off. although i do wanna mention that since then, jm has posted that he believes elizabeth would actually still be alive today and is just in stasis somewhere waiting to be found …which is nice. i guess. maybe they shouldn’t have fired her in the first place but hey whatever.
and to end the torri section, here’s another quote that i think is the real reason she was let go from atlantis.
Question: And now Amanda Tapping seems to be doing exactly the same… just filing an episode. Torri said “Well, no. I understand that it’s a club, and you know, some people.. .you know. I think they didn’t like me constantly rapping on the doors saying ‘excuse me, why aren’t there any women writers or any women producers on the show?’ I think it bothered them. And so, Amanda, bless her, just had a kid so... bless her, man, she needs that gig more than [me]… you know what I mean? So I have no issues with any of them. I understand how it works. It is a bit of a political game and… I’m not very good at politics (laughs). I’m like Weir. I just want to act.”
> now this is where the joe flanigan of it all starts to come in. he’s been vocal about defending torri higginson and openly saying how bad of a decision it was to kill her off. (3) and his interview with dial the gate was enlightening on a few topics. (4)
his character didn’t get a backstory until season 3. tptb literally told him, “john likes ferris wheels” and called it a day. which is actually mind boggling. they gave him nothing to work with and somehow he turned it into gold.
he’s also said many times and in different interviews how terrible it was that the writers carried over from sg1. the cast would pitch ideas but would be shut down because they would sound “too much like an sg1 ep” which is ridiculous considering how many atlantis scripts are just a rip off of sg1 eps anyways.
> and finally the whole whispers debacle. now i don’t really know a lot about this, so I'll just link the tumblr post that first brought this to my attention! (5) there’s also the whole “the writers stopped taking notes from the cast after season 3 and specifically started to shun joe out” thing (which is very obvious in seasons 4 and 5) so i’ll also link another great tumblr post because they explain it so much better than i can. (6)
> there’s also the fact that once it became clear that universe was not doing well, both bw and jm turned and blamed it on atlantis and even sg1 fans.
“I don’t think if we, for any reason, go away, it is an issue necessarily of the quality of the product that we’ve been making. I think getting moved on the schedule has hurt us. And the fact that some of the fans that liked SG-1 and Atlantis were so angry that they have deliberately hurt us, which is unfortunate.” (7) Brad Wright.
Jaso967060 writes: “Heck I think alot of people from “that other site” could be won back if some changes are made. (Finding out the Destinys Mission and the crew working together more instead of tearing each other down…and having more action…changes like that.)”
Answer: Disagree. Given that their deluded mission statement is to see SGU cancelled in order to pave the way for an SGA return, I doubt that very much. (8) Joseph Mallozzi
this post is getting too long so i won’t go into the whole “stargate atlantis viewers were not the right demographic the writers wanted” thing. because yes this may have been said by one of the writers (i don’t have a source but so many people bring it up and it makes sense considering the type of show universe is). also joe flanigan talked about how the writers and producers disrespected atlantis fans and he sorta mentions this quote too so im gonna link it. (9) also i would just like to say huge shoutout to joe for not caring to be diplomatic lol.
but yea. please take this post however you would like. all of this happened years and years ago so one can only hope people have learned from their mistakes. and if a fourth stargate show is ever made, I just pray they'll finally have women and poc writers/producers/directors as main contributors. also joseph mallozzi has done so many interviews with dial of the gate in recent years, so i would check those out if anyone would like to hear his current thoughts on stargate. (if you do, please message me because i would love to know if he acknowledges any of these topics ahah).
and to end this lovely post, let's reminisce on that one time joe flanigan called the writers of atlantis “rodney mckays” <3
“Because the writers are all McKays – they are the collective Rodney McKay. It’s a whole load of little McKays running round up there in the offices.” (10)
so sorry this took a million years to respond to ahha. and i may have gotten a bit sidetracked but i hope i answered your question !!
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