Stargate: Atlantis breaks Sci Fi Channel viewership records by Hjermsted

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Stargate: Atlantis breaks Sci Fi Channel viewership records

POSTED BY: HJERMSTED
UPDATED: Friday, July 30, 2004 17:25
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Tuesday, July 20, 2004 6:32 AM

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-07/20/11.00.sfc

Stargate: Atlantis garnered a 3.2 nielson rating in its debut on Sci Fi Channel last Friday...

Didn't Firefly consistently draw a similar number (in Fox's Friday death slot, no less)?

Makes one wonder why Sci Fi really passed on picking up the Firefly series.

mattro

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004 7:44 AM

QIXOTL

The Sci-Fi Channel is available in 83 million homes. Fox Television reaches 106.0 million homes. Prorating that figure for a proper comparison to Firefly gives SG:Atlantis a 4.1 rating. Quite stunning for a Friday evening show in the summer on a cable network.

Presumably Sci-Fi passed on Firefly because the production costs weren't cheap and I doubt if Fox gave them a fair acquisition bid. The only way that Universal could afford to obtain the rights was to agree to never make a TV series.

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004 5:27 PM

LINDLEY

I'm glad ATL did so well. It wasn't a stellar pilot, to be sure, but it showed some real potential.

My only qualm about ATL so far is that the Wraith chew more scenery than Nisca....

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004 6:43 PM

RAWDEAL

My only problem with ATL is that my favourite character gets killed in the pilot. Colonel ****

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:51 PM

TIANMOWEILONG

I'm not sure I like ATL yet or not...seems a bit like ST Voyager in the Gate world. I'll need to see a few more eps first, but I do like the doctor. What can I say. Accents! *sigh*

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004 6:50 PM

CREVANREAVER

Personally, I liked the SG: Atlantis pilot better than the Stargate SG-1 pilot. I thought the action scenes were great and I think the lead character, John Sheppard, is really likable.

I can't wait to learn about the history of the Wraiths.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004 7:21 PM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Does it annoy anyone that almost all of the aliens in Stargate are humanoid. They’ve got such a great excuse to have most everyone be human, and that’s that they are human. But when they have something truly alien would it be so hard to make it look more alien?

The ancients looked just like humans, but that is sort of a mystery of the show, why would they be so similar? But the Nox also look a lot like humans, the Asgard say they once did, the Unas are the same basic shape, Nem is, the Reole are. I know it’s easy to just put a guy in a suit, but they have truly alien races so infrequently I don’t see why they have to.

Also some of these weren’t even people in suits, some were computer generated, why have them be humanoid if not limited to the human shape?

It’s a very minor peeve, I’m just wondering if anyone else has it too.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:09 PM

CREVANREAVER

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
The ancients looked just like humans, but that is sort of a mystery of the show, why would they be so similar?

It was clearly explained in the show that the Ancients are actually from Earth and that humans are simply the second evolution to this form. It is easy to come to the conclusion it's a case of parallel evolution of two primate species brought on by an adaptation to the same environment, EARTH.

As for the other species having humanoid builds, that's can be explained away by two arms, two legs, brain in head, opposable thumbs, etc. being the best form in evolutionary terms. And by the way there is at least one important species that doesn't even remotely have a humanoid body-type, the Goa'uld. Remember there actually a race of snake-like creatures.

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Thursday, July 22, 2004 8:09 PM

LINDLEY

Quote:

It was clearly explained in the show that the Ancients are actually from Earth and that humans are simply the second evolution to this form. It is easy to come to the conclusion it's a case of parallel evolution of two primate species brought on by an adaptation to the same environment, EARTH.

They *say* "second evolution", but what they mean is, "different branch of the same evolutionary tree", with our development simply not coming to term until the Ancients were long gone.

Us and the Ancients had to have had a common ancestor *somewhere* back in the mists of time. Such a similar evolution not sharing a common ancestor is virtually impossible.

Of course, the other possibility is that the Ancients controlled our evolution to turn out "in their form". There was a line or two in the ATL pilot to the effect that they did that in Pegasus.

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Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:13 PM

SAMURAIX47

the Re-too (sp?) are insect like (episode "Show and Tell")... so there ya go...

Jaymes

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 12:17 AM

RANGRBOB

My biggest disapointment wiht ATL is that it has children running around. It didn't work on star trek and it doesn't work here.

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 7:14 AM

DRACOS

I'm glad that its doing well so far. I'm enjoying the show a good deal after the first two episodes and its good to see McKay again, he's always been my favorite recuring secondary character after Maybourne.

"Dont ask me silly questions.
I wont play silly games."
-Blaine
--------------------------------------------------
"Somebody tries to kill you you go ahead and try to kill them right on back!"
-Mal
--------------------------------------------------
"I'm gonna kill you with my tea-cup."
-Riddick

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 7:41 AM

RAWDEAL

I saw the third episode for both Stargates. Little too similar plots

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 7:43 AM

LINDALE

I really like it. The lead char is great, the set is really cool, the wraith have been set up well, imho. I also really like Weir, McKay, and the doctor. The other thing I really like is that, due to the whole different galaxy thing, the show is completely separate from SG1. Anyhoo, yay for Stargate: Atlantis.

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:00 AM

CHRONICTHEHEDGEHOG

I got annoyed at the "we all speak English" thing, there have been so many episodes of SG-1 when they've been trying to translate the Ancient language and now they suddenly just speak English for the sake of ease? It was a dissapointment to see such lacking in continuity. Also I thought having a Marilyn Manson reject as the bad guy was a poor choice, and the fact no-one even checked if the Wraith homeworld had a breathable atmosphere before landing seemed strange after they made such a big deal of it with the first two new planets we saw. Thinking about it, how did they even find that first planet?? He just seemed to enter a random combination and it worked, then when there were 120 planets the Wraith homeworld could be only one of them worked?

I know it doesn't sound like it from that rant, but I actually really liked it apart from these glaring mistakes (maybe someone can point out I'm wrong?) but I think if this is what we can expect in the future, it could get old fast.

check out my WIP firefly roleplay system at www.estador.co.uk/firefly

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 9:33 AM

JCOBB

I just don't like Weir. Maybe she will come into her character later on, I certainly hope so, but she just grates on me. Also, again maybe it is just me, but Atlantis seems to lack a certain ammount of suspense that the original series has. I am just not terribly impressed so far.

I don't care, I'm still free.

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Sunday, July 25, 2004 1:02 PM

NESS

Thanks to the wonders of downloading I managed to catch the first three episodes of Atlantis. I'm not sure I see why it broke records but as a show just starting off, it isn't half bad.

I like the sets, or at least, what I can see of them through the grainy images resulting from downloading.

They made the effort to make the show look different and that's important. Atlantis is not Stargate SG-1; it's just a spin-off. Some of the characters have potential, but it's too early to tell. I really like McKay but that may be because the producers made him Canadian and I'm Canadian. The crack about him saying "zed" instead of "zee" was totally missed by me since I didn't hear anything wrong.

Dr. Beckett's amusing and Sheppard has his moments.

I promised myself I wouldn't get sucked into downloading the new season of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, but I guess I broke that promise.

"Sir, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing." - Zoe

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Friday, July 30, 2004 5:25 PM

LINDLEY

Quote:
Thinking about it, how did they even find that first planet?? He just seemed to enter a random combination and it worked, then when there were 120 planets the Wraith homeworld could be only one of them worked?

That's easy. Ford saw the seven symbols which lit up on the DHD when the Wraith left that planet to return home. Remember? "Look at the dialing device! Burn those symbols into your brain!"

Discounting the point of origin, that leaves them knowing the six symbols of the Wraith homeworld, but not what *order* the symbols go in. So there are 6! = 720 possible addresses.

They just ran through the list until they found one that locked.

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