Atlantis to End After Season Five
“Stargate: Atlantis” will come to a close at the end of its fifth season. The spin-off to the hit series “Stargate SG1″ was not picked up for a sixth season by the SCI FI Channel, but will live on in a two-hour movie that will air some time in 2008 on SCI FI.
The film is intended to be the first of several movies that will either air on the cabler or be released direct to DVD, along the lines of “Stargate: Continuum” and “Stargate: The Ark of Truth.”
“The show will live on as a network franchise,” said a spokesperson for SCI FI in a press release.
Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, who created and executive produced Atlantis, pitched a third television series in the 11-year-old TV franchise to the network last year (story). While SCI FI has not yet announced a green light for that show, the end of Atlantis may clear the way — the dollars available for original programming, that is — for the next series.
SCI FI says that season Five will go out on a cliffhanger, with “Enemy At the Gate” expected to premiere in January and the first “Atlantis” movie to wrap up that hanging storyline.
“We’re excited to tell Atlantis stories on a bigger canvas,” Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, co-creators of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and currently executive producers on Atlantis, said in a statement. “The successes of the two original Stargate [direct-to-video] movies The Ark of Truth and Continuum have shown us the opportunities that the movie format offers. We have plans for both SG-1 and Atlantis to remain vital as we expand the franchise.”
“We share in the producers’ enthusiasm to move forward in this direction and we look forward to a strong and continued relationship on Stargate Atlantis in this new format,” stated Thomas Vitale, SCI FI Channel senior VP of Programming & Original Movies.
At the time of this story, there was no official word from MGM on SCI FI’s decision. As we know more on this story, we’ll post them here at Slice of SciFi.
This is a bummer since I just started watching (and got hooked) Atlantis since the start of S5.
Does anyone know if they plan to release Atlantis on Blu-ray anytime soon?
Sci-Fi doesn’t care about their core audience and is devolving into a Spike clone.
Sci-Fi can go frack itself!
Very sad news for all Stargate fans. The second worst after the cancellation of SG-1
The only thing remaining is to hope for more future Stargate movies and for a new series, Stargate Universe, to see the green-light.
I doubt any new Stargate show will get better ratings than the current show. Maybe the new series will get lucky and get an entire season :-/
-V
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Atlantis was in s4 and so far in s5 alot more bottle shows I was wondering if their budget had been cut. With this death blow to stargate and BSG ending whats left in terms of popcorn scifi
@Mark: “I was wondering if their budget had been cut. With this death blow to stargate and BSG ending whats left in terms of popcorn scifi”
It wasn’t cut, as such, but during the first three years of Atlantis’s production they were able to save a bit of money by sharing some of their stages, props, staff, etc. with SG-1. So it is comparatively more expensive to produce on its own than when the two series were being done in tandem. Also the equalizing of the exchange rate between the American and Canadian dollars has diminished how much bang MGM and ScifFi can get for their buck in Vancouver, where the shows are produced.
That said, they have given us five years each of SG-1 (after their first five years on Showtime) and Atlantis, which bodes well for the longevity of Universe.
I’m certainly sad to see Atlantis end as a weekly series, but I’m also hopeful for the future of the Stargate franchise as a whole.
I should be sad about this, but I’m not. There has alway been something a little off about this series. The characters and the story never meshed as well as they did in the original series. Also, the frequent cast changes left something to be desired. Honestly, they never just went through the gate to have an adventure enough for me. Those kinds of epsoides made up the core of SG-1. The plot arcs came secondary. This is the kind of series, were unlike BSG, arcs are not as necessary.
noooooooooo season 5 is awesome!
why are they canceling really good shows lately …
its already idiotic that most tv channels get huge rattings from brainless ppl with reality tv crap, and idiotic shows like american idols…
but now to actaully cancel masterpieces… i mean sure the season 4 was sucky because alot of bad changes were made into the show
but season 5 just ressurected the stargate atlantis and its better than ever why cancel it…
so basically sci fi is gona lose ALOT of fans while trying to come up with some crap show to get more ppl to watch it… good luck finding loyal fans liek the stargate ones….
This sucks. SG1 & SGA have been great. I’m consistently disappointed with SCI FI’s poor attempts and new shows or miniseries. Poor quality, poor writing, poor special effects. The LAST good one they did was Battelstar G. Once that’s gone, there’s no reason for me to watch SCI FI anymore because everything else suck!!