“Stargate SG-1” ended its seventh season with “Misplaced Metropolis,” a climactic episode that was supposed to steer as much as a “Stargate” theatrical film. Though this plan was finally scrapped, “Misplaced Metropolis” laid the inspiration for “Stargate Atlantis,” a sequence spin-off that fleshes out the connection between the technologically superior Ancients and the misplaced underwater metropolis of Atlantis. Each “SG-1” and “Atlantis” have formed the “Stargate” franchise into what it’s at this time, successfully molding it into an exciting world the place humanity can be taught from its collective errors whereas persevering towards lethal intergalactic threats. This huge, boundless premise paved the trail for short-lived but promising entries like “Stargate Universe,” which etches a darker, bleaker image of a universe that’s extra hostile than it seems.
Sadly, a third “Stargate” spin-off thought revolving round Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Malcolm Barrett (Peter Flemming) didn’t make it to the display. Though Barrett has made scattered appearances all through “SG-1” and “Atlantis,” Sam Carter is a core member of the “SG-1” crew, who additionally popped up in each sequels to the present. If this Barrett-Carter present had been greenlit, we might have been handled to a “The X-Information”-style Mulder and Scully dynamic inside the context of “Stargate” lore. This premise sounds promising, because the franchise has all the time honed in on a bigger group as an alternative of a two-person dynamic (apart from the unique “Stargate” theatrical film, the place Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill work collectively to defeat the System Lord, Ra).
Though it is unclear what this scrapped present would have explored past the Mulder-Scully inspiration from “The X-Information,” it goes with out saying that “Stargate” has ample lore which evokes a way of surreal thriller. Let’s check out what Peter Flemming has to say concerning the “Stargate” spin-off that would have been.
This canceled Stargate spin-off thought has its roots in an SG-1 episode
The Mulder-Scully inspirations for the Barrett-Carter procedural didn’t materialize out of the blue. In season 6 of “Stargate SG-1,” the episode “Smoke and Mirrors” noticed the 2 workforce as much as resolve a homicide thriller wherein Colonel Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson, taking on for Kurt Russell) will get implicated. This accusation proves to be troubling as O’Neill vows that he’s harmless, prompting the SG-1 crew to analyze the case and apprehend the actual offender. This episode undoubtedly echoes tonal parts from “The X-Information,” whereas that includes enjoyable, snappy banter between Carter and Barrett as they rework into shut allies. This developed episodic chemistry served as the premise for the spin-off thought, which might have opted for a contemporary artistic route within the type of grounded, barely supernatural mysteries again on Earth. Though this sounds mundane compared to the huge intergalactic scope of “SG-1” and its successors, it is attainable that the elegant simplicity of the premise might have been a basis for exploring the nuances of a extra sprawling sci-fi saga.
Flemming spoke to Dial the Gate about this scrapped mission, referencing the chemistry explored in episodes like “Smoke and Mirrors” and the way that would have led to a full-blown procedural sequence:
“They have been arising with totally different concepts for a brand new ‘Stargate’ present. In across the fifth and sixth yr [of ‘Stargate SG-1’], they have been beginning to assume, ‘What can we piggyback off this?’ So it seems that myself and Amanda Tapping have been within the entrance line — with ‘Atlantis’ — to have our personal spin-off [or] piggyback present […] Who is aware of if it [the canceled series] would have had legs? Who is aware of what would have occurred? As I watch a couple of of the episodes with Amanda [Tapping] and I, there’s positively a enjoyable little chemistry there that would have [gone] quite a lot of other ways.”
Based mostly on what Flemming reveals concerning the spin-off in the remainder of the interview, plainly the choice boiled all the way down to “Atlantis” and the Carter-Barrett sequence, and the previous was chosen to be greenlit. Whereas “Atlantis” stays a improbable addition to “Stargate,” it is laborious to not yearn for an unconventional, doubtlessly thrilling crime procedural that would have been. In any case, any storyline that prominently options Samantha Carter is price pursuing, particularly when teamed up with a personality we all know little or no about. If the “Stargate” franchise ever makes a comeback, this discarded sequence ought to positively be on prime of the record of attainable sequel concepts.
