SG-1 is a great show. It holds up surprisingly well for its age. Strikes a great balance between serious and light-hearted, and the self-contained episodes often have interesting ethical or social issues. I'm also fond on how the early episodes emphasize that humans are new to interplanetary travel and are still figuring things out. There are several episodes where SG-1 travels to another planet and actually messes things up, making life worse for the natives. And the show did a great job with having things change in-universe.
There are some cliches and flaws, of course. My least favorite part is probably how non-permanent deaths were, they really overdid the whole thing with characters dying and coming back to life, or being cloned.
I'm surprised that Stargate has had some sort of franchise curse where other media never succeed. They had two more shows in the franchise (I'm in the minority that loved Universe, and I think Atlantis was for the most part bad), but never a movie aside from the one that started the franchise, never a game that succeeded (most attempts failed to even ship).
Honestly, I loved Atlantis and Universe. Atlantis was purely character driven imo. The plot was more or less a rehash of SG-1 missions to the point they directly start referencing the SG-1 mission report lol. But McKay, Sheppard, Weir, Ronan, Teyla, Carson, and Todd were all very fun characters. SG-1 was carried by the strong performances from O'Neil, Carter, Jackson, Teal'c and Hammond + interesting plots. So I was able to forgive the lazy plots in Atlantis since they focused more on the characters.
Universe was really cool. They made some critical mistakes early that made it hard to see where the show could go, but the last season was so good and setup some cool stuff just to never get the opportunity to explain it. Rush getting control of Destiny so early really messed up the pacing of the show imo, but I would have loved to see the show continue.
Atlantis couldn't decide what it was, I think. They got to some great characters, but with difficulty. Ronon replaced Ford in Season 2, with Ford being a very poorly written character, he didn't get a single interesting scene for a season. Weir was remarkably poorly written IMO, every time she made a decision it was wrong. Teyla had great moments but in too many episodes she was a "mystic Amazonian alien" cliche. Early on Atlantis tried to again do the "small band of humans versus powerful alien enemy" thing, abandoned that, transitioned to a cornier version of SG-1, then also abandoned that and went more for character stories, it was a mess. I'm also simply not a fan of its too lighthearted style, it intentionally avoided the more serious bits of SG-1.
Universe was great in my book. Detractors say it's like Stargate trying to be Battlestar Galactica, but BSG is easily my favorite sci-fi show so I actually liked that. Universe did make some mistakes early on, but the second season was great, I enjoyed Dr Rush as a very non-Stargate style main character, and I enjoyed how Universe had a completely different take on aliens, keeping them mysterious.
I haven't finished Atlantis or Universe yet. They're on my to-watch list.
As for franchising into other media... there's a brand new tabletop role-playing game that'll be launching later this year. I wonder how the Amazon deal will affect it.
> I haven't finished Atlantis or Universe yet. They're on my to-watch list.
Ooh, I _really_ enjoyed SGU. Granted, it was the kind of show that I had to try watching once, give up on, then rewatch years later during to really appreciate. It's fairly different from SG1 and SGA, but in my (humble) opinion, it's really good and I'm sad that it ended so quickly. It reminds me a bit of Lost In Space (the movie, not the relatively new tv series- I've only seen half the pilot so I can't make a comparison) but in the Stargate universe.
There are some cliches and flaws, of course. My least favorite part is probably how non-permanent deaths were, they really overdid the whole thing with characters dying and coming back to life, or being cloned.
I'm surprised that Stargate has had some sort of franchise curse where other media never succeed. They had two more shows in the franchise (I'm in the minority that loved Universe, and I think Atlantis was for the most part bad), but never a movie aside from the one that started the franchise, never a game that succeeded (most attempts failed to even ship).