The history of SG-1, and how close we came to never getting it
-
MGM bought the rights to Stargate for 5 million dollars because the original investors got cold feet and panicked. The movie then went on to gross close to 200 million. The show that ran ten years, the one we are all fighting for right now, only exists because somebody sold it off for what is pocket change by Hollywood standards.
GateWorld just put out a 43 minute history of SG-1 and I watched the whole thing in one go, which I almost never do anymore.
And it nearly ended before it really got going, more than once. There was a version where Season 9 came back as a brand new show called Stargate Command. There was the jump from Showtime over to SCI FI in 2002, where it climbed into the Top 10.
Then the cruel part. The same network that rescued SG-1 after Showtime dropped it (SCI FI) is the one that killed it in 2007. A clause in MGM's contract with SCI FI gave the channel a veto over moving the show anywhere else, and SCI FI used it to block the jump to Apple. Apple, in 2007, years before Apple TV Plus was even a thing. We were one veto away from an Apple Stargate.
The line from the video that got me was a simple one. "It wasn't larger-than-life heroes going through that Stargate ... it was us." And that is it really. That is why we are all still here twenty-odd years later.
Watch it, then come back and tell me which one you didn't know about. I had no clue about the Stargate Command relaunch.
GateWorld did real work putting this together, so share it around. The cast are out there fighting for the show this week too. #SaveStargate
Janus
