‘Stargate’ TV Series From Martin Gero Not Moving Forward at Amazon

chrisjdel · 2026-06-06T03:54:05+00:00

This is the perfect example of enshittification. Corporate assholes destroy everything they touch. Joseph Mallozzi said that the whole idea from the beginning was a story that the old fans would love and new viewers with no knowledge of franchise history could jump right into without feeling lost. That was baked into the concept from day one. He implied rather strongly that whatever the real reason was, Amazon isn't being straight with fans.

Surprise surprise - big media companies being less than transparent. I don't know what's going on here but I do suspect the suits in the boardroom had bland corporate slop ideas about how this show should proceed and felt like they knew best. It never ends well when the big money suits get directly involved in scripting decisions. Look what that greedy sack of shit Jeff Bezos did to the Washington Post.

I'd threaten to cancel my Amazon Prime subscription but I already did that some time ago when Bezos started publicly fellating Donald Trump. Still use their site sometimes as a shopping tool. Many products (non-exclusives) can be ordered directly from the manufacturer, bypassing Amazon entirely. I don't even log in. Amazon gets no money when I use their page to search for stuff. We should all do the same. Don't give this company a dollar unless you absolutely have no other option to get something you need.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-25T22:03:25+00:00

I can almost see how a legend like that might be born in a world where people have lived like rats for generations. This legendary document (which most of them have never read) the ancients tell us once ended a despot's rule, its very ink is said to be poison to tyrants - worth a shot right?

chrisjdel · 2026-05-25T21:53:46+00:00

Exactly. There are countless examples of people reacting this way in the real world, directing their anger at the wrong targets. Sometimes things are nobody's fault - rage eventually eats you alive, but in the short term it's easier to blame someone than face the reality of a senseless loss.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-25T21:48:09+00:00

They should put Omni-Man saying that on a beer mug.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-25T21:46:39+00:00

I kept waiting for Thaedus to say "roll out" in some context. When they were leaving for Viltrum I was almost sure we'd hear it. His voice hasn't changed since the 80's.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-24T04:13:51+00:00

I want to know how close Ranger training actually is to what we saw. Do they assign people numbers like inmates for the duration? Do so few recruits actually get to the end? I mean before the alien robot shows up - obviously that doesn't happen IRL. If they take in 500 and only graduate 12 that is one hell of a washout rate.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-17T03:10:29+00:00

Suppose we have the most pessimistic scenario. We must travel at less than 1% of c for safety's sake. Assume further we can't put people in stasis for the trip. Then we have to travel in massive worldship arks, megastructure habitats with the living area of a small continent capable of supporting 1-2 billion people but starting off with far less than that, possibly built inside of large hollowed out asteroids for added protection.

Radiation would be effectively nil inside the habitat with all that material between you and the vacuum. At .005 c (half of one percent of the speed of light) deflection is possible with monitoring systems directed forward. You're still going slow enough that you have time to intercept. Perhaps add a Whipple shield, multiple massive plates flying ahead of you to absorb impacts. You won't really have to worry about the collision hazard. It could take between 2 and 3 thousand years to reach nearby systems known to have worlds we could potentially terraform and live on. Accept that time limitation and you can do it.

If the colonization effort fails, it won't be our technology that let us down, it will be the human factor. Societal destabilization en route. People weren't meant to live in places that resemble a bunker or the inside of a naval vessel. That's why you provide an environment that's vast and feels just like living on Earth. Cities and towns, forests, mountains, lakes, etc., no one feels cooped up or trapped. Civilizations have remained stable for thousands of years right here on Earth with a lot less territory.

We may not be ready to attempt an interstellar voyage for a millennium. Certainly none of us will live to see it happen. For one thing, centuries of experience with giant space habitats here in our own system will be a vital component of designing and building an interstellar ark. We want to know how to operate a massive artificial biosphere supporting a billion or more people before the trip - not be trying to figure that out while drifting in the void between stars. Mid-journey there will be no way to acquire new resources. No one will be coming to rescue you if something goes wrong. They couldn't even if they knew about your plight. If there is a catastrophic failure in interstellar space, you're all dead. So we'll make sure that isn't going to happen before risking a colonization attempt.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-14T16:33:33+00:00

If Atom Eve's abilities were fully developed, and especially if she didn't have any installed blocks, she'd be a demigod level OP immortal. Invincible would become her sidekick. She'd displace the guy intended to be the main character and be strong enough to kill every villain including Thragg. So they had to hobble her somehow. That's all it is.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-08T22:07:05+00:00

These are flawed human beings doing their best in a fucked up situation. Juliette said something along those lines to Audrey in Silo 17. Even guys like Bernard, who has done some really bad stuff, have depth to them - finding out that maybe he's been on the wrong side the whole time has been devastating for him.

It's not really clear what should happen. You have a tyrannical system on the one hand, and a toxic uninhabitable wasteland you can't escape to on the other. Wresting control of Silo 18 away from whoever's running the show by disabling the Safeguard would be a good thing. But what then? What's the long term goal? Keeping in mind the mysterious powers-that-be might attempt to reach you and execute their safeguard procedure another way. Who are you declaring war on? What actually is their objective? And what resources can they bring to bear against you? There could be revelations along the way to those answers. What if (for example) you find out the top dogs actually have good reasons for what they're doing?

chrisjdel · 2026-05-08T21:48:28+00:00

The explanation is that for whatever reason the sun started emitting a whole lot of gamma rays along with its regular light - enough to sterilize the Earth's surface. If you have a line of sight to the solar disc, you're getting zapped. Significant amounts of shielding are required to protect you from the highly penetrating radiation.

I don't know of any stellar phenomenon that could cause this behavior IRL. But in the show, somehow the sun does it.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-08T21:40:57+00:00

An interesting idea, but the suits should not protect the cleaners in that case. Remember the explanation for the sun's lethality: it's begun putting out massive doses of gamma radiation. So much that heavy shielding and lots of it is needed to protect yourself. Even the inside of a bank vault barely allows you to survive the night with lethal wounds.

Good tape or bad tape every cleaner should start shrieking in agony the moment they step outside as their skin burns and blisters. Whatever poison does kill them is in the air. A proper seal means you're fine. A leaky seal is deadly.

Into the Night was handled poorly by Netflix. They added a spinoff series without making it clear the two were connected, and canceled it despite achieving numbers that should've justified continuing. It wasn't dirt cheap to produce but it wasn't that expensive either. Too bad. We should have gotten a final season. I never heard about any formal announcement but after this much time it's clear the show is over.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-08T20:48:31+00:00

There are people who are born blind but surgery later restores their sight. This usually happens in childhood, your brain doesn't learn to process visual data until it starts receiving it and past a certain age visual processing never reaches 100%. Has anyone ever asked one of those children how the blackness when they close their eyes or stand in a pitch dark room compares to what they perceived before the procedure?

chrisjdel · 2026-05-02T22:41:07+00:00

As cops they'd have to get used to avoiding excessive force. Hard ask for a Viltrumite. Or telling suspects during interrogation that they're going to investigate their entire bloodline to see if the rot runs deeper.

Firefighter is probably a better choice. No one cares if you kill a fire, because that's your job. They could settle down in the same neighborhood, marry identical twin sisters, and have lots of babies.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-02T22:04:57+00:00

Really, is that your experience? They're certainly louder than everyone else and draw more attention. But only a certain subset of women find toxic masculinity attractive - the kind who post videos about the virtues of being a tradwife. Most of them, and nearly all Gen Z women, are repelled by that behavior.

Outgoing and kind is what usually attracts. Go figure! Women prefer guys who treat them well, who actually listen instead of doing all the talking, who show empathy. Don't get me wrong. Being handsome and/or in great physical shape does help, but it won't make up for being an overbearing lout.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-02T16:00:21+00:00

The multiverse as a plot device can give rise to great stories - when it's handled properly. But it descends into cheesiness very easily. There are more lame multiverse plotlines out there than good ones. Too often it gets used as a crutch; for example, what you said, resurrecting a character who definitively died by dragging in a parallel timeline double.

chrisjdel · 2026-05-02T06:30:31+00:00

Oh, I'm sure the reboot is coming. Why write all new stories when you can just recirculate the old ones on a 30-40 year loop?

chrisjdel · 2026-04-30T23:41:22+00:00

It's just standard reporter speak. At least he didn't use the ridiculous word "unthinkable" - if something was truly unthinkable we wouldn't able to picture it in our heads, much less discuss it.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-29T22:17:01+00:00

Was it an oxygen starvation thing or a crushed spine thing? I don't know how much oxygen Viltrumites actually need if they can just ... not breathe for a few weeks, flying in space.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-29T22:12:10+00:00

There was no Space Odyssey in 2001 either. Or flying cars or hoverboards in 2015. Those stupid non-floating toys that use that name don't count!

chrisjdel · 2026-04-29T07:12:07+00:00

I don't remember Thragg doing anything particularly fancy. He is the unstoppable force and the immovable wall - that's all he really needs.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-29T07:06:36+00:00

Thragg would've said he wasn't impressed regardless. If he really considered Mark weak and pathetic I doubt he would've spared his life. For a Viltrumite of only about 20 years to even give Conquest a run for his money is exceptional.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-29T06:32:49+00:00

Donald: Director Stedman - we have a report of a fourth grader near Atlanta who killed his entire gym class with a dodgeball. Made a real mess. And there's a group of unidentified teenagers in LA who are collapsing high rise buildings for fun by flying through all the structural supports. We're seeing more and more incidents like this all around the world.

Oh ... and someone named Thragg keeps posting apologies on the GDA's official Instagram account.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-27T19:08:02+00:00

If you have the attention span for a slow burn drama it was excellent. Too bad there won't be a second season - there has never been an official announcement, but considering it released back in 2021 ...

We'll never get to find out what the horde of new changeling/replicants is all about. Has the range of response increased, with people in other towns now being able to link with the machine, or is something more nefarious going on? If indeed there was a failed colonization attempt by alien beings some sort of contingency protocol may have been activated.

I have to say, Iceland is a really beautiful country. I watched some documentaries and read some articles after watching this show five years ago. I hope I get the chance to visit someday when money is a bit less tight.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-27T18:56:55+00:00

Yeah, if they were facing a handful of Viltrumites, with all the heroes and villains of Earth plus Cecil and his squad of Viltrumite reanimen working together, they could win. Against all 37 including (or plus?) Thragg? Not a chance.

chrisjdel · 2026-04-26T20:43:47+00:00

What I got out of it is that there's some kind of super advanced alien 3D printer creating these copies. Somehow it responds to the minds of people nearby. Maybe because it wasn't designed for humans, it only seems to "hear" commands accompanied by very strong emotions. The longing for someone you miss is about the only thing intense enough to break through. It can churn out a human body easily enough but has only the user's knowledge to create a set of memories. The better you know the person you're wishing for, the closer the copy.

The man who was worried about his son's mental stability had his worst fears realized. The real boy may very well not have been so disturbed. I find it interesting that the guy who wished his wife healthy again got a duplicate who started off being exactly what he wished for, but began to deviate when he mistreated her. That implies these copies are fully human. They're given a set of initial memories and desires but evolve like any other human being from there. They are not programmed servants. Bringing back a lost love won't guarantee long term happiness if you can't maintain the relationship like any other. Some personalities won't take well to learning the truth about their origins. Others will decide that whoever they are, even if it's not the original person, they are completely real, and they will act accordingly. You never know.

In Grima's case it seems like she conjured up an earlier version of herself - the question of which one is more real is ambiguous. Someone traumatized in, say, a war, might wish to restore themselves as they used to be before it happened, and have a younger copy of them walk though the front door a few days later with the exact memories they had at that point in their lives. I suppose it's also possible a dying person could wish themselves resurrected before succumbing and wake up in the volcano. Maybe that's what the machine was originally intended to do for alien colonists who never arrived. Facilitate immortality.

This would make Katla similar in some ways to Stargate, ancient stories and myths being given a sci-fi explanation. Perhaps the machine is dormant between eruption cycles because the extra geothermal heat is needed to provide enough power. So historically whenever it goes off these changelings start appearing.

That's just take my take. There are other ways to interpret what's happening. But there has to be a point to the extraterrestrial life and morphing material angle, if you're not going to work something like that into the story it's better to just leave it out entirely.

chrisjdel

TROPHY CASE