Stargate is finally returning, and the relaunch can draw inspiration from another fantastic sci-fi revival. 14 years ago, the Stargate series aired its last episode. There have been productions since then – a Stargate: Origins series was created for the now-defunct Stargate Command streaming platform – but they lacked the scale and scope of a full TV show. Finally, though, that’s now set to change. Prime Video is officially relaunching Stargate, in an epic new series that reunites many of the key players behind the originals.
Videos by ComicBook.com
We live in an age where everything old is new again. In part, that’s because our society is now characterized by nostalgia, with studios, networks, and streamers all looking to the past for inspiration. That pattern’s been evident for at least a decade now, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a straightforward homage to the original trilogy) grossing $2.07 million in the global box office. The challenge, though, is that a purely nostalgic approach is now showing diminishing returns. If the Stargate revival is to succeed, it needs to pattern itself after the best.
Quantum Leap Shows How To Bring Back A Classic Sci-Fi Show
The best pattern can be seen in 2022’s Quantum Leap revival. Starring Raymond Lee and Caitlin Bassett as Dr. Ben Song and Addison Augustine, this relaunch followed the same basic format as the original series; a scientist time traveler leaping through history, tasked with fixing things that went wrong in the original timeline even as he hopes to eventually get home. But the revival tweaked that formula in a smart way, because it had an overarching narrative that drove the plot as well, with Ben gradually discovered the real reason he’d begun traveling in time.
The Quantum Leap revival was notable for a strong focus on the overall team dynamic. Where the original series had really centered itself purely on the time traveler and his holographic adviser, the revival spent just as much time with the Quantum Leap project team in the present, as they too struggled to figure out what had gone wrong. The result was an inspired, character-rich blend of the original episodic format with a serialized structure unlike any other revival or reboot, an experimental approach that was just beginning to click by the end of Season 2.
Quantum Leap was sadly cancelled after two seasons, with NBC never giving it the chance it deserved to shine. The network completely failed to schedule the show appropriately, with the time slot shifting many times and countless odd gaps between episodes, while promotion was lacking. All this gradually killed any sense of momentum, a disaster for a show that was attempting to build a strong sense of narrative direction. NBC blamed soft viewership, but this was directly related to poor strategic decisions.
Quantum Leap Walked So Stargate Can Run
The Quantum Leap revival’s format was distinctive for our time, but it will be very familiar to viewers of Stargate – especially Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. Like the 2022 Quantum Leap revival, these shows were noted for their one-and-done stories that nevertheless had a strong sense of overarching momentum. SG-1 followed a team of adventurers who were travelling through the stargate to explore other worlds, with most episodes introducing a new world and race, but the heroes gradually learned what the galaxy was really like – and came to understand galactic history, to boot.
In Stargate: SG-1, for example, this was all done against the backdrop of a potential alien invasion. The first travelers through the stargate learned this was a hostile galaxy, one dominated by alien parasites who looked on humanity with covetous eyes as potential hosts, and SG-1’s secondary mission was to acquire technology and allies to help Earth protect itself from the Goa’uld. This meant there were constant references to a strong narrative throughline, one that built to a head as Goa’uld System Lords launched invasions and attacks on Earth.
It’s the same episodic-but-serialized format that Quantum Leap followed for its two seasons, one that proved just as effective in the present as it was in the late ’90s and early 2000s. SG-1 and Atlantis were even noted for the same kind of secondary focus on events back home (Earth-bound adventures became common in SG-1‘s later seasons, as political conspiracies became a major problem for Stargate Command). Though Quantum Leap‘s showrunners likely didn’t realize it, they were rediscovering the Stargate approach.
If the Stargate revival is to succeed, then this is the same approach that needs to be taken today. The new series can’t depend on nostalgia, but instead needs to create the same kind of blend between episodic adventures with an overarching, serialized narrative. It needs to be a character-rich story where viewers come to care for the new cast, just as they did for Jack O’Neill, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson, and Teal’c. If Stargate can pull this off, this new revival will surely find Prime Video a much more dependable home for sci-fi.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Courtesy of Netflix -
Image Courtesy of HBO -
Image courtesy of TBS and Enishiya
