My Adventures with the SGC and its Associates in the Pegasus Galaxy
So... I've been 'watching' Stargate for years. Ever since that day in middle school when my Trekkie aunt, triumphant that she'd gotten me into TOS, talked me into watching syndication on our sad little cable-less TV. The first episode involved O'Neill getting snaked, which was really not a good way to get me, or my father, into the show.
But it came on at 8, right as the store closed for the night. There was nothing finer to watch when Dad and I sat down for the evening, and soon we were hooked. It being syndicated TV, things were out of order or oddly repeated or just screwed with for shits and giggles. Channel 22 (WVMC?? or something similar) was not overly fond of SF. But Dad and I would race in every Saturday evening at 8 to watch it, a bag of popcorn between us and he with his evening drink.
I don't think we ever made it past Daniel staying dead for any reasonable length of time.
I went back to watch the original movie (ala cheap VHS after DVDs really started to take off) and caught what eps I could find on our newly purchased cable some years later. By this time the show was well on in its years and Daniel wasn't always around. Sometimes Jack wasn't around either, and those were the episodes I couldn't stand. The new characters held no appeal to me. Why should they have? I had no idea of the awesomeness of one John Crichton, and I am bad at change. It was the first four, or I changed the channel. Needless to say, my casual watching drifted in favor of Whose Line, Danny Phantom, and Phil of the Future reruns spliced between my very first watchthrough of the Whedonverse.
Sophomere year of college, I gave it another try. This time, having renewed my love of the fanfiction, I delved deep. Newfound wonders of torrenting and library DVD rentals got me through the first three or four series - in order this time. Then Daniel died and ascended (for what I assume the first time of many) and I walked away. I had anime club, plus 500 someodd episodes of One Piece to watch, plus more homework than I could shake a stick at.
A year later, in Kyoto, I bonded over one of the awesome kids over my SG1 t-shirt. She recommended the offshoot, Stargate Atlantis. I knew it only as the show with the alien with the dreds, so I just nodded politely and went back to fangirling over O'Neill.
Some two or three years later, I got into a SciFi kick. My interests in anime had waned and I found myself delving for some new fandom to read myself silly in fanfiction wise. I'd done Farscape over the better part of the year, Red Dwarf in a month, and had just finised all of New Who, Torchwood, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, plus a boatload of Old Who. I needed something new, and suddenly I remembered Jenna's recommendation.
Having O'Neill in the first episode helped wonders. The other characters grew on me, albeit slowly. But by the time Koyla took Atlantis and Sheppard took fifty someodd levels in badass, I was hooked. Five series went by in two months - about the same amount of time it took me to do SPN. It would have gone even quicker if I hadn't pulled my legendary "I don't want it to end" stall half-way in to series five.
It just kept getting better. And this wasn't the hit-you-over-the-head kind of awesome, but the kind that snuck up from behind and dropped subtly into your consciousness. The kind where I would find myself so focused on what was happening that when it ended, I would just kind of sit back for a moment and let the screen go black while I processed.
Sheppard just singlehandedly saved Atlantis from a hundred some-odd armed, and vaguely crazy, military commandos.
Sheppard just tured into a giant bug.
McKay has a sister, and his name is Meredith.
Sheppard and McKay accidentally set two planets to war because their game of Civilization was a bit more real than they'd planned.
8 months pregnant and Teyla still kicks ass.
Ronon is the biggest, most adorable badass that ever lived.
Carson and the chair. Oh, poor Carson.
Elizabeth and Sheppard babysitting the kids.
Elizabeth and the space gate.
Sunday.
Brain Parasites.
CSI parodies turned entirely too serious.
Bill Nye and Neil Degrass Tyson bow down to McKay.
Getting stuck IN a dialed Stargate.
The Fight Club episode.
Todd. Oh, Todd.
Also Michael. Not as magnificent a bastard as Todd, but awesome nonetheless.
McKay stuck in a whole with Sam and Kaylee.
McKay stuck at the bottom of the ocean with himself.
Zalenka's angry Czech.
Who's Dr. McCoy? "The TV character that Dr. Beckett plays in real life."
"You ARE Kirk."
Fatman and Ronan.
Cutting Sheppard's hand off, and making that okay somehow.
Head of Science and Head of Military racing toy cars in the hall.
Carson's voodoo.
"For the last time, I'm a medical doctor, not a bloody fighter pilot!"
Oh, and Carson's accent.
And I could go on. For a great deal of time. I haven't even begun getting into Wikiquote. But my battery is dying, and if I plug in now then it will NEVER end.
So go watch Stargate: Atlantis. And SG1, for that matter. Or the first four series, at least. I honestly can't vouch for anything past then. But once Merlin finishes and all the Christmas stuff is through, you can bet I'll be working my way through SG1 once more. For real, this time.