Stargate Atlantis Season 5

Well, I'm not working right now, so I've been watching the Stargate Atlantis 5th Season downloaded from iTunes. I've made it through 16 episodes and I can't believe the SciFi channel canceled this series.

It is an excellent series, the characters have developed strong personalities, interrelationships, and have grown and changed over the series.

Some of the bad guys have been persistent and worthwhile too. They've had some recurrent menaces and new ones here and there as well as a good mix of exploration, diplomacy and space and ground battles. Saving small and large groups of people and doing things that have later consequences has been a theme of the show.

It has also, to me, much like the original stargate, had very strong messages about friendship, about the teamwork, about what matters ethically and morally and why it matters, and about how real life decisions have consequences.

And most importantly, it has been about hope. The hope that things will get better, that evil can be overcome, and that the darkest night is followed by the dawn. I know that this is a somewhat formulaic route, but ultimately it is a movie about the triumph of the human spirit and human ingenuity and hard work over adverse situations. That's a message that should never get old. Hope is something I don't think we can have overmuch of right about now. We've had enough of the negative... we're drowning in it, in fact.

A little hope never hurt anyone. I do hope they proceed with their plans to make a two hour movie. The humanity of the writing, the way characters evolve, and the familiarity of the cast is something I will really miss. Heaven forfend I'm left with only reality TV shows, soap operas, American sitcoms, or CSI: Some Other Place With Dead People.

And on a personal note, I'm very happy to see Dr. Rodney Mackay (actor David Hewlett), a Canadian actually playing a Canadian, score the girl, Dr. Jennifer Keller (actress Jewel Staite), another Canadian who is playing an American. It's nice to show a happy ending for the geek in the show rather than just the musclebound and handsome tall-dark-and-deadly character (Jason Momoa) or the charismatic leader (Joe Flanigan). My sympathies are probably showing. (Or maybe it is my wistful side?)

At any rate, I'm looking forward to obtaining these on DVD.