menuBarBack
Beam Up News | Join | Your Account
Home
Advanced Search
boxBottom
News Tribblets
boxBottom
Stardates Calendar
News Story

Features

Robert Picardo Compares Stargate Atlantis to Star Trek Voyager

Features

By GustavoLeao / 03:55, 18 June 2008 / General Genre/SciFi

Newsarama posted a new interview with former Star Trek Voyager actor Robert Picardo, in which he talks about his new role as commander of Stargate Atlantis. Here are few excerpts of the article.

There's a kind of freewheeling humorous, we're winking a little at the genre thing, that they do on Stargate very well," offers Picardo. "Star Trek tends to take itself a little too seriously. They were either very dramatic shows, or if we did a humorous show, it was always a little like ‘Oh, we're doing humor on Star Trek,' especially on the original series. I shouldn't say this in print but it was always a little painful when they were funny on Star Trek. My character on Voyager, because of the way he was presented, I could go either way. I could be a real buffoon, a windbag, be self-involved, and we could get a lot of comic mileage from him. However, the audience accepted me with gravity when I was in a dire situation so they would follow me in comic or dramatic stories. What I like about this show is they do both at the same time.


"Stargate constantly makes jokes. I was about to be eaten by a Wraith, and not in a fun way, last night. I'm about to be fed upon and I had a line that was quite funny. It had to be played dead serious but it's clearly a laugh in the moment I'm about to be killed. And I think it's cool that they do that. They'll keep both balls in the air very seamlessly and part of it is that they like to wink at the genre. It has that 'Indiana Jones' tone."

The full interview is here.



More Top StoriesComments
Nov 23Chuck returns to NBC with a special two-hour show on Sunday, Jan 10, 2010, before returning to its regular time slot, Mondays at 8pm on the following night. It's return to prime time television can be attributed to a successful fan renewnal campaign last year. CHUCK is a one-hour, action-comedy series that follows Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi, "Less Than Perfect") -- a computer geek who is catapulted into a new career as the government's most vital secret agent. This upcoming season will include some special guest stars, including Brandon Routh of "Superman Returns" who will play CIA agent Daniel Shaw in an episode, and the addition of SUBWAY restaurant as a major advertiser to the show. Chuck averaged a 4.0/6 rating last season, about eight percent better than the recently cancelled "Trauma". Ratings-challenged Heroes moves back an hour when Chuck returns on Monday nights. STAR TREK VOYAGER's Robert Duncan McNeill serves Chuck as a supervising producer and director.0
Nov 235-Page Preview of Third Issue of Galactica 1980 Comic Book  0
Nov 22Quinto, Urban, Saldana, Cho and Greenwood on Their Hopes for Star Trek XII2
Nov 22Exclusive Digital Content Now Available With New Star Trek Movie on iTunes
1
Nov 22No J.J. Abrams Version of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the Star Trek Online MMORPG 0
Story Archives...Browse:   

Talkback

6 comments Post New | Help
View:

RE: Okay, Bob | Report this post to moderator
By: NKDi (Odo's file, contact) @ 15:11:17 on Jun 18, 2008

I don't know. I wouldn't call it "too jokey". I think Stargate is very good at doing both funny and serious episodes.

I think part of Trek's downfall has been the inability to adapt to the newer generation of fans.

Just look around these boards. I don't mean to offend but there are some people here who clearly believe Star Trek was given to us from on high and that Roddenberry was some kind of demigod. These are the people who give Star Trek fans a really bad name, and who have in my opinion, ruined the franchise. Not every form of entertainment has to be SERIOUS BUSINESS that requires a zealous fandom that is out of touch with reality. The Stargate fans are simply a more pleasant and fun bunch, and don't seem to have the vocal nutcases ruining things for everyone else.

I got my introduction to Star Trek with TNG. I thought it was great, I bought the tech manual and all that jazz and thought... "This is pretty neat, its nice to see some science fiction that isn't too campy."

But, times have changed. As the world changes, so does what the people enjoy for entertainment. Star Trek is no exception, and failure to adapt killed Enterprise. Now, they certainly tried to adapt, but they failed. Enterprise ended up appealing, for the most part, to nobody. Not the old Trekkies, and not the new generation of sci-fi fan.

Stargate represents the sci-fi fan of the 21st century. They want a dynamic show, and don't care about technobabble contradictions or pointless minutiae. They want B5-style story arcs, but with plenty of standalone episodes like Trek. They want dynamic characters shaped by their experiences, not the Trek cardboard cutouts. Look at how different the main cast of SG-1 are from Seasons 1-3 to seasons 5-7. Try the same thing with TNG and all you'll notice is Riker growing a beard and putting on weight, Troi's outfits changing, and Data inexplicably putting on weight.

The sci-fi fan of the 21st century doesn't want to be intellectually challenged by absurd amounts of technobabble, and they certainly don't want to be preached to morally every episode.

I think we, as Star Trek fans, are far too snobby and end up just looking ridiculous to everyone else. Why should we get another series? You know the guys at Paramount are going "A shame the Star Trek fans would crap themselves if we had a Stargate-style Trek show, it could revive the franchise for another 20 years."

I'd encourage you all to think about that for a minute. Is the fact that Star Trek is "serious business" what is killing it? Generally speaking holding onto the past is an unhealthy thing. There is a difference being being nostalgic, and being a stubborn mule.

There's a reason Stargate ran 10 seasons and Atlantis will be running at least 5 (probably more, Season 4 has been their most successful yet, getting out from under SG-1's shadow did wonders for that show.), and a third series is in the works.




Reply
Reply
Quote
Quote
Parent
Parent
Talkback Top
Top
RE: Okay, Bob by Captain's Blog @ 09:23:30 on Jul 09
Congrats by GustavoLeao @ 23:57:33 on Jun 18
Promenade










TrekWeb Merchants
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Amazon.de
Barnes & Noble

Get Firefox!
Privacy Policy | About Us | Legal Notice | Contact Us | | Get Firefox!
© 1996-2009 TrekWeb.com and Steve Krutzler. All rights reserved.