Executive Producers Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie talk about the changes to Season 4 of Atlantis, focusing in on new characters and new character development:
Also barely visible are the new uniforms everyone gets in the new year (presumably after the gang gets out of their spaceborne predicament and Weir is sent home). Season 3 had a LOT of uniform changes, especially with Sheppard and McKay (who by the end of the season were wearing standard SGC base uniforms on Atlantis AND out in the field), and also Wier (whose actress hated the grey uniforms and ended up wearing a variety of her own style of clothing from the LuLu Lemon collection). Now, at least McKay, Carter and Keller are wearing more textured versions of the Atlantis uniforms, with the HUGE BRIGHT COLOURED PANELS on the jackets reduced to more muted highlights. About time.
Mark
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
WHY did they get rid of Weir!?! WHY!?!
Hmmm just watched the video. They don't explain why they are bringing Carter and getting rid of Weir.
Also - a lot of re-tooling. Hmmmm.
The other series that this happened to in Season 4 was Deep Space Nine and well that was pretty much all positives so... here's hoping it will be the same for Atlantis.
WHY did they get rid of Beckett and Weir? That's what I want to know.
AT LAST some more characterisation - that is good.
I feel with Atlantis that Season 1 was superb. Season 2 was OK and season 3 was on the up. Also matches Deep Space Nine (interesting).
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
I've only seen the first season, but I didn't think much of Weir's character or of the actress's performance. Then again, I didn't think much of the series in general, but I gather it's improved since then.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Spoilers for the end fo season 3, which you Yanks haven't yet seen on Skiffy...
Weir gets an exploding window to the face at the end of the season, and supposedly spends at least three episodes convalescing while Atlantis floats lost in space. When they land (and wherever that may be) they re-establish contact with Earth and send Wier home. Needing SOMEONE in charge, the SGC ship Carter out there to take care of the military and scientific ends of the mission, as we know she's capable of doing so.
The production reason is that the character of Weir was written into a sort of corner almost from the get-go, and the writers only realized it in the third season. Weir is NOT a military person, and she's essentially leading a two-front war. Her position as a scholar and diplomat is not jiving with the increasingly violent situation the expedition is in. The fans know this, and have been constantly criticizing the placement of the character in a context where a military leader a la SGC really should be. So, off she goes.
As for Beckett, contrary to rumours it WAS the writers that offed the character, and not the actor's request. As for why, they probably felt that they had done all they could with the character... Though I couldn't disagree more.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Some of us see them early and lord it over their friends because you canucks are gracious enough to plop them on bittorrent.
And about Weir, I heard they were replacing her because the show is becoming more about war and less about exploration (also like DS9) so they wanted someone with a military background to lead the expedition from now on.
Anyone know why they replaced Beckett? I loved that guy. Which is why I admire them for getting rid of him; it happens in real life, I'm glad when shows inject a bit of that negative realism.
EDIT: Heh should've read Mark's post before replying Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Hmmm I NEVER believe crap about "writing characters into corners" nor fans controlling the production of a TV show's writing... if they did then who knows what sort of fan-crap these shows would spit out.
The writers and producers need a little bit of integrity and to stick with what they started with in the get-go.
The removal of Ford just opened a nasty big door.
They have to give the characters a chance to grow. Give them characterisation and not resort to effects and action a la Voyager.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think the show was better off without Ford. The character was fundementally uninteresting and didn't add any dynamic to the team. Not the fault of the actor of course, they just didn't develop his character in a way that distinguished him from the others.
When you compare it to SG1 you have 4 (later 5) very distinct characters - Jack the funny hardass, Sam with the brains, Daniel with the heart and Tealc with the eyebrow. With Atlantis, at least in season you had Sheperd the Jack clone, Mckay the Sam wannabe (in a good way), Teyla the female Tealc clone (complete with eyebrow) and...some bloke with a gun. I honestly can't think of any distinctive character traits for Ford.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
So was Weir the 'heart' of the group for Atlantis?? They needed to push that. Daniel originally only tagged along because of Sha're but he stayed there for other various reasons after the resolution of that story.
Now we've got 2x Teal'c (Ronin, Tayla), 1x Jack (Shepard), 2x Carter (Carter and McKay) and no Daniel.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Yeah, in terms of characterisation Weir was as close to Daniel as Atlantis got. I think Teyla is being pushed into being the "heart" character, which makes sense since Ronin is clearly the muscle and Teyla is the most diplomatic of the group.
Having said that, I don't think they should be looking to replicate the dynamic of SG1, just try to avoid redundant characters.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I never understood why Teyla was so Teal'c-like. It didn't seem to be the tradition of her people to be so formal, like the Jaffa. She just seemed to be that way on her own. I thought it would be interesting to see her soften up a bit during Atlantis. Seems to be starting to happen a teensy bit.
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