Stargate fans want your help to save their show. But are they too timid a bunch?
Look out Amazon MGM… you have woken the bear. Stargate fans are pissed and want to save their show.
It is a story that has caught my interest because it speaks to a fandom that have every right to feel aggrieved enough to launch a campaign to save their [cancelled before it was filmed] show, but then there’s also a tension with network pragmatism and a style of campaigning that I don’t think is going to deliver the results they are after.
The fans deserve to be pissed off. Their hearts have been toyed with.
Back in November of last year, Amazon MGM gave the greenlight to a new Stargate TV show that would continue on in the same universe as previous Stargate shows. This includes the feature film, the TV show Stargate SG-1, spin-offs Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, prequel show Stargate Origins, and a pair of direct-to-DVD movies.
The franchise has been dormant since around 2011, so the fans were understandably enthused about the new show.
Martin Gero, a writer-producer who had worked on all three of the previous live TV shows, along with creating Blindspot, was set to run the new show. The fans were into that too.
Between the announcement of the show and a June 2 announcement in 2026 that the show wasn’t to be going ahead, a writers room had spent 20 weeks cranking out scripts, casting was happening, sets were being built for booked soundstages, and it was all steam ahead.
As far as fans were concerned, this was all really happening. Until it wasn’t.
But then there’s pragmatism…
The concern from Amazon was that the new show was not going to appeal to fans outside the established fan base. An article at Deadline says that the show fell victim to a change in executives at Prime Video. That old chestnut.
Ironically, the new Stargate was greenlighted by Amazon MGM Studios Head of Television Peter Friedlander in one of his first pickup decisions after he joined the streamer in early October. But the series falls under the purview of one of Friedlander’s top lieutenants, Brett Fetter, Head of Worldbuilding & Genre Series, who didn’t start at Amazon until February.
The two executives who had developed Stargate with Gero and had championed it, Nick Pepper, formerly Head of US SVOD TV Development and Series – Wholly Owned, and Matt King, formerly Head of Tentpole, Genre and Universe Development, Wholly Owned, are both gone — with the former leaving when Fetter joined the company and the latter departing two months later when Fetter restructured his team.
I’m actually incredibly sympathetic to this concern. They were hired to create TV shows that they could build into franchises that would drive the business for years/decades to follow. But just as they’re starting to get to work, they’re looking at the work product coming in from a not-inexpensive production which seems really limited in potential. The last thing these execs want is to be seen as being responsible for another The Rings of Power disaster.
Now, this is a familiar-enough tale of new execs coming in and wiping the slate clean. But maybe where I feel a bit more sympathy around this is because it meets my own narrative regarding Stargate.
This is a show that I never watched beyond one or two episodes early in. But, I did stumble upon an episode of spin-off show Stargate Atlantis without knowing what I was watching and it was actually incredibly fun. I don’t know if that was standard for the show, but it left me with the belief that I should try and find out. Of course, I never did. But it has lingered on my mind.
When I heard about the revival, it seemed like a good jumping on point. But increasingly, it started to feel like it was a for-the-fans endeavour and my interest cooled.
Like all media execs should, I assume the new guys were interested in capturing the interest of the Dan Barrett’s of the world and were really concerned the new show wasn’t going to achieve that.
What should Amazon MGM have done?
The word coming from Amazon MGM should be that they weren’t happy with the direction the show was taking and they wanted a cleaner jumping on point to open up the show to new and returning fans. Make the promise that they were taking the show back into development. Even if the show didn’t eventuate, it would have limited the fan outrage, which is now resulting in…
The misguided fan campaign to save Stargate
A longtime ABW reader emailed me about the campaign and told me to take a gander. You can view the organisers recommended points of attack at the Save Stargate site.
It all just seems so old-school. Sending letters, calling Amazon’s customer service, posting on social media, sign the petition, chipping in a few bucks for the campaign (which involves sky banners, digital billboards in Times Square, a presence at Comic-Con, etc).
Did they learn nothing from Zack Snyder’s bot army? These Stargate fans are going to lose if they are too respectful. In the modern moment you need to swallow the Internet with so much noise and commotion that it creates the urgency to throw money at the fandom.
You don’t get a Snyder’s Cut of the Justice League and the bloated and unwatchable Rebel Moon films through a respectful dialogue with the studio.
Everything I have seen of the Stargate campaign looks far too easy for Amazon MGM just to wave away. It’s a shame because these fans saw their show get so far near the production line that they have every right to be wildly disappointed.
The ABW Cool-o-meter is back
Emmy eligibility
Worth a read is this Deadline article that talks about eligibility requirements for Emmys. Something I hadn’t realised is the requirements for how many episodes need to air in order to be eligible:
To qualify for Emmy consideration, a show must air at least six of its episodes before that cutoff date. If its in the limited or anthology series category, it must air all episodes before May 31. For documentary series and hosted nonfiction series, only three episodes are required.
Take Paramount+ show Dutton Ranch, which aired its first four episodes before May 31. The entire season will not be eligible until next year. Ditto Apple TV’s Tatiana Maslany starrer Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed — only three of its episodes were inside the window, so it’s also out of the running this year.
Also, the most consequential streaming film of 2026 will likely be forgotten by the time it is eligible in 2027:
And if like Jennifer Lopez’s character, you were seduced by Brett Goldstein’s writing and performance in the Netflix film Office Romance, bring on the violins because it premiered the week after the eligibility window closed. That TV film category has been renamed this year, by the way — Outstanding Television Movie is now simply Outstanding Movie.
Pretty sure that one is now a lock for Remarkably Bright Creatures.
News Desk
Taylor Sheridan reportedly has a new TV show in the works titled The Laird, a Scotland-set drama with its title suggesting a focus on a large estate owner in the country. Read: The Sun
Sky in the UK has confirmed it will buy ITV’s media and streaming operations for £1.6 billion. Read: Radio Times | Deadline | Variety | A different Deadline article
Netflix is challenging new “diversity” rules being introduced by the EU and the French government requiring streamers to boost investment in animation, documentaries and live performance. It has written an op-ed published in Le Monde. Read: Deadline
Actors’ Equity president Brooke Shields visited the Mexican restaurant owned by South Park’s Trey Parker & Matt Stone in solidarity with actor union workers there who are complaining about pay and working conditions. Read: THR
Here’s Noah Wyle making the case for The Pitt production model as a way to get jobs back to LA. Again. Read his op-ed: Deadline
Julia Garner will star in Apple TV thriller Guilty Creatures. Craig Gillespie, fresh off the Supergirl debacle, will direct and showrun. Read: Deadline
Conservative organizations have been petitioning the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny license renewal requests from the eight local television stations owned and operated by Disney’s ABC. Read: The Guardian
Starting in Feb 2027, production will end on the Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED for European markets. It is ecpected that other markets will soon follow. Read: Polygon
Microsoft‘s Xbox video game division will shed 3,200 jobs and four of its game studios. It is the most significant restructure in Xbox history. It is part of a larger reduction of 4800 staff from across the business. Read: The Verge
Trailer Park
The Apartment Job debuts on Netflix July 11.
Desperate for cash, a former gang boss teams up with an aspiring lawyer to steal an apartment complex's reserve fund - only to uncover deep corruption.
WWE: Unreal season 3 debuts on Netflix July 21.
John Cena says goodbye, a fan favorite returns, and the next generation of Superstars rise to the occasion.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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