Shut the French Window

This makes me so sad! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

This is exactly what i DON'T want. 😭😭😭 Let's face it, in 2026 the only people who are interested in checking out a new Stargate show are the ones who have enjoyed the original series. So getting a showrunner who had worked on those was a great sign that promised a continuation all that worldbuilding, but with a new entry point.

But to do this? To dangle what we actually want* in our faces and then TAKE IT AWAY????

No, I'll have none.

*And of course, the Gero version still might not have been any good, but at least there would be the warm and fuzzies of the same universe** and the potential for cameos and references to previous characters because we have been living on leftovers for a decade so please, give us the fresh crumbs!

**I also admit the hypocrisy of this statement as someone who did not care for SGU at all in tone or content,*** with it being also tainted by the bitterness of the Atlantis cancellation, so no, the same universe doesn't guarantee a good show. But STILL.

At least we can keep what we loved. I am so, so sick of beloved media getting a "modern reboot" that ends up ignoring what made the original great, shoving something I never wanted in my face, and telling me I'm a bad person for not loving it. I don't need some company to tell me who my favorite characters are or why I love them.

And then generative ai was created.

And now I get it. I get why nobody on Star Trek spends all their free time in the holodeck. I get why all the crew are putting on stage plays, and holding music recitals, and building models, and playing poker. I get why everyone was so skeptical and mean to the Doctor on Voyager. I get why the ONE TIME we see someone obsessed with the holodeck it infringes on people’s likeness rights and permissions.

Because fundamentally at the end of the day we are human beings and we ENJOY working with our hands and making REAL human connections. A person who learns to play an instrument is always going to be viewed as an artist over someone who asks the computer to generate music for them.

Even as recent as Lower Decks they were making fun of the fact that the crew were putting on amateurish plays and holding music recitals. But after living with Ai for so long and seeing how detrimental it’s been to the world… I’d much rather watch my friends put on a stage play than “participate” in a holodeck movie.

What’s most amazing about this is that it was completely unintentional. I do not for one second think that the writers of the time in the 90’s were really thinking about the larger issues that generative ai and chatGTP would cause. How could they? Text to speech back then was still robotic as heck. More likely they wrote that stuff in because it was cheaper to film on sets the owned than try to build, film, or rent out different locations each week.

That’s the down to earth logistical real reason Data is reciting poems about his cat or Riker is in a play put on in ten forward. It’s just cheaper to do that than to build a whole new set or move production to a new location.

Yet at the end of the day, I think that unintentionally speaks to a very human need that ai is making more and more prevalent to us day in and day out.