The Stargate SG1 fandom is a big place – small compared to some but with a wide range of interests and full of passion and creativity. There are lists and clubs and websites galore - and an awful lot of them are dedicated to Daniel.  The main Daniel list alone has over 500 people. Judging by the conversations on general lists at least half the active fans are Daniel fans or Daniel friendly fans. Of the Daniel-centred lists, we have friendship and romance lists for Jack/Daniel – the biggest with approx 600 members - Daniel/Sam, Daniel/Teal’c, Daniel/Sha’re, Daniel/Janet. There’s a reason people say there are ‘hordes of Danny fans’ – it’s because there are. There may even be one lurking in your family...

Shanks is called 'Young Lord of the Internet' by his former cast members for a reason - there are hundreds of sites dedicated to the character and the actor. The fanfiction (and we're talking hundreds of authors here) dedicated to one character is predominantly Daniel-focussed, with the Jack and Daniel friendship getting the lion's share of non-romantic fanfiction. Now I'm going to be really generous to the other characters and say let's assume a quarter of the non-internet audience have Daniel as their favourite character; they may not write fanfiction about him or create websites about him but he’s the main reason they tune in every week when they could be watching some other show. Let's say another quarter watch it for Richard Dean Anderson as Jack. Let's say a goodly number of those people get the most fun out of watching Jack and Daniel, Jack, Daniel or SG1 as it is. Now, is it beyond the realms of possibility that people won't watch? If people switch off, the ratings drop. It’s happening already. Ratings are down from last year and were down the year before.

 The new show and movie are dependent upon season 6 being a success. They have 22 episodes to take this “new direction” of theirs, the new format minus one main character and with reduced appearances by another - both incidentally the most popular characters – and convince people to watch, convince new people to tune in to a show that has been around for 5 years and therefore has a lot of background detail and history, exactly the sort of detail and history that puts off new viewers.

Shanks asked the writers to come up with a storyline for Daniel that would move the character forward. They didn't.  Because he didn't want to be wallpaper and because he felt Daniel had no place in a show that was moving away from exploring planets, cultures and having adventures and becoming more military (and in my opinion more conspiracy-heavy and Earth-based, thus losing the things that made it unique in the process) he's moved on. 

So, to recap: the main character, who was the hero in the Stargate movie and therefore brought in some of the movie fans, is gone; the other main movie character played by the star is cutting back on his contribution; Teal'c, who they've underwritten for the past five years unless it's a Teal'c episode and who for most episodes is treated as wallpaper, remains; and we have Sam, currently being regarded as the character who has had the most exposure for the least gain, a character whom one of the current and most prolific writers has said he finds the hardest to write for and whose role this season has been to be the woman the guest stars fall in love with.

In my opinion we need to get Daniel back or this show will die. 

Sounds melodramatic? I’m seeing it happen already, online, as fans leave lists/groups/clubs, stating they will not watch Daniel’s final episode, ‘Meridian’, or saying they will switch off after ‘Meridian’, that they have had enough of “X-Gate”, saying they will go and watch Farscape/Enterprise/Andromeda instead. There are two lists out there with approx 250 members and 300 members apiece at the last count, and those lists are filled with people who have decided not to watch season 6, many of whom have completely lost faith in ‘The Powers That Be’. You can bet a lot of them won't be planning to watch any spin off either and I for one won’t be holding my breath for a movie I suspect will never happen. I truly think this is the beginning of an exodus that will happen with the general audience, when they tune in week after week and don’t get what they want from the ‘product’. I’ve seen it happen too many times with too many shows to miss the signs.

Without the support of fans the chances of a movie or a spin off being successful are greatly reduced. When the news of Stargate SG1 first came out, fans created websites before the first episode even aired because they knew the movie and were excited by the premise and the characters they knew. News of Stargate Atlantis was announced and there was a collective yawn and groans of ‘that’s so Graham Hancock...’.

I want Stargate, in whatever incarnation, to be as big a franchise as Star Trek but if the show doesn’t return to its roots, to what won its audience in the first place, and if Michael Shanks is not given an incentive to return (and consequently many fans not given an incentive to keep watching) then it will be just another Sci Fi show that ran for a few years then ended. A has-been. I don’t want that to happen. I won’t be able to bear watching something that used to feel so special and was unique and has been a part of my life for five years become that has-been. So until season 6 airs I’ll yell. I’ll complain. I’ll be writing long boring letters to strangers in offices far away who would probably much rather be doing something far more interesting than reading my list of complaints. Why? Because I love this show, love these characters, love what it was and what it could have been. I’m not fighting the future – I’m fighting for it. And if all the complaining in the world isn’t enough to change things well at least I’ll know I didn’t just switch off. Where's the good in quietly switching off? A casual viewer would do that. I'm not a casual viewer of Stargate SG1. Friends, I switched off. X Files, I switched off. Frasier, I switched off. I’m a Stargate SG1 fan. I won’t switch off until I know the show I love has no hope of resurrection – then I’ll sob into my Weetabix.

Cheryl

(c) Cheryl, 2002.  All rights recognised.  No copyright infringement intended.