All Stargate Shows Are About To Leave Streaming For A Long Time
If you're watching a Stargate series, you better watch it quick!
This article is more than 2 years old
Either things are about to get very annoying for Stargate fans, things are about to get very good for anyone with Stargate DVDs to sell, or both. If you’re currently watching any of the franchise’s series available on either Hulu or Netflix, you better pick up the pace. All three series will leave Hulu next week. Stargate SG-1 — the only of the series streaming on Netflix — will leave the streamer at the end of November.
The news comes from GateWorld, where it’s reported that all three series on Hulu — Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, and Stargate Universe — will no longer be streaming by the end of October. While SG-1 leaves Netflix at the end of next month, the streamer will reportedly still have the 1994 Stargate feature available, starring Kurt Russell and James Spader.
While this obviously isn’t good news for Stargate fans who have been streaming the series, in the case of Hulu the franchise actually scored an 11th hour reprieve. Hulu was originally scheduled to lose the titles at the end of September. GateWorld reports they were saved by a last minute renewal.
GateWorld further reports that unless something changes with the licensing from MGM — the studio owns Stargate — the departures from Hulu and Netflix will represent a complete streaming blackout for the television arm of the franchise. The good news is that the blackout won’t last forever. Amazon is currently in the process of buying MGM. Once the deal is completed it will only be a matter of time before all three series will once again be streaming on Amazon Prime Video (they left the streamer this February).
The timing of Stargate‘s TV series’ departure from streaming is a little curious, considering that the franchise is — in a roundabout way — about to get its first episode in a decade. Next Saturday, November 6, Stargate alums Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, David Hewlett, and Jewel Staite will reunite for a unique reunion episode. The show will be available to subscribers to The Companion, and the actors will read from a script written by an A.I. that has been fed all the scripts from every Stargate movie and TV show.
Back in August, we learned from one of our trusted and proven sources that there were not one, but two new Stargate series in works. One of these will be an animated series while the second is live-action. Presumably, one of these two shows will be the one Stargate co-creator Brad Wright has been working on since before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The source told us both series were likely waiting for the Amazon purchase of MGM to go through before either new Stargate show would get close to streaming.
It certainly does seem like the right time for Stargate to start streaming new content to fans. With the growing number of both Star Trek and Star Wars series, audiences seem to be responding well to sci-fi adventure revivals. Babylon 5 is on its way back as well. To paraphrase a character from another world-crossing franchise, for the future of Stargate, streaming new originals is “the way.”
