Stargate shown the door by Joe Ryan:
Jack O’Neill’s galactic team outlasted Mulder, Scully, Picard and Sisko. But it won’t fight on forever. At least not on Sci Fi Channel.
The cable network announced Monday it was decommissioning Stargate SG-1 after the conclusion of its 10th season sometime next year.
Some 2.5 million viewers observed the occasion [the airing of the 200th episode], per Nielsen Media Research, making it the second-most-watched Sci Fi show of the week after the E.T.-free Extreme Championship Wrestling (2.6 million).
In a statement long on plaudits (i.e., “worldwide phenomenon”) and short on specifics, Sci Fi said it was canceling SG-1 because, well, it just was.
“Having achieved so much over the course of the past 10 years, Sci Fi believes that the time is right to make this season [its] last on the channel,” the network said.
A call seeking comment from MGM, the studio behind SG-1, was not immediately returned Tuesday. In the Hollywood Reporter, an MGM rep said the company was “vigorously working to continue the franchise.”
The Sci Fi pink slip came on the same day MGM closed a long-awaited iTunes deal that makes episodes from the current seasons of SG-1 and Atlantis available for download purchase.