Yeah, many SGA fans haven't been too thrilled with cast changes. First, they blow up Beckett, then they nearly blow up Weir in the season 3 finale. But SG1 fans, whom SciFi wants to attract to the show, are happy with Carter being foisted onto SGA. Even the producers have stated in an interview part of the reason Carter is on the show is to keep that SG1 audience. It's a shame the producers/writers couldn't have, instead, written a more complex Weir, rather than have her wave the team goodbye every other episode. If there was a chance to bring Weir back full time, I'd love it, but it seems we'll get four episodes and then, fans are glumly assuming, she'll pull a Ford :(

1. We agree with you that both Torri's and Amanda's characters are great and should continue. In fact, they could make great friends, be a great team and interact with eachother well. There's no problem with Amanda adding to the show, she's great, and rather than *replacing* Torri's character, having both of them working together such as Sam leading missions, and Weir administrating the base, would make it stronger, and make for some great interaction. Bonding as "buddies" and teaming up like Jack & Daniel but from the female angle, even tossing in some points of contention, minor tensions, and some exploration of various relationships and feelings to provoke some interesting and compelling interactions between the characters. We agree with you that it would make a wonderful addition to the show to have both.

2. WARNING!: This is a heads-up to all nice Stargate fans such as yourself and everyone reading this, that MARK STERN is back at it again. As you already know, this guy has left a trail of incompetent decisions, poor ratings, and a track record of ruining many of your favorite shows in his path, not to mention him being responsible in part for putting horribly questionable things like ECW wrestling onto the sci fi channel, and bankrolling tens upon tens of these low-quality B-movie garbage movies such as "Franken Fish" onto the Sci Fi channel. What you may not see, is that this guy often works to sabotage shows in order to cancel them. It works like this, you take some show, and start doing things like moving its time-slot around, changing its air time or date, and put it in a spot to set it up for failure. Then, since viewers no longer find it at the time they expected it, and tune in but cant find it, this sabotages its ratings. Then, he will then point to those reduced ratings and cancel a show. This is exactly what Mark Stern did to BSG. Disrupted the Friday night lineup that was a formula for success. Cancelled SG-1, moved BSG to Sunday nights where it now floundered, ratings decline, then points to ratings and cancels the show saying the show was really bad just look at the ratings. Well, take notice that Mark Stern and Sci Fi channel just moved Stargate Atlantis from prime spot, to now air at 10:00pm at night. If you don't see this coming yet, this is your wake-up call. You can see whats coming. First of all, everyone knows a lot of kids watch the show, afterall its something whole families enjoy, fewer of them will be able to watch it. Next, those fans who enjoy going out to nightclubs or go out with friends on Friday nights formerly could watch it at 7 or 8pm then go out, but they will now be gone, and they will not still be in front of the TV at 10 on a Friday night. And still others who were used to it at 7 or 8 may think they already missed it. Stern is now beginning to change the time slot around, this is the 1st step. As predicted, ratings for Atlantis are now going to go down, watch for it. And this is all toward setting a show up for failure with plans on canceling it. This is what he does not just to Stargates, but to all the shows YOU liked, so right now should be your wakeup call to get up and work to get him out of there before another one gets added to the list of your favorites that have ended up destroyed. Or, you can do nothing, and think that there will be lots of new great sci fi shows put out by Mark Stern. You know, like "Painkiller Jane", and "Tin Man" the great Mark Stern piece you can watch coming up in December that's a remake of the wizard of oz. And Mark Stern's wonderful hit remake of "Flash Gordon", or remake of Bionic Woman. You know, great shows like that, replacing the ones you used to like. I'm sure you will enjoy them. If not, then work to get him out and get somebody else in there as programming director that stops airing wrestling, and actually knows what viewers want. Time to be aware and take action.

As you most likely know, the decision to reduce the role of Weir was made before the producers decided to bring in Carter to replace her. Higginson was told of her status in Season 4 on the last day of shooting Season 3 – in October of last year. Even though she was aware that she was going to be on the show in Season 4, Tapping did not seem to even know what role she would be playing in late November.

By saying, “accommodating Carter is something that’s happened to Weir, before, too,” implies that it is Carter’s fault that Weir is being reduced. I know a lot of fans refuse to believe Joe Mallozzi and think there was some deep, dark conspiracy to make room for Amanda Tapping, but I seriously doubt the executive producer of the show would lie outright about something like this.

When you imply that both Jessica Steen and Torri Higginson were both pushed aside because of Tapping, it only perpetuates rumors, misunderstandings, and gives credence to those who would blame and attack Tapping for Higginson’s departure.

I, too, would have liked both Weir and Carter on the show. But I choose to believe that the producers did not reduce Weir simply to “accommodate” Carter. We don’t know why they made this decision, but we do know (if we choose to believe Mallozzi) it was not done simply “in deference to Tapping’s Samantha Carter.”

I happened to be over at jumptheshark.com and the voters there were all over the place about how the death of Carson Beckett jumped the show. Boom, right then and there! Now they're getting rid of Weir and bringing in Carter despite tremendous fan disapproval. Your article shows how a common-sense approach to casting could have avoided a lot of heartache for viewers of Atlantis.