"Stargate" was a tweener of a box office hit. Directed by Roland Emmerich from a screenplay he wrote with Dean Devlin, the film made $197 million globally on a budget of $55 million in 1994, which is very good but not the kind of runaway smash that automatically gets a sequel. Though Emmerich and Devlin had loose plans for a trilogy, several things got in the way, namely "Independence Day" and the opportunity to spend three times the budget of "Stargate" on a "Godzilla" remake and star-studded disaster movies. (You also have to wonder if Kurt Russell, who initially didn't want to be in "Stargate," would've come back for the sequel.) Did they choose wisely?
Fans of "Stargate SG-1," the television spin-off that aired for five seasons on Showtime before moving over the SyFy for another five seasons, would emphatically state "No." Emmerich and Devlin might've had nothing to do with the series, but its dedicated fanbase didn't care. They got caught up in the galaxy-traversing exploits of Richard Dean Anderson and his SG-1 crew, who are tasked with thwarting potential attacks from a variety of hostile alien species. The production values dipped more than a skosh in the transition from movies to television, but a game cast that included Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, Beau Bridges, Corin Nemec, and Don S. Davis gave the show a fun, familiar sci-fi feel.
Aside from Anderson, the most popular character on the series was Dr. Samantha Carter, played by Amanda Tapping. She catches on with SG-1 in the series pilot, and works her way up the ranks throughout the show's ten seasons. She also made guest appearances on "Stargate Atlantis," and joined that series full-time for season 4. After that, however, her appearances on the series grew fewer and fewer until the show ended. While she might've faded as Sam, Tapping didn't walk away from "Stargate" entirely.