When “Stargate Atlantis” debuted on Syfy during the summer of 2004, fans quickly fell in with the series’ appealing crew of international Stargate Command personnel. Spun off from “Stargate SG-1” (itself a continuation of the wormhole-spanning shenanigans of Roland Emmerich’s 1994 box office hit “Stargate”), the show followed the adventures of Major John Sheppard (Joe Flanigan), an expert in ancient technology tasked with leading his team through an exploration of the lost city of Atlantis and its many mysteries.
Advertisement
Like “Stargate SG-1,” “Stargate Atlantis” slammed the pedal to the metal when it came to building out its world and developing the characters. For sci-fi fans who love diving headfirst into the deep end on shows of this nature, this spinoff, created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, challenged viewers to keep up — and, given that it ran for five seasons, lots of genre fans were up to the task. Some “Stargate Atlantis” viewers will tell you that it was easy to get a little lost in the early going, but they stuck with the series because the characters, and the actors portraying them, were consistently intriguing.
Some characters were a little easier to define than others. While Flanigan’s Major Sheppard provided a rock-solid foundation for this Stargate team, there were supporting players who struggled to find their place in the mix. One individual who had a seeming wealth of potential but got short shrift compared to some of the others was Rainbow Sun Francks’ Aiden Ford. As Sheppard’s first lieutenant, he seemed like he could become the Riker of the “Stargate Atlantis” universe. Obviously, the show’s writers went in a very, very different direction. Why was this character sacrificed so soon?
Advertisement
Stargate Atlantis couldn’t figure out what to do with Aiden Ford
In a 2005 interview with GateWorld, Francks was asked how he felt about Ford getting pumped full of Wraith feeding enzyme and essentially written out of the show during season 2. Sometimes, actors get a little snippy about being dumped from a successful television series, but Francks admirably took the “Atlantis” creative team’s decision in stride.
Advertisement
“Actually, it wasn’t really such a blow,” he told GateWorld. “It was something that we, myself and Brad [Wright, executive producer], had spoken about. It wasn’t a bad thing taken by me at all.” Francks went on to say that Ford was simply the odd man out in the character development department during the first season, but was hopeful that a Wraith-enzyme-addled Ford would become something of a wild card for the series going forward.
As Francks told GateWorld:
“We took it as now I have the chance to be there, and when I’m there I actually have a purpose. My character is going on a great story arc that’s going to help with the season, and it’s going to be a big part of it. It’s going to be a part of the story, finally. And that’s something that I think I waited for. So less episodes but more actual work. That’s more important to all of us, I think.”
Advertisement
How did that work out? It didn’t. And fans weren’t at all pleased with this. They lobbied the “Stargate Atlantis” producers and writers with petitions demanding Ford be reinstated as a main character in future seasons. Alas, it just never happened — though a fully recovered and ticked off Ford did reappear in the official novel “Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Third Path.” Francks could’ve felt a tad betrayed, but he’s worked steadily in film and especially television over the last two decades in shows like “The Umbrella Academy,” “High Fidelity,” and “I Woke Up a Vampire.”
