History YMMV / StargateAtlantis

* RetroactiveRecognition: The biggest name to come out of this series is Creator/JasonMomoa, who went on to star in Series/GameOfThrones, and more recently as Aquaman in Film/Aquaman2018 and the DCEU. Because of the latter, this will most likely be the reaction of people who watch this show post-2018.

%%* WhatMeasureIsANonBadass: Keller.

** The most popular pairing in the fandom is John/Rodney. The originally intended John/Teyla pairing fell by the wayside as John & Rodney shared stronger chemistry and the writers losing interest in relationships changed the intended dynamics. The ship was sunk after Rodney got together with Jennifer Keller. Keller was a heavily disliked character upon her introduction and, as the show went on, John became darker and never ended up in any official couple, leading the Rodney/John ship to retain popularity throughout the run of the show.

** You wouldn't believe how many {{fangirl}}s Todd has. Although Todd, despite being a ManipulativeBastard, has saved Atlantis' hide a number of times and has never tried to destroy them (despite multiple opportunities) or use what he has gained from them against them (except for the Attero device incident, and even then, he genuinely thought they'd stabbed him in the back). Although self-serving and human-eating, you. really can't classify Todd as a villain all that much, let alone one of Michael's OmnicidalManiac caliber.

** In "Infection" where Sheppard comes across Todd's completely defenceless diseased Wraith hive ship where his entire crew - now having undergone a gene therapy where they can no longer feed - are in stasis pods. Originally the plan was to just leave them or blow up the ship, However, because of the ship's malfunctions there is an off-chance that they might break free from the pods. Sheppard's solution? Suffocate the hundreds of Wraith in their pods and use C4 to blow up any pods that are unresponsive to the "suffocate their occupants" command. The Team decided that if the gene therapy really was effective at killing Wraith, they should try to disseminate it to as many Wraith as possible for use as a biological weapon.

* AcceptableTargets:
** Sheppard frequently excuses Rodney to people because... "He's Canadian"
** Kavanagh, described by the producers as the most irritating person in 3 galaxies.
--> '''Hermiod''': Doctor Kavanagh?\\
'''Kavanagh''': Yes?\\
'''Hermiod''': Stop... talking... please... *{{Beat}}* Thank you.
** Jack O'Neill assures Dr. Weir that she and her team will remain in Atlantis as, in his words:
-->'''O'Neill''': Since you saved Woolsey's ass, and you did a fair job on mine...
** This exchange from 5.15 'Remnants', as Richard Woolsey sees that a woman he's been flirting with found his balcony hang-out spot:
-->'''Woolsey''': You’ve poached my private spot!
-->'''Woman''': ...What?
-->'''Woolsey''': [[DiggingYourselfDeeper I mean you’ve entered my little personal area]].
-->[{{Beat}}]
-->'''Woolsey''': ...This is where I come... to be alone with my thoughts.

** Killing the Asurans comes close to crossing the horizon.

* HarsherInHindsight: While she didn't do so before her 25th birthday like in the episode, Julie Patzwald, who played Pelius in [[Recap/StargateAtlantisS01E06ChildhoodsEnd "Childhood's End"]], later committed suicide at a fairly young age due to suffering from chronic pain for much of her adult life.

** John/Teyla was also more popular that Teyla/Kanaan.

** Zalenka is constantly bashed by [=McKay=] in particular, to the point where in one episode Rodney calls him "Doctor Fumbles Mc Stupid". ''After Zalenka saved his life''. Later on it turns out that Carter doesn't really like him either.
* AccidentalInnuendo:

* IdiotPlot:
** The whole SeriesFinale, with idiot plotholes, stupid character decisions and {{Ass Pull}}s all around. To give an idea of the problems in just one aspect of the finale: bringing Sheppard to Earth and not putting him in the chair but letting him pilot a [=302=] instead because...? Putting the chair not half a mile under what amounts to an icy fortress with one entrance (Antarctica), or a similar easily defendable structure, but in an easily targeted warehouse with no air defence because...? The stupidity of defending the entire earth with a handful of [=302s=] because...?
*** One thing that becomes ''really'' frustrating is that a number of simple solutions to any one of a number of situations present themselves, and the characters steadfastly ignore them with not even so much as a HandWave to explain why. For example, when Atlantis finds that upon dialling Earth, the wormhole opens in the modified hive ship, which has a gate inside it, why they don't simply overload one (or even two) of a number of Atlantis's now surplus naquada reactors and throw it through the wormhole to blow up the hive ship is because....? They could have thrown through any number of explosives, over-loaded reactors, energy weapons, shot drones from a puddle jumper, or even overloaded the gate, but they send through one team of people instead... [[FlatWhat What.]]
** The entire retrovirus subplot in Season 2 & 3. First strike for carelessly leaving the unfinished formula out in the open for a scared little girl desperate for a cure to get ahold of. Then their experiment on a captured enemy Wraith backfires spectacularly and blows the expedition's cover. Then when aforementioned Wraith seems to put the incident behind him and offers himself as a potential ally, the team [[WhatTheHellHero betrays him again]]. [[TooDumbToLive Unsurprisingly]], it backfires just as badly as the first time, and they ''lose their own Hive ship'' for the effort.
** [=S01E05=], ''Suspicion'': After the team is attacked very early on during numerous excursions by an alien civilization whose biological, technological and/or tactical, strategic, and intellectual capabilities are for all practical purposes completely unknown save for the very barest of details previously obtained from rare surviving eyewitnesses, the ''only'' viable explanation for the problem is apparently that someone high ranking among their close allies, who are themselves prey for the enemy and ''literally require'' them to help ensure their survival, must be a traitor.
** 5.14 "Prodigal": Michael and his Hybrids are suddenly afflicted with {{Idiot Ball}}s in their final appearance to make the AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs plot last long enough, because Michael technically already wins in the opening. This overlaps with a VillainBall because Michael stretches out their take-over specifically so he can activate the self-destruct. The mistakes they make are still legion:
*** Not leaving Teyla unconscious until they're clear of Atlantis by stunning her repeatedly or even restraining her while she's awake so she can't, say, take her mission-critical baby and flee from your grasp at the first opportunity. This can initially be explained by Michael wanting to offer her to join him willingly, but when she refuses, he has no excuse for even risking it.
*** Leaving all the gate room people, two dozen or so stunned humans (including TheBigGuy Ronon), in an unmonitored room with an accessible door panel and a single guard posted at the ''other'' side of the door. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim The Hybrids could have just killed them all]] to save themselves the trouble of bothering to seclude them after they've been knocked unconscious. They were already planning on blowing up Atlantis anyway, so they had no believable reason to keep them alive beyond plot-required stupidity.
*** After Teyla escapes with her baby, she hides in an easily openable/concealable alcove from the Hybrids. While looking for her, one of them notices the baby crying, but [[ItsProbablyNothing doesn't bother to investigate the sound any further for no particular reason]], instead reporting to Michael that they simply can't find Teyla anywhere.
*** After Michael's plan went completely awry and he has no hopes of survival anymore, [[BondVillainStupidity he fails to kill John Sheppard in a last act of spite]] right when he has him dangling off the top of Atlantis' main tower. This one again overlaps with VillainBall because he wants to beat Sheppard to a pulp first.
* InformedAttribute: Sheppard's reputation as Atlantis's version [[{{BoldlyComing}} of Kirk]] He's definitely a flirt but rarely seems interested in anything more. There are only actually four women things go further with and he doesn't even sleep with all of them. [[note]] Chaya was an ascended ancient more interested in mind-melding than sex, he only got together with Teer - who also ascended - when he thought he could never get back to Atlantis, his reaction to Mara offering herself to him was a very bewildered "I did not see this coming" (and he hinted to Elizabeth he didn't sleep with her anyway) and he only kissed Larrin as part of a power-play in between her beating him up.[[/note]] That's less than one woman a year. In fact Sheppard seems more committed to Atlantis than anything else, spends more time [[{{WillTheyOrWontThey}} flirting with Elizabeth]] than alien women and is the only main character single by the end of the series.

* GeniusBonus: Genii is the plural form the Latin word "Genius" (no pun intended).

** The John/Rodney and John/Elizabeth pairings were the most popular pairings.
** Ronon/Teyla was more popular than the canon Teyla/Kanaan.
*** John/Teyla was also more popular that Teyla/Kanaan, but once Ronon showed up it lost popularity to that pairing.
** Ronon/Keller was better received than the canon Keller/Rodney pairing for two major reasons. It didn't interfere with shipping [=McKay=]/Sheppard, and Ronon was a popular character and fans liked the idea of him getting to be with someone.

** As indicated [[{{FanPreferredCouple}} above,]] the largest slash ship in the fandom is John Sheppard/Rodney [=McKay=] and the largest straight ship is John/Weir. But John/Ronon, Rodney/Weir and Ronon/Teyla also have their fanbases.

* ShipTease: Plenty.
** Both John/Elizabeth and John/Teyla. He has kissed both women at different times and have share quiet moments with them, but usually through some sort of plot device instead of actual romantic feelings. The Legacy series of spin-off novels still enjoy teasing the John/Teyla angle, but the novels' canonicity is dubious. John/Elizabeth was helped by the actors playing them from a romantic angle and John remaining single after her death (Which the still-outraged Elizabeth fans aren't slow to point out).
** Ronon/Teyla was the biggest tease for Teyla after Season 1, although it was toned down when Kanaan/Teyla became canon.
** Ronon/Keller before deciding to go the [=McKay=]/Keller route.

** Music/JohnnyCash's CoverVersion of Music/NeilDiamond's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5rVmXyZP5s "Solitary Man"]], used in "Vegas", is a [[CountryMusic country]] song that fits the desert theme of the episode. The same episode also featured [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_BoRNEEUQ The Beautiful People]] by Music/MarilynManson whose heavy metal style was really unusual for the show.

** A FoeYay example is the relationship between John and Todd (the Wraith), especially when they formed the first human/Wraith alliance to escape a prison together. Though they're basically enemies and don't trust each other, they're friendly enough to work together in several episodes.

** Elizabeth Weir: [[GuileHero a gifted negotiator who fights hard for her people's freedom in the face of nigh insurmountable odds]] or a ManipulativeBitch who bullies and threatens other cultures and people for the survival of her own, [[MoralDissonance judging them by a morality that is convenient to her]] in order to justify her actions? Keeping in mind the number of times she's used ultimatums as a negotiating strategy

* DesignatedHero: Although our heroes are in general good guys who try to do the right thing, there are quite a few times where what they do is at the least soaked in MoralDissonance and at the most downright evil - sometimes contradicting previous characterization to do so. [[DependingOnTheWriter When written at their worst]] they have a very human-centric perspective about sentient life such that only human and human-like beings matter, and are disturbingly willing to exploit, manipulate, experiment on, mass murder (as in killing huge numbers in cold blood) and double-cross anyone or anything that poses a threat or can be labelled an enemy species (even taking into account the requirement to act cautiously and even proactively against threats when they present themselves), even treating one of their own expedition similarly when they come back as a Replicator.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Website/SFDebris was ''very'' impressed with Creator/ConnorTrinneer's performances as Michael Kenmore in ''Atlantis'' compared with his previous starring role as Trip Tucker on ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise''.

YMMV for ''Series/StargateAtlantis''.

** John Sheppard: Heroic, selfless badass ready to risk everything to save Atlantis and those he cares about? Or ruthless sociopath willing to commit any number of murders under the justification of "protecting his people"? He could be quite coldly manipulative at times. A noteworthy example was in "Miller's Crossing" when someone had to sacrifice themselves to a Wraith in order to save [=McKay's=] sister. [=McKay=] volunteered but Shepherd refused to let him. Instead, without even blinking, [[spoiler: he recruited the grieving father who'd injected her with the nanites (having done so in order to motivate [=McKay=] to save his daughter's life), and talked him into sacrificing himself.]]

** Sheppard and [=McKay=] are everyone's favorites with scenes that seems to back it up (the end of "Irresistible", for example, where [=McKay=] takes a herb that makes people enamored of its user, knowing full well that Sheppard is the only person on Atlantis that hasn't been inoculated against the {{Pheromones}}).

** The Ancients attempt to wipe out the Asurans is equally horrifying. When we wished that the Ancients would have cleaned up after [[NeglectfulPrecursors some of their messes]], we didn't mean through ''[[KillItWithFire carpet-bombing!]]''

* FandomSpecificPlot: Fics where Sheppard is an Ancient, whether knowingly or unknowingly (since he's noted in the pilot to find it particularly easy to use the ATA gene).

* SeasonalRot: Season 4 and 5. Killing Beckett and Weir got some backlash as Beckett was a fan-favourite and Weir was a central part of the team's dynamic and half of a FanPreferredCouple. Weir's successors Carter and Woolsey never really fitted with the rest of the characters, (Carter turning into a Weir stand-in rather than her beloved SG-1 character) while Keller was seen as a ReplacementScrappy. Then you've got Teyla's pregnancy, relationship with Kanaan and the Athosian's disappearance which had potential but never developed properly, the Ronon/Keller/Mckay LoveTriangle that quickly morphed into an unpopular [[{{StrangledByTheRedString}} Keller/Mckay]] relationship and nonsensical Season 5 finale. About the only good part was [[{{EnsembleDarkHorse}} Todd.]]

* HilariousInHindsight: In "Epiphany", [=McKay=] refers to Ronon and Teyla as "[[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Conan]] and [[Series/XenaWarriorPrincess Xena]]". Jason Momoa would later go on to play Conan himself in the [[Film/ConanTheBarbarian2011 2011 film reboot]].

** From the season 2 episode "Critical Mass": [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WESoHaRkJSo "Beyond The Night"]]. Oh, and that [[TheCastShowoff really is]] Rachel Luttrell singing.