Yeah...I’m a geek.

Allow me a moment, if you will, to be the geek that I am.

I’ve got an older season of Stargate: Atlantis playing in the background while I’m doing housework. As I was sorting the junk mail I became distracted by the appearance of one of my favorite supporting characters. For those of you who watch the show, it’s Chuck the technician (or Chucknician as I’ve seen him referred on GateWorld). Chuck more or less took the place of the character Peter Grogran, who was killed at the end of Season One. It’s actually the reminder of Peter’s untimely demise that prompted this post.

As sad as it is, the killing off of supporting characters is something that Stargate: Atlantis and its predecessor Stargate: SG-1 do just right. Unlike the "red shirts" (see Wikipedia for definition) who are always being sacrificed on Star Trek and it’s many offshoots, the Stargate franchise encourages you to develop a relationship with the supporting players. You may not see Chuck or Lt. Cadman or Grogan or Sgt. Bates on a regular basis, but you see them all enough to know them by sight and have a certain sense of familiarity so that when it’s time for someone to die to increase the dramatic effect, there’s actually some drama involved. As loyal as I’ve always been to Trek I can’t say I’ve ever been all that upset about any particular character’s death (not counting Spock, of course, as he’s a regular character and watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn always makes me cry). I’d have to say it’s the lack of development that goes into the supporting cast that makes the death of a red shirted security officer more joke than drama on Star Trek.

This post could get even nerdier — I was about to share a list of the characters I still mourn — but I’ve still got quite a bit of work to do and I wouldn’t want you to think any less of me than you probably already do.