Atlantis: Seer

[Mabus]

This episode is odd for me. It's not great, not terrible. One one hand, the reintroduction of the character of Todd is a bonus for the series. And his little jokes. McKay realizing the unfortunate implications of activating the Wraith kill switch, after he allowed the Asurans to alter their own code is also an interesting take on the situation.

On the other hand, the writers ripped themselves off by borrowing a bit too much from the SG1 episode "Prophecy", you know, the one where Jonas developed a dangerous brain tumor from an ascension-related machine that caused him to have visions of the future that he couldn't change. Hell, Carter's line from that episode, "According to Newtonian physics, yes, if you could know the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment you could accurately predict all of their interactions for the rest of time. [...] Yes, but quantum mechanics blows that out of the water. " is simplified to "Look, in a-in a mechanical, Newtonian universe? Not a problem. I mean, you know enough variables, you can predict the outcome. But, uh, quantum physics blows that out of the water." only this time it's said by McKay.

Now this isn't necessarily an issue, since many episodes from later seasons of SG1 remade plenty of old episode plots. But the problem is that in SGA (and a few times in SGU) the plots were recycled into lazy stories: "Sanctuary"? "Ascension" from SG1, but forgettable and unimportant; "Epiphany"? "A Hundred Days" and "Paradise Lost" from SG1, only less emotional or engaging; "Grace Under Pressure"? "Grace", but with whales; "Doppelganger"? "Cold Lazarus", only now it's a shitty horror film instead of an emotional story, while also killing a recurring character just because the Stargate franchise hates doctors; "Remnants"? "Scorched Earth" on a shoestring budget; "Identity"? "Avalon", but only the scenes with the stones, and copying the ending of "Tracker", which itself copies "Runner" to a certain degree.

And then there's the generic medieval and western planet of the week episodes, which were meant to reduce costs, but in some cases, like with "Trio" is went overbudget, so nice job guys.
Starting from late season 3, you can feel the franchise fatigue setting in, since the stories got more generic and less interesting as the series neared its end, with fewer better stories than before.

[bz316]

I always kind of figured cancer was just one of those things they hadn't managed to locate within the ancient database. They mention in the first season when they're trying to send a message to Earth in "Letters from Pegasus" that they could only send 5% of the Ancient database through in a data-burst, and they had no idea what was in the parts they would be sending since they had only decoded a minute fraction of the data so far. This implies that there was an assload of information they just hadn't gotten to yet.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Cancer I can understand, because "cancer" is just a term for a very broad category of diseases, like "virus" or "auto-immune". The Ancients might have a handy dandy cure for Type 2 Breast Cancer, but finding the particular one you want for the particular type would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Also it's much trickier to treat because instead of an external pathogen it's your body's own cells waving a confederate flag.

[Mabus]

Another issue to remember is that the Lantean/Ancient biology is slightly different than humans. Not by much, but still significant. So whatever cure for cancer they might have may not apply to humans and probably needs to be adjusted to the Homo Sapiens biology/genetics, something which the Ancients didn't seem to bother.
I mean, there's still that Ancient minecraft cube healing device that can even bring back the dead, but when the Goa'uld toned it down to work on non-Ancients, the end result was still devastating for humanoids. Unless you use it from several miles away.

[Fianna]

the writers ripped themselves off by borrowing a bit too much from the SG1 episode "Prophecy", you know, the one where Jonas developed a dangerous brain tumor from an ascension-related machine that caused him to have visions of the future that he couldn't change.

Y'know, since that Jonas incident should be part of the SGC's files on new/bizarre technology they've encountered (which is Rodney's specialty), he really shouldn't have been so skeptical about an oracle existing.

[clearspira]

the writers ripped themselves off by borrowing a bit too much from the SG1 episode "Prophecy", you know, the one where Jonas developed a dangerous brain tumor from an ascension-related machine that caused him to have visions of the future that he couldn't change.

Y'know, since that Jonas incident should be part of the SGC's files on new/bizarre technology they've encountered (which is Rodney's specialty), he really shouldn't have been so skeptical about an oracle existing.

Atlantis has always had mysterious continuity. Like, it exists, its often referenced, but then you get instances like the episode where they defrost an alternate Dr Weir and McKay questions the idea of time travel despite the fact that they already know its real.

[Mabus]

Yeah, I think a lot has to do with the fact that the writers/producers were under the impression that many SGA fans didn't watch SG1, which is kind of silly.