The quietest chair at the #SaveStargate table finally has a voice, and he’s telling fans their fight can actually work.
Joe Flanigan, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard himself, appears in a new video message shared by the campaign, thanking supporters and delivering the line every Stargate fan has been waiting to hear from one of the franchise’s own: “People do change their mind.”
The message also reveals the next leg of the campaign. The next #SaveStargate demonstration goes down Saturday, July 18, across from the London Eye.
It’s the “Europe” stop on the campaign’s escalating world tour, following a banner plane over Amazon’s Culver City lot and a billboard takeover in Times Square.
“Don’t Think You’re Doing This In Vain”
The video arrived through the campaign itself, arranged by Niall, one of #SaveStargate’s UK event leads, and shared across the movement’s channels as “a lovely message” from the actor.
Flanigan’s own social media has been dark since 2025, so when the fans wanted to hear from Sheppard, they went and got him. He delivered, addressing the London team directly ahead of what he called their “good, nice, loud political protest.”
“I just want to say thank you so much. You guys’ support means the world to us, all of us,” Flanigan says in the video. “We’re always flabbergasted, amazed at the longevity and the depth of support for this show.”
Then came the part that matters most. The Atlantis lead told fans, flat out, that pressure like this can change a studio’s math.
“Who knows, with your support, people do change their mind,” Flanigan says. “They just have to see what the level of commitment is with the fan base, and you need to show ’em it’s real and it’s big, and those things help.”
“So don’t think you’re doing this in vain,” he adds. “Be good, be healthy, be grateful, and have a good time on Saturday.”
You can watch Flanigan’s full message below or on the #SaveStargate campaign’s Facebook page.
The Call Robert Patrick Put Out
This is a payoff a month in the making.
Back on June 20, Robert Patrick, who played Colonel Marshall Sumner in the Atlantis premiere, closed out his “some things are worth getting loud about” post by tagging exactly two people: Rachel Luttrell and Joe Flanigan.
In-universe, Sumner’s death is what handed Sheppard command of the expedition. Patrick calling out Flanigan read as one CO summoning his successor, even though the tag went to an account that hadn’t posted in over a year.
Flanigan still hasn’t returned to X, but a message in his own voice, in fans’ hands, is the closest thing to an answer yet.
And the roster now looks like a reunion. SG-1‘s Michael Shanks lit the first fire. Luttrell rallied the Atlantis cast. Patrick got loud. David Hewlett and Luttrell signed the campaign banner in person at Shore Leave 46 last weekend.
With Flanigan on the board, the campaign has the expedition’s military commander, its chief scientist, and its Athosian leader: the core of the Atlantis team, assembled not by a studio, but by fans.
The Man Who Once Tried To Buy Stargate
Flanigan’s “people do change their mind” carries a weight nobody else’s could, because he’s the only cast member who ever tried to change a studio’s mind with his own money.
As he’s recounted publicly over the years, Flanigan attempted to purchase Stargate outright from MGM during the studio’s bankruptcy era. When that fell through, he negotiated toward a ten-year lease of the property, a deal that died when MGM emerged from bankruptcy with Spyglass steering its library.
The fans funding planes, billboards, and now a London rally are running the same play Sheppard tried to run over a decade ago: if the studio won’t protect the franchise, someone who loves it will.
He also isn’t guessing about what Amazon threw away. In February, Flanigan revealed on Dial the Gate that Martin Gero had personally invited him to visit the new series’ writers room in Los Angeles, NDAs and all.
He’s one of the few people outside the production who saw the inside of the show that Amazon scrapped roughly 20 weeks into preproduction, in a move widely tied to the studio’s executive shakeup.
London Saturday, San Diego Next
The London Eye rally is the campaign’s first stop outside the U.S., and it won’t be the last.
The “Save Stargate with Martin Gero” petition sits north of 110,000 verified signatures after blowing through 100,000 late last month.
Organizers also have “#SaveStargate Day” set for July 25, a coordinated global posting push timed to San Diego Comic-Con weekend, with a campaign presence planned at the convention itself.
Amazon MGM Studios, for its part, has still said nothing. Not about the petition, the stunts, the trending hashtags, or a growing list of franchise stars putting their names on the line.
Producer Joe Mallozzi has argued that genre executives hold their audiences in “contempt”, and six weeks of silence in the face of all this isn’t doing much to rebut him.
The fans, meanwhile, wanted to hear from Sheppard badly enough that they went out and made it happen themselves. He told them to keep going.
Sumner called. Sheppard answered. Saturday, the fight crosses the Atlantic, and the only ones still refusing to dial are at Amazon.
