Hoping to catch up on Stargate Universe this Friday? Well, networks are fickle things. UPDATED

For perhaps the first time in the seven years that the Stargate franchise has been on Syfy Channel, there are no episodes airing this week on the cable network — no SG-1, no Atlantis, and no Stargate Universe to help celebrate the holidays.

It’s not unusual for the network to temporarily suspend the weeknight (and late Friday) airings of SG-1 and Atlantis, particularly during holidays. What is surprising is Syfy’s apparent last-minute cancellation of the SGU marathon, which it has been advertising for Christmas Day.

The 10-hour marathon would have given viewers a chance to catch up or rewatch the entire first half of the new show’s debut season, from 8:30 a.m. (just after Santa has left) to 6:30 p.m. in the U.S.

Instead, Syfy’s schedule now indicates that the network will show a movie marathon instead, with a combination of Syfy originals and more mainstream genre films, including Serenity and Total Recall.

Viewers in the U.S. who are looking for a little Stargate fix after Christmas can check local listings for the syndication rerun of Atlantis‘s “Ghost In the Machine” this weekend.

If you’re still hoping to catch up (or rewatch) Universe, the entire series is available for sale, commercial free, on iTunes and Amazon.com . The last few of episodes are also available with minimal ads for free at Hulu.com!

Stargate Atlantis and SG-1 are set to return to the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. time slots (respectively) on January 5. There are no SGU reruns on the books yet, with new episodes of the show expected to return to the airwaves in April.

UPDATE: Syfy’s Craig Engler posted the following on Twitter: “We moved the SGU marathon off Xmas day and are going to run it closer to the mdi-season return. Typical schedule stuff.”