Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis | |
---|---|
Genre | |
Created by | |
Based on | Stargate by Roland Emmerich Dean Devlin |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Joel Goldsmith |
Country of origin |
|
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 5 |
No. of episodes | 100 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers | |
Running time | 43 minutes |
Production companies |
|
Original release | |
Network | Syfy |
Release | July 16, 2004 January 9, 2009 | –
Related | |
Stargate Atlantis (usually stylized in all caps and often abbreviated SGA) is an
The story of Stargate Atlantis follows the events of Stargate SG-1's seventh
, the legendary city created by the Ancients, and Stargate Command sends an international team to investigate it.The series was a ratings success for the Sci Fi Channel, and was particularly popular in Europe and Australia. Although it received little critical response, Stargate Atlantis was honored with numerous awards and award nominations in its five-season run. Merchandise for Stargate Atlantis includes games and toys, print media, and an original audio series. With the cancellation of Stargate Universe, the intended direct-to-DVD Stargate Atlantis movie, entitled Stargate: Extinction, was cancelled.[2][3]
Series overview
Stargate Atlantis follows the present-day adventures of
Stargate: Atlantis episodes feature a self-contained story that also contributes to the larger storyline of the war against the Wraith and the Atlantis residents' search for the means to destroy their enemy. Each season has also featured a two-part episode, and some episodes that, while not technically two-parters, feature direct continuity with the story of the previous episode (for example, season 3 "
Episodes
Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
First aired | Last aired | |||
1 | 20 | July 16, 2004 | March 25, 2005 | |
2 | 20 | July 15, 2005 | March 10, 2006 | |
3 | 20 | July 14, 2006 | June 22, 2007 | |
4 | 20 | September 28, 2007 | March 7, 2008 | |
5 | 20 | July 11, 2008 | January 9, 2009 |
Seasons 1–3
Season one began airing in the United States on July 16, 2004. The Atlantis expedition, led by
Season two began airing in the United States on July 15, 2005, and it picked up where Season 1 ended. The Atlantis expedition successfully avoids being culled by the Wraith by making them believe Atlantis had been destroyed, and they recover semi-regular contact with Earth, thanks to the starship Daedalus and power from a new Zero Point Module (ZPM) recovered by SG-1. Sheppard is promoted to Lt. Colonel and as Lt. Ford, who went
Season three premiered in the United States on July 14, 2006, picking up where season 2 ended. Having stopped the Wraith from reaching Earth and having failed to develop a working Wraith retrovirus, the expedition faces its third year in the Pegasus galaxy with the Wraith still a threat and a new, powerful enemy bent on destroying the expedition and Atlantis: the
Seasons 4–5
Season four premiered in the USA on September 28, 2007,[4] and in the UK on October 9, 2007. The writers stated that season 4 would take the series in a new direction. As the 4th season begins where season 3 ended, the future seems bleak: Weir is incapacitated and the senior members of the expedition have suffered multiple injuries. With the city damaged, running out of power and drifting in space, cut off from Earth, the Atlantis expedition raids Asuras to obtain a ZPM and is able to travel to a nearby planet. Weir is captured by the Asurans and Colonel Samantha Carter joins as a regular and acts as the expedition leader.[5] She appears in the episode "Lifeline" after helping to find and land Atlantis on its new home planet; she is then ordered back to the SGC. In episode 3, under the IOA's orders, Carter returns to Atlantis as the new leader of the expedition after Atlantis lands. The season focuses on the main antagonists: the Asurans and the Wraith, as well as the pregnancy of Teyla Emmagan. The Asuran base code is reprogrammed by McKay, leading the nanobots to fulfill the purpose for which the Ancients created them: to wipe out the Wraith. Midway through the season, they are seemingly destroyed, and the remaining episodes concentrate mainly on Michael's efforts against both humans and the other Wraith.
In the fifth season,
Cast
Character | Portrayed by | Seasons | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
| ||||||||
John Sheppard | Joe Flanigan | Main | ||||||||||
Elizabeth Weir | Torri Higginson | Main | Recurring | Guest[a] | ||||||||
Teyla Emmagan | Rachel Luttrell | Main | ||||||||||
Aiden Ford | Rainbow Sun Francks | Main | Recurring[b] | Guest | ||||||||
Rodney McKay | David Hewlett | Main | ||||||||||
Ronon Dex | Jason Momoa | Main[c] | ||||||||||
Carson Beckett | Paul McGillion | Recurring | Main[d] | Guest | Recurring | |||||||
Samantha Carter | Amanda Tapping | Guest | Main | Guest | ||||||||
Jennifer Keller | Jewel Staite | Guest | Recurring | Main | ||||||||
Richard Woolsey | Robert Picardo | Recurring | Guest | Main |
- Note
- ^ Played by Michelle Morgan, in "Ghost in the Machine".
- ^ Only credited as a regular in the first 3 episodes.
- ^ Appears as a guest in "Runner" of Season 2, before being promoted to a regular immediately after.
- ^ Credited as a guest in the first 3 episodes of Season 2, before being promoted to a regular thereafter.
- Joe Flanigan as John Sheppard: a United States Air Force Major recruited to the Atlantis Expedition due to his intuitive mastery over Ancient technology. He becomes the de facto commander of Atlantis' military contingent after the original mission commander, Colonel Marshall Sumner, is killed. His position is made official in season 2 after Atlantis re-establishes contact with Earth, and he is promoted to lieutenant colonel.
- Stargate Commandin Stargate SG-1. She is a main character in seasons 1-3; in the season 3 finale she is critically wounded by a Replicator attack. She is a recurring character in season 4, having been captured by the Replicators.
- Rachel Luttrell as Teyla Emmagan: the leader of the Athosians, a race of humans native to the Pegasus galaxy. She befriends Sheppard when he visits her homeworld and joins his team in order to fight the Wraith. She has the ability to sense the presence of the Wraith.
- US Marine Corps, who is a member of Sheppard's team in season 1. In season 2, he becomes mentally unstable due to an overdose of Wraith feeding enzyme and abandons Atlantis.
- David Hewlett as Rodney McKay: a brilliant scientist who is a member of Sheppard's team and the head of the Science and Research Departments on Atlantis. One of the foremost experts on Ancient technology, he was first introduced as a professional rival of Samantha Carter in the fifth season of Stargate SG-1.
- Jason Momoa as Ronon Dex (main seasons 2–5): A military specialist from the Planet Sateda. After his home was culled by the Wraith, he spent the next seven years running from the Wraith, who implanted a tracker on his spine and hunted him for sport. In the beginning of Season 2, he meets up with Sheppard and the team, who help him remove the tracker that the Wraith installed, and he becomes the fourth member and replacement for Lt. Ford on Sheppard's team.
- Sunday", he is killed in an explosion caused by Ancient technology. A cloneof him created by the rogue Wraith "Michael" appears as a recurring character in seasons 4 and 5.
- Amanda Tapping as Samantha "Sam" Carter (main season 4, guest seasons 1–3, recurring season 5): an astrophysicist and United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, who was a main character for the entire run of Stargate SG-1. In season 4, she is promoted to Colonel and given command of the Atlantis Expedition.
- Jewel Staite as Jennifer Keller (main season 5, recurring season 4, guest season 3): the Chief of Medicine on Atlantis, who replaces Dr. Beckett in the third-season finale. She is listed as a main character after Carson Beckett's death.
- Robert Picardo as Richard Woolsey (main season 5, recurring seasons 3–4): a representative of the International Oversight Advisory, who first appeared as an agent of the NID in season 7 of Stargate SG-1. In season 5, he replaces Samantha Carter as commander of Atlantis.
Guest starring: Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, Beau Bridges, Robert Davi, Kari Wuhrer, Danny Trejo, Mark Dacascos, Mitch Pileggi, Colm Meaney, Connor Trinneer and others.
Production
Development
When producers
Late in season seven of SG-1, talks began of a
The series received the green light on November 17, 2003, started shooting in February 2004, and premiered on July 16, 2004. From the start, Wright and Cooper ruled out casting "star names", on the basis of the financial pressures they were already experiencing with "star names" on Stargate SG-1. The casting was made more complicated because Atlantis got the go-ahead in November and had to compete with other networks during pilot season.[7] Disaster geophysicist Mika McKinnon acted as a science consultant for the series starting in 2008, and served as a consultant through Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe.[8]
Casting and cast changes
The character most difficult to cast was the then-called Dr. Ingram, an unexcitable scientist expert on the Stargate. As the first day of shooting drew nearer and they were unable to find the right actor, they came to realize they had brought in the wrong character. Longtime Stargate director Martin Wood and Brad Wright thought it should be Dr. Rodney McKay, who had already appeared in a guest role in three episodes of Stargate SG-1. Actor David Hewlett was contacted and arrived at the set the day after filming had started.[7] Dr. Ingram had already been written into the pilot episode of the show and so the same script was used and the character's name simply changed to McKay. Later scripts were written with Dr. McKay in mind.[9]
The creators found themselves with a problem with the character of Lt.
Filming and visual effects
Stargate Atlantis was shot at
Stargate Atlantis inherited
Music
Stargate Atlantis features a
Broadcast and release
International syndication
Stargate Atlantis started as a
Each season of Stargate Atlantis featured 20 episodes, and in the United States they are broadcast in two series of 10 episodes. The first 10 episodes air from mid-July to September in the United States, ending in the cliffhanger of a two-parter episode. The second half airs first in Canada, from November to January, ending also with a cliffhanger. In the United States, the second half aired from January to March during seasons 1 and 2, but season 3 aired from April to June 2007. Because of the offset, the show has often been bootlegged by American viewers.
Cancellation and future
After the announcement on August 20, 2008, that Season 5 of Atlantis would be its last,[33] it was announced the following day that the series would be continued with at least one 2-hour direct-to-DVD movie. The show's co-creator Brad Wright explained that the decision to cancel Stargate Atlantis when there was still a lot of interest in the show was to ensure the success of the movies.[38] More movies were expected to follow in the Atlantis series if the first movie was to be successful.[39] Executive producer Joseph Mallozzi has said that the rise of the Canadian dollar and the decline of the American dollar has made life harder for Canadian television since it has become more expensive. He further stated "Both MGM and Sci Fi have been great supporters of the show and, if you go by SG-1's example, fans can be assured that the end of the series will not be the end of Atlantis."[33]
Mallozzi called the Atlantis film Project Twilight,
The script for Stargate: Extinction had been written and was ready to go into production, according to Joseph Mallozzi, "it involved a return mission to Pegasus, the tragic end of one relationship, the beginning of another, and a surprising progression in the alliance between one man and one wraith."[47] The project was on hold due to financial troubles at MGM and in the wider economy, particularly the rise in value of the Canadian dollar.[38] In the meantime, an episode of Stargate Universe featuring Atlantis characters Rodney McKay and Richard Woolsey was filmed.[48]
At the Creation Stargate Convention in Vancouver on April 17, 2011, Stargate writer and executive producer Brad Wright confirmed to the audience that the proposed Stargate Atlantis movie has been indefinitely shelved.[49]
Speaking at a convention in Edmonton on 28 September 2013, Joe Flanigan stated that a few years prior, he had negotiated with the then boss of
Home media
The first and only DVD release of the series from
Most DVDs contain behind-the-scenes features, audio commentaries for nearly all episodes beginning with season 1, and production galleries. The box sets of the five seasons were released with slim packaging in all regions, beginning in the United States. A complete series box set for Stargate Atlantis was released on October 6, 2009 in North America,[59] and August 10, 2009 in the UK.[60] Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Series Blu-ray was released in North America in mid-2011.[61][62]
Stargate Atlantis Fan's Choice is a Special Edition Blu-ray, released on August 9, 2009, which contained two episodes voted for by fans.[63] The episodes chosen were the first, "Rising", and last, "Enemy at the Gate", episodes of the series. The cover artwork was also submitted by fans, with the eventual winner being William Johnson of New York City.[63]
Impact
Critical reception
Stargate Atlantis garnered mediocre media attention with mixed reviews. Michael Abernethy from
David Nusair from Reel Film Reviews reviewing "
Awards and nominations
The show has been nominated 62 times and won 19 awards, less than the
Merchandise
In total, there have been released 12
This is a list of The Stargate Atlantis audiobooks by Big Finish Productions, are each narrated by one of the main Stargate franchise characters and feature a second, guest-star voice along with music and sound effects. Kavan Smith (as Evan Lorne), David Nykl (as Radek Zelenka), Paul McGillion (as Carson Beckett) and Torri Higginson (as Elizabeth Weir) have lent their voices for one Stargate Atlantis audiobook each.[82]
In late 2005,
The official Stargate Magazine, produced by Titan Publishing, began publishing short stories written by Fandemonium authors in their 8th issue. The stories alternate between both SG-1 and Atlantis.[83]
In 2006, Avatar Press launched a series of comics based on Stargate Atlantis. Set in season 1, Wraithfall features story by Stewart Moore and art by Mauricio Melo. In this story, the Atlantis team meets the Karrans, a race that has made a bizarre deal with the Wraith.[84]
While
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External links
- Official Stargate site at MGM
- Stargate Atlantis at IMDb
- Stargate Atlantis episode guide at GateWorld