Stargate Atlantis

Stargate Atlantis
Genre	Action-Adventure Science fiction[1]
Created by	Brad Wright Robert C. Cooper
Based on	Stargate by Roland Emmerich Dean Devlin
Starring	Joe Flanigan Torri Higginson Rachel Luttrell Rainbow Sun Francks David Hewlett Jason Momoa Paul McGillion Amanda Tapping Jewel Staite Robert Picardo
Theme music composer	Joel Goldsmith
Country of origin	Canada United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	100 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Brad Wright Robert C. Cooper Joseph Mallozzi Paul Mullie Martin Gero Carl Binder
Running time	43 minutes
Production companies	Acme Shark Productions MGM Worldwide Television Distribution Sony Pictures Television (2005–2006) (season 2)
Original release
Network	Syfy
Release	July 16, 2004 (2004-07-16) – January 9, 2009 (2009-01-09)
Related
Stargate Stargate SG-1 Stargate Universe Stargate Origins

Stargate Atlantis (usually stylized in all caps and often abbreviated SGA) is an adventure and military science fiction television series and part of MGM's Stargate franchise. The show was created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper as a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1, which was created by Wright and Jonathan Glassner and was itself based on the feature film Stargate (1994). All five seasons of Stargate Atlantis were broadcast by the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States and The Movie Network in Canada. The show premiered on July 16, 2004; its final episode aired on January 9, 2009. The series was filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The story of Stargate Atlantis follows the events of Stargate SG-1's seventh season finale episode "Lost City" and eighth season premiere episode "New Order", in which the cast of that series discovered an Antarctic outpost created by the alien race known as the Ancients. In the pilot episode "Rising", Dr. Daniel Jackson discovers the location of Atlantis, 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[edit]

Stargate Atlantis follows the present-day adventures of Major John Sheppard and his military team from Earth that, along with two dozen other teams, explore distant planets in the Pegasus Galaxy. They use an alien device known as a Stargate that was built millions of years ago by an advanced race of people known as the Ancients. The expedition is based in the Lost City of Atlantis on the planet "Lantea". The city was abandoned 10,000 years ago by the Ancients, who were forced to flee after losing a long war to a powerful enemy known as the Wraith. They were forced to submerge their city beneath Lantea's ocean, which, in the Stargate universe, is the source of the Greek myth of the Lost City of Atlantis.

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 "Progeny" and "The Real World"). Each episode begins with a cold open, sometimes preceded by a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative. The opening credits feature an original theme by Joel Goldsmith. Though they were cut at the start of season 2, the full credits were recovered after the mid-season two-parter. They were again cut short in the 5th season.

Episodes[edit]

Seasons 1–3[edit]

Season one began airing in the United States on July 16, 2004. The Atlantis expedition, led by Dr. Elizabeth Weir, arrives at Atlantis, the city of the Ancients. The expedition quickly finds itself in a dire situation that forces them to seek new friends, the Athosians, but they also acquire a powerful new enemy: the Wraith. Due to the power requirements for reaching Lantea, they are unable to contact Earth. The expedition must survive in a new galaxy, while deciphering the Ancients' technology in order to find a way to destroy the Wraith and to acquire important new knowledge. Major Sheppard puts together a team consisting of himself, Dr. Rodney McKay, Lt. Ford and the Athosian leader Teyla Emmagan, who serve as Atlantis' first contact team. In one of their first missions, they make another enemy, the Genii, a human militaristic civilization with a 1950s level of technology. After several more revelations about the Wraith are made, the expedition prepares to evacuate. Just before they do, a military contingent from Earth arrives to help defend the city against the impending Wraith attack long enough for Earth's latest battleship to arrive. The season ends with a cliffhanger, while the city is still under siege by the Wraith.

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 missing in action (MIA) at the end of the battle with the Wraith, is replaced by Ronon Dex a human freed from the Wraith. The central plot of the second season is the development of Dr. Beckett's retrovirus, which can, theoretically, turn a Wraith into a human. While an incomplete version makes a young Wraith girl lose all her humanity and almost turns Sheppard into an Iratus bug, a more developed version is tested on a living Wraith, "Michael", with mixed results. Michael's Wraith faction proposes an alliance with Atlantis, but they betray the team. The season closes again with a cliffhanger—the Wraith are heading for the rich feeding grounds of Earth.

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 Asurans, self-replicating nanobots, also known as Replicators. The situation becomes complicated when an experiment gone awry drains their only ZPM, leaving them without a power source for the city's shields. Soon thereafter, they find a lost Ancient vessel and unwillingly turn over the city of Atlantis to its crew. The SGC sends General O'Neill and Richard Woolsey to try to negotiate an agreement between Earth and the Ancients to allow the expedition to return to Atlantis. The Ancients are then subsequently killed by an invading Asuran force while O'Neill and Woolsey send off a distress call to Earth and go into hiding. The main members of the Atlantis expedition on Earth disobey their orders and go back to the city, rescue O'Neill and Woolsey, and repel the Asuran invasion. The season finale begins with Earth launching a first strike against the Asurans, who are building an armada to attack Earth. The Asurans counterattack by attacking Atlantis with a powerful beam weapon fired through a satellite housing a Stargate. As a last resort, the Atlantis team fires up the city's stardrive and escapes into space. The finale ends when the hyperdrive malfunctions, leaving the city flying through uncharted space with a day's worth of energy left in their sole ZPM and Dr. Weir critically injured.

Seasons 4–5[edit]

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, Richard Woolsey replaces Carter as the leader of the expedition. Teyla, who was held captive by Michael, gives birth to Torren John and escapes with her team, before they are able to cripple Michael. Eventually, he invades Atlantis with a commandeered Puddle Jumper to take Torren and destroy Atlantis but, thanks to the efforts of Sheppard, Teyla, and McKay, Michael is finally killed. The season also introduces a group of rogue Asgard, who unlike their Ida counterparts, actually experiment on humans to prolong their lives, and steal a device known as "The Attero device" to destroy the Wraith, though the side effect is that any Stargate activated after the device has been turned on will explode. The device is eventually destroyed. With the Attero device, Michael and the Hoffan drug, the Wraith have become weakened, and are no longer the power of the galaxy they once were; this gives the humans of the Pegasus galaxy freedom enough to establish a coalition. McKay falls in love with Keller, who eventually reciprocates his feelings, and they become romantically involved. In the season finale (also the series finale), "Enemy at the Gate", Todd the Wraith alerts Atlantis to the fact that an underling wraith possesses a Hive Ship powered by a ZPM. In the process of trying to retrieve the ZPM and disable the Hive, the Daedalus is crippled, and the hive suddenly jumps away without destroying the Daedalus. The Atlantis team discovers the reason for this was a communication sent from an alternate reality giving away Earth's location. The Hive disables both the battleships Sun Tzu and the Apollo en route to Earth. With a full set of ZPMs turned over by Todd, the expedition takes the city itself to defend Earth. The Hive ship is then destroyed in the subsequent battle and Atlantis lands in the Pacific Ocean near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Cast[edit]

Note

• 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.
• Torri Higginson as Elizabeth Weir (main seasons 1–3, recurring season 4): a diplomat and expert in international politics, who leads the initial Atlantis Expedition after briefly serving as the head of Stargate Command in 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.
• Rainbow Sun Francks as Aiden Ford (main season 1, recurring season 2, guest season 5): a young first lieutenant in the 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.
• Paul McGillion as Carson Beckett (main seasons 2–3, recurring seasons 1, 4–5): the Chief of Medicine of Atlantis in seasons 1-3. In the season 3 episode "Sunday", he is killed in an explosion caused by Ancient technology. A clone of 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[edit]

Development[edit]

When producers Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper thought the original Stargate SG-1 series was going to be cancelled after season five, due to Showtime's announcement that they were canceling the show, they came up with the idea of making a new feature film. However, as the ratings on its new home at the Sci Fi Channel were quite good, the idea was pushed to season six and then to season seven. Wright had initially intended to set the new show in Antarctica under the ice. It would have replaced Stargate Command (SGC) as Earth's conduit to other worlds.^[6]

Late in season seven of SG-1, talks began of a spin-off series and the producers were left with a serious dilemma, since the seventh season of Stargate SG-1 had been planned to lead up to the great discovery of the lost city of the Ancients, Atlantis. The Stargate SG-1 seventh season ended in a two-part episode, "Lost City", which was supposed to be a bridge between Stargate SG-1 and the new spin-off, either a show or a movie, and was not planned to run at the same time as Stargate SG-1. Wright and Cooper rewrote the script as the two-part season seven finale and moved the setting of the story. The city of Atlantis, originally planned to be on Earth under Antarctica in place of the SGC, was moved to the Pegasus Galaxy. This change not only addressed the problem of fans wondering why the SGC would not be coming to the aid of the Atlantis Expedition with each episode, but it also gave the producers a chance to start afresh with new ideas instead of having an identical copy of the original show.^[7]

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[edit]

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. Aiden Ford (Rainbow Sun Francks) in season two, a first season regular that the producers, and the actor himself, felt had not worked as intended and was highly underused as a result. Unwilling to write him out, the writers came up with an idea to make the character more important, but that downgraded him to recurring.^[10] To replace him, they created Ronon Dex as a sidekick for Lt. Col. CategoriesMovies/TV Shows