Stargate Atlantis, Season 1 will be out on DVD on November 15, 2005.  The pilot episode, Rising, has already been released on DVD.

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Stargate SG-1, Season 8 will be out on DVD on October 4, 2005.

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Battlestar Galactica, Season 1 will be out on DVD on September 20, 2005.  It will also include the miniseries pilot episode that was already out on DVD.

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Today is National Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis Season Continuance Day.  After teasing us with the first few episodes during the Fall, SciFi Channel finally continue showing the SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis episodes.  Finally.  Now I can stop therapy.

Beckett: [Looking at the lifesigns detector] These wee dots don't tell us much about whose who… How do we know which one's the Major?
Ford: He'll be the dot getting rid of all of the other dots.

Beckett:  What kind of plan is that?
Sheppard:  A Rodney McKay type of plan.  It's all we got.

Cmdr. Koyla: You said this would work.
McKay: I don't know if you noticed or not but I'm an extremely arrogant man who tends to think all of his plans will work. [Kolya punches him.]

SciFi Channel announced that both Stargate SG-1 (blog) and Stargate Atlantis (blog) will be back for new seasons.

This will make SG-1 tie for the longest running Sci-Fi series with The X-Files at 9 seasons.  I would have to bet SG-1's popularity will give it a good shot to go for the record with a 10th season.  They have the vehicle to break it, why not go for it.  The only question would be if the original crew, especially Jack O'Neill will hang around to see it through.

Both Stargate series have only aired less than half of their current season episodes.  It seems odd that SciFi would contract the Atlantis series this early before seeing if there is any staying power.  But with 4.2 million viewers, I'm betting that it can.

So welcome to the tie, SG-1, and welcome to the world, Atlantis.  Hope to be seeing you both around for a long time.

The crew of Puddle Jumper One has narrowly escaped the Wraith while on a recon mission to that hostile race's homeworld. The team had discovered that the Wraith hive was not simply within a tree-covered mountain; it was that mountain — and it has now evidently flown off into space. However, the Wraith left behind warriors who attacked them, as well as a scorpion-like parasite that has attached itself to the throat of Maj. John Sheppard — putting him in great pain as it tries to suck the life out of him. Also aboard the spacecraft are Lt. Aiden Ford, Sgt. Markham, Sgt. Stackhouse, Dr. Rodney McKay and Teyla.

As they approach the stargate orbiting the Ancients' planet, the Puddle Jumper's damaged engine pod fails to retract, and the ship gets jammed in the stargate aperture. Horrifyingly, the front half of the ship, containing Markham and Stackhouse, becomes stuck in the 'gate's event horizon, while the other half remains in space. McKay points out that, according to wormhole physics, they have 38 minutes before the 'gate automatically shuts down. The dematerialized fore of the vessel, along with those inside, will cease to exist, and the other half will be severed and sent floating in space with everyone inside exposed to the vacuum of space. The clock is ticking.

As the Athosians and the Atlantis team get acquainted with one another and their new home, Dr. Carson Beckett tests a new gene therapy on Dr. Rodney McKay. If successful, this therapy will manipulate McKay's DNA and give him the Ancient gene needed for Ancient Technology Activation (ATA). This would mean that all personnel would be able to use the Ancient technology that pervades Atlantis. McKay already has a little device he's itching to use.

That night, though frightened by stories that "ghosts of the ancestors" still live in Atlantis, two young Athosians, Jinto and Wex, sneak out of their quarters to play hide and seek inside a cargo hold. Later, Sheppard is awakened by Jinto's father, Halling: Jinto has vanished.

During the search for Jinto, Sheppard encounters an inexplicable entity. It seems to be attracted to energy sources and feeds off of them. Over Atlantis' communication system, Jinto is heard yelling for help. He guides Weir and company to a panel in what looks like a closet, on the wall of which is a lighted map of Atlantis. McKay points out the spot where the most recent energy surge was detected. Sheppard touches it and a panel slides opens leading McKay and Sheppard into the same room in which Jinto and Wex were playing. The "closet" seems to be an inter-city transportation device. They find both Jinto and one of the Ancients' research labs.

I wonder if Dr. McKay learns to keep his hands in his pockets with all that Ancient technology laying around?  After enhancing his ATA gene, the one that controls the Ancient Technology, he turns on a personal sheild, but he is unable to get it to turn off.

He jumps over railings and even gets shot and doesn't get hurt.  He also cannot eat or drink.  And for some reason he has a problem with that.  Although I do think he could go to lose a few pounds.

The shield generator comes in handy when a black shadowy entity gets loose on in the city, and in order to get rid of it, they draw it to the gate.  When a generator being used as bait does't make it through the gate, the Dr. uses the shield to throw it the rest of the way through.   The entity then follows on the way to barren planet M4X-337.

At the Ancient Outpost in Antartica, Daniel tells O'Neill that the Ancients flew their entire city to a dwarf galaxy called Pegasus. In order for an expedition to gate that far, they need to boost the stargate with the Earth's sole ZPM (zero-point module), an Ancient energy source that currently is powering the outpost's defenses and is vital to Earth's defense against an alien attack. The 'gating might totally drain the ZPM.

And even if it doesn't, there won't be enough power for the Atlantis team to 'gate back.

O'Neill says no, but Daniel convinces him that by visiting the Ancients' city they might be able to find more ZPMs — and who knows what else — to protect Earth. The expedition's a go, though O'Neill insists Daniel is too valuable here on Earth to join them. Weir is placed in charge, with Colonel Marshall Sumner as her military commander. After some reluctance, Sheppard — who, it has been discovered, has the most potent variable of the Ancient gene — joins the offworld expedition along with McKay, Beckett, a military compliment and a full crew of the best and the brightest, representing more than a dozen countries.

Picking up where the SG-1  8th season premiere left off, Dr. Elizabeth Weir is in command of the base left by the Ancients in the Antarctic.  During a visit by General Jack O'Neill, O'Neill's pilot, Maj. John Sheppard is found to have a special gene needed to operate the technology the Ancients left behind.  Reluctantly, this military man who plays by his own set of rules (sound familiar?) is added to Weir's team just as O'Neill's SG-1 teammate, Daniel Jackson discovers co-ordinates that will allow the Stargate to connect with a gate in the legendary lost city of Atlantis.  Weir immediately puts together an international team to make a trip through the gate that will take them farther than anyone has ever gone.

One hitch: there's only enough power to make this a one-way trip.  What follows is pretty standard stuff for Stargate fans but still entertaining as our heroes find new allies and new villains as they try to explore their new neighborhood in the Pegasus Galaxy.  Upon arriving in Atlantis, the script introduces a fully stocked base complete with fighter craft, living quarters and just about anything else you could hope for, probably even a Starbucks.  But it seems that the sunken city (the city was put underwater to protect it from an all-out Wraith attack because, presumably, a race that can travel the galaxy can't get to you if you're underwater) has a slight power problem of its own.  The protective shield keeping the water from flooding the city is about to give way, leaving the team anything but high & dry.  So it's back through the Gate again, this time to find a planet to evacuate to or a way to save the city.

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Major Sheppard, being the grand brain that he is, looks over a cryptic message from the Ancients.  He determines that it is a feindish plan by that ace evil genius, Wile E. Coyote.  If you look very closely at the bottom you can see the Roadrunner fixing to be squished by the giant banana.  After careful consideration, John figures out that it's a storyboard depicting the Ancients depositing colonies on other planets.

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Back to seriousness, the Wraith Overseer starts to ingest Doggett, but no one minds.  Ok, well, it's not Doggett.  But the actor played a character named Doggett on the X-Files, replacing Mulder, and NO ONE liked him.  So seeing him eaten is a welcome sight by a lot of SciFi fans.

 

 

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Ok, after this episode, I'm sure that Stargate Atlantis is going to be as big as hit as the Stargate SG-1 series. While I still have reservations about Dr. Weir, the rest of the cast is great, especially John Sheppard and Rodney McKay.

This is going to be a great series!

Sheppard: You want to name a little puddlejumper like this "Gateship One"?
Ford: Yeah, it's a ship that goes through the gate.
Sheppard: Ok, it's official. You never get to name anything. Ever.

Wraith: Unlike you, we don't need our food to agree with us. (Wraith eat other sentient beings, harvesting them like cattle.)

Beckett: I need to make friends like that. (Talking about Teyla)
McKay: You need to get out more.
Beckett: I'm in another galaxy, how much more out can you get?

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