StarGate: Atlantis

Spinning Off. Far, Far Off

When a television show spins off from a predecessor show, sometimes they stay in the same home town, and sometimes they move to another state to get away from the accumulated backstory and begin telling their own tale.

Stargate: Atlantis takes the move option to a whole new level. This spinoff of Stargate: SG-1 moves to another galaxy.

The Stargate Technology

A quick recap of the franchise premise. There is a series of stargates scattered throughout the galaxy. These are a means to travel to another planet without a spaceship, by opening a wormhole that connects to a distant gate. You just have to dial the right address. These portals were built by a now-departed race known as the Ancients.

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate Command, which has been using the earth-based stargate to explore the galaxy and fight the evil parasitic Goa'uld, finds the address to the lost city of the Ancients. This city, the basis of the Atlantis myths, isn't in our galaxy at all, but in the nearby Pegasus Galaxy.

Mission: Exile

The decision is made to send an exploration team through the Stargate to explore Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy.

There's a catch, though. (Isn't there always?) Opening a wormhole to another galaxy is such an energy drain that earth can only do it once, and the team that travels through will only be able to return if they can find a specific Ancient power source.

But a team is assembled, much larger than the usual small SG teams, part civilian, part military, and multi-national. Everyone knows they might well spend the rest of their lives in a distant galaxy.

Cast

Leading the Atlantis team is civilian diplomat Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higgins). After some casualties incurred in the pilot episode, the leader of the military contingent is Major John Sheppard (Joe Flanigan). Obnoxious, cowardly, and yet curiously lovable Canadian genius Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) is chief scientist. Scottish Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion) serves as the chief medical officer.

Storyline

Once through the wormhole to Atlantis, the crew finds a city sunk beneath the water. Fortunately, before the force fields can fail, the city rises to the surface of the water. There is also a hangar-bay filled with little cylindrical craft designed to fit through a gate; they are given the name puddle-jumpers.

In their new galaxy, the team makes new friends. First in the new friends category are the Athosians, a rather primitive race of humans, led by Teyla Emmagen (Rachel Luttrell). The Athosians relocate to the Atlantis homeworld and Teyla becomes a member of Sheppard's exploration team.

Why would a race of primitives leave their homes for a whole new world? Because of the Wraith.

The Wraith

The Wraith are the fly in the ointment, the resident baddies of the Pegasus galaxy. How bad are they? They eat humans, that's how bad. Well, to be technical, they just suck the lifeforce out of them. And how powerful are they? They destroyed the Ancients, that's how powerful.

The Wraith are the reason the human races spread throughout the Pegasus Galaxy remain at such a low level of technological advancement. Just when a race begins to develop, along come the huge Wraith hive ships to cull the herd.

And the Atlantis exploration team, in their innocent blundering exploring in the pilot, woke up the Wraith hive ships. And so the stage is set for the great conflict...

Show History

Stargate: Atlantis premiered in 2004 on the Sci-Fri channel, and currently airs on Friday nights.