Product Description

When a secret base, abandoned by the original builders of the Stargates, is found buried in the ice of Antartica, the newly formed Stargate Atlantis team is born. The team's discovery leads to a daring expeditiion to the distant Pegasus galaxy, where they encounter a primitive human civilization and a sinister new enemy that threatens human life everywhere. The Stargate Atlantis mission is headed by Dr. Elizabeth Weir, a specialist in diplomatic relations. Her political savvy is balanced by the bravado of her military counterpart, Major John Sheppard, a courageous pilot. Rounding out the crew are Lt. Aiden Ford, Sheppard's second-in-command, Dr. Rodney McKay, a clever and quick-witted astrophysicist and Teyla, a beautiful young leader among the primitive alien civilization that the Atlantis team encounters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1514 in DVD
• Brand: TCFHE
• Released on: 2005-11-15
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Czech, English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Dubbed in: Portuguese, Spanish
• Number of discs: 5
• Dimensions: .75 pounds
• Running time: 873 minutes

Amazon.com
It's not a franchise on the order of Law & Order, CSI, or Star Trek--not yet, anyway--but with Stargate Atlantis, a more than worthy successor to SG-1, Stargate is becoming a nice little cottage industry in itself. The premise, in a nutshell: The Ancients, the greatest race the universe has ever known (or something like that), abandoned Earth millions of years ago, taking Atlantis with them; they then sunk the entire city in order to escape the clutches of the dreaded Wraith, an implacable bunch of villains who nourish themselves by sucking the life from humans. Now, as the two-hour "Rising" pilot details, a new team has gained access to the legendary city. Once they arrive, Atlantis loses the power to sustain its protective shield and rises to the surface, and thus begin the team's adventures (i.e., using the stargate to travel to other planets in the Pegasus galaxy, encountering aliens both hostile and friendly, and trying to defeat the Wraith, or at least stay out of their way).

Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), SG-1's driving force, is missed, but Atlantis has a strong replacement in Major John Sheppard (Joe Flanigan), easily the most charismatic member of the new team. Like O'Neill, Sheppard is a wiseacre and a loose cannon, as well as a superb pilot with an innate understanding of the Ancients' arcane technology. His humor, humanity and conscience provide a welcome contrast to the other characters, especially brilliant-but-neurotic Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) and ultra-serious project leader Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson), who has little to do but give orders and stand up for her people. The Wraith, who resemble a vampire mutation of the albino blues guitarist Johnny Winter, are the focus of most of these 19 episodes (including the pilot). These bad boys will stop at nothing--nothing, I tell you!--in their quest to snack their way through every galaxy in the universe, with Earth their ultimate feeding ground. And while the final four episodes, dealing with the Wraith's massive attack on Atlantis, end with an unsatisfying cliffhanger (basically, nothing is resolved), earlier shows effectively keep their ominous presence in the forefront. The episodes in which the Wraith play little or no active role are often compelling as well, including "Thirty Eight Minutes" (one of our heroes' "puddle jumper" spacecraft gets stuck in the stargate), "Childhood's End" (we meet a race whose members are convinced that only ritual suicide is keeping the Wraith at bay), and "The Eye" (a planet-size hurricane/tsunami bears down on Atlantis). As is the case with SG-1, the visual effects work, especially by TV standards, is excellent; in fact, one might wish for bit more cool sci-fi action and less talk in some of the episodes. Special effects include commentary (by directors, writers, and/or actors) for every episode, as well as the occasional behind-the-scenes featurette. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Stargate Atlantis not being Sg-1 is a good thing really
Yes this show isn't SG-1 and sadly some people can't seem to get pass that. The show is different enough from Sg-1 that it can hold its own and not be considered a rip-off or a clone yet retain the same Stargate feel that SG-1 has. This show is actually what rekindled my interest in the Stargate franchise, you've got characters that actually aren't perfect, that make mistakes and are easy to relate to. There mostly ordinary people in an extraordinary situation where they slowly come togethor and become a family of sorts. The strength of this show is the character development, which actually is even more noticeable in the second season but the first season does a pretty good job. Probably the best episodes story wise are Before I Sleep and Letter from Pegasus which are perhaps the best clip show episodes ive seen in the Stargate franchise.
If you can accept that this show isn't actually SG-1 and really we don't need two Sg-1's bcse we already have one, try this show out, you might enjoy it. The show has fun,attractive and real characters that actually grow and change and there is reasonable continuity theoughout the season which is important to you if you don't like shows that you leave you guessing for a long time.

Extremely Entertaining
If you enjoy the Stargate SG-1 series, you will enjoy this spin-off. Being a big fan myself, my biggest concern was that I wouldn't buy into this new look-alike cutting into the original stargate series--I was wrong. It is almost completely detatched from the original show, has an all new bigger and badder evil race to battle and has more civilian control, which gives the characters' problem-solving strategies a new perspective. Plus, they're in another galaxy, and the worlds are completely different!

If you've never seen Stargate before, I suggest you check it out...this show takes off at the end of season 7 on the original series. Watching SG-1 isn't completely necessary in order to follow this show, but it would help a lot.

One thing I about the show that isn't so great is that it seems the producers have gotten a little cheaper on the special effects--the CG is pretty obvious and they use a lot of it. However, being a TV show, I wouldn't really expect special effects on the same magnitude of major motion pictures.

Also, there's the Atlantis movie floating around...if you're buying the season 1 box set, you don't need to buy the movie. The movie is just the pilot episode, and it's included in the set, so save your money.

Overall? Go for it--it's worth checking out at least once!

It's all about the special features
By now I'll assume that you've read the description and know what the show is about. Not only do you get all 20 Season One episodes, you get wonderful commentary and other special features that make this DVD set a "must have" for Stargate Atlantis fans. So let me tell you about the special features.

Season One - Volume 1, Disks 1:
Audio commentary for "Rising Parts 1 and 2" by Director Martin Wood and Actor Joe Flanigan. (Excellent commentary, lots of trivia and explanations of why they did things the way they did. Includes good background on character development)
Audio commentary for "Hide and Seek" with Rachel Lutrell and Paul McGillion
Stargate Set Tour with Martin Wood and Peter Deluise (short but fun and funny)
Photo Gallery

Season One - Volume 1, Disks 2:
Audio commentary for "Childhood's End" by writer Martin Gero and actors Rachel Lutrell and Rainbow Sun Franks
Diary of Rainbow Sun Franks (includes great 'thanks' to his fans)
Photo Gallery

Season One - Volume 2, disk 1:
Audio commentary for "The Storm" and "The Eye" with director Martin Wood, writer Martin Gero, and actor David Hewlitt
Audio commentary for "The Defiant One" with director Peter DeLuise and stunt coordinator Dan Shea
Mission Directive - The Storm/The Eye (this gives you a behind the scenes look of the episodes being filmed - short but interesting)
Wraithal Discrimination: It's not easy being green (just as funny as it sounds)
Photo Gallery

Season One - Volume 2, disk 2:
Audio commentary for "Hot Zone" with writer Martin Gero and actors Rachel Lutrell, Rainbow Sun Franks, and Paul McGillion
Audio commentary for "Sanctuary" with Rachel Lutrell and Tori Higginson
Audio commentary for "The Brotherhood" with director Martin Wood, writer Martin Gero and David Hewlitt
Mission Directive - Sanctuary
Mission Directive - Before I Sleep
Photo Gallery

Season One - Volume 3, disk 1:
Audio commentary for "The Gift" by Director Peter DeLuise and SG1 actor Gary Jones
Audio commentary for "The Siege - Part 1" and "The Siege Part 2" with director Martin Wood, writer Martin Gero, Joe Flanigan and David Hewlitt (commentary for part 2 is especially good)
A look back at Season One with Martin Gero (not really a look back - the cast pretends they don't know who he is)
Photo Gallery

The commentaries and other features were absolutely delightful and almost as fun to watch as the episodes themselves.