My first article for Blogcritics was a piece about the Sci-Fi Channel’s wildly successful series, Stargate SG-1. The series ran for an historic ten years and even now continues in the form of direct-to-DVD films, the first of which will be out in the early part of 2008. SG1 is still one of my favorite shows; it had excellent writers, a fun and flexible story outline, and absolutely the best special effects seen on a weekly basis.

It seems only right to cover its spin-off series, Stargate Atlantis, which is in its fourth season now and has been picked up for a fifth - it’s halfway to SG1’s ten year run. Atlantis shares some of the same crew and cast from SG1, so the production is very similar. This gave the fledgling show an excellent start. Atlantis also has other good actors that have been superb additions to the saga. And the special effects remain fabulous week after week.

So what’s the premise of Stargate Atlantis? Well, on Earth, the city was lost to legend; but, at the end of SG1's seventh season, Atlantis was found. It’s a seafaring starship in another galaxy, built by the Ancients, the same alien race that built the Stargates in our galaxy. They also built them in the Pegasus galaxy and seeded it with humans millennia ago. Atlantis is known as the city of the ancestors by these humans. Once the SG1 team found the city, an expedition was quickly organized to explore it. It’s led by Dr. Elizabeth Weir. Other key members are Major John Sheppard; Dr. Rodney McKay, an expert on Ancient technology; and Dr. Carson Beckett, their medical guru. Beckett and Sheppard both have a specific gene which allows them to operate Ancient technology. Their inclusion on the team is important, along with any others who have this same gene.

That’s where the first season began. The team arrives on Atlantis and finds it submerged beneath the ocean on this alien planet. The waters are being held back by a shield. Right away, the Atlantis team proves they have the same penchant for getting into trouble as their SG1 counterparts: the team’s arrival has turned on many dormant systems and has drained the city’s power drastically. The city is powered by Zero Point Modules (ZPMs – a fancy sci-fi way of saying batteries) and only one of the three is operating and it’s now dangerously low. The shield won’t be able to hold for long.

Thus, Atlantis must rise to the surface. Once on the surface, they discover inhabitants of the planet. The world is called Athos and its people are kind. Through them, Sheppard discovers the existence of an alien race in the Pegasus galaxy - the bane of the Ancients, a race called the Wraith. They are scary beings who literally suck the life force out of humans, their main food source. They periodically cull the various civilizations in Pegasus. After they have sated themselves on humans, they hibernate for centuries while populations grow. Par for the course, Sheppard and his team prematurely awaken the Wraith. Now they must contend with an enemy that nearly destroyed the Ancients and also with the anger of many humans in the galaxy. Telling people they woke the Wraith doesn’t always help trade relations, you know.