By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriros and Zombie Blues
With Stargate SG1 a runaway success, it was only a matter of time before a spin off series was released. This came in the form of Stargate Atlantis which grew organically from the show’s own mythos.
The pilot starts off at the Ancient outpost in the Antarctica where the final battle against Anubis took place. Doctor Elizabeth Weir has been recruiting for this mission for months and Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) are there to help see them off. Jack is flown in by pilot John Sheppard who just discovers the secrets of the existence of the Stargate project. Wandering around the base he meets the rest of his fellow travellers. The comedic duo of the series, Stargate’s guest star super complainer, genius and ever grumpy, Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) and Doctor Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion) are arguing because Carson has an Ancient gene that can control the great weapon hidden at the Antarctic and any Ancient tech. But he struggles to do it while Sheppard discovers it works naturally for him bringing him to Weir’s attention.
Thanks to Jack’s persuasion, Sheppard goes along. You can see the chemistry between this new team is right there from the start. It flows perfectly giving the audience the desire to go along with these people to what may be a one way ticket. Daniel is desperate to go but Jack refuses to let him go because he discovered that the gate can open up to eight symbols. This means that he believes that flying city of Atlantis lies at the other end but so far away that the expedition need to find ZMPs (a kind of crystalline super battery) at the other end. Unless the Atlantis crew find them then they cannot contact Earth or go home.
Torri Higginson is the perfect leader who got the job against military advice. She is joined by Robert Patrick as Colonel Sumner as they make the trip to a dark city. But once there danger is never far. Add in Aiden Ford as Sheppard’s new buddy played by Rainbow Sun Francks and our team are good to go.
With a brand new unexplored galaxy comes a brand new enemy and this one is more terrifying then the Goa’uld.
They find the city under the ocean and the shield keeping them safe is starting to fail because the city is reacting to their presence. Sheppard leads a small team to find a safe haven in case Rodney fails. But all he finds is a settlement of humans haunted by the shadow of the Wraith. Children are taught to not live in fear, they play games dressed as Wraith and new ally and final member of the new team, Teyla (Rachel Lutrell) shows Sheppard hieroglyphs that detail the story.
There is always a number of Wraith in existence Teyla tells Sheppard. She tells him that the Wraith defeated the Ancients centuries ago and again in Before I Sleep, we see this first-hand as the Ancients submerge Atlantis as they are powerless against the sheer millions of Wraith that want Atlantis for themselves. But they hibernate, allowing humans to breed over generations. Once a few centuries have passed the Wraith rise from hibernation and begin culling the human herds. They can make you see things that are not there making you fire your weapons betraying their victim’s location. They are hunters and when the village is attacked by two dart ships coming through the Stargate, Sheppard learns the ships can teleport their victims aboard keeping them in energy form until being reconstituted in the feeding cells. They also make you think you are seeing things and those effects of things running through the dark forest are effective.
Several people are taken including Sumner and Teyla. But any rescue is thwarted when when the city’s shields collapse but instead of drowning there is a power surge and Atlantis rises to the surface.
The real significance of this will not become clear to any of them until the episode Before I Sleep when they find a second Weir who watched them all die when the shields fell.
Weir and Sheppard argue over the rescue but Sheppard gets his way and takes a team to rescue the others. The village second in command is played by Christopher Heyerdahl who would later play recurring Wraith ally when it suits him Todd.
The spooky set up for the Wraiths pays off in spades when we discover three different kinds. There are the burly masked guards that are the foot soldiers. They follow the orders of a Wraith supervisor and the final one is the Queen, a serpentine like vampire creature. Sumner learns that these Wraith are the guardians for all the others who are in hibernation protecting them until there are sufficient humans for the awakening. Even their furniture seems gothic, and to his horror, she uses her mind manipulation to make Sumner give her the name of Earth. The wraith are beautifully designed and a stark difference from the Goa’uld. The body movements of the Queen are snake like but so like those of a classic vampire.
But the true nature of the Wraith is revealed to Sumner. As the Queen gloats, they don’t need their food to agree with them. She slams her hand, palm open onto his chest and begins to drain the life force right of Sumner aging him to death. But Sheppard puts a bullet in him to give him some form of dignity in death. The team set off explosives which cause the hibernation to start long before it was due to. Like a vampire, Sheppard stakes the Queen before they rescue the others.
If you ever wanted a formidable enemy then it’s the Wraith. As if they weren’t scary enough, our heroes have no backup from Earth. And will this cause them adversity from the humans that live here because they are now on the menu. Carson does an autopsy on what is left of one of them and his results show Wraith tissue is in a state of constant regeneration making them very old and very hard to kill.
There we have it. A powerful first episode that sets up our stay for the next five years in the Pegasus Galaxy. We have a new team that gel from the get go. We have the thread that they have no way home. We have an alien threat that may well be the source of vampires from our legends. All they have is what they brought from Earth, the secrets of Atlantis and their own bravery and their new friends in the form of Teyla and her villagers who are offered refuge aboard Atlantis.
The design of Atlantis is beautiful and realised to house great set pieces which would come to the fore later in the series. The sequence of it rising from the bottom of the ocean is thrilling and that matte shot of it sitting in the ocean with the wake echoing out across the ocean is done with great care. And that’s what I love about this two-part opener; the writers, designers, producers and all care about this product and making it top notch viewing as it all comes together.
This is a show that has been well thought out and put together in a thrilling rmultilayered ride that we don’t fully realise until later episodes.
Enjoy these episodes because by season three we start the down ward spiral because of poor writing decisions and behind the scenes contract issues. But as it stands The Rising is one of the best episodes of the Stargate franchise which still holds up today.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 