The Stargate Atlantis season 3 DVD set is out this week, and it continues a tradition of increasingly strong Stargate franchise sets.

Full-season DVD releases have come to be expected, especially in the sci-fi / fantasy genre, and any DVD set that just included the episodes and a few outtakes is going to be taken by fans as a sign that the producers don't care about impressing them. The first test is whether there are a decent number of presents under the tree, and the Atlantis DVD sets started out solidly with a season 1 full of audio commentary on many episode, plus several different kinds of featurettes on various aspects of the show. Season 2 had fewer featurettes, but upped the commentary to coverage all of the episodes. I love commentary tracks, so this is a good way to sell me; I'm always disappointed by the sets for shows that only do one or two commentary tracks per season (Smallville leaps to mind).

The season 3 set rolls back the commentary tracks from "all" to "most" (there are only a couple uncommentaried episodes), but there are a few more featurettes this time. Of course, quantity must be matched by quality, and so the second test is whether these goodies actually tell us something new or interesting. Backstage featurettes have the potential to be colossally boring, especially they consist of talking heads going into the details of their craft. The goodies on the season 3 set generally stay interesting and informative, and there's collectively there's that much-wanted sense of insight in to the show's development that we fans look for.

Two staples returning this season deserve mention: The meaty "Mission Directive" featurettes, which allow an episode's director to explore what he wanted to accomplish on that shoot and how he went about doing it; and Martin Gero's looking back at each season, charting the overall shape the season took and how much the show changed.

I was naturally interested in the commentary track on "Sunday," which was by writer Martin Gero and director William Waring. I'd read interviews with Gero talking about how he'd pitched this day-off story long before it was set to include Carson Beckett's death. But listening to him talking about his relationship with the characters and how the story developed as the show played out was interesting as always, especially when he talked with wry bemusement about his episodes – including "Sunday," as well as other antiformula efforts like "Grace Under Pressure" (the one where McKay is trapped underwater and hallucinates Samantha Carter) – tend to top both the fans' most-liked and least-liked lists. Because of Carson's death I was irked when he and Waring started out the commentary saying "Sunday" was their favorite episode of the season, but by the end, I could at least see what they meant.

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• Video clips from season 3:
  
  
  
  • Echoes ( ASX | RM | WMV)
  • Inside Stargate ( ASX | RM | WMV)
  • Irresponsible ( ASX | RM | WMV)
  • Sunday ( ASX | RM | WMV)