Cast, Creators, and Features
Cast:
- Ben Browder as Colonel Cameron Mitchell
- Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson
- Amanda Tapping as Colonel Samantha Carter
- Christopher Judge as Teal'c
- Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran/Qetesh
- Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill
- Beau Bridges as Major General Hank Landry
- Cliff Simon as Ba'al
- Don S. Davis as George Hammond
- Jacqueline Samuda as Nirrti
- William Devane as Henry Hayes
- Peter Williams as Apophis
- Vince Crestejo as Yu
- Ron Halder as Cronus
- Jay Williams as Ra
- Steve Bacic as Camulus
- Colin Cunningham as Major Paul Davis
- Gary Jones as Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman
- Dan Shea as Senior Master Sergeant Siler
Creators:
- Directed by Martin Wood
- Written by Brad Wright
- Cinematographer: Peter F. Woeste
- Production Designer: James Robbins
- Art Director: Chris Beach
DVD Features:
- Region 1 Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - English
- Subtitles - English, French, Spanish - Optional
- Audio Commentary - "Commentary with Executive Producer/Writer Brad Wright and Director Martin Wood"
- "The Making of Stargate Continuum"
- "Stargate Goes to The Arctic"
- "Layman's Guide to Time Travel"
Plot Summary
The SG-1 reassembles on the Tok'ra world to witness the extraction of the last Goa'uld system lord from its host: the only remaining clone of Ba'al (Cliff Simon). As they do so, first Vala (Claudia Black) and Teal'c (Christopher Judge) vanish. The team confronts Ba'al, and in the ensuring fight General O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) is killed. Ba'al reveals that he has laid a trap, one that would undo all that the Stargate Command has ever done.
Barely making it back to the stargate as the Tok'ra civilization dissolves around them, Cameron Mitchell (Ben Browder), Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), and Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) emerge from Earth's stargate in the frozen hold of a ship abandoned deep in the Arctic. Upon their eventual rescue by the American military they discover history has been changed: the stargate never arrived in America and the SGC was never created. General Landry (Beau Bridges), believing their story, nevertheless insists on protecting their own timeline and bundles them off to civilian life.
Meanwhile this timeline's Ba'al has assembled the system lords for a massive strike on Earth. President Hayes (William Devane) realized only the SG-1 team can defeat this overwhelming force, led by Ba'al's first prime, Teal'c (Christopher Judge). Ba'al destroys the stargate in the Antarctic, but the SG-1 team reaches the Russian stargate, where they meet Teal'c and convince him to join them. Now the SG-1 team, hunted by Qetesh (Claudia Black), must find a way to use Ba'al's own time machine to fix history and prevent the Goa'uld destruction of Earth.
The Gang's All Here
Stargate Continuum was clearly assembled in part to give the fans a chance to see as many familiar faces as possible again, starting with the original star of Stargate SG-1, Richard Dean Anderson, not to mention the expected recurring characters (Walter (Gary Jones), who boasts as the camera moves past him that he's finally gotten a parking space after all this time) to the nice surprises (Major Davis (Colin Cunningham)). Even the original baddie, Apophis (Peter Williams), makes an appearance, despite having died more than once in the original series -- one of the many ways in which the creators have fun establishing an alternate timeline.
It's very cool to see folks like George Hammond (Don S. Davis) and Henry Hayes again, and the way these appearances are integrated into the plot very few of them seem extraneous. Perhaps the most welcome throwback, aside from our beloved Jack O'Neill, is Qetesh, the Goa'uld who once occupied Vala (Claudia Black). Vala herself is far from pure, which made for lots of interesting dynamics with Daniel Jackson and the other straitlaced SG-1 folks, but Qetesh is a piece of work, purring at Ba'al's side while her own plans gestate. Claudia Black has great fun exercising her villain muscles; she has a real knack for bringing out the interesting angles on Qetesh, just she does for Vala (not to mention her conflicted Farscape character, Aeryn Sun).
Worth It for the Story
But Stargate Continuum doesn't exist just for the casting. This is a solid time-travel adventure story, and in an alternate timeline the jeopardy is a lot higher for characters who would normally be safe and reliable. It's still all on the shoulders of the SG-1's red-blooded action hero, Col. Mitchell, and Ben Browder is more than up to the task -- I think I can say Browder has never been better. The plotline is full of twists, some of which you see coming and some you don't: there's a chilling moment when Daniel tries to gain the alternate O'Neill's trust by telling him about his son's accident, only to be pulled up short when O'Neill angrily denies his son is dead. In this moment, the SG-1 team realizes that they're alone and powerless in another reality -- Ba'al may well have won. Then comes Landry's calling them on the team's gall in wanting to destroy the billions of lives in his reality so they can restore theirs. Even the little moment where Jackson tries to connect with his discredited counterpart but fails strikes a chord.
Filmed for $7 million using all the resources of MGM's Stargate franchise (and impacting on Atlantis's season 4 production team, which had to use outside vendors and workarounds), Stargate Continuum is lush and well made, with some stunning visuals -- some produced by great location work in the Arctic and elsewhere, others (like the massive Goa'uld fleet surrounding Earth) the product of exceptional CGI work. Stargate Continuum was a project worth making, not just to bring everybody back together, but to make an outstanding Stargate film.
