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During its fourth season “Stargate: Atlantis” went
through the typical growing pains of any TV show. There
were major cast changes (Amanda Tapping added from “Stargate:SG1”),
continued conflict with the Wraiths an alien race that are
vampires but instead of drinking blood they drain other
races of their life energy and a continuing battle to stay
one step ahead of the bad guys. ***
The popular “Stargate” franchise continues to develop
new ideas and storylines. In fact although I prefer “Battlestar:
Galatica” and even “Farscape”, the “Stargate” TV shows have
become the “Star Trek” of the 21st century filling the vacuum
left when “Star Trek” took a hiatus as the spin-off’s went
from provocative to mediocre. Essentially “Star Trek” needed
a reboot and luckily J.J. Abrams was around to do the job.
Hopefully Paramount will be wise and NOT overexpose their
most consistently profitable “product” this time around.
***
I say that because “Stargate” faces the same hurtle;
there are only so many variations that you can do on the
“Stargate” universe just as you could with the “Star Trek”
universe. MGM has taken the same approach with “Stargate”
that Paramount did with “Star Trek” spinning off new shows
allowing the new show to catch on before cancelling the
cancelling the parent show. MGM and the idiotically renamed
Sy-Fy network are facing the same risk with the “Stargate”
TV movies to close off the original series, this series
as well as future ones (you know Sy-Fy is going to milk
this one for all its worth). That said, the fourth season
of “Stargate Atlantis” still had enough life in it to keep
interesting. The cast have become comfortable in their roles
and fans have accepted them plus there are plenty of cross-over
episodes with characters from the parent show. ---
Image & Sound:
The DVDs suffer from excessive compression with 20 episodes
packed onto five discs. Colors were solid throughout but
there were noticeable compression artifacts visible throughout
the fourth season set. Definition was decent throughout
with some nice crisp, detail but there were also sections
that were visibly soft. A bit disappointing on DVD the show
does sound nice with a solid 5.1 mix that is very active.
Dialogue remakes clear and crisp throughout. ---
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