Discuss the TV shows and anything pertaining to them.

Atlantis' Hewlett Directs His Pals
Stargate Atlantis star David Hewlett, who plays the irascible genius Rodney McKay, told SCI FI Wire that he has enlisted fellow Atlantis stars and crew members to work on his independent feature film, A Dog's Breakfast, in which he makes his feature writing and directing debut. The movie centers on squabbling siblings Patrick and Marilyn, who are driven over the edge when Marilyn brings home her new TV-star fiance from the space soap opera Starcrossed. Patrick tries to drive a wedge between the happy couple ... then he reaches for sharper instruments.
In addition to Hewlett, the movie features Atlantis co-stars Rachel Luttrell (Teyla) and Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), as well as Stargate SG-1 star Christopher Judge (Teal'c). The film's crew includes Stargate producer John G. Lenic, cinematographer Jim Menard and an amalgamation of the Atlantis and SG-1 shooting crews. The cast also includes Amanda Byram. Hewlett is also working with his real-life partner, producer Jane Loughman, and his sister, actress Kate Hewlett.
Is the film's storyline a thinly disguised version of Hewlett's own life? "Let's just say that it's based on a true story," he said in an e-mail interview. "Starcrossed is just an excuse to see Rachel (Luttrell) dressed as a sexy alien again, as it's been far too long."
A Dog's Breakfast is wrapping production, which took place in and around Vancouver, Canada, where the two Stargate series also film. The movie does not have distribution yet. "At the end of February, we should have a cut of the movie together and will start sending it out to festivals and for distribution," producer Lenic said.
Does A Dog's Breakfast mean Hewlett really wants to direct? "All I really want right now is a holiday," he said. Stargate Atlantis airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, immediately after Stargate SG-1.

SG-1 Will Feed Atlantis
Torri Higginson, star of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate Atlantis, told SCI FI Wire to expect cast members from the show's predecessor series, Stargate SG-1, to show up more regularly next season after it ends its 10-year run.
"I imagine there's going to be a fair amount of crossover going on," Higginson said in an interview. That's likely to include multiple appearances by SG-1's Amanda Tapping as Lt. Col. Samantha Carter. "I think it's going to allow SG-1 to continue, in a way," she said. (Both Atlantis and SG-1 will return with new episodes in April.)
Higginson plays Dr. Elizabeth Weir in Atlantis, which is in the middle of its third season. She said that Atlantis will likely benefit as it becomes the sole Stargate series on the air.
"All that will do is strengthen our show," Higginson said. "I think there will probably be some SG-1 fans who will say, 'No way, we'll never watch Stargate again. How dare you get rid of our favorite show?' But I think there will be a lot of others that enjoy both shows [who will support Atlantis]. Now all the writing will just be focused on one show, so I think it'll be interesting, too, to have the production focused on one show. That will definitely make it richer and ... just tighter."
Atlantis will kick off the second half of its third season with the episode "The Return, Part II." Production on season four begins in March.
Higginson said that she was surprised when the news broke that SG-1 would end its run after the current season, the show's 10th.
"It was a shock, because it seems like SG-1 has been around forever and ever, and the fans are so amazingly loyal to SG-1," she said.

Tapping Joins Atlantis Cast
Stargate SG-1 star Amanda Tapping will join the cast of SCI FI Channel's spinoff series Stargate Atlantis in that show's upcoming fourth season, which commences in the fall, SCI FI announced. Tapping will reprise the role of Lt. Col. Samantha Carter in Atlantis; she played the character in the 10 seasons of SG-1, which goes off the air after completing the final 10 episodes of the current 10th season, starting in April.
Atlantis will resume production on the fourth season in Vancouver, Canada, starting next month. Tapping will appear in 14 of Atlantis's 20 episodes. The new season will introduce a powerful new race and new cast members and mark the loss of beloved friends.
Meanwhile, Jewel Staite (Firefly, Serenity) returns to Atlantis and will appear in eight episodes, reprising her role as Dr. Keller, a physician who joins the Atlantis expedition. Staite previously appeared on the series as Ellia, the Wraith child who was transformed into a human in the season-two episode "Instinct."
Season four of Stargate Atlantis will be executive-produced by Brad Wright, Robert C. Cooper, Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. Mallozzi and Mullie will share the reins as the series' show runners.
The final episodes of Stargate SG-1 and the remainder of the third season of Stargate Atlantis will air starting April 13, leading into the series debut of Painkiller Jane.
http://www.scifi.com/stargate/
http://www.scifi.com/atlantis/
http://www.scifi.com/painkillerjane/

SG-1 Video Card Game Launches
Gamers will be able to go on missions with SG-1 in the new Stargate Trading Card Game, a video game being released by Sony Online Entertainment, director of development Scott Martins told SCI FI Wire. The game, based on SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, is a mission-based game and that focuses on the series' characters, Martins said in an interview at New York Comic Con last week.
"You're taking your team out through the Stargate to worlds all over the galaxy," Martins said. "Each mission has one of four skills—combat, ingenuity, culture or science—and your team members have various combinations of those skills. Teal'c is pretty beefy in combat, while Daniel Jackson is great at culture and science, for example."
The card-based game will feature decks that contain both good guys and bad guys, and players get to play both sides during the game, Martins said. "As the hero player, you're deploying your team, deploying your gear and support characters, and then the person that you are playing against is actually playing an antagonist [role]," he said. "They're playing obstacles, diseases, political interference, Goa'uld System Lords. They're dropping all of these obstacles on your Stargate team to try to prevent you from accomplishing your mission."
The base set, named SG-1, will have approximately 300 cards in it, Martins said. "[The base set features] a broad sampling of content ... [and] establishes the core mechanics of the game," he said. "So you get a pretty good cross section of probably the first seven-eight seasons of content. We will have two more expansions this year, and ... next year we will probably start adding some Stargate Atlantis content to kick off the second year of the game with a bang. ... There has [also] been some talk of maybe having access to some of the direct-to-video movies that are going to be coming up, but that hasn't been finalized yet."
Comic Images is simultaneously publishing the paper version of the game. Card previews and screenshots are available on the game's official Web site.
http://www.scifi.com/stargate/
http://stargateonlinetcg.station.sony.com/

Stargate Film Goes Arctic
MGM announced that it will shoot scenes in the Arctic, north of Alaska, for the upcoming straight-to-DVD film Stargate: Continuum, based on SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, with the cooperation of the U.S. Navy's Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station. Cast members Ben Browder and Amanda Tapping will travel to the facility, about 200 nautical miles north of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, to shoot during the week of March 23-29. Martin Wood, director of more than 70 episodes of Stargate SG-1 and its spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis, is directing.
Stargate: Continuum, which is being co-financed by MGM and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, will shoot a variety of scenes on location at the station, where temperatures drop to 50 below zero. In addition to the frigid outdoor environments, the filming will also involve the U.S. Navy submarine U.S.S. Alexandria, MGM said.
Among the dramatic scenes to be filmed at the location: the submarine as it bursts through the ice and into the arctic air.
MGM gave the green light to two direct-to-video movies based on Stargate SG-1. The first movie, Stargate: The Arc of Truth, which is also being co-financed by MGM and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, begins production on April 15.
The second movie, Stargate: Continuum, will resume filming on May 22 after comleting the ice-station scenes.
Written and produced by Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, the new movies will also feature Christopher Judge, Claudia Black, Beau Bridges and Michael Shanks.
In Stargate: Continuum, SG-1 attends the execution of Ba'al, the last of the Goa'uld system lords, when Teal'c (Judge) and Vala (Black) inexplicably disappear into thin air. Carter (Tapping), Daniel (Shanks) and Mitchell (Browder) race back to a world where history has been changed: The Stargate program has been erased from the timeline. As they try to convince the authorities of what's happened, a fleet of Goa'uld motherships arrives in orbit, led by Ba'al; his queen, Katesh (Vala); and his first prime, Teal'c. SG-1 must find the Stargate and set things right before the world is enslaved by the Goa'uld.

The United Kingdom's Sky One is asking viewers to vote for their favorite Stargate SG-1 episodes and enter a contest to win an autographed SG-1 script and a complete set of DVDs at the network's Web site; the winning episodes will air March 31-April 1.
http://www.scifi.com/stargate/
http://www.skyone.co.uk/programme/pgeProgramme.aspx?pid=6

Stargate: The Ark of Truth, the first ot two straight-to-DVD films based in the universe of SCI FI Channel's Stargate SG-1, begins filming April 17 in Vancouver, Canada; it follows SG-1 as the team searches for an ancient weapon that could help them defeat the Ori. A second film, Stargate Continuum, starts up in June, the SneakPeek.tv blog reported.
http://www.scifi.com/stargate/
http://sneakpeektv.blogspot.com/2007/03/va...ate-movies.html