Stargate: Atlantis-The Complete Third Season
Studio: MGM / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Year: 2006-2007
Rated: Not Rated
Film Length: 871 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround (French)
Subtitles: English (SDH), French, Spanish
US DVD Release Date: September 18, 2007
Premiering on the Sci-Fi Channel in July 2004 as a spin-off to the popular Stargate: SG-1 television series, Stargate: Atlantis follows an international team of scientists and soldiers as they explore the Pegasus galaxy from their home base in the lost city of Atlantis. Upon arrival in Atlantis, the team unintentionally awakes a race of vampire-like beings known as the Wraith. The series stars Joe Flanigan as Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, Torri Higginson as Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Rachel Luttrell as Teyla, Jason Momoa as Ronon Dex, and David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay.
Movie: 4 out of 5
Season three begins right where season two's cliffhanger left off, concluding the space battle with the Wraith. After resolving the cliffhanger, the series departs somewhat from its standard formula by taking time to develop its main characters and making the enemies less generic by using recurring characters. This season also further develops the theme of creating your own worst enemy in Michael, played by Connor Trinneer (Tripp from Star Trek: Enterprise), a Wraith the Atlantis team experimented on near the end of season two to see if they can be turned back into a human. The third season consists of 20 episodes spread out over 5 discs, all housed in 3 individual slim cases within an outer paperboard sleeve. I definitely prefer this over digipak cases, although the paperboard sleeve used on this set was somewhat flimsy. One more added bonus to the presentation of the episodes is that the producers have had the normal commercial breaks removed to provide each episode with an even flow.
Disc One:
No Man's Land
Misbegotten
Irresistible
Sateda
Disc Two:
Progeny
The Real World
Common Ground
McKay & Mrs. Miller
Disc Three
Phantoms
The Return, Part 1
The Return, Part 2
Echoes
Disc Four
Irresponsible
Tao of Rodney
The Game
The Ark
Disc Five
Sunday
Submersion
Vengeance
First Strike
Video: 3.5 out of 5
The series is filmed with HD 24p cameras in Vancouver, Canada, which provides a nice, film-like look to the show. Colors are not oversaturated, with deep blacks. Compression artifacts are rarely present, and are not distracting when they do appear. This is about as good as the series will look unless you are watching reruns on Universal HD or when the eventual Blu-ray version is released.
Audio: 3.5 out of 5
For a cable series, the sound design, in Dolby Digital 5.1 and encoded at 448 kbps, is rather impressive. Dialogue is clear and intelligible, emanating mostly from the center channel. Music is mostly stereo, with some bleed to the surrounds. Discrete sound effects are used, but mostly during action sequences. The soundtrack is active, but only when it needs to be.
Special Features: 4 out of 5
Stargate: Atlantis follows the same Special Features formula that was set starting with Season 6 of Stargate: SG-1. That formula consists of an audio commentary for most, if not all, episodes for that season, plus two featurettes per disc, one focusing on behind the scenes of an episode with the director, and the other a character, actor, or department spotlight. The commentaries on this set have improved over many of the earlier ones heard on SG-1, as both series share many of the same directing, producing, and writing staff. Photo galleries are also included on each disc.
Disc One
Commentary on all 4 episodes
Inside the Stargate: Atlantis Visual FX Department featurette
Mission Directive: SATEDA featurette
Still Photo and Production Design Galleries
Disc Two
Commentary on PROGENY, COMMON GROUND and McKAY & MRS. MILLER
Profile on: Rachel Lutrell featurette
Mission Directive: PROGENY featurette
Still Photo and Production Design Galleries
Disc Three
Commentary on all 4 episodes
General O'Neill Goes to Atlantis featurette
Mission Directive: PHANTOMS featurette
Still Photo and Production Design Galleries
Disc Four
Commentary on all 4 episodes
Masters of the Alien featurette
Mission Directive: THE GAME featurette
Still Photo and Production Design Galleries
Disc Five
Commentary on all 4 episodes
Stargate Atlantis: A Look Back On Season 3 featurette
Mission Directive: FIRST STRIKE featurette
Still Photo and Production Design Galleries
Overall: 4 out of 5 (not an average)
Fans of the series will definitely find this a must-have set, and this is the season that showed what potential the series would later have. With a video and audio presentation that widely surpassed that of its standard definition broadcasts on the Sci-Fi Channel, plus an impressive set of special features make this an above average season set of a television series on DVD.
This DVD was reviewed on the following home theater gear:
Toshiba 56HM66 DLP HDTV
Sony Playstation 3
Yamaha HTR-5940 Home Theater Receiver (in 5.1 configuration)
Yamaha NS-AP2600 Home Cinema Speaker Package
Yamaha YST-SW010 subwoofer
