Stargate: Continuum

If Continuum, the second feature length, made-for-DVD film spun off from the long-running Stargate SG-1 television series, marks the end of this wing of the franchise--and it is hardly a certainty, given the show's Lazarus-like history--then all involved, including the viewer, should be well satisfied. Continuum commingles all the elements that have made Stargate so eminently watchable over the years, including engaging characters and storyline, plenty of action, impressive sets, and first-rate special effects. This time the whole gang is on hand, as the most recent SG-1 contigent (Ben Browder as fearless leader Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, Amanda Tapping as the brainy Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Christopher Judge as the implacable alien Teal'c, Michael Shanks as the ever-resourceful Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Claudia Black as the irreverent, motor-mouthed Vala) is joined by characters whose roles had been reduced or eliminated along the way; principal among the latter is Richard Dean Anderson, whose Major General Jack O'Neill makes a welcome return after sitting out The Ark of Truth, the first post-series film (both of Stargate Command's head honchos, played by Beau Bridges and the late Don S. Davis, are also back). The villain is familiar as well: Ba'al (Cliff Simon), the last of the "Goa'uld system lords," who's scheduled to be executed--or, more specifically, "extracted," whereby the bad mojo inside him will be exorcised. Things don't quite go as planned, of course. Ba'al has managed to manipulate time, creating a situation where Mitchell, Jackson, and Carter find themselves caught in a paradox, an alternate timeline in which the Stargate program never even existed, making it easy for the bad guy and his gigantic space brigade to launch an all-out attack on Earth (though long-threatened throughout the series, such an invasion never actually happened until now). Our heroes' intrepid efforts to thwart Ba'al's dastardly scheme take them from the Arctic (for real) to the cockpits of F-15 jets and even the hold of a 1930s cargo ship (built specially for the occasion). All this, and Browder portraying his own grandfather too? Yo, Stargate: Continuum rocks! --Sam Graham