STARGATE SG-1
Continuum
DVD Review by Nigel A. Messenger

UK Release Date: 18 August 2008
UK certificate: 12

Stars: Richard Dean Anderson, Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks, Claudia Black, Beau Bridges, Don S. Davis, William Devane, Cliff Simon

Review:
While the STARGATE SG-1 television series finished at the end of season 10, the STARGATE franchise continues not only with the spin-off series ATLANTIS but with two (so far) STARGATE SG-1 straight to DVD movies. The first was THE ARK OF TRUTH and now we have the second STARGATE CONTINUUM.

Whereas THE ARK OF TRUTH really wound up the final STARGATE-SG1 season, albeit in a spectacular way, CONTINUUM really is an adventure all of it's own. If you watch the disc extras they say it's moving towards the old style STARGATE and I can see what they mean as it's far more a stand alone adventure, with main villain Ba'al and even fellow Goa'uld Apophis turning up!

Now wait a minute, didn't Apophis get well and truly killed off ages ago? Indeed he did, but CONTINUUM is a time travel adventure, which means there are guest appearances from loads of our old favourites as Ba'al alters the timeline to an Earth where the Stargate program was never developed and SG-1 does not exist.

However Carter, Mitchell and Daniel remain unaltered with their memories intact because the timeline is changed while they are travelling through the stargate back to Earth. While this means we get to see more of Richard Dean Anderson, it does mean there is a chunk in the middle of the movie without Teal'c and Vala.

Even so, CONTINUUM has enough going on in it to keep our minds occupied especially with Don S. Davis (General George Hammond) and William Devane (President Henry Hayes) back on screen.

There is also some spectacular Artic location filming, yes they were really there, it's not just a set, as well as plenty of excellent sci-fi action, which we all know this franchise can do so well.

All in all STARGATE CONTINUUM really is an excellent addition to the hopefully ongoing STARGATE SG-1 adventure and once again I have to wonder why the STARGATE franchise does not move to the big screen format. With such an excellent cast and background surely one day it will. Until then however lets hope the producers continue to at least make many more DVD movies in the future.

Now I would just like to add one final sad piece of news that I discovered whilst writing this review. Actor Don S. Davis sadly died of a heart attack on 29 June 2008. His STARGATE character General George Hammond was one on my favourites and I always enjoyed a movie or TV show just a little bit more if he was in it. May he be happy wherever he is.

DVD EXTRAS

Audio Commentary with Executive Producer/Writer Brad Wright and Director Martin Wood
The Making of Stargate: Continuum featurette (22.33)
Stargate Goes to the Arctic featurette (21.52)
The Layman's Guide to Time Travel featurette (9.15)

BLU-RAY EXTRAS

The Blu-Ray release will be authored in BD-Java with AVC (MPEG 4 compression) on a single-layer 25 GB disc with English 5.1 DTS HD Lossless Master Audio plus French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital subtitles. The disc features all of the above special features.