Stargate Atlantis Rewatch: Season 3, Disc 1 Special Features
Special Features
First, I have to get this off my chest: What in the heck did they do to Sheppard’s hair for the cover of the third season DVD boxed set? Plaster? Hot glue? Shellac? And he looks like he’s about 20 in that picture. OK, I feel better now.
Mission Directive: Sateda
The inside scoop on the making of the episode Sateda, including the focus on stunts and why the writers felt they needed to do an episode that demonstrated the team’s bond.
Inside the Stargate Atlantis SFX Department
Interviews with the people who make a TV show look like a feature film every single week, and some behind the scenes stuff about their process.
Audio Commentary for No Man’s Land
Producer/Writer Martin Gero and Director/Supervising Producer Martin Wood. They tells us that a goal for season three was to have more character moments and show the gelling of the team. And have awesome action sequences that show off what they can do with a limited effects budget. They also point out the places where they saved money by reusing footage from the second season cliffhanger. This was also the first use of their new Wraith hive set; they like this version so much better. The give props to Joel Goldsmith, who creates the amazing music for the series.
Audio Commentary for Misbegotten
Executive Producer Paul Mullie and Director/Supervising Producer Martin Wood. They discuss the benefit of having the actors talking to each other live when they have scenes with one person in Atlantis and the other at the SGC. They can play off each other. The story is about resolving the moral dilemma from the previous episode (turning a boatload of Wraith into humans). They also talk about how mindful they have to be when writing the Woolsey character to avoid the temptation to make him the guy who always disagrees with our heroes. They tried to make him more interesting. As for Michael, they note how he acts more Wraith-like when he’s interacting with Wraith or talking about being a Wraith, and more human-like when trying to interact with humans.
Audio Commentary for Irresistible
Director/Supervising Producer Martin Wood and Director of Photography Michael Blundell. First, the difficulties of shooting scenes in the puddle jumper. It’s hard to light. Ah, that nice shot outside the jumper window is rear screen projection. Looks convincing. We get a lot of information about lighting and shooting from Mr. Blundell. They both love Richard Kind, who played Lucius. They like the script; I guess somebody had to. Oh, they think we need to look past the “date rape thing” because it wasn’t in the minds of the writers or actors. Sorry. Can’t.
Audio Commentary for Sateda
Executive Producer, Writer and Director Robert C. Cooper and Director of Photography Brendon Spencer. They talk about the set pieces of the episode, which made it a much bigger and more expensive episode than usual. They used certain movies for frame of reference (aww, but don’t tell us which ones). I totally agree with them: This episode was more like a feature film. Mad props to the crew. And mad props to Jason Momoa, the fearless workhorse…or is that, enthusiastic puppy? He was game for anything. Despite all of the action pieces about Ronon, Robert Cooper says the scene that tells what the episode was about is the one with Tayla and John on Deadalus. Cooper blames the writers for the Atlantis team not seeming to gel in the way that SG1 did.
Production Design & Photo Gallery
Self-explanatory.
