On July 27th, the cable channel Showtime launched Stargate SG-1 in the U.S., a series that picks up where the movie ieft off. The Russell character, Colonel Jack O'Neill, is played in this incarnation by Richard Dean Anderson (best known for MacGyver, "the thnking man's action hero"). It's a difficult role for him. For one thing, Anderson says he's never much cared for SF. "Coming into this," he says in an interview on the show's Vancouver set, "one of my least favorite genres was science fiction. I was not a Trek fan at all, I was a fan of Indiana Jones." The dour, dull O'Neill of the film was about as far from Indy as you could get and still be an action hero. When Anderson took the part, he says he wanted to make sure the character changed. "My character is not Kurt Russell," he says. "It's too late in my career to be mimicking somone else." Since the plot establishes that a few years have passed between the end of the film and the pilot, Anderson has given his character time for spiritual growth. "I'm not saying he's been smoking dope," Anderson says, "but something has gone on cosmically for him that has altered his perception a bit."

Likewise, the transition from a 90-minute film to a full-blown continuing series has given producers Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner the oppurtunity to flesh out some of the ideas in the film. The basic premise of both: Using a teleportation device called a StarGate, an alien race, the parasitic Goa'ulds, came to Earth in ancient times. They took a bunch of humans and planted them on various distant planets with the nefarious intent of breeding them as host organisms. A few thousand years later the Air Force found the Goa'ulds' Stargate, reopened it, and sent a recon team through to the other side. What they found there on just one planet made an exciting film, and Wright and Glassner found the lure of mythic enemies and easy interstellar travel irresistible. On of the first changes they made: providing our heroes with the galactic equivalent of a AAA Guidebook. "There's a cartouche on Abydos that explains how the gate works," says Wright. "That's the oppurtunity of the series, the gate doesn't just go to one place, we go all over the galaxy. Go to the gate, dial a location, and explore a whole new world." How many? "We don't know yet. Thousands. At least ten seasons' worth."

Aside from Anderson, the team of adventurers includes Michael Shanks, a young Canadian who takes the James Spader role of the movie, and Amanda Tapping (Forever Knight), who plays Captain Samantha Carter. As Carter and Daniel Jackson, Tapping and Shanks play the scientists to Anderson's soldier. "My character is a cross between Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson," says Tapping. "She's got a military background, she's a Captain in the Air Force, fought in the Gulf War. And she's also a theoretical astrophysicist." When she first read the script for the show, she got the impression that her character was going to be more of an intellectual and less "one of the guys," but that's not precisely how it turned out. "The show has turned into this great physical show for me, which is something I hadn't imagined, and a great gift, particularly for a woman." She adds, "In the midst of the testosterone fest, I'm your happy estrogen bubble."

Christopher Judge (Bird On A Wire, The Glory Years) appears as Teal'c, a member of the Jaffa race who does double duty as Leader of the Imperial Serpent Guard and incubator for the larval form of the Goa'ulds. In the series, though, Teal'c rebels and joins Anderson's team in fighting the parasitic aliens, providing an invaluable native guide. "My character is a 97-year-old Jaffa," says Judge, "and I have traveled between many worlds, and seen many different species of life. I interject my knowledge, alongside the scientific knowledge of Carter, the historical knowledge of Jackson and the tongue-in-cheek knowledge of O'Neill." The final major cast member is Don S. Davis as General Hammond. A veteran character actor (credits range from Hook to A League of Their Own), Davis is Charley to Anderson's angels, since (unlike some other shows), the producers of Stargate recognize the realities of a military command structure. "I was a captain in the US army in the '60s," notes Davis, "And I realize that the general doesn't normally jump in a jeep and go to the front, although if you watch Patton you wouldn't get that idea." He knows he won't get to play Captain Kirk; but that doesn't stop him from dreaming. "I know it's wrong, but I really hope they can, at some point, find a logical reason for the General to go through the gate."

There's more of a chance of that happening in the series that in the movie, simply because they use the gate a lot more. "In the film we saw the gate open once," says Visual Effects Supervisor Ted Rae, "and in the two hour premier we have the gate opening eight times. They had maybe five shots of crossing the event horizon, we have about 75 shots. With the kind of money being spent on effects for blockbuster films," he adds, "audience expectations have been raised so high that we have to do more with television now than was done in features five years ago." Also there has been major budgetary commitment by Showtime, when you have 44 episodes guaranteed, it means you can spend money on sets and equipment that a standard debuting series couldn't even think about with just thirteen episodes. "We're working on new techniques, "Rae says, "different ways of shooting the Stargate, different angles, because we don't want this to just become like somebody walking into the kitchen. We want to be showing people things they haven't seen before." Unlike some series, which prefer to keep every episode on shipboard with the same sets, Rae says Stargate shows us different worlds every week. Using computer-aided composing to combine location shots, mattes, miniatures and computer graphics into one other-wordly scene, they can do all that within a reasonable budget.

Comparisons are inevitable with other science fiction shows. Wright points out the major difference between Stargate and other TV SF: "The idea of going from world to world is a science fiction idea that goes back...as far back as there was science fiction," he says. "The thing I love about the Stargate is we're not flying in futurisitc rocketships to get there. Here's a door. You don't need a ship, you just go through this door and there you are." And that means we can identify with his team, because they're normal 1997-issue human beings, with 1997-issue dreams, agendas, conflicts. "We're not the perfect human beings of the 24th century, like that other series-which I'm a big fan of, by the way. It's the human beings of this century that are taking these adventures and going to these worlds. It changes everything." Well, not everything. For one thing, listening to them talk, one is reminded of the way Gene Roddenberry, in that "other show", used aliens worlds to shed light on human problems. Judge says that, for him, this is one of the most valuable aspects of what they're doing. "Taking situations on a parallel world that mirror our situation on Earth, making people think about the wars we fight, and the way we treat people and the way we think about other people or cultures or religions- I certainly think that this series can dole out a lot of lessons without hitting you over the head."

And there is the chance for fun as well. Judge gets to be both wise and whimsical in his role as the world-weary warrior. "And there will be a lot of funny situations," he says. "Some of the rituals and the customs of other worlds that we think are strange, and the interplay of going to another world and being befuddled. And the rituals that we, as humans, have that they think are hilarious. The thing I like about Stargate is the same thing I like about Outer Limits," says Wright, who produces that series as well. "The possible worlds we can go to are alomost infinite. We can go to a world of transplanted humans, or to an entirely alien race. That's why I'm such a huge fan of science fiction. Science fiction is about possibilities, about playing with ideas, and cool artifacts like the Stargate. Acting in front of a blue screen is a little weird," says Tapping. "You have to find that little kid part in yourself. I turned to Michael Shanks and said this is just like being a kid, except we're getting paid to play war, and our guns look better then the sticks we used to carry around the alleyways." Which is why just about every member of the cast says, if an actual Stargate were discovered, they would go through it in a minute. "I would be one of the first to sign on if there were Stargates," says Judge. "Absolutely," adds Wright. "Talk about a dream come true for anyone in our century who dreamed of going to space."