I loved the sense of wonder and adventure that the original Stargate film made me feel when I watched it, but I was reticent to dive into the series until well after the first season was released to DVD. My friend Dennis loved it, and swore by it and said I should give it a try.

And I was hooked.

Yes the characters are a bit different, brought to life by different actors, and Michael Shanks, you can tell, in the first few episodes seems intent on channeling a little bit of James Spader’s interpretation of Dr. Daniel Jackson, but from the off, Richard Dean Anderson is intent on making Colonel Jack O’Neill his own.

Initially developed and airing on Showtime, the pilot film had a little bit more blood and 100% more nudity than would follow in the now iconic sci-fi series. The pilot film aired on July 27, 1997 and was written by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner.

O’Neill is called back into action when Earth’s stargate is activated from the other side, and an assault team comes through, abducting a female airmen, and killing the rest of her team in the Cheyenne Mountain complex where the project is housed.

Brought back into service by General Hammond (Don S. Davis) ,and reunited with his former squad mates Kawalsky (Jay Acovone) and Ferretti (Brent Stait). The team is joined by Captain Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), an expert on the stargate, and an astrophysicist.

Their mission is to return to Abydos and assess the threat. Arriving on the distant planet, the team is reunited with Daniel Jackson, as well as familiar faces from their previous mission, Skara (Alexis Cruz) and Jackson’s now-wife, Sha’re (Vaitiare Hirshon).

Shortly after their arrival, the gate is activated again, and an assault team in Egyptian masks and advanced weaponry arrive, laying waste to the area, and abducting Sha’re.

Jackson reveals that there are countless gates, they just don’t have the addresses for them. This new threat could have come from anywhere, but because of their affectation for Egyptology, and glowing eyes they believe it is the same species, revealed to be the goa’uld, a serpent-like species that takes over a host body, making it their own.

And now they have Sha’re.

Returning to Earth Jackson insists on joining the newly formed stargate teams referred to as SG units, signing up to join O’Neill on SG1. Working with the dial-home device, and the gate symbols Ferretti saw, they are able to travel to a far distant planet where they encounter Apophis (Peter Williams), one of the goa’uld who has abducted people from across the gates to serve as hosts for his spawn.

O’Neill and his team are captured shortly after their arrival, but one of Apophis’ guards, a Jaffa named Teal’c (Christopher Judge) has seen the terrible things that his god has done, and now sees the possibility of fighting back against them, and winning.

He joins up with SG-1 and 2 (led by Kowalski) and they fight to escape, but it’s too late to save Sha’re and a captured Skara! They are still out there somewhere, setting up a storyline for a portion of the series, and also giving the characters motivation for working together.

But just as they are about to return to Earth, Kowalski is infected with a goa’uld, and now the enemy is inside Stargate Command!

A fun start to the a long-running series, there’s lots of humor, thanks to Anderson, who owns the screen in this show and knows how to play the moments. There’s lots of action, and with one episode, the series has opened up a universe far bigger than was glimpsed in the movie.

And since I haven’t seen most of these episodes in a couple of decades, this is going to be a fantastic ride as I experience everything anew. Away we go!