The "Stargate SG-1" franchise's friendship with branches of the U.S. military -- which counts officers with clout as fans of the 10-year TV series -- elevates "Stargate: Continuum," a straight-to-DVD film.There's remarkable footage from a shoot in the Arctic and more aboard a nuclear submarine and F-16s, all great enhancements to the time-travel story. The rest is somewhat of a throwback to the Richard Dean Anderson days, before his Col. Jack O'Neill became a general and when the G'ouald were Interstellar Enemies No. 1. Jack is back, along with other old friends and enemies, because of a convoluted scheme hatched by the cheerfully despotic Ba'al (Cliff Simon).Trapped in an alternate timeline are Cols. Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Mitchell (Ben Browder) and Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), who must convince one and all that only a trip through the carefully guarded Stargate can put things right. Among those who at first hinder the team are William Devane, back as president, and Don S. Davis, who played Gen. Hammond for eight seasons and who died just weeks before "Continuum's" release.It's not much of a spoiler to reveal that Daniel loses a leg in the course of "Continuum" (scripted to explain Shanks' absence from some scenes, because he was unavailable to go to the Arctic). Dealing with the disability might have seemed like a lot of story to tell, but it would have been beneficial to cut computer-generated scenes that don't match the majesty of real-life landscapes and allow time for characters as they adapted to new circumstances. (Maybe it's just me, but I wish they'd made more time for Daniel's role in the demise of the Ori in "The Ark of Truth," the previous "SG-1" DVD release, too.)Christopher Judge's Teal'c gets short shrift, as does the estimable Claudia Black, although she has some juicy scenes to play. Mitchell's ancestry turns out to be the key to setting things right in the here and now, although, try as I might -- and I have tried -- I can't figure out how the space-time continuum wasn't disturbed by certain actions. Perhaps more viewings of the DVD's "science of time travel" extra would clear this up.Features of the "making of" variety and the Arctic shoot are at least as much fun as the movie itself. With the "Stargate" universe expanding to another spinoff (to join "Atlantis"), plus actors working on other projects, it might be hard to get the whole gang together again for more "SG-1" adventures. That would be a shame, though, because "Continuum" doesn't feel like a proper send-off for such a solid sci-fi franchise.(Entertainment editor Sharon Eberson can be reached at seberson(at)post-gazette.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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