A new 'Stargate' opens

Finally, an age-old mystery is solved: what happened to the lost continent of Atlantis.

The island's people, threatened by an awesome enemy, deliberately submerged it beneath the sea. That's sort of what the Greeks believed — except that it happened in another galaxy. In 2004, when a group of well-meaning Earth explorers visit the galaxy of Pegasus, they cause the force field surrounding Atlantis to collapse and the city to rise, after many millennia, to the surface. The found city becomes a haven for Athosians, one of several cultures that have managed to survive under the constant threat of the Wraith, vampire-mouthed zombie types in leather coats with waist-length straight white or punk-red hair and an appetite for the human life force.

Thus "Stargate SG-1," the sleeper Sci Fi Channel hit, introduces "Stargate Atlantis." The new series, which begins on July 16, is partly set up in the two-hour season premiere of "SG-1" starting at 7 and 9 p.m. on July 9, but it is not a spinoff in the old-fashioned "Rhoda"-"Frasier"-"Joey" sense. It's a brand extension: same formula, new cast, new location. Similar franchises — like the "Law and Order" and "CSI" series — have worked, so the "Stargate Atlantis" cast should be feeling awfully sure of themselves. They say no.

"Actors are never confident about anything," said Torri Higginson, who plays Dr. Elizabeth Weir, the serious-minded new head of the Stargate program.

Joe Flanigan, who plays Maj. John Sheppard, the irreverent ranking military officer, is equally uncertain: "Television is going through these tectonic changes," he said. "I don't know what exactly is successful and why."

Unlike his stars, Brad Wright, co-creator of both "Stargate" series, can relax a little, now that "SG-1" is entering its eighth season and has been declared a worldwide phenomenon. (It is broadcast in 64 countries with more than 17 million viewers a week, is a leader in syndication in the United States and is reportedly the No. 1 show in Britain, France and Germany with the 18-to-44 set.)

"People are finding 'Stargate' now in a new way," said Wright. "They think: 'They haven't gone away. OK, I'll watch it.' "

"It" began with the 1994 feature film "Stargate," which starred James Spader as an Egyptologist, Kurt Russell as a military leader and Jaye Davidson as the sun god Ra, who was not a nice guy. Wright and Jonathan Glassner borrowed the premise — a series of wormhole-dependent "stargates" built by an ancient race as portals from Earth to distant galaxies — and turned it into an hourlong series on Showtime with Richard Dean Anderson in the Kurt Russell role. It moved to Sci Fi five seasons later.