It’s been more than two decades since the Stargate franchise first united our nerdy love of archaeology and interdimensional space stuff, and now the universe that spawned two movies and a trio of television spinoffs is returning once again with a new TV series that explores the life of the woman who started it all.
Stargate Origins will focus on Catherine Langford, the scientist whose lifelong obsession with alien hieroglyphs unearthed on her father’s archaeological expedition led to the events that kick off the 1994 film Stargate. Langford then recurred as a character throughout the long-running TV series Stargate SG-1, which aired on the Sci-Fi network (before it was renamed Syfy) from 1997 through 2007. Now she gets her own 10-episode prequel web series exploring her life, her adventures, and maybe even her grand romance.
MGM announced Stargate Origins series — along with the new teaser trailer shown above — during its Thursday-evening panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where it also revealed the upcoming launch of a new digital streaming service, Stargate Command, that will host the new show.
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Mercedes Bryce Morgan will direct Stargate Origins, with writing from Mark Ilvedson and Justin Michael Terry. Production is scheduled to begin in August. The series will stream on the franchise’s new subscription-based digital platform, which launches later this fall.
The Stargate saga immediately attracted a loyal following; following the film’s worldwide success (it grossed $200 million worldwide), Stargate SG-1 ran for 10 years and more than 200 episodes. But the franchise struggled to maintain fan interest in the latter half of the aughts.
Despite a loyal cult following, Stargate: Atlantis — which launched on Sci-Fi in 2004 and overlapped with the SG-1 series — was canceled in 2009, midway through its fifth season, arguably not due to its dwindling ratings but rather to the then-newly renamed Syfy’s wish to appeal to a younger audience. That objective led to the 2009 launch of SGU Stargate Universe, a gambit that failed in 2011 after only two seasons. Still, MGM is apparently confident that the Stargate fandom is still mighty enough to support the launch of not only a new Stargate series but a new subscription-based website to host it that will boast a wide variety of extras, assets, and new content pertaining to the universe.
“We’ve been eager to revisit the Stargate franchise, and create an all-new story that honors the founding mythos and gives loyal fans more mystery and adventure,” said Kevin Conroy, president of digital and new platforms at MGM, in a press release. "We view Stargate: Origins as a thank you to fans who have been keeping the spirit of the franchise alive for nearly 25 years.”
The announcement of the new Stargate series bears a resemblance to Star Trek’s upcoming new series, Star Trek: Discovery. Both series are prequel series that focus on a female lead character, both will air exclusively on a streaming platform, and both mark the return, in series form, of a beloved science fiction franchise after a lengthy hiatus.
Apart from the external similarities, however, there’s plenty that’s unique to Stargate — particularly its relationship to the US military, which oversees the Stargate program and whose commanding officers frequently clash with its peace-loving scientists over how and why space exploration is taking place. The real US Air Force collaborated closely with SG-1 to ensure accurate information and detail about the Cheyenne Mountain base where that series took place. And as a civilian and a scientist, Langford brought a perspective that was often crucial to the success of a Stargate mission.
Who is Catherine Langford?
For fans who might need a refresher, Catherine Langford is the little girl from the opening of Roland Emmerich’s Stargate film, which kicked off the entire franchise. We see her poking excitedly around her father’s archaeological dig, witnessing the excavation of Earth’s first recovered “Stargate” — a sleek bit of alien technology that serves as a portal to other worlds.
Decades later, still obsessed with the Stargate and her father’s work, Langford hires archaeologist Daniel Jackson (played by James Spader in the original film) to help her translate the language on the gate, which hails from a civilization known as the Ancients. That endeavor results in him activating the gate and its portal to other worlds.
Langford was a recurring character throughout the Stargate: SG-1 TV series, serving as a mentor to Jackson as well as a continual researcher. During one arc, she traveled through the gate to rescue her long-lost love Ernest Littlefield, who’d been accidentally transported through the gate decades earlier. The character died in a 2005 episode, and received a nice eulogy from Daniel:
Langford has long been a fan-favorite character, both because of her importance to the events of the overall Stargate franchise and because she serves as a crucial intermediary between geeky, intellectually curious civilians like us, the viewers, and the alien worlds of the Stargate. Additionally, she was the rare model of a competent older woman who was defined mainly by her achievements as a scientist and a military adviser.
“The only reason [the plot of Stargate] happened,” wrote culture writer Gavia Baker-Whitelaw in a 2013 blog post, “is because the 80-year-old daughter of a 1920s Egyptologist became so obsessed with an old Egyptian artefact that she spent her whole life researching it until people finally got to travel to other planets. Which to me is a far more compelling origin story than any amount of daddy issues, dead wives, or misunderstood loner antiheroes.”
“I just want a whole movie about Catherine Langford,” one Stargate fan opined on Tumblr. “Like, the whole thing is just about her working on the Stargate, fighting to get the program started, dealing with sexist asshats in the military and academic communities. ... And just generally being a badass.”
Those fans will get their wish — along with what could be a new gig for Langford: space travel. According to MGM, Stargate: Origins “will explore a brand new chapter in Catherine Langford’s early history surrounding the extraordinary portal. Young Catherine embarks on an unexpected adventure to unlock the mystery of what lies beyond the Stargate in order to save Earth from unimaginable darkness.“
Fans who want to be notified when MGM’s Stargate Command streaming service is “activated” can visit stargatecommand.co to sign up for updates.
