Stargate SG-1 Season 1

The first season of the military science fiction television series Stargate SG-1 commenced airing on the Showtime channel in the United States on July 27, 1997, concluded on the same channel on March 6, 1998, and contained 22 episodes. The show itself is a spin off from the 1994 hit movie, Stargate written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. Stargate SG-1 re-introduced supporting characters from the film universe, such as Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson and included new characters such as Teal'c, George Hammond and Samantha "Sam" Carter. The first season was about a military-science expedition team discovering how to use the ancient device, named the Stargate, to explore the galaxy. However, they encountered a powerful enemy in the film named the Goa'uld, which is bent on destroying Earth and all that opposes them.

The two-hour premiere "Children of the Gods", which aired on July 27, 1997 at 8 p.m, received Showtime's highest-ever ratings for a series premiere and ranked as the highest-rated original movie to premiere on Showtime in 3-1/2 years at the time. The show got a 10.5 rating in Showtime's approximately 12 million U.S. households, which equaled approximately 1.5 million homes in total. Season one regular cast members included Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge and Don S. Davis.

Production
Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner had worked together on the Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM) television series The Outer Limits since 1995. Wright saw a wide range of possible science fiction storylines in the original Stargate (1994) film that could take place in the present day. Meanwhile, Glassner was interested in the feature film's theme that Ancient Egypt had been partially or completely built by aliens. Upon hearing of MGM's plan to create a television spin-off series of the film, Wright and Glassner independently and unbeknownst to each other approached MGM and proposed their concept for the television series. MGM president John Symes greenlit the project on the condition that Wright and Glassner worked together as executive producers of the new show. The show was eventually given the name Stargate SG-1 after Wright flightily agreed to Symes's pitch question if the team should be called "SG-1". MGM released posters titled Stargate SG-1 within the next week without the knowledge of Wright and Glassner.

John Symes approached Michael Greenburg and Richard Dean Anderson of MacGyver fame. Although Anderson was never a real fan of the science fiction genre, he believed the original concept of a "Stargate" was a good vehicle for a series. Anderson agreed to become involved with the project if his character Jack O'Neill was allowed significantly more comedic leeway than Kurt Russell's character in the feature film. He also requested Stargate SG-1 to be more of an ensemble show, so that he would not be carrying the plot alone as on MacGyver. The American subscription channel Showtime made a two-season commitment for 44 episodes in 1996. Principal photography began in Vancouver in February 1997.

"The First Commandment" was the first Stargate SG-1 episode written by Robert C. Cooper, who would later become an executive producer and co-creator of the spin-off series Stargate Atlantis. Paul McGillion, who played young Ernest Littlefield in "The Torment of Tantalus", would go on to play the recurring and later main character Dr. Carson Beckett in Stargate Atlantis. The outside scenes of "Solitudes" were filmed at Pemberton Icefield. The rest of the episode was filmed in the studio, which was filled with fake snow and ice and kept at a low temperature.

Production design
Lead production designer Richard Hudolin flew to Los Angeles, 1996 to gather material from Stargate for reference and found the original film prop stored outside in the Californian desert. Although the prop had severely disintegrated, he could take a detailed mould for Stargate SG-1 production to build its own prop. The new Stargate was engineered to turn, lock the chevrons, and be computer-controlled to dial specific gate addresses. A portable Stargate prop was built for on-location shoots and required six workers and one full day to set up. Since visual effects are sometimes faster and cheaper, a computer-generated Stargate was occasionally used in on-location shoots in later seasons.

The design of the Stargate Command (SGC) base was supposed to match the real Cheyenne Mountain complex as much as possible. The set had to be twice as high for shooting as the 22 feet tall Stargate prop, but one of Hudolin's original plans of a three-level SGC set was rejected in favor of a two-level set. The gateroom was the biggest room on set and could be redesigned for other scenes. Two multi-purpose rooms were frequently redecorated into the infirmary, Daniel's lab, the cafeteria or the gym. The SGC set and all other sets from the pilot episode were constructed within six weeks in January and February 1997, incorporating some original set pieces from the feature film.