Joe Flanigan ushers Atlantis to DVD

Any fan who hasn’t been under a D.H.D. (or outside North America) ought to be aware that Stargate Atlantis Season One has finally arrived on DVD in the United States and Canada. The boxed set hit store shelves this morning! To celebrate the release, GateWorld got hold of Joe Flanigan (Colonel John Sheppard), still in Vancouver, to get the lowdown on creating the first year of the show. He also took time to answer questions from fans at GateWorld Forum.

Apparently Joe has been under a D.H.D. himself. “I have not even seen it yet,” he tells GateWorld regarding the DVD set. “I’m the last person to get this stuff. I’m hoping that I’ll get comp’ed a copy, but you never know. I’m in Canada right now …”

When he learned that the set is available there, he sang a different tune: “Alright, I’ll run to the store and get it. It’ll be funny when I’m at the counter.”

Members of GateWorld Forum also got the chance to ask Flanigan some questions of their own regarding the first season of the hit series. Here’s a sampling:

What’s with the black band that Sheppard wears in a number of Season One episodes?
“I have been asked this question so many times, and I think that I’m going to keep it a mystery. I’ll let people continue to speculate. I’m having a lot of fun watching the speculation. But I’ve got my kids obsessed with those things. My kids wear ’em. They want ’em when they go to bed, they want ’em when they wake up. They want to go to school with ’em. It’s very funny.”

In “Thirty Eight Minutes,” what was Sheppard going to say to Dr. Weir if he was going to die?
“I can’t tell you that, otherwise I would’ve told you. That’s another one of those useful mysteries. To narrow it down, it ranges from the sublimely profound to the completely trivial. If you can choose somewhere between those two things, you’re probably right.”

In “Sanctuary,” everyone is in t-shirts and short sleeves, but Sheppard is bundled up from head to toe. Were you sick that week?
“What will happen sometimes [is] I try to guess what the temperature’s going to be for that particular week, and then establish the wardrobe. If it’s hot I obviously want to get into a t-shirt early on, because if I don’t I’m going to be stuck with a jacket for the next seven to eight days. There’s a limited range of what we can do. Obviously, if we’re out off world we have to have our vests and all that good stuff. But you can have a t-shirt, you can have a jacket, and sometimes I don’t guess very well.

“My weather forecasting isn’t too hot. I probably did some exterior stuff on a cold day and decided to go that way and ended up roasting inside because of that.”

How do you feel about Sheppard / McKay slashing (romantic relationship)?
“Thankfully I don’t think about it that much. And if I slashed, I’m not sure David [Hewlett] would be my choice there. And I think he’s kind of busy with the Paul McGillion slashing. You know how that works. I had no idea what slashing was. See? I’ve learned something.”

What’s the strangest thing a fan has ever given you?
“I would say almost all of the fans have been really sincere, good-hearted, and normal. I think I’ve had a few freaky episodes but having said that I have a little bit of a filter. I have an assistant who has kept me from certain fan mail because she said that it’s a little bizarre, and I probably don’t want to see it. The fan mail is what she really helps me with.

“We keep files and we try to remember everybody from different countries and all that sort of stuff. We try to really keep tabs on those things. There have been a number of times where she’s just said, ‘No no no, I’m not going to show you these things.’ So I’m guessing that I’ve had a few bizarre things but I haven’t seen them.”

If you don’t have your copy of Stargate Atlantis Season One on DVD, please consider ordering it through Amazon.com. Your purchase helps to support GateWorld!

Don’t worry — we asked Joe more questions! Stay tuned to GateWorld for much more.

(Thanks Emily, Livy, Vanessa the Undresser, Merlin7, shol’va, and Hannah for these particular questions!)