Watch out for minor spoilers below.
“I don’t want to give anything away, but what I think is the most brilliant thing we’ve done on Atlantis during the past three years will happen at the end of this episode,” Flanigan said. “Basically, it will be like a ‘soft’ reset on a ton of issues.”
In the episode, Earth detects that the Replicators of the Pegasus Galaxy are building a fleet of ships, and launches a preemptive attack against them.
“It’s so tough to talk about it without going into specifics, but essentially it opens up so may other avenues in terms of storytelling. The writers have found a clever way to take Atlantis down an entirely new creative path as well as bring a fresh tone to the programme, while at the same time keeping true to the classic elements already established.
“How’s that for being totally ambiguous?” the actor laughed. “Let’s just say that it sparks off a big adventure. It’s all under the guise of what’s happened before, which is Atlantis is being attacked, but in fact that will prove not to be the essence of this story.”
“First Strike” airs this spring on the SCI FI Channel in the U.S. The third season of Stargate Atlantis returns in April with 10 new episodes!
(Thanks to Elinor for the tip!)