At the Ancient site discovered in Antarctica, Daniel Jackson and Dr. Elizabeth Weir, along with a team from Stargate Command, are still trying to determine the location of the Ancients’ lost city and learn more about their leftover technology. One such experiment, with a control chair that can only be activated by those humans who possess a rare Ancient gene, launches a drone weapon into the sky over Antarctica – and straight at a helicopter bringing General Jack O’Neill to the base. O’Neill only makes it safely to land due to the quick thinking of his pilot, Major Sheppard. But that’s not the only skill Sheppard brings to the table – completely by accident, it’s discovered that he has the Ancient gene, and a more instinctive rapport with Ancient technology than anybody on the team Dr. Weir has assembled. Weir asks General O’Neill to assign Sheppard to join the expedition, despite a colorful service record.
That expedition, Daniel believes, will lead to the lost Ancient city of Atlantis – and there is now evidence that the city is not just on another planet, but in another galaxy, a trip requiring enormous power. Dr. Rodney McKay, the leading authority on the stargate outside of the SGC, thinks that an Ancient power device known as a Zero Point Module, will be the only way to open a wormhole that can reach another galaxy – and in all likelihood it will prove to be a one-way trip. When Weir’s team arrives at Atlantis, the dormant but intact city awakens – especially when Major Sheppard sets foot anywhere near Ancient technology, including a hologram that tells of how the Ancients abandoned the city after years of being besieged by an enemy known as the Wraith. But the activation of all of that technology comes at a price: Atlantis is submerged beneath hundreds of feet of ocean, and the only thing that has kept the water pressure from crushing Atlantis is a shield that has operated for thousands of years. Now that the city is awakening, power is being drained from the shield. Dr. Weir assigns Colonel Sumner, the military commanding officer of the expedition, to use Atlantis’ stargate to visit a nearby world to find more ZPMs.
Sumner’s team, including Sheppard, find a primitive society on the planet on the other side of the gate, and despite Sumner’s misgivings, Sheppard befriends a local woman named Teyla, who promises to tell him more about the Wraith. But the Atlantis team gets to see the Wraith first-hand – for the first time in generations, the Wraith attack Teyla’s people without provocation, abducting many of them, along with Sumner and several of his men. Sheppard orders a hasty retreat back to Atlantis, bringing refugees from Teyla’s village with him, and begins to make plans to rescue Sumner. Dr. Weir only reluctantly gives him permission to go, but Sheppard manages to find Sumner just in time to see him being interrogated – and consumed – by the Wraith. Sheppard shoots Sumner himself to give the Colonel a relatively merciful death, but when he kills the Wraith that was interrogating Sumner, the entire Wraith hive awakens. Now the Wraith know that the Ancient city is occupied again, and thanks to what they learned from Sumner before his death, they know that the city’s new occupants come from a rich new feeding ground in another galaxy.
Season 1 Regular Cast: Joe Flanigan (Major John Sheppard), Torri Higginson (Dr. Elizabeth Weir), David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay), Rainbow Sun Francks (Lt. Aiden Ford), Rachel Luttrell (Teyla)
written by Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith
Guest Cast: Richard Dean Anderson (General Jack O’Neill), Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson), Garwin Sanford (Simon), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Andee Frizzell (The Keeper), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Christopher Heyerdahl (Halling), Robert Patrick (Colonel Sumner), Reece Thompson (Jinto), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), Geoff Redknap (old Colonel Sumner), Casey Dubois (Wex), Melia McClure (Female Ancient), Dan Shea (Sgt. Siler), James Lafaznos (Wraith), David Milchard (SGC Technician), Bro Gilbert (Scientist), Peter Grasson (Scientist), Ona Grauer (Ayiana), Dan Payne (Wraith Warrior), Aaron Dudley (Male Ancient), Edmond Kato Wong (Atlantis Technician), Stefano Colacitti (Toran), Mary Joan Buchanan (Beckett’s Mom)
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Lefty returns to the Tomorrow People’s base to report Ginge’s disappearance, and Stephen returns with him to look for Ginge. Carol and John are still preoccupied with studying the outbreak of storms and volcanic eruptions, but when they return to their base, TIM tells them not only of Stephen’s mission, but that it may represent an immediate danger to Stephen. When Stephen and Lefty enter the same haunted house in which Ginge vanished, only Lefty emerges; Stephen is dumped at sea and retrieved by an older man who has been watching all of this activity. Carol and John try to stop him from taking Stephen…only to watch him disappear.Cast: Sammie Winmill (Carol), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Stephen Salmon (Kenny), Kenneth Farrington (Smithers), Michael Standing (Ginge), Derek Crewe (Lefty), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Kevin Stoney (Steen), John Woodnutt (Spidron), Nova Llewellyn (Joy), David Weston (No. 300), Bara Chambers (Control voice)
Notes: This is Carolyn Seymour’s last appearance in Survivors; in a Survivors-focused episode of the BBC’s retrospective series The Cult Of…, Seymour reveals that she was struggling with alcoholism during the making of the first series. She went on to appear in 
