Stargate Origins: all the updates and trailers for the online prequel series

MGM has released a new trailer for its upcoming prequel show, Stargate: Origins, showing off an Indiana Jones-style adventure that pits its characters against Nazis in Egypt in 1939.

The trailer shows off a bit more of what to expect from the digital show, which will follow Catherine Langford (played by Ellie Gall), the daughter of the explorer who discovered the stargate device in Giza, Egypt in 1928. Langford has apparently been trying to figure out what the device does, but so has Nazi occultist Dr. Wilhelm Brücke. Langford comes across a diary with new symbols that seem to relate to the gate, and along with a small group of companions, she has to fight to keep the device out of Brücke’s hands.

After releasing a pair of behind-the-scenes clips from Stargate: Origins, MGM has unveiled its first teaser for the upcoming digital-only show. While the franchise is known for its interstellar adventures, this prequel looks as though it’s remaining firmly grounded, and taking a bit of inspiration from the likes of Indiana Jones.

The show will feature Ellie Gall as Catherine Langford, one of the more important characters in the franchise. She’s the daughter of the Stargate’s original discoverer, and would later be part of the team that uncovered the alien device’s purpose: to open a wormhole to other gates. In this teaser, we see a much younger Langford facing off against a much different adversary: Nazis, who seem to be interested in the gate for their own purposes.

Production has ended on MGM’s forthcoming digital show, Stargate: Origins, and to celebrate, it’s released a new behind-the-scenes featurette that shows off a bit of what to expect when the show debuts next year on the studio’s dedicated streaming service for the franchise, Stargate Command.

Directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan, the show will serve as a prequel to the 1994 film Stargate and the 1997 TV show Stargate SG-1, which kicked off the larger television franchise. It will follow Catherine Langford, the daughter of the explorer who discovered the titular alien device in Egypt, and who would go on to play a small, but important role in both film and television series.

At San Diego Comic-Con, MGM announced that it was launching a new Stargate streaming service called Stargate Command, and that it would be creating an original show for the service. At Stan Lee’s Los Angeles Comic Con, the studio teased our first look at the upcoming show.

Stargate Origins will be a prequel to the original film and followup television franchise. This two-minute featurette shows off the first week of production, with a small tent city and offices for a young Catherine Langford (played by Ellie Gall).

Last month, when the Syfy Channel cancelled its pulpy space-opera show, Dark Matter, the show’s creator, Joseph Mallozzi, immediately began working on a way to save it. Recently, on his blog, he revealed that MGM showed some interest in picking up Dark Matter — and crossing it over with another well-known science fiction television franchise, Stargate.

Dark Matter follows the crew of the Raza after they wake up from stasis with amnesia and work to build new lives. The show ran for three seasons on the Syfy channel before it was canceled, but not before gaining a small, vocal fanbase that lamented its demise.

At San Diego Comic-Con this summer, MGM dropped a big announcement: it was bringing back the long-running Stargate franchise with a new show: Stargate Origins, a 10-episode prequel web series. Along with that news, it also announced a new website called Stargate Command, which will become the de facto online home for fans of the franchise. That site launched yesterday, and it’s a dedicated streaming service for all things Stargate.

Huge back catalogs of content have helped bring streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu enormous levels of success. But while there are major streaming platforms out there, there is also a multitude of ones that target a specific audience, such as Comic Con HQ. Disney has also announced a streaming service, dedicated to its own vast library of content, including films from its Star Wars and Marvel franchises. MGM conceived the idea for Stargate Command last year when the studio decided not to go forward with a rebooted Stargate film trilogy, but wanted to find a way to give back to the fan community. MGM told The Verge that the platform is an experiment: “we thought the combination of a social platform that could also deliver video was a really interesting context to give fans something that we know they’ve been asking for a long time, i.e. new Stargate content.”