Category: Stargate Atlantis

Dr. McKay becomes the first human trial of Dr. Beckett’s experimental gene therapy to allow even those without the Ancient gene to use Atlantis’ technology. But McKay’s first test of an Ancient device encases him in an impenetrable shield – one that won’t even allow him to eat or drink. But soon, Dr. Weir and the rest of the team face an even bigger problem – the newly-occupied city seems to be experiencing random power failures and malfunctions. Worse yet, Teyla has brought her fellow Athosian villagers to Atlantis from the mainland, and several of them report seeing a “shadow” that they associate with sightings of the Wraith. Sheppard and Ford each have their own close encounters with the mobile shadow, and Ford’s meeting with it is nearly fatal. Sheppard and McKay then discover a trap that may have used by the Ancients to capture the shadow before – but the only bait that may lure the creature into captivity may be a living human…perhaps someone wearing a shield that makes him invulnerable.

story by Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper
teleplay by Robert C. Cooper
directed by David Warry-Smith
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Christopher Heyerdahl (Halling), Reece Thompson (Jinto), Casey Dubois (Wex), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse), Meghan Black (Marta)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A recon mission to a Wraith-occupied planet ends with Sheppard’s team under fire, their puddle jumper damaged, and Sheppard himself out of commission with a parasitic alien insect attached to his neck. Lt. Ford winds up with his first, and very nervous command, and keeps it simple by simply trying to get back to Atlantis. But one of the jumper’s engine pods, damaged in the fight, doesn’t retract completely, leaving the ship stuck halfway in and halfway out of the stargate. It’s a situation that McKay, stuck in the rear compartment of the jumper with Teyla, Ford and Sheppard, knows all too well from one of his collaborations with SG-1: if the entire jumper doesn’t go through the gate, the gate will close in 38 minutes, shearing off the forward compartment (and killing the two pilots), and exposing the rest of the jumper to hard vacuum. McKay tries to work out a solution while the brightest minds on Atlantis try to come up with ideas on their end, but even if they can figure out a way to nudge the jumper through the gate, for Sheppard it may only mean the difference between dying at Atlantis or dying in deep space as the parasite digs in.

written by Brad Wright
directed by Mario Azzopardi
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Grodin), Christopher Heyerdahl (Hallan), Ben Cotton (Dr. Kavanagh), Fiona Hogan (Simpson), Joseph May (Sgt. Markham), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse), Edmond Wong (Technician)

Notes: The 38-minute theoretical limit on an open stargate’s wormhole was established in the second season of Stargate SG-1 in A Matter Of Time. However, as worried as McKay was about this time limit, it was exceeded both in A Matter Of Time and in the SG-1 sixth season premiere, Reckoning.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

An excursion through the stargate ends in a hasty retreat back to Atlantis, and as Major Sheppard’s team returns, Dr. McKay takes a shot to the head from a Wraith weapon, but its paralyzing effects are only temporary. Dr. Weir points out that out of a mere nine trips through the gate, Sheppard has encountered the Wraith five times, and worries that a spy is operating within the team in an attempt to sabotage their stay on Atlantis. Sheppard agrees, but is less than thrilled when Teyla seems to be the prime suspect. Weir sets up interviews with every Athosian who is serving in the city, including Teyla, but restricts them from certain parts of Atlantis or from leaving the city. With stargate travel declared off-limits, Sheppard and Ford explore Atlantis’ own world with a jumper, finding an enormous land mass elsewhere on the planet. Weir considers the possibility of relocating the Athosians to that continent, but as she prepares for a backlash at the suggestion, she is surprised when most of the city’s Athosians approach her with an offer to leave voluntarily. But after they leave and Sheppard’s team resumes trips through the Stargate, with Teyla in tow, the Wraith attacks continue.

teleplay by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
story by Kerry Glover
directed by Mario Azzopardi
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Christopher Heyerdahl (Halling), Ross Hull (Dr. Corrigan), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse), Edmond Kato Wong (Technician), James Lafazanos (Wraith), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Santo Lombardo (Athosian), Agam Darshi (Athosian), Andre Benjamin (Guard), Phoenix Ly (Yamato)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

During a survey of a planet in the Pegasus Galaxy, a jumper carrying Sheppard, Teyla, McKay and Ford crashes when its systems all simultaneously fail. Even portable equipment is rendered useless by an electromagnetic field. When they set out to disable the field so they can repair the jumper and leave, a group of camouflaged, armed children take them prisoner and bring them to their village. There, Sheppard meets the oldest of this curious society’s “elders” – a young man named Keras who is only hours away from his 25th birthday, which is marked by a ritual suicide. Keras and his people believe that this sacrifice is what keeps the Wraith from attacking them. But when Rodney finds a ZPM powering the field that caused the jumper to crash, a different picture emerges. Rodney is eager to bring the ZPM back to Atlantis for study, to see if it can help in the city’s defense, not even considering the possibility that the field he has just disabled is the real source of the village’s invincibility. And once the field is down, a Wraith homing device begins transmitting…

written by Martin Gero
directed by David Winning
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Courtenay J. Stevens (Keras), Dominic Zamprogna (Aries), Jessica Amlee (Cleo), Sam Charles (Casta), Alana Husband (Ennea), Shane Meier (Neleus), Julie Patzwald (Pelias), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Calum Worthy (Hunter Kid)

Notes: Dr. Zelenka pays his first visit to this planet in the second season episode Critical Mass, with even more colorful results than Sheppard’s team. Dominic Zamprogna has appeared in the new Battlestar Galactica as well, playing a reporter in Litmus and Viper pilot Jammer during the second season.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A visit to a planet with steam-age technology provides Sheppard and his team with an unlikely weapon against the Wraith – a protein that helps humans resist the enzyme injected by the Wraith that allows feeding to begin. McKay is skeptical of the effectiveness of any anti-Wraith advance that could come from such a relatively primitive society. But when Dr. Beckett joins forces with Perna, the chief scientist working on the serum, he’s able to advance her research by decades in a matter of hours with his technology. But when talk of human trials begins, without any extensive testing of the drug’s side effects, Beckett and Sheppard are uneasy. Dr. Weir only reluctantly agrees to the plan of exposing the serum to Atlantis’ only Wraith prisoner via a terminally ill patient. That test seems to be a success, until it becomes apparent that the drug won’t just resist the Wraith, it will kill them – and it won’t do its human hosts any favors either. If Beckett can’t find a cure, an entire society may become extinct without a single Wraith attack.

story by Mary Kaiser
teleplay by Damian Kindler
directed by Brad Turner
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Alan Scarfe (Chancellor Druhin), Allison Hossack (Perna), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), James Lafazanos (Wraith), Neil Maffin (Merell), Darren Hird (Dying Patient), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), Edmond Kato Wong (Technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Teyla introduces the Atlantis team to a simple agrarian society known as the Genii. Sheppard leads a team to bargain with the Genii for food, but their leader, Cowen, seems more interested in trading for explosives than the medicines that are offered. Sheppard and McKay return to Atlantis to discuss the altered terms of the trade with Dr. Weir, who is understandably upset at the prospect that her expedition is becoming arms dealers. As they make their way back to the Genii village, McKay and Sheppard find traces of radioactivity, and follow those readings to a hatch leading to an underground bunker that, while still primitive by Atlantis’ standards, is evidence of a higher technology than what the Genii seem to have on the surface of their planet. With the truth exposed, the Genii drop the pretense of being simple farmers – or of welcoming Sheppard’s team. Their society lives in vast underground chambers, where they hide from the Wraith and are slowly developing the equivalent of early Cold War-era atomic weapons. McKay’s tactless criticism of the Genii nukes convinces Cowen that there may be some value in joining forces with Atlantis after all, but trust seems to be in short supply in the well-stocked Genii arsenal.

written by Peter DeLuise
directed by Brad Turner
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Erin Chambers (Sora), Ari Cohen (Tyrus), Colm Meaney (Cowen), Darren Hird (Cocooned Victim), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin)

Notes: Guest star Colm Meaney is a genre favorite, having co-starred in all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Chief O’Brien, a role that he originated as an unnamed Enterprise crewmember in the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A stargate on a mist-shrouded world provides the Atlantis team with a unique opportunity. When McKay discovers that this gate draws its power from that planet’s atmosphere, it seems like the gate could have enough power to reach Earth. By dismantling the Atlantis gate’s dial-home device, McKay is able to establish a link to the SGC. Despite the risk that it might be a one-way trip back to Earth, Dr. Weir, McKay, Major Sheppard, Ford and Teyla step through the gate. General Hammond gives them a warm welcome home, but informs them that the Pentagon may order a complete withdrawal from Atlantis. Soon afterward, Ford gets transfer orders, McKay has a hard time convincing Hammond to let him search for new ways back to Atlantis, and Weir and Sheppard begin to suspect that perhaps they haven’t traveled far from Atlantis at all.

written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
directed by Holly Dale
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Don S. Davis (General Hammond), Garwin Sanford (Simon), Noah Beggs (Dex), Stephen Spender (Mitch), Edmond Kato Wong (Atlantis Technician), Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Nicole Rudell (Doctor), Lynda Riley (Brunette), Robert Weiss (Scientist)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A routine survey in a jumper alerts Sheppard to the existence of a massive, hurricane-like storm over the planet’s ocean – and it’s tracking straight toward Atlantis and the Athosian mainland. Worse yet, Atlantis’ depleted shields won’t protect the city from a direct strike by a hurricane that covers 20% of the planet’s surface and is stronger than anything ever seen on Earth. As Sheppard begins visiting nearby worlds via the stargate to bargain for a place to evacuate temporarily, McKay tries to find a way to use the storm’s inevitable abundance of lightning to charge the city’s shields to full power. But the people Sheppard has arranged to take in evacuees sell Atlantis out to the Genii. Cowen assigns one of his most ruthless deputies, Commander Kolya, to devise a plan to take over the city and raid its supplies of weapons, medicines and other valuables, though once Kolya arrives, overpowers the skeleton crew left to defend Atlantis, and takes Weir and McKay hostage, he alters the plan. Now the Genii want to pick up where Atlantis’ crew left off in preparing to save the city from the storm…but Sheppard has different plans.

story by Jill Blotevogel
teleplay by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Robert Davi (Kolya), Erin Chambers (Sora), Ryan Robbins (Ladon), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Michael Puttonen (Smeadon), Colm Meaney (Cowen), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Don Ackerman (Doran), Steve Archer (Generator Room Guard), Colin Corrigan (Guard #2), Jason Diablo (Guard), Conan Graham (Genii Soldier), Jodie Graham (Genii Soldier), Cory Monteith (Genii Private)

Notes: McKay mentions Hurricane Hazel as Canada’s last significant hurricane strike, 50 years before this episode; Hazel did indeed devastate parts of Ontario in 1954, having already carved a path of destruction through Haiti and the eastern seaboard of the United States. You can get a good idea of the storm’s impact on Canada at this site.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Genii have seized control of the city, and only McKay’s fast talking keeps himself and Dr. Weir alive. McKay keeps talking long enough to delay Kolya’s persistent threats to kill all of his hostages, and in that time Major Sheppard begins a stealthy offensive to disable Atlantis and its defenses to make the city a less attractive target for the Genii; when the stargate is opened, Sheppard puts up a shield that results in the death of nearly all of the incoming Genii reinforcements, totaling nearly sixty soldiers including Kolya’s own son. But even if Sheppard succeeds in convincing Kolya and his troops that they should retreat before Atlantis is destroyed by the approaching storm, can he undo his sabotage in time to restore the city’s shields and prevent that ruse from becoming reality?

written by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Robert Davi (Kolya), Erin Chambers (Sora), Ryan Robbins (Ladon), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Conan Graham (Genii Soldier)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sheppard, McKay and two scientists explore one of the other planets in Atlantis’ solar system in a jumper, finding an enormous but dormant weapons platform in orbit, possibly the Ancients’ last line of defense for Atlantis. They find a crashed Wraith ship on the planet’s surface, along with a startlingly well-preserved dead Wraith on board – one which seems to have been fed upon by another Wraith, a behavior that hasn’t been observed before. They also find a chamber with hundreds of coccooned human bodies – a sign that other Wraiths may be nearby, stockpiling food for reasons unknown. Sheppard takes this as a sign that it’s time to return to the jumper, but it’s too late – one of the junior scientists becomes the Wraith’s latest victim, and the other is captured and coccooned. Sheppard and McKay find their surviving team member, and Sheppard arms McKay and leaves him to guard the wounded man. In the meantime, Sheppard races to return to the undefended jumper, only to find that the Wraith has already discovered it – and its weapons. Sheppard can’t call for help, and even when Dr. Weir becomes worried enough to send Lt. Ford and Teyla in charge of a backup team, help is over 15 hours away.

written by Peter DeLuise
directed by Peter DeLuise
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Richard Cox (Gaul), Paul Magel (Abrams), James Lafazanos (Wraith), Joseph May (Markham)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The mysterious death of two team members after they report seeing something unusual forces Dr. Weir to order a medical quarantine of the entire city – everyone is to remain where they are, including McKay’s team, now trapped near whatever killed their teammates. Sheppard doesn’t like the idea of sitting still, and overrides Weir’s authority when McKay reports that one of his more nervous surviving team members has fled into the city, breaking the quarantine – and possibly spreading the infection. Every member of McKay’s team who reports seeing a dark shadow approaching them dies soon afterward. The city begins sealing sections of itself off, as if sensing that the infection has indeed spread. McKay and Beckett determine that the growing plague isn’t of Wraith origin – and the latest person who’s seen the shadow that precedes yet another death is McKay himself.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Mario Azzopardi
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), Damon Johnson (Peterson), Lindsay Collins (Dr. Biro), Nathanni Arntzen (Dumais)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sheppard, Teyla, Ford and McKay are on a routine survey mission aboard one of Atlantis’ jumpers, when an attack group of Wraith Darts finds and pursues them. But just when they think they’re about to be destroyed, a blinding burst of energy emanates from a nearby planet, destroying the Darts – and leaving the jumper untouched. Sheppard decides that this force merits investigation (and the jumper needs repairs), but on the planet, they find only a primitive, spiritual people who know nothing of the Wraith or the weapon that destroyed them, to say nothing of the technology that could have built such a weapon. Sheppard’s pleas to relocate refugees to this world falls on deaf ears, so he invites the high priestess to tour Atlantis for herself. McKay, on the other hand, is suspicious of the people of Proculus, and believes they’re more advanced than they appear to be – and when she touches a console and activates it, revealing she has the Ancient gene, it only intensifies his suspicion.

written by Alan Brennert
directed by James Head
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Robert Thurston (Zarah), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Leonor Varela (Chaya Sar)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sheppard leads a team investigating some of the still-unexplored parts of the city, when he finds a chamber with an elderly woman in suspended animation. Dr. Weir makes the call to revive the woman, who McKay says has been frozen for 10,000 years. The apparently human woman’s first words upon waking up are “It worked.” After some rest, Dr. Beckett reports that the woman has awakened again, and seems to recognize the people and things around her. When Weir pays her another visit, the woman claims to be her – after traveling back in time to the Ancients’ heyday on Atlantis. Beckett confirms the woman’s DNA is the same as Weir’s. But her story of what happened baffles everyone – according to the older Weir, Atlantis’ shields remained down when Weir’s team arrived through the stargate and activated the city’s systems. The city flooded, many of the crew was killed, and only Weir survived, somehow finding herself 10,000 years in the past, healed by the Ancients. It turns out that the Ancients did not approve of the construction of the time travel device that led to Weir’s recovery, and refuse to allow it to be used to return her to the future. But another of the Ancients gave this timeline’s Weir another option – a chance to ensure that events would unfold differently when she arrived 10,000 years in the future.

written by Carl Binder
excerpts from The Rising written by Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Gildart Jackson (Janus), Matthew Walker (Ancient Council Member), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Melia McClure (Melia), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Alex DeCosta (Technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

In the pages of an ancient library visited by Sheppard’s team, McKay finds historical evidence of a zero point module. Historical documents on the planet Dagan indicate that the ZPM was kept as an object of worship and guarded by an order of monks, and they left a map to uncover the ZPM in several buried pieces. McKay and Sheppard’s team receive valuable assistance from the local population, though not all of them think they should be helping their new visitors so readily. Their combined efforts uncover an underground bunker, and Sheppard’s team goes to explore it with some of the locals, leaving Ford on guard. Another party on Dagan quickly makes its presence known: Kolya, the Genii commander whose forces Sheppard drove off of Atlantis during the storm. In the meantime, on Atlantis, a deep space sensor system is accidentally activated, and after a Wraith dart ship strafes the city, Dr. Weir orders a maximum-range sweep with those sensors – and discovers three massive Wraith hive ships are on a course for Atlantis.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Robert Davi (Kolya), Jana Mitsoula (Allina), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Adrian Hough (Genii Lieutenant), Laura Mennell (Sanir), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Dean Marshall (Sgt. Bates), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse)

LogBook entry by Earl Green