Category: Stargate Atlantis

Dr. Weir’s day is not off to a good start. She awakens in a mental hospital and finds that the Atlantis mission has – according to psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher and his staff – been a hallucinatory fantasy she has clung to in the wake of a traumatic accident. General Jack O’Neill, who Weir believes to be part of the “Stargate program,” visits her to reassure her that there is, in fact, no such program. Plagued by persistent visions of something stalking her, Weir finally stops resisting treatment and, according to Fletcher, shows signs of improving drastically. At this point, however, Weir’s grip on reality is loosened when she opens a door and finds herself staring into the stargate’s event horizon itself. Is she losing her mind, or is this vision an indication that the Atlantis mission is real, and her crew is trying to retrieve her?

written by Carl Binder
directed by Paul Ziller
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Richard Dean Anderson (General Jack O’Neill), Alan Ruck (Dr. Fletcher), John O’Callaghan (Niam), James Bamford (Orderly)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Following a signal they believe was sent by Ladon, the Genii scientist who led an overthrow of his warlike government, Sheppard and his team are ambushed. He finds that Kolya, the leader of that overthrown regime, is his captor. Kolya demands that Ladon be handed over to him, or else he’ll unleash another of his prisoners – a captured Wraith – to feed on Sheppard. He even broadcasts a brief and torturous demonstration of his threat to Atlantis. Weir and Ladon begin to plan a rescue mission, while Sheppard tries to appeal to the only person who can possibly understand his plight – the Wraith prisoner. Together they manage to escape from Kolya’s prison, though Sheppard is already weakened from several brief feeding sessions. Even with help coming from Atlantis, can Sheppard expect to live long enough to be rescued when his life depends on a Wraith?

written by Ken Cuperus
directed by William Waring
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Robert Davi (Kolya), Christopher Heyerdahl (Wraith), Ryan Robbins (Ladon), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Paul Lazenby (Genii Soldier), Geoff Redknap (Old Sheppard)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Rodney is called back to Earth to deal with a family emergency – his sister, Jeanie Miller, has written a scientific proof that could be a turning point in Atlantis’ energy problems, drawing zero point energy through a bridge to a parallel universe, on a scale much larger than a ZPM could provide. But Jeanie won’t sign a confidentiality agreement with the U.S. government that would allow her to do further research with the Stargate program. Though Carter hopes Rodney can talk her into helping, it quickly becomes apparent that Rodney is even less likely to convince his sister, not having spoken to her since she abandoned a promising career in theoretical physics to start a family. After a short demonstration that the Stargate program is for real, and interstellar and intergalactic travel are possible, she agrees to return to Atlantis to help test her theory. The one thing that she expects even less than all of these discoveries, however, is that along with energy from another universe, her theory will introduce her to another version of her brother from that universe. The alternate Rodney has a completely different personality, quickly endearing himself even to those Atlantis crew members who are tired of their own version of him. But his arrival could mean the end of both universes.

written by Martin Gero
excerpt written by Carl Binder
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Amanda Tapping (Colonel Samantha Carter), Kate Hewlett (Jeanie), David Nykl (Dr. Zelekna), Brendan Call (Kaleb), Madison Bell (Madison), Trevor Devall (voice of Hermiod), Sheri Noel (Scientist)

Notes: Rodney’s full name is revealed to be Meredith Rodney McKay, something which seems to delight Carter to no end. Rodney’s video message to his sister was recorded in season 1’s Letters From Pegasus, but apparently she didn’t receive it.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

When an SG team from Atlantis fails to check in for six hours, another team led by Sheppard goes looking for them. But when Sheppard’s team finds on the other side of the stargate is horrifying – several deal bodies, in Genii uniform, have all been killed in violent ways – gunshots, stab wounds, broken necks and even suicide. There’s no sign of the missing Atlantis team, but there is an unusual energy reading which is eventually traced to a cavern containing a device of Wraith origin. As Rodney begins investigating the machine, Sheppard finds most of the missing Atlantis team, again killed violently – and their commanding officer is still out there, though he thinks that his Atlantis crewmates are the enemy. But Ronon and Sheppard begin to experience paranoid hallucinations that make them just as dangerous as the man they’re trying to bring home safely, and soon Sheppard poses more of a threat to his own team.

written by Carl Binder
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: David Nykl (Dr. Zelekna), Dexter Bell (Lt. Barroso), Nels Lennarson (Captain), Colby Johannson (Lt. Kagan), Gidon Karmel (Major Leonard), Anna Williams (Female Tech), Patrick Sabongui (Taliban Guard), Bam Bam (Wraith), Dan Payne (Super Soldier)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The gate network connecting Atlantis to Earth via a series of stargates and the under-construction Midway Space Station is tested successfully, but an even bigger surprise arrives in the form of an Ancient warship, similar to the Aurora, which appears to be damaged and in need of help. When the Daedalus renders assistance and brings those Ancients back to Atlantis, the captain of the Ancient ship manages to lock out Weir’s crew by activating a single control that none of the Earth expedition has ever seen before. When General O’Neill tries to negotiate a treaty allowing the Earth team to stay there, he is told in no uncertain terms that the Atlanteans are back, and don’t intend to share their city with anyone. Dr. Weir and her team are sent home, while Wolsey from the IOC is assigned to Atlantis to serve as liaison, and General O’Neill remains with him while he’s there. On Earth, Sheppard is quickly assigned to head up his own SG team, though he never quite finds the kind of bond with them that he had with his Atlantis teammates. McKay is assigned to Area 51. Weir slides into a reclusive depression, and Teyla and Ronon stay in the Pegasus Galaxy with the Athosians (though the Genii try to recruit them as soldiers of fortune soon after learning of the Ancients’ return). But when a desperate message is received from Atlantis, indicating that Atlantis has fallen to the Replicators, trapping (and possibly killing) Wolsey and O’Neill, Weir and her team offer to spring into action – but the only help General Landry wants from them is a way to hit Atlantis with a nuke to prevent the Replicators from using the gate network to travel to Earth. With no orders, no backup, an nowhere they’d rather be, Weir, Sheppard, McKay and Beckett steal a jumper from the SGC and return to take Atlantis back.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Brad Turner
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Richard Dean Anderson (General Jack O’Neill), Robert Picardo (Wolsey), Ryan Robbins (Ladon), Megan Leitch (Ancient Captain), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Bill Dow (Dr. Lee), Gary Jones (Chief Sgt. Harriman), David MacInus (Talus), Pinou (Cetus), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell), Beau Bridges (General Landry), Kirby Morrow (Daedalus Tech), Chuck Campbell (Atlantis Tech), Andrew Monham (Wallace), Elias Toufexis (Replicator), James Chutter (Babbis)

Notes: Dr. Beckett has been offered the head surgeon position at the SGC, which, combined with the absence of Lexa Doig from the tenth season of Stargate SG-1, makes one wonder what’s happened to Dr. Lam. In other SGC news, apparently Dr. Lee is an avid player of World Of Warcraft. And wishes Dr. Weir really was too. Megan Leitch previous appeared in SG-1’s third season (Past And Present) as Ke’ra, and played the pivotal recurring character of Mulder’s missing sister Samantha on The X-Files; she also voiced Midori in the English dub of Ranma 1/2.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Defying General Landry’s orders, a team consisting of Weir, Sheppard, McKay, Teyla and Ronon returns to Atlantis, dropping a bomb in the gate room and then making a run for it. Sheppard contacts O’Neill and tells him that the team will return in two hours. In that time, Sheppard pilots the jumper into orbit to retrieve the still-intact (and still-frozen) body of Niam, to use as a vehicle for a new virus to disable the replicators. But when that plan doesn’t pan out, both Sheppard’s team and the less-than-dynamic duo of O’Neill and Woolsey have to improvise an escape plan. As the rescue attempt becomes more desperate, and O’Neill and Woolsey have to rescue their rescuers, time is running out before O’Neill’s last standing order to the SGC is carried out: if a hostile force gains control of Atlantis, the city must be nuked, and the gate network linkng Atlantis to the SGC must be destroyed.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Brad Turner
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Richard Dean Anderson (General Jack O’Neill), Robert Picardo (Wolsey), John O’Callaghan (Niam), Bill Dow (Dr. Lee), Gary Jones (Chief Sgt. Harriman), David MacInus (Talus), Pinou (Cetus), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell), Beau Bridges (General Landry), Kirby Morrow (Daedalus Tech), Elias Toufexis (Replicator), Kerry Blouin (Replicator Guard), Patrick Lambier (Replicator Guard)

Notes: Niam was first encountered, and promptly ejected into space, earlier this season in Progeny.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Rodney spots a familiar face swimming in the ocean near Atlantis – well, more of a familiar flipper, belonging to the enormous, whale-like creature that helped his colleagues find his jumper when it crash-landed in the water. But it’s not alone this time – another creature of the same species is with it, and more are converging on Atlantis. Their appearance coincides with a series of strange sightings in the city itself, as first Teyla, then Dr. Weir, then Dr. Beckett, see visions of Ancients who aren’t there. Sheppard and Rodney go to investigate the water creatures, only to find that their whalesong-like communications are potentially fatal to humans. Aboard the Daedalus, Colonel Caldwell makes a strong argument for killing the creatures before they wreak any more havoc, and when Beckett’s sick bay is full of people who are literally dying from the whales’ approach, it’s a plan that Weir finds it hard to disagree with.

story by Brad Wright & Carl Binder
telelplay by Carl Binder
directed by William Waring
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Claire Rankin (Dr. Heightmeyer), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Mitch Pileggi (Col. Caldwell), Patricia Nudd (Ancient Woman), David Neale (Ancient Pilot), David Quinlan (Ancient Scientist), Amanda Burke (Ancient Scientist), Michael Chase (Ancient Med Tech)

Notes: Rodney originally had a whale of a time in the ocean in Grace Under Pressure, and nicknames his aquatic friend “Sam” in honor of that occasion (whether or not Colonel Samantha Carter would actually find this to be flattering remains to be seen).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sheppard’s team makes a stop at a planet where the people in one village speak of a valiant, unstoppable hero. Sheppard is understandably both annoyed and just a little bit let down when that hero turns out to be Lucius, the con man who nearly took over Atlantis. But this time, Lucius insists, he’s not up to his old tricks – he really is unstoppable, thanks to an Ancient personal shield. But what he’s saving the town from turns out to be nothing more than a band of Genii mercenaries who have become stranded on the planet. Shortly after Sheppard appears, more Genii arrive – under Kolya’s command – and threaten to destroy the town unless the visitors from Atlantis are handed over. This time, it’s not an act, and the townsfolk, who have grown complacent thanks to their hero, will have to help Sheppard and the others. But is Lucius capable of turning these people into an army?

written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Richard Kind (Lucius), Dean Wray (Genii), Meredith McGeachie (Wench), Robert Davi (Kolya), Adam Bergquist (Amaris), Jon Cuthbert (Fortnum), Ashley O’Connell (Fruit Stand Owner)

Notes: Lucius was first encountered in Irresistible, while Kolya was last seen in Common Ground. An Ancient personal shield similar to the one worn by Lucius was found by Rodney in the first season episode Hide And Seek. At first glance, this would seem to be a strong candidate for Kolya’s last appearance, but he’s proven hard to kill before.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Rodney and a science team unseal a room in Atlantis that hasn’t been touched since the Ancients lived in the city. Rodney reactivates a dormant control console, which somehow singles him out to receive a massive mental “upgrade,” giving him abilities such as telekinesis and even the capacity to read minds. He sets about trying to upgrade the city via a newly enhanced neural link, but his upgrade is cut short when his teammates learn the cost of Rodney’s new powers – the enhancements to his mind are drastically shortening the lifespan of his physical body. Rodney has mere days to learn how to ascend as the Ancients did…or die.

written by Damian Kindler
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Leela Savasta (Esposito), Donna Soares (Coleman), Chuck Campbell (Technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Major Lorne leads an expedition to a planet surrounded by geosynchronous satellites, a good candidate for an advanced civilization. But when he and his team land there, they find that the planet’s residents are in stone-age villages – decorated with banners and flags bearing the face of Rodney McKay. What’s even more alarming is that McKay and Sheppard recognize these images: they’re duplicates of an image McKay used to denote his “country” in the Ancient equivalent of a multi-player computer “god game.” When Sheppard and McKay go to this planet to see for themselves, they discover that their respective “societies” reflect their own personal ideologies, with McKay’s civilization pursuing rapid advances in science and only raising an army in response to the more aggressive advances that form the basis of Sheppard’s society. But the differences in the world views of the “Oracles” giving them their orders is about to drive the two civilizations to a very real war.

story by Don Whitehead & Holly Henderson
telelplay by Carl Binder
directed by William Waring
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Laura Harris (Nola), David Dayan Fisher (Baden), Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), James Long (Helkin), John Shaw (Garth)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

An exploration of an apparently abandoned space station, built into a hollowed-out asteroid orbiting a planet, intrigues McKay – to the point that he restarts the installation’s reactor and triggers the reanimation of a frozen crew of two men who weren’t picked up by sensors. They were left behind to guard a device storing a thousand of their people to protect them from detection by the Wraith. Upon learning that his world and his family fell victim to the Wraith before they could evacuate to the station, one of the revived crew commits suicide by firing the engines of the station’s single shuttle and stepping into the incinerating blast. But the engines also burn through the asteroid itself, pushing it out of its orbit…and blasting into space the jumper used by Sheppard’s team to get there. With time running out, a rescue team from Atlantis arrives to retrieve the crew, but before they can evacuate, the sole surviving reanimated crew member takes the survival of his race – and Teyla’s life – into his own hands.

story by Ken Cuperus & Scott Nimerfro
telelplay by Ken Cuperus
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Kenneth Welsh (Jamus), Joris Jarsky (Hersky), Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Gerry Durand (Marine)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Weir and Sheppard lead a team to find and board a mobile drilling platform built by the Ancients to tap into the ocean crust, but once on board, Teyla’s genetic link with the Wraith allows her to pick up on one nearby. But when Rodney performs a new sensor sweep, no Wraith is detected. Teyla tries to reach out to the Wraith with her mind, but even then she doesn’t find what she’s looking for – and yet moments later, she attacks Ronon and begins to cripple the drilling station’s systems. When the Wraith presence is finally revealed, so is its identity: the Wraith Queen who lead the final attack on Atlantis at the time the Ancients abandoned it. She’s been trapped beneath the sea for centuries, and ultimately killed and consumed her own crashed ship’s crew to survive. Now she wants to bargain for an opportunity to escape her underwater prison, but it’s not a negotiation she intends to enter without having the upper hand.

written by Ken Cuperus
directed by Brenton Spencer
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Andee Frizzell (Wraith Queen), Michael Tayles (Dr. Graydon), Noel Johansen (Dr. Dickinson), Donna Soares (Coleman)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Contact is lost with a civilization that the Atlantis team helped relocate when their world was threatened by a supervolcano eruption. When Sheppard and his team explore an underground installation to search for survivors, they instead find human-sized insects hatched from enormous pods. They injure one when it tries to attack Ronon, and plant explosives to destroy a hatchery full of more pods. Leftover experiments are found too, attempts to accelerate the evolution of the insect life forms that merged with humans to create the Wraith. A backup team of Marines is captured by a Wraith dart, and then Teyla is captured in the underground tunnels – by none other than Michael, the human-Wraith hybrid created by Dr. Beckett’s experiments. Michael, now outcast from either humans or Wraith, has set out to create a new conquering race even more powerful than the Wraith, and he has no problems using Sheppard’s team as his next set of test subjects.

written by Carl Binder
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith and Neil Acree

Guest Cast: Connor Trinneer (Michael), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Ryan Booth (Lt. Negley), Samuel Polin (Creature), Brian Ho (Stunt Creature), Josh Blacker (Screaming Man)

LogBook entry by Earl Green