The following review contains spoilers.

Lt. Col. John Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) and his team go off-world to deliver supplies to Dr. Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion), who is treating a small group of survivors of the Hoffan plague who had been taken in by a village on another world from their own. When the Wraith arrive and demand the villagers turn over the plague survivors, who are now fatally poisonous for the Wraith to feed on, everyone reacts to the moral dilemma in their own way. Some villagers want to turn over the strangers who inadvertently brought trouble to their doorstep. One plague survivor tries to bargain for his own life by turning Dr. Beckett, who helped develop the original vaccine that the Hoffan plague was developed from, over to the Wraith. Sheppard and his team try to stall for time until they can find a way to save both the villagers and the plague survivors from the Wraith.

Unfortunately, the script seemed to go with what was expedient, rather than what was plausible. For instance, did it not occur to the villagers who wanted to turn the plague survivors over to the Wraith that as soon as they did, the Wraith would know who left in the village was safe to feed on? Also, collapsing a mine on the platoon of Wraith was a great way to take out an enemy who greatly outnumbered his own people, but when Sheppard set off the charges, he also buried the villagers who wanted to turn over the plague survivors. These villagers were just human beings whose only crime was to be short-sighted regarding their own survival and inconvenient to Sheppard’s plan. Not one word was spared for the moral quagmire represented there.

For the most part, the same writers who wrote the last five seasons of Stargate SG-1 have also now written five seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and the strain is starting to show. An infusion of fresh blood onto the writing staff could only help Stargate Universe when it comes out.

The following review contains spoilers.

Sheppard’s team received an invitation from a coalition of planets to attend what they thought would be a diplomatic function. Instead, they were drugged and taken to an undisclosed location to stand trial for crimes against the peoples of the Pegasus galaxy.

This is where the show once again missed an opportunity to excel. The trial could’ve thoroughly explored the moral and ethical dilemmas the expedition has faced since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, but unfortunately many of those decisions (Sgt. Bates’s witch hunt for a traitor among the Athosians, medical experiments conducted on Wraith without their consent, Sheppard’s shooting of an unarmed Wraith prisoner, and the railroading of Kavanaugh because no one liked him when a Goa’ulded Caldwell turned out to be the saboteur, to name but a few) happened behind the closed doors of Atlantis and the trial judges had no way of knowing about them. The trial could also have ended sooner with a follow-up investigation to see if it really was a sham arranged by the Genii to discredit Atlantis and become the dominant military force in Pegasus. Instead, the trial consisted of a lot of ‘yes, you dids�?and ‘no, we didn’ts�?interspersed by clips from previous episodes. And since two of the three judges were chosen for their bias against Atlantis, dragging the trial out for the full hour was largely a waste of time, since the outcome was obviously not going to be decided by any of the testimony.

There was a time when the Stargate franchise would recognize and seize upon opportunities to take the hard road and turn out stellar episodes, but the writers currently seem to be taking the path of least resistance. I feel like I’m killing an hour, rather than watching the adventures of characters I’d come to care about.

And I really wish the show were going out on a high note, instead of trying to prove every week that it deserved to have been canceled.

The following review contains spoilers.

After a run of poorly written and implausible episodes, Stargate Atlantis finally returned to what it does best: action, banter, and revealing character interaction. It even had a plot that held together for the whole episode!

Michael returned to once again seek revenge on Atlantis for performing the unauthorized experiments on him that ruined his life and made him an outcast among his own people. This time, he wanted Teyla’s baby, whose genetic gifts could help Michael gain better control over his hybrids, and to blow up Atlantis and everyone who had experimented on him for good measure. Naturally, that didn’t work out well for him.

I’m a little sad that Michael is finally dead (assuming he stays that way–no one ever really dies in sci fi). Connor Trinneer brought a lot of sympathy to a character who was basically our heroes�?archenemy. Michael certainly had a legitimate grievance with Atlantis. He is, quite literally, the enemy they made themselves. However, blaming Atlantis for what he became and everything he did afterward wasn’t entirely reasonable. Becoming a supervillain bent on galactic domination with his own genetically engineered hybrid army is on Michael’s conscience alone.

In addition to the main plot, the show treated us to some of the best character interactions its had in awhile. We got to see Teyla both as a mother dealing with a colicky baby and as a warrior who dealt the killing blow to Michael. We also got to see John and Rodney’s friendship in a light-hearted way through trash talking each other while racing radio-controlled cars, and in a serious way through Rodney struggling to say good-bye to John as John prepared to leave on yet another suicide mission. And we got to see the officious Woolsey, who never met a form he didn’t like (in triplicate), struggle to wring mission reports out of the terminally laconic Ronon (and the mission report he finally turned in, all three sentences of it, was pure Ronon). Plus, there was the added bonus of Rodney and Radek’s ‘forcefield vs. stun bubble�?argument.

A plot that made sense? Friends who act like friends? Fun action scenes? Oh, show, how I’ve missed you. Welcome back.

The following review contains spoilers.

Woolsey received his performance review from the IOA, which turned out to be a disguised political ploy to replace him with someone more willing to be the IOA’s puppet. His new friend, Dr. Vanessa Conrad, helped him fight to stay on Atlantis. Sheppard accompanied a pair of scientists on an overnight trip to the mainland, which led to him surprisingly being captured and tortured by Genii commander Acastus Kolya, who Sheppard had killed in the episode “Irresponsible.�?Meanwhile, a scan of the surrounding ocean had turned up a device emitting low level radiation that McKay and Zelenka were investigating.

The device turned out to be the link between all three stories. It was a pod containing the material necessary to rebuild a dying civilization. The device also turned out to be capable of producing AI’s to interface with selected people on Atlantis. The device made McKay see the Zelenka who suggested the ocean scan that led to the device’s recovery in the first place (the real Zelenka was off-world on a mission at the time); made Woolsey see Vanessa, whose job it was to determine whether or not Woolsey could be safely trusted with the knowledge of what the device really was; and made Sheppard see his greatest enemy to see how he, as head of the military, would respond to the alien race the device was hosting.

Interestingly, McKay saw a friend who worked alongside him and complemented his intelligence regularly, and Woolsey saw a physical manifestation of his ideal woman who reinforced his integrity and helped him stand up to the IOA. But Sheppard took the Genii hallucination and ran with it, so far exceeding the AI’s original scenario with torture he dreamed up himself that the AI ended the hallucination to save Sheppard’s life. The extreme torture Sheppard suffered at “Kolya’s�?hands (including an extended beating and the amputation of his left hand by machete) came directly from Sheppard’s psyche.

The AI commented that Sheppard tortured himself every day. We know this to be true from other episodes like “Doppelganger,�?but the show once again neglected to delve into the reasons why Sheppard is so hard on himself. It’s especially disappointing because there are only five episodes left before the end of the series, so this episode was probably the last and best chance to examine the demons driving Sheppard. He now has one more to add. Even though the physical torture turned out not to be real, the emotional trauma Sheppard experienced as a result of it was, and since Sheppard was alone during the experience and since he’s constitutionally incapable of talking about his feelings, no one on Atlantis knows what he went through, other than that he was contacted by the device’s AI.

“Remnants�?was an interesting outside point of view on some of the main characters that would have been a tiny bit more awesome if there’d been more time to spend on the characters in addition to the plot.

The following review contains spoilers.

I guess I’ve procrastinated enough on reviewing this episode. It’s been very hard to figure out what to say because I have a lot of conflicting emotions about it. I’ll start with what this episode had going for it the most, which was the plot.

A physicist back on Earth named Malcolm Tunney (Dave Foley from The Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio) invited Rodney McKay to a presentation of his latest scientific breakthrough. McKay used to occasion to invite Jennifer Keller on a first date. Tunney’s revelation was that he could counteract global warming by using a matter bridge to harmlessly shunt the heat from Earth into another universe. Unfortunately, Tunney had based his matter bridge on the classified work done by McKay and his sister, Jeannie, in “McKay and Mrs. Miller”–the matter bridge that proved so unstable that it nearly destroyed the fabric of the universe. McKay attempted to prevent Tunney from opening up the bridge, but his efforts were attributed to jealousy and the demonstration went on as planned. The matter bridge opened as intended, but then refused to shut down. The desert facility where the demonstration took place was surrounded by a force shield that also couldn’t be shut down, so no one could escape as the facility got colder and colder. Another side-effect of the matter bridge malfunction were “freeze rays�?(where’s Sheppard when you need him to name something?�? that flash froze whatever they hit, including people. Naturally, it was up to McKay to come up with a solution under pressure to save the day.

As silly as it sounds, the plot actually held together very well and was able to fill up an episode all by itself. Which is fortunate because there was no B plot, except for one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene where Sheppard and Ronon were taking off for a few days of camping and surfing on the mainland back in Atlantis. There was plenty of action and peril, some character development, and even some geek humor, as Tunney’s other guests included Bill Nye (The Science Guy) and astrophysicist (and PBS series host) Neil deGrasse Tyson interacting with McKay as though they were colleagues.

Where the episode fell down was in its execution. I’ve been getting the feeling lately that the writers over at Stargate Atlantis are just killing time until they can start work on Stargate Universe. They certainly don’t seem to be putting as much effort into the show they currently have on the air as they have in the past. Early in the episode, one of the freeze rays hit one of the attendees and froze half of him solid. Why the shock of that didn’t kill him outright I don’t know, but it would’ve been better if it had. As it was, writer Martin Gero had Keller examine the victim briefly and announce that he was in bad shape, before never checking up on or mentioning him again. As the only medical doctor in attendance, shouldn’t she have been keeping an eye on the patient instead of following her boyfriend around and criticizing his people skills?

Later, when the force shield collapsed, the intense cold of the facility came into contact with the hot air of the desert and immediately spawned three strong tornadoes. I wish I were making that up. Because you know what spawns tornadoes? Thunderstorms. You know what causes strong tornado-spawning thunderstorms? Cold, dry air meeting warm, moist air. You know what happens when cold, dry air meets warm, dry air? A breeze. I might be willing to buy that desert air converging on a single focal point from every direction might result in enough of an updraft to spawn a dust devil, but it would not generate a thunderstorm, let alone three tornadoes. If Gero had spent five minutes on Google, he would’ve known that.

The big climax involved Keller being trapped in a hallway with a burst pipe, being showered with water in the freezing cold facility. By the time McKay rescued her, she was unconscious and had no pulse or respiration. McKay immediately performed CPR for three seconds and she woke up. I wish I were making that up too, because there are so many things wrong with that scene I hardly know where to start. For one thing, hypothermia is caused by a drop in core body temperature. Rescue was on its way, so Keller could’ve kept her core temperature up by continuing to move around, instead of huddling in a corner. If she were from a sunshine state or not a medical doctor, I wouldn’t expect her to know that, but she’s a medical doctor from Wisconsin, so hypothermia and its prevention should not be foreign to her. Also, CPR and a blanket do not cure hypothermia. Once a victim is unconscious and has no detectable vital signs, he or she has to be slowly warmed under medical supervision or the toxins that have built up in the blood due to limited circulation can kill. She certainly wouldn’t be making out with her boyfriend so soon after the trauma that her hair was still wet. If Gero had spent five minutes on Google, he would’ve known that too.

And there’s my problem. Tornadoes and hypothermia aren’t exotic SF inventions like the matter bridge. The science behind them is fairly common knowledge, especially in regions of the country that have the potential to experience them the most. Gero obviously didn’t spend the minimal amount of time necessary to look up some very basic facts about his very major plot points. Why? Does he not care anymore and is just passing time until he can start writing for Stargate Universe? Does he think the audience doesn’t care anymore, either? Or, worse, does he think the audience is too stupid to notice? I wound up feeling so insulted by the lack of even minimal care being put into the script that it overshadowed the rest of what was basically a fun episode.

If the episode’s own writer can’t be bothered to care about it, why should I?