Stargate Atlantis: Adrift (season premiere)

(S04E01) Man, I'm having a hard time finding an opening for this review. I want to say that the season premiere of Atlantis was so much better than any episode of SG-1 that aired in its final season. However, that will probably piss off the SG-1 fans who say that Atlantis doesn't hold a candle to the original series. I want to say that, despite the standard science-fiction storyline that was the plot of this episode, the writers and producers did a great job of making it different, interesting, and a bit suspenseful. Yet, fans of science-fiction might get angry and say its all been done before and better.

I also want to say that, like other successful spinoffs in the history of television, producers and writers of Atlantis have learned what and what not to do from their years on SG-1 and have been able to create a better show with more interesting characters. Of course, the SG-1 crowd will agree about the mistakes made on the original show, but they may not agree that its younger sibling is better.

I want to say all of that. Oh, wait, I just did. So, um, welcome to the fourth season of Stargate:Atlantis!

This really was an enjoyable episode. Not only did it get right into the action, but it featured some really good visual effects and resolved a lot of questions unanswered from last season's finale. The major question being 'Will Elizabeth survive' (cue soap-opera organ music). Of course she did, silly! Although, she survived only because a bunch of reprogrammed Replicator nanites repaired her organs and replaced them with nanite technology. This actually plays an important role in next week's episode.

The reprogramming of the nanites was made by Genius Boy himself, Rodney McKay, and led to quite an ethical dilemma. Both he and Jennifer Keller, new CMO on Atlantis, agreed that the nanites were the only way for Dr. Weir to survive. Colonel Sheppard wasn't buying that. He felt that not only was there a huge risk that the Replicators would be able to take control of Elizabeth once the nanites were reactivated, but Elizabeth herself would never agree to this decision if she were awake. When John found out that Rodney went ahead with the reprogramming anyway he was mightily pissed. It almost looked like he was going to confine McKay to quarters for his actions.

That would've sucked, because McKay, with able assistance from Zelenka, was the man keeping the city of Atlantis space-worthy while everything else was falling apart around him. The running gag with Rodney was that everytime he said things seemed to be running smoothly something else would pop up, like a asteroid field or the hyperdrive going down. He was more stressed out than usual. Yet, it seems that the more stressed out he is the less, er, rude he is with everyone else.

Zelenka should be given additional credit here as well. He took it upon himself to get the hyperdrive repaired (even though it couldn't be used because the city had drained too much of its energy) and ended up getting injured by a micro-asteroid that went through his leg like a hot knife through butter. I'll be honest, when I saw that happen I cringed a bit -- it seemed extremely painful. I don't know why David Nykl, who plays Zelenka, is not in more episodes. He's an interesting character that I'd like to see fleshed out a bit more.

Sheppard was the man this episode. Since Elizabeth was out of commission he was the head cheese and he did an admirable job at coming up with solutions to many of the problems that kept cropping up. The best one was getting all of those jumpers to shoot a path through the asteroid field to allow Atlantis to plow through with minor damage. I like Sheppard. He's a no-nonsense type of leader, yet he has that same bit of brashness that Jack O'Neil showed constantly on SG-1.

I want to go back to that scene in the asteroid field. That was probably one of the best visual effects of the entire episode. All of those asteroids blowing up while the jumpers were flicking around the field was great to watch. It was also quite tense. There were a few times I was saying to myself 'Don't crash. Don't crash' when one of those jumpers came too close to an asteroid or an exploding asteroid. It also produced one of the best lines of the episode when McKay compared what they were about to do to a game of Asteroids and he was terrible at that game.

This episode of Stargate: Atlantis, and the second part of this season premiere, have me excited for this season as a whole. With the shakeup in the city's administration and a new planet to explore it looks like an interesting time for Sheppard and his team. Hope you'll join us here at TV Squad to talk about it.