Stargate: Atlantis, season 4

FOUR STAR - none
NOTEWORTHY
-Adrift ***
A season-opening barn-burner. Atlantis is adrift and lost in space, with power rapidly draining. Elizabeth needs brain surgery, and only replicator nanites can save her...but at what cost? A mini-fleet of jumpers must blast a path through an asteroid field. One disaster after another.
-Reunion **
Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping, fresh off ten straight seasons of SG1) is appointed the new Atlantis commander. Ronon discovers survivors from his home planet. He decides to leave Atlantis, but his friends are not all they seem. Gritty performances can't cover writing flaws however, including the greatest of all - SG scribes still don't know how to make an audience care about their characters. They want us to want Ronon to stay, but he's never been allowed to be much more than two-dimensional.
-This Mortal Coil ***
Unsettling and a bit searing. Prompted by strange occurrences and behavior around them, the team begins to suspect that something is amiss. They discover they are copies of themselves, grown in a laboratory to be studied by a subversive replicator sect who think eliminating humanity is the wrong path. The team finds a copy of Dr. Weir (Torri Higginson), and convinces their doomed creators to free them. They meet with their "real" counterparts. This episode will remind you how much the show misses Elizabeth, if you weren't consciously aware of it. Amanda Tapping is a gamer, but this is now two SG franchises in which her chemistry with the group is less than one might hope.
-Quarantine ***
Charming. One of a handful of SGA episodes that threaten to expand the two-dimensionality of the characters...but this far into the series, that can only serve as a reminder that it's probably never going to happen. Groups of people are stranded when the city goes into quarantine. Ronon and Doc Keller almost break the idiotic "nobody-kisses" rule on SGA. Sheppard must break a window and climb four stories up the side of the main tower - the kind of visual idea we don't see nearly enough of (CGI should be used more imaginatively than it generally is, showing us not just "gnarly battles", but images that would be just too dangerous via conventional methods).
-Outcast ***
Sheppard returns to Earth for his father's funeral, accompanied by Ronon. Family dysfunctionality surfaces, including a meeting with his ex-wife (Kari Wuhrer, BEASTMASTER 2). A replicator manufactured by an Earth scientist is loose, and they must hunt it down. Tight, with unexpected twists.
-Trio ***
Rodney, Sam, and Doc Keller are on a diplomatic mission off-world, when they become trapped in a subterranean chamber about to collapse into a chasm. The opening is twenty-five feet above. The episode plays out like a brain twist, as they use materials at hand to devise different methods of escape. Nothing works, including no "miracle" beam-out. Tapping's best SGA, and Jewel Staite is coming into her own. Four stars was within reach, had she offered to take her top off for the local boys if they helped (it would have been the perfect counterpoint to Sam's refusal to even consider the idea). But writing like that might pull SGA out of its perpetual wouldacouldshouldabeen, and we can't have that.
-Midway ***
A barn burner. Guest star Christopher Judge (SG1) falls into the better SGA chemistry seamlessly. He's been summoned to coach Ronon for an IOA interview. They fight, literally. On their way to Earth, they're trapped on the Midway gate station as it's attacked by wraith. All of your initial concerns (a mindless action episode, the SG1 curse) dissipate.
-The Kindred ***
In this two-parter, a plague is spreading across the galaxy, killing both human and wraith. The source is old hybrid nemesis Michael (Connor Trineer, ENTERPRISE). He kidnaps Teyla, having need of her unborn child who has wraith DNA. In a failed rescue attempt, the crew find...Carson! He has no memories of his death, saying he's been imprisoned for two years. He turns out to be a clone, and without Michael's injections, must go into stasis to have any hope of survival. His first moment onscreen brings a rush of relief and joy, as Paul McGillion's chemistry and character work were essential to the first three seasons. Jewel Staite is a fine replacement, but they've brought her along at such a snail's pace, it hasn't filled the gap. A tip of the hat goes out to recurring actor Christopher Heyerdahl, who puts in top-notch double duty as Todd the wraith and the athosian Halling.
-The Last Man ***
Enjoy the last five episodes of this season. It's almost as though the producers said, okay, we know we have limitations. We may not outgrow them, but we'll pull the throttle back all the way, to be the best we can be. The season ends on the most heavy Rodney/Sheppard episode ever, as a stargate accident sends John 48,000 years into the future. Probably the last human alive, he talks to an aged hologram of Rodney, in the remains of Atlantis on a desert planet. Rodney flashes back to the unfortunate events that happened after John's disappearance. We get to see Sam go down with her ship, Ronon and Todd die side by side, Woolsey (Robert Picardo, VOYAGER) take over Atlantis, and Major-turned-General Lorne (the stalwart Kavan Smith, who did 29 episodes over four seasons) take over the SGC. A scheme it took Rodney decades to calculate returns Sheppard home, and a different timeline is set in motion.