Onward!

It’s a crazy season in how it begins (lost in space!) and ends (lost in time!). More replicators, more wraith, more variations thereof. A handful of smaller episodes with only small combinations of main cast really shine. We lose a few of the big leads and gain a few more old names. It’s also always interesting how shows deal with the pregnancy of a main cast member.

Onwards and Season 5-wards! To the end.

Mini-reviews (potential spoilers):

• Adrift: Lost in deep space losing power! Carter! A completely improbable asteroid field, but it’s exciting.

• Lifeline: Final of the three parter. A plan to get a new ZPM (which is nuts), and a few familiar faces. Nice to see Carter again. Oy.

• Reunion: A Ronon episode and more Satedans. Woot! Carter’s going to be in charge? About time.

  Teal’c: Undomesticated equines could not keep me away.

  Carter: Nice callback.

• Doppelganger:

  Carter: Look, I’ve seen more than my share of alien entities that are capable of this. Colonel O’Neill was once knocked unconscious by an energy being that lived in crystal form. It took on his appearance for a while.

  Pretty much. :) It’s actually different enough to be a pretty solid episode. The callbacks are both neat and a bit excessive…

  Keller: I could give him something to keep him awake for a while, but it’ll only work for so long before we start putting him at risk of pulmonary failure.

  Carter: Yeah. Believe it or not, I’ve been there before, too. Do what you can. We’ll try to come up with something. (She calls down to the Observation Room.) Hang in there, McKay.

• Travelers: Sheppard centric and a great episode. Another group of humans avoiding the Wraith. More ancient tech. Always interesting.

• Tabula Rasa: The terror of slowly using nemory combined with the problems of exploring a new galaxy with new diseases.

• Missing: Dr. Keller and Teyla! May be my favorite Teyla episode.

• The Seer: Todd is back… with bad news. The Replicators figured out a perfect way to win the War. Kill everyone.

  Todd: I believe along your people it is c history to shake hands.

  Todd: … (laughs) Just a bit of Wraith humor.

• Miller’s Crossing: Mrs. Miller! An Earth based episode that isn’t that bad. Ronon rocking a suit. An interesting mix. Gets rather morally gray there… I expect there will be consequences of that.

• This Mortal Coil: We’ve seen copies of team members in SG-1 (Tin Man ), but it’s done pretty well here. Especially with a very different reintroduction of Weir . And it nicely answers a plot hole from the Seer.

• Be All My Sins Remember’d: A plan to take out the replicators! It’s… a kind of crazy and awesome plan. And Teyla’s pregnancy plotline finally comes to a head. Honestly, I’m not sure if Sheppard or Teyla is more in the right here…

• Spoils of War: Big Wraith plans! Teyla gets to use her Wraith powers to save the day.

• Quarantine: A quarantine locks up various main characters in various interesting pairings. A fascinating episode. McKay’s is fascinating relationship drama, Keller and Ronon is a great interaction, Zelenka and Carter is a nice offset to McKay, and Sheppard and Teyla are … fine. I wonder how everyone else made out.

• Harmony: Yeah, that’s pretty hilarious. Weird and awkward, but cute as well. Also… going straight from McKay about to propose to flirting with locals?

• Outcast: Back on Earth with Sheppard and Ronon. Okay… And then turns out Replicators again… ish? Meh. Atlantis shines when it’s ‘out there’, not on Earth.

• Trio: Another Bottle Episode (although apparently more expensive than they’d hoped), this time with McKay, Keller, and Carter. I really like the dynamic between those three.

  McKAY: Oh, not that you don’t. Oh, no, no-no, I realise that your bodies are different and-and-and, uh, uh, maybe that would mean that I think that your body is imperfect but that is not the case. No, no-no, far, far, far from it. That is a sweet … uh, which is to say, I mean, it would be impossible for me to choose which of you …

  CARTER: Rest assured, you’re never gonna have to.

  KELLER: Aw, if we’d kept quiet, I bet he would have gone on like that forever.

• Midway: I really love in this universe when humanity comes up with new ways to use old (sometimes very old) technology. Using a series of gates reaching out into the void between galaxies is a fascinating bit of technology. I like seeing it again. Also… Teal’c! It’s great to see him again–especially his interaction with Ronon.

• The Kindred, Part 1: Mysterious plague? Or something even worse? Also Teyla is getting visions. Her psychic powers have never been my favorite part of this show. And then… the ending. That’s a twist I’d managed to forget.

• The Kindred, Part 2:

  McKAY: Look, so we’ve ruled out advanced robotics. That still leaves us a half a dozen possible other explanations.

  DEX: Like?

  McKAY: Well, like alternate timeline, parallel universe, cloning – you know, take your pick.

  SHEPPARD: It’s just another day in outer space.

  Yup. Certainly wasn’t a long return, but there’s potential for next season. We shall see.

• The Last Man: Time travel! Always interesting. I like the dynamic between Sheppard and holo-McKay and the snippets of a past future allow them to explore a number of neat things.