Adrift

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Adrift)

In the absence of good 'Star Trek' these days this fills the gap nicely. Who knows if the series will be able to live up to the consistency of Season 3, at the moment I don't care, all I care about are the immediate and continual problems our intrepid team on Atlantis are facing: this is 'Stargate' done as a disaster film and it carries you along. Before I get into that, however, there's an elephant in the room, or rather a Colonel not in the city: Samantha Carter. I have to admit I was stupidly spoiled on her addition to the 'Atlantis' cast by recently looking up the Companion books that came out to accompany the series back in the day and happened to see the cast photo on the front of the Season 4 edition. I was thrilled and overjoyed to see Carter part of the group, as unexpected as it was delightful, and I can only imagine how pleased I'd have been to see her face and Amanda Tapping's name come up in the opening credits without any prior warning, because as it was I still felt a warm glow - I wasn't a hundred percent sure that she'd be part of the series as a fully paid up main cast member, she could just as easily have had a recurring guest role and they simply decided to include her in the photo, but confirming her, at least for this season, was brilliant!

It makes absolute sense to bring over a character from the concluded 'SG-1,' and while I'd never considered who I'd most like to see, she'd definitely be up there, as much as I knew that most of the main 'SG-1' cast showed up in the 'Atlantis' sequel, 'Universe' (which I watched before this). I was so happy to see her as a proper part of this series that I forgot to see if there were any other cast changes in the opening credits, so it was with a heavy heart that I suddenly wondered if I'd missed Dr. Weir coming up, and then Torri Higginson's name appeared in the guest credits and my heart sank: they giveth and they taketh away. I was so hoping that Carter would simply be an addition rather than a replacement, especially as Beckett had been written out last season. And especially with the fact that Carter and Weir knew each other since she took over as the boss of the SGC for a short period when General Hammond left, I really wanted to see them work together again. I can only imagine it must be a money issue that they only had so much to spend on the cast and Tapping was likely to command a large portion of that so maybe they had to lose someone? This is why I really need the Companion books to find out this production history, because although it happened so long ago, it's news to me!

For the rest of the episode I was wondering if Weir would even wake up, so it certainly helped to create tension, though far from the positive kind I prefer (I'm not one of these people that enjoys thinking anyone could die at any moment, I don't think that's good writing - hence why Beckett's demise was so shocking and dramatic, since it was so well written and unexpected). What it did give us were two or three lovely scenes with some weight to them to counter the reliance on physical problems and give the episode a bit of heart. Surprisingly, Ronon was responsible for the most touching moment as he comes in to the comatose Weir's hospital bed and simply thanks her for allowing him to join her team. He didn't say much but it was all that was needed. Then we have the words you'd almost never expect to hear coming from the arrogant McKay's mouth: "I'm sorry," after he's disobeyed Sheppard's specific instructions not to activate Weir's Replicator nanites that remain in her body from before, even to save her life, because it will put the city at such great risk. And then there's Teyla who has such joy on her face when she talks to the newly woken Weir.

The conflict between Sheppard and McKay, well it wasn't really a conflict, more the usual bickering between them, where McKay knows so much more, but Sheppard is the man in charge and needs to be the one making the big decisions and it was a fascinating situation because it's not even that McKay has this rush of power because of the situation he's in, it's purely what he thinks is possible and what is in all their best interests throughout the multitude of problems he and Zelenka are largely responsible for fixing. He was right (so far), in doing what he did, even against Sheppard explicitly telling him not to, because it does save Weir. But I suspect it will come back to bite them in the next episode which is set up as a heist for much-needed ZPMs in the stronghold of the Replicator homeworld - I predict, sadly, that Weir will either become a threat because of the nanites in her which will somehow alert the Replicators, or, and perhaps also, she'll sacrifice herself to save them all. That's the kind of thing she'd do. I don't know what this means for the future leadership of Atlantis, whether Carter will become the boss or Sheppard, despite being military and Weir being civilian, but it throws up many questions like that and it certainly has me excited to see where they take things.

Whatever happens I will be sad, because I felt the balance of characters was so nicely set in Season 3, and then Beckett gets knocked off, and while Dr. Keller is also a promising character with a lot of potential, being this person with much less experience and concerned about her role (though she seems pretty confident in this episode), I'd have preferred them to keep the same mix of characters when they'd got so close to perfecting them. And now to have Weir leaving, whether it be next episode or in a few, it just won't have the same magic, or that's what I fear. I'll soon find out. In the meantime this was a good, strong episode to open the season, a cross between 'The Poseidon Adventure' and its 70s ilk, and 'Stargate: ER.' As soon as one problem is fixed or patched up, another comes along. The team have to work in difficult circumstances, a lot of civilian types flying the Jumpers to clear a path through an asteroid field. I felt there was some inconsistency in Sheppard's actions to defend the city - at first when one of the teams doing repairs is caught out when the shield shrinks, he demands they must be saved, while Rodney explains there's nothing they can do and if they try, the whole city may not survive. Then later, he's adamant they can't save Weir by activating her nanites, no matter what, the city's safety is paramount. Is it his personal feelings that he's overcompensating for (like Janeway and Chakotay on 'Voyager' they always seemed like there was something to play there), or is it that he learned from the earlier sacrifice and realised the city must come first?

I'm glad I boned up on what had happened at the end of Season 3 because they do throw you into the action with this premiere, and rightly so (after a quick recap), and the energy and drama is portrayed strongly. The effects, as I noted last season, have really turned a corner and they can do so much more than they used to be able to, with all those Jumpers shooting up asteroids, or Sheppard and Zelenka doing a space jump to the other side of a blown-out corridor (Sheppard suggests he call a Jumper when Zelenka gets shot through with a micro-meteorite, so surely it would have been simpler to do that before jumping across - maybe it would take too long, and he only said it after the injury since time wasn't going to make a difference if they didn't complete the repair?). One thing that didn't work quite so well was the city itself flying through space - it did look a little toylike, or a very detailed real world miniature, simply because it looked too in focus as it swept across the screen, but that's a minor quibble for an episode which has so much to impress. All this and Dr. Lee, too? They really poured a lot into this opening story and it worked. While I'll be sad if Weir is written out for good (if she lives she could return for Season 5, yes?), whatever happens I'm itching to find out, which is a success in my book. The only thing I'm not clear on is how they shaved Weir's hair off to cut out a bit of her cranium to relieve pressure on the brain, yet when she wakes up she has a full head of hair - a wig? Oh, and fun to see Yee Jee Tso of the 'Dr. Who' TV film.

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