PLOT: The STARGATE team send a team to the Ancient city of Atlantis in a distant galaxy. they end up fighting against The Wraith (who feed off the life forces of humans) and the human Replicators. Now they have started a war between teh two. Now Atlantis must face new challenges after a new leader, Colonel Carter, takes charge of Atlantis.

ANALYSIS: STARGATE ATLANTIS continues to strengthen itself as a series. The addition of Colonel Carter as the new leader of Atlantis throws the show in new directions. Old plotlines continue. The Wraith and Replicator war does thrust teh Atlantis team into the middle when they learn the Replicators are destroying human worlds. Then an old foe throws in another monkey wrench which becomes more apparent after the Replicator problem is unfortunately dealt with since the writers don't know how to write for them. The weakness of the series is the inability of the writers to write for certain characters (example of how they killed off one character only to bring him back as a clone). Still I think STARGATE ATLANTIS is getting stronger as a series than STARGATE SG-1 was at this point (during season 4). The cliffhanger ending (from THE LAST MAN) does seem a little lame after the excellent two parter THE KINDRED.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
Every episodes has an audioc ommentary. Amanda Tapping is the only member of the cast to contribute to the tracks. She joins various members of the crew for five episode commentaries. It is disappointing that none of the other cast members weigh in on these tracks.

The producers of the show make it feel like they shouldn't be including a blooper reel (disc 2) and they're only doing it at the request of fans.The various deleted scenes (disc 5) show four cut scenes from REUNION, one from TRIO, one interesting cut from BE ALL MY SINS REMEMBER'D (that the producers felt made it feel like Mitch's character had a thing for Colonel carter (Amanda Tapping), four cut scenes from MILLER'S CROSSING, and two deleted scenes from THE KINDRED (which one scenes should have been left in since it touches upon events in the previous episode- MIDWAY).

The MISSION DIRECTIVE featurettes focus on four episodes with their directors: DOPPELGANGER with Robert C. Cooper, THIS MORTAL COIL with Will Waring, QUARANTINE with Martin Wood, and OUTCAST with Andy Mikita (which focuses on the various stunts and using a stuntman for the stuntman who plays the human Replicator character). However, the best featurette (on en episode) is THE MAKING OF TRIO which is a detailed making-of an episode that was going to be a budget saver that ended up being one of the most expensive and logistically challenging episodes of the season.

The thing that confuses me is why they placed THE DOCTOR IS IN: THE RETURN OF PAUL McGILLION featurette on disc 2 since THE KINDRED episodes are on disc 5. A NEW LEADER: AMANDA TAPPING JOINS ATLANTIS has interviews with Tapping and the varioud producers with talk focusing on REUNION, TRIO, and THE SEER in addition to Carter's relationship with McKay.

Finally, A LOOK BACK AT SEASON 4 looks at the Teyla arc, getting rid of The Replicators (which the writers have problem writing for at times), further character development, the Wraith hybrid Michael, Todd The Wraith, and their favorite moments of season 4. Also photo and design galleries are on each disc.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Season 4 of STARGATE ATLANTIS has plenty of extras, but I wish they presented the deleted scenes on the discs with the episodes they were cut from and more active participation from the cast on the audio commentaries.

this DVD review is (c)7-29-2008 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com  

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