I haven’t praised Paul McGillion nearly enough in these pages. Dr. Carson Beckett, cynical, practical, and occasionally disbelieving, is always hilarious, but he had us rolling with laughter this time. Like episode 15, this episode is beefed up by repurposed footage from previous installments, but neither of them is a clip show in the traditional sense. It’s better than 90% new material, as the Atlantis team makes videos to send home, along with all their mission reports and intel, in a 1.3 second data burst. They do not have enough power to generate a wormhole that would last long enough for a human to gate back to Earth, but they can just manage this.
Even though it’s a very risky drain on their resources, three Wraith hive ships are just two weeks away. Short a miracle, or a heck of a lot happening in the big three-parter coming up, this is their only shot to warn Earth, but there’s room in the data packet for personal video messages. Dr. Beckett wants to use his time to talk to his mother about keeping up with her prescriptions for toenail fungus, and he gets stage fright. Hilariously – slash – creepily, there’s even one ponytailed scientist nerd who wants to use his video time to make formal complaints to the SGC about the woman running things. Bet if he makes it home, he’ll whine online about The Last Jedi.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 