The team find themselves aboard an empty Daedalus ship from an alternate reality, and discover themselves on board, leading to Daedalus continually jumping hyperspace.
Rodney (David Hewlett) complains about Teyla (Rachel Luttrell) not letting him hold the baby, after he dropped him. Rodney was dropped when he was little. Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) "that explains a lot." The Daedalus arrives at Atlantis but there's no one on board. The actual Daedalus is on its way to earth so this one isn't their one. They fly to the ship and find scorch marks underneath it. As well as an energy reading. Inside there's an abandoned jumper and it's cold. I said that jumper was theirs, as will be explained later. Rodney analyzes the ship and finds it's him, "think there's a ghost on board."
The log entry shows the ship was abandoned by Commander Sobol, whom Sheppard doesn't know nor has heard of. The energy reading fluctuates and the ship jumps into hyperspace. They can't reach Atlantis and Lorne (Kavan Smith) can't reach them, either. Rodney exclaims the city isn't there. Teyla thinks they may be near a different planet but Rodney knows they haven't moved. Readings are being obtained from deck 9 and according to Rodney, the ships navigation shows they haven't moved. He's picking up the same radiation reading when his double arrived on Atlantis.
They are in a parallel universe where all four of them are dead, so that explains the jumper they found on board. Oh one thing, they find all four of their DB's together in the same place, that was a bit strange, unless they knew there was no hope for them, but then wouldn't Rodney in any universe try to find a way out of their situation? He wouldn't just lay down and die. Sheppard thinks they could have been dead for months.
Rodney finds the other Rodney's tablet and found they did the same thing and couldn't get back to Atlantis. Well clearly that Rodney can't have been as great a genius as the Rodney on Atlantis that we know. As Rodney says, "They were us and they failed." Sheppard tells him it's not them as they're still alive. Rodney has to find the alternate reality drive and figure out how it works. The others lives were similar to them. Ronon (Jason Momoa) doesn't really care about them. Teyla says they're real people with real lives and wonders if she had a baby too.
Sheppard wonders why the blast door is closed and Rodney insists the other Rodney was a genius too. Power at a ZPM rate would have been needed to jump from one reality to the next. Daedalus jumps into hyperspace again and Atlantis is back. Teyla received preliminary training from Major Marks last t time they were on Daedalus which Ronon didn't bother with, he was busy. Ronon thinks this Atlantis has their own Sheppard. Teyla reads another ship in orbit powering weapons and fires on Atlantis. Sheppard fires back to help Atlantis. Ronon must help fire weapons. One ship crash lands on Daedalus. Rodney will be able to make the alternate drive to jump sooner but he won't be able to undo it, they'll just begin jumping faster and faster.
The temperature rises in the hull and they find themselves two million kilometres away from the sun's surface and shields are needed. Rodney says they need to jump to save their relative position in space. Sheppard saw the sun in this way in the future (season 4). Rodney claims the sun came to them. Ronon gets bored and goes exploring on the ship coming across an alien from the crashed ship, which they seemed to forget about. Ronon fires his weapon to get attention and more aliens fire. Rodney tells Teyla they need the sublights and they have only reached 70% but 100% is essential. The shields are dropped to transfer power to the engine so they can jump. There are only a few more jumps remaining before they burn out and will be stranded.
They end up in an asteroid field. Rodney must focus on sending the ship back the way it travelled, which is what Sheppard suggested hours ago. I.e reversing the ship's path. Rodney had to think the opposite of Sheppard which wasn't far from the opposite of him. Sheppard: "So what do we do? Can we just throw this thing in reverse?" Rodney: "It's a little more complicated than that." The ship has maneuvering thrusters and sublights are needed to get past the aliens. Rodney is unable to do ten things at once, who'd have thought? ha. However Rodney showed no fear from the aliens being on board and none reached him either. That must have been a first.
Teyla helps Rodney. It's her first mission back he won't let it be her last. The next jump will be sooner. The alien ship isn't there but appears behind them. They fire again and this time are saved by Atlantis. They no longer have sublights and f302s fight the aliens. John Sheppard calls the Daedalus. Sheppard tells him it's a long story and they were saved by Sheppard so they're returning the favour. John tells him their Daedalus was destroyed two years ago in a battle with the Replicators. Sheppard replies they're only borrowing the Daedalus, it's not theirs. Sheppard: "It's been a pleasure...obviously a man of dignity..." John was going to say the same to him. They are in awe of each other, ha.
Rodney says there's one more jump to reach home. Rodney is shot at by an alien which they forgot about. The alien explodes the detonator and there's a hull breach also causing the jumpers to be lost. They're too far from Atlantis to get help. Something appears and Lorne thinks it must be them. Zelenka (David Nykl) finds they are within radio range. They head to hyperspace once more and Lorne comes across four lifesigns in spacesuits. Rodney claims there are six jumps left before it burns out. Sheppard once again with his Nintendo DS in hand. Rodney works on the hyperdrive system for episode 20. Teyla lets Rodney hold Torren. He'll make a good father. Sheppard is scared at the thought of Rodney as a father.
Great stand alone episode which is my favourite so far, not that there's many to go on. Sheppard: "Easy Chewie that button's our friend." Just had to think Star Wars here and Millennium Falcon for obvious reasons. Well you just had to and to top it all off no guest cast either, aside from those pesky, metallic aliens who were nobodies really. The other great scene was Sheppard talking to the other Sheppard, as the one from Atlantis (not their Atlantis as he's on board the Daedalus) saves them from the aliens this time round. As the time before, in the other reality, Sheppard had to defend Atlantis from those aliens. Then having to explain but it being too long a story - but got the chance for lots of self-congratulations, you know what I mean on their relative skills. Some would think that creepy, to use Sheppard's word. Right - kind of. Just think about all those Sheppard's in the never ending realm of alternate realities and keep thinking...
Then Rodney compliments himself quite a bit as a genius in all realities - so it's only fair Sheppard does the same. The alternate Rodney referred to regarding the radiation readings was in the episode McKay and Mrs Miller. The Last Man was the episode with Sheppard encountering the red sun. Funnily enough in the other reality, Daedalus was commanded by a woman - maybe something Sam Carter may have gone on to do. What do you mean that explains the battle cruiser being abandoned and doomed?
Rodney's saving the data on the interdimensional drive and plans to build one for Atlantis, which will become relevant at season's end. John must have recognized our Sheppard's voice and why leave the Daedalus to float away into space. It will eventually burn out, at least the drive will, but someone else may encounter it and end up in the same predicament and especially since they won't have anyone with the talent of Rodney and Sheppard on board. That's what happened to their alternate selves, even if they did have a Rodney and Sheppard.
Guess the introduction of these new aliens and their ships was acceptable cos they weren't going to be seen again and where had they been hiding out with all these Wraith about. One thing I like doing in some of my reviews and other stuff, is speculating. These new aliens were in an alternate reality so doubt they'll get to ours - but what if they were the Wraith as they became after Jennifer's treatment? Okay it's a bit far fetched. One thing about Sheppard meeting his alternate self is relevant I think for the penultimate episode of this season for reasons which will be explained when I review it.
The working title for this episode was The flying Dutchman for obvious reasons. The Flying Dutchman was a ship whose captain and crew were doomed to sail the seas for eternity. This episode had the most costly VFX, just as the Pilot, Adrift and Be All My Sins. Andy Mikita told Newsarama that "Alan McCullough's script very cleverly put our characters in different places where they each had to deal with their own situations while also attacking a common problem. I think it turned out quite well and ended up being a pretty strong episode." What was also remarkable was there was time for some character input too.
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