Way to kick off the new year

The second half of Stargate Atlantis' season four begins Friday and, from what the commercials tease us with, it oughta be pretty damn exciting. Of course, the Wraith and the Replicators will be going at each other, with the unfortunate humans caught up in things. But much cooler than that is the return of two excellent characters, one of whom has been sorely missed. There's the very awesome and twisted Wraith, Michael. Last time we saw him, he was working a gig as an outcast mad scientist, in s3's "Vengeance," and I'm very psyched to see his return.

And then there's Carson Beckett. Holy cats! Now, Carson's dead; we watched him 'splode in s3's "Sunday" (some of us cried), saw his friends take his body back to Earth, and we've spent the first half of s4 adjusting to a new CMO. But there he is in the commercials, looking all, well, all alive! My guess is that this Carson (if he's real at all and not some hallucination or equally not-there trickery) has a shitload of nanites crawling around inside him. He's not exactly returned from the dead, but close to it. At this point, I'll take any Carson I can get, so regardless of how he's there, I'm just glad he's there. And when we find out he's a Replicator plant bent on the destruction of all the humans in Atlantis, then I'll be sad.

The first new ep airs this Friday, 10p EST, on the SciFi Channel. As a prelude, SciFi is showing the last three eps of s2 (for background on Michael), plus all of the first half of s4, starting at 8a.

Oh, hey, happy new year, btw!