No Man's Land

"No Man's Land" is the first episode of the third season of Stargate: Atlantis.

Synopsis
Two Wraith Hive Ships used the alliance to upgrade their hyperdrives to reach Earth. While the Daedalus and the Orion are sent to dispatch them, Dr. Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex escape from their cocoons, and Lt. Colonel John Sheppard uses his F-302 fighter-interceptor to attach himself on one of the ships to ambush them.

Previously on Stargate: Atlantis
The Atlantis expedition uses Dr. Carson Beckett's Iratus bug retrovirus to turn a Wraith into a Human. With the Wraith's memory gone, he is told his name is Lt. Michael Kenmore but he quickly discovers the truth. He escapes and takes Teyla Emmagan hostage. Lt. Colonel John Sheppard is able to rescue Teyla but Michael returns to the Wraith with the knowledge that Atlantis still exists. A short time later, the Long range sensors detect a Hive ship heading for Atlantis. When it arrives, Michael and his Queen propose an alliance and use the retrovirus to turn their Wraith enemies into humans. Hoping to find a way to infect an entire Hive, Dr. Rodney McKay downloads the Wraith database which includes a computer virus that transmits the location on Earth and data that allows the Wraith to improve their hyperdrive. The Hive attacks the Daedalus and imprisons McKay and Ronon Dex in a cocoon.

Plot
On board a Wraith Hive ship, Dr. Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex have been captured and cocooned. During the battle, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard flew his F-302 fighter-interceptor toward one of the Hive ships just as it entered hyperspace. He has managed to jump along with it by attaching his ship to the outer hull. With limited air and resources, Sheppard must decide how to disable both Hive ships before they can reach the Milky Way galaxy.

Luckily, the Hive ships are largely organic in their structure. They suffered heavy damage in the battle with the Daedalus. Complicating matters for the Wraith, interstellar radiation from hyperspace forces them to stop, make repairs, and let the ships regenerate for many hours in the void between Pegasus and the Milky Way. Dr. Radek Zelenka calculates that there is at least 15 hours of time necessary for those repairs.

Dr. Elizabeth Weir asks a reluctant Colonel Steven Caldwell to launch the Daedalus and the Orion as soon as possible in an attempt to rendezvous with the Hive ships. Major Evan Lorne is put in command of the Orion, which is still in no condition to fight. Repairs will have to be continued on the way to the battle. Caldwell realizes that he may have to make the sacrifice of himself and his crews to stop the Wraith from ever making it to Earth. Moreover, these particular Wraith are the only ones who know where Earth is. That knowledge has to be erased from the species by destroying the Hive ships.

Weir's mismanagement of the situation demands answers from her civilian superiors. Major General Henry Landry asks her to step through to Earth during a routine check-in with Stargate Command.

Reluctantly, Weir leaves Atlantis during the crisis and meets with Richard Woolsey and other representatives of the committee. While there, finger pointing is the name of the game. They don't really want to fire her, but they have to appear to take action. If they relieve her, it is they who will ultimately take responsibility for calling off the desperate bid by the Daedalus and the Orion to reach the two Hive ships in time. Realizing the quandary and political ramifications, Weir accepts full responsibility and commands Caldwell to proceed.

On board the Hive ships, Ronon and McKay manage to free themselves from their cocoons. Since McKay knows the ship's schematics, the two set off to do as much damage to vital systems as possible before they can be caught again.

Sheppard tries to contact them via radios, but their devices are in a lab where the half-human Wraith, Michael Kenmore, is cooling his heels. Michael did not completely regress back into being a Wraith after ceasing treatments with Dr. Carson Beckett's Iratus bug retrovirus, and now he is an outcast among his original species. Realizing his days are numbered, he answers Sheppard with the communicator. Michael needs an escape and the humans are his only hope, so he offers to help. He directs Sheppard where to launch his missiles to do the most damage. When Wraith Darts pursue and disable Sheppard's ship, he is taken into custody aboard the Hive.

Michael, pretending to be on assignment by the Hive Queen, manages to take Sheppard away from his captors. He returns the human's weapons and equipment before they go to find McKay and Ronon. When the Daedalus and Orion enter battle with the Hive ships, the four manage to beam off their escape craft to the Daedalus.

Meanwhile, all plans collide as the Daedalus and Orion engage the Hive ships and a monumental space battle occurs. Lorne's command of Orion is short-lived as the craft is destroyed. All of the crew manage to beam on to the Daedalus in time. However, there isn't enough air for everyone, and more is venting into space. The only hope for everyone's survival is the air on the one remaining damaged Hive ship. But it is filled with Wraith.

Thanks to Michael, the team realizes that canisters of Beckett's retrovirus are still on board. Because of the damage to the Wraith vessel, they can beam the canisters over and release it as gas. The plan works, and the gas turns the Wraith into humans whose memories are completely wiped. The Queen is the only one unaffected. Sheppard takes a boarding party over to check and secure the ship for the Daedalus, neutralizing the Queen.

Earth forces are now in possession of an adequate oxygen supply, as well as a functioning Hive ship.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Notable Quotes
(trapped in a cocoon with Dex next to him, also trapped)

McKay: Wonder what they'll do to us? Feed on us, probably. I mean, that's... that's what they do.

Ronon: It's not gonna come to that.

McKay: Maybe... Earth'll probably mount some kind of defense... In which case I imagine death would be instantaneous. Unless we're trapped on a deck and on fire or something, then we'd be burned alive. Well, burned alive or suffocate. I wonder what'd be worse: being life-sucked by the Wraith or, or, burned alive. I honestly couldn't consider two worse options.

Ronon: Stop talking.

McKay: OK, you know what? Make me!

Michael: Good luck.

Sheppard: Thanks, it'll be a walk in the park. A very scary park, filled with monsters who are trying to kill me.

Sheppard: Operation: This Will Most Likely End Badly is a go.

Weir: So what do they really want?

Landry: To point fingers, and cover their asses.

Weir: I am honestly not sure how I will respond to that, sir.

Landry: They're bureaucrats Elizabeth. You'll eat them for breakfast.

Landry: Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. And I think you've got that in spades.

Weir: Churchill?

Landry: Yeah. Except for that last part about you. That was all me.

McKay: (accessing the Wraith computers) Their operating system is a mess... Thank goodness I remember DOS. (Ronon does not react) Trust me, that was hilarious.

Kleinman: I have a contact sir. A single Wraith ship, possibly a transport. It just left the hive and is on course for us. It's broadcasting a comm. On our frequencies.

Caldwell: What the hell do they want?

Zelenka: Maybe they want to surrender.

Caldwell: Not likely. Let's hear it.

(over comms, after he had been presumed dead)

Sheppard: This is Colonel John Sheppard. Authentication code Alpha Seven Tango Three. Please respond.

Caldwell: (to Kleinman) Open a channel. (to Sheppard) Colonel Sheppard. We'd written you off.

Sheppard: Don't get all emotional on me now.

(Lorne is attacked by the Queen)

Lorne: It didn't work on her.

McKay: Oh. Beckett wondered if the females would be immune.

Lorne: Yeah. Something you might have mentioned before she almost killed me, Rodney.

McKay: I only thought of it now.

Goofs

 * When Colonel Caldwell is briefing dr. Weir in the beginning you can see that Caldwell's Earth point of origin patch has a point of origin of another planet.
 * When Michael Kenmore takes Lt. Colonel John Sheppard to where Ronon Dex and Dr. Rodney McKay were being held, Sheppard says that they must have escaped as the pods were cut from the inside. However the pod he examined (McKay's) was cut from the outside by Ronon.
 * While formulating the attack plan on the Wraith Hive ships, Dr. Elizabeth Weir says the ships will emerge from hyperspace at the very edge of the Pegasus galaxy. At the end of the episode, while the Daedalus and Hive ship are adrift, the camera clearly shows a galaxy in the background. For this to be either Pegasus or the Milky Way, the battle would have to take place deep in the void between galaxies.
 * Assuming the Midway station is exactly in the middle between the Pegasus Galaxy and the Milky Way, it should not be possible to see either galaxy. In real life two galaxies are so far apart from each other, that one cannot see them with the naked eye.
 * As Teyla Emmagan sits down at the console after receiving instructions from Weir, she bumps into it, causing the supposedly fixed console to wobble.

Wins

 * Won Gemini for "Best Visual Effects" (Mark Savela, Tom Brydon, Brenda Campbell, Debora Dunphy, Shannon Gurney, Andrew Karr, Todd Liddiard and Alec McClymont)

Character

 * Lathan