Looming over the entirety of season 4 of Stargate Atlantis were two unwelcome character deaths. The much-loved Dr. Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion) had been killed off late in season 3 ("Sunday"), arousing a storm of fan protest, and the leader of the Atlantis expedition, Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson), sacrificed herself to destroy the Replicators in the second episode of season 4 ("Lifeline"). Reports swirled that the current lead producers of the series, including Martin Gero, felt that Dr. Weir was a flawed character and that Higginson had been let go from the series for that reason.

The great thing about DVD sets is that they give you an opportunity to view an entire season as an entity, with helpful explanations in the form of featurettes and commentary to actually provide some answers to that oft-repeated refrain, "What were they thinking?" And this DVD set in particular, the complete season 4 of Atlantis, continues the fan-conscious franchise's effort to provide as many of those answers as possible, by providing commentary tracks for all of the episodes, "Mission Directive" director overviews on key episodes, and overall featurettes on what's new and different about the season as a whole.

• My review of Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Fourth Season

At the Sci Fi Channel upfront party in March, James Callis (who plays Gaius Baltar) told me in no uncertain terms that there would be no more Battlestar Galactica projects with this cast once production concluded on the fourth and final season (the wrap party, in fact, was last Saturday). The impression I got from Callis was that giving your all to a series as intense as Battlestar left the cast and creators more than ready to move on, but whatever my interpretation of the reasoning behind it, Callis was quite clear that season 4 was the end of the line.

So I was quite surprised to hear Grace Park (who plays Athena/Boomer/Number Eight) telling the press that at least one Battlestar movie is on the way after all.
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