The Best of John Sheppard
2. DOPPELGANGER
(Season Four, Episode 4)
This twisted tale from Robert C. Cooper also showed a different side of Sheppard — a very evil and sinister Sheppard. Fortunately he’s confined to the dream world. Unfortunately, the entity that has taken on his appearance has the ability to kill you in your sleep. Each member of the team experiences a disturbing nightmare, each time with Sheppard as an antagonizing presence.
When they finally realize what is going on, a little technology helps John himself go into Rodney McKay’s mind and confront the entity face-to-face. The knock-down, drag-out fight in the gate room between Sheppard and Sheppard remains one of the coolest fight scenes that Atlantis has done. It also shows just how far Sheppard is willing to go for one of his friends.
1. COMMON GROUND
(Season Three, Episode 7)
There’s nothing like watching your favorite hero captured and mercilessly tortured by the enemy. In this case, Kolya is back with a particularly cruel weapon to use against his rival: a hungry Wraith. In an attempt to convince Atlantis to hand over the Genii traitor Ladon Radim (Ryan Robbins), Kolya kidnaps Sheppard and lets the Wraith feed on his life force … while transmitting the video live to Atlantis through the Stargate. Each time the Wraith is allowed to feed, Sheppard loses more years off his life and ages before their eyes.
What makes “Common Ground” such a good episode is not just the dynamic of hatred between Kolya and Sheppard, or the cruelty shown by the villain, or the moral dilemma that John’s friends face. It’s the surprising relationship between Sheppard and his fellow captive, the Wraith. The two form an alliance to escape, and we’d like to think that through the Wraith — who the Colonel would come to know as “Todd” (Christopher Heyerdahl) — John Sheppard learned a little bit about who the Wraith are, and perhaps even about who he is.
Don’t miss the final episode of Stargate Atlantis, “Enemy At the Gate,” Friday at 9 p.m. (8 Central) on SCI FI Channel in the United States!
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Oh, great. Common Ground is my favourite, too. And then I like Doppelganger very much. I don’t know Vegas yet (I’m from Germany), but Phantoms and The Eye are really great, too. I love so much Atlantis episodes, but my five favourite sheppard episodes are:
shep_forever | January 6 @ 6:39 am1. Common Ground
2. Doppelganger
3. Conversion
4. Search And Rescue
5. Phantoms
Happy Birthday Joe and Paul, hope you both have a great day. You are both amazing actors have a good one !!!
thegreatthor | January 6 @ 8:01 amthegreatthor
my 5 favourites are:
thegreatthor | January 6 @ 8:08 amremnants
doppelganger
and two cos of the humour harmony and the game
and conversion
Really enjoyed Vegas. It showed us how disturbed Sheppard’s character was even in a different reality. I also loved Common Ground and Phantoms, Outcast, Doppelganger, Remnants and anything else that Joe Flanigan is in. Happy birthday Joe and Paul.
pg | January 6 @ 8:43 amI haven’t seen Vegas yet so I can’t comment but “Phantoms” and “Doppleganger”?! Two of the worst SGA episodes ever… “Commmon Ground” though was excellent. I absolutely loved the interaction between Shep and Todd.
And happy belated birthday to Joe and Paul!
Lady Vaako | January 6 @ 10:54 amI totally agree about Common Ground. The very best of JF. A also loved Conversion and, though not strictly a JS ep, he was great in Millers’ Crossing too. I think that he deserves real praise for the way he has developed the character and some terrific acting over the 5 years.
fifi | January 6 @ 12:49 pmI can’t agree about Doppelganger. Loved it and Joe’s performance as ‘evil’ John.
fifi | January 6 @ 12:51 pmhhmmm… my top five shep eps? thats a hard one. well i’d have to say…
flyboyfan23 | January 6 @ 3:57 pmdoppleganger
common ground
the eye
conversion
phantoms
oh i can’t decide. defiant one, thirty-eight minutes, infection. they are all so good… there’s no way for me to pick five…
oh well, happy birthday anyways!!!
no, no, no, not common ground, that episode created a character that just wont go away and is responsible for ratings dropping. why not epiphany or something esle focusing on Joe?
pudljumper | January 6 @ 4:09 pmPhantoms not a memorable episode? I think it’s one of the best Atlantis eps we’ve had. Credible performances from every actor on the show, all in one ep? Almost never happens, especially put together with engaging writing and respectable directing, as well as plot twists that we don’t see walking slowly towards us waving a red flag over the horizon. Once or twice, I even cared about what happened to the characters, because they developed and we learnt about them. It’s always the problem with action shows in which we know none of the leads are ever going to die; if they also aren’t affected as people by anything that happens to them, always handy with a witty retort no matter what trauma hits them, how can we ever really care about them? In this episode, they were all affected, so I was. This wasn’t just Sheppard’s ep, I really felt Teyla’s panic as she realised that Sheppard had no idea where he was and she was completely at his mercy, and when Beckett realised he had been so busy talking to a person that wasn’t really there, he had let someone die alone, unaware that they were even badly injured. Hallucinations is not an original premise for a sci-fi show, but its execution here was imaginatively, cleverly and movingly handled. Great stuff.
topaz_bean | January 6 @ 9:06 pmIf we are talking about the character of John Sheppard, I think that “Sunday”, “Epiphany” and “Travelers” are perhaps more revealing than eps that focus on action. These obviously took more work out of Joe to come up with believable interraction, show feelings (yes…) and even in Sunday, interact on a personal level with Jason and others. Vegas struck me as a filler episode, interesting in that it cast Sheppard in a role which at first looks like it has nothing to do with his role in Atlantis, but in the end, loosely written and lacking continuity. Maybe it is time to stop the show, the writers are getting tired and running out of ideas.
alaska | January 9 @ 2:42 amThat must have been hard to narrow it down for John Sheppard; he shines in like EVERY episode!! I wasn’t a fan of Vegas but Sheppard stood out, like usual.
Yanks4Life23519 | January 13 @ 9:44 pm