Don’t want to wait until January for the second half of Stargate Atlantis Season Five? The final 10 episodes actually might air this fall.

Normally when the show premieres in the summer it takes a break for the fall, and returns to air the back half of the season from January to March. But executive producer Joseph Mallozzi and script coordinator Alex Levine have both hinted in their blogs that the SCI FI Channel may air the rest of the season this year.

There is nothing official from the network yet, but it has announced that Amanda Tapping’s new series Sanctuary will have a 2-hour premiere on October 3 — and after that, it will get Atlantis‘s 10 p.m. Friday night time slot. SCI FI may be planning to bump Atlantis up to 9 p.m. and use it as Sanctuary‘s lead-in show — which would certainly make sense.

If the network holds the final 10 new episodes until January, though, Atlantis could air alongside the last episodes of Battlestar Galactica again. That combo was certainly a ratings winner in years’ past, before SCI FI split up its SG-1/Atlantis/Battlestar trifecta.

Stick with GateWorld for the latest scheduling info, and tune into SCI FI for new episodes Friday at 10 p.m. (9 Central)!

(Thanks to Morjana for the tip)