Paul McGillion May Return To Stargate Atlantis

Fans of Stargate Atlantis who saw the June 1 episode “Sunday” witnessed the unexpected demise of Dr. Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion), a death that many fans had been anticipating for weeks beforehand with dismay. But producers told SCI FI Wire that fans may not have seen the last of the popular Scottish physician. “Essentially we write into the [stories] what we think works well,” executive producer Robert C. Cooper said in an interview on the show’s set in Vancouver, Canada, over the weekend. “On the other hand, we know what the fans enjoy, and we want to keep the fans happy. For example, we killed off [Beckett] at the end of season three. The fans were very vocal about his departure, and we understood that he meant a lot to them. We’re working on a storyline that may see him return temporarily. If it works out creatively - if what the fans like creatively and what we like creatively syncs up - that’s great.”

Beckett’s death shook up the show’s cast as well as the fans. “It’s kind of like life: You get blindsided by these things,” co-star David Hewlett (Rodney McKay) said in a separate interview. “It changes your day-to-day routine. That’s happened both as actors and as the characters as well. Not having Paul around. Paul and I, we made each other’s lives misery: We would tease each other the whole time, and we had great fun on set and off set. To not have him around feels like a huge loss. But that’s life. Things change, and people move on.”