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Recap / Stargate Atlantis S04 E04 "Doppelgänger"

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So far the only behavior we have to evaluate suggests a certain malice. Based on what's been described to me the personification of Colonel Sheppard in everyone's dreams is behaving much like a sociopath.
Dr. Heightmeyer

While exploring a jungle planet, Col. Sheppard touches a glowing crystal. Dr. Keller gives him a clean bill of health, but over the next couple of days the rest of the team start sequentially experiencing vivid nightmares, all featuring Sheppard as an antagonist. Things start to escalate when it comes around to Major Lorne, who has a history of sleepwalking and almost shoots Sheppard while asleep. They escalate even further when the team finds Dr. Heightmeyer dead, having been killed in the dream.

Returning to the planet, they bring back the original crystal and a second, still glowing one for analysis. The crystal turns out to house an alien entity that jumps from person to person via electric conduction and feeds off the fear of the host. Zelenka is able to modify the life-signs detector to pick up the entity's unique energy signature, determining that after killing Heightmeyer the entity jumped to McKay. They stick him in a rubber room, ply him with coffee, and try to figure out what to do next.

Carter hypothesizes that they might be able to convince or force the entity to return to its crystal if they can communicate with it. They put McKay under and use an old piece of Phlebotinum to hook Sheppard up to his dreams to help out. McKay's nightmare turns out to be a rowboat in the rain, and Sheppard and the entity (also known as Evil Sheppard) play Good Angel, Bad Angel by encouraging and discouraging McKay's progress. Then the whole thing gets eaten by a whale. McKay flatlines and defibrilators are applied, with the usual amount of success for stargateverse defibrilators.

Sheppard is devestated. This isn't helped by the fact that everyone else feels the need to remind him what a terrible friend he is. Even Evil Sheppard turns up to taunt him, which shouldn't really be possible, and then proceed to beat the crap out of him. Suddenly, McKay appears out of thin air and zaps Evil Sheppard with force lightning. It turns out the defibrilators worked after all (and are now being vigorously applied to Sheppard), with the added bonus that the entity is weak against electricity. With Evil Sheppard thus weakened, Sheppard and McKay are able to throw him bodily through the Stargate, and the entity retreats back into its crystal.

Sheppard and McKay share a moment of disappointment that Sheppard's subconscious isn't more full of hot chicks, then leave the dream and return the crystals to the jungle planet.

Tropes:

  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: The final battle between Sheppard and the energy entity that's been killing people by subjecting them to their worst fears.
  • Beard of Evil: Lampshaded. Sheppard inquires about the other Sheppard, "Did I have a goatee?" (he didn't)
  • The Bet: McKay is unusually gung-ho about exploring the jungle planet because Zelenka bet him that there was nothing of value there.
  • Call-Back: Carter compares the situation initially to the SG-1 first season episode "Cold Lazarus", where a similar Crystal Entity briefly impersonated O'Neill, although that one wasn't evil. The latter half of the episode also involves technology picked up in the second season episode "The Gamekeeper". Keller also mentions Carter being possessed, referring to "In The Line of Duty" from the second season and/or "Entity" from the fourth. Carter also acknowledges the danger of forcing someone to remain awake using stimulants, referring to season ten's "Morpheus."
  • Cerebus Retcon: McKay's fear of being eaten by the whale-like fish in "Grace Under Pressure" takes on a more serious tone in light of his childhood nightmares from reading Moby Dick, which have never stopped.
  • Dissimile: Sheppard says the glowing crystaline structure "looks like one of those toys you play with when you're a kid". McKay and Ronon guess "Commodore 64" and "triple barrel shotgun" respectively, which are completely unlike each other and both quite unlike what Sheppard was thinking of, which is a kaleidoscope.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!:
    • Sheppard gets pretty brow-beaten for touching the glowy rock thing.
    • Keller nearly does so as well, having been compelled to touch it. According to Zelenka, that's how it ropes in its victims.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dr. Heightmeyer, who after four seasons is Killed Off for Real.
  • Emotion Eater: The entity feeds on the fear of its host — and also, as the episode progresses, the thrill of killing them.
  • Enemy Without: In a sense. The Entity is aware of Sheppard's own self-loathing and taunts him with it.
  • Evil Me Scares Me:: Crystal!Sheppard rightfully points out that it's the one thing Sheppard's really afraid of, failing and betraying his friends.
  • Evil Twin: The Crystalline entity imprints on Sheppard's appearance due to him being the first being it came into contact with.
  • For the Evulz: Apparently the Entity's reason for causing nightmares.
  • Lampshade Hanging: In Teyla's nightmare, McKay wanders around with a scanner looking for "energy readings".
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Sheppard suggests that it's almost as if somebody in a warm, cosy room typing onto their computer sent them there for their own amusement.
  • Monster Clown: One briefly shows up in the boat with Sheppard and McKay, although it doesn't do anything scary except unnerve Sheppard, who admits that this dream manifestation came from his subconscious.
  • Monster Whale: Rodney's worst nightmare is being alone at sea, stalked by a monstrous whale that wants to swallow him. Apparently, his father had read Moby-Dick to him as a child.
  • Plug 'n' Play Friends: Dr. Keller is suddenly one of the gang, routinely having lunch with the rest of the team, with really no buildup.
  • Shipper on Deck: Ronon again. This time he offers to set up Sheppard and Dr. Keller.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Several elements of the plot bear strong resemblence to Alien and to the Freddy Krueger movies — and the characters are quick to point this out.
    • Also to Moby-Dick, which McKay mentions has given him nightmares ever since he was a child.
  • The Sociopath: The Crystal Entity masquerading as Sheppard is diagnosed as one by Heightmeyer. It shows.
  • Unfriendly Fire: Major Lorne almost shoots Sheppard and Carter because he thinks they're Replicators.
  • "What Do They Fear?" Episode: In order of appearance:
    • Teyla: The Wraith and bug!Sheppard attacking her.
    • Keller: Real life chest bursters as a result of seeing Alien and a fellow med-school student pranking her by hiding a live snake in the cadaver she was dissecting.
    • Ronon: Being hunted by the Wraith again and being buried alive.
    • Lorne: Replicators.
    • Heightmeyer: Falling from tall heights.
    • McKay: Being eaten by a whale as a result of his dad reading him Moby-Dick when he was little.
    • Sheppard: Himself and his own failures. And clowns.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: As the entity grows stronger, the dreams it creates can put the victim into cardiac arrest. This happens to both Dr. Heightmeyer and Dr. McKay - but the latter gets better.

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