Adrift (Stargate Atlantis) - Production

Production

"Adrift" first surfaced on February 2007, before the airing of "First Strike". By March it was confirmed to be the first of a two-part opening for the fourth season along with "Lifeline" and would be similar in style to "Progeny" and "The Real World". The producers kept trying to find new ways to "out-do" the efforts of the previous seasons, which they described was "different" to them, since they introduced more of a balance between team-based and character-based episodes. After the completion of "First Strike", the producers thought it was the biggest episode they have ever done, and wondered how the fourth season would top that. During the writing stages, Martin Gero wanted the episode to "tee up" with the last episode of the season, and hence wanted the episode to become part of a story-arc for the entire season. Gero also wanted the episode to have "no down time" for the characters like the previous season premieres. After Zelenka gets injured, a scene where a Puddle Jumper was originally meant to pick them both up. However, having a Jumper set nearby in an Atlantis set would not be practical enough, and was cut. He also wrote to have Sheppard in an uneased state while forced to take command of Atlantis. The scene where McKay and Zelenka converse and finish each other's sentences were parallel to the arguing between Gero and Wood while working together on set. He considered the scene between Teyla and Weir to be the cliffhanger, but was changed to the following scene, as Gero felt that would be the better cliffhanger, similar to the one for "The Return, Part 1".

The episode, and the season itself has introduced Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter for her first of 14 episode appearance, after finishing her appearances on all ten seasons of the sister series, Stargate SG-1. Carter would replace Elizabeth Weir as the leader of the Atlantis Expedition after the episode. However, Carter would only have a supporting role as opposed to a lead role on SG-1. The episode would also give the audience "an opportunity to really get to know Dr. Jennifer Keller" (Staite). Gero was reluctant to accept an updated opening title sequence, which mentioned the departure of Weir and the introduction of Carter, which would give the casual viewers a tip.

While filming the scene where Keller and her team perform a Decompressive craniectomy on Weir, an actual brain surgeon performed the same procedure on a head model live from ten feet away, and directed the cast on what to do. While following the surgeon, Staite was nervous about doing the scene. After filming was completed, the surgeon's voice was removed from the final cut. During the sequence where the city travels through a clearing in the asteroid field, the producers wanted the scene where Atlantis gets hit by the odd asteroid as authentic as possible, so in the control room, not only the cameras, but the screens and tables on the set were shaken slightly as well.

The episode was one of the most expensive in the series at the time, with two visual effects milestones for the series. During one of the sequences, the visual effects team switched from stock explosions on 2D to 3D versions. The producers wished to exceed the minute-long Horizon sequence in the previous episode. The scene where the doors close while the shield is collapsing was merely stock footage from "Hot Zone", with the CGI of the shield added on. When the producers conceived the idea for the space jump between Sheppard and Zelenka, they thought it would be "cool", as well as thinking that they were possibly too apprehensive. However, the sequence was pulled off, and Paul Mullie described the jump as "one of the best visual effects we have ever done." The scene were one team dies from the collapsing shield however, was not performed as well as the producers hoped.