David Nykl. At the end of season 1, Rainbow Sun Francks (portrayed Aiden Ford) was disappointed about the evolution of his character, he then asked the producer if they could expand him somehow. The producers agreed and reduced Ford's status to a recurring role so that his story arc would be more important to the "whole" story arc of season 2. When talking about part 3, Martin Gero called it the "biggest episode" they had done. When developing part three of "The Siege", Brad Wright and Gero handed over a copy of the script to director Martin Wood. As Wood has commented, his job was to make it "come to life in a way" that was more "exciting" than previous part. He called the episodes, a "Roller-coaster ride" because of the "Loops" and "Twists". In the last scene, where John Sheppard is stalking Aiden Ford, the portraying actors Joe Flanigan and Francks complained about their characters getting "Off a little easy." They eventually came to a compromise with the producers, since the last scene was "Really" important to the story arc of "Runner". According to writer-producer Gero, Carson Beckett was set to appear in only a handful of episodes after the Stargate Atlantis''' pilot episode, "Rising", but the character had such a big connection to the fans that Gero labeled McGillion the "breakout star" in Stargate Atlantis. The producers decided to give Beckett a larger role and made him a recurring character with a total of fifteen episode appearances in the first season, followed by a regular in season two. Reception "The Siege, Part 1" earned a household rating of 2.5, both "The Siege, Part 2" and "The Siege, Part 3" earned a household rating of 2.2. Part one and three got a GateWorld rating of three out of four, part two got three and half out of four. "The Siege, Part 3" topped the household rating scale in the summer of 2005. "The Siege, Part 3" was also given a syndication rating of 1.1. "The Siege, Part 1" and "Part 2" debuted on the Canadian broadcasting agency, The Movie Network on January 24 and January 31, 2005. "Part 1" debuted on March 18, 2005 on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States. Part 3 of "The Siege" premiered on British channel Sky1 on October 19 at 8 p.m. The third part was viewed by 680,000 in the United