Known among some for his roles as Dr. Dick Richards on China Beach or Coach Cutlip on The Wonder Years, Joe “The Mean Man” Horton on Home Improvement or the cowboy in Inner Space, or to others as The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, Robert Picardo has lead a successful career. And now, Picardo will be bringing his acting skills and charisma to the screen as a regular cast member of Stargate Atlantis.

There has been a lot of grumbling around the internet about Richard Woolsey’s promotion to Atlantis base leader for the fifth season of Stargate Atlantis, which premieres in the U.S. this Friday, July 11, 2008. And it isn’t entirely unsurprising, considering how hard he and the writers have worked to make his character less than a favorite. Part of the International Oversight Advisory (IOA) watching the Stargate programs, Woolsey has hitherto been the man investigating our heroes.

Now he’ll be leading them. Needless to say, he wasn’t many fans favored choice to take over from Amanda Tapping after she decided to leave Atlantis, and focus on her new show Sanctuary.

“Frankly, when they hired me for the job, I went “˜Oh God, that’s interesting!'” Picardo recalled in a recent interview with Newsarama.

I’m not concerned in the slightest about Picardo’s ability to smack this out of the park. He is the consummate actor, and anyone who spent any time watching Voyager will be well aware of Picardo’s ability to make a seemingly irritable character come alive and be a favorite.