You raise some good questions. And it's not clear why plump good old boy replaces oil slick anubis, but there you have it. He is sort of unctuous, really. Oily and not trustworthy, and this sense is enhanced the longer one's exposure to him is. Certainly better than a guy whose face is like a TV channel you can't quite dial in on.
Yeah. Why they killed Samantha's dad didn't make much sense unless the actor had better things to do, but that's hard to imagine. Replicators are not so much alive as animated, no? They get reduced to puddles of material and that's a good thing. Yeah. Replica Carter seemed sort of ill equiped in the strategy dept. She just reverted to whatever bad guys do on these shows, mostly strategies focused on intimidation, cruelty, threats and bullying. She lies to Daniel, tells him she won't kill him and then she does just that. What a twit. She deserved to melt. Dry look Ba'al really is like some guy who tried to pick you up in a bar in the 1980s. Kind of handsome in a way that says, "don't trust me, not even to sell you a car."