Stargate Atlantis Season 1, Episode 3
Hide and Seek
- I'm invulnerable!— Dr. McKay is very enthusiastic
Dr. Beckett has found a way to impart the ATA (Ancient Technology Activator) gene to normal humans, and the normally reticent Dr. McKay is the first to volunteer. He even has a handy bit of Ancient Technology to try it out on - a personal shield that renders him invulnerable to everything from nasty falls to being shot. Both the gene therapy and the device work perfectly - until they realize that the things that can't touch him include him - he can't eat or drink, or even take the wretched thing off. (He's lucky he can still even breathe.) This of course takes all the fun out of jumping off ledges, letting people shoot him, and watching football.
Meanwhile, one of the Athosian children has wandered off and discovered a teleporter to an unexplored part of the city, where he inadvertently releases a dark energy sucking entity that the Ancients had been studying back in the day. As the expedition personnel begin searching for the lost child and McKay continues to bemoan his impending demise, the entity roams around the city wreaking havoc with its vital systems and badly zapping Lieutenant Ford when he gets caught out in the open.
They eventually find the child, as well as the container the entity escaped from. It is theoretically possible to lure the entity back into its container, but someone will have to be physically present to press the button. All eyes turn to Invulnerable Dr. McKay - whose personal shield device immediately goes dead and falls off, confirming Dr. Weir and Dr. Beckett's suspicions that it was at least partially psychosomatic all the time. McKay, of course, insists that it just ran out of power, and goes off to eat everything he can find, leaving Sheppard to trap the entity.
The entity, however, is unfortunately too smart to be trapped the same way twice, and refuses to take the bait. Teyla proposes to lure it through the Stargate to a barren wasteland world. They load up a MALP with an activated Naquadah generator and power up the gate (and down the rest of the city). The entity comes as expected, but drains the energy from the MALP so it can sit in the gateroom eating its fill and becoming bigger and bigger. McKay reluctantly puts his personal shield back on (which, unsurprisingly, works perfectly) and wades out into the darkness. He throws the generator through the gate, and the entity follows, but not before completely draining the shield energy (for real this time) and leaving him unconscious, but unharmed.
Tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At the very beginning of the episode, Dr. Beckett reveals that the ATA gene McKay is about to receive is delivered via a (deactivated) mouse retrovirus:McKay: Well, are there any side effects?Beckett: Dry mouth, headache, the irresistible urge to run in a small wheel...
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Sheppard brags about shooting McKay in the leg to test the Ancient shield. Deflector Shields or not, a freaking Major and combat veteran should know better.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Ancient shield. It covers you in an impenetrable force field, but also prevents you from eating or drinking anything while it's active. However, it's meant to be controlled mentally and an Ancient could take it off as easily as breathing. McKay, lacking such training, can't figure that part out until Weir psyches him into making it turn off out of fear.
- Blessed with Suck: This seems to be McKay's fate, until the others learn he can just turn the thing off mentally whenever he likes.
- Bottle Episode
- Comically Missing the Point:McKay: You got your eye on anyone?Beckett: Umm, not really.McKay: Actually, I was talking to the mouse.
- Constantly Curious: Jinto begins asking his father about all kinds of things before bed; he asks him if he believes they are truly safe from the Wraith, if he misses the wind, and if he thinks the ghosts of the Ancestors are still present. His father tells him to go to sleep.
- Deflector Shields: Rodney's personal shield deflects everything that comes at it and even has Inertial Dampening to absorb impacts like falling from great heights. Unfortunately, it also prevents McKay from physically removing the device, and he can't eat or drink while wearing it. It at least allows oxygen in and carbon dioxide out.
- Energy Beings: The entity, an early attempt at ascension that didn't pan out.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Beckett's actions may be fairly benign in this episode, but foreshadow the creation of Michael.Beckett: Well actually, without proper F.D.A. approval, it was virtually impossible on Earth to ... Let's just say it's, uh, legal here in the Pegasus galaxy.
- Foreshadowing: Weir mentioning that the Ancients had installed failsafe into their other technologies, specifically citing the city rising to the surface when the power reached critical levels. Both SG-1 and this series will show the Ancients were Neglectful Precursors at best and had no intention of returning to Atlantis so the fact such a failsafe was in place seems a bit hinky. The failsafe was put into place by the Ancient Janus and a time-traveling Weir to save the Expedition from being killed when they arrived and the shield failed as revealed in the episode "Before I Sleep".
- Fun with Acronyms: ATA, or Ancient Technology Activation.
- Immune to Bullets: And lots of other things.Weir: I'm still trying to understand, how you thought it was a good idea to test this device by having someone throw you off a balcony.McKay: Oh, believe me that's not the first thing we tried.Sheppard: I shot him. *beat* In the leg!
- Inertial Dampening: Part of the overall package provided by the personal shield.
- It Can Think: The shadow entity at first seems to be mindlessly going after energy sources to feed on. The Ancients had originally contained it within a device designed to emit an energy signal that would lure it in and trap it, but when the expedition members try using the device to trap it again, as soon as the entity gets close enough to see it, it immediately flees the other way, showing that it's smart enough not to be tricked the same way again.
- LEGO Genetics: Genetic therapyBeckett: In this case we're using a mouse retrovirus to deliver the missing gene to your cells.
- Mistaken for Dying: McKay, although he plays it more maudlin than heroic, and receives almost no sympathy.
- Neglectful Precursors: Discussed. The Ancients wouldn't really have made a personal shield that necessarily killed the wearer - would they? Of course, they did leave a sentient being imprisoned for 10,000 years when they packed up and abandoned the city.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The shadow entity isn't actually evil, it's just hungry (and possibly a bit pissed off) after being left sealed away for over 10,000 years after the Ancients abandoned Atlantis. Teyla is the first to consider that the entity probably doesn't even want to be in Atlantis anymore and would be willing to go somewhere else if given the opportunity.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Sheppard tells the Athosian children a story about a killer with a hockey mask and a machete. Unfortunately, the children don't even know what hockey is, so it goes right over their heads.
- Rescue Sex: The episode begins with McKay invoking this;McKay: Now you mention it, some of those Athosian women are pretty hot; and we did just save them from the Wraith so we've gotta trade on that while we can, you know, before they discover that we're not actually that cool?
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: As a C plot, they are building in a self destruct system of the two keys variety, since this is the only Stargate capable of dialing Earth, and therefore should be destroyed rather than allowed to fall to the Wraith. McKay quips that they shouldn't bother giving him a code. And, of course, the Athosians are not told about this.
- Say My Name: When Elizabeth sees Rodney entering the energy cloud, she shouts his name because she’s scared what he’s doing will kill him.
- Status Quo Is God: Minor aversion with the damage the Gate Room sustained from the Wraith Darts weapons fire in the preceding episode. The Expedition does not have the means to make repairs yet, so the damage is still there. In-story, the Expedition won't be able to patch up the Gate Room until early Season Two.
