Stargate Atlantis Rewatch: 38 Minutes
Sheppard has a Klingon (photo from GateWorld.net)
WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!
38 Minutes
Written by Brad Wright
Directed by Mario Azzopardi
Guest Starring Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Grodin), Christopher Heyerdahl (Halling), Ben Cotton (Kavanagh), Fiona Hogan (Simpson), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Joseph May (Markham), Boyan Vukelic (Stackhouse), Edmond Wong (Technician)
Summary
Sheppard will die if the team can’t remove an insect that is feeding on his neck, but their attempt to return to Atlantis for medical help is interrupted when the jumper gets stuck halfway through a space gate. The teams on Atlantis and in the puddle jumper have 38 minutes—the maximum time a Stargate will remain open—to free the jumper and save everyone inside.
General Impressions
We get not just one but two countdown to doom plots in this episode and twice the suspense. Sheppard has what will become known as an Iratus Bug, the ancestor of the Wraith, attached to his neck and feeding on him. Everything Tayla, Rodney and Ford have done to try and remove it has failed. As they try to fly their jumper through a space gate and get Sheppard to the Atlantis infirmary, one of the drive pods fails to fully retract, leaving the half of the jumper containing the redshirts inside the wormhole and our heroes outside in the back of the jumper. So, jeopardy #1: If they can’t get the bug off Sheppard’s neck he dies. Jeopardy #2, if they can’t get the jumper unstuck, the wormhole will close killing everyone inside. Awesome!
I loved this episode. It has everything from the afore-mentioned double dose of jeopardy to conflict back on Atlantis as the expedition scrambles to save the people in the jumper. It’s all hands on deck, like NASA trying to bring Apollo 13 home safe and sound. This episode also introduces one of my favorite characters, Dr. Radek Zalenka of the Czech Republic. He’s one of the few characters from a non-English speaking country to get a recurring role on this show, even though we sometimes see flags other than those of the U.S. and Canada on people’s shoulders. He gets picked on by the other characters, especially Rodney, but I love him. It’s fun when he starts going off in Czech, which he does as he uses another jumper to try to find a way to get Sheppard’s jumper out of the wormhole.
The Good
I think I covered it in the summary. The two “ticking clocks” with not just Sheppard’s life on the line but the lives of everyone else in the puddle jumper, including the two redshirts, who we actually care about despite mostly only seeing them in flashbacks. I also loved how they revealed how the team got into this predicament through flashbacks as they bring Dr. Weir up to speed so she can help them.
The way Weir handled the egotistical jerk Cavanaugh, who in the middle of a life or death crisis takes the time to tell off his superior for criticizing him in front of his team. Weir totally handles him, showing that she won’t take crap from anyone. Likewise, Sheppard gives Rodney a similar lecture about action versus whining.
The Bad
I thought the bug looked like the rubber prop that it was. It was supposed to be sucking the life out of Sheppard, but he seemed remarkably chatty for all that. After they got it off of his neck, they shot it numerous times, yet when we see it again after Ford opens the rear hatch to vent atmosphere and propel the jumper through the gate, the bug looks unscathed. An explanation comes indirectly in a later episode when we’re told the bug is an ancestor of the Wraith, who heal really, really fast. However, we don’t know that in this episode so it looks like a continuity hiccup. Having said all that, I thought the thing was animated well, especially when it was around Sheppard’s neck. Almost everything they tried made it choke him.
I hate Cavanaugh, but that’s what we’re supposed to do. Thankfully he wasn’t in too many scenes.
Of course the ticking clock gets run down practically to the very last second, and someone even creates a countdown clock so the characters (and viewers) can see that time’s running out. This trope is so ubiquitous it must be in the bylaws of the screen writers guild, or something. If there’s going to be a time sensitive plot, you must have a clock that goes backwards, and the plot cannot be resolved any sooner than two seconds before time runs out. Better if the day is saved exactly when time runs out. It’s The Law.
Beckett’s lame Klingon joke. The other characters thought it was lame, too. I guess that was the point.
The Awesome
Lots of show don’t tell. Ford could have just used exposition to tell Weir what had happened up to that point, but instead we get flashbacks. In these flashbacks we learn that that Wraith hive from the pilot was actually a ship, not part of the mountain, and it flew away. The consequence of this is the realization that the Wraith can come to Atlantis in gigantic hive ships full of hungry Wraith and thereby gain access to the only Stargate that goes to Earth (assuming the Wraith can find a power supply to generate a wormhole to another galaxy).
The Iratus Bug is important almost to the end of the series itself. It’s not just a one-shot plot device, and gets our heroes into more trouble than getting one wrapped around the throat. All hail the Iratus Bug, rubbery bringer of doom!
Rating
9 out of 10. I loved this episode. It kept my attention with every scene, and I could really feel the tension. On the downside, the bug looked like a rubber prop. They went to a lot of effort to make sure all four of our main heroes were in the back of the jumper, even though Ford had gotten caught in the wormhole (they pull him out by the arm). It seemed contrived.
