TV REVIEW Stargate Atlantis 4.13 "Quarantine"

Written by: Carl Binder

Directed by: Martin Wood

Rating:

The One Where: McKay’s tinkering with Atlantis’s quarantine systems accidentally sends the whole city into lockdown, leaving everyone trapped in separate rooms and unable to communicate with each other. The ordeal leads McKay’s relationship with Katie to collapse following a failed proposal attempt, but romance seems to bloom between Keller and Ronon.

Verdict: Very much a bottle episode, this doesn’t really achieve much and was clearly made on a pretty small budget – with the exception of the scenes with Sheppard scaling the city tower, the fact that all the action takes place in small, locked rooms keeps it all low-rent. You’ve got to feel sorry for McKay though – although I can’t really imagine him being married, it’s sad that he’s sabotaged his own relationship. The poor guy just can’t get a break.

Character: We get some insight into Keller’s history – she graduated from high school at age 15 and obtained a Bachelor’s degree by age 18, but she feels that she spent so long studying that she missed out on many important aspects of teenage life. It’s also revealed that, personality-wise, she reminds Ronon of Melena, the Satedan woman who may have been his wife or girlfriend. Which would explain his sudden romantic attraction to her...

Trivia: David Nykl, who plays Zelenka, has noted on his blog that this was the first episode they shot after their summer break. This explains why Teyla is noticeably more heavily pregnant than she was in “Spoils of War”.

Nitpick: Teyla, at only three months along in her pregnancy, feels her baby start to kick. But the quickening – the point at which there is noticeable foetal movement – doesn’t begin until about the fourth month, and women undergoing their first pregnancy don’t typically feel anything until around 20 weeks (five months).

Note: McKay’s passcode consists of the birth years of three “great minds” – Newton (1643), Einstein (1879) and himself (1968) – and the number 42, that being the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything.

LMAO: Sheppard and his love of Batman – he assures Teyla that he’ll be OK climbing the tower by grimly saying “Batman did it all the time...”

CarterWatch: Amanda Tapping finally reappears for a substantial amount of screen time. Shame she just gets stuck in a transporter with Zelenka and doesn’t do very much for the whole episode.

Ronon’s Pop Culture: Ronon says the idea of using the infirmary’s oxygen tanks to blow the doors off the room comes from the late Roy Scheider’s method of dealing with the killer shark in Jaws.

Best Line:
Keller: "Another sparring accident?"
Ronon: "Actually, I slipped in the shower."
Keller: "Oh, really?"
Ronon: "No. Sparring accident."

Leah Holmes