Grace Under Pressure (Stargate Atlantis)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Grace Under Pressure” | |
|---|---|
| Stargate Atlantis episode | |
 |
|
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 14 |
| Guest stars | Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter Nimet Kanji as Dr. Bryce David Nykl as Dr. Zelenka Peter Abrams as Donaldson William MacDonald as Captain Griffin |
| Written by | Martin Gero |
| Directed by | Martin Wood |
| Production no. | 214 |
| Original airdate | December 12, 2005 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Critical Mass" | "The Tower" |
| Episode chronology | |
"Grace Under Pressure" is an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Rodney McKay and a soldier by the name of Griffin are flying from the mainland back to Atlantis. Rodney is worried about the ship, considering it's the first flight its had since it was shot down in "Condemned". All seems to be going well until they experience a malfunction and the ship crashes into the ocean.
About an hour later, Griffin and McKay wake up to Radek Zelenka's relentless radio calls. McKay had suffered a blow to his forehead and was bleeding. They realize that the ship had sunk about 1200 feet and was sinking at the rate of 20 feet a minute. Suddenly the windshield started to give way to the pressure of the ocean. Rodney immediately heads for the rear compartment and tries to seal the bulkheads, except the switch was damaged. Leaving Rodney in the rear compartment, Griffin stumbled into the front compartment and pushed the switch right before the windshield shattered. Griffin drowned (or decompressed). Up on the surface, Radek tries to pinpoint McKay's location while John Sheppard tries to find away to lift the sinking Puddle Jumper from the ocean.
Back in the Jumper, Rodney tries to stave off his claustrophobia and save himself. Turning on the emergency transmitter, he discovers that he only has 3 hours of power left in the Jumper because the inertial dampeners were using up most of the power. Rodney immediately commits to the idea of doom.
Suddenly, Samantha Carter appears to McKay in his hallucinations. After taking a moment to take in the fact that he's hallucinating, Carter explains to him that she's there as a hallucination to help him and due to the rather bad concussion on his head.
Back in Atlantis, John suddenly has a bright idea. If they can turn the Jumper's cloak into a shield like the Atlantis shield was turned into a cloak, they could dive even deeper. Zelenka informs him that it would take up a lot of power and shutting down anything they don't need would take hours to reconfigure. John suggests that they make the changes as they get down there.
Rodney's Jumper hits the bottom. Sadly, Sam points to the bottom of the Jumper. The Jumper is taking on water.
Finally onto something, Zelenka manages to get the shield up and running. Under the pressure of the ocean, the shield is continually draining power. They have about 30 minutes if the shield continues to drain power.
Radek notices that the monster seems to be circling the same area over and over again, which means it probably found something interesting. They find the Jumper. He realizes that they can extend the shield between the two Jumpers, though, that way Rodney can just walk between them. As they walk, the gigantic whale being majesticly swims overhead. Setting him down in the rescue ship, Rodney looks to Sam, who is smiling and waving him off.
[edit] Quotes
- McKay: Oh wow! I'm arguing with myself over who had an idea first: me, or me.
- McKay: If you're not going to help me, you should at least take your top off!
Carter: Your subconscious mind knows I would never be into that.
McKay: You are the worst hallucination ever! - McKay: I can't even hallucinate right today!
[edit] Notes
- The title is a reference to Stargate SG-1 episode 713, "Grace", involving a similar situation in which Carter was herself trapped in a stranded vessel – in this case, the Prometheus – in deep space and aided by hallucinations of SG-1 and her father.
- As in the episode Grace, it is possible that Carter was not actually a hallucination. The "sea monster" may have been helping McKay through an image of Carter, as the cloud seemed to do to her in Grace. The season 3 episode, Echoes, lends to this idea as the flagisalis, named Sam in the season 3 episode, demonstrated the ability to display images to people, and although in Echoes this ability seems to be limited to memories given to them by the Lanteans, it is never revealed just how far this ability goes.
- "Grace Under Pressure" was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore). [1]
- This is the first and so far only episode in which Teyla doesn't appear. Jason Momoa and Paul McGillion are also absent from the episode.
- McKay would later thank the real Sam Carter for the support her hallicination gave him during SG-1's The Pegasus Project.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official Stargate Atlantis site. MGM. Visited June 8, 2006.
- Transcript from GateWorld. Transcribed by Callie Sullivan. Visited May 14, 2006.
- Summary from GateWorld. Visited May 14, 2006.
- Review from GateWorld. Reviewed by Sharon Fetter. Visited May 14, 2006.
- Gatenoise from Moon-catchin'. Visited June 23, 2006.
