Stargate Atlantis/Recap/S01/E03 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 Naquaddah 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:
"McKay: Well, are there any side effects?
 * 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:

Beckett: Dry mouth, headache, the irresistible urge to run in a small wheel..."

"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.
 * 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
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: McKay gets one when he mans up and gets rid of the entity, despite the chance that it might drain his shield and kill him.
 * Energy Beings: The entity
 * Fainting: Of the Girly Man Faint variety for McKay, although he prefers the term "passed out from manly hunger."
 * Immune to Bullets: And lots of other things.

McKay: Oh, believe me that's not the first thing we tried.

Sheppard: I shot him. *beat* In the leg!"

"Sheppard: I'm teaching Teyla how football is the cornerstone of Western civilization.
 * Inertial Dampening: Part of the overall package provided by the personal shield.
 * 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.
 * Recycled Script: This episode originally aired back-to-back with the SG-1 episode "Lockdown", which also featured an (unrelated) inky black Energy Being haunting the team's base. The two were also disposed of the same way — through the stargate.
 * Sealed Evil in A Can
 * 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.
 * Stock Episode Titles: 45 uses
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome??: Nobody but Sheppard is particularly impressed by the football game.

Weir: You're allowed one personal item, and you chose this?"