A recon mission to a Wraith-occupied planet ends with Sheppard’s team under fire, their puddle jumper damaged, and Sheppard himself out of commission with a parasitic alien insect attached to his neck. Lt. Ford winds up with his first, and very nervous command, and keeps it simple by simply trying to get back to Atlantis. But one of the jumper’s engine pods, damaged in the fight, doesn’t retract completely, leaving the ship stuck halfway in and halfway out of the stargate. It’s a situation that McKay, stuck in the rear compartment of the jumper with Teyla, Ford and Sheppard, knows all too well from one of his collaborations with SG-1: if the entire jumper doesn’t go through the gate, the gate will close in 38 minutes, shearing off the forward compartment (and killing the two pilots), and exposing the rest of the jumper to hard vacuum. McKay tries to work out a solution while the brightest minds on Atlantis try to come up with ideas on their end, but even if they can figure out a way to nudge the jumper through the gate, for Sheppard it may only mean the difference between dying at Atlantis or dying in deep space as the parasite digs in.
written by Brad Wright
directed by Mario Azzopardi
music by Joel GoldsmithGuest Cast: Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Craig Veroni (Grodin), Christopher Heyerdahl (Hallan), Ben Cotton (Dr. Kavanagh), Fiona Hogan (Simpson), Joseph May (Sgt. Markham), Boyan Vukelic (Sgt. Stackhouse), Edmond Wong (Technician)
Notes: The 38-minute theoretical limit on an open stargate’s wormhole was established in the second season of Stargate SG-1 in A Matter Of Time. However, as worried as McKay was about this time limit, it was exceeded both in A Matter Of Time and in the SG-1 sixth season premiere, Reckoning.
LogBook entry by Earl Green