Dr. Radek Zelenka is a fictional character of a scientist in the 2004 television series Stargate Atlantis, portrayed by David Nykl. He is a member of the original expedition from Earth to the Ancient city of Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy, which he joined after turning down a job at Masaryk University in his home country Czech Republic. His expertise on Ancient technology is only surpassed by Dr. Rodney McKay, with whom he shares a friendly rivalry. Zelenka's planned one-time appearance in the season 1 episode "Thirty-Eight Minutes" was followed by a recurring role for expository scenes with McKay and the leader of the expedition. Zelenka has since appeared in approximately half of each season's episodes and also appeared in the crossover episode "The Pegasus Project" of Stargate SG-1. The series finale of Atlantis, "Enemy at the Gate", marks his last appearance. For his portrayal of Radek Zelenka, David Nykl was nominated for a 2005 Leo Award in the category "Dramatic Series: Best Supporting Performance by a Male".
Role in Stargate
Dr. Radek Zelenka is a careful and precise scientist of the original Atlantis Expedition who often supplements the scientific decisions of the "equally brainy" Dr. Rodney McKay, with whom he has a friendly rivalry. GateWorld's David Read felt that while Zelenka may "play second fiddle to Rodney",
Zelenka recurs in all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis and is also among the Atlantis characters to appear in the Stargate SG-1 crossover episode "The Pegasus Project". In his first appearance in the early Atlantis season 1 episode "Thirty-Eight Minutes", Zelenka helps devise a plan to free Major Sheppard's team including Dr. McKay from a potentially lethal technical problem. Season 2's "Duet" shows Zelenka off-world for the first time, where he needs to save McKay and a soldier from being captured in a Wraith dart. Following a major dispute about an experimental Ancient power generator in "Trinity", McKay apologizes to Zelenka when the experiment causes the death of a scientist. McKay saves Zelenka from certain death in "Tao of Rodney" and later apologizes for so often putting him down, admitting that Zelenka is "a brilliant scientist and a decent human being". Zelenka last appears in the series finale of Atlantis, "Enemy at the Gate", where he implements a wormhole drive that sends the city of Atlantis from the Pegasus Galaxy to Earth within seconds.
Conceptual history
thumb|David Nykl in 2012
From the beginning of Stargate Atlantis, the producers were looking for actors to play non-Americans to present the cooperation between different nations and other groups of people in an alien environment. In fact, although in the series it is possible to see soldiers and technicians wearing in their uniforms flags that identify them as Russians, Japanese, South Africans, Belgians, Germans, Britons, Spaniards, etc, all main and secondary characters of earthly origin, except Zelenka, are from the Anglosphere: Americans, a Canadian and a Scotsman.
When actor David Nykl mentioned his Czech Canadian background during his audition for a Russian character for the season 1 episode "Thirty-Eight Minutes", the producers changed the character's nationality to Czech and cast him. Nykl made such an impression that producer Brad Wright wrote Zelenka into the Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) scenes of the next episode, "Suspicion".
Zelenka was re-introduced in the mid-season-1 finale "The Storm", Martin Gero's second Atlantis episode. Gero had had difficulty with laying out the dangers of the storm and its solution in a quick and entertaining manner with just the McKay character, and Brad Wright was not opposed to introducing another expository character. Zelenka has since frequently appeared for expository scenes in the control room with McKay and the leader of the Atlantis expedition. McKay had previously been unable to remember Zelenka's name. The producers chose "Radek", a fairly common Czech given name, without input from Nykl.
Portraying a recurring character, David Nykl was not under contract and neither knew his number of episodes nor his character's story arc in advance. No scenes with Zelenka were cut in the first two seasons of Atlantis, and extra scenes involving Zelenka were shot in the first episodes of the season 3 to fill time.
Since Zelenka's first appearance, David Nykl's fluent Czech was worked into Stargate Atlantis as part of Zelenka. Approximately half of Zelenka's Czech lines were scripted (in English), which Nykl then translated verbatim. The other half was ad-libbed and usually included swearing. and is never shown to be or have been in a romantic relationship.
Reception
Often informing his superiors of critical situations, Zelenka earned the nickname "Mr. Bad News" among fans. Another interviewer mentioned that, following a "warm reception", the "fans have really taken [Zelenka] to heart".
References
pl:Atlantis (Gwiezdne wrota)#Postacie z Atlantis