Meredith Rodney McKay, Ph.D., is a fictional character in the 2004 Canadian-American Sci-Fi Channel television series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, two military science fiction television shows about military teams exploring two galaxies (Milky Way and Pegasus) via a network of alien transportation devices.

Played by British-born Canadian actor David Hewlett, McKay was a main character in all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis (2004–2009). Earlier he held a recurring role in Stargate SG-1 for four seasons (2002, 2004, 2006, 2007). In 2011, McKay was featured in an episode of Stargate Universe.

Doctor Rodney McKay is a contractor for the United States Air Force and makes his first appearance in the Stargate SG-1 episode "48 Hours", the fourteenth episode of Stargate SG-1 Season 5, as a scientist who joins the fictional Stargate Program. McKay was seen in two more episodes of Stargate SG-1 before becoming a main character in Stargate Atlantis which was set in the Pegasus Galaxy. His next appearances in Stargate SG-1 were in Alternate timeline and different realities until the crossover episode "The Pegasus Project" in season ten. Overall, McKay and Joe Flanigan's character John Sheppard are the only two characters who appeared in every episode of Stargate Atlantis, with McKay being the character with the most screentime.

Role in Stargate

Character biography

Meredith Rodney McKay was born in 1968. He has a sister named Jeannie Miller (played by David Hewlett's sister Kate Hewlett), who is similar in intellect. McKay feels that his parents blamed him for their problems. He built an atomic bomb for his grade six science fair exhibit, prompting a visit from the Central Intelligence Agency. Among his four diplomas, McKay implied he has degrees in physics and mechanical engineering, and stated he actually has two Ph.D.s. He also revealed he has extensive education in astrophysics.

Prior to his first appearance in Stargate SG-1, McKay was stationed at the Area 51 facility where he became one of the premier experts on the Stargate network outside of Stargate Command. In "48 Hours", he is assigned to help Major Carter recover Teal'c from being trapped in the Stargate, but McKay's theories are proven wrong. He is subsequently reassigned to Russia where he oversees the transfer and development of the naqahdah generator technology. McKay is again assigned to help the SGC in "Redemption" when Anubis tries to overload the SGC's Stargate with a harmonic energy pulse. McKay later makes a sincere apology to Carter for being wrong.

With the discovery of Atlantis' location in the Pegasus Galaxy, McKay is assigned to Dr. Elizabeth Weir's expedition to Atlantis, serving as chief scientific adviser. He leaves his apartment and a cat on Earth, and becomes the expedition's leading expert on the Ancients, and is assigned to an exploration team consisting of Major John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan and Lieutenant Aiden Ford.

When the Atlantis expedition is trying to send a message to Earth, McKay records, in his message, a wish that he might get along better with his sister. In the episode "The Long Goodbye" McKay claims that he is in charge should both Weir and Sheppard be unavailable or incapacitated, but Col. Steven Caldwell takes command of Atlantis to Weir's later satisfaction.

Some months after the season 2 episode "Duet" where the mind of a female soldier - Lieutenant Laura Cadman - was trapped inside McKay's body, McKay starts a relationship with Katie Brown.

During "Tao of Rodney", Rodney's genes are mutated by a device designed to aid with Ascension on the Ancients who were physiologically incapable of doing so. During this time, Rodney invents several equipment upgrades, writes several theories and books, including a biography of Dr. Weir, and optimizes the city's power grid, believing himself a dead man. After accepting that Ascension is his only hope of surviving, Rodney attempts to make amends to his colleagues and gives final gifts to several friends, including healing the massive scarring on Ronon's back. He is later returned to normal at the last minute.

McKay takes Dr. Beckett's death in "Sunday" quite badly. He assumes the duty of telling Beckett's mother that her son had died (the two are revealed to be, in fact, close friends) and subsequently serves as one of Beckett's pallbearers. A mourning McKay was comforted at the end of the episode by what appeared to be Beckett's spirit.

"Reunion" shows McKay deflated when the newly promoted Colonel Samantha Carter is announced as the new leader of Atlantis after Dr. Weir's condition worsened. McKay tells Carter of his relationship with Katie Brown and that he hopes that the old attraction between them will not get in the way of them working together. In the episode "Quarantine", McKay decides to propose marriage to Katie Brown, but a citywide lockdown traps him and Katie in the botany lab for several hours. McKay ultimately decides not to move forward with his marriage proposal, although Katie is left in the belief that he intended to propose. Katie and Rodney are no longer speaking in "Trio" because she interpreted his recent decision as a break-up and lack of interest, and she adds her name to a list to be transferred back to Earth. At the end of the episode, Dr. Keller asks Rodney out. In an alternate future in the season finale episode, "The Last Man", McKay loses Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, and Carter, quits the Atlantis expedition team and becomes romantically involved with Dr. Keller. In the episode "The Shrine", Rodney suffers from a disease with symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease and reveals in a video to Dr. Keller that he has loved her "for some time now".

McKay is last seen in the episode "Seizure", trying to dial Destiny, but is eventually unable to complete the task.

Personality

Dr. McKay is considered one of the most arrogant and condescending personalities found in the Stargate franchise. He once identified himself as a Mensa member and believes himself to be the smartest person in the city, as mentioned in a conversation between Drs. Weir and Carson in "Hide and Seek". restless leg syndrome, allergy to bee stings and citrus fruit, He studied medical science at one time, but stopped because too much information on the human body made him start diagnosing himself with many phantom diseases. McKay comes up with his most brilliant ideas while faced with the threat of death, to the point that, when Colonel Cameron Mitchell was working with McKay on an important assignment, Sheppard showed Mitchell a lemon, suggesting it would ensure McKay had the right incentive.

Despite his shortcomings, McKay has performed acts of genuine courage, overcoming his own fears to, for instance hand-carry, and then throw, a naquadah generator through the Stargate in order to lure a creature of floating energy out of the city (Although it should be said he was wearing an impenetrable personal force field at the time), or evacuate entire populations from planets about to be destroyed. In "The Defiant One", he is torn between staying with a dying man or going to help the outmatched Sheppard, with the other man observing McKay's personal growth for feeling like that and only ending when the other man shot himself so that McKay could help Sheppard without feeling guilty. By his own admission, he has always envied Carter's aptitude for creativity and for having a "sixth sense" when it comes to problem solving . He has called Carter "an artist", He also has a fear of being eaten by a whale after being read Moby Dick by his father in his childhood. He admitted one of his bad habits is "reacting in a certain way to certain doom". When the new Stargate Atlantis production crew came up with the casting, they originally created Dr. Benjamin Ingram, an African-Canadian scientist. Hewlett auditioned for the character, despite not being African-Canadian. It was decided that McKay would replace Ingram as a main character for the series. Hewlett was contacted and arrived at the set the day after filming for the Stargate Atlantis pilot episode had started.

Producer Joseph Mallozzi described McKay as "an insufferable ass [in "48 Hours"] who, over the course of the franchise's run, ended up redeeming himself in surprising fashion." According to Mallozzi, McKay "takes another giant step toward redemption [in "Redemption"] – a process that would be completed by the time he assumed a lead position in the Atlantis expedition" and that "He's snarky, smug, and annoying as hell but – damn – he is good at what he does. And what he does is use his smarts to save the day."

Reception

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References

  • Rodney McKay at Stargate wikia

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