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The Real World (Stargate Atlantis)

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"The Real World (Stargate Atlantis)"

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Plot

Template:Spoiler Waking up in a psychiatric hospital outside Washington, D.C., Dr. Elizabeth Weir is shocked to discover that her entire experience in Atlantis over the last two years was solely a figment of her imagination. Through the help of her psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher, she learns that a car accident that killed her fiance left her in a near catatonic state and suffering from delusional psychosis.

Forced to come to terms with this new reality, Weir is visited by her mother and General Jack O'Neill, who assures her that he has never heard of a Stargate program, let alone the lost city of Atlantis. Yet as she starts to pick up the pieces of her life, she continues to have unsettling visions warning her that she must return to Atlantis.

Back on Atlantis — which is not the product of a deranged imagination — the team holds a vigil for the comatose Weir, who in reality has been infected by Replicator nanites, which were passed on to her by Niam's attack in Progeny, that are quickly taking over her body and mind. Beckett tries to eliminate the nanites by injecting Weir with Wraith cells. The nanites will then fulfill their programming and destroy the Wraith cells, breaking up into their individual forms and leaving them susceptible to an electromagnetic pulse. The attempt is partially successful, destroying most of the nanites. Unfortunately, some nanites have survived. Ultimately, Weir's fate is now in her own hands.

In Weir's head, the destruction of the majority of the nanites results in her believing that she must return to Atlantis. However, the nanite-induced visions attempt to stop her. Sheppard, risking a nanite infection himself, enters Elizabeth's isolation chamber, gripping her hand and arm in the belief that physical contact may help him to get through to her, and urges her to fight the nanites. In her nanite-induced delusion, Weir then sees Sheppard lead the way to the Stargate, which will take her back to Atlantis. Again, the nanites try to stop Weir, but she ignores them and walks through the gate. Weir then wakes up in Atlantis' infirmary, breaking the hold the nanites had over her.

Striking similarities

The idea of a character being told that their previous life was not real (either a hallucination or a dream) is a common trope in science fiction and fantasy. This episode is very similar to:

  • The Smallville episode "Labyrinth" is almost identical in storyline with the Atlantis episode. Clark Kent's body is invaded by a Phantom Zoner. After the attack on his body he wakes up in a mental institution and is told that everything he has experienced is unreal. Only 2 people confirm that his life is real and that the mental institution is a creation of the Zoner. He has to kill his doctor in order to escape the mental imprisonment.
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Far Beyond the Stars", in which Benjamin Sisko (starring character) finds himself trapped between two realities: One in which he is the Captain in Starfleet, and the other in which he is a black writer for a Science Fiction magazine in the 1950's named Benny Russell, who writes about a black captain on a star ship and slowly becomes convinced that what he is writing about is real. Benny is eventually committed to a mental institution where the doctors try to convince him that his spectacular stories (the prior events of the show) are a delusion. At the end of that episode, the viewer is left with the question of which reality is real as we see Sisko looking into a mirror and seeing Benny Russell instead.
  • The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Normal Again", in which Buffy Summers (starring character) finds herself trapped between two realities: One in which she is the Slayer, a chosen girl, who is endowed with powers to fight the world's demons, and the other in which she was committed to a mental institution where the doctors try to convince her that the events of her spectacular life (the prior events of the show) are all a delusion. The episode is left open to interpretation; the actual cause of the delusions, either the poison or Buffy's return to "reality", is not made explicitly clear. Buffy and Giles are found laughing manically about the incident in "Grave", a few episodes later.
  • The Charmed episode "Brain Drain", in which Piper finds herself in an asylum and is told that the world she believes to be true is in fact a delusion. She is committed to a mental institution where the doctors try to convince her that the events of her spectacular life (the prior events of the show) are all a delusion; in reality, it is a demon attempt to trick her into giving up her powers to destroy the Power of Three.
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Frame of Mind", in which Commander Riker is unsure what is "real": his life on a starship, or in a mental institution. He finds himself committed to a mental institution where the doctors try to convince him that his spectacular life (the prior events of the show) is all a delusion; in reality, he was being mentally probed, and using his last conscious memories from the Enterprise to protect his mind.

Goofs

  • The glyphs on the playing cards that Weir deals are supposed to be the gate address from Earth to Atlantis, but they do not quite match the address that Daniel Jackson deciphers in "Rising". The first and fourth glyphs are oriented differently, and the fifth and sixth glyphs have been switched in order with each other. However, when Weir writes the address on a pad in Dr. Fletcher's office, the glyphs are in the correct order.
  • Jack O'Neill is an acquaintance of Dr. Weir within her fantasy, however the two did not meet until she had been placed in command of the SGC within the episode Lost City, which took place chronologically after the period in time of the setting of her nanite delusion.

Notes

  • Richard Dean Anderson also guest starred as Jack O'Neill in the Stargate SG-1 episode "200", which was aired the same night as "The Real World".
  • This is the second time this season that an actor featured as a long-standing main character in the television series Spin City has appeared as a (relatively antagonistic) character; the other episode being "Irresistible".
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