Radek Zelenka

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sgeureka (talk | contribs) at 19:05, 14 September 2008 (better wording). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Stargate character Dr. Radek Zelenka is a fictional character in the television series Stargate Atlantis, portrayed by David Nykl. He is a scientist from the Czech Republic and a member of the original expedition from Earth to the Ancient city of Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy. 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 Template:Sgcite 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 Template:Sgcite of Stargate SG-1. 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.[1][2] He frequently appears in the control room with McKay and the leader of the Atlantis expedition for expository scenes to lay out an episode's premise to the audience,[2][3] and is "a key player in helping the Atlantis team stay one step ahead of the bad guys as well as solving some of its most perplexing scientific conundrums".[4] GateWorld's David Read felt that while Zelenka may "play second fiddle to Rodney",[5] he is also "the only one who even has the potential to put McKay down."[3] Actor David Nykl explained that Zelenka has "reasonably well honed social skills" and "can put up with a lot of stress [...] and a lot of pressure, particularly from McKay and the situations that he can get into", but he may be too focused and determined to get one thing done.[6]

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 Template:Sgcite.[7] In his first appearance in the early Atlantis season 1 episode Template:Sgcite, Zelenka helps devise a plan to free Major Sheppard's team including Dr. McKay from a potentially lethal technical problem.[8] After a first short collaboration in Template:Sgcite, Zelenka and McKay are the driving forces in finding a solution to protect the city of Atlantis from a massive hurricane in Template:Sgcite.[9]

Template:Sgcite reveals that Zelenka has been given the ATA gene therapy to enable him to operate Ancient technology, but the therapy had no effect on him.[10] 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.[11] Following a major dispute about an experimental Ancient power generator in Template:Sgcite, McKay apologizes to Zelenka when the experiment causes the death of a scientist.[12] McKay saves Zelenka from certain death in Template:Sgcite and later apologizes for so often putting him down, admitting that Zelenka is "a brilliant scientist and a decent human being".[13]

Development

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. 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".[3][14][15]

Zelenka was re-introduced in the mid-season-1 finale "The Storm", Martin Gero's second Atlantis episode. Gero had had difficulty with quickly laying out the dangers of the storm and its solution in an entertaining manner with just the McKay character, and Brad Wright was not opposed to introducing another expository character.[14] Zelenka has since frequently appeared for expository scenes in the control room with McKay and the leader of the Atlantis expedition.[2][3] Zelenka's given name is first mentioned by McKay in the season 1 finale "The Siege";[16] McKay had previously been unable to remember Zelenka's name.[8][9] The producers chose "Radek", a fairly common Czech given name, without input from Nykl.[3] When Colonel Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) replaced Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson) as the leader of the Atlantis expedition in season 4, the producers shifted the emphasis of Zelenka's collaboration with McKay to his interaction with Carter.[5]

Portraying a recurring character, David Nykl is not under contract[5] and neither knows his number of episodes nor his character's story arc in advance,[4][5] although he has appeared in approximately half of each season's episodes.[2] 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.[2] However, all of David Nykl's scenes were cut from the season 5 episode Template:Sgcite due to time constraints, although Nykl's credits appear in the finished episode.[17]

Since Zelenka's first appearance, David Nykl's fluent Czech has been worked into Stargate Atlantis as part of Zelenka. Approximately half of Zelenka's Czech lines are scripted (in English), which Nykl then translates verbatim. The other half is ad-libbed and usually includes swearing.[2][3] The late season 1 episode Template:Sgcite features a long non-subtitled monolog in which Zelenka describes the city of Atlantis in his mothertongue. Nykl translated the scripted monolog at home and performed it in Czech the next day. A version in English was initially planned to be filmed but was dropped after Nykl's successful first take. The end of Zelenka's video message ("drž se miláčku" – "take care, darling") was ad-libbed, but Nykl left it to the writers to create Zelenka's backstory.[6]

Reception

Often informing his superiors of critical situations, Zelenka earned the nickname "Mr. Bad News" among fans.[1][2] In an interview with David Nykl, TheScifiWorld's Gilles Nuytens referred to Zelenka as a "popular" and "interesting" character, and compared Zelenka's apparitions in Atlantis to those of the Stargate SG-1 character Walter Harriman, "a bit like the icing on the cake".[18] Another interviewer mentioned that, following a "warm reception", the "fans have really taken [Zelenka] to heart".[6] 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".[19]

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Zelenka speaking Czech.
  1. ^ a b Eramo, Steven (January 2007), "David Nykl – Mr Bad News", TV Zone, no. Special 67, pp. 78–79
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Read, David (2006). "Czeching In – GateWorld talks with David Nykl". GateWorld. Retrieved 2008-02-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e f Read, David (2005). "Chronicles of Radek – GateWorld talks with David Nykl". GateWorld. Retrieved 2008-02-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ a b Eramo, Steven (October 2007), "Radekal Science", Cult Times, no. Special 45, retrieved 2008-02-28 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d Read, David (2007). "Nykl a Minute – GateWorld talks with David Nykl". GateWorld. Retrieved 2008-02-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b c "David Nykl - Interviewed 19th July 2006". the-gateroom.com. July 19, 2006. Retrieved 2008-05-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Will Waring. "The Pegasus Project". Stargate SG-1. Season 10. Episode 3. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  8. ^ a b Mario Azzopardi. "Thirty-Eight Minutes". Stargate Atlantis. Season 1. Episode 4. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
    • McKay: "And the Czech, the Czech, um, the Czech whose name I can never remember."
  9. ^ a b Martin Wood. "The Storm". Stargate Atlantis. Season 1. Episode 10. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
    • Weir: "Okay, so we should still evacuate." / McKay: "Yes, but not just because of Zelemka's pessimism." / Zelenka: "Zelenka."
  10. ^ Mario Azzopardi. "Hot Zone". Stargate Atlantis. Season 1. Episode 13. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  11. ^ Peter DeLuise. "Duet". Stargate Atlantis. Season 2. Episode 4. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  12. ^ Martin Wood. "Trinity". Stargate Atlantis. Season 2. Episode 6. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  13. ^ Martin Wood. "Tao of Rodney". Stargate Atlantis. Season 3. Episode 14. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
    • McKay: "You're a brilliant scientist, and a decent human being, and you should not have had to endure the kind of abuse that you've taken from me in the past few years. I hope you can find a way to forgive me for all the things I've said and done to you. You deserve much better than that."
  14. ^ a b Martin Gero. Audio commentary for "The Storm" (DVD). MGM. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |year2= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Gosling, Sharon. "Recurring cast". Stargate Atlantis: The Official Companion Season 1. London: Titan Books. pp. 131–133. ISBN 1-84576-116-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |origmonth= ignored (help)
  16. ^ Martin Wood. "The Siege (Part 1)". Stargate Atlantis. Season 1. Episode 4. Sci Fi Channel. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
    • McKay: Okay, I think I can handle this alone, Radek. Isn't there something better you could be doing?"
  17. ^ Mikita, Andy (September 3, 2008). "September 3, 2008: Director Andy Mikita Calls the Shots, and The Weird Food Purchase of the Day". Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
  18. ^ Nuytens, Gilles (September 15, 2005). "Interview with David Nykl". thescifiworld.net. Retrieved 2008-02-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Awards for Stargate Atlantis". IMDb. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radek_Zelenka&oldid=238414179"