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The Stargate franchise was a stalwart of the SYFY schedule for the better part of a decade, and it turns out one of its most beloved characters also drew a little inspiration from another sci-fi classic that came before.
David Hewlett, who played fan favorite Atlantis team member Dr. Rodney McKay on both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, said he approached the character as a lifelong science fiction fan himself — a perspective that helped inform his performance and the way he thought about the character and franchise’s place in the genre lexicon. Stargate Atlantis was a spinoff of Stargate SG-1, which ran for five seasons from 2004-2009 on SYFY.
Hewlett went on to note that his sci-fi fandom dates all the way back to the long-running British science fiction classic Doctor Who (where new episodes actually ran on SYFY in the U.S. for a season or two back in the early 2000s!), and is actually still going strong running in some form or another for half a century.
“I know that some actors find science fiction — I think they see it only from the money standpoint. I grew up on science fiction. I love science fiction,” Hewlett told Gateworld in a wide-ranging interview from back when he was still shooting Atlantis. “In my free time as a kid I made science fiction with my friends with 8 millimeter. I love this stuff. Doctor Who is what got me into it.”
How Doctor Who inspired McKay in Stargate Atlantis
Hewlett joked that he’d love to play The Doctor at some point in his career (hey, he does regenerate every few seasons!), but went on to talk about how he incorporated that love of Doctor Who and science fiction at large into the DNA of McKay along the way.
“Doctor Who is one of those things that have definitely influenced McKay, as well,” he explained. “The original Doctor Who, going way, way back, the John Pertwee and [William] Hartnell and all those guys — they were grumpy old men.”
Though he wasn’t all that old during Atlantis’ run, there’s no doubt McKay more than channeled that grumpy old man energy along the way.
Stargate creators’ latest? SYFY’s space adventure The Ark
Though the Stargate franchise has long since ended, it doesn’t mean some of the creatives behind the series are done playing in the sci-fi genre. Dean Devlin (the original Stargate film) and Jonathan Glassner (longtime producer on Stargate SG-1) have teamed up for the recent SYFY original series The Ark, which is set to return for a third season in 2026.
The show follows a rag-tag crew of survivors, led by Christie Burke, Reece Ritchie and Richard Fleeshman, trying to find a new planet to call home, while dealing with all the perils of deep space exploration.
Catch up with the first two seasons of The Ark streaming now on Peacock, and look for Season 3 next year exclusively on SYFY.
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