It hasn’t been a secret that Rachel Luttrell is expecting a baby. The pregnancy in and of itself didn’t hinder the production team of Stargate Atlantis in creating a story arc for Teyla Emmagan, but in order to accommodate the availablility of new cast member Amanda Tapping as she filmed the two direct-to-DVD movies, they had to film episodes out of order, and this meant doing various tricks of the trade to hide Luttrell’s growing “bump”.
“As far as I know,” commented Joseph Mallozzi in his personal blog, “there are three ways in which shows have dealt with pregnancies: 1) They’ve reduced the actress’s onscreen time drastically and ignored the fact by shooting around her, 2) They’ve written the actress out of the show entirely, 3) They’ve supported the actress by writing the pregnancy into the show.”
According to the lastest article at SCI FI WIRE, “Atlantis Makes Pregnancy Work,” the producers obviously didn’t go with Option 2 above. They did mix a bit of Option 1 and most definitely Option 3 in making Teyla’s Season Four character arc include a pregnancy.
Luttrell talked about Teyla’s development in a previous interview published by SCI FI WIRE, “Atlantis Embraces Luttrell’s Pregnancy,” in which she stated that Teyla “is going to be faced with taking care of someone who may be the last of her kind. There are so many interesting colors that are now coming out.” Teyla’s people, the Athosians, have apparently gone missing and Teyla is in search of them in the first half of the season.
Currently, the cast and crew are on a “shooting hiatus”, but upon their return to the studios on July 16, they’ll pick up filming with Teyla’s pregnancy obviously progressing. Executive producer Paul Mullie stated, “We’re at a point in the shooting of the fourth season where the show has caught up to her. The pregnancy is now on screen, and we don’t have to really worry about it that much. Now we just have to worry about how long she can keep working until she’s like, ‘My feet hurt too much. I’m out of here.'”
According to David Nykl, in his personal blog, the team will pick up with “Quarantine”, the thirteenth episode of the season. So, keep your eyes open as to the filming schedule from now on, as it could very well reflect the season’s correct airing order.