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SSG268: The Travelers have kept their civilization alive for millennia by never landing — jumping through hyperspace while every planet-bound culture in the Pegasus galaxy was bombed back to the Stone Age by the Wraith. It’s the strongest idea in Stargate Atlantis Season 4, Episode 5, and Victor Lams, Lisa Jones, and Jeff Haecker spend this week’s Secrets of Stargate asking why the episode can’t quite match it.
Their leader Larrin (Jill Wagner) captures Sheppard for his ATA gene — the fleet has been hauling a derelict Aurora-class battleship and needs an Ancient bloodline to activate it. When a Wraith cruiser picks up the distress signal and attacks, Sheppard and Larrin have to fight together. The action lands. The character doesn’t.
All three panelists identify the same problem: writer Paul Mullie can’t decide whether Larrin is a mission-focused space captain or a lovable rogue. She ends up neither, and without a clear motivation, there’s no chemistry between Jill Wagner and Joe Flanigan. Mullie fought the network to keep the episode’s flirtatious undercurrent — but when an actor delivers all her lines at the same flat register, the intended tonal contrast just reads as inconsistency.
The episode’s best moment comes late: Sheppard holds an empty gun on the last surviving Wraith and offers it a deal — restore Larrin’s life force and leave in peace. If you’ve forgotten the gun is depleted (the script doesn’t remind you), it plays as genuine moral generosity. The panelists agree it’s a stronger scene that way.
The Travelers return later in Season 4 and in Season 5, so the $200,000 set wasn’t a total loss. But in “Travelers,” the concept earns more than the episode does.
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