With the threat of Wraith hive ships now on approach to Atlantis (revealed in “The Brotherhood”), Teyla has been suffering from nightmares of the Wraith showing up in Atlantis. Because of her special ability to sense the Wraith, she now has a constant feeling that the terrible creatures are nearby. She reluctantly seeks council from the base’s resident mental health expert, Dr. Kate Heightmeyer.
In her counselling sessions Teyla is asked to recall her childhood, a time when she and her family were under constant threat of a Wraith culling. Startlingly, Teyla is able to recall a time when she and her father, Tegan, were captured by a rogue Wraith scientist and subjected to experimentation. The Wraith was conducting experiments on the feeding process by blending DNA together — leaving Teyla and her father with Wraith DNA!
Finally, the team discovers that Teyla can use her Wraith-given abilities to connect psychically with the Wraith themselves. They attempt to use this to spy on the Wraith, only to have the plan backfire.
The episode will also finally reveal a bit about the origins of the Wraith species, and how they evolved because of the Ancients themselves. “We’re actually just in the process of developing some back-story for the Wraith that kind of has them evolving as a result of the Ancients, and their presence in the galaxy, and to a certain extent having the Ancients having brought some of the doom down on themselves,” executive producer Robert C. Cooper told GateWorld last year. Cooper conceived the story for “The Gift.”
Visit GateWorld’s episode guide for more info on “The Gift!” The episode will make its world premiere in Canada tonight on The Movie Network (Movie Central).
Brand new episodes of Stargate Atlantis begin this Friday at a new time — 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific — on The SCI FI Channel in the U.S.