With the Wraith hive ships still two weeks away, the Atlantis Expedition is working on plans to fight and survive. And McKay (David Hewlett) has an idea about sending a message back to Earth through the stargate.

Written by Carl Binder, with excerpts by Jill E. Blotevogel, Robert C. Cooper, Brad Wright, Peter DeLuise, Martin Gero, Kerry Glover, Mary Kaiser, Damian Kindler, Joseph Mallozzi, and Paul Mullie. It first aired on 4 March, 2005.

While Rodney works on the data-compressed message, requiring the gate to only be open for just over one second, Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) and Teyla (Rachel Luttrell) take a puddlejumper to investigate the approaching Wraith ships.

The pair have some issues when Teyla volunteers them to help save one family if things go badly. Sheppard doesn’t agree to this, knowing that they may neither have time, nor resources to save anyone before racing back to Atlantis.

But when the Wraith arrive, they wait for the family, and debate the ethics or actions they would take to save their lives and if it would be at the expense of others. As the assault continues, will anyone make it to the puddlejumper?

Rodney discovers that after they send the information, there will still be space left for members of the expedition to send personal messages to loved ones. Weir (Torri Higginson) puts Ford (Rainbow Sun Francks) in charge of shooting the messages.

It’s a great episode, showing the best and the worst of what we can do, and who we are. And what a fantastic lead up to the season finale. This is the show’s first season and it’s a banger!

The Gift was written by Cooper from a story developed with Gero. It’s the penultimate story of the season, the finale is a two-parter. This episode was first broadcast on 11 March, 2005.

Teyla is suffering nightmares, and it is going to lead to a horrifying discovery connecting her to the Wraith. She is approached by the Expedition’s psychologist, Kate Heightmeyer (Claire Rankin, hope she comes back!), and she offers her help, but Teyla refuses it, and seeks out help on her own, after giving Sheppard crap for sending Heightmeyer her way.

But when the nightmares continue Teyla talks to Kate, and begins to explore her abilities to sense the Wraith, and what that could mean. In addition to what her dreams may mean.

When an Athosian woman gives Teyla some family history, she learns that her abilities may come from the Wraith themselves.

It seems the Ancients may have accidentally created the Wraith by helping a human like species that also interacted with an insect species (remember Sheppard getting attacked by the bug?). And other human species in the Pegasus galaxy may be connected to them… Teyla has Wraith DNA.

And not only can she sense them, now, with a little help from Kate and Beckett (Paul McGillion) she is able to see them, connect with their minds. But that can work both ways.

There is much discussion about the impending arrival of the Wraith, and everyone is reminded of how much of a dick Kavanagh (Ben Cotton) is. But the preparations continue.

it’s going to be a fight!