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SSG271: A dying alien psychic’s final visions crack open a fragile new alliance with the Wraith — and reveal that the Asuran replicators are exterminating entire human worlds to starve the Wraith into surrender. In Stargate Atlantis Season 4, Episode 8, “The Seer,” Victor Lams, Jeff Haecker, and Lisa Jones dig into an episode that juggles three story threads without ever feeling padded.

Teyla leads a skeptical Dr. Rodney McKay to the planet Vedeena to find the seer Davos, whose visions draw Atlantis into a Wraith ambush — and into first contact with the recurring Wraith fans now know as Todd, played by Christopher Heyerdahl, though he’s still unnamed here. Meanwhile, Richard Woolsey arrives to evaluate Colonel Samantha Carter’s leadership, promising to be a “fly on the wall.” He is not.

As Davos’ condition worsens, his visions grow more urgent: a glimpse of Atlantis destroyed, an alliance with the captured Wraith carrying the only cure for the Asuran virus, and a hint that Teyla is hiding a pregnancy. The panel weighs whether the episode’s Woolsey-evaluates-Carter subplot lands as intended, unpacks the visual effects trick behind the climactic hive-ship battle, and shares behind-the-scenes details from the episode’s DVD commentary — including the earlier pitch for a predictive “device” that show runner Robert C. Cooper scrapped in favor of a dying psychic character.

The trio also gets into some of the episode’s shakier worldbuilding: how 150,000 humans killed across three planets squares with the small, gate-adjacent villages Atlantis usually visits, and whether the show has ever actually depicted one of its referenced “alpha sites” on screen. Plus: a rundown of the photos on Carter’s desk, and why nobody seems to like Todd — yet.

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