Travellers

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Travellers)

Had a fair few thoughts on this one, unfortunately none of them particularly positive. It's a story of space gypsies. It's a story of kidnap and Sheppard's life threatened. It's a story of him teaming up with the female leader of the ship that captured him and having an on-off level of trust and success. It's a story that reminded me of that time Dr. Jackson met Vala and they had to work together. Except this woman, Laren, was no Vala. She may have been dolled up, but she was a pretty generic character - not everyone has Claudia Black levels of ability. And so the pairing came off as lacklustre and, again, generic. Run around on an empty ship. Do a spot of fighting Wraith. Get betrayed by your new associate… There wasn't much more to it than that, with no subplot for any of the other characters, except for them going off in a Jumper to try and track their missing man down. In fact, Carter doesn't even appear! That's how much the other characters had an effect on the episode: none.

When you add the fantasy convenience of this millennia old ship being in full working order, apparently, even though we're told it was originally abandoned because the Ancients had lost it to radiation damage. Or that Laren can be sucked almost completely dry of her life, only for the Wraith preying on her to simply plug it all back in under gunpoint from Sheppard's weapon. Or that presumably, if Sheppard could activate one forcefield to trap Laren, he could have put them up all over the ship, you have a story full of holes, even if some of those holes are part of the series' convention. You know an episode isn't working well enough when you're seeing all the cracks you'd usually just accept for the sake of story. I think the problem was there wasn't really much of a story even to fill forty-odd minutes. They were trying to do some kind of romance-tinged singles adventure for Sheppard, but unless we have reason to care… why should we? I did like the moment he outsmarted this woman and her colleagues by starting up the ship without engaging inertial dampeners (even though I was expecting him to do something once he had control), but that's about the only time he really wins in the intellect stakes. And to be honest, I kept thinking all this terminology and tech talk was right out of 'Star Trek.' Maybe it always is, but it seemed so derivative to the point of sounding identical.

This series works best when it's putting the group together for a mission or showing several characters we know interacting - that's why it works. Plucking a character on their own out of the pack like this and dedicating an entire episode to their point of view can work brilliantly (see Trek), but in the 'Stargate' franchise they've never had the depth and deftness in their character work, it's much more basic space adventure stuff, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it means an episode that doesn't have the necessary ingredients is going to be no more than that, and likely less, as this one was. It's not that it's boring or dull, it's not that it doesn't work at all - I like Sheppard and it's good to see him not giving in even when he's put under duress or physical abuse (and he never even struck Laren in return for her violent assaults, so he also shows restraint), so there are things to gain from it. But it ends up as mere setup to what I can assume is going to be a recurring group, a potential ally in the fight against the Wraith. And I have to be honest, Laren isn't the kind of character I'd want to come back. There is a story to be told about a fading community and how they could be mutually beneficial to Atlantis, but it remains to be seen if they can make it work. So far this season hasn't lived up to the relatively high bar of Season 3.

**