Bad news for embittered former fans celebrating a dip in the live ratings for Doppelganger. The show rebounded the following week and continues to deliver strongly in key demo’s.

On a totally unrelated front, I’m wondering if I can enlist everyone’s support in my drive to Have the Ice Cream Sandwich Discontinued. As some of you may know, I used to love ice cream sandwiches until the day I OD’d on them at a Christian summer camp (Long story. Do a search on this blog for “ice cream sandwich” to read the sad, sad tale). Ever since, I’ve been unable to stomach an ice cream sandwich and, for this reason, I’d like to have the production on the frozen treat stopped. I know, I know. Many you are wondering “But, Joe – if you don’t enjoy ice cream sandwiches, why don’t you just stop eating them? Why ruin it for people who DO enjoy them?” Well, the answer is simple. I’m incredibly egocentric and am irked by the possibility that there are people out there who are actually enjoying what I do not. For that simple reason, I would also like to campaign for the eradication of the following: halibut, sandals, kiwis (the fruit not the people), Olives (the people not the fruit), French New Wave cinema, and, of course, shrimp chips. So come on, people. Let’s all come together and make this world a far less inclusive place for all.

Whew, what a day! We rolled in at around 10:00 a..m. and got right to it, discussing this weekend’s football highlights. The show’s adopted college football team, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, did not play last Saturday but are sitting at #16 in the BCS Standing with a gaudy 8-0 record. Allegiances are far more fractured when it comes to the NFL, with Paul’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers neck and neck with my feisty Cleveland Browns for the coveted 2007 Darkhorse Crown. Rob, meanwhile, seems to have the Reverse Darkhorse race all sewed up with those underachieving New York Jets. From football to travels through Japan as we caught up with Alan’s trip to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. For some reason, he didn’t follow my suggestion to visit the Sapporo Beer Museum in Ebisu where he could have gotten nice and toasted at 10:00 in the a.m., but he did take my advice and enjoyed some breakfast tuna in Tsukiji. Alas, before Alan could provide much more detail, Rob arrived and switched the subject to Stargate Universe, getting us up to speed on the revised pitch. My response was: “The janitor? Really?” But before we could pursue discussion, John Smith came in to talk about the directors’ schedule. Well, I just want to say that we are thrilled at the prospect of working with Ken Girotti again and, oh yeah, that young up-and-comer.

Yes, yes, all very interesting and all, but the highlight of my day was stumbling across the following site:

http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/villain/

I‘m sure that it’s been around a while but, hey, it’s new to me. According to the Which Super Villain Are You quiz, my results put me in a tie (78% each) with both Lex Luthor and Venom although, for some mysterious reason, they gave the edge to Venom. I think it may be because I work out.

Okay, I have been remiss. Let’s get to the mailbag:

Ascended Tauri writes: “Is the character Katie Brown slated for any more episodes this season?”

Answer: Yep. We just watched her in the Day One Mix of Quarantine.

Anonymous #2 writes: “Are you keeping up with season 4 of House? If you are, which of the residents do you hope make House’s team?”

Answer: Both women.

LostCityGuardian writes: “When you describe how an idea for an episode is generated, it seems that it is more a collective process to create the plot than just one person writing the script from scratch. Which I think means that really all the credited writer for a particular episode has done is flesh out the basic idea you have all created. Would that be right?”

Answer: More or less. In fact, every episode is different. Usually a writer will come up with an idea and toss it out to the room and we will all discuss, developing the idea into an actual story. Then, the writer who came up with the idea will go away and think about it (usually this is the case although the writer to come up with the idea may not always be the person to write it depending on schedule – ie. Harmony, written by Martin Gero, was an idea that Carl had for an episode). The next time we get together, the writer has hopefully come up with some more ideas for the story we have developed. He stands in front of the white board and throws out what he has come up with. The rest of the room says yay or nay, and then we begin the breaking process. We all participate in coming up with the act breaks, the individual scenes and, occasionally, bits of key dialogue. Then, once the story has been broken down into beats, the writer heads off to flesh it out into an outline. He puts out the outline and the writing department offers suggestions and criticisms. Then he heads off to write a first draft – and the process is repeated. Writing on Stargate is a team effort.

Tim writes: “Will we be seeing anymore The Siege -like battles in the future?”

Answer: For the greatest space battle we’ve ever done, check out BAMSR.

Crazymom writes: …

Answer: Welcome back, officer.