Congratulations go out to my wife who finally completed her course and will be heading back home sometime this weekend. Which means I’ve got to get things ready: throw out the garbage, clean out the fridge, recycle the recyclables, vacuum, clean the carpets, do laundry, wash and change the sheets, bathe the dogs, clean their ears, pack away the Christmas tree and ornaments, organize the mail…ah, forget it. I’ll never get it all done in time. Maybe I’ll just clean the dogs’ ears and she if she happen to notice the rest.
Congratulations to Martin Gero and Andy Mikita on what promises to be a fantastic season opener. We watched the director’s cut today and loved it. I’ve got plenty of behind the scenes pics on this one, but I won’t post them until after The Last Man airs so as not to spoil ya.
Congratulations to me as I finally completed my revised writer’s draft of Whispers. I made some dialogue adjustments, changed the end of the fourth and the top of the fifth acts, lost the compasses, lost the dead end beat, lost the Land of the Lost gag, and fiddled with the act breaks. I’m loving Dusty! Oh, and congratulations to Anne Teldy on her promotion from Lieutenant to Major and command of her own team.
Congratulations to Jason Momoa who came into my office today, clearly smitten by the brand new addition to the show: Tyre’s sword. “It’s perfectly balanced,”he enthused, brandishing it threateningly. “Can I keep it?” In the interest of keeping my actors happy (and my fingers attached) I happily agreed.
A little mailbag:
Squeakiep writes: “Would you be so kind as to tell us how the director line-up looks for the front 10 episodes of season 5?”
Answer: Andy Mikita does the honors on Martin Gero’s Search and Rescue, Will Waring follows on Paul Mullie’s The Seed, Ken Girotti steps into the line-up on my Broken Ties, after which Andy Mikita steps back into the rotation for Alan McCullough’s Daedalus Variations, Ken Girroti is next on Carl Binder’s Ghost in the Machine, then back to Andy Mikita for Brad Wright’s as-yet-untitled tear jerker, which brings us back to Will Waring for my second episode, Whispers.
KirFect writes: “Quick question how do deal with all the pug hair?”
Answer: Like you said – invest in plenty of lint rollers.
Dovil writes: “Maybe your very Special Stargate Episode could revolve around the Science Department getting a mix up with their office supply order and instead of white paper they’re instead sent ream upon ream of puce and magenta coloured terror…”
Answer: There’s a little something called Standards and Practices that forbids the network from airing programming that may be considered objectionable – ie. too sexual, offensive, violent, or, in this case, so bloodcurdlingly terrifying it may psychologically scar some viewers. Nice try though.
Arctic Goddess writes: “I had a question, but I can’t remember what it is. Do you know what my question is?”
Answer: Yes. You wanted to ask: “What are you reading now?” Answer: Just finished Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box and am moving on to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
Knightie writes: “Since we now know that our exteme Shep whump epi got moved to the second half. Any clues as to which spot?”
Answer: That’s a script in search of a home – and a possible transplant. We’ll see how things develop.
Dustin writes: “did it snow at your place yesterday?? and were is the farthest you have had to travel for a set?”
Answer: No snow in Vancouver. It’s actually sunny and nice. As for the farthest I’ve had to travel to a location – probably Widgen Park for the Harmony shoot which was about a 90 minute drive.
Ellie writes: “…some are unhappy with the way Beckett returns and although I still haven’t quite forgiven you for killing him in the first place..”
Answer: You mean “haven’t quite forgiven that heartless Martin Gero for killing him in the first place”, don’t you?
AMZ writes: “How many script drafts do you have on average (ie how many colours per episode)?”
Answer: On average, I think we see yellows most often (it goes white, then blue, then yellow), although there have been scripts that have breezed through green, goldenrod, grey tan, tartan, and all the way back to double whites.
Squall78 writes: “I read an article on-line that Atlantis will have a summer premiere? Can you confirm this?”
Answer: Only SciFi can confirm this. And wouldn’t that be great?
Anoni writes: “Will we be seeing Michael’s Super Bugs again or have they ‘mysteriously disappeared’?”
Answer: The hybrids are an evolution of the super bugs.
Marko quotes: “creepy colonialism of a bunch of Western scientists and military crashing into a New World, and then nobody [..] giving a good goddamn about the people who […] actually live there.”
Answer: There have been plenty of episodes which have dealt with our desire to help various off-world civilizations (ie. Inferno, Irresponsible, The Game, The Ark, Epiphany – to name a few). Equating off-world exploration to “creepy colonialism” is a bit of stretch given that there has been no exploitation of the locals or their natural resources.
Marko also quotes: “ The characters are importing bottled water and playing video games in their spare time, turning the Lost City of the Ancients into a fucking dorm.”
Answer: If by “fucking dorm”, the writer of this rant means “comfortable living environment” then – yes. My counter to that would be “Why the hell not?”. Just because they’re in a new environment doesn’t mean they can’t make use of the comforts of Earth. “Dear God, they’re using forks to eat their food off of plates!” “They’ve brought toilet paper with them?! What nerve!”
Marko also quotes: “ The writers are trying to fob off a half-baked “Athosians in jeopardy” plotline on us, without going to the enormous bother of ever giving us one scene with, well, Athosians, like how would having seen their faces sometime in the last two years possibly make the danger of losing them more resonant in any way? […] John and Rodney…if they gave one one-millionth of a fuck, *they would know some of those people, too.* “
Answer: By that line of reasoning, it is impossible to feel any sort of sympathy for a civilization or characters that are introduced in the very episode in which they are put in jeopardy. Also, the last comment, that the characters can only sympathize with people they know, is a load of bullshit. Tell that to everyone who has ever contributed to a charity (unless they happen to do so with very specific instructions like “Please make sure this twenty-three dollars goes toward Arnold C. Greenblatt’s colonoscopy and a new irrigation system for that village in Borneo.”).
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