Today was Alexander’s birthday.
We celebrated in grand production style – with a morning director interview, some story spinning, casting discussions, and a rotisserie chicken lunch. To top things off, we received a visit from a surprise guest…
Mark was in town on Echoes-related business. “What is Echoes?”you’re asking. Why, it’s the SF pilot he and a bunch of Stargate vets have been working on. Read all about it here: http://www.redeyechicago.com/entertainment/tv/redeye-stargate-universe-vets-new-sci-fi-project-20110322,0,220274.story
Anyway, on his way to his Echoes-related business, he dropped by the production offices where we talked about projects, past, present and, hopefully, future.
And Mark wasn’t the only familiar face we saw today. Anyone remember this guy?
Why, yes. It IS Alex Levine, former Stargate script coordinator, now a writer on Flashpoint. He joined us (Rob, Carl, Paul, myself, and, of course, birthday boy Alexaner) for a very good dinner at Bymark Restaurant where I enjoyed a great butter-braised lobster poutine, oxtail risotto, gnocchi with buffalo ricotta, short ribs, bourbon chocolate cake, and rum and raisin cookie dough ice cream. Alas, I forgot my camera in Vancouver so I had to make do with subpar cell phone pics. This weekend, I’m picking up a new camera – among other necessities – after which this blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming.
I finally discovered the secret to a restful night’s sleep: sleep on the pull-out couch with the dogs.
Alas, I forgot my power cord at work so I’m almost out of battery life. Allow me to end today’s entry with an excerpt from the email I received from my house-sitter, Lawren, who had his car broken into on Saturday (not in my neighborhood, I’d like to add). Apparently, the thief made off with some valuables and parking change but, surprisingly, left a few items untouched. According to Lawren:
“He felt the stack of quarters wasn’t worth his time. Nor was my USB stick, David Sedaris book or sunglasses. The sunglasses I admit are a unique
look and not everyone’s style but WHO doesn’t like David Sedaris?”
Hi,
I was wondering if you could please post a link to my blog’s interview with Julia Benson?
The link is http://abbaskarimjee.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/interview-with-stargate-universes-julia-benson/.
Thanks a lot for your consideration and support.
Abbas
“Alas, I forgot my camera in Vancouver…”
How the hell did you do that?! Don’t you keep it on a rope tied around your neck at all times?? What else did you “forget”?…put on your shoes, wear some clothes, no underwear? Come on Joe, your camera is an extension of your arm. How can you forget it? What, are you busy or something?
Happy birthday Alexander the German!
Yeah, familiar faces, totally!
Echoes looks awesome. I love, love, love post-Apocalyptic. Humans as innocent by-standers? That’s a new take. Hope they don’t stay too innocent. 😉
Ya know, I won’t be happy until I see Christopher Heyerdahl or Jamil walk through that door… 😉
das
Happy Birthday Alexander!!
Hope you had a great day!!
Kymm
Intriguing way that Ginn and Perry were back into the fold in the latest episode.
Curious about one brief scene though. Towards the end when Chloe/Ginn was choked for the last time, we see the shadow of her killer.
Now, I realize you probably didn’t bring Robert Knepper back for such a brief scene, and instead used a stand in….but…to me the profile of the stand in looked “alot” like Varro.
I dunno if this was done intentionally, or if i’m seeing something that doesn’t exist, or if maybe there’s a deeper plot here. Varro did indicate to Simeon he was helping Homeworld Command so that would rule it out, but still…does it?
It could certainly change things..
Thanks a lot for the Echoes news. 🙂
Echoes sounds like it could be pretty awesome. Hopefully it will be picked up by some network other than SyFy, as they will only cancel it anyway. Would be nice to get it on a network that agrees to a 3 season commitment in writing, however the odds of that happening are probably slim huh?
Did you read that SyFy picked up reruns of Sarah Connor? Yay. LoL
You had some of my all time favorite meals today. Yummy! Since I have been sick with a stomach virus for the past three days and haven’t eaten anything besides chicken soup and water, I am especially envious of your meals today. I am glad you are eating well and wish I was too! Sounds like life is getting back to normal with you; you found a way to sleep with the kids so all is happy.
Looks like you had fun at the dinner.
I do have one question. Who is David Sedaris? 🙂
Hope you have a great day!!!!!
It is nice to see you are getting to have a little fun while in Toronto, too!
Good luck to the Echoes crew, the project sounds great; Jen Spence was great on SGU and Joel Goldsmith’s music is always amazing.
Here’s the ratings for SGU S2E14 Hope.
http://stargate-sg1-solutions.com/blog/2011/03/stargate-universe-hope-ratings/
SaveSGU
Lawren has my sympathies. I had a car stolen from me years ago, somewhere near Detroit. Went in for a nice dinner with friends, came out a couple hours later to find only a small pile of broken glass where my car had been.
My car was discovered by the police in a back alley the next day at around 2 a.m.. The thieves had completely stripped the car, from tires down to the fuses in the dashboard. They even took the time to carefully remove each and every single light bulb (there’s a market for stolen trunk light bulbs?). The only thing they did leave behind? My Queensryche tape, which they had removed from the tape deck, examined, and then left for me on the seat. My musical taste was apparently not up to their standards. Sigh. Insult to injury.
Coucou=)
vous allez bien? moi super!!!!
Joyeux anniversaire à Alexander 🙂
Lol je confirme, quand je n’arrive pas à dormir, je vais sur le canapé et ça marche tout de suite! Pourquoi vous ne prenez pas de médicaments pour dormir? ça marche!
Vos collégues de travail ont l’air tous très sympas! ^
Quand sont vos prochaines vacances? Moi dans 10 jours, je retourne une semaine chez mes parents et juste aprés je vois Micheal Shanks :p
Aller kiss, a plus
Joe, please give this a read:
http://joeisjapanese.com/manga/kogaquake/1/
(Just click the [next] button to read the comic)
das
A relief that you have managed to find one satisfactory meal. And I’m glad your discombobulation with the move(forgotten cameras, power cords, sleeping with the dogs…) doesn’t affect your productivity at work. I’m actually rather impressed you seem to be managing to maintain peek efficiency on the job front while your personal life still remains unsettled. here’s hoping that things continue to improve. At least until summer, when we can enjoy your rants about heat and humidity. Thanks for sharing and dont forget to recharge the ‘puter so we can enjoy our next installment.
I’m interested in the Echoes project thanks for the tip.
And glad to see you getting some sanity.
DD
Busy blog today, lots of great links. Echoes sounds interesting; with so many of my fave Syfy shows ending it’s good to know that there is still good stuff coming down the pipeline.
Great interview with Julia Benson, my fave character on SGU.
This looks like fun!
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/chaos/
das
I know you’re not really involved in SGU anymore but I would like to hear your point of few on the ratings which have been even worse then before the cancellation.
Just people not interested in a cancelled show? Are you sure those ratings won’t affect intentions to do or not do a movie or two?
So what do you think of Marks echoes stuff Joe? Obviously you can’t spoil it for him but do you think he has something there, like a potential hit show? Obviously with your experience in writing for Scifi shows you must have an opinion..
Hey Joseph,
Just watched SGU: Hope. Thank you for giving us an episode with a happy ending and something positive for Eli (character needed a break). I know the end is near for the series, but it was good to have at least one episode that didn’t leave you feeling down and out.
@Merced
Personally I think all people can say is, though everyone did a great job on the show, it just wasn’t popular on the network, and the ratings reflect that. Not a measure of quality of the show, more a measure of the tastes of people who have the trackable Nielson boxes
By the way way Joe, did you see this, currently airing in the timeslot Stargate Universe had on Tuesday
Destination Truth (SYFY, 9pm)
– 0.849 million viewers
– 0.5/1 HH
– 0.3/1 A18-49
If I remember right Destination Truth was getting figures close too, or better than Season 1.5 of SGU before the move to Tuesday.
It’d be ironic if this show got cancelled whilst airing on that day, it’d join SGU and Caprica. Meaning we could call that day the deathslot for shows that aren’t Eureka or W13 lol
Note to MGM…
Well there you go…. Another excellent, well-executed episode. I particularly liked the roaring lion at the end with the caption that read, “MGM Worldwide Television Distribution”.
Come on, MGM — you can’t distribute a quality show that’s only half-baked!! Cook up a couple of years worth of more episodes to wrap it up properly…. and then, distribute it – you’ll get a lot more money coming in and you will have developed another Stargate series that will become a classic.
How come you’re not writing Echoes back home safe and warm in Vancouver?
Ah-hah reading further, I see these guys are doing this for nothing and hoping someone will pick them up.
So you went for job security. You have mouths to feed so I can’t blame you.
Everything looks better after a good night’s of sleep.
I did my shift at the humane society today. They had the cutest little dog that had been thrown over their 6ft fence! I’m not sure who would do that to this but he sure is a sweet heart: http://twitpic.com/4eyr7j It was hard to get a good picture because he would wag his whole body and make all my pics blurry 😀 .
A big Thank You, to all the posters out there that love/take care of their pets!
Hope Alexander had a happy birthday!
Best of luck wishes for Mark and his new project, Sounds like something I would watch~
Lawren, sorry for your bad luck, hope they catch the creeps.
Joe hope you get the camera you have been wanting.
Have a good day!
Hey Joe,
Just a quick question, can you explain how Telford is still alive? It was my understanding that the Telford that got killed was from the current story line but apparently there was another one back on Earth, how is that possible?
@das – That comic was an interesting glimpse into one person’s mind and and their unpolished reactions. A little stream of consciousness, a little of the details you focus on when the big picture is hard to grasp.
Whoa, too sentimental. Yeah, Chris Heyerdahl, why can’t it be CH’s birthday? Or were you talking more his smashing an Audi with a 200-lb. sword guest spot? Or his Frank Martin casting call? You know he’s too tall for a show w/ so many car interior scenes.
Just wanted to let you know that “Hope” was by far my favourite episode of SG:U, and am looking forward to “Seizure”.
@John
Timetravel is weird sometimes, basically somehow two sets of Destiny and two sets of Destiny crew existed in the same universe due to Elis mistake of dialing within a Sun, you know something funky must of happened.
Because of this, Telford gating through when the wormhole was stable put him back on Earth, however if the Telford we all know wasnt killed by the other Rush, we’d have two Telfords, more LDP :3