I’ve had some mighty crazy experiences in my life. I’ve partied to excess, dated a few lunatics, sampled the deadly fugu. But it all pales in comparison to the daredevil exhilaration of attending my very first fan convention. After being roasted alive online, I was fully expecting similar in-person treatment at the hands of some angry weekend Jaffa but, to my surprise, the fans I met ranged from indifferent to incredibly sweet. Not a deranged one in the bunch. Even the few attendees who disagreed with some of the creative decisions we’d made on the show were very polite and respectful. No Daniel Jackson impersonators pelting me with rotten fruit. No furling wannabes demanding answers to the show’s mystifying minutiae. Not even an overexuberant Nox cornering me with a pitch for a future episode. It was all very civil, very friendly and, dare I say it, most enjoyable. The organizers of the event, Gatecon (the first and, in my humble opinion, best) were equally gracious in hosting us.
Of course the fan-run, homey Gatecon was in marked contrast to the big studio extravaganza that is Comic Con. I attended my first Comic Con in the show’s sixth season. I flew to San Diego with my wife and, as we sat in the traffic, waiting for a light, I glanced over at a “Haunted Tour Bus” and jokingly suggested we purchase a couple of seats. As expected, Fondy nixed the idea. The very thought of walking some spirit-infested hall was enough to make her skin crawl. I chuckled, the light turned green, and we motored on, finally arriving at our destination – an old, turn-of-the-century boutique hotel. As we stood at the reception, checking in, I glanced over and watched as the same “Haunted Tour Bus” pulled up and released it’s ghost-lovin’ horde. The tour went right by us, through the lobby lined with white-eyed Victorian dolls, and up the rickety elevator to, I assumed, the cold spot where the grisly murder was committed – no doubt the bed we’d be occupying that night (“Oh, sorry to disturb you. Won’t be long. Just wanted to show everyone the butchering nook. Thanks. Nighty-night!”). Needless to say, Fondy didn’t sleep a wink all night – and ensured I didn’t either. Every five minutes it was: “Wait! What was that?! Did you hear that?!!
The next day was our panel and, by today’s San Diego Stargate panels, it was fairly light – just Corin Nemec (SG-1’s Jonas Quinn) and myself. Oh, and then MGM President Hank Cohen who volunteered to act as moderator but actually ended up fielding almost every question thrown our way except for one related to the average running time of an episode of Stargate (Oh, about forty-four minutes). Afterwards, I walked the floor, picked up a bunch of comic books, and lamented the fact it would be too much trouble to lug the Randy Bowen Juggernaut statue I’d been eyeing back home. Great, great time!
And then it was back to Vancouver to finish up production on what we all assumed would be our final season…
DISCLOSURE (617)
When Paul and I learned SG-1 would be doing a clip show in its sixth season, we lobbied hard and eventually won the opportunity to write it!
Juuuust kidding. When we were first handed the assignment, we were less than enthusiastic. But, as we started writing, it became, if not exactly fun, then certainly interesting. It’s Stargate 101 as the series deals with an issue that would plague it for years to come: How the hell can the government possibly keep the existence of the Stargate program a secret? Sure, there were past incidents that required some fast-talking (“Exploding spaceships? No, no, no. Those were Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Er, yes, in November.”), but the apparent crash of a spaceship into the Pacific Ocean was going to be tough to cover up. And so, rather than even try, we come clean. Of course it stood to reason that our allies would be annoyed at being kept in the dark for so long, so Rob Cooper suggested an appearance by Thor, the ever-affable Asgard, to smooth things over (and put the conniving Kinsey in his place). I love the sequence where Kinsey raises his finger to interrupt only to have Thor trump him by raising his finger (shut up) and continuing.
FORSAKEN (618)
Tiny nitpick but, in the opening scene, O’Neill peers through Carter’s telescope and remarks on the fact that he can’t see anything. She points out that, no, he wouldn’t because it’s daytime. Amusing and all if not for the fact that the show had already established Jack as a guy who likes to check out the stars at night through the telescope in his backyard. Was Jack being purposely dense? Perhaps. In fact, as the series went on, O’Neill became increasingly “intellectually relaxed”. After some six years of playing the role, I guess Rick wanted to have a little more fun with the character. And that was fine with us, the writers, since it allowed us to do something we always enjoyed doing – bring the funny. Less so some of the fans who began to derisively refer to the new and improved(?) O’Neill as Dumb Jack.
CHANGELING (619)
Actor Chris Judge tries his hand at writing with surprising spectacular results. I say surprising because, while I had no doubt it would be a solid script, I was mighty impressed by how good it turned out (this despite the fact that he neglected to include act breaks in his first draft – “I leave that sh*t up to you, m*th*rf*cker.”). From what I remember, Chris really enjoyed the process and was quite proud of the final product.
MEMENTO (620)
What was this episode about again?
PROPHECY (621)
This episode turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments of the season. I thought the script was solid but the entire episode rested on the final twist, the moment in which O’Neill hears the horn and calls out to Pierce. It’s meant to be the episode’s big, defining moment but it’s so casually underplayed that it loses any dramatic impact.
FULL CIRCLE (622)
Ah, another series finale. Executive Producer Robert Cooper wraps up SG-1 in fine style – except that, as we learned late in season 6, this season would not be the show’s last. After six seasons, SG-1 was still going strong, much to the delight of our new broadcaster, SciFi, who were more than happy to pick up the series for one more year. Which, of course, we assumed would be its last…
Taking a break from the mailbag to focus on some scripts for my new show –
We’ve got six scripts written, one almost complete, and another five to be broken. Carl Binder rolls into town on Thursday and we’ll spend the rest of this week (and next) spinning stories.
Looking ahead, our Pink Pre-Production Schedule (please ignore the Blue) looks like this: Camera Test Technical Meeting, Beam Meeting (Asgard?), Update Meeting, Interviews, Conference Call, Summit! And not longer after, shooting begins. Andy (Mikita) reports that the Audi’s will be arriving in Toronto shortly.
Expect a big announcement on the casting front sometime this week. Ish.
Today’s entry is dedicated to birthday blog regular Elminster!
Reminding you about the SGU Soundtrack!
SGU question: Was Rhona Mitra’s Kiva character initially intended to have more screen time? It seemed like her death announced at the beginning of S2 was somewhat abrupt. (Perhaps having to do with a commitment to the Gates?)
Did one of us disappoint Carl in some way? He seems disappointed in us, the blog readers. Or maybe that room’s window treatments. I don’t read expressions well.
Wow, your first Comic Con! That sounded interesting. I went with my brother many years back. It was quite the experience.
My favorite eps out of this batch were Disclosure (especially Thor’s line), Changeling, and Full Circle. Those were some good times. Also looking forward to hearing your big announcement about Transporter.
For those who are interested in our job news, hubby has two phone interviews tomorrow—one for a job here in town and the other for the job in CT; they have a whole hour scheduled for this one. Hubby will be talking to the person who would be his boss. I’m thinking we’ll hear by the end of the week if he is one of the finalists. ***fingers crossed***
@Expect a big announcement on the casting front sometime this week. Ish
Hurray!(Not being sarcastic) Just you know I’ve said like hundreds of times how I can’t wait to hear who is playing who Joe lol
The scene with Thor and Kinsey is one top 10 scenes in the franchise. I couldn’t be happier that you mentioned it.
Changeling was one of my favorite episodes from the entire series. Chris did an awesome job with it. The reveal of the truth of what was happening to Teal’c was tremendous.
I liked both Changeling and Abyss for another reason: the great face-time between Daniel and Teal’c or Jack. These folks are all great actors, and sometimes the more action-packed eps don’t really give them a chance to show off their full ability. (It also took an ep with the seriousness of Abyss to snap RDA out of his apparent boredom and back into fully embracing his character.)
I only wish there’d been a good Daniel-Sam episode that season, too. Hell, even Daniel and Jonas got some quality time in the following season!
wow, the transporter came together pretty fast. feels like it was just announced as a cinemax show.
Hi, I dont usually partake in blogs or comments, but I really wanted to tell you how much stargate has meant to me for the last fourteen years. All the saturday mornings I would look forward to, especially when sg1, sga, and bsg were all together. The good old days! Anyway I loved all 3 but sgu has become my favorite, the hopelessness, the characters, and above all the absolutely incredible mystery of it all. Particularly the structure found in the cosmic background radiation. I could go on and on about whats great about the show. Its really sad to me that it has been canceled when there is so much junk on tv. Best scripted scifi/drama ever I say! So thank you very much for all the enjoyment I have gotten from Stargate.
I want to hear about the few lunatics you have dated! Come on Joe, please expound!
I’m sure you’ve seen Trekkies ? Those are some messed up people.
Care to relate any awkward fan interaction be it ridiculous pitches, or personal intrusions in relation to Stargate ? I know I know you don’t wanna offend any of the weirdos constantly spamming refresh on your blog but share some stories 🙂
Hi Joe
Thanks for the dedication. And thank you Ponytail.
Elminster
Audis arriving! Casting news! Yay!
I don’t get why any SG-1 fans would have an issue with O’Neill being more funny. That’s one of the things we always loved about the series.
In any genre shows, the best ones always weave humor into each episode. Whether SG-1 or Lost or X-Files or whatever.
Season Six was the first I watched of Stargate. I, like I assume many others did, started watching when the switch to SciFi occurred. I loved it immediately, even if the science confused me as a 13 year old.
It has been interesting to read your recollections of the season. Especially the fan reactions to Jonas. I had no idea that Jonas had replaced Daniel at the time. I was even confused at episodes like Changeling because I didn’t really know who Daniel was. Eventually I went back and viewed the first five seasons and learned why people disliked Jonas.
I, however, will always think of Jonas as my favorite character from the first episodes I saw of Stargate.
On a side note, I like the irony of not knowing what Memento was about.
Omg, I love Carls expressions! very nice, thanks Carl. better find him some chocolate…
Do the SG fans recognize you by sight?
Joe, I have an SGU-related question that’s been bugging me since the pilot.
Why didn’t Destiny’s Stargate have a security measure in place like the Earth Iris or Atlantis’ Shield? Was the technology not invented or did the Ancients no anticipated anyone other than themselves gating aboard?
Season Six seemed to be filled with many controversies. Like Jonas who was the odd man in (greatly due to the circumstances in which he came to the SG command), I was left with the impression the Corin Nemec also did not fit into the cast nor some of the upper staff, or am I off the mark? I am struck by some of the comments left by some directors. How was it that Jonas holding a mug became such a point of irritation? One commentary mentioned that after a while word came from on High, i.e. Robert Cooper that no mug will be held. That was in contrast to when Beau Bridges came on the scene he often held a mug but no mention was made in the commentaries. Beau seemed to be well liked and very much involved in his character, but occasionally lacked the command presents of Don Davis. I was never one to be on the boards or blogs that might have discussed the demise of Jonas, not to mention the show in Season Seven when I think a lack of interest increased the occasion for the lack of some details, e.g Jonas and his coworker. In Forsaken, there was one comment of taking pleasure in Corin Nemec’s face plant into the sand.
I did like the Abyss. It was a new look from Jack I don’t think we ever saw. We did know he experience a great deal before joining SG Command, so to drive him over the edge the experience must have been excruciating, and contrasted with the O’Neill and Jackson moment. The camera work and effects were outstanding. I also like Paradise Lost. While Meyborne had a most unlikeable side I enjoyed is interplay with O’neill
Speaking of conventions, a couple years ago my girlfriend and I were in Seattle when they were having there annual animi convention. Did you ever make the jump down to visit it? I wish I had made it to the Comic con or Gatecon.
Funny you mentioned when did Peter Kelamis appear in SG-1, it reminded me when I went to see Atlas Shrugs and had to bite my tongue I thought “hey that is Anteaus from the Nox!” Did not Peter also play the sports announcer in Space Race?
In watching “Origin” on syndication yesterday, I was struck by how funny that was. The humor was well written and the actors pulled it off quite well. Yet, here was a serious under tone. That strikes me as different in SGU in that I do not remember being much humor. Was that a conscious choice between you and the other writers and producers? Like the stage lighting SGU seems to overall dark and brooding with a great deal of interconnecting tension.
“…dated a few lunatics,”
Do tell, DO TELL!!
😀
das
@Elminster: Happy Birthday!
And Carl, laisse les bons temps rouler, indeed! Why the sour puss? Do you haz a sad? 🙂
Hi Joe, “Changeling” was one of my least favorite episodes. I found it disturbing on so many levels, but hey, that’s just me.
Have a good night, everybody!
Joe,
Where there any plans to follow up on the “Other Rush” who sat in the chair in Twin Destinies? The door seemed to be left open for him to interact either through Destiny, or in an Acended form.
to Greg:
but the twlight fans make us, i mean them, look normal.
i can’t imagine sleeping at a maybe haunted hotel. i’d probably be awake all night too, but would be freaked out in silence & not bother anyone about it.
changeling was pretty good.
what was memento about anyway?
i always felt jack played dumb because he liked sam to explain things to him.
asking about if there were future plans for jonas if he stayed beyond season 6 again. because that’s one of the things i (& i’m sure others) have wondered about.
i wouldn’t mind hearing about the “lunatics.” feel free to change names, ages, occupations & hobbies of said lunatics to protect their identities.
I’m hoping you say these words: “Mike Dopud is in Transporter:The Series.”
Then the end of the world can happen on Saturday and I can die in peace.
Guess I need to read up on earthquake protocol being that I’ll be in California for 36 hours next week. Never been in an earthquake. Tornado, hurricane, flood, blizzard, but no earthquake.
Thanks for sharing over these past 3-4 days some cool tidbits about SG-1 that I 1) didn’t know before or 2) have forgotten as part of my ongoing senility of aging. I have so many favorites on SG-1 starting from season 4 and then more in season 5, and season 6 even more, etc.
Why does Carl look so sad?
Are you going to get to test-drive one of those Audi’s? I know you own one, but are these special in any way? This comes from someone who has never seen any Transporter movies. I guess this means I need to put them in the queue.
With acces to Asgard technology (and their long range scanners hyperdrives) did SGC ever considered scouting nearby galaxies (perhaps by some automated probes) for Icarus class planets?
If SGC got the supply link from Earth could they possibly sent components for Asgard core which could solve a lot of problems for them?
And how would Destiny fare in battle if confronted with pre-Anubis hattak vessel?
About the sort of excuses SGC would give to the other nations prior to “Disclosure”, I always had to chuckle at those.
In “Lost City” there’s a line where they say Anubis is disrupting power grids and communications satellites, which keeps the new President from addressing the nation, yet around the time it aired, a number of areas really had disrupted power grids and communications blackouts from solar flare activity.
I looked at that news report and thought “oh, yeah… solar flares… who are you kidding, it’s Anubis!” with a wink and a laugh. And of course the coincidence of Cheyenne Mountain being shut down just after SG-1 was cancelled… It was an amusing conceit to think we had a Wormhole eXtreme-like “Plausible deniabilty” going on.
Some questions and comments:
1.) The Black Hole as power-source conundrum. I think a Black Hole would easily provide enough power to dial Destiny, but there are a number of reasons it’s impractical.
a.) The Supergate wouldn’t be useful to send anything through because there’s no Supergate (that we know of) at Destiny’s end. Presumably, trying to send something from a Supergate to a normal sized gate would lead to some undesirable effects.
b.) Using a regular gate placed around a Black Hole is problematic because it actually needs to be placed near a Black Hole, the hazards of which are not inconsiderable. The time-dilation effects being just the most obvious.
c.) Even if they could deal with the issue of the time-dilation effects, and the hazards of getting close to a Black Hole, it means either sending through supplies and equipment from a gate floating in space (not really very practical) dialing from a gate within a 304 (seems dangerous in the extreme), or building some Midway like structure near a Black Hole (really impractical).
d.) There seems to be some x-factor in how the power is fed to the gate that required Rush and Eli (and later McKay) to develop a complicated math proof to solve. So, it’s not simply a matter of floating a gate near a Black Hole and dialing, is it? Maybe a Black Hole provides too much power too quickly, where as an Icarus planet can build its power output to the correct level. Either way, it would require some sort of infrastructure to control the flow of power from the Black Hole to the Gate.
Oh, and using a 304 to reach them? Well, the 304’s Hyperdrive does seem to be much, much faster than Destiny’s FTL drive, but not nearly fast enough to be practical. Given the 18 days it takes the Daedalus to cover the 3 million light years between Earth and Atlantis, you can get a rough idea of the speed it travels: nearly 167,000 light years a day. So, about 16.4 years for every billion light years Destiny is from Earth. If Destiny is even at the low end of “several billion” at only 3 billion, that’s a 50 year trip just to reach it, assuming a 304 could maintain that speed without stopping for supplies or refueling or breaking down or fending off violent aliens.
Y’know, I really spend way too much time thinking about this all… I even once spent the better part of a day figuring out how fast the Puddle Jumpers go: 0.02c. Just using figures from “The Defiant One.” But that’s how much I loved Stargate in all its forms. I loved it enough to do math… and I freakin’ hate math.
And I’m gonna ask this one again, because it bugs me: At what point in SGA series 2 was Caldwell a Goa’uld? Had he been a Goa’uld from the moment he appeared in Siege 3, or was it sometime in the Season’s middle, or just prior to Critical Mass? It just really bugs me!
Hi Joe
People do write things online that they wouldn’t say in a million years in real life. Thus is the power of the anonymous internet, people get very brave and overly aggressive.
Still, you should try it in online gaming, people do that sort of thing in real time …..
Overall I liked Season 6. I liked Jonas and Corins performances as him, especially in Redemption part2 asking how they got the Stargate into the gate room, was nicely played.
There were a couple of episodes that didn’t work for me but mostly very enjoyable. Highlights would be Abyss and The Other Guys
Rich
Disclosure is hands down my favorite clip show. It’s also one of my favorite episodes of Stargate. Like that guy in season 8, I am a firm believer that the Stargate should be revealed to the world and if we can’t pull our shit together after that, then we’ve shown we deserve to destroy ourselves.
Anyhow, this basically means that I am a total sucker for ANY episode where the stargate is revealed. Whether that be Prodigy, or Disclosure or whatever. That moment when the person’s entire world view is expanded to the cosmos… love it!
I also liked Momento as well for that reason. I love it when it’s the Humans in the position of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, which is probably why I don’t object to all the technology creep. And this episode also reveals the stargate to an entire people. Plus the homage to the movie in the raising of the gate. However I sympathize with Asgard beaming instead of using rings. I mean the Ancients stuck with rings the whole time instead of beaming so it must be good enough.
It’s Awesome to hear about your recollections. I’m still lamenting over SGU’s cancellation.
By the way, is it OK if I’m still completely star struck at subscribing, reading and responding to blog posts by the Producer/Writer of the SG shows (and Student Bodies that I happened to watch back in the day).
Don’t worry… I’ll limit my squeals to the wifey only, despite her lack of interest.
Yeah i wanna remind you about the sgu soundtrack aswell!!!
Haven’t we all dated lunatics at some time? Oh, the stories I could tell.
Cons fascinate me, and the thought of seeing the costuming makes me giddy, but I have no urge to brave the throngs.
@Greg
Not all of us Trekkies are crazy weirdos. The ones in Trekkies are among the weirdest of the weird though.
@Joe Mallozzi
Are you going to go over the entirety of Stargate that you’ve worked on? I’d love to keep reading these little tidbits from your time on Atlantis & Universe (And maybe get a plot outline or something from the Atlantis movie when you get near that point).
Please tell Carl to sprinkle his Transporter scripts with plenty of complicated rope knots; I miss those “tied up in a cave” eps of his. Seriously, what gal wouldn’t mind being tied up in a cave by Varro and/or Ronan?
There is a particular wonderful heady feeling when you finally find a decent seat at a packed panel that just can’t be beat; my fave was seeing Avery Brooks, Michael Dorn and Ciroc Lofton discussing the father/son relationships in DS9 and that wonderful “The Visitor” which still makes me cry.
Don’t get to con’s as much as I’d like but it’s so much fun to be with fans who love what you love. I hope Transporter will yield some very cool cons; I imagine it will be big at Comic Con.
Ditto what Ponytail said!
maggiemayday: I’ve never dated a lunatic. Most of my family are lunatics. It would be like I never left home.
A gratuitous cute dog pic: http://twitpic.com/4ywlh5
Cute dog pic, take 2: http://twitpic.com/4ywn3i
Hey Joe,
Have they cast the series yet, or did I miss that post?
If they have, will you be able to tell us who are the names in the frame?
Thanks
Joanie.
Oh, and as for dating lunatic’s I think I probably hold the record…
Let’s just say for a while in my 30’s I thought about going into a nunnery, because my luck with men was so bad, if I was lucky enough to walk into a room with Robert Redford lookalikes, I would get the ‘Marty Fieldman’ – without the sense of humour!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110517/tc_afp/usmilitaryitinternetgamespiracy
“The US Navy is turning to the wisdom of the crowd to forge military strategy, inviting the public to join an online game in which Somali pirates have hijacked commercial ships.”
Where’s Eli?! 🙂
Speaking of which Joe, I hope Transporter has a seat of your pants ending that concludes in Season 2, kinda like the way the first Season of Prison break ended with the main cast escaping fox river, and being hunted by the cops, only to arrive at an airport where the plane they’re meant to take flys away with the cops getting closer, and the feeling they’re boxed in, they had to run!
I love endings like that, so exciting to watch.
I don’t think Twilight will have longevity. I tried reading the first book and skipped large sections. It just didn’t make sense to me. There’s no downside to being a vampire so why isn’t everyone one? You get super strength, one special ability, glow, can feed off animals if you want (already do that) and you’re immortal.
Given those attributes and abilities what do Twilight vampires do…
Go back to highschool repeatedly.
PFFFFFff hhaahahaaaaaa absurd.
One thing that always makes me curious is that your mind is that of a 200-300 vampire yet your body is that of an 18 year old. Would you be interested in 20 year old immature people or seniors ? It might be nice to look at the young hotties but try talking to them and its … meh.
Wouldn’t you be upset most of the people you were friends with were long dead ? Seek out their children and try to help them ? I never see that in vampire stories its always the same crap. The whole immortality thing makes me think of Johnathan Swifts Struldrug people who are immortal but still age and never die.
I think the best vampire series I’ve read was The Necroscope saga. Definitely check that one out. First books are ok they get kinda sloppy towards the end. Favorite vampire movie would have to be Fright Night.
Hello again, Joe! I have some questions about SGU, but not about it’s future. These are just some things I have been wondering.
1.) In “Divided”, Rush was able to initiate the transfer of control of the ships systems from the control interface room to the Ancient research lab remotely; i.e. he did not have to start the process in the interface room. So, why in “Incursion” part two does Telford have to initiate it in the gate room? Why can’t Rush just do what he did in “Divided”?
2.) Do the gate deposited by the seed ships use the ninth chevron to dial each other and Destiny? Or is a ninth chevron only required when dialing a Stargate that is as far away as Destiny is from Earth?
3.) What does the ninth chevron represent? “Some kind of X-factor distance equation” is a little vague.
4.) Are the Stargates in the Destiny network made out of naquada?
5.) Did you ever considering directing an episode of Stargate?
Hi Joe not that Earth command would dial Destiny for 3 years now even if they could but if they did or someone else we know Destiny stops in space to accept incoming 9 chevron wormholes so what would happen to Destinys crew if a wormhole came in would they wake up early or go on sleeping?
Also if there had been more sgu would woolsey have gotten the Langarans permission to finally dial Destiny and resupply them and send releif personell.
Also in Seizure was Colonel Telford going to gate back immediatly to Destiny if they had been able to connect to Destiny and also would the sg teams have gone with him?
Looking back at my earlier post, my god I can ramble on a bit… That is some hard core nerdistry right there.
But I do have a question that is somewhat less geeky: You stated a small time ago that “Number 1 on the call sheet sets the tone.” Well, I know Richard Dean Anderson was number 1 for his run, but what about SG1 Seasons 9 and 10, Atlantis, and Universe? Who were those number 1’s, and how did they compare with RDA in terms of setting the tone?
I started watching the Transporter movies… they look really cool.. can’t wait for the show. 🙂
Couple quick things..
1) Dont forget to email Joel! 😉
2) Could you give a little more insight into BW’s “Plan”. What did you mean when you said “two pronged approach”. Was Extinction and Revolution part of the plan (especially considering Revolution was an important story for the Stargate Franchise to tell).
Thanks so much,
Major D.
By the way Joe, Media Savant posted the live + 7 ratings for Epilogue on Gateworld.
SGU:
Total Viewers: 1.55 million (up from 1.09)
HH Rtg: 1.05 (up from .7)
A18-49 Rtg: .7 (up from .4)
Does seem like the show does really well in the 18-49 after the Live + 7 is factored in, and the HH rating is over 1.0 too. Such a shame the show wasn’t left on Friday, maybe some of these viewers, and some wrestling ones could of tuned in.
It does back up your point that SGU has a tech savvy audience, with DVRs lol
I think that should make you somewhat happy that everyone didn’t just stop watching, okay some people did, but these Live + 7 ratings are showing at least 1.5 million(Well a ton of nielon box holders) still watch the show, just not live :3
First I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions! Now… on to the three things that have annoyed me the most!
1.) Maybe I missed it, or maybe it was implied, but what was the ship/craft that detached from Destiny at the end of Air? I’m assuming now that it was a Blueberry Scout ship, but that only raises more questions as they were traveling in FTL. And… even if you now say it was a Blueberry Scout Ship, was it always *meant* to be?
2.) Granted, I don’t know how many people are aboard the Destiny, or the male/female breakdown… but… I had problems with the concept of them beginning an entire star spanning civilization. It seems with their limited population that they don’t have enough genetic diversity. The only two ways I figure that could be overcome would be A. Techno Solution! B. A cross breeding program, where, frankly, people would have to have multiple partners to father/mother children of different genetic stock. And even that is fraught with difficulties, not least of which would be the changing of the basic foundations of the family concept. Hmmm. I guess this isn’t really a question so, I ask, is this observation wrong? And… if it’s not… how was this problem overcome?
3.) Seriously, who would win in a *real* fight? Teal’C or Ronon? You should be aware, I have money riding on this.
Thanks!
Hi again,
Changeling is the one of only two Stargate episodes I’ve watched multiple times. (The other was SGA “Brain Storm”.) I found it stunningly brilliant, absolutely up there with Cooper’s works. It’s imbued with emotional content. After writing that there I decided to look up if he’s doing anything else. Apparently he’s writing for a show called Rage of Angels and I’m gonna go dig it up.
Also, while this isn’t exactly a writing issue, I appreciated that they used the clamp tool to pick up the injured man on street because a lot of people don’t know that mishandling car wreck victims can cause permanent damage. Every so often someone winds up paralyzed because a bystander chose to help a victim out of a car or took a helmet off a motorcyclist rather than waiting for the pros to arrive.
I’ve always loved Stargate for little details like that. It’s excellently researched for a show where people transplanted from ancient Mongolia to another planet speak English.
Well if we take that Sanctuary was doing about 40% to 50% on Fridays than it is doing on Monday, I think we saftely presume that SGU would easily be hitting 1.4 million a week on Friday night. May be a bit more. I could imagine some of the space battle heavy episodes attracting higher audiences as I would presume they would attract the wrestling type of fans. Urban legends I believe went up to 1.4 area as well.
It does appear what ever Syfy puts on after Wrestling it seem to get about 1.4 or 1.5 is the maximum audience Syfy going to get. I wonder if SGU would have survive on 1.4 – 1.6 audience on a Friday night.
An if Scifi programming cannot excist on those numbers during the Fall season then SYFY need to ask itself whether they should really be showing original programming during the fall at all or do what the rest of the cable networks does and focus on the spring and Summer scheduled instead.
Confession – I had never seen SG-1 before last year. I watched the entire show on dvd during the summer of 2010. In some ways it was great. I didn’t have to wait to see what happened next. On the other hand, it went by way too fast!
Disclosure – I usually don’t care for clip shows, but this one was really good. Well played.
Changeling – As I go back and watch my favorites, I always include this one. Very different, but still true to the characters.
Fingers crossed for Lisa R. and husband.
1 – Curious as ever about your own projects, a wee while back I asked:
“Would you pitch to UK, or is US/Canada the only places to play because of market size, or other factors that appeal?”
and, you said:
“Of course I’d pitch to the UK. In fact, one of the projects presently on the stack is a potential Canadian-UK co-production.”
Any more info? Heading to UK for it at any stage?
2 – How many Acts (plus Teaser, always?) to an SG episode, or does it depend on which series?
3 – How many for Transporter: The Series? How long will each episode be? How many in a season?
4 – Being interested in the nut n’ bolts of story creation, what constitutes story spinning, breaking, etc? What are the differences? Only done per episode? Or arcs too? Then, after those, the assigned writer sweats the first draft, submits and awaits the notes?
5 – Transporter’s stories seem to be coming together very quickly. More so than SG?
6 – What, if any, protection did the Ancients design or put in place for their long chain of Stargates through the cosmos, for, surely, they wouldn’t have expected them to sit unmolested or no-one to suss how to block them (like Destiny suffered)? Were there ideas among writers to address this as a reveal of some kind if the SGU had run on? Hell, the drones weren’t birthed by them? Or, were the Ancients never expecting to take too long out in space and, anyway, way back at that time all other life was too primitive so wasn’t an issue – only became an issue for SGU?
7 – By the grand end, the cosmos would have been cracked as a mystery enabling the FTL and stargates to be obsolete, in effect, because transfer through space-time would be able to happen instantly, with vanishing and re-appearing, no needs for ships (but can take!) and dimensional explorations beginning, on the fringes of which Rush would have encountered those he’d lost to death – and this yearning, this need, this hunt is what was driving him all along to try to crack the mystery. Big. And, spin-off potential! Any chance of comment on how what chimes with what Brad and Rob dreamed?
8 – Dark Matter – what came first to you – a character, or characters, of scenes with potential to weave, or ‘What if…?’ story question. Given that it is original to you and so differs to the pre-existing worlds you are making (Transporter) and have made (SG) into series, it’d be interesting to know how this works for you.
9 – Ever seen Mr Deity? – http://www.mrdeity.com
cheers!
PJR
Oh, also, the clip show in question was the first episode of Stargate SG-1 I ever saw.
It was alright, but the show didn’t really catch til I was shown the episode with Ergo later.
@Tammy Dixon: LOVE the pictures, too funny! Are they yours?
June 2, 2011: Ah, Gatecon 2002. My second con, lifetime, and the first where I actually knew people beforehand, thanks to the Internet.
Joe forgets to mention that he borrowed the “Lord Ba’al” costume from Wardrobe and wore it well.
I can report that the producers’ panel, when asked whether Shanks might return, were very professional and courteous, appropriately avoiding a yes, no, or maybe answer. (I’d only found SG1 and the online fandom two months before and was puzzled by the controversy.)