So tired and so annoyed of so many things. Just a couple of seconds ago, Akemi walked by me and asked: “Are you stressed?” I asked her how she could tell. Her response: “Your face is all red.” Really? This burgeoning angst has apparently worked its way into my subconscious as well. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning and lay awake in bed for about an hour and half before falling back asleep. I dreamt that I was in the process of cleaning out the house when I discovered a forgotten section of my basement. I say forgotten because, the moment I stepped inside, I remembered the area – and the fact that I’d entertained guests in its environs approximately five years earlier. Which, in turn, reminded me of something else. And I walked over to the refrigerator opened it up and discovered, yep, all the packed-up leftovers from said party. Five year old leftovers! What does it mean?!!! What is my subconscious trying to tell me?!
Continuing our trip down Stargate: Atlantis memory lane with…
THE QUEEN (508)
Another great thing about working on Stargate was that the show allowed us immense creative freedom. Variety was the key when it came to the stories – and that, I’m certain, was one of the keys to the franchise’s longevity. As I mentioned in my Whispers post, we dabbled in a variety of genres: comedy, horror, fantasy, westerns. We offered a nice mix of standalone episodes (the perfect jumping-on point for first time viewers) and arc-driven stories (rewarding longtime viewers as well). Some episodes would be huge, VFX-laden spectacles while others would be smaller, character-focused tales. We could go anywhere (Earth, space, off-world, the past, the future) and feature anyone because we had an infinitely capable cast, every one of them capable of stepping up to carry an episode. In Broken Ties, it was Jason Momoa delivering a performance for the ages. In The Shrine, it was David Hewlett in one of his most memorable performances to date. And, in The Queen, it was Rachel Luttrell’s turn, undergoing a stunning transformation – not to mention hours of prosthetics and make-up – to impress us all were her own tour-de-force.
Today’s blog entry is dedicated to gforce. And his mom!
Gotta make this quick!
1. @ gforce – I wish your mum a speedy recovery. If she’s bounced back before, she probably will again! Take care of yourself, too. Family medical issues can be very stressful.
2. *Drools* Ahhhhh…so nice to see Chris in all his Wraithy glory! 😀
3. The Queen is one of my top five favorite episodes, and Rachel did a wonderful job. I really liked seeing the ‘political’ side of the Wraith, too. Will try to comment on this later.
4. What is your subconscious trying to tell you? Well, the logical answer is that you are trying to do too much and have a lot of loose ends that are starting to get to you. Also, you probably need to clean out the fridge. 🙂
Gotta run!
das
That you need to downsize? 😉
Sometimes dreams don’t mean anything at all and its best to not think anything of them. If anything if you’re dreaming of ‘unexplored’ areas of your house, it’s likely your mind is just saying Joe get your butt down there and go clean it.
All those years ago you likely had a thought about cleaning up said leftovers but completely forgot. Entirely understandable, you were a busy guy doing producer/writing stuff on Stargate.
Ohhh.. I read that a little wrong, my bad. It does sound like a time to clean dream more than anything else.
You need a spa day!
Or drugs…
I like The Queen because if focused on Teyla. And Todd. I didn’t quite understand the surgery part though, it seemed like it would be much more complicated that it appeared. But minor quibble.
I think your dreams are telling you you have unfinished business with people you know or projects you worked on. Trying to forget about them just leads to feelings festering and growing mold in the refrigerator of your mind. Deal with them and you will be less stressed. 🙂
Your dreams are telling me that you are very serious about relocating. Where are you going? You are preparing for a move and you are cleaning out your house and getting everything in order. Problem is, you got so much stuff, every time you turn around, you find another area…like that refrigerator. The task is overwhelming to you. You are a perfectionist. You need to let go and stop worrying so much. Just let it go…
The Queen was great! Really enjoyed Teyla bossing around all those Wraith. But very glad she had Todd looking out for her. But was he really looking out for himself and just using her? You betcha! I hoped Rachel enjoyed making this episode because it really was all about her and her strong personality. I couldn’t believe Dr. Keller could transform beautiful Teyla into a Wraith Queen and then back into beautiful Teyla again with nary a mark on her face. Still don’t quite get that.
While everyone is correct that the leftovers represents unfinished business, they still missed the mark. The unfinished business is the Stargate series, and you may be on the road to a slow painful mental breakdown unless you can restart Stargate Atlantis and finish off Universe.
All you need to do is raise the money, gain the rights, get the actors back together and have the props and stages rebuilt. Easy peasy.
If it helps, I can probably scrape together $10. Or recommend a good shrink.
Sending good thoughts to Gforce and family.
Dreams– yep agree.– need to tie up loose ends. So much of your life is in limbo right now, no wonder you are stressed.
I love the jacket on Todd. Now there is a Wraith that can wear anything.
Question: Why did the male Wraith have white hair, and the queens have black hair, except for that one queen with the violet/red hair?
You are right, Joe. Dreams can mean anything. Sometimes, dreams are about events that have happened in our recent past that spark our active imaginations. And you have to admit that as a writer, you have a pretty active imagination. The fact that you recently cleaned out your crawl space, and then dwelled on it by telling us all about it, would probably explain the part about the forgotten area of the basement. As for the party and the leftovers, I agree with the other posters – you are trying to do too much and it is stressing you out. You are afraid you have forgotten things that are important to accomplishing your goals.
Patricia
Thank you so much Joe for the dedication. It may be because I’m stressed out, but that kind of brought a little tear to my eye! 🙂 I’m going to tell my mom, she’ll get a kick out if it.
The Queen was excellent, and I kind of wish that we had an opportunity to see even more of Rachael at the forefront of stories if season six had come to pass.
I think your dream means that you need to eat more chocolate! 😉
Thanks, Das! I know from experience each bounce gets smaller, but we’ll take what we can get!
I enjoyed watching Stargate Atlantis. It was entertaining to me.
@ gforce: Wishing your mom a speedy recovery!
Joe, maybe you were just hungry?
Thanks for the behind the scenes pics. The Queen was a great episode.
Dreams… I dream a lot, every night… and I have good recall on them, even years later.
A room of old furniture, all heaped with snow, artfully placed on top, not fallen snow, placed there to hold bunches of fresh flowers. Beautiful, until a man came in and stabbed my friend in the back. Scary freaky, woke me up. Oh, there was a whole story in there, but too long to be interesting to anyone but myself.
Ah, the forgotten room dream. I’ve had those.
I’ve always liked SG-1 more than the other spin offs, but have recently started watching Atlantis properly and am loving its lighter side than that of SG-1.
Although this begs the question, have you guys been bugging the heck out of MGM to wrap previous series as you intended or are we all (including you) supposed to make up our own minds as to how it all ends/ goes on?
Hmmmmm, let’s see what http://www.dreammoods.com has to say (all bollocks, of course!):
Make of that what you will!
I was initially going to dislike The Queen but then Todd double crossed everyone and Teyla showed her commanding, domineering bitch side and it ended up being quite enjoyable!
I saw an episode of Dr Who about a hidden room. You didn’t have an alien (prisoner 1) living in it did you?
Loved The Queen! The makeup was amazing!!! I can’t imagine going through that process. It seems like it would be claustrophobic. Oh, the script and the acting rocked!
How were the weapons designed? Hubby made me watch a show about the evolution of knives. There was a purpose to every shape, every notch and every curve. The art of war.
Dream Analysis Swami wave hands over crystal ball and say “There is something in your past you know you should let go of, but haven’t yet.” Could be an emotional need, a relationship, a job…not necessarily something physical. Your subconscious is saying it’s time to clean out your life and move on. 🙂
I love how the dream interpretations are so obviously superficial and are the easy, simple metaphoric responses to the surroundings in the dream. Who ever said the refrigerator was turned on? Why can’t it just mean that you’re hungry?
Obviously, you failed to look at your very own typing of this blog for the not so hidden answer:
“Five year old leftovers! What does it mean?!!! What is my subconscious trying to tell me?!
Continuing our trip down Stargate: Atlantis memory lane with…”
You obviously have some sort of unresolved angst about Extinction. It’s ok, most of us do too.
I feel bad for the beagle they had star in Underdog. I’m all for accuracy when it comes to recreating an older work(comic book, cartoon, or whatever), but to dye that dog’s ears that dark…..that just looked stoooopid. Never even saw the movie although I LOVE Patrick Warbuton and wanted to see him be a thick-headed sidekick. I think he’d excel at that.
-Mike A.
gforce: Prayers to your mom!
Joe, I agree with Mike A. Look at the blog for at least part of your answer.
Five years ago you were working on Season 5 of Atlantis. You often fed the cast & crew with delectibles (like a good Italian guy). You miss them all. The question is, are you only revisiting them in the blog recap, or are you revisiting Stargate outside the blog? 😐
Tam Dixon — Sorry! Missed your question re: headache management techniques yesterday. Was referring to ones I posted in comments on the 18th. They were long, so maybe tiptoe back there… Also, what helped yesterday was taking Tylenol (or whatever you can) with a big mug of hot water (a turbo-booster), lying down in a dark, quiet room, with an eye mask and a microwaveable hot pack wrapped around the base of my head. Fell asleep, and finally got some pain relief. I think (please, please) that it’s gone. Am still sensitive to bright lights and loud noises, though. Will continue being careful today.
gforce — Sending prayers for you and your stepmom, that there’s a meaningful rebound, and some loving memories yet to be had. My parents have had close calls in the past few years, but not to this degree. Blog hugs…
Thank you for the Atlantis memories…can’t wait for those from Michael Shanks’ double eppy with David Hewlett…not only great acting and a fun romp, but also rather poignant with memories of a once thriving film industry which according to the many tweets from our beloved Stargate alumni seems to be hitting troubles now…many of us have taken the action that the likes of Patrick Gilmore, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping & more have requested us and signed the “Save BC Film” petition…did you, or anyone else from the Stargate team attend the meeting last night?..I know Peter Deluise did as he was live tweeting pics from it…
The BC Film Industry has given me many hours of pleasure watching great (ok and sometimes no quite so great) films, TV etc…I hope it can recover and gets the help from the Government it needs…
In happier new though, 5 weeks today I hit Seattle in readyness for Emerald City Comic Con, then head up to Victoria and then over to Downtown Vancouver…I just hope there’s still some good food and drink over there to partake in…
Thanks everyone, for the wonderful thoughts.
I agree about the Atlantis/dream meaning. Something is definitely not finished! :).
Dreaming of new rooms in your house means you are facing a new area of your life, something you’ve not face before. Since your new room turned out to be a room you’d literally left behind five years ago I’m guessing this is a new start on an old skill. It’s the new take that seems to be unsettling your pysche.
I have the “new hidden rooms” dream often, so much that I keep going back to the same strange apartment building that looks dilapidated on the outside and in a sketchy neighborhood (like my first apartment) but when I go inside I discover that my apartment has a secret floor that is luxurious albeit dusty and the landlord doesn’t know is there, so I end up with a fabulous huge apartment with a big back garden. But sometimes I find that I have these terrible roommates who’ve mixed my stuff in with theirs and I can’t tell what’s mine anymore. So sometimes the dream can be a bummer but I usually am loving the new acreage.
Uh-oh… I just viewed a news report on News12 New Jersey that said many restaurants are not allowing customers to take photos of their food (before eating I assume) as you often do Joe. Supposedly many states here in US and many in Canada have started this policy. The stated reason is no wish to disturb people dining, especially with flashes going off. Wonder what the true reason is?
Have you encountered this issue yet?
Anyone else o’blog’o sphere?
2cats
P.S. As to your dream, no alcohol before sleep!
Five-year-old leftovers definitely falls into the horror category. I can relate, lots of stuff to clean up here, including two refrigerators.
Gforce, I hope your stepmom is doing better.
And here’s some good news to celebrate, my dad’s latest tests came back that radiation took care of a tumor on his back, and chemo is helping with the rest. He has stage 4 prostate, so it’s not a cure, but it does give him some more time. So we take the good news while we can!
Watching the Arrow tonight and who do I see? Ben Browder! Brought back SG1 memories.
As for your dream, first thing I thought of when you mentioned leftovers, you have some unfinished business/ issues to take care of, be it good or bad. But if the left overs are 5 years old, I imagine it’s something you would be reluctant to deal with quickly,(since you are stressed about it and leftovers after 5 years…ick) but none the less, needs to be dealt with. 5 years? Is that how long SG1/ SGA have been over? Well 5 years for SG1. What else may have happened 5 years ago? The fact that this dream brought you back to a party could indicate it was something or someone you once enjoyed and has now been “chilled” or put in “stasis”. And the fact that it was in the basement could indicate that it has been “buried” underneath other projects or priorities.
This need not be a negative experience. How good does it feel when you have sorted through things, boxes of things and got rid of stuff that has weighed you down and instead of having to deal with a lot of stuff you only have to deal with a few things. Cleaning can be therapeutic physically as well as emotionally.
If you have a hard time identifying anything, try drawing it out, be it an emotion, what your current status is or what you want the outcome to look like. Art is very therapeutic, it washes away the everyday dust of the soul.
I take it this is the middle age version of being at school in your underwear. Hahaha…
Five year old left overs. I think Tel’k had a line on someone conducting science experiments in there refrigerator. I think the five years reflection might have something to do with comfort.
I think I can answer this dream question–you’ve reached a point in your life where you cannot stand the clutter anymore and things you were afraid of letting go of are no big deal anymore. I have clutter I am trying to get rid of that goes back to 2005 when I lost 3 months of my life and never got caught up again. Piles and piles and piles of crap. I’m getting rid of it a pile at a time. I can see the top of my dresser in my bedroom again. I found “potty charts” I kept for Patrick as a part of data collection so we could see if we could find any patterns into why he was going sometimes and not others. A child with autism means a life of endless data collection. We don’t need the potty charts anymore. I would not need to keep it in case of school district reversal of paying for Patrick’s school and me having to take them to court over it. Gone. Gone. Gone. I cleaned out 10,000 emails that I will never get to even though I panicked that maybe I should keep the emails from my autism parents because I will never know if I have to tap into that wealth of knowledge. Letting it go, letting it go.