Fallen…

Before work began on the show’s seventh season, I emailed Rob Cooper a notion I had of an angel cast down from heaven, stripped of his memories and left to start a new life on Earth.  Rob ended up taking the whole “stripped” thing literally – much to the delight of Michael’s fans.

Paul flagged an exchange at the script stage.  One off-worlder notes Teal’c’s presence with: “He is Jaffa.” to which O’Neill replies: “No, but he plays one on t.v.”.  Paul felt it broke the fourth wall but was ultimately overruled.  When the episode aired, many fans loved the exchange – while many others followed suit and waved their own red flags.

Following the scene in which O’Neill appeals to an amnesiac Daniel, DJ refer to Jack as “Jim”.  It’s a gag that Brad calls back to in SGA’s The Shrine.

Homecoming…

No concept art 🙁

Even though the Jonas Quinn character never found firm footing on the show, I was nevertheless sad to see him go.  Actor Corin Nemec was a good guy and we got along well so I wanted to make sure he got  a proper, respectful send-off that left the door open for a possible return.  And I think we accomplished that in Homecoming.  Corin returned later in the season seven to guest in an episode for which he received a story credit: Fallout.

Fragile Balance…

Actor Michael Welch delivers one of the show’s most impressive guest performances in the role of a young, cloned Jack O’Neill.  He captures (Rick as) Jack’s mannerisms and rhythms perfectly and so wowed us that, in the following months, we tried to spin several different stories that would have seen Young Jack make a return.  Unfortunately, none of these stories panned out.  I did end up running into Michael Welch at the that year’s Saturn Awards (Best Award Show Ever!).  He told me how much he’d enjoyed his experience on the show while I told him how much we’d enjoyed having him.  Interestingly enough, it was the same night I first met actor Ben Browder.  We discussed Farscape, scifi, and the possibility of him doing a guest spot on the show.  I ended up writing a part for him as a potential recurring character on Atlantis but a scheduling conflict prevented him from accepting the role – which, in the long run, was a good thing because it allowed him to accept the more substantial role of SG-1’s Cameron Mitchell two years later.

This episode also sees an appearance by the talented Theresa Lee, a friend and huge film and t.v. star in Hong Kong and China (where she recently headlined their version of Dancing With the Stars).  Whenever Theresa comes into town, we try to grab dim sum and rare is the occasion when she is not recognized by someone at a neighboring table.  The last time we grabbed a bite, I glanced up from my sticky rice purse to catch her on the restaurant’s t.v. screen, starring in some Hong Kong comedy.  Loved her in Big Bullet!

Orpheus…

Not to be confused with season 9’s Morpheus, Orpheus is another Peter DeLuise extravaganza.  You can always recognize Peter’s episode because they always contained one of three things: Unas, noble Jaffa, and/or explosions.

Loved Carter’s review of Signs in the gym scene.  Other movies I would have liked to see receive the onscreen review treatment: The Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening.

Revisions…

This story started out as a pitch about a town living within a hermetically sealed bubble surrounded by a toxic atmosphere.  SG-1 happens upon the scene and discovers its inhabitants are hiding a terrible secret.  I hesitate to reveal the shocking conclusion I originally envisioned because the story we ended up with was so different that I’d love to repurpose it given some future opportunity.  Anyway, even though the episode ended up quite different from the way I’d originally envisioned it, I loved it nevertheless.  And I wasn’t the only one.  Then VFX Supervisor James Tichenor really enjoyed the script.  It’s a great SF standalone episode.  And the location we found for the town was perfect in its bizarre cross-cultural architectural weirdness.  It is, in reality, a former amusement park, Fantasy Gardens, with a fairly interesting history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Gardens.  We would return here years later to shoot SGA’s Irresponsible.

Lifeboat…

An acting tour-de-force for Michael Shanks who delivers a multitude of terrific performances in an episode that sees him playing several different characters. Guest star James Park’s portrayal of the doomed Pharrin is also incredibly touching and the perfect compliment to Michael’s multi-layered turn.  Brad had the idea for this story back in season six but, since he’d constructed the story for Daniel who had since left this mortal coil, he’d shelved it indefinitely.  When Michael came back to the show the following year, however, Brad was able to dust it off and put it back in play.  It’s one of those self-contained pure SF stories, like Revisions (and the episodes Brad used to produce in his Outer Limits days), that always appealed to me in much the same way that I always preferred the stand-alone horror X-Files episodes over the arc-driven entries.

Enemy Mine…

Enemy Mine was the working title of this episode which, like Watergate before it, went from placeholder title to official title before anyone could do anything about it.  FYI, past placeholder titles that didn’t make it to official status include: Teal’c Interrupted, Turn of Events, Dark Gambit, Flowers for McKay, CSI: Atlantis, Ad Infinitum, Remember When, and Beckett Returns.

Writer/Director Peter DeLuise excelled at stories that, like this one, focused on the show’s rich mythology, building upon the races and characters established in previous episodes and developing them in interesting, often surprising, ways.