Archive for October, 2007

Tonight’s episode of Stargate Atlantis, “Travelers”, tells a classic story of boy meets girl, but with a bit of a twist: this isn’t your ordinary boy and this certainly isn’t your ordinary girl. Her name is Larrin and she’s the leader of her people, the Travelers.

“We introduced a new race called the Travelers just because we wanted to introduce a technologically advanced [race] to the Pegasus galaxy,” writer Joseph Mallozzi told MSN TV Blog. “It was something that was a little difficult to do because the Wraith tend to destroy technologically advanced races. So we created this race that are nomadic and live on ships, so they’re never in one place long enough for the Wraith to catch up with them. What they essentially do is they travel from planet to planet that has been recently culled and they scavenge the technology that has been left behind and they use it to upgrade their ships.

“This race is a loose cannon. On the one hand, they’re on the run from the Wraith. So obviously they’re no friend to the Wraith. But on the other hand, they are on the lookout for new technology. So they take a particular interest in Atlantis and Sheppard in particular [...] He’s on his way back to Atlantis in a puddle jumper and his puddle jumper gets ambushed. The fact that he has the Ancient gene is of particular interest to them because there’s plenty of Ancient technology in the Pegasus galaxy and he could prove useful.”

How useful? Larrin, played by Jill Wagner (see Solutions Blog casting story), wants Sheppard to cooperate in bringing an Ancient warship, similar to an Aurora class, back to life, so that its advanced technology can be used by her people and against the Wraith. While Sheppard is her prisoner, Larrin uses all types of pursuasion, including opening her ship’s cargo bay doors right under his feet — basically suspending him and his Puddle Jumper over the vastness and the vacuum of space with only the ship’s shield as an invisible barrier. But, he gets a bird’s eye view of the Ancient ship and then the adventure really gets going. (Fans can see a preview of this scene at Yahoo TV – video #66, “Sheppard is caught in a compromising position”).

“How can I describe her?” Mallozzi continued, “A lot of the fans who have heard about her have compared her to Vala. I guess in some respects she is Vala-esque in that she’s a loose cannon and independent. But she’s a lot more grounded, a lot more no-nonsense, not as flighty as Vala. She’s not a thief. She’s the leader of her people. ‘A tough cookie’ would be a good way to describe her.”

Joe Flanigan spoke to Starburst about how much of ‘a tough cookie’ Larrin is. “I wanted to have a strong female character that was difficult for us to get a handle on, but who Sheppard had to rely on for his own strategic ends. So Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie wrote Travelers, which introduces a character who I think is going to become incredibly popular on the show. Her name is Larrin and she’s this very sexy woman who kidnaps my character, beats the c**p out of him, then he beats the c**p out of her. They need each other and have to learn how to deal with one another.”

Get introduced to Larrin and her people tonight at 10pm Eastern on the Sci Fi Channel (repeats at midnight). Those recording the episode need to set their timers to go over because the episode is running about two minutes late (i.e., 10:02-11:02pm), because “flashback” scenes for Battlestar Galactica: Razor are being shown during the lead-in show Flash Gordon. (The midnight airing could be offset by as much as five minutes). Once you’ve watched, please visit our on-site forum to cast your vote and discuss the episode.

Tonight’s episode of Stargate Atlantis is “Doppelganger”, written and directed by Robert C. Cooper. In this story, the Atlantis Expedition suffers from nightmares with Sheppard as the antagonist after he touches a crystalline structure harboring an evil, psychopathic entity.

Script coordinator Alex Levine gave the background behind the story in his scifi.com blog. “When he [Robert Cooper] was a little boy (maybe too little?), his Dad took him to see JAWS, and it had a big effect on him. He was lying there in bed that night, probably scared out of his wits, and thought to himself that some day he wanted to control the power that gripped him the way JAWS did. So that’s why he decided to become a filmmaker. And now he’s turned that power on you people in Doppelganger, a story about nightmares and people’s fear of dreams.”

Cooper digs deep into Stargate SG-1’s rich ten-year mythology to put his story together. He told Gateworld, “O’Neill went out, touched a crystal and all this stuff happened [1.07 "Cold Lazarus"]. We’ve never done that again. And I thought, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be interesting if we found another crystalline life-form like that.’ But in that case we were kind of lucky that it had reasonably good intentions. There was a sinister aspect to it in that we didn’t know what was going on, but at the end of the day it was kind of just curious. So I took the flip side of that and said, ‘What if it’s a psychopath? What if it’s truly evil?’ And it enduces some pretty freaky nightmares. [...] What would our characters dream about? The fun part of the episode is, because it’s Sheppard that initially engages and touches the crystal, and thus unleashes the entity on everyone, the physical form it takes in the nightmares is Sheppard. And so everyone is having these nightmares that are being pulled out of them by the entity, but Sheppard is appearing in those dreams as the sort of negative [inciting] force.”

“Doppleganger” was the first episode to be filmed so that Cooper could move on to the production of the first SG-1 movie, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, which he also wrote and directed. Although it was first to be filmed, it is fourth to be aired, and that presented some interesting challenges. Levine explained, “For example, Carter is settled and in charge of Atlantis now, but Rob and the actors had to sort of guess at how the relationships between her and the other team members would have evolved by this point in time. I think they had some scripts to read, but not all. And even so, things can change from the page to the screen. They also had to think of practical concerns. For example, what’s her office look like now? That sort of thing. So that was a challenge.”

The out-of-airing-order production of the episode also had another effect: somehow iTunes released this episode under the title “Adrift” (the actual first episode to air) for the fans to download! The mistake was soon corrected, but not before several people got an advanced viewing! It remains to be seen if this premature release will affect the live ratings tonight.

Within the storytelling itself were the challenges of not giving away the twists and turns too soon. Levine related, “Rob also told me he found some conflicts between his two roles as writer and director. For example, as a director, he was excited because he thought he would have many opportunities to use interesting camera techniques in the dream sequences. But then he discovered that, in order to maintain the story, he has to keep the audience guessing as to what is a dream and what isn’t. Apparently the technical term for that is a “goof”. So he wasn’t able to go crazy, using wide lenses and making it look very surreal, or else that would tip the goof too soon and the audience wouldn’t be fooled.” Levine then offered a hint as to how to tell the Sheppards apart (read his blog to find out).

In portraying both Sheppard and his doppelganger, Joe Flanigan offered in a Starburst interview, “It’s really important that there’s a distinction between your character and its twin, but in this case it was tricky because for the first two-thirds of Doppelganger you can’t tell which Sheppard is which. It had to be a gradual distinction between the real one and his twin until the latter evolves into complete evil. It was a little complicated, though, because we didn’t quite have all the scenes written in order to qualify the transition. So it was a fairly abrupt evolution from subtle differences to glaring differences.”

Executive producer and co-showrunner Joseph Mallozzi told fans in his personal blog that this episode includes “a Sheppard beat-down to beat all Sheppard beat-downs.” According to Levine, “In fact, this was the first episode that we used a 3D flying rig for stunts. And the stunt in which Sheppard is kicked off the balcony — well that’s really Sheppard. Joe Flanigan did his own stunt there.”

Tune in tonight at 10pm Eastern on the Sci Fi Channel for the premiere of “Doppelganger” (repeats at midnight). If you are recording the episode, keep in mind that lead-in show Flash Gordon will be running over for about two minutes because “flashback” scenes are being shown for Battlestar Galactica: Razor (the midnight showing might be as far behind as four to five minutes).

After viewing, visit our on-site forum to vote and discuss the episode.

When asked to use one word to describe “Reunion”, tonight’s episode of Stargate Atlantis, during the episode’s development, executive producer, co-showrunner, and episode writer Joseph Mallozzi wrote in his personal blog: “roots.” He explained this choice further in an MSN TV Blog interview: “In the episode called “Reunion,” she [Col. Samantha Carter] settles in. It’s not an easy first day. In that particular episode, her settling in is the B-story, where the A-story is Ronon encountering some Satedans that he thought were killed in the fall of Sateda, his former friends and the unit he fought with. He’s drawn to his past and has to make a decision, the decision between remaining with the life he’s built on Atlantis or returning of the roots he knew. In the same episode, Carter is letting go of the roots she knew and building a new home on Atlantis. It’s kind of interesting how those two stories intersect. Carter kind of runs afoul of Ronon, who doesn’t appreciate her coming in and establishing certain protocols. She doesn’t exactly run afoul of Sheppard, but they have a certain disagreement about mission priorities.”

Script coordinator Alex Levine wrote in his scifi.com blog that “the first half of the Atlantis season contains episodes that key on specific characters, and this one is really about Ronon, as he runs into some old Satedan comrades-in-arms. He’s torn, because they’re out there battling the Wraith their own way, and he feels like he should be loyal to them and perhaps leave Atlantis. Well when the first script came out, one of the notes was that the beginning of the script was too much character stuff as the action doesn’t start up right away. But Joe [Mallozzi] stuck to his guns, and I think rightly so.”

Although the action might not start up right away, there is plenty of it in this episode. Levine wrote, “I think it’s a great episode, with a big OP (read: combat operation) and tons of fights and stunts. Maybe even the best fight sequences we’ve ever done (big ups to James Bamford, our fearless stunt coordinator and fight choreographer).” Most likely, these stunt fight sequences were enhanced by Mark Dacascos, an expert in the martial arts (see Solutions Blog casting story) who plays Tyre, one of Ronon’s Satedan friends.

Concerning Carter’s character-driven B-story, in a sneak peek video posted at Yahoo TV, fans get to see Carter say good-bye to Teal’c (in a cameo appearance by Christopher Judge) as she finishes her packing and heads off to Atlantis as its new commander. Through her tears, Teal’c can see how much the ten years on SG-1 have meant to her and reassures her that “SG-1 will not be far away.” Calling back to his famous “undomesticated equines” line he used to reassure his team leader O’Neill that he wouldn’t leave his side when he was literally pinned to a wall and in pain (“Message in a Bottle”), Teal’c shows the depth of the roots that all of the members of SG-1 have nurtured over the years.

“Reunion” premieres tonight at 10pm Eastern on the Sci Fi Channel (and re-airs again at midnight). If you’re recording the episode, keep in mind that it might be running a little late as there are Battlestar Galactica clips being shown during Atlantis’s lead-in show Flash Gordon. After watching, please visit the Solutions on-site forum to cast your vote and discuss the episode.