A Slice of SciFi has recently interviewed Stargate Atlantis executive producer and co-showrunner Joseph Mallozzi (just before Christmas) about the second half of Season Four and the overall arcs of Season Five. Mallozzi didn’t provide a whole lot of spoilers for specific episodes, but did cover character development, such as that for Sheppard, Ronon, and Teyla, and for recurring characters, including Connor Trinneer’s Michael and Christopher Heyerdahl’s “Todd” (Sheppard’s Wraith “ally”).
Mallozzi was asked about what made Stargate so long-lasting. First, he talked about Stargate SG-1, the longest running sci-fi show in North American television history. “To me it’s always really come down to the characters and I think that the fans would agree. You tell interesting stories about characters that the audience could respond to and that was frankly the case with ‘SG-1’. We had a core of [four] very interesting characters. The core was somewhat shaken in the end but the characters always remained very interesting.”
And then Mallozzi continued by discussing the characters on Atlantis. “As Paul and I sat down with the actors when we took over the show in Season 4 and we said ok this is what we want to do, we want to focus on the characters and their relationships. We still wanted to continue to tell the fun stories we told in the first [three] seasons, but focus more on who these characters are and create maybe a little conflict there as well, maybe explore a relationship that we hadn’t explored in the past. This is all stuff we set out to do and our experience has been successful in Season 4 and what we’d like to continue to do in Season 5.”
Mallozzi said that the cast and crew will be back in late February to start filming Season Five, starting with the premiere “Search and Rescue”. He’s not certain when the Sci Fi Channel will begin to air the new season, but “we’re back at it whether they want to put us on in September or even earlier, we’ll be ready to go.”
Read the rest of the interview at A Slice of SciFi Interview With SGA’s Joe Mallozzi.