Solutions Blog

In our look back on the thirteen years of Stargate, we’ve arrived at Season Eight of Stargate SG-1. It was a challenging year for the production office as this was the same year that Stargate Atlantis made its debut.

This season’s year also saw the debut of the Stargate SG-1 Official Magazine with its first issue dated November/December 2004. Although originally named with only SG-1 in its official title, the magazine also covered Stargate Atlantis.

Robert C. Cooper kept the showrunning duties for SG-1, while Brad Wright oversaw the spin-off. The two shows shared producers and writers, as well as directors and other department staff members. As a reality check during this most challenging time of doing 40 episodes of television in a 20-episode timeframe, Wright admitted to Kate Ritter at RDAnderson.com, “One of the only ways we could afford to do season eight was by running it concurrent with Atlantis.”

The renewal announcement for Season Nine didn’t come until November 2004, so many of the interviews included below will reflect the producers’ and actors’ uncertainty about the show’s future. Richard Dean Anderson, however, announced that if the show did get a ninth season, it already had what it needed to go on without him.

In this article, we continue down the SG-1 side of the Thirteen Weeks for Thirteen Years (13-4-13) series. If you want to go down the Atlantis path too, make sure to visit our companion article 13-4-13: Stargate Atlantis Season One.

---

SG-1 Season Eight

---

Are you watching the episodes with us as we take our trip down memory lane? Make sure to come back to our poll and tell us which are your favorites!

---

Brad Wright

---

From “Perfect 10” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine, issue #17 (Jul./Aug. 2007):

“Robert took over in season seven so that I could ostensibly start working on Stargate Atlantis and start on it the following year, but I threw a lot of my Atlantis ideas out of the window when Sci Fi said, ‘We want both.’ I guess season eight was the season that I was in a way not as much involved in Stargate SG-1.

“I did come up with the notion for ‘Moebius,’ which I was pleased with. Of course I didn’t write the whole thing; it was taken over by the other guys, but it was a lot of fun. It’s a very strong season. But Robert, bless him, wrote 14 episodes and then six season finales!

“‘Threads’ could have easily been a season finale, ‘Reckoning’ could have been a season finale. It’s funny, because they are all very strong episodes. But at that point, a lot of the stories were wrapped up and so as powerful as ‘Reckoning’ is in tying up those storylines and as emotional as ‘Threads’ was and as funny as ‘Moebius’ was, they were done.

“Thus ended the era of Richard Dean Anderson. That was the biggest change. That’s when he said, ‘This is my last year.’ People would say, ‘Are you going to talk him out of it?’ First of all, I wouldn’t even try! I respect the man—you get to be friends after that many years. He wants to spend time with his child. These are all the right reasons to step aside. And I also said to him, ‘Don’t think of it as goodbye forever. The show’s going to keep going and we’re going to keep that door open.'”

---

Robert C. Cooper

---

From “New Order” at RDAnderson.com (2004):

“I don’t feel like I want to do a bait-and-switch. I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, this is going to be the biggest, best year ever.’ This is going to be a smaller year than we have done in the past. I feel the stories and scripts are as strong as we’ve ever done, but there’s not as much blowing stuff up.

“One of the things we wanted to do was tell a little more of a bridge between ‘Lost City’ and the pilot of Atlantis. The two-hour premiere of season eight of SG-1 airs a week before the pilot [of Stargate Atlantis] premieres on SciFi. Last we saw in ‘Lost City,’ Dr. Elizabeth Weir was left in charge of the SGC. Hammond was sort of up in the air as to what was happening with him, and O’Neill was frozen down in Antarctica. So the two-hour premiere [‘New Order’] deals with SG-1 trying to get O’Neill unfrozen and get the Ancient knowledge out of his head.

“There’s also another storyline in which we realize that in the vacuum that’s been left by us having killed Anubis with this super powerful Ancient weapon, Ba’al has moved in and claimed that territory and taken over a lot of stuff. He’s gone to war with the other System Lords and it looks like he’s winning. The rest of the System Lords are going, ‘Hey, wait a minute! The Earth people killed Anubis. We were trying to do that for a long time. Now Ba’al’s become a threat to us.’ The System Lords actually come to Earth to ask for our help in getting rid of Ba’al, to use our weapon. And of course we can’t use it anymore. The one guy who was able to use it is now in suspended animation. Plus, we don’t know how much power it has.

“So the story is about that, and the fact that our quest to save O’Neill takes us to the Asgard and Thor and what he’s been up to. And what he’s been up to is trying to make sure that the Replicator humans, who we trapped in the time dilation field in an episode called ‘Unnatural Selection’ that Brad wrote, never get out of that.

“The other big thing is that at the end of the episode O’Neill is promoted to general and given full command of the base. And Dr. Weir is sent off to supervise the Antarctic project. [General Hammond] gets promoted. He’s in charge of everything that is off-world related. He’s got the Prometheus, and the fleet of ships that have to be dealt with. He has the Alpha Site, the SGC, and the Antarctic site. So there’s a lot to deal with. He’s basically given a promotion and placed out of the Pentagon. His new post is basically dubbed ‘Chief of Homeworld Security.’

“You know, we spent more money on ‘Lost City’ than we’ve ever spent, ever. One of the scenes I noticed on the fansites that everybody was talking about was the scene where they’re all just sitting around in O’Neill’s living room talking. Well, they’re going to get a lot more of that. And there’s another scene that I purposely echoed in the two-hour premiere where the four of them are all sitting around in Daniel’s lab talking about whether O’Neill should take the general’s job or not. And so that’s what we’re going to be able to do a lot more of this year. We are fortunate to say, we will be doing a lot more of the team sitting around talking!

“A lot more of the stories of season eight center around the SGC. There’s a lot less of SG-1 going out to alien worlds. They’ve become much more the sort of expert consultants of the SGC. They get called into situations that require their expertise.

“And one of the nice things for us is we don’t have to come up with wacky reasons as to why [O’Neill’s] not on the mission. I mean, he’s a general. He’s got business to attend to. In fact, I wrote an episode that’s going to air early in the season called ‘Zero Hour,’ that is about a week in the life of General O’Neill. The idea was that we always see the adventures that SG-1 gets into, and the catastrophes that result, but there are fifteen, twenty other SG teams who are always also out there doing stuff. And it’s not like they’re always just on these really boring missions. Stuff is always happening to them, too. We just never saw it. Now that O’Neill is sort of the center of the base, we watch him as he tries to deal with being General, and all the different things that are happening.

“We’ve often talked in the show about why the SGC and the Stargate is being kept a secret. Certainly the repercussions of the Anubis attack in ‘Lost City’ have led to an even bigger cover-up on Earth. One of the things we wanted to do was present the worst case scenario for why it’s being kept a secret. What could possibly happen that would be so bad? Why do they want to keep it a secret? Well, here [in ‘Icon’], we’ll show you.

“And then later, after that, we do a story [‘Covenant’] where a very rich and powerful businessman, sort of a Richard Branson kind of character, has basically gathered enough evidence that he thinks will expose the Stargate Program. And after having pressured the government to do that without success, he decides to do it himself. And what are the repercussions of that?

“I don’t know if you read about a company in Australia that just signed a multi-million dollar deal with MGM to do a PlayStation2 platform game. We’re doing a story [‘Avatar’] where we’re using the chairs from ‘Game Keeper,’ and we’re working with those scientists. We’ve created what we think is a virtual reality simulator, a combat scenario, for training SG soldiers. Teal’c is testing it out and he gets trapped inside of it. A programming error gets him caught in this simulation. And we’re actually using footage from the video games as representation of what he’s going through. It’s inter-cut throughout the show.” [Note: Cooper is referring to the now defunct Stargate SG-1: The Alliance game that never got released due to rights issues.]

“We’re going to do a story this year [‘Threads’] where we’re going to kind of resolve the whole Daniel-Oma storyline, and what it was like for him to be ascended, and what the issues were. And hopefully when you see that episode it will feel like that story was always going to happen from the moment we first saw Oma.”

From interview with Sci Fi Wire excerpted at Solutions (Jun. 2004):

“We also are not going to completely end the show. We never wanted to end the show. Our intention was to leave it open so that SG-1 was still out there on adventures and also leave the door open for features or TV movies or direct-to-video movies or whatever, that sort of thing, so that the franchise will continue.”

---

Richard Dean Anderson

---

From “The Road Back” from SG-1 Explorer Unit Team Briefing archived at RDAnderson.com (Sept. 11, 2003):

“I talked with Robert [Cooper]. One of the hesitations I had was just artistically, creatively, are there enough stories to tell to warrant venturing into an eighth season? Robert assured me that there were, and he kind of briefed out a couple of arcs that worked for me. But the real answer is that there was no reason not to do it. I’ll be in the process of building my house, Wylie will be in school, everything was accommodated beautifully for time. And I think Robert and Brad both felt that it would be very beneficial and helpful if we could use the eighth season as the transition into the spin-off, the Atlantis franchise.

“And you know, I’m really kind of coming to grips with the pending reality. I mean, you see how comfortable this environment is for me to be in. Without sounding like too much of a sap or a cliché myself, it’s just a little bit of a family, and so anticipating it all going away and not being a part of my life is a little hard. It’s hard to let go.

“I couldn’t make a case for not doing it. A lot of people will continue to work, and we have an opportunity to make a nice smooth creative transition in story and in franchise. And as TV Guide said, it’s the most successful show Sci Fi has ever had. Whatever that means! It’s all flattering, except that wasn’t going to sway me one way or the other. I had already made my decisions before any of that came out. But I think it will work fine.”

From interview with Sci Fi Wire excerpted at Solutions (Jun. 2004):

“We worked out a schedule that has me working essentially three weeks out of the month and then having a week off. And even, like, three or four days per week that I’m working, and then that one week off. So I have weekends with my daughter, and then I’ll have some time in midweek. … So it became very workable and acceptable.

“The cliché that I reference in talking about the character now in his current position is that of a fish out of water. O’Neill, on paper, really doesn’t belong in [that] position. … But he’s, you know, embraced it as much as he can. … [But] in so many ways [he] would rather be on the front lines. He’d rather be a man of action than a man of great thought or great organization. … But … we’ve made the adjustment, I think, and accommodated the character quirks that I’ve developed over the years, and to a great degree I think that it’s been successful. People are pretty happy. The writers were having a ball in the beginning, because they all know me well enough to know that I’d be putting a certain twist to it. But I still wanted to be respectful to the Air Force.”

From “Richard Dean Anderson: Leaving?” in The Chicago Tribune reprinted at RDAnderson.com (Jul. 9, 2004):

“At this point, right now, with all that’s going on in my life outside all this, it’s very unlikely I’d be able to come back. I know what’s the most important thing right now. I’m very well aware of the fact that that may interfere with a very successful franchise.

“Whether the show would go on without me… I think it could. I don’t know whether it will or not. Honestly I can’t answer that question, and it’s silly for me to start conjecturing, not until I’ve had conversations with MGM or Sci Fi.

“I do feel as though this is my last season. I know what I have to do right now, given my real-life situation. There is a twinge of… not remorse, but I get a little sad about it. It’s been a very unique experience. On MacGyver I was flying solo for the most part, but this is a more character driven [ensemble] show.

“It’s something I’ve been reflecting on lately more than before. I know how lucky we are to have this kind of camaraderie and rapport. It doesn’t always work out that way. There have been shows that go under because of differences of opinion. The main kids here like each other and we make each other laugh.

“I’ve been asked not to harp on it too much but I have a hard time not being honest. The fact is that I have a 5½-year-old daughter who lives in L.A. and I need to be there. I need to be part of her life. She just finished kindergarten. With my abbreviated schedule, I can go to the school and read to the class and do fundraising. I’ll go into my daughter’s school and be the maitre’d at lunch, it’s just an absolute joy. I just love it.

“Blessedly in retrospect, I was 48 when [my daughter] was born, so I had plenty of time to jam in plenty of experiences [before that]. I’ve been to so many places, and now I can take this little hand and guide it. I really do feel I’m extraordinarily lucky and fortunate. I’ve had a fair amount of success in my career and I am in a position to take time off and participate in my daughter’s life.”

---

Michael Shanks

---

From “Jackson Live!” in Dreamwatch #122 (Oct. 2004):

“At the start of the show, Daniel was very much a reflection of who I was at the time, which was sort of naive, idealistic, innocent, wide eyed and all those other things. That’s where the character began. It was a good match of the character and actor. I think over time, the idealism has remained consistent, but the character has become a little bit more harder edged. I wouldn’t say he’s cynical, but he’s no longer always expecting the best from other people. He’s hoping for the best, but being prepared for the worst.

“I think Daniel’s become a little more action orientated, which has been a wonderful dimension to play. He’s also become a lot more independent. I’m a big fan of the team dynamic, but I think he’s now more capable of handling himself in certain situations that in the past he would have been dependent on others to help see him through.”

From “Wit and Wisdom” in TV Zone Special #58 (Jul. 2004):

“It was recently pointed out to me that Daniel seems to be coming out of his shell more. Last year I made a concerted effort to make my character more proactive, and the same holds true this season. Daniel has always been a bit of a brooder but lately he’s been finding more excuses to have fun. I just think he’s happy to be back among the group and accomplishing things he wasn’t able to before. His change in attitude could also be a reflection of me enjoying myself much more with the show.”

From “Michael Shanks: Team Spirit” in Stargate SG-1 Official Magazine #1 (Nov./Dec. 2004):

“This year we have a different dynamic, with O’Neill being a General and Carter being the commander of SG-1. I think all three individuals left on the team have proven themselves. Their roles are very defined. What you have is three people who respect each other. Orders aren’t necessarily given, because the chain of command is kind of vague. The ranking military officer is going out with a scientist and an alien. It’s very important that everyone on the team has to take control of their job. Everybody implicitly understands what the other’s role is and what the arguments will be. So it’s just about redefining the team.”

From “Sound Advice” in TV Zone Special #58 (Jul. 2004):

“As a diplomat, Dr Weir took on a big challenge when she accepted command of the SGC last season in ‘Lost City.’ She was learning as she went along, and that’s still the case this year in ‘New Order’. Oddly enough, Daniel can identify with that. He was no different when he began his travels through the Stargate.

“In Dr Weir, my character sees a version of his younger self, someone who is very idealistic as well as innocent about what’s ‘out there’. Daniel has to give Weir almost cynical wisdom in order to help her deal with the Goa’uld. He’s like, ‘These aliens are bad, very bad. They will kill you if they really want to. You can’t just walk into the room and expect to start a conversation with them as you might have done in the past with other ambassadors.’

“I think it’s a neat way to have Daniel come full circle, if you will. Here’s a woman who possesses some of the naive characteristics that he once had. However, before Weir can make the same mistakes as he did, Daniel is able to tell her, ‘Sorry, but the universe doesn’t quite work that way.'”

From “Wit and Wisdom” in TV Zone Special #58 (Jul. 2004):

“We wanted to address the continuing issue of what happens every time SG-1 walks through the Stargate, arrives on another planet and turns everyone’s lives there upside down. We don’t mean to, but sometimes the team’s mere presence can trigger events. That’s what we see in ‘Icon’. Our simply activating this planet’s Stargate creates a controversy there and Daniel feels guilty about that. He decides to go back to that world and try to calm things down. As a result, Daniel gets caught in the middle of a Cold War and stranded. While trying to work through his feelings of guilt, he comes to realise that people are going to do what they want. You can’t always help those who don’t want to be helped. That’s a pretty significant discovery for my character. I mean, he constantly finds himself in the middle of these messes that TV always manages to find the right answers to. It was refreshing to see us taking a different approach.”

From “Michael Shanks: Team Spirit” in Stargate SG-1 Official Magazine #1 (Nov./Dec. 2004):

“[Claudia Black] was a great pro, and we had this wonderful rapport that was established within the first 30 seconds of talking to each other. Within the first two hours [working together in ‘Prometheus Unbound’], Claudia and I had this wonderful push-pull dynamic between us, which had a lot of different layers to it. It was written in a very antagonistic, amusing way, with a lot of sexual tension and a really interesting fight scene in the middle. It was just so much fun. I had such a blast! She’s definitely the best guest star we’ve had on the show in a couple of years, and even while she was still shooting it, we were finding a way to involve her character and have her back on the show. If there’s any more future to SG-1, I’ll definitely be broaching that notion.”

From “Job Satisfaction” in TV Zone Special #61 (Feb. 2005):

“I had a ball filming Daniel’s confrontation with Kinsey [in ‘Full Alert’]. Ronny [Cox] is usually paired off with Rick, so this was the first time he and I worked together since Season One. When we finished our last take, Ronny looked at me and jokingly said, ‘I guess I’ll see you in Season 13 when we’ll get to do our next scene.'”

From “Michael Shanks: Team Spirit” in Stargate SG-1 Official Magazine #1 (Nov./Dec. 2004):

“There’s an episode that Robert Cooper is polishing up called ‘Threads’, which will have to do with some sort of visitation of the Oma Desala ascended storyline. We talked about needing some sort of closure. Some sort of explanation about what that universe was like and what conversations happened between Daniel Jackson and Oma Desala, and why he ended up being descended. When he came back, he had no memory of it, so therefore not only did we not show it, the character doesn’t remember it. We have no exposition of it in season seven, so it remains a mystery that exists only in the imagination of the fans. Rob felt we have to explain that somehow, so that will be interesting.”

From “Shanks For The Memories” in Dreamwatch #126 (Feb. 2005):

“It feels like it’s been a year already since we shot the second part of season eight. In the latter part of the year, and I would say for the last five episodes of the season, we darn near tie up every single major loose end that we’ve had dangling around on the show. Obviously, that was done on purpose and for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons is that a lot of those threads were dangling for a very long time, and it was about time some of them got reconciled. The Jaffa, will they be freed? What happened with Daniel when he was ascended? What’s happening with Anubis? Will the Goa’uld come and destroy Earth? What happens with the Tok’ra? All of these things will be dealt with in the last five episodes of this season, and we’ll also find a way to address those people we sent off to Atlantis. We really haven’t talked about them since. So we’ll deal with that issue and whether or not we’ll launch a mission to go and save them. There’s a lot going on with the show’s mythology in general.

“In retrospect, I don’t know quite how they did it, but they found a way to take all those dangling threads and then bind them all together in a group of story arcs that seem to be interweaving, which is quite an accomplishment on the writers’ part. They’ve managed to do it and it will certainly be, ‘Don’t miss last five episodes’, in terms of the long term viewers of our show, because a lot of the questions people have had will be answered. For the first half of the season it seems we puttered along and told a tale or two. Then in this last half we just get to the true meat of the entire series and start hashing it around. So these episodes are quite significant within the arc of the show.

“Each season has its own tricks, and it seems that every year there’s some new element that’s new that makes it unique in a production capacity. Season eight has been interesting. I do know that financially we’ve been restricted this past year, so we haven’t had so much off-world stuff as we’ve had in the past, and that’s limited us. I find the show to be a lot stronger when we’re exploring, but I certainly like our ability to be introspective this year and to find out a little bit more about the characters. It’s almost like fan fiction. There are always some unique elements to Stargate. So this season has been a lot of fun to do, regardless of restraints.”

From “Jackson Live!” in Dreamwatch #122 (Oct. 2004):

“I think we’ll be back in some way after season eight. I know that something will happen down the line. We’re far from done. It comes down to the money people. If the US SCI FI channel are content with just having Atlantis, maybe we’ll just to two-hour movies. For me, I still love the cast and crew and the character. I think it’s a stranger concept for me to actually think about life without this show than to think about doing one more year. When I’m asked if I’d like to do one more year now, I go, ‘Of course I would. What the hell else am I going to do?’ I didn’t go to university for this long, so I’d be willing to sign on and embrace another year of the show.”

---

Amanda Tapping

---

From “Who’s the Boss?” in Sci Fi Magazine (Aug. 2004):

“I’m glad we’re doing another year. I thought that at the end of seven, I’d be happy that we’d had a great seven-year run and we’d be calling it a day. But when we’d actually negotiated our contracts, I went to bed the night that it was finally finalized, and I woke up in the middle of the night and felt relief, and the first day back was like the first day of school, meeting all your old friends again and getting the lowdown. It was great, because most of the Stargate family is back, so it’s all good. It is going to be a different year, and I hope the fans like the direction the show will be taking. It’s a natural progression, and I think it will be well received.”

From “Tapping the Potential” in TV Zone #58 (Jul. 2004):

“One of the things I hope viewers will see in Sam this year is a sense of strength and of coming into her own a lot more. I think her relationship with Pete Shanahan has helped that in some ways. She has great confidence in herself and is a little less consumed by her job. Yes, Sam is still very much work-driven but she’s opened herself up more to the outside world. Earlier today we were talking on-set [about] what’s going to happen with O’Neill and Sam and what Rick and I would like to see happen. I’m looking for some resolution one way or another with that relationship. There are some surprising twists and turns coming this season, which some fans aren’t going to be too happy about.

“Team camaraderie is great and ever-present even though O’Neill is now in command of the SGC. The scenes with the four of us are just as much fun and the banter that the writers have given our characters has been wonderful. So far all the scripts continue to be tightly written. If I had to use one word to describe this season, it would be ‘huge’. Like last year, we’re filming two or three stories at the same time, which can be tough but it’s something we’ve gotten used to. On top of that, Atlantis is shooting right next door. That really doesn’t affect our work except that we’re very much aware of this series that is eventually going to take over from us. It’s a weird feeling but not in a bad way, you know?”

From “New Orders” in Dreamwatch (Jan. 2005):

“I think it’s been a great season so far. I honestly did have some concerns at the beginning about how it was going to work with Rick’s limited schedule and how we were going to work around that. But it’s actually a great season. It’s all worked out really well.

“I thought that [Carter’s] getting the promotion [to Lieutenant Colonel] in the opening ‘New Order’ two-parter was pretty huge. I don’t think it’s changed her relationships with the other guys at all. I think what it’s done is given her a new level of responsibility. She’s already got such trust in Daniel and Teal’c that the real responsibility comes in the mission planning and in coordinating other teams, but not at all in how she has to deal with Teal’c and Daniel. They’re such a cohesive team. They know each other so well and they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses so well that she’s not about to turn around and give either one of them an order that’s inappropriate. I think there’s a symbiotic relationship between the three of them, and they can sort of feed off each other’s energy and experience. What it does most is change how she interacts with other teams. She’s in a leadership role now. So when SG-2 or SG-12 comes with us, she’s got to take charge of those guys. What I’d love to have seen and what I’d like to see when we come back for a ninth season is how she plans missions and how she delegates that kind of responsibility.

“‘Affinity’ was a pretty important episode. Pete proposed to Sam and that was interesting because you had Peter DeLuise directing [his brother] David. But when I read it I actually went, ‘Nooooo!’ The great thing about Rob [Cooper] is sometimes I just need to call him and bounce stuff off him and he’ll talk me down, off the ledge. He made a very compelling argument as to why she would say yes.

“The only issue I had with ‘Affinity’ was that I didn’t think she’d kiss him in the work environment. I fought that tooth and nail, but then, of course, ultimately, I’m an actor on a show and it’s my job to do what’s written in the script. I didn’t think she’d say yes to his proposal and then kiss him in that environment. I thought it was so unprofessional of her. After everything this woman has been through and everything she has done it was so inappropriate and so not something that she would feel comfortable doing. Her work is her work, and that’s what’s always driven this woman. For her to suddenly say yes to a proposal of marriage from her boyfriend at the end of this stakeout situation, with Special Forces guys and the victims still there, I just didn’t think that she would say yes and I didn’t think that she’d neck with him. In the end I sort of went, ‘OK, well, I guess I’ve just got to do what I’m told.’ That’s not to say I was miserable or anything like that. I got to kiss David DeLuise, so I can’t complain too much.

“After that, I loved doing ‘Covenant’ because Charles Shaughnessy was so great. I had so much fun with him. That was really a different show for us. It was conspiracy theory-driven. We’ve dealt with cover-ups and these kinds of issues before, but that was the first time it really came to a head, to a point where a civilian said, ‘I have enough information to sink you guys.’ I thought Charles did a wonderful job of it, plus he’s just a really fun guy to hang with.

“‘Gemini’ stands out because I got to play two versions of Carter. I played the Replicator version of Carter and the real Carter. We have a lot of scenes together. It was probably the hardest episode of Stargate I’ve ever done, both from a technical standpoint and from an acting standpoint. These are two very different characters and I was doing scenes with them together. So we were doing one side of the scene, then the other side of the scene. Just the memorizing alone was huge, a huge amount of homework. Then I had to do it on the set. I had to make sure I got all the nuances of the characters so that you could see the subtle and not so subtle differences between them. It was a challenge to keep them both real.

“She is one tough cookie [the Replicator duplicate Carter]. She’s a wily, wily girl. She duped us all. What I’ve liked about playing her is she’s a sexier version of Carter. She’s tougher. She had this little outfit on. She was a tough nut, a lot of fun to play. This year, really, I’ve played three different versions of Carter: Sam, the Sam we all know and love; Replicator Sam, this cold, harsh character; and later this season you’ll see me playing an alternate reality Carter who never went into the military and she’s a bit of a science geek and kind of dorky. It was quite fun, a very comedic character.

“‘Reckoning I and II’ are big shows. We’ve done a lot of very big shows this season.

“Then there’s ‘Threads’, an interesting episode because, as the title suggests, it ties up a lot of the loose threads. I can’t give anything away, but we do get deeper into the Carter-O’Neill situation. It’s a big decision for Carter. She has to figure out what she really wants in life, whether she’s moving too quickly with certain things or whether she’s wasted time. It’s a big decision time for Carter. Her dad is back in the episode and a lot of things happen there. It’s a very emotional episode for her.

“Our last two episodes, ‘Moebius I and II’, are going to be quite funny. You see a bunch of different versions of us. There are alternate reality versions of Daniel and Carter. I had so much fun playing that.”

From “The Genius Club” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine, issue #17 (Jul./Aug. 2007):

“It’s interesting because I think from season one through four or five, [Carter] was warming up a lot but she was very professional and out to prove herself as a soldier, a scientist, and an everywoman.

“Then she started to lighten up a little and the writers gave her a bit more of a sense of humor, and they gave her some emotional depth—they gave her a father, which is the defining relationship in Carter’s life, her relationship with her dad, because she lost her mom when she was so young. That relationship was so important and they gave her that which breathed a whole new life into her. As a character it gave her a bigger heart, some relationships with men. Probably the most important one was Pete. This is going to sound hokey but she became a woman who has a fully realized, fully functioning adult relationship with a man whom she adored. It was sexual, it was fun, it was vital and interesting. It gave her a lot of freedom, because it was completely outside of the SGC. It was a relationship that was doomed not to last, but, it was an important relationship for her.”

From “New Orders” in Dreamwatch (Jan. 2005):

“I think that we’ve all learned that our instincts are crap. We’ve all said in the past, ‘That’s it, we’re done,’ and we keep coming back. This year we said the same thing: ‘That’s it. We’re done.’ We might really have been done this time. I think we were all in denial. I remember talking to Michael Shanks on our last day together on set. I was a bit teary-eyed and he said, ‘Oh, don’t get me started. Don’t get me started.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m just in denial. I’m not even going to say goodbye to the crew because I’m in denial about this actually being the end.’ It’s a weird thing. We had no idea if we were coming back.

“I hope that Stargate continues in some form. Whether we come back in the form of two-hour movies of the week or a mini-series or a feature film or another 20 episodes or who knows what, I think it would be great to stick around beyond season nine. I would hate for it to be the very end!”

---

Christopher Judge

---

From interview with Sci Fi Wire excerpted at Solutions (Jun. 2004):

“It took a lot of years of begging and groveling for me to finally get it, but yeah, … [Teal’c’s having hair] will be the most obvious change, definitely. I got really tired of it. Just shaving my head every morning. And by three quarters of the way through the season it was really painful to actually shave. So, you know, this is very welcome. Very welcome. Hopefully the fans will like it.

“It first was at least considered when there was going to be all the changes this year. I’d done a bunch of conventions and had cornrows [during hiatus], so I talked to [executive producer] Rob Cooper before I left, and he said, ‘OK, maybe so.’ So I kind of unveiled the cornrows at the conventions. So we got here [when filming resumed], and it was the Friday before the Monday we started shooting, and pictures were sent down to MGM. And they didn’t like it. So I had to shave the cornrows. But this is what’s left.

“Believe me, I’m grateful for it. I think it was time for it. You know, I mean eight years for this character to be on Earth? I just think that was the next move toward his … final assimilation. So yeah, I think the timing is right.”

From “Good Judge of Character” in TV Zone Special #61 (Jan. 2005):

“Along with Teal’c having hair this year, I’ve enjoyed the different challenges of playing him, especially when it comes to his being more vocal. That, however, has taken me a bit of getting used to. Usually, I’ll get one or two stories a season where I have a fair amount of dialogue. This time around, though, there have been quite a few stories where Teal’c has to speak volumes, and not to just his fellow Jaffa, but to his teammates, as well as the people that SG-1 has come in contact with on other worlds.

“It hasn’t been easy getting back into the swing of learning a lot of lines. I have a very good short-term memory, but this year we’d very often shoot part of a scene on one day and then finish it up a few days later, so I’d be lost. I’d forget what my take was on a scene, or what sort of mindset Teal’c was supposed to be in. So initially I really depended on the script supervisors and the directors. Thank God for them.”

From “Judge For Yourself” in TV Zone Special #58 (Jul. 2004):

“I’m really trying to take Teal’c one step closer to being more aware of Earth customs. I’d like for his behavior to be more Earth-like but at the same time I don’t want him to lose his alien perspective. The writers have been coming up with some terrific material that addresses this particular aspect of Teal’c’s growth. Again, I can’t wait to see what the viewers think. I’ve watched half the episodes we’ve shot so far this season and this is the most my character has been given to do since we first started work on the series.

“Teal’c is evolving into something of a superhero, which if this is the last year of the show might just look good on my résumé. No, seriously, some of the stuff Teal’c gets to do is so cool. For instance, we finished shooting a story two weeks ago called ‘Avatar.’ I watched [director] Martin Wood’s cut of it and it’s going to blow people’s minds. The episode is, in fact, the introduction for a Stargate video game that’s being made, and from what I understand the game will play a lot like ‘Avatar.’

“We filmed a great deal of the story from a first-person perspective, which was a ball to do. Martin is a pleasure to work with and he was so patient with me. Let’s just say I was a bit moody while filming the episode. The reason being I was in the middle of carb depleting. So a lot of times I had to rely on Martin and also Candice Field [script supervisor] to keep track of where I was with my lines because I was physically and mentally exhausted. So it was quite a challenging and an ambitious undertaking and everyone from the writers to the crew gave it their all. The end product is really something to be proud of.”

From “Good Judge of Character” in TV Zone Special #61 (Jan. 2005):

“‘Affinity’ was a lot of fun to do. I was really interested to see what Teal’c’s apartment would end up looking like, and was so impressed by the work that [set decorators] Mark and Robert Davidson did. The place was very much in keeping with who Teal’c is, and I was blown away by that.

“I also get a big kick out of how this episode was filmed as it made my character look like an action hero. The most memorable part of the shoot, though, was working with guest star Erica Durance. It’s funny, after we’d done one or two scenes, Michael Greenburg said, ‘This girl’s got it. She’s going to be a star.’ Of course, as we know, Erica is now playing Lois Lane on Smallville. She just fit in with everyone on this show and we’ve since become good friends. In fact, Erica is engaged to another friend of mine, David Palffy, who played Anubis on Stargate.” [Note: Durance and Palffy are now married.]

“I’m so fortunate to be working here on-set at Bridge Studios as it gives me an opportunity to sit in on Stargate story meetings. That’s where you see all the divergent personalities and how they have to fit in one room and come together in order to make a story a reality. It’s such an education for a guy like me who wants to be a writer. I hope to do more writing next season, perhaps even something for Stargate Atlantis. If anything, I see myself moving more into writing and producing as opposed to directing, and this is a terrific place in which to hone those skills.”

From “Way of the Warrior” in Official Stargate SG-1 Magazine (Mar./Apr. 2005):

“Previously, I had been a lot more free with my writing, but this year there were some definite budgetary constraints to deal with [in ‘Sacrifices’]. I found it wasn’t so easy to write this one. It definitely adds another element to the writing process that I previously hadn’t needed to be concerned with. But this is just the next step—if you actually envision writing projects like a ‘real’ writer, as it were, you have to write with that in mind.

“I watched [‘Prometheus Unbound’] with Michael [Shanks] and I was sitting there with my mouth open. It’s so small in one sense, in the performance between the characters—but then, oh my God, there’s this space battle. It’s like Star Wars! [laughs] I had written ‘Sacrifices’ where I wanted two gliders in a shot, and we couldn’t do it. They just couldn’t, it was cost-related. And then I saw ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ and I went into Robert Cooper’s office and said, ‘Damn! And I couldn’t get get even one glider?'”

From “Good Judge of Character” in TV Zone Special #61 (Jan. 2005):

“Jolene [Blalock] is like one of the family now. I was quite pleased with how the scenes between our two characters turned out [in ‘Sacrifices’]. One that sticks out in my mind is where Teal’c and Ishta are in her quarters and things get a little bit heated. She’s arguing with him about the pact they’d made [in the seventh season’s ‘Birthright,’ penned by Judge] about the Hak’tyl not sitting around like the male Jaffa tribes and wasting time planning as opposed to taking action against the Goa’uld. That sence was tough to do because Jolene and I don’t have those kind of antagonistic feelings towards each other. So we really had to do some acting there.

“Jolene came to this episode well-prepared and with different ways to approach the material that made the work even more exciting. She and I tried hard to find the various beats in our scenes together, and I hope it shows in the episode.

“I think there’s a greater interaction now among Amanda’s, Michael’s and my character, simply because of the fact that O’Neill rarely goes off-world with them. This has also led to each of them being allowed to carry the ball more on various occasions. Acting-wise, that’s been really rewarding, especially with the resulting upswing in the ratings this year.

“I have to say, though, that I always enjoy when Rick does come off-world with us. He just brings a different dimension to the work. When Rick is there he’s very much the hub and it gives you something to bounce things off of. He never lets the ball drop. It always comes back to you.

“Talking of balls, I had an absolute blast filming the ping-pong scene with Teal’c and O’Neill in ‘Sacrifices.’ It needed to be cut down but in the original take, O’Neill probably gets hit right between the legs with the ping-pong ball eight times. It was absolutely hilarious, and Rick played it to the hilt. The man is brilliant. He was at his comic best in that scene.”

From “Christopher Judge: Team Spirit” in Official Stargate SG-1 Magazine (Nov./Dec. 2004):

“[I’ll return for another season] as long as we keep the shows to the level of excellence that we’re used to. That would be a huge factor. We work with such great people, and we truly have a common goal in that we want to keep the show entertaining. We want not to skimp on production values that we, and the fans, have become accustomed to. So I think that would be one of the major issues.

“As far as creativity goes, we’re already there. It’s a joy to go to work every day, to see the finished product and be a part of something like this and be proud of what you do. I think that’s what anybody in the business would want. Let’s face it—it’s tough out there. We’ve had a fantastic run! It’s a situation that doesn’t come along often and being a realist, we will probably never have this type of situation again.”

From “Way of the Warrior” in Official Stargate SG-1 Magazine (Mar./Apr. 2005):

“Honestly, I think it’s been one of our easiest seasons. It was the hardest season for the producers, but as far as being an actor, it’s been great. A lot of times in the past, even if the storyline centered on one person, you’re in the background. You’re not really contributing to the scene, but your presence has to be there. This year, we got to carry the ball a lot more. Even if you didn’t have a lot to do in one episode, you were off doing another episode. That’s the great thing, doing more character stuff. We still had this great sci-fi element, and all the CGI. But now it’s more that we carry the CGI rather than the CGI carrying us. One of the strongest aspects of the show has always been the relationships—but now you can see the characters as individuals. It was great. No one knew how it was going to work, but to have the ratings we’ve had this season has really validated all of us. It makes you feel good, to know that you’re part of something so successful.

“I don’t want the party to be over. I’ve been in this business for quite a long time, and Stargate SG-1 is a great show. But the reason that I stay is not because of Stargate SG-1 or because of Stargate Atlantis, but because I will never work with a group of people like this again. I know that. It’s a very enviable position to be able to go into your bosses’ offices and talk about the poker game on Saturday night, or about playing golf together. We know each other’s families, each other’s kids, and this just doesn’t come along in Hollywood. I’ll be in this situation for as long as they let me be in this situation.

“I think the possibilities are endless, especially with all the changes that are going to have to happen with season nine. That gives you a whole new sea to swim in, with recognisable characters and also with new characters. I think we should do 10 [seasons]. Right now, we’re going down in science fiction history. But if we go 10 years, that puts us in television history. That’s something so few shows have done, and to be a science fiction show that does it gives such validity to the genre and the fans. I think it’s important for the genre that we go 10 years. Why quit? Especially when this has been our best season ever—and not just viewing figure-wise. I also mean that creatively.”

---

Solutions

---

• Stargate SG-1 Main Page in the Solutions Stargate Wiki
• Season Eight Highlights
• Season Eight (Episode Guides and Transcripts)
• Solutions On-Site Forum
• Joseph Mallozzi’s Production Diary begins in Season Seven and ends in Season Nine
• Other Thirteen Weeks for Thirteen Years (13-4-13) Articles

[Thanks to Alison for her help in putting together Christopher Judge’s section.]

Our Thirteen Weeks for Thirteen Years (13-4-13) series continues as we now visit Stargate SG-1 during Season Seven. Amazingly enough, the show didn’t make it to the cover of the weekly television magazine TV Guide until this season (in the July 26-August 1, 2003, issue)!

Just like with Season Six before, the producers thought that Season Seven would be their last, but the ratings were so impressive after the show’s premiere in the summer of 2003 that the Sci Fi Channel announced their renewal for Season Eight after only four episodes had aired. What was even more exciting was that the Sci Fi Channel also wanted 20 episodes of the spin-off Stargate Atlantis to run alongside the new season.

Executive producer Robert C. Cooper took over as showrunner for SG-1, while Brad Wright put the groundwork in place to launch Stargate Atlantis. Amanda Tapping made her directorial debut, helming returning cast member Michael Shanks’ first script, “Resurrection,” while Christopher Judge penned his second script for the show, “Birthright.”

Joseph Mallozzi began writing his Production Diary during this season and gave Solutions first-publishing rights. Starting with the pitching of story ideas, this journal gives a detailed look at the writing and production process from the inside.

In the episode “Homecoming,” Daniel Jackson returned to the SG-1 team and Jonas Quinn returned to his homeworld as a leader, taking with him his year of experience in continuing Jackson’s work while living on Earth. As a result, Quinn’s actor, Corin Nemec, was not part of the regular cast this season. Solutions got to do a Q&A with him in 2003, and when asked which of the actors he most enjoyed working with, he revealed, “Michael Shanks. I really enjoyed working with him. I always enjoy working with Chris. And Amanda is great. The two of us really work well together. We had some great moments. Rick is obviously good to work with. But I really enjoyed working with Michael and would love to work with him some more. I feel really comfortable with him.”

Season Seven is when Hugo-nominated “Heroes” appeared. This episode is often referred to by the actors—even to this day—as their favorite and among the best that SG-1 had to offer.

---

SG-1 Season Seven

---

Watch the episodes and the come back and vote in our poll!

---

Brad Wright

---

From “Perfect 10” in Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: The Official Magazine, issue #17 (Jul./Aug. 2007):

“For me, that was the year that Robert Cooper really came into his own as an executive producer and proved himself to be a showrunner. I stepped back and took a number of weeks off in the summer just because I have to do that every now and then. I have a family and I wanted to spend some time with them—this can be the type of job that consumes you a little too much. But having said that, I wrote some episodes and stayed very much a part of the show and helped Robert with all the problems that arise when you’re in charge, so I was probably on the phone every day. When I tell my wife I took most of that year off, she says, ‘No you didn’t!’

“The highlight for me of course is ‘Lost City.’ I wanted to do that story so badly as a feature, and I can’t even say that what you saw as ‘Lost City’ was the feature, because it isn’t. It evolved so much, because it had to. It was just a natural transformation. It was, I think, one of our strongest episodes, one of our strongest two hours.

“‘Heroes’ is really good. What makes that remarkable is something that the audience could never know, and that is that it was written as a means of saving money. It was supposed to be a second-unit episode that was written and directed in fits and starts over many weeks, if not months. It was not supposed to be this epic reportage of this character in a two-hour episode. It was supposed to be one hour. And when he [director Andy Mikita] put it together, he realized he had a lot of film. We looked at each other, and said at the same time, ‘So, two parter!’ In a way, the additional scenes made it more epic than it was ever going to be, and therefore quite strong. But those are some pretty good pieces of TV right there.”

---

Robert C. Cooper

---

From “Stargate SG-1 Finale Focus: Robert C. Cooper, Showrunner” at M2Tv (Jun. 21, 2007):

“I sort of started here at Stargate.

“I went to film school at York University in Toronto and studied directing/writing. I worked for Northstar Entertainment. Their claim to fame was Prom Night. I wrote a bunch [of] low budget features for them. It was an education. I got stuff produced. It was nothing to brag about. They were all schlocky horror, teen movies, but being involved in the process was a real eduction. I got a couple of television gigs in Toronto and ended up writing for about a half season of Psi Factor (with Dan Aykroyd). That introduced me to television.

“I started out as story editor on season one [of Stargate SG-1]. I sat in on the read through at the pilot as a babe in the woods and I owe Brad Wright a great debt of gratitude. I also shake the tree and grab what I want. Jonathan Glassner wasn’t interesting in staying in Vancouver for long and I knew there would be openings, so I measured the office. [a quip.] Season five I became executive producer and took over showrunning duties for season seven.”

From “Still Going Strong” at RDAnderson.com (ND/early 2004):

“I think everyone was a little surprised at how well we did out of the gate, just because I guess it’s unusual for a show to be stronger than ever in its seventh season. Before we even started shooting year seven, we’d been talking about season eight. I think that the success that we had early on in season seven on the network was just a reassurance that they were proceeding down the right path, the right course, that Stargate still had a life.

“The thing about season seven, I think, was that they are all kind of departures. Because we were dealing with the Rick issue [in scheduling], and because it was season seven, we took the opportunity to do some stuff that was totally different than anything we’ve ever done before. I think people probably watch it and say, That didn’t feel like a Stargate, but yet, it still was entertaining.’ I mean, it still was something that I think they enjoyed watching for that hour.

“One of the things we did last year more than ever, I think, was episodes that stand alone. We haven’t done serialization so much. ‘Revisions’ was, I think, more like a classic Stargate. The team goes to a planet, meets some people, gets into trouble, gets out of it, and comes home. We have definitely been doing much more of that. However, all of the episodes have some sequel element to them. ‘Space Race’ was about Warrick, who was in ‘Forsaken.’ ‘Avenger [2.0]’ was Pat McKenna’s character, Felger, from ‘The Other Guys.’ So they do have sequel elements to them.

“‘Grace’ was a wonderful sort of departure episode. Carter has to deal with the fact that, what if she dies out here in space, is this what she really wanted for her life? And I don’t mean career achievement, I mean personal life. She has to explore a lot of the elements of her personal life, and then the repercussions of that get played out in ‘Chimera,’ which is a wonderful parallel story of Carter dealing with a relationship on Earth, and Daniel dealing with his lost relationship with Sarah, who’s become Osiris. To me, it’s as interesting to tell that story, about how do you have a relationship when you can’t tell somebody what you do for a living? You can’t come home and say, ‘Gosh, I nearly died today, on another planet.’ So how do you have a relationship? And that’s why Carter has looked at O’Neill in a romantic way, because he understands what she’s going through. So in a way, he’s the perfect mate for her. And yet she can’t make that happen because of the Air Force and their respective divisions. So I don’t know how you DON’T tell those stories.

“Evaluating where her life was going came out of a conversation that Amanda and I had. I mean, she tends to be, in our scripts, the person who does all of the techno-babble exposition, and we sometimes lose track of the fact that she’s also a woman, who has a life, and we wanted to explore that too. So then ‘Chimera’ was about her meeting some guy, and this guy having to decide whether he really wants to be involved with someone like that. So, I think that’s all fun. We considered [Ben Browder] for casting [as Carter’s love interest]. I love Ben. I think he’d have been great. I would have loved to use him, and I think the crossover would have been a lot of fun. But he turned us down.

“‘Birthright’ explores Teal’c and his putting his lost wife behind him, and moving on, and how tretonin has changed him, and how he’s come to deal with those issues. Chris did a wonderful job. Chris is a talented writer. But that comes from being on sets as much as he has, from being an actor, from seeing the process, from reading the scripts and seeing what he gets on his plate every day that he has to perform, and having a good ear for dialogue, and then having the commitment as an actor to come and spend time in the room with us writers. I mean, it’s not like he just wrote a script and handed it in. He spent a long time with us, breaking the story, and listening to what we had to say about the process.

“And Peter DeLuise is sort of the same thing. I mean, Peter DeLuise is much much farther along in the process now, but he started as an actor, decided that maybe that wasn’t ultimately going to be a long term successful route for him, and became a very good director, and then also decided that he had it in him to want to write as well, and be a fully rounded contributor to the creative process. And you know what? He went through a real process of growing and learning how to be a writer, and he has achieved wonders now. I mean, his scripts are great now. He was heavily, heavily rewritten on his first scripts, and will tell you that it was a very frustrating process for him. But he’s learned. And it’s come from having had the opportunity to do it as much as he has, writing as much as he has, and that opportunity was given to him because he’s such a good director. I personally think his scripts last year, ‘Orpheus,’ ‘Evolution Part 2,’ ‘Enemy Mine,’ I think they’re some of the best episodes we’d done that year. He’s been rewritten to a certain extent for the sake of production drafts, things change in prep and stuff, but very much what you see was what he brought to the table. And he deserves a ton of credit for having come that far. And Chris, if he sticks with it, will one day get there.

“I think Andy Mikita did a wonderful job directing ‘Heroes,’ and I think the cast really raised the bar a little bit on their performances, and embraced what we were trying to do with it. I hope people watch the show and appreciate it for what it is. I think it’s one of the things that makes Stargate good. People say why is Stargate successful, why is it good? Well, you know what? The jeopardy that we put our characters in is real. People do die. And ‘Heroes’ is kind of a tribute to all of them as characters and what they do.

“As far as the movie goes, the script that Brad and I were paid to write as the, quote, feature film, in Brad’s original plan, was supposed to be the stepping stone, the intermediary creative step between SG-1 and the spin-off. When SciFi and MGM began to talk about doing a spin-off concurrently to SG-1, in order for them to order more episodes of SG-1, to keep that going, suddenly having a transition, a hand-off, the passing of the baton so to speak, wouldn’t work. You couldn’t end one and start the next one, which is what the movie was designed to do. So we had to rethink everything, and ultimately turned the story that was the feature script into the season seven SG-1 finale.

“We had been building towards it for a long time now. Where is the Lost City, who are the Ancients, the confrontation with Anubis, all those things were something we had been building to, and we couldn’t postpone that for another year. It just didn’t make any sense. So rather than resolve all those issues in the feature script, we took that feature script and we turned it into a two-part finale for season seven that would introduce concepts and characters that will ultimately head off in the spin-off series. [Ending with a cliffhanger] was certainly not how we would have ended the SG-1 series. Had we thought this was going to be the last year, we wouldn’t have ended it that way.”

From an audio interview with SCI-FI Overdrive on Interstellar Transmissions (Jun. 15, 2003):

“We think our crew is the best ever. We don’t really hold back when we’re talking about these guys. We have two Directors of Photography—Peter Woeste who also directs and Jim Menard—who are just fantastic. Our camera guys are great; Will Waring is our camera operator who also does some directing and our steady-cam guys—everyone—including Michael Greenburg who is another Executive Producer and is basically on set every minute of every day from—I’m sure he’ll tell you—from five o’clock in the morning until what ever time we finish shooting. And they all really give one hundred percent in terms of making this show as visual as we can.

“And Martin Wood and Peter DeLuise are both Producers on the show. They’re regular directors. They each do about seven episodes each a year. And having directors who are full-time on staff makes such a difference to us in terms of developing the look of the show and having them being a part of the preproduction process as opposed to just walking in and hanging their hat and coming on set and deciding what to shoot. They help us design the look of sets and from the point of view of ‘how am I going to shoot this.’

“I think our show has almost a feature level of quality to it and it’s very much because of the people behind the scenes and their efforts.”

---

Richard Dean Anderson

---

From “Executive Orders” in Cult Times Special #26 (Jun. 2003):

“On a personal level, I am delighted Shanks is back. I’ve missed him. There is no doubt there is a certain chemistry between us and we both enjoy the interplay between our characters and enjoy our scenes together and have fun with the roles. Feedback suggests that the people who watch the show also enjoy what we do so it’s all good.

“I think the greatest thing about the whole concept of Stargate is that we have this wonderful prop, this ring that we start with every week, and who knows where it’s going to go or what kind of story is going to unfold. Sometimes we do stuff that is out and out fun. Sometimes the story leads us to investigate some strong moral dilemma issues and sometimes we delve into stuff that is very poignant. ‘Heroes’ has elements of all of the above and is a very strong and different kind of story for Stargate SG-1.”

From an online chat hosted by Sci Fi (Jun. 18, 2003):

“It was odd [to work with Michael Welch as a young O’Neill in ‘Fragile Balance’]. When I arrived on set he’d already been working so I was able to see the dailies of his work and I could see his audition tape. We had to calm him down a bit. Some of his ‘O’Neillisms’ were too mature. It was fun working with ‘the young me.’ I thought I would be much taller. 🙂

“My job as executive producer is not the classic definition. My duties have become more limited as time goes on. In the early going, as we were finding our rhythms to the whole franchise, I’d be involved with my partner in editing, script editing and development and such, mostly fine tuning what comes out of the writers’ cage. In some regards I became a liaison connecting the writers with the actors, connect some of the problems the writers were having in relationship to the script and the storylines. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what retirement means to a work-a-holic like myself. I may afford myself some time off when all of this goes away. By then I’ll have to pay attention to what my priorities are. At this time it’s my daughter. At this time I will not fall into the trap of saying that I will not work again. But I’d like to enjoy some of the fruits of my labor.”

From “The Road Back” at RDAnderson.com (Sept. 11, 2003):

“The source of it [O’Neill’s infatuation with Mary Steenburgen] is my cell phone message. When I first got up here, I programmed in Mary Steenburgen. ‘Hi, this is Mary Steenburgen. Please leave a message…’ It was my phone, my voice, the whole thing. And I have no idea why, except that I really liked the sound of her name, and there was just an oddity involved in having people who, either I knew or didn’t know, friends or never to be friends, calling and getting a voice message for Mary Steenburgen. People who really knew me knew enough that I was just kidding around, and playing, and being mischievous. I had a lot of hang-ups early on, you know? [laughing] But it just kind of bled over, and I think I might have ad libbed it on set after all that. It just kind of came up, so I played with it. There was a speech [in the episode ‘Heroes’] where I’m walking down a corridor, and Saul Rubinek is about to pester me with questions as a reporter, and I said my favorite color is peridot, and I think Tibet should be free, and if I could spend any time with anybody it would be Mary Steenburgen. I mean, the color peridot?? Nobody says that! [laughing] I think what was written was my favorite color was salmon, or something like that, so I just played with it. Who’s ever heard of peridot? So anyway, it’s just one of those Rickyisms.”

From “Richard Dean Anderson” in SFX (Apr. 2004):

“I can’t pretend to know what the state of the universe is, but the franchise certainly could be a little more resolved. Robert and Brad and the boys really hadn’t drawn the series to a proper conclusion in the seventh year, and in a great part, that’s why it made sense for me to come back and be a part of an eighth year. I know it doesn’t all revolve around me, but I wanted to make sure that we did have the opportunity to bring some closure to the franchise. That helped me to make a decision, and MGM and the producers here were all able to accommodate my needs.”

---

Michael Shanks

---

From “Stargate SG-1’s Descending Order” from Zap2It.com (Jun. 6, 2003):

“There has to be a catharsis for the character that could justify why he wants to come back. You know, you’re sitting on a cloud, hanging with the gods. You get the wings, you get the space babes—everything’s smooth. Why would you want to go back to the mess that it was before?

“He’s been chewed up and spit back out, shows up buck naked in a field in Surrey. It’s very tastefully done. I’m not spread-eagled on a plate of grapes. So, he’s spat back to Earth, and as a result, he has no memory of anything. The team comes across him at some point, as they’re searching for the lost city to which he tipped them off [last season]. Over the course of the season, he gets his memory back of who Daniel Jackson was, but he still has no memory of the Ancients or where he came from—a sort of heaven.

“When he interfered, he was faced with the ultimatum of, ‘You have a choice with us. You can either stop screwing around and interfering, or you can go back to being human.’ And he chooses to go back to being human, because he believes his journey is not complete on Earth.”

From “Back to the Gate” in CFQ Magazine, August/September 2003 issue (Jul. 2003):

“Daniel was a peaceful explorer, an archaeologist, a linguist and a member of SG-1. He was the person who, when dealing with a military organization, was bent on resolving that organization’s agenda. Daniel thought he had to be that voice reminding them not to wave flags. He had to be the one to suggest that maybe there was a better way. No matter what circumstances he was in, he always thought peace was a better solution for everyone. His soul is pure, and sensitive, and he has a shyness and passion within him. But now, since his descent, the character has changed dramatically.

“In a lot of ways, he’s more enthusiastic, but he’s also more stubborn, more of a soldier. He’s more confident and he knows he has a clear duty to his people. He’s had to make tough decisions, and those decisions led to his return. In an episode called ‘Orpheus,’ he realizes he’s come back to do something proactive, to push forward their cause, not just be the passive observer all the time. He realizes that his journey is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

“The Jack and Daniel relationship is at more of a crucible. Daniel is getting his memories back, and the love/hate relationship creeps back on them. There’s a lot more gentleness and appreciation for one another. Less bantering will happen this year between the two. They’ll be trying to put things back in proper perspective. They are like good brothers, like a father and a son, and you know, also like an old married couple. I think that it’s getting much tighter, stronger, and closer in every way than before.”

From “Resurrection Dan” in SFX #107 (Aug. 2003):

“There was one scene from the first episode back [‘Fallen’], a strange scene that Robert Cooper had written, about Daniel recognising something again about Jack because he’s lost his memory. They’re in the locker room getting changed and he sees a picture on Jack’s locker of Charlie, and says, ‘Is that your son?’ It’s a strange conversation that takes place. Except that it was originally written with Daniel walking in after just having had a shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist, and he starts getting into this personal conversation with Jack! I was just like, ‘Oh my God, this is so… so… like a ‘drop-the-soap’ kind of conversation!’ [laughs] I don’t know if Robert had written it to get that point across, or whatever, but we just said, ‘Look here…[I just can’t do that]!’ Because the actual interaction in the conversation was very personal, and it was upstaged by this whole not-so-heterosexual context. So we asked if we could remove the distraction, so to speak, and make it about the content of the scene, so we did that. They’re pretty savvy and they’ve gotten better over the years with not asking you to do things that you’re not comfortable with.”

From Q&A at Fan Odyssey Convention (Jun. 2003):

“A great acting challenge was ‘Lifeboat’ by Brad Wright. He wrote it originally back in the fifth season and didn’t get the chance to use it. … In this episode I got to play many different characters that are downloaded into Daniel. All these characters are played different from each other. They all have their own agendas and their own personalities. The fact that they (the writers) trust you that way is respect enough and that’s a great honor that Brad could give me the credit that I could pull this off. It’s a great gift.” [Note: Michael Shanks won a Leo Award for his performance in this episode.]

From Sci Fi Overdrive radio broadcast transcript at Solutions (Jan. 12, 2004):

“I actually didn’t write it [‘Evolution’]. It’s listed in the TV Guide that I co-wrote it, which isn’t even true at all. What I did was that at the beginning of the year I pitched a story for a completely separate episode concept which I came up with which was sort of a continuing saga of the ‘Crystal Skull’ episode we did in the third season [with] Nick the grandfather who ends up going off with the aliens. I wanted to continue that story and sort of end up in another mythological quest, which is the quest for the Fountain of Youth. So they liked the idea and they thought that instead of having a stand alone unit, they thought it could be incorporated into an episode that was already being fleshed out. So that’s what ended up happening with ‘Evolution 1 and 2.’

From Gatecon 2003 Q&A transcript archived at Unlock the Universe (Sept. 2003):

“[For me to write a script is] kinda like putting a square peg in a round hole. I have a real story notion for broad strokes, and I suck at detail. So, like any good ex-University student, I waited till the last possible moment. There’s a reason why final exams and deadlines were created. That’s the sense of ‘This is it, pal, hand it in.’ So it was very frustrating for me. It’s not my forte. I’m really good at coming up with some idea and putting it down on paper. But when I have to turn it into rapport with dialogue, I kinda suck. Rob did a good job at polishing [the script for ‘Resurrection’], so I’m pretty happy about it.

[Amanda and I] spent so much time together on set, before I even went off and wrote it, so that we had so much time to talk a lot about it—about different ideas and sorta meet the two in the middle. It was pretty straightforward. She was very reverent to my ideas for it, and I was very hands-off once I wrote it and handed it to Rob Cooper, and he…did what Rob does. So at the end of the day, once I handed it off—I think that’s the best way. I watched Christopher Judge rewrite ‘Birthright’ and…pull what little hair he has on his head out, so I’m very emotionally attached to the fact that…here’s the baby writer, you take the script, you hand it in, they make the changes for whatever reason they want to, and then you should just emotionally back off and have no more say in it. And I watched Chris stand by and say ‘No! Don’t cut that!’ and stuff. So I think after awhile, I just handed the script in and let Amanda do her thing. There was great symmetry, so…

“[Between writing and directing,] I realize that the writing is the one I’m probably the least talented at. Directing, definitely in the future. Although I think the confines of science fiction TV, in terms of what kind of stories you can tell—I think I’m much more of a character piece kind of director, more than a technical director. So I think I have a lot more of that to learn before I can be confident directing highly technical stuff. And the acting thing, I think I’ll do a little while longer, until they kick me out of the club.”

From “Star Man” in Dreamwatch #111 (Nov. 2003):

“‘Heroes’ has probably some of the best work we’ve ever done. We have the culmination of some great guest stars mixed with some of our funnier moments and some of our most angst- and pathos-ridden moments. I think they all blend together into a wonderful combination, and the story allows us to see a side of the SGC we’ve never seen before. The episode puts you on a bit of a sentimental roller coaster and I think the audience will really get a kick out of it. We enjoyed making it and I think it’s turned out rather well.

“I also think the two-part season finale is something to look forward to. The script was originally the feature film that was intended to be made at some point, but the producers decided that because of the path the series was going in, we’d shoot it now as two hours of television. It was hugely ambitious and it was shot like a film. I think the audience will be very excited by the outcome. The episode also goes back to the old dynamic and it’s wonderful for all four of the characters to be in a scene together at the same time.”

From “Back to the Gate” in CFQ Magazine, August/September 2003 issue (Jul. 2003):

“It’s been a philosophical journey, but I think that the real reason the show’s a success is because it involves what every human quests for, the search for answers. Modern-day people have a chance to step through this amazing portal and go to some place completely unknown, where there are no guarantees, just like on the original Star Trek. As human beings, we all ask the same thing: What is out there, how did I get here, who am I? I think Stargate plays into that universal curiosity, and here we have a doorway that opens out into those answers. And also—even though it’s an alien perspective—it’s intriguing to think that there are other people out there who want to know about us. That kind of scale is somehow relevant to the form we’re taking in the show. I think that’s pretty rare.”

From “Star Man” in Dreamwatch #111 (Nov. 2003):

“It’s very important to grow as an actor and I think that’s what an eighth season would continue to provide for me. There’s always something new to learn and because we do have a very nice, family atmosphere on the set, you feel comfortable enough to latch on to new things easily. I’ve had a great time on season seven and I’m looking forward to season eight.”

---

Amanda Tapping

---

From “Amanda for All Seasons” in Dreamwatch (Feb. 2004):

“Corin did an admirable job coming in. It created a very different dynamic on the set and I think it was actually very good for all of us. But having Michael back seems to have brought us all full circle. It’s just comfortable; it’s the way we started out. We’ve got the team back together again. For all of us, it was great. I felt bad for Corin, but it was good for the dynamic and what was happening on the show, and bringing Michael back was also very natural. From a personal perspective, it’s been wonderful.

“When we started doing the show I was very interested in writing, but now I’m leaving it to the experts! I found that when I tried to write a Stargate episode, I was almost too close to the characters. I had a hard time doing it, I could come up with really great stories, but I couldn’t come up with the dialogue. So I think if I were to write anything, it would have to be something that wasn’t Stargate.

From “Major Player” in TV Zone (Feb. 2004):

“[‘Grace’] was a difficult one because my character is suffering from a head injury for 90% of the story and she’s hallucinating. As an actress, it’s my job to make that believable and yet not go over the top with it, so I chose to play my scenes very softly. There are some neat moments between Sam and her team-mates and also her dad Jacob [Carmen Argenziano]. Then, of course, there’s this little girl named Grace. Who is Grace? There are varying beliefs on that. Some people think she’s Sam’s inner child. Others feel she’s Sam’s child if she had chosen family over career. That’s the one I’m going with. The actual character of Grace is played by this gorgeous little girl, Sasha [Pieterse], who is so sweet.

“It’s interesting because in this story the guys aren’t their typical selves. Daniel is somewhat different, Teal’c is more laid back, and there’s the ‘big’ moment between Sam and O’Neill, who’s not quite himself either. I think this has to do with the fact that this is my character’s subconscious view of the guys. For example, this is the first time Teal’c calls her Samantha instead of Major Carter. I’m sure it’s something she’s always wanted him to do, so in her hallucination he does. Chris Judge and I had a blast with those scenes. We started out very low key and then ramped things way up to where he wasn’t speaking at all like Teal’c but a regular dude. We were laughing so much we were in tears.

“A great deal of ‘Grace’ was shot using the second unit, so it took over a month to finish because I was going back and forth between it, ‘Death Knell’ and ‘Chimera.’ Talk about a bit of a head-trip for yours truly. It was really funny because on ‘Death Knell’ we shot two days where Sam is running from a super soldier and she’s covered with blood and is just dirty and filthy. The very next day we did a scene from ‘Chimera’ where I’m completely dolled up and wearing lipstick, and smart little dress and high-heeled shoes. It was like, ‘Whoa, where am I today?’ I didn’t know whether or not I was coming or going.” [Note: Amanda Tapping won a Leo Award for her performance in ‘Grace.’]

From “Amanda for All Seasons” in Dreamwatch (Feb. 2004):

“The episode [‘Chimera’] is mostly about Daniel and Osiris, and then you have this storyline where Carter gets a boyfriend. It’s very funny because when we finished that episode I turned to Michael and said, ‘This is so not a Stargate episode!’ In ‘Chimera’ I’m in a very sexy dress with three-inch heels! I had a chance to show that other side of her—the sexy, flirtatious and fun Carter—but I don’t want her to be the ‘girly girl’ all the time.”

From “Who’s the Boss?” in Sci Fi Magazine (Aug. 2004):

“I’ve actually upset most of the female population by having my character have an affair with this very delectable young man, because I’ve betrayed my one true love, and lost complete integrity of the character as a human being. At least according to the letters I’ve been getting. There’s a very interesting, very big section of fandom called ‘Shippers, and they find the whole relationship with Pete quite distasteful. And yet I say to the ‘Shippers, Carter has had no relationship experience in the truest sense for over seven years. I mean, the last relationship she really had was with her ex-fiance, who turned out to be a megalomaniacal freak. You might recall the episode in season one [‘The First Commandment’] when she went back and he had taken over a planet, as one’s ex-boyfriend does. I don’t think that outcome did much for her confidence, and I think the relationship with Pete does.

“I think it’s rounding her out as a person, and I think that any experience she gets in the love department, in terms of how to foster and keep a relationship, and how to open herself up and open her heart up, will only serve her for the future when she does eventually get together with O’Neill.—No. I don’t really mean that.—I mean, for sure, Carter loves O’Neill. She adores him, and she’s allowed herself the knowledge that she cannot keep pining for this man that she can never have. Plus, as a professional and as a woman, it’s bordering pathetic if she hangs on. It doesn’t mean that she has any less feelings for O’Neill or that she’s not attracted to him. She still has deep feelings of love for him, as is evidenced even after she meets Pete. She still shows it to O’Neill, and that’s never going to go away, but I think what she’s learned to do is to be a pragmatist about it and say, ‘OK! I can’t have this guy, and he’s pretty fantastic, but this guy over here is not so bad either.’

“I think it’s really smart that she thinks like that. I know some fans aren’t pleased. I know that they call him Stalker Pete because he did a background check on Carter, and again I say, she didn’t know. She is not aware of what he did. She knows he followed her to the stakeout, but that’s his cop instinct. It’s just human nature to be inquisitive, and if you add to the fact that the person is a cop, and knows that the person you love is going to be in danger, his actions are completely excusable. I would do the same thing, so I don’t think any less of him for that… Plus, he’s cute and he’s charming and is a great kisser.”

From “‘Heroes’ Worship” in Dreamwatch (Feb. 2004):

“[‘Heroes’ is] a great showcase for every single member of the cast. It was directed by Andy Mikita, who did an amazing job, and it’s got every element of Stargate in it. It’s a huge drama, it’s got a bit of comedy and it’s also a great science fiction story. It’s told from the perspective of a documentarian who comes to do a documentary about the SGC. You get to see all the characters out of their element a little bit because they are being interviewed and they don’t know how to deal with that! I think that’s one of the highlights of the year.”

From “Amanda for All Seasons” in Dreamwatch (Feb. 2004):

“[Directing ‘Resurrection’] was highly stressful but really fun. It was difficult in that I was shooting beforehand. Normally a director gets days of prep before shooting an episode, but because I was acting in the previous episode I didn’t have as much prep time. But I absolutely loved doing it. Michael Greenburg, our on-set executive producer, was there every step of the way for me. If I wanted to talk through any of my ideas for a shot, I knew he was there. He was phenomenal. Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge were so supportive, as were the guest stars and the crew. Everyone was great. And being so comfortable with the crew and knowing how talented our camera department is, I was able to come up with some really crazy shots and I knew that they would be able to pull them off.

From “Get Carter” in Sci Fi Magazine (Feb. 2004):

“It was amazing: All our directors stepping up on this, everyone wanted to give me advice, which was wonderful. Because what I didn’t expect was the sheer volume of questions that I got, and the immediacy in which people wanted answers. The first day of directing was my birthday. The first time I said ‘Action!’ it was very exciting. It’s not just that I’m an actor who’s been on a series for seven years and wants to direct an episode. I want to be a director. As a woman in this industry, I know that I need to have other skills. Eventually, there comes a time when no matter how talented you are, no matter how valid you are, only a very small percentage of older women get work.” [Note: Amanda Tapping was nominated for a Leo Award for Best Direction for this episode.]

From “Amanda for All Seasons” in Dreamwatch (Feb. 2004):

“There was a part of me creatively that said, ‘OK, how much further can I take this character? How much further can we go?’ But we were all of the mind that we wanted to finish what we had started, and that leaving—especially with the way season seven ended—wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t have done the characters justice. It didn’t feel right to walk away from it. Michael, Christopher and I all did want to come back. If we hadn’t come back, I would be down in LA right now trying to find a job!

“It’s funny, I talked to Rob Cooper the other day and he said, ‘If you can think of something you would like to have happen with Carter next year, let us know.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s hard to think about!’ I don’t know really, as long as I’m still being challenged. I’d like them to bring back her boyfriend! I think we’ve opened up an entrance into her personal life and I’d like to see that explored more. Teal’c and Carter have had some great moments over the years and I hope that continues to grow. And I’d like to see the dynamic between the team keep growing. I love the character, and I think she’s come a long way. It’s so refereshing to play someone that strong, and she doesn’t make any apologies for it. She’s strong without being bitchy. It’s going to be hard to hang up those boots!”

---

Christopher Judge

---

From “A Teal’c of Two Planets” in Cult Times #96 (Sept. 2003):

“Season Seven—wow! What can I tell you? The prodigal son has returned and everyone is ecstatic about it. I can’t tell you who is most thrilled. It’s probably me, although I’m not totally sure whether it’s me or the writers because they’re enjoying getting stuck in to some really juicy stuff that Michael can actually get his teeth into. Having Michael back full time even further highlights how much he was missed last year in so many ways. You know, I don’t want to make too little of Corin Nemec because he was great, but Michael and the character of Daniel Jackson—you just couldn’t really fill that with anyone or anything else. Just the work that he’s done since being back, his renewed energy and insight to the character—it all points to how much he was missed last year.”

From “The Buddy System” in TV Zone Special #55 (Feb. 2004):

“It’s nice this year that the writers/producers are really letting Michael and I do quite a bit of stuff together, you know? Personally, I enjoy it, and character-wise I think it makes for a very interesting combination.”

From “A Teal’c of Two Planets” in Cult Times #96 (Sept. 2003):

“The writers have been great at allowing Teal’c’s personality to evolve gradually throughout the seasons. We sit down at the beginning of every year and discuss what is going to happen with his arc and I know there is going to be a lot more insight into what makes Teal’c tick this year.

“One of the pivotal episodes from last year was ‘Changeling,’ which saw Teal’c lose his symbiote. Fans have asked how losing that would change him and all I can say is that though the thing that made Teal’c alien was the symbiote, he is originally from Earth. I think he is returning to his roots and getting closer to being more human-like, but I don’t know if he will ever be a ‘normal’ human being in spite of the loss of his symbiote. There is an episode right at the start of the season [‘Orpheus’] that deals with just that particular issue and we do investigate the repercussions of that situation later on too.”

From “Teal’c Cuts Loose” at Sci Fi Pi (May 31, 2008):

“We’d always had pitches for shows about Amazons, but they always seemed a bit like Wonder Woman type of thing, so I came up with concept of these women under one particular god who so wanted warriors that he would kill off the children until he got a boy—which led to one of their princesses spiriting their children away and so on.

“The way a normal story is written—you pitch an idea, if the writers like it, then they all sit in a room and they break the story. Break the beats, break the acts, break everything. And then you basically write the dialogue. I asked Brad, ‘Would you mind if I didn’t do that, because I would really like a real assessment if I have a future in this or not.’ And he said, ‘Sure.’

“So I actually turned it in early. Then we went on summer hiatus and I didn’t hear anything from Brad or Martin Wood, who I’d also given a copy to, and also to John Smith. And nothing. So I’m just sitting there thinking ‘guess I’m an actor’…

“Then on the Saturday before we were to go back to work, there were three messages on my phone. And they swear they didn’t talk. Brad, Martin and John each saying how much they enjoyed it, blah blah blah. Structurally, Brad definitely fixed that, but for the most part, we pretty much shot what I wrote, which I learned is not the way it always happens. As a writer, especially as a TV writer or film writer, you can’t be ‘married’ to the work or take it personally. The whole thing, I really owe to Brad Wright.”

From “A Teal’c of Two Planets” in Cult Times #96 (Sept. 2003):

“‘Birthright’ is not by any stretch of the imagination gratuitous sexiness. … It really does deal with the warrior part of a powerful group of women and then explores the mythos from a different perspective. It has aspects of The Underground Railroad in it and stuff like that so it is not at all a cheeseball take on spandex and all that kind of nonsense. There is a valid message within for anyone who cares to ponder on it.

“It was great fun to write. I really, really enjoy that process and just think it’s great that our producers allow us to be part of that procedure. I’m eternally grateful for their encouragement and support. Writing is a skill I am very keen to develop and I can’t think of a better place to learn and hone that craft.

“There is, however, absolutely no chance of my directing. I couldn’t even think of trying with Richard Dean Anderson nor Michael Shanks. They would give me so much trouble. Amanda Tapping would be a delight but I’ve been too much of a pain in the past and joked around too much to even think about trying to direct an episode of this show. Even with a crowd as sympathetic and supportive as the guys we have on SG-1.”

From interview with Sci Fi Weekly archived at ChristopherJudgeOnline.com (Aug. 20, 2007):

“I think our definitive story was ‘Heroes.’ I think ‘Heroes’ probably captured the true essence of what the show was about from the humorous aspect, from the human aspect; the battle scenes and stuff were just absolutely feature-quality, and the effects were feature-quality. You can’t afford to do a show like that every week, but I think that so encapsulated everything that encompassed Stargate.”

---

Solutions

---

• Stargate SG-1 Main Page in the Solutions Stargate Wiki
• Season Seven Highlights
• Season Seven (Episode Guides and Transcripts)
• Solutions On-Site Forum
• Joseph Mallozzi’s Production Diary begins in Season Seven
• Other Thirteen Weeks for Thirteen Years (13-4-13) Articles