We welcome the return of Stargate Executive Producer and Writer Joseph Mallozzi to Dial the Gate to update us on his current projects, answer more of your questions from the franchise, and hopefully see Sharky!

Share This Video ► https://youtu.be/5Z-AQA_G9ow
Joseph Mallozzi’s Blog ► https://josephmallozzi.com
Sharky’s Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/heysharkyhey/
Visit Joseph’s IMDb ► https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0540695

Visit DialtheGate ► https://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate
Visit this episode on IMDb ► https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38431388
Visit Wormhole X-Tremists ► https://www.youtube.com/WormholeXTremists

MERCHANDISE!

Merch Store

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:28 – Welcome
01:03 – Guest Introduction & Outnumbering Stargate Episodes
02:38 – Technical Difficulties
03:34 – The United States Military
05:24 – The Antithesis of the Prime Directive
07:21 – Propagandizing for the Air Force
09:07 – Shooting Down Ideas
09:46 – More Involvement from the Other Branches
11:49 – Space: Above and Beyond and Other Series
13:46 – Avoiding Duplicating Star Trek Stories
15:07 – Stargate Episodes Similar to Star Trek
17:24 – Jack/Sam Relationship Follow-Through
18:19 – Acknowledging Jack and Sam in Stargate Revolutions
18:55 – Michael Greenburg Submitted a Stargate Pitch
21:04 – Film and TV Industry Update in Canada
22:31 – The New Normal?
23:51 – Joe’s Current Projects
26:58 – Earth: Final Conflict
28:36 – Lexx
32:00 – Joe’s Best-Of Series
35:02 – The Orville
37:20 – The Best Thing on TV (Severance)
39:54 – Cosplaying a Stargate Character
41:32 – Latin for the Novice (“Window of Opportunity”)
42:55 – The Caliber of Stargate Guest Stars
45:39 – An ER Star on Stargate?
47:20 – Toxic Celebrities
48:27 – Taking a Chance On Someone
49:15 – Writing Difficult Talent Out of the Show
50:32 – Mark Dacascos as Tyre
53:47 – The Quality of Streaming Content
55:17 – No Longer a Common Culture
56:44 – Stargate: Atlantis Legacy Novels
58:31 – Stargate in a Newer Genre
1:01:15 – What Does the Stargate Do?
1:03:34 – Fred Willard as “Jacek”
1:04:21 – Unresolved Storylines
1:06:09 – Todd and Sheppard
1:07:44 – Leaking Scripts
1:10:34 – Casting Sides Leaking Plot Points (“Chimera”)
1:13:10 – Body Swapping and Sexual Encounters in SGU
1:14:56 – Leaking Janet’s Fate for “Heroes”
1:16:15 – New Creators Revamping Old Franchises
1:20:01 – Using a Franchise as a Trojan Horse
1:21:53 – Are Audiences Stupid?
1:23:33 – Annihilation and Arrival
1:26:20 – Joe and AI
1:29:59 – Using AI to Leap Over “Experts”
1:31:20 – Sharky
1:33:15 – Thank You, Joe!
1:34:44 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:37:03 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Sometimes it doesn’t want to… iris itself. Iris, darn it. Welcome to–

Joseph Mallozzi:
Impressive new opening. I love it.

David Read:
It’s been there. The iris has always been there, but it’s never worked. Joseph Mallozzi is joining us, everyone. Welcome to Episode 355 of Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. Joe…

Joseph Mallozzi:
Amazing.

David Read:
Welcome, sir. Welcome back.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thank you.

David Read:
You were with us for, I think, 250.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Really?

David Read:
Yeah, it’s been that long. You know what else makes today special?

Joseph Mallozzi:
What?

David Read:
We now have one more episode, counting this one, than the Stargate television franchise.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Wow. All right. Let’s do it. I just gotta switch over to YouTube so I can check out the chat as well.

David Read:
Absolutely. So, you are in Montreal, did you say?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I am in Montreal.

David Read:
What’s going on?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’ve been going back and forth. They say there’s nothing good ever happens after 10:00 PM or the age of 90. So, my mother’s 91. So, she kind of needs the extra help. And then my sister’s here with her, but my wife, and Sharky, and I come by every month or so to help out.

David Read:
Absolutely. Well, good for you, man. There’s nothing more important than family. Someone is pinging me now. Give me just a second here. Let me stop that.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Perhaps family? Not as important, unless you’re doing a live broadcast, and then.

David Read:
Exactly, those little things.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s not, family’s not quite as important.

David Read:
It’s quite possibly my parents. So, you reach that point in your life when… I once heard, and I think it’s certainly the case in many cases, you are never truly an adult until you are responsible for taking care of another person. And I think there’s a lot to say to that, because it’s not very easy. Hang on just a second here. Someone is saying that–

Joseph Mallozzi:
There’s no sound on your end… they’re saying?

David Read:
I’m broadcasting. The sound’s broadcasting. That’s weird.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Can you hear me?

David Read:
Yeah. Hang on, guys.

Joseph Mallozzi:
David, we can hear you. OK, David not yet.

David Read:
David not yet. That’s weird.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No sound.

David Read:
OK. I will re-upload this, everyone, so that won’t be a problem later on. Apologies for that. So, this will get a re-upload after the end of the show. You should be able to hear me now. That was a strange setting. Every time you reconfigure something, you never know how it’s going to go. But no, I think that is the case. At a certain point in your life, you gotta give back.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
I’m giving back.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I hope you guys can hear David. If not, then–

David Read:
Should be able to hear me now.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes. OK, excellent.

David Read:
I don’t know what it was. I had a signal, but it was the wrong setting, and I’ve never had that one before. Hang on just a second. Let me double-check here. Yes. OK, good. I recently had several members of the United States military, one representing each of four branches. I had Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy on the channel yesterday. We recorded it last week, but I had them on yesterday. Let me tell you, it was fascinating to sit down with people who know their branch but also love the show. What I kept hearing again and again was how pleased they were with how the show portrayed the Armed Services and the realism of it, and the only small nitpicks here and there, but the spirit of what it is to serve was conveyed so astutely. How much time did you– The Air Force got to read every script in advance. Is that right? That’s what I understand.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. By the way, Chad is saying they still can’t hear you. But I will answer that question nevertheless because David’s talking about the various branches of the Armed Forces that are huge fans of the show, and he asked me about the Air Force vetting of the scripts. And that was the case for SG-1. Throughout SG-1’s run, the Air Force read all the scripts, vetted all the scripts. They weighed in with notes very rarely, but the notes were really more along the lines of when we should be saluting, when our characters should not be wearing hats, and so on. But SG-1’s always kind of a positive portrayal of the military. I just did a recent interview where we talked about the difference between Star Trek’s Prime Directive and the antithesis, which was SG-1, and the fact that Star Trek always had this hands-off policy when it came to involving themselves in off-world affairs. Although I would argue in that original series, I remember at least a half dozen times when they went against a Prime Directive. Whereas SG-1 used to do it all the time, and the various team members, especially as SG-1 always had kind of carte blanche to assess the situation on a regular basis or unique basis. So, working with the military was great. Obviously, they vetted all the scripts. We had two Air Force generals appear on the show, which was also great. But I was always heartened more than anything by the letters and postcards we would always receive from people serving overseas or just serving in the Armed Forces who would always take the time to write and say how much they love the show, how much they love the positive portrayal of the military, the men and women in uniform. And I know we used to get flak for that as well. Certain fans did not appreciate the fact that they felt we were glorifying the military. But SG-1 was a military unit. And they were the good guys.

David Read:
Can you repeat this for me just in case they can’t hear? I’m using this as a test as well. Was there ever a concern when you were writing that… of not trying to make a propaganda piece in any way, or have anything come off as even propagandistic ever in the back of your mind?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. There was never a time during the show’s run where we were concerned about writing propaganda, if you will. At the end of the day, the stories came about, obviously, you always wanna come up with kind of those unique hooks and story ideas. But it only ultimately always came down to the characters. And our characters, like I said, they were the good guys, and they were military. And you may not have liked the fact that they were military and portrayed in a positive light, but that was the show. And I don’t recall ever a time when there was a discussion, or an internal discussion, about shying away from that. There were always the occasional decisions that you kind of walked that gray line. In “The Other Side,” where O’Neill orders them to shut the iris. And it was not a military decision per se, and yet, as a commanding officer, he gave that order. So, it’s something that we always kind of touched upon. But again, like I said, it’s not something that we shied away from or basically really thought, “Oh, we shouldn’t be portraying the military in a positive light.”

David Read:
Did they ever say no to anything?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Throughout the show’s run, I don’t recall the military ever shooting down an idea. This would be probably more of a question for Brad and Robert. Because I wasn’t around for those early years. And the first three seasons is when you work out all the bugs. And after that, it’s very smooth sailing. So, that’s a question for Rob or Brad.

David Read:
Absolutely. I always appreciated your attention to detail and making sure that the show felt real. One of the points of perspective from yesterday was that, were this real, there would have been a greater leverage of the other branches of the military, particularly the Marines and Army Rangers, in terms of scouting and things like that. As far as you’re concerned, was Army represented as well on the base, going through the Gate and going on missions? We don’t really see the Army. But obviously, James McDaniel is portrayed as General Maynard – four-star General Maynard on the Hayes administration — he’s advising the President. So, they’re aware.

Joseph Mallozzi:
The Army is obviously very aware of the operation. But I always assumed that it was an Air Force operation. Not to say that the Army, the Marines, maybe in some instances the Navy were not involved, but it was really an Air Force operation.

David Read:
Guys, I’m sorry. I’ve never seen this before.

Joseph Mallozzi:
David apologizes for his inability to apologize.

David Read:
Yup, that’s exactly it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Or I’m typing here his apology.

David Read:
Yeah. Device. I’ve got a waveform. It’s transmitting.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Keep working on it. By the way, someone asked about the Jaffa, the creation of the Jaffa.

David Read:
Yes, please.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That is a question, again. Paul, my former writing partner Paul and I joined in this show’s fourth season, so I can’t really answer any questions with regard to the creation of those original concepts like the Jaffa, just because I wasn’t around for it.

David Read:
Well, let me see. Let me have you repeat this. So, Marina wants to know, “Were there any fans of Space: Above and Beyond in the writer’s room, and did that show ever have any input?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Marina asks if there were any fans of Space: Above and Beyond in the room, and whether that had any impact on the show’s creative. To be honest with you, I don’t think so. I don’t believe so. When we were in production there, I think there were a lot of great shows on at the time, Babylon 5 and I think Next Gen, and Voyager at the time. Deep Space Nine, and I guess Space Above and Beyond is late 1990s. But I was kind of aware of what shows people were watching in the room and what shows people weren’t. Carl Binder, for instance, would always watch LOST with his wife. And he would always come back every, I think it was… LOST was on Mondays, and he’d always come in on Tuesdays and complain about the show. And we were like, “Why are you watching it? Every time you come in, you’re so angry.” And he’s like, “I just, I have to see what happens. I have to basically find out.” And then at the end, I don’t know. So, he was a big fan. I think Brad watched a bit of Battlestar. I did not at the time. Most of us watched Firefly, which we quite enjoyed. I don’t remember anybody talking about Space: Above and Beyond. And then there were the shows like Babylon 5 that I didn’t discover much later, just because when I’m in production, I rarely have time to watch anything.

David Read:
Was there ever a concern to stay away from Star Trek? Or were you encouraged to watch Star Trek and shows that Stargate had similar tracks on in terms of the type of stories? If you could repeat that.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Interesting question. So, David just asked if we were encouraged to watch Star Trek in order to either steer clear of storylines or what have you. And I can tell you, no. I think Brad watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think Brad watched a lot of sci-fi. I think Paul, my former writing partner, watched Next Gen as well. I keep on saying, I didn’t watch Next Gen just because I thought those uniforms the first season were so ill-fitting and weird looking that I just couldn’t get on board. And I later watched Voyager, but it wasn’t really to avoid particular storylines simply because they’d done so much at that point. There was no way we could’ve caught up with them. But South Park did that episode where it was like, Simpsons already did it. That was kind of a running theme on Stargate. In a room when someone would pitch out an idea, Brad would invariably say, “Star Trek already did it.” And so, we’d have to shelve the story and move on. New idea.

David Read:
Were there ever any situations where you would release something and find out after the fact, “Oh, I didn’t know about that over there.” And that is eerily similar. Like “Beneath the Surface,” you guys in Season Four, and then Voyager went on and did “Workforce Part One and Two,” except that’s kind of the reverse.

Joseph Mallozzi:
So, he was asking about similarities between Star Trek and SG-1 episodes. And really, there are two that come to mind. One is the episode you mentioned, David, “Beneath the Surface,” and I think “Workforce,” Star Trek: Voyager. But what’s interesting about those two is both episodes kind of came out around the same time. So, it’s not as if one show watched the other show and maybe subconsciously was inspired by the story. Both episodes had to have been developed, prepped, and produced around the same time. So, it was just kind of parallel ideas. We talk about the great zeitgeist where everybody’s doing these types of stories. The other example, of course, is my least favorite Stargate episode, “Emancipation,” which is very eerily similar to an episode of The Next Generation that it turns out happened to be written by the same writer. So, those are the two, but I’m sure there are others. If you deep dive hard enough, you’ll find similarities between Star Trek and SG-1, and probably SG-1 and other sci-fi shows as well.

David Read:
Absolutely. There’s only so many stories that can be told. And when you fit everything into a certain box and you have your show established the way it is, those are the kind of stories that you create. I am dumbfounded as to why this is not working, Joe, and I do apologize. So, let’s… Christina Graziella, she asks the next question, if you wanna say that name first. Or Christina.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Christina Graziella asks a question.

David Read:
Oh, if I wasn’t crying, I would be laughing. “Why wasn’t the strong emotional bond between Carter and O’Neill developed into a confirmed romance?” Because none of that ties into what we were talking about earlier.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Christina wants to know why we didn’t follow through on the Carter-O’Neill relationship. Good question. It really came down to military regulations. It was kind of deemed improper for them to hook up or have a relationship while they were serving together. Once O’Neill left SG-1 and assumed command, still not exactly proper, but we had sort of discussed the possibility of them dating, and we kind of dropped hints in episodes that ended up on the cutting room floor.

David Read:
“Trio.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Again, “Trio.” Carter alludes to the fact that she’s dating someone, and it hints very strongly that it’s O’Neill. And I think in one of the planned movies that never saw the light of day, there was kind of confirmation where someone calls up Carter and O’Neill, ends up answering on the Zoom, and then Carter comes on. Sadly, they did not see the light of day. So, that is essentially why we did not pursue the relationship.

David Read:
Were you aware that Michael Greenberg and his writing partner submitted a pitch to MGM earlier this year?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I was not aware that Michael Greenberg, former executive producer on SG-1, and his writing partner, submitted a pitch to MGM earlier this year for a new series, I assume. I don’t know. Is that true?

David Read:
He came on last week and told us, and it would have included RDA in the pitch. Jack.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Well, what do you know? I did not know that. This is why I really need to… I’m remiss. I need to catch up on Dial the Gate episodes where apparently Michael Greenberg came on last week and mentioned the fact that he had actually pitched a new series. How did it go? Or when did we go into production?

David Read:
They’ve not heard back. But knowing that it exists …

Joseph Mallozzi:
Have not heard back.

David Read:
… is awesome.

David Read:
I know that Brad submitted one. Do you know anyone else who submitted one?

Joseph Mallozzi:
In terms of submitting… You’re talking about pitches and–

David Read:
Pitches to Amazon and MGM.

Joseph Mallozzi:
At the end of the day, I’m not really the guy to ask. I didn’t know about Michael’s thing. And I knew about Brad’s script, which is great, by the way, and by virtue of the fact that he asked me to read it and give notes on the script. So, in terms of anything related to new Stargate, I keep on saying, and I have said for many, many years, it’s gonna happen sooner than later. Although I have been saying this for, like I said, many, many years. But I’m convinced. It’s such a valuable franchise and valuable property, it just doesn’t make sense for it to lie fallow for so long. I think Amazon is being very careful. They’re taking their time. They wanna make sure they do it right, which is heartening. You don’t wanna give them that. I don’t know, fingers crossed, sooner than later.

David Read:
Can you give us an update on the state of the industry up there and kind of how it’s running parallel to everything happening down here from advancements in tech and everything else? The volume of work being created and available.

Joseph Mallozzi:
David asked for an industry update, specifically in Canada in relation to the US, and I think in this case, usually Canada is always one step behind the US, but in the case of the industry, we were one step ahead by essentially being in this weird recessionary vibe where nothing was getting bought, and anything that was getting bought was getting bought on the cheap. I remember years ago when all the broadcast channels were popping up and more streamers were popping up, and everybody was working, and I thought, “This is insupportable. Sooner or later there’s gonna be contraction.” And it’s happened. The industry has been kind of bleak for the past, I wanna say four, five years. Since COVID. Very tough to make sales unless you have talent attached. By talent I mean a big-name actor attached. And even if you do sell a show, they’re gonna make sure that you do it for a very lean budget. So, it’s a challenge. It’s very challenging out there.

David Read:
Do you hold out hope for the future that things are gonna improve, or do you think that this is the new normal?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know. I wanna say I’m ever the optimist, but that’s not true. I’m quite the opposite. However, I do think things have to improve, because sooner or later they have to buy something. You have to air something. You have to stream something. And so, I think eventually things are gonna go back to the way they were, which was not bad. But right now, we’re going through a correction, like a market correction, and I think hopefully in a year or two we’ll be back to making a lot of great TV.

David Read:
Awesome. I think everyone can hear me now.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Great. David’s back.

David Read:
Just so that everyone knows, thinking toward archiving purposes, I’ve been reconfiguring to separate the audio channels of this so that I can have my guest in one lane and me in another lane, and I set it up on Wormhole X-Tremist fine, and for whatever reason, on Dial the Gate, when I enabled it for Dial the Gate last night, it made it so that that wouldn’t work on my end. So, I don’t know why. Thank you for bearing with me, Joe, and being my guinea pig.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No problem, anytime.

David Read:
So, anything specific in the hopper in terms of updates on what you are working on that you might want to hint at?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Always juggling–

David Read:
Anything that you can drop nuggets on?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I recently went out with an adaptation of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s classic, The Mote in God’s Eye, with Harry Kloor, this brilliant screenwriter. He worked on Voyager, he worked on… He created Earth: Final Conflict. Double PhD. And I think it was something like AI and robotics. Just a brilliant guy. Super nice guy, too. And I think he was friends with Larry Niven, and so I was brought on. He had basically developed pretty much the entire package, and he and I worked out a pitch. And we went out and, as we said, we talked about the state of the industry, and selling something’s very tough. Selling a space opera is even tougher. Selling a bigger-budget space opera, which this one very much would be, was even more of a challenge. So, unfortunately, we didn’t get any traction on that. Otherwise, I’m out with a couple of crime shows. I’m a big crime show fan, by the way. I’m up about 800 shows into this international crime binge I’ve been doing for almost three years now. If you guys want recommendations for a great Argentina prison drama or Romanian gangster series, I’m your guy. And I’m about 190 crime book releases into 2025. So, I’ve read about… I’m into about 100, almost 190, but a third of them I don’t finish. Just because after a while I’ll give them 50 pages, and then if they don’t, if they’re just dumb, I’m out. So, I’ve got two shows out. One is kind of a fun murder mystery series. Another one is an action-adventure series. And then I’m consulting on other shows that are kind of poised for development. And then on Wednesday, I have a pitch to a studio. I’m gonna pitch them a TV version or adaptation of one of their cult films. I can’t say too much about it right now, but I’ll tell you if it’s a yes or no, I’ll tell you after the fact. But this one will be a lot of fun. Kind of a mix of horror, fantasy, ’90s film. Those are the hints. You guys can figure it out. Do your detecting.

David Read:
Did you ever… and please keep me in the loop on this stuff moving forward. We’re obviously gonna keep an eye on your blog. Those are all linked below, as well as Sharky’s–

Joseph Mallozzi:
Sharky appreciates your support, by the way.

David Read:
Absolutely. Did you ever see Earth: Final Conflict?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I never saw Earth: Final Conflict. As I said, I think Earth: Final Conflict was on around the same time that we were. I say we were; it was airing around the same time we were airing. But in all fairness, we were airing for 17 to 20 years. So, that’s a pretty big window. So, as I said, when I’m in production I don’t watch a lot. But there were certain shows I did watch, like Firefly. Babylon 5, I only discovered after the fact later, and I really, really enjoyed it. So, Earth: Final Conflict is not one that I watched, but I could put it on my watch list. Now, I always used to get mixed up between First Wave and Earth: Final Conflict. Which was the one that Roger Cross was on?

David Read:
I can’t remember him.

Joseph Mallozzi:
OK. That’s a good thing for Roger Cross.

David Read:
I definitely haven’t seen… We recently had him. I don’t believe he would’ve been on… He must’ve been First Wave, because I don’t recall him on Earth: Final Conflict. I only bring it up because, in addition to you working with the gentlemen, it was the last show of three or four sci-fi shows on Saturday nights, the first of which was Stargate SG-1. Not on Showtime or on SyFy Channel. But on syndication on Saturday nights in my local market. I finished up the night always with this sci-fi soap opera …

Joseph Mallozzi:
Amazing. The triple feature.

David Read:
… G. Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Amazing. Marcia says, “Woohoo. Happy pitching, Joe. Best of luck.” Thank you, Marcia. I was gonna say, another show that was being developed, or that was in production around the same time was Lexx. It was this weird German, Canadian, I don’t know, US co-production, where they were flying around in this dragonfly–

David Read:
Without wings.

Joseph Mallozzi:
…ship, which is amazing. So, interesting to note that Paul and I were up to show run Lexx before we got Stargate. And we were under consideration for Lexx, and then we ended up taking Stargate, and who knows. And there’s so many… I think back to how many sort of… We talk about going out with pitches, and original pitches is a lot of what we do as writers. But often as showrunners, we are considered for different productions. So, Lexx was one. What’s it called? Shadowhunters on the heels of Stargate. We talked to the producers about that before it went to production. American Gods, that was another one that we had a conversation about. I think there are several more. But shows that I never watched, so I don’t know if…

David Read:
So, the recent American Gods, the one that went to production?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
Lexx… there is no way that that show was made by people who were not high. It’s not possible. That was so trippy. Do you know who among your team on the cast loved Lexx? Do you remember?

Joseph Mallozzi:
On my team? Can you give me–

David Read:
Yeah, among the cast.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Is it SG-1?

David Read:
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It was SG-1?

David Read:
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Oh, it would have to be Chris Judge, wouldn’t it?

David Read:
Don.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Don?

David Read:
Don was a huge fan of Lexx.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Did he like the German actress? Was he a big fan of her?

David Read:
He didn’t get specific but he said that that was… In terms of modern sci-fi, what he would enjoy, that’s what it was. And I just remember at the time only having seen it within the past couple of years. And I watched a couple of episodes, I’m like, “What is with this show?” It’s not for me. I gave it a reasonably fair shake.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Have you watched Farscape?

David Read:
Some of it. I watched it before–

Joseph Mallozzi:
How does it compare to Farscape? Because Farscape was pretty out there, and I love Farscape.

David Read:
Tame.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Tame. Really?

David Read:
No, Farscape is tame compared to Lexx.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Interesting. Farscape, I love because it had that sense of humor. Did Lexx have the humor, or was it just–

David Read:
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi:
…weird for weird’s sake?

David Read:
But it was very… it was very titillating and Farscape had a more balanced amount of humor, like Stargate did, humor and adventure. Whereas Lexx was just innuendo after innuendo after innuendo and very… fair comparison, very astute observation. Someone was tripping when they made this. The production values, I think, in Farscape were far superior, probably just ’cause they either had more money or could make it stretch further where it was filmed. But it’s interesting–

Joseph Mallozzi:
Maybe I will… It’s interesting also, about… A couple of months ago I did something called the Best Of Series where I asked fans to choose the top 32 best sci-fi shows and then choose the best episodes representative of those shows. And we watched them and then every three times a week, I would get on with the co-host and discuss two or three of them. And it’s interesting that out of those 32 shows, there are only nine that I actually watched from beginning to end. And there was almost 20 that I had hardly watched at all. And it was interesting for me to sort of, after watching the best episodes, to consider whether I would change my mind or be compelled to watch them. I have to say in most cases, no. I feel like Babylon 5 was a show that I watched the first three of five seasons of, and then I got distracted and never finished the last two. But watching that episode and discussing it with, I believe it was Tom Luongo, we discussed Babylon 5 and Andor. It really made me want to go back and watch those first three seasons, and the last two as well. So, that was a rare occasion, but Star Wars never did it for me. That’s not true. When I was a kid, I loved Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and then that pretty much killed my love for [Star Wars].

David Read:
“Ew-chaw.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
So, I never watched any Star Wars. And Star Trek, I haven’t watched and I think… What was it? Star Trek: Lower… No. Prodigy or Lower Decks, it was one of those.

David Read:
Prodigy on… What was the Nickelodeon one?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, no. Lower Decks.

David Read:
Lower Decks is…

Joseph Mallozzi:
Lower Decks.

David Read:
…like a Rick and Morty style cartoon.

Joseph Mallozzi:
We ended up doing five or six Star Treks. The original, Deep Space Nine, Next Gen, Voyager, Enterprise, and I guess… What did I just say?

David Read:
Lower Decks.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah, Lower Decks. No. Which one’s the cart[oon]?

David Read:
Lower Decks was the cartoon. There’s two, though; the cartoon…

Joseph Mallozzi:
No.

David Read:
…and then the animated one.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Prodigy.

David Read:
Prodigy is the Nickelodeon computer animated one, and it’s good.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. It was the live action one.

David Read:
Live action.

Joseph Mallozzi:
But it had… It was a crossover of the live action and the–

David Read:
So, it’s technically a Discovery episode and it’s a Lower Decks Discov[ery]–

Joseph Mallozzi:
It wasn’t Discovery.

David Read:
You sure? No, I’m sorry. Strange New Worlds.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That’s the one.

David Read:
Which started on Discovery. That’s a good show. So, Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome. They cross into the Strange New Worlds universe. And it was… it was definitely clever. I’m just not a big fan of modern science fiction as much. In terms of space shows, the only thing that is on in recent years that I — I bet you heard that one. Thunderclap, loud one. The only thing that I’ve seen recently in terms of space shows that I have truly loved is The Orville.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Somebody just asked, “I wonder if Joe has also watched The Orville?” And Orville was one of the top 32 shows and one of the episodes that we watched.

David Read:
Do you recall which episode you watched?

Joseph Mallozzi:
It was the episode where… I don’t remember the character’s names…

David Read:
That’s fine.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… but it’s a great premise. They travel back, I think… Or he ends up being…

David Read:
Married.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… thrown 30 years back into the past or something, and yes, he’s married. He’s waiting for them to rescue him and time passed, and he settled down and married, had a kid, and it’s a great premise. But I thought that it was… It could’ve been such a heartrending episode, but they didn’t really go there. It almost felt like an imposition…

David Read:
And on top of that, there’s–

Joseph Mallozzi:
… to him, and then it gets…

David Read:
Go ahead.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It gets quickly settled, and because he doesn’t have any memories, at the end he’s like, “Ah, well.”

David Read:
They traded him out. On top of that, there’s an episode in Season Three called “Twice in a Lifetime” that he’s referring to everyone. And the second season introduced the character through her iPhone being found in a time capsule. And he took the iPhone and took her to the holodeck, and he recreated her. And that’s the second episode…

Joseph Mallozzi:
That’s great.

David Read:
… which you would have really appreciated much more had you seen the first one. But yes, that’s a good one.

Joseph Mallozzi:
A great sci-fi idea. Like I said, I don’t watch The Orville, but everything I’ve heard about the show makes me feel like it is the love child of true Star Trek fans.

David Read:
I think it’s a great… If Galaxy Quest didn’t exist, this show would not exist. That’s really what it is. The Orville cast are going to Star Trek conventions now, and absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Amazing. Great.

David Read:
In terms of modern sci-fi, I’m gonna share mine and then I’d like you to percolate yours. What do you think is the best thing on TV right now? And for me, unquestionably right now, that’s Severance. Ever seen it?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’m gonna have to take your word for it because, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t watch a lot of sci-fi because I am so much into the crime genre. And for a couple of reasons, obviously I enjoy the crime genre, but I’ve been disappointed with sci-fi, like a lot of modern sci-fi, to date. And I only have so much time to invest in watching or reading.

David Read:
That’s fair.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’ve heard great things about Severance.

David Read:
Ben Stiller.

Joseph Mallozzi:
So, yu’re not the only one.

David Read:
He’s a huge Trekkie. He’s a huge sci-fi fan. And the first season was fantastic. The second season was–

Joseph Mallozzi:
Did you say Ben Stiller?

David Read:
Ben Stiller. Producing and directing. It’s exceptional.

Joseph Mallozzi:
OK. That’s not really a huge selling point for me, but interesting.

David Read:
I had the same reaction to when I saw Justin Timberlake on a masthead for a movie. I was like, “Give me a break. Oh my God, he’s good.” And it’s one of those things. So, I challenge you to sit down and watch a few of them because it’s sci-fi, but it’s in an office space.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I guess one of the reasons why I never checked out Severance was, I think, three years before Severance came out, I was developing a show with a company called Partition. The show, not the company. About a guy who basically invents a technology that allows you to compartmentalize your life.

David Read:
That’s it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Your work life self doesn’t know what the private self is doing, and the private self doesn’t know what the work self is doing. That was the basic premise, and then I’m sure it would have been taken in completely different ways. If ever I’m up for a show and I don’t get it, then chances are good I will never watch the show.

David Read:
Don’t blame you.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s something along those lines.

David Read:
Marcia wanted to know, “Joe, if you were ever to cosplay a character, a Stargate character…”

Joseph Mallozzi:
A Stargate character?

David Read:
Yeah. And also, I would like to know– Any kind of character. See, for me, I’m not gonna cosplay unless I look like the part, and I can’t think of anyone that I wouldn’t be… I would have to have a mask on because I don’t think I look like anybody.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I would absolutely, if I had to cosplay, go as either Tanat or Jop. Those two sort of crazy, rubber-faced aliens.

David Read:
The Oranians.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I love those two goofballs.

David Read:
You should have had them back more.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’m kind of a goofball at heart. So, those are the… If I was gonna cosplay, they would be my choices.

David Read:
There’s…

Joseph Mallozzi:
One and two.

David Read:
… something about… I think you could have had, with Tanat and Jop, a serious episode… comedy episode focused on them. But you really would have had to toe the line in terms of not making it absolutely ridiculous. Because their eyes don’t move, they’re kind of weird-looking guys, definitely weird-looking guys. But I think it could work.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Maybe whenever Amazon launches these new Stargate series, they’re gonna go down along the lines of Star Trek and open the doors to potential other spin-offs, and the Tanat and Jop show is the one I wanna do.

David Read:
Andrew said, “David would make a good NID character.” Gee, thanks.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Christine asked, “How did you get the idea of the Latin for the Beginners book by Joseph Mallozzi PhD in the “Window of Opportunity” episode?” So, that was not me. We were in the concept meeting for the episode, and the concept meeting is when we get together with the various department heads to discuss, go through the script, what we need. And someone from the props asked, “What kind of a book should he be reading in this scene?” And Peter DeLuise, who was the director, said, “Should be Latin For The Novice by Joseph Mallozzi.” That’s what the prop department did. And that book is somewhere downstairs on the shelf in my mother’s basement. It’s an actual Latin book. I did not write it. My Latin is kind of rusty, but it exists.

David Read:
How much could I pay you for that?

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s not even worth it.

David Read:
That’s not true.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, it’s not.

David Read:
I would… It’s from the greatest episode of the show. I would love to own that.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I have kept hardly anything from my days on Stargate. Now I go back and I regret it. I was, “I should’ve just …

David Read:
I’d love to have bought it from you.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… grabbed everything.”

David Read:
Or auction it or something. Everything hangs on that. “Poteramus, pottera.” This is a bad idea. I have always been blown away by the caliber of people that you got, and I’m not even sure if you’d be willing to say, ’cause it’s none of our business. But maybe, maybe you know someone that wouldn’t care. I was with Christopher Judge in Dragon Con this past Dragon Con, and he was talking about the caliber of the talent that you guys would get, specifically because they were doing it for their kids or for their family, because they knew people–

Joseph Mallozzi:
We got Isaac Hayes, we had Wayne Brady, those two sort of come to mind as huge fans of the shows, who basically were on because their family or they were a loved… I remember going down costume fitting to say hi to Wayne Brady and introduce myself, and he was in his Jaffa garb and feeling, really feeling it.

David Read:
And Christopher said that there were certain people that you guys wouldn’t have been able to attain normally who gladly cut their rates to come on. So, I think it speaks to the quality of what you guys were doing. I know personally, Mel Harris, her son, Byron, was a huge fan of the show and came to set during production to see it filmed and that’s how she got stuck in everybody’s head to come back as Oma. And so, it’s a the tail wagging the dog kind of situation where it’s, “Oh, yeah, she would be perfect for this.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
We were always amazed by the caliber of the talent we were able to get. You know, but there were times when we reached out that we tried to get actors that we weren’t able to. I’m just trying to think of who we went out to, that ultimately passed. Who’s the actor from… I’m terrible with names.

David Read:
It’s all right.

Joseph Mallozzi:
From ER, Goran.

David Read:
You’re not talking about Clooney, are you?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. What was his name? I’m just trying to look it up here.

David Read:
And I just looked up the reference for tail wagging the dog, that is not what I meant. I wanted to apologize to everyone. I was like, “I don’t think I used that term right.” Goran?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know.

David Read:
So, someone from ER you were interested in?

Joseph Mallozzi:
So, he actually had met Amanda, and the two got along famously and we were, “Hey, if he wants to do an episode…” And he actually loved the idea of doing an episode, but he was doing ER at the time and could not. And then we reached out to Jonathan Frakes once, I think, to direct an episode but, again, for whatever reason, was not able to do it. What’s his name? Michael… He was in Better Call Saul. Saul’s brother.

David Read:
Oh, yes. Michael, Michael McKean, I think.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah, Mike… So, we reached out to him and …

David Read:
Oh, he’s good.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… and he — Yes, he is great. But it was a pass from him. I’m trying to think.

David Read:
My understanding was that George Dzunda — I can’t pronounce his last name for dirt — George Dzundza, who played Jim in Threads, you guys were searching for a John Goodman type. And I got …

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
… it strapped around my head that John Goodman had actually been approached to play the character.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know about that. I don’t recall ever– But that’s a question for Rob because… We used to run our own episodes. If you wrote the episode, you would oversee all the aspects of production including casting. But when it came into casting, everyone would kind of weigh in. As I said, I remember several times when we put out a call for a certain character and our LA casting agent would send a list and we’d go through the list and sometimes there were some impressive names and other times Brad or Rob would be like, “No. We don’t want to work with that guy.” Just because we had heard terrible things. I don’t wanna name names, but… There were a couple of times when we were like, “No, this is… You’re opening up a can of worms if you work with this guy.” And then the agents, I think, would reach out and be like, “Well, he was going through a rough time when he was shooting this episode, or this series. His attitude has much improved.” But it’s so tough. As an actor, or any aspect of production, you’re very fortunate to be working. And if you make it very difficult to work with you, people remember.

David Read:
I’m curious because LTS, life’s too short, that was a big mantra around the office.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
Was there anyone — and I don’t want names, I’m just curious as to a yes or a no — was there anyone who came across the table, it’s like, “Oof, we’ve heard stories, but they are also them, and do you wanna take a chance on them?” And you had a positive experience, or, “Oh boy, we’re never bringing them back.” Were there those instances, or was it always, if you heard through the grapevine that they were trouble that you always stayed away, even if they’re real big star power.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. In general, if we heard that they were problematic, then we stayed away. I can’t remember anyone that we ever hired that we were like, “Oh my gosh, this guy’s gonna be…” or “This gal’s gonna be trouble.” And they were lovely, because we never took the chance.

David Read:
There are so many. I know of a couple of back doors that are built, that were either built in by design, or they were just explained that way to me and Darren over the years in terms of, “We’re going to try it with this person. But in case it doesn’t work out, we’re gonna leave their death suspicious at the end of the episode so that we can recast if need be.” And in one circumstance, that’s exactly what happened. And it’s just a lever, a little bit of leverage in production to be able to do things like that where you can create …

Joseph Mallozzi:
To leave the door open.

David Read:
… circumstances. So, if someone really does stand up and perform, then we can make this work without having to perform a sci-fi twist to make it work. Or they can just shed their mortal coil.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That works great in the event you’re working towards a finale. So, basically you’re talking about a cast member or recurring character on the show.

David Read:
Or a big guest star who could be recurring.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Or a big guest star. Another one that comes to mind is the very best example of both cases, in a positive way, was Mark Dacascos, who was in, I think, in John Wick. Was it John Wick 2? Who we heard great things about. And I think Jason had– Actually, I knew him, and I loved him from Iron Chef. And he came and did this show, and we were supposed to kill him off in that episode, but he was such a nice guy. And really positive on set. Everybody loved him. So, we brought him back for another episode, and then we killed him. But he was wonderful to work with. We heard great things, and he turned out to be fantastic. So, that’s the very best example. And then there are others, like Robert Riccardo. I loved him on Voyager, and he was a character who had come in as a pencil-pushing, annoying lawyer. And Bob was so great, and his character was so much fun to write for that we rehabilitated him over the course of the franchise run. And by the end of Atlantis, he became a beloved regular. So, you never know.

David Read:
That’s the thing. And he is someone that I have had the privilege of spending a fair bit of time with. And he’s someone who knows the camera and he knows how certain things are supposed to go. And he’s not pushy, but he is very aware of everything that’s happening, and he’s involved. And there’s something to be said for someone who doesn’t just phone it in, but they’re collaborative even when you’re just doing an interview. It’s like, “OK, what do you need from me over here? Is this light good?” And he’s just fantastic to work with.

Joseph Mallozzi:
He’s terrific. By the way, Andrew asks, “I’m interested in what Joe thinks of TV making in this streaming age. Is it sustainable? Is it profitable? Does it work?” I can’t speak to whether or not it is profitable, but it certainly seems so since Netflix is thriving. I kind of enjoy writing for streaming shows. They tend to be more serialized and episodic. As a writer, I kind of enjoy being able to create something that offers the best of both worlds. In the case of Dark Matter, it was episodic but with serialized elements. And as a viewer, I kind of appreciate that kind of storytelling, especially as an irregular viewer who will come and go and be able to enjoy an adventure with a beginning, middle, and end without having to know anything about the show previous to it. And yet, as a longtime viewer, you’re rewarded with these serialized elements. So, I think obviously it works very well for Netflix, and again, as a creator and as a viewer, I enjoy that type of storytelling.

David Read:
Do you think that streaming is going to continue to lend itself towards… Maybe it’s gonna do all of this, which is entirely possible, higher quality product? Oh, God’s sakes, product.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t think so.

David Read:
Moving forward–

Joseph Mallozzi:
To be honest with you, I don’t think so. I mean, I’d love to say yes. I think streaming has the ability, or streamers have more of an opportunity to offer more big-budget, serialized programming, to take more chances, which is always great.

David Read:
And something more niche.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Sure, more niche than network television. But on the other hand, for every interesting niche program, there are 10 crap shows that feel very much like everything else. It got to the point where they were producing so much stuff that it was unsustainable. And as I said, everything’s contracted now. Everybody spread themselves out too thin, and now we’re all feeling the effects.

David Read:
It’s just churn and burn, baby. There is something to be said for the days of… What’d you think of Seinfeld last night? Where we all had a common lexicon in terms of our entertainment. Only recently, movies still do that because there aren’t a ton of them yet. I heard everyone talking about, a month ago, I heard everyone talking about this film, Weapons. And it just started, all of a sudden, I was hearing about this, and I went and saw it, and I was like, “That was so cool.” We don’t have any… we’re not moored to each other anymore through entertainment. We only seem to be moored to each other through politics, and that sucks. It absolutely destroys a culture. If that’s all that you’ve got. I fear that we’re in a frame of white noise now because there’s just so much stuff. There’s good stuff to be had, of course. But you have to dig to find it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I agree. There’s just so much programming out there, and there’s a lot of good programming as well. So, it’s really hard for something to pop.

David Read:
Let’s see what we’ve got here. What did you think… Simon Durko, “Did you ever have a chance to hear about or take a look at the Legacy books that continued the SGA story?” Did you have a peek at any of them?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I did not at all.

David Read:
Is that another one of those circumstances where if it’s gonna be going in its own direction …

Joseph Mallozzi:
No.

David Read:
… that you just don’t want to get it stuck in your head, or did it not interest you?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the books are great, but it’s just not something I would be interested in reading, or any sort of show or film tie-ins. It’s just not the kind of reading I would prefer.

David Read:
Did you hear that there was really no choice, but they gave the Wraith names?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know. It sounds kind of weird, but I–

David Read:
They had to distinguish them in the book because they wanted a Wraith perspective. And it’s one of those questions; if you have no names for these things and you’re gonna tell a story from their perspective, how do you differentiate when they’re just black and white? It’s one of those logistical problems that we had on the show, and there was no other way to overcome it other than to give them nicknames.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s weird only because, within the context of the show, it would have been weird. But in the context of fleshing out their world and their social structure in a book series, it makes perfect sense.

David Read:
If you could come back and tackle Stargate in one more genre, if you could chew on that genre for a one- or two-parter, what do you think would be good? The show always did horror, in my opinion, exceptionally well. And a CSI one with “Vegas” from Rob Cooper. What do you think would fit that you guys didn’t really …

Joseph Mallozzi:
That we didn’t do?

David Read:
… try?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I can’t imagine. We did fantasy with the Arthurian stuff. What other… We did crime with “Vegas.” We did horror with “Whispers.”

David Read:
I’m thinking of some newer ones, like Battle Royale, where… There were some similar ones, but with the team stuck inside of an arena and the team having to fight against other teams. It’d definitely be so cliché at this point.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know.

David Read:
The Gate’s in the center.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t know. When I think of a genre, I think, let’s say fantasy, horror, sci-fi, but then I think of the sub-genre, military sci-fi, even though SG-1 was military, it would be interesting to, for instance, at the end of Universe’s run, I was imagining a third season, what the new enemy could be, and I liked the idea of coming up against a militaristic race of aliens or descendants. That would have been very interesting to me. I always liked military sci-fi as well.

David Read:
It’s definitely a core component of the show. I always related so much of the show to the Colonial Marines and Aliens. That kind of, not as gruff and unhinged, but certainly, in terms of the camaraderie and the relationship among the people of the units, there’s a lot of similar threads there. And I wish that was leveraged a little bit more. I would have loved to have spent some more time with a couple of those teams that came through the Stargate in “Ripple Effect.” Where it was, OK, I want to know where those guys come from because they’re the ones who are chewing gum. Because they look like they’re a fun time.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That was a fun episode. That was actually, probably one of my favorite episodes, the ability to come up with all these alternate SG-1s.

David Read:
Was there a concern ever… Concern maybe isn’t the right word. One of the things that I talked about with Coop earlier on was, they were trying to figure out how to communicate to the audience when the show was still young. There was a question from the layman who was not familiar with Stargate. OK. But what does it do? What’s happening? Is it, is it a time travel device? Is it a dimensional device? Is it just a… Are we just shifting locations? Is it just a door? And it was pretty far established that the Gate didn’t do dimensional shifting. Then you’re in Season Nine, and you have a story where it does that. Were there ever stories that you guys wanted to consider? Or was there ever a conversation about “Ripple Effect,” where it’s like if it’s another bag of tricks that we’re giving the Stargate, what… Are we concerned about convoluting this technology? OK, now it can do this. Was the Stargate a sacred device for you guys in terms of, “OK, we have to be really careful with what it does because it can’t just be a free-for-all.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes. We were always very careful with what it did. Brad and Rob were sticklers about, once you establish this sci-fi concept, you don’t play fast and loose with the rules. That being said, in rare instances, the Stargate would operate in surprising ways, in the solar flare, then it becomes… It can send you back in time. So, yeah, in rare instances it… After eight, nine seasons or so, you wanna play with the established formula. So, as long as we always established the fact that this was a rare circumstance that could rarely be repeated, we did it.

David Read:
If the story is strong enough–give the show a chance to pull off. There were some instances where it was like… Especially with specific characters. Fred Willard …

Joseph Mallozzi:
He’s great.

David Read:
He was fantastic. The character I was wishy-washy on. But when you get a caliber actor they can make… they can pull pretty much anything off. And another one like Dom DeLuise with Urgo is just… Man, oh man.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Great comic… Comic timing is everything. We used to love to write comedy for the show. By the way, Jonathan G95 asks, “Joe, would you be interested in writing for Star Wars in the future given the opportunity?” I would say no, but thank you. Judah Kahn, “Was there an unresolved storyline you would have liked to see finished?” Huh.

David Read:
Pick one.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think back, were there… I guess there were plenty of unresolved storylines. I’m trying to think where… Besides the obvious, the general series itself, Atlantis and Universe.

David Read:
Specific threads. Weir always drove me nuts.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Weir?

David Read:
I always wanted to have another one of those. And you finally closed the loop on that with Season Six, the proposed ideas for Season Six. Thank you so much for that by the way.

Joseph Mallozzi:
At the end of the day, it’s fan fiction. At this point.

David Read:
I don’t care. You made the rest of the show. That’s good as far as I’m concerned. They’re locked away in my brain that way. But there’s… That’s a really great question. I’d like to spend a moment with it. Because obviously you’ve got the larger issues of Atlantis completing its mission in eradicating the Wraith. One of the things that you always said that I think was interesting, and I think Brad backed it up was, I think around 2018 I asked him, “Would Extinction have been the end of the Wraith?” And he said, “No, it would have been an expansion.” And I thought that that was a really interesting idea. Because I think we’ve got it into our head, especially with the conclusion of SG-1, that with Atlantis, if it were to properly resolve itself it would have to be the extinction of the Wraith, or the pacification of them maybe. But I think an expansion… I think going against the typical expectation and turning them into something more or something different would be an interesting approach.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Extinction would have ended with an understanding between Todd and Sheppard that would have opened the door to a potential alliance among certain sectors of Wraith. That would have been kind of interesting to pursue in Season Six. But sadly, we never got the chance. We never even got to make that movie, which is disappointing.

David Read:
Just a little bit.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Hang on. What about… Let me see. Sorry, I’ve missed a bunch of–

David Read:
Be my guest. I’m loving this.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Do you have to go to a company with a complete story, start to finish?

David Read:
Oh, that’s a good question.

Joseph Mallozzi:
When you go out to pitch, you should know where the show is going. So, you should go in with obviously your story idea. Usually, if you have a pilot script written, fantastic. If not, you should have a very detailed idea of what happens in your pilot script, an idea of what happens in the first season, the various character arcs. Maybe give a few examples of episodes. And maybe they will ask you what happens in Season Two, what happens in Season Three. So, you should have a fairly detailed vision of your show. That doesn’t mean you have to necessarily pitch the detailed vision of the show. I think you wanna keep the pitch about 20 minutes long, certainly no more than 30 minutes long when you’re going out to pitch.

David Read:
Has security gotten worse on things like that in terms of the expectations of not getting the number of… not necessarily the doors that you have to go through to get into the building, but in terms of sharing files online, these kinds of things, especially when you’re dealing with more high-stakes, high-profit projects? In general, has the trend gotten worse in the industry, or is it–

Joseph Mallozzi:
What do you mean in terms of–

David Read:
In terms of the fear of things leaking early.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’m sure. I’ve never worked on one of those productions. On Stargate, I was fairly open about keeping the fans in the loop during production. When Dark Matter started, we were shooting on the stages, the old Lost World stages. There were all these “No Photos” kind of pictograms all over the place, and I took all those down because I’ve always been a firm believer in looping the fans in early and getting them excited about a show, unless it’s, you don’t wanna give away any spoilers. But why not reveal the look of the ship or shots of the characters and such. On the other hand, on the flip side, you have Star Trek that was always very secretive. I remember while they were shooting Discovery, I think a background actor was eating in the cafeteria and he snapped a photo of the Klingons. And he was like, “Hey, look, it’s the Klingons,” and posted it on Instagram …

David Read:
Their looks were updated.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… and all hell broke loose.

David Read:
Their looks were updated.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. And all hell broke loose. And I think they may have changed the look after that …

David Read:
They sure did.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… which was kind of crazy.

David Read:
They tried to retcon it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Really?

David Read:
Why? Did they change the look from the original?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. Actually, I think they changed the look in the production.

David Read:
Yeah, halfway through the show ’cause there was such an outcry. Yeah, it was too much of a departure, in my opinion, and I agreed with them. And that’s the double-edged side of it when it’s not always necessarily gonna be sunshine and rainbows when some stuff gets out. You can actually, in some cases, turn off viewers who have their mind made up. One of the things… Can I ask you about–

Joseph Mallozzi:
I have to argue, though …

David Read:
Please.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… that the fans would have reacted the same way whether they had seen those photos online as opposed to basically watching the show when it aired. So, it just–

David Read:
Unchallenged.

Joseph Mallozzi:
They would’ve been delaying the inevitable.

David Read:
That’s certainly true. The difference is whether they would have not turned it on at all or would they have stopped watching it halfway through. At the end of the day, I agree with you. The end result is exactly the same. We’re getting ready to wrap up here. One of the things that has always confused me and maybe you won’t be able to answer this, but maybe you can glean some insight. GateWorld, where I started, always had, not always, but fairly early on, Seasons Five, Six, and Seven, had access to casting sites. And these were pieces of information that were sent out over a service that had literal pages of drafts or the anticipated shooting script in it for actors to read. And I remember getting one from Darren about “Chimera.” And it was a dream sequence between Osiris and Daniel. And I remember thinking to myself, “Osiris has been cast. Why am I seeing this and they’re shooting it next week? How do I have access to this?” It never made sense to me because there’s no one in this scene that has anything to do with that. The only thing that I can think of was it was a scene that was sandwiched in between a couple of other scenes and that was just sent off. Do you think that may have been the reason that it was? They were looking for Pete Shanahan or his boss?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Unless there was… If it was an Osiris-Daniel scene and no one else was in the scene, then yeah. I think it was included kind of mistakenly, or sandwiched between them because, like I said, unless there was a third character there who was supposed to be cast …

David Read:
Exactly.

Joseph Mallozzi:
…that, I don’t know why that would go out.

David Read:
Was there a system ever in place to say, “These pages, you can’t send these out. You cannot send these pages out.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. I think at the beginning, no, and then when fans started to get a little more resourceful in getting access, then I think we took steps to ensure that that didn’t happen as often. But for the most part, I mean, they were not very spoiler heavy. The scenes that we would send out. So, it wasn’t that big a deal. I remember when we got huge… It was a huge blowback during SGU for that, what was the episode where it was the body-swapping episode. And someone was having a relationship with someone else in someone else’s body, which opened up a whole can of worms and the fans voiced their displeasure. And then there was this whole kind of…

David Read:
I remember wishing that there had at least been a scene that addressed, “Well, I mean, we signed the forms.” This. And that would have done it for me. But one of those lingering questions for me was always where is the consent? There has to be some kind of something, because… when I suddenly become unplugged and no longer in the Destiny, do I have to go to the doctor and get tested now to take care of myself as a matter of course? But the sci-fi stuff you guys were really good at where there was, early in SGU, the discovery that, “Well, OK, so Destiny is being powered by the stars. Well, naturally we’re gonna try to dial home while near a star.” That only makes absolute sense. So, the stuff that mattered to the lore you guys were, “This is the next logical step so we must address this and go there or at least talk about it.” So, you made it work.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thank you.

David Read:
Do you remember who blew the whistle on Janet’s death? Do you remember how that got out?

Joseph Mallozzi:
How it got out?

David Read:
Yeah. ‘Cause I don’t think that was one through sides.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, I did not realize that actually got [out].

David Read:
Or was that intentionally?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I didn’t …

David Read:
God, Boy did it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… realize that. Did it?

David Read:
Oh yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I don’t recall.

David Read:
Six months in advance.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That one I did not realize that it got out early.

David Read:
And if you had your ear remotely close to the ground, that’s the flip side of fandom that I hated. It’s nothing that you can’t… You can hardly keep anything anymore.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Pursuant to that, Andrew asked, “Joe’s probably spoken about this, but does he worry about extreme fan emotions in the 2020s? I think that has become crazy online about shows like The Rings of Power, et cetera.”

David Read:
I always thought that would happen.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I’ve always likened fandom to a double-edged sword. Fans are very passionate, and if you stay on their good side they will support you to the ends of the Earth, and if you betray them they will cut you.

David Read:
It’s true.

Joseph Mallozzi:
With regard to sort of programming today, to be fair, and I know a lot of people are like, “Oh, you know, just don’t watch it,” or what have you, but a lot of fans have fallen in love with certain franchises. And new creators come on board and they will change things up what feels like just for the hell of it. They will not respect canon. They will not respect the tone of previous incarnations. It’s a lot of those Marvel shows. Sorry.

David Read:
You’re sure?

Joseph Mallozzi:
A lot of the Marvel shows… I see [or] hear fans complaining and I’m like, “You know, I don’t watch the Marvel shows. What are you complaining about? But I love the comic books.” And then I’ll see interviews with the writers of these shows and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we never read the comic books. They told us not to read the comic books.”

David Read:
That’s right.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Why? Why don’t you just go make up your own universe then? If you want to do something completely different, why–

David Read:
Because there’s already an in-universe explanation if you want to know the real answer.

Joseph Mallozzi:
What is the in-universe explanation for–

David Read:
The MCU Earth is designated Earth-199999. That’s the slice of reality that the MCU universe operates on.

Joseph Mallozzi:
So, the MCU universe operates on …

David Read:
It’s a multiverse.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I get the multiverse. So, basically it operates in a universe that is removed from the original in many ways. So, I guess I would ask, why didn’t anyone think of sort of adapting the original?

David Read:
That’s a great question. The only thing I can do is ask you, could you have stood creating a shot-for-shot recreation of something original without feeling compelled to make any of it your own as a creator?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I would argue you don’t have to do a shot-by-shot recreation. For me, if you remain true to the essence of the characters and the tone of the original IP, you can update it for contemporary audiences or what have you. But when you betray those original characters and the original tone, I feel as though you’re asking for it. And as a result, fans, I feel, in many cases, not all because I think there are a lot of crazy fans out there, but they have been rightly upset.

David Read:
And what if you resent, as a creator, you resent the original creator of the content? Think that they were a product of their time and think that it’s time that we reset this for a modern audience. What would you say to that?

Joseph Mallozzi:
You’re free to think that, but I think the ones who are culpable there are the executives who hire this new creator to reimagine a vision for a show they detested in some ways.

David Read:
Or an original product that they detested.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Or, but the fact that a lot of these writers were not at all familiar with the original source material, I think is wild. But anyways…

David Read:
I agree. I think that if you are to utilize an IP as a skin suit to Trojan Horse your own ideas, whether I agree with them or not, I think that you’re doing something pretty sacrilegious.

Joseph Mallozzi:
And I think it really comes down to… We’re gonna get into this. It really comes down to, again, being respectful to what has come before. You can update it and introduce new characters or anything, as long as you respect the original because there are a lot of fans of the originals. And it’s something we talk about, and now we’re gonna get into messaging
Which is something that people discuss online. And it’s, there’s so much messaging in these shows and that shows. And other people rightly point out, there’s always been messaging in sci-fi, which is true, but I would argue that the clunky, hit-you-over-the-head type of messaging that has become de rigueur in today’s sci-fi was few and far between in the sci-fi of old. I think the writing, in some ways it was clunky, but in other ways it’s far more clever and subtle in relaying its messages. Whereas now, it’s, you have to hit the viewers over the head with this message or they won’t get it. And the problem is that that heavy-handed messaging makes you feel like you’re watching this hour-long PSA with wonderful visual effects. But all the shows seem to cover the same ground and the same messaging, and then after a while it just becomes tiresome.

David Read:
Can I cut to the chase?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
I think many writers now don’t trust that their audiences can think for themselves. I think many writers now, many, many people who are creating content for the masses, don’t trust that audience to make the right choices for themselves. They have to be told what to think because they are idiots.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I would agree, and this is one thing that my former writing partner, Paul, pointed out to me. I would always get notes on the scripts to make this more obvious, and he would say, “You’re giving the audience too much credit.” And maybe I did. I would always imagine your sci-fi audience, you’re gonna put the pieces together. I, as a viewer, always loved shows like The Sopranos where you weren’t spoon-fed necessarily the message or the various story elements, but are left to piece it together, so that when you do piece it together, it becomes so much more dramatically satisfying. But nowadays a lot of programming… I’ve had executives tell me they want the type of programming that you can be doing something else, you can be multitasking, you can be doing your vacuum while the TV is on in the background. And if you go toss out the dog poop for five minutes and come back, you’ll be able to sort of continue watching, and I guess that’s one form of entertainment.

David Read:
That’s right. There are those shows. And that’s OK. But do you wanna work in that genre? Or that slice?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I personally would not wanna work in that genre, no.

David Read:
Exactly. Have you seen Annihilation?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Speaking of which, the movie? Yeah. I actually love Jeff VanderMeer. He’s one of my favorite weird writers. And I say basically weird as in a subgenre of horror sci-fi.

David Read:
Let me park that for a second. You said, “Speaking of which…” Do you need the… does the dog need to go out?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No.

David Read:
OK, but you’re good?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
So, they were talking about, I think it was Paramount that released it, and Paramount said, “This thing is gonna go over the audience’s heads. This is a trilogy. We really want this to succeed.” You have to — for want of a better word/term — dumb it down for a little bit more of a modern audience, or larger group of people. And the writers said, “No. We are adapting this from the first book.” And the movie was brilliant and cerebral, and it failed. But they made something that was faithful to the original, and I’m thrilled that it exists, even though it’s only one. And that’s the two-sided thing. Do you wanna make it authentic and risk making it inaccessible to people, or do you want to make it a little bit more palatable? There’s a dance that goes back and forth.

Joseph Mallozzi:
There’s no guarantee. The guy’s cutting the check, so the gal’s cutting the checks usually has a lot of say, and I’m sure they would have loved to have seen a more commercial venture and a better return on their investment. But that movie is a standout for me. There has to be, I think, a middle ground at the end of the day, because making it palatable and commercial doesn’t guarantee success either.

David Read:
Annihilation. Ex Machina is another one.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I love Ex Machina.

David Read:
I think it’s immensely accessible. And I think that the one that really walks the line and succeeds is Arrival. Because you can have cerebral ideas where you get to the end of the film and go, “Whoa, that’s not behind, that’s ahead.” And if you haven’t seen it, that’s all I’m gonna say. Go and drop everything and watch it now. You can challenge your audience… but this has been so wonderful to sit down and catch up with you and talk about the broader strokes for the industry and the road that is ahead and what’s to come. Are you leveraging, before I let you go, AI in any way to help you creatively? Or are you steering clear from it like stink on a monkey?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think we have to be realistic. I know that people are worried, rightly so, about AI coming and taking everyone’s jobs. That said, I mean, AI is the future, and the challenge is to find a way to, like you said, leverage, to meet your own goals. I think worst-case scenario you see the studio using AI to create crappy scripts, or AI-generated talent. But basically, I think–

David Read:
Worst case scenario we’re all AI pod people, but hey!

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes. That’s a worst-case scenario. But realistically, I think the studios are the ones who could be in trouble because I think the creatives are the ones with the talent. The studios are the middlemen. They’re the ones with the money who basically allow you to deign… to allow you to make your work public. With AI, that will eventually afford creators the opportunity to get their own work out there. I’ve spoken to people who work in the AI field talking about launching platforms that use AI, but in a way that allows actors and creatives to get a piece of that pie. So, I understand why everyone’s afraid, but I think realistically you can’t really resist the advancements of technology. For me personally, I can’t imagine using AI to write.

David Read:
Good.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Because I think writing is such a personal thing. I like to use AI for research purposes. It’s so much easier if I wanna, for this pitch that I’m doing on Wednesday, I need examples of technological advancements that initially undermine religion and yet religion found a way to sort of adapt alongside it, and they will give me examples of that. So, that, in that respect, it’s amazing what it can do from a research standpoint. I continue to be unconvinced that it will be able to produce scripts, very good scripts. I will admit that it probably will have the ability to deliver average or subpar scripts which, let’s be honest, reflect about, I think, 50% of Hollywood industry output. But I don’t think it could ever, or maybe at some point it will, but the last thing it will be able to do is comedy. And that’ll be a challenge, especially subtle or throwaway humor.

David Read:
Tiny. That’s an astute observation.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That’s what I feel.

David Read:
When we’re born, we can make any phoneme that the human body can produce. And when we’re adults we are locked into our mode of thinking where we can only communicate through that track because our neural pathways are already affixed by mid-20s. Similarly, Gabe Newell who is the head of Valve, made an interesting point a couple of months ago talking about AI and programming with people helping to teach. I’ve used it to write Python code, for instance, for Dial the Gate and been successful at it. He said that there is gonna be, quite possibly, a period where programmers can be outstripped by people who are using AI to program for the first time because they’re not buttressed by an architecture of, “You must think of it this way.” Someone who has no familiarity with programming, but whose instincts are good can use the tool to create something absolutely original. And I think right there, that is the valley where a lot of money can be made. So, it’s gonna be interesting to see.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I agree.

David Read:
Can we see Sharky before you go?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. Hang on. Sharky, come here, buddy.

David Read:
Sharky. I’ve been looking forward to this all week. There’s the boy.

Joseph Mallozzi:
All right. He was, as usual, napping.

David Read:
Aww, look at that face.

Joseph Mallozzi:
He had a big walk today. He basically walked part way up the street.

David Read:
Is he loving life? Is he doing good? How’s his health?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes, he loves his mom. His health is great. He’s around 10 now. We adopted him two years ago. No eyes, if you’re wondering why he has his eyes closed. We got him on the heels of Suji, who was our last gal. We adopted her when she was 12 and she passed away at 18 and four months. And then we were like, “OK, we’re just gonna go travel now.” Because we were never able to travel with Suji, because she was so high maintenance. And then, a month later, we got him, and had to readjust all our travel plans.

David Read:
Absolutely. You know what? Life is better with a dog.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I agree.

David Read:
It really is. Have you been pleased with the feedback that he gets online?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes, absolutely.

David Read:
The link is in the description below, folks.

Joseph Mallozzi:
He has a mere 10,000 followers, a little less than 10,000, on his Instagram. Forget about following me. Go over to Instagram and find “heysharkyehey” and my wife, Akemi, manages his account and posts updates on the daily. There we go.

David Read:
There is something to be said …

Joseph Mallozzi:
He’s a lot more interesting …

David Read:
… for looking through the eyes of a dog.

Joseph Mallozzi:
… I’ll be honest with you. He’s a lot more interesting than I am.

David Read:
Thank her for letting us borrow you for this long. I really appreciate …

Joseph Mallozzi:
My pleasure.

David Read:
… always sitting down with you and being able to pick your brain and wander through the work that you guys created that means so much to us.

Joseph Mallozzi:
At the time, you’re working and it’s very hard and you don’t really think much about it. But once time has passed and you look back, you think back, “Wow, I can’t…” It’s hard to imagine all the work that went into that and everything we created.

David Read:
I don’t see us talking about most of this product that streamers are kicking out 30 years from now. This show was not product. This show was something that meant something to people. And it means something to us because, like our earlier conversation, it entertains first. If there is a message, it is never first. And I think that’s the difference.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I agree. Well said.

David Read:
Joseph Mallozzi, thank you sir.

Joseph Mallozzi:
David, good to see you. You can find me on X, by the way, Baron Distracto. Jen, longtime Sharky fan says, “Please let’s see a return of Sharky Sunday to X.” Yes, I will start reposting Sharky videos on my X timeline as well.

David Read:
The link is in the description below, folks. Appreciate your time. Joe, as always, thank you so much.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thank you all. See you online.

David Read:
Thank you. Joseph Mallozzi everyone, writer and executive producer for Stargate. My name is David Read. You’re watching the Stargate Oral History Project: Dial the Gate. We have no Wormhole X-Tremists coming up for you today. We’ve got a sick Nicole, so Nicole’s gonna go and rest and we will meet you guys back here, not next week, but the week after that. I’m working out some new episodes right now with a number of folks. We’re trying to nail everything down and straighten everything out. So, we’ll see how this unfolds. If you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, please click the like button. It does help with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click subscribe. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops. You’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. And clips from this episode will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. Since we had audio problems on the first half of this, I’m gonna unplug the livestream and re-upload this as a pre-recorded episode in a moment here so you can actually hear me for the first 20 minutes of the show. Sometimes we have to find things out the hard way. So, I really appreciate Joe for being patient with me and all of you out there watching as well. I don’t think I have any unanswered questions for me. I think we are good. Marsha’s writing something, but I don’t think that that’s meant for me. My moderators. Thank you so much to my moderators, Antony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj, and Jakub. Really appreciate you guys. You make the show possible week after week. My producers, Antony Rowling, Kevin Weaver, Summer Roy and Brice Oars. Matt Eagle SG Wilson for his beautiful renders of our ships at the beginning of the show. And Frederick Marcoux at Concepts Web. He keeps dialthegate.com up and running. Stay tuned because more is happening really soon. Keep an eye out for more Stargate content on youtube.com/dialthegate and over at dialthegate.com. My name is David Read. I will see you guys on the other side.