Welcome to Season Four! It has been sixteen months since we sat down with GateWorld’s Darren Sumner and Hollywood Marketing Veteran Jenny Stiven to specifically discuss the state of Stargate, and the industry has experienced a great deal of action since then. We’ll bring you up to speed on what’s happening, what’s not happening, and what we can say definitively about the future.

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Timecodes

0:00 – Splash Screen
0:29 – Opening Credits
0:55 – Welcome to Season Four!
1:16 – Welcome back, everyone!
2:18 – Taking Time Off
5:03 – Current State of the Gate
28:40 – Stargate’s 30th Anniversary
29:55 – MGM’s Revolving Door of Executives
43:08 – The People Making the Decisions
46:01 – Amazon’s Rebranding
58:19 – Hair and Dog
1:02:59 – Impact with Stargate Timekeepers
1:12:07 – San Diego Comic Con Announcement
1:16:15 – Dial the Gate Season Four
1:29:48 – Louis Gossett Jr.
1:33:53 – Other Interview Prospects
1:45:48 – Post-Discussion Housekeeping
1:47:34 – End Credits

***

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

#Stargate
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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 238 of Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project, and Season Four of my show. Thank you so much for joining me. It’s a real privilege to have managed to have gotten it this far. I would not have thought it was possible. I could not have done it without the help of Jenny Stiven, Clio Consulting and industry marketing veteran, and Darren Sumner of GateWorld, my partner going back 20 years now. Geez, guys, how are you?

Jenny Stiven:
Doing great. Happy April.

David Read:
Happy April.

Jenny Stiven:
Happy spring.

David Read:
Darren, how you doing?

Darren Sumner:
I’m fantastic. I’m bringing up our chat so that I can see what people are saying.

David Read:
GateWorld is going to be 25 years old this year, isn’t it?

Darren Sumner:
GateWorld turns 25 in October and boy, I don’t know if I can make it right now. I need some encouragement from you guys.

Jenny Stiven:
Wow, that is insane.

David Read:
We are going to drag you across the finish line.

Darren Sumner:
Who knew this year was gonna be the longest haul.

Jenny Stiven:
Hey, darkest before the dawn, dude. Darkest before the dawn. That’s what they say.

Darren Sumner:
I’m ready to celebrate. I need some good news. Hey, congratulations, David, on Season Four.

David Read:
Thank you very much. I apologize to everyone for taking so long to get back, but it was a matter of schedules. I had to seriously take some time off to recharge ’cause hammering three or four of these out a week takes a lot out of you.

Darren Sumner:
Season Three was almost…

David Read:
It was super extended

Jenny Stiven:
Tense.

Darren Sumner:
How many shows did you do for Season Three alone?

David Read:
At least 90. It was 85, 90.

Darren Sumner:
Two seasons.

David Read:
Season Four will not have that many, it’s as simple as that. I’m taking more time off this year, family and everything else. Some things are coming to a head, but all is well. Jenny, how are you? How’s life?

Jenny Stiven:
Life is great. I just signed on for a full-time gig with a sci-fi fantasy author to help her develop her IP across all media. As a lot of you guys know that know me, one of my favorite things to do is be able to be right there at the very beginning. She’s written four books already, but I get to be there into the growth of her transmedia and her franchise. So, we were at WonderCon. I saw, actually, quite a few Stargate fans, friends of ours, friends of the show. We had a big booth and it was our coming-out party so it was really, really cool. Hence the purple hair. It’s all purple. I’ll give you guys some links at the end to go check it out, ’cause I’d really love Stargate fans to go check her out.

David Read:
So, you can reveal the name?

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah. It’s called The Last Lumenian and it’s the Seven Galaxies Chronicles by SG Blaise. I’ll give you some stuff at the end to go check out. It’s amazing.

David Read:
All right. Darren, update us. What’s going on with you?

Darren Sumner:
I’m in a tailspin right now. I’ve been resetting. I’ve been doing lots of online teaching. It’s the same thing that I do with Stargate. It’s making content to teach online. It’s making video content.

David Read:
You’re not used to that at all.

Darren Sumner:
No. My current class ended up being canceled, which I was perfectly happy with. It frees me up so I’m no longer about to feel the tidal wave crash over me with the amount of material that I had to create. Now I’m in the pivot spot where I’m turning back to Stargate, back to GateWorld, figuring out what we can do for written content on the website as well as some new video content for the channel. But it’s good, I’m excited about it.

David Read:
OK, great.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s great.

David Read:
Since we last spoke, were all of us here for the Stargate and the Hollywood strikes episode? Was it both of you guys?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah and it’s been a while.

Jenny Stiven:
I think so.

Darren Sumner:
When did we last do a State of the Gate?

David Read:
The State of the Gate was 16 months ago.

Darren Sumner:
September-ish? Or no, that was last…

David Read:
No, it was December of ’22. I went back and checked.

Darren Sumner:
Are you kidding?

David Read:
We did the Hollywood strikes.

Jenny Stiven:
I don’t know that I was on that one. Was I?

David Read:
Stargate’s Future Amid Hollywood Strikes. You were absolutely on that thing. July 15th of last year.

Darren Sumner:
We did talk about the strikes.

Jenny Stiven:
Talking about the state of the industry as it relates to…

Darren Sumner:
Last summer.

David Read:
My understanding is that it’s contracting, particularly, the new television show development has gone from 600 shows to 300 shows this season. Is that correct?

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah. That’s across a couple of, not just broadcast linear television, it’s also streaming, OTT. The contraction was expected, honestly, by most industry analysts. But in terms of some of the people that were internal, they didn’t expect the layoffs that happened. We can talk a little bit more about what happened between fall of last year and January, February of this year.

Darren Sumner:
I heard him.

David Read:
Come on, Keenan.

Jenny Stiven:
Sorry about.

David Read:
Say hello. Bring him in.

Jenny Stiven:
He’s lots of talking. Lots and lots of talking.

David Read:
Hey, Keenan.

Jenny Stiven:
There’s David.

David Read:
Hi, Bub.

Jenny Stiven:
I know. Where’s David?

David Read:
I get to see you this summer.

Jenny Stiven:
He wants to go see you.

David Read:
I miss that little boy so much.

Jenny Stiven:
I may have to close him out. The contraction of the shows themselves was the end result of the contraction post-COVID and the strike. Even if the strike hadn’t happened, this contraction was going to happen in some manner, shape, or form. You’d think that they would’ve understood how this works. Prior to COVID, and we’ve talked about this a lot, they were not sure how well streaming was gonna do. Those like NBC Universal, Comcast, Amazon, Disney, set up their streaming channels, were not actually convinced it was gonna work and they had not committed to full slates on each of these streaming services.

David Read:
They hedged their bets.

Jenny Stiven:
Netflix and Amazon were the only ones at the time that had actually committed to original series slates for longer than the first two years. Everybody has five-year plans, but nobody had committed in 2018, 2019, to full slates. COVID happens and all of a sudden they all thought, “My God, it’s the Holy Grail. It’s Shangri-La. We’ve found the Fountain of Youth. This is gonna be great.” We all know what happened, is that, unfortunately, they didn’t plan for post-COVID, where people go back to work, people go back to their lives, where everything is not dependent on binging or dependent on watching. It took a full two years, but the ’22, ’23 season is when you started to see the layoffs and 2023 was bleeding employees. It was because they had bloated, unfortunately. The worst part about this is the entertainment industry has a tendency, as we’ve talked about before on the show, to overcompensate in its pendulum swing. Once again, they overcompensated, where they laid off an enormous amount of employees. Amazon, and we’re gonna get to that in a little while, in particular had three different rounds of layoffs that were specific to the studio and MGM was affected in this last run. So, what ends up happening is that you go from development execs who are out there actively looking for new projects or development, to maybe one or two, and they’re wearing 17 different hats for each silo of type or theme. That’s what’s happened. and then the strike happens on top of everything else and they lose six months of development and production time, depending upon where they were in that sliding scale. From April of last year through December of last year, there was a weird mix of, “OK, we can do pre-production meetings, but we can’t write anything. OK, now that the writers are over, we can write something, but we can’t meet with actors, so we can’t get contracts.” Talent agents wouldn’t, rightfully so, meet with anybody. So, you had development execs who were desperately trying to say, “We support the strike, but we gotta make business.” You ended up with a nine-month retraction or cancellation of a slew of streaming shows, movies, everything. As we also saw with Warner Brothers, with ACME, with a show that I was working on with NBC Universal, these were all in the can and they got pulled and canceled. All of this is an adjustment. If there’s anything that I can say, having been through many of these cycles, this is not unheard of. This is not abnormal; this is pretty consistent. The problem I think that they’re facing is that there’s a lot of fear management going on right now.

David Read:
It has the benefit of happening at a time of a major financial problem, where so many people can’t even buy houses. So many of these folks have lost their homes. There’s a lot of things stuck in the wheel.

Jenny Stiven:
What are you gonna spend on luxury items? Entertainment is luxury. Entertainment is the last in and the last out of a recession or an impacted economy. The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, a week and a half ago, had a big splash, I think it was The Hollywood Reporter, “Entertainment industry is entering a depression.” It’s all over, folks. This was the most ridiculous article I’ve read. What they were doing was they were saying, “Look, we’re looking at four factors in an equation that usually lead to the entertainment industry being in a depression. We’re always the last into a depression. We’re always the last out.” Recession, depression, impacted economies. In this case, I think that was an overreaction, but I understand, because what they’re looking at is, David, to your point, an economy that’s impacted right now. There are radically insane, inflated payments and people who can’t afford gas. So, you have an economy, you’ve got post-COVID, you’ve got post-strike, which is the third variable, and the fourth variable is too many places for people to find their entertainment, so there is no focus.

Darren Sumner:
Streaming bubble was always gonna come back down the other side. As you said, they go into this with a five-year plan. I don’t remember when everything launched. The one that sticks in my head is Apple TV+ launched in November 2018 and that’s when Jason’s show launched with See. We were reporting on it at the time. So, as you say, the five-year plan, COVID or no COVID, there’s gonna be end to that arc. To a degree, this was always gonna be the case. Jenny, let me make a little analogy for folks and then you correct me and tell me if you think this is right or not. We look back, especially Stargate fans. Stargate was in its heyday 2008, 2009. Lots going on in the global economy, but in the entertainment industry, of course, the big shift that we saw when the SG-1 movies were coming out was the collapse of DVD and physical media sales. That was another kind of sky is falling moment for the industry. I wanna suggest that this moment that we’re experiencing now with this contraction in the entertainment industry, largely, I think, due to streamers, is like and unlike what happened with the home video sales. I keep saying home video ’cause I’m an ’80s kid. What do they actually call it? It’s not videos.

David Read:
Physical media.

Jenny Stiven:
Digital media – DVD. They still do. They call it Home Entertainment. At Disney, that’s what it’s called

Darren Sumner:
Physical sales of DVDs and Blu-rays is what I’m talking about. So, with streaming, it’s the same sort of thing in the sense that the entertainment industry seems to be having a major freak-out because the people are going away, and the dollars are going away from what was for several years a real cash cow. But it’s unlike that because it’s not like the audience is now moving on to the next thing. They’re tightening their belts. They’re deciding which ones to pay for. They’re deciding, “I’m not willing to pay for ads now that they’ve added ads to this service I was watching so, I’m gonna drop it.”

David Read:
They’re working 60 hours a week

Darren Sumner:
There are plenty of other things to watch. What do you think of my analogy to the DVD?

Jenny Stiven:
I think it’s spot on and I think it’s the same cycle that we see – remember, that was also the housing collapse. What you have from 2008 to 2012 is a massive economic issue in the United States that then was a domino effect globally. When we had the housing collapse and the DVDs were shifting, quote-unquote, to digital, all of that happens when it happens at the same time. It is a complete sky is falling. What’s always fascinating to me, and I know I’ve said this before, it is not that the sky is falling for independent content creators, for independent creatives. Because for us, it’s an opportunity to do something that fills a gap, fills a need that the studios… The irony here is not lost on me that I am old enough that the people that used to be the startup rebellious people are now the man, which is Google, Facebook, YouTube, everybody. It gives an independent creator an opportunity, or an independent production company, an opportunity to fill that gap. Probably the best example of that is Jordan Peele with Monkeypaw Productions. There’s a lot of really good examples out there, but he’s the one that most people would recognize as, here’s someone who very slowly in the background started building his business and started doing it the way he wanted to, while also getting money and doing the projects that he needed to do and then started reinvesting that money into his company and reinvesting that money. He did one project a year. Actually, he did one project over three years, which was Get Out. Then he had two. Now he’s not only got his own, but he’s buying, like Dev Patel’s Monkey Man. These are things that successful independent creators look around and go, “OK, you guys aren’t doing it right. You think the sky is falling. I’m gonna go over here and go after these fans and I’m gonna do it this way.” So, to bring it to Stargate, Stargate falls, unfortunately, right in the middle of that. You have independent production companies who have bid on this, who wanna do it, who have bid at Amazon. They’re the right people to do this, but you have the behemoth that is no longer the rebel, but is the man, literally, making the decisions about whether or not it could go forward. So, where do fans fall in all of that? Where do we go? How do we support it? That’s the next question.

David Read:
Darren and I have been doing this since, what? 2000… When did Universe go off the air? 2011?

Jenny Stiven:
’11, yeah.

David Read:
So, at this point, it’s a question of when. Stargate is one of those where it’s not tall enough like Star Wars or Star Trek, but it’s not short enough that it disappears. It’s always kicking around in news stories; people are still talking about it. When MGM was acquired by Amazon, “this is gonna be something at some point.” The frustrating thing is once the contraction was realized, as far as I was concerned and Darren, maybe you could speak to this a little bit, Stargate’s probably not gonna be one of the ones that are gonna percolate. It’s not buoyant enough to percolate to the top dealing with this. We’re gonna have to get through this phase of whatever this is and then revisit the situation later on.

Jenny Stiven:
You mean currently right now? I would disagree.

David Read:
You don’t think so? You think that Stargate could come out, a new announcement could be made right now?

Jenny Stiven:
I do, actually. Darren, I wanna hear what you think first, ’cause you’ve been talking more to the licensees and the people who actually are dealing with Amazon.

Darren Sumner:
The silver lining is that MGM’s licensing for Stargate is on the upswing. We’ve had several new licensees come on in the last couple of years. To the question, David, you make a great point, which is: the last five years, the sort of streaming boom, there was a ton of content spending and it felt like, “OK, Stargate’s been off the air for going on 10 years when that boom was at its peak. If not now, then when?” Now that the boom is over, it is discouraging to say the least, ’cause it seems MGM and Amazon missed their window for a variety of circumstances. The acquisition and the whole FTC battle, COVID and the strikes. There were reasons, but I’m not not optimistic. How about that? I’m not not optimistic.

Jenny Stiven:
I like “not not optimistic.”

Darren Sumner:
So, perhaps, possibly, cautiously optimistic? Is that fair to say?

Jenny Stiven:
Optimistic.

Darren Sumner:
I talked to you guys a little bit behind the scenes. I’m at an “I’ll believe it when I see it” standpoint right now. Because, as you say, we’ve been doing this so long. We’ve been on MGM Watch since 2011, when SGU went off the air. There was a movie and then there was no movie with Emmerich and Devlin. Then there was Origins and the hope of more Origins and then that went away and then the sale came up. It’s been a long road and I’m an old man at this point. I came to a really strange realization recently, which is that, thinking about GateWorld’s big anniversary coming up, more of GateWorld’s life has been without Stargate than it ever had with Stargate. Isn’t that a weird idea?

Jenny Stiven:
Whoa, that’s weird.

Darren Sumner:
May was when SGU went off the air. As of May it’s been 13 years.

Jenny Stiven:
Oh my God.

David Read:
That can’t be right. Is it? OK. Yeah, ’cause there were 17 seasons.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m gonna close the door so we don’t hear the dog going bat—you know what.

Darren Sumner:
It’s the extra entertainment we all need.

Jenny Stiven:
I know.

David Read:
I love that dog.

Jenny Stiven:
All right. I’m back.

Darren Sumner:
That was a really weird realization for me: we’ve been covering Stargate longer since it’s been off the air than we ever covered it while it was on the air. So, then you think about, “OK, Star Trek went off the air and then came back with JJ’s movies.” What was that gap? That was five years. Plus they announced it while it was at the start of production. It was probably three years before they even knew they were gonna make a movie.

Jenny Stiven:
Paramount Plus April Fool’s Day where they’re skipping Star Trek IV, they’re gonna go to Star Trek V.

David Read:
That was funny.

Jenny Stiven:
That was good. OK, so I’m gonna be the Pollyanna. Here’s where I’m at. There’s a couple of reasons why I think that this is not dead in the water. Or, if you’re not saying dead in the water, that we didn’t miss our window of opportunity. There’s a couple of reasons. There is constant cycling through of executives at MGM and Amazon, at any studio. Every time a new executive comes in, they look at the catalog, every time.

Darren Sumner:
I’m glad we’re talking about this.

Jenny Stiven:
Every time that happens, and I’ve been part of it at different studios, you’ll think, “Oh my God, we’re never gonna do Predators again. Oh my God, we’re never gonna do Aliens again. Oh my God, we’re never gonna be able to pull Firefly out of the ashes.” I’ve been part of many of these reboots or revivals, whatever we wanna call it. Can I share a screen, David?

David Read:
Be my guest. In a second, I’ll do that because it was a really pertinent article that came out in the past week or two. Every time these execs come in and they look at the catalog, they wanna be the one to put their imprint on it. They don’t wanna inherit – it’s like a sports team – they don’t wanna inherit all the managers and coaches from before. They wanna put their own imprint. Part of the problem with Stargate, and this is heart-rending for a lot of us, is that there’s been this “should we or shouldn’t we” with Brad. That’s tough. It’s do you wanna use that person? “Do we, don’t we? He’s obviously talented. He obviously has an amazing creative writing group. He obviously has had successes after Stargate. But do we wanna do that, or do we wanna make our own imprint?” So, you’ve got that. Then you’ve got the fact that just in January and February, the last of the MGM layoffs have happened and everybody that said, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that happened.” No, that was a pretty normal merger and acquisition timeframe. It takes usually about two weeks for the redundancies and/or the decisions to be made for the people that are on the acquired side to either be completely absorbed or laid off.

Darren Sumner:
Two years.

Jenny Stiven:
Two years. There were a couple that I was extremely surprised at because it seemed counterproductive to lose some of the people that we had worked with, for instance, that were laid off. That’s done now, which means you have Jennifer Salke, Nick Pepper, the whole group saying, “OK. Now, we started with some of the easiest, the non-scripted reality series. Those were easy to renew. We’re obviously pursuing Bond because, duh. We’re in talks with Sylvester Stallone because, again, duh.” They ran a couple, like Creed, some that were already in pre-production before the strike happened. Then they get to the point and they go, “OK, we had our own slate,” Reacher, Rings of Power, et cetera. Now we wanna really get serious about MGM. That conversation actually started in first quarter of last year. When the strike happened, it all had to be put on hold. All they could do was continue with what was already in the can. Thank God for them, Reacher was already in the can. Post-production could continue, they weren’t on strike. There was a lot of delay when there had been quite a bit of talk from my sources first quarter last year, “OK, now we’re gonna sit down. Now we’re gonna decide what we wanna do with Stargate.” So, OK, cool. Now we’re past the strike, we’re past first quarter, which nothing gets decided in first quarter for this kind of thing. So, OK, now we’re in April and my feeling is that there’s an opening here that will be open for quite a while and it’ll depend on a number of factors. As we all know, lots and lots and lots of shows go to pilot, go to development and nothing ever happens with them. But this is an existing canon that very easily could get picked up. I think regardless of what it gets picked up as, a movie, a series, whatever it is, there’s no question there can be an opportunity here. I think that we have an opportunity that’s almost brand new because we’re past the strike, we’re past what was already in the can. This is what I’m gonna share. This was an article, I can’t remember, David, I’ve shared it with you. I can’t remember whose article it was. But basically, what it was talking about is reboots and remakes of scripted shows and primarily this is in streaming. This is from Parrot Analytics. A friend of mine works over at Parrot and I asked him the background on this. He said, “Look, we were shocked at Parrot.” Oh my God, he’s gonna drive me nuts.

David Read:
It’s OK.

Jenny Stiven:
Can you hear him or not?

David Read:
Just a little, but he’s OK.

Jenny Stiven:
Parrot was surprised at this percentage and he said streaming and pilot. So, you look at 2019, it’s before COVID. COVID right here, 2020 to 2021, obviously that’s where we had the biggest boost. We’re back up to 2020 numbers here in 2023. Here’s the kicker; Netflix has the biggest. Guess who has the second biggest? It’s Amazon. 5% of all of their scripted shows are gonna be reboots or remakes. That doesn’t mean adaptations like Reacher. That means we have a chance because this is something they’re dedicated to, which is catalog. They bought MGM for their catalog. They are not gonna ignore a juggernaut that they’ve got right there ready to go. I think that this, more than anything, is an article that just came out, where they’re talking about Amazon’s catalog in the article and this is just two weeks ago. I think I’m beyond cautiously optimistic. My cynicism only comes from the standard entertainment industry. You don’t know. These people could get fired tomorrow that are all excited about Stargate. I don’t know what’s gonna happen there.

David Read:
If I may insert, Darren, before you jump in. Marcia Middleton wanted to know, “Do you think the 30th anniversary of the movie will have any effect on Stargate content?”

Jenny Stiven:
No, I don’t. It’s owned by Lionsgate in joint ownership with MGM. But again, that depends. I’m sorry, let me back up. From what I’ve heard, and I haven’t heard anything recently, but as of December, which was the last time I talked to anybody, Michael Wright still wants Stargate on MGM+. My understanding in December was that that was the direction the conversations were going in. But again, I’m almost four months out of the loop there, but that is my understanding. If Michael thinks that running the movie on the 30th as a kick-off from a marketing standpoint, sure. It’s never had any impact on their decisions before internally because it’s messy. Honestly, I don’t know how Amazon legally traded the rights of the movie.

David Read:
Interesting. I apologize, Darren. You were saying?

Darren Sumner:
No, it’s about the revolving door of executives. This is part of what we’ve been watching as sort of arm chair quarterbacks: the revolving door of executives, both at MGM and Amazon. The folks who call the shots. Every once in a while, Jenny, you’ll forward us a Deadline article about the latest person who’s left or the latest hire, trying to keep track of who’s gonna be in the room. We’ve talked about this on State of the Gate in the past; who’s in the room making the decisions about MGM’s catalog? What I’ve been convinced of more than anything is that obviously Stargate has to have an advocate in the room or it’s not gonna happen. Jenny, you told us about folks in the room over the last 10 years who evidently…

Jenny Stiven:
It’s the only reason it happens.

Darren Sumner:
… kept Stargate from happening. They stood in the way and who are no longer there. So, I look at folks today. I look at folks like Michael Wright and the success that he’s having attempting to build MGM+ as a venue for MGM’s content. Right now, that’s not the only place that MGM’s content goes. MGM still sells its shows out, licenses its shows. Some are gonna go on Prime Video. Vikings had its deal for years with…

Jenny Stiven:
Hulu for sure. I can’t remember

Darren Sumner:
They got Wednesday on Netflix, which is another MGM show. That’s a pre-acquisition show. So, I’m watching what’s Michael Wright doing on MGM+? He seems like the sort of person who could be our advocate in the room. If there’s not an advocate for Stargate in the room, it’s not gonna happen.

Jenny Stiven:
I agree. You bring up a good point, too. Two things. Let me back up a little bit. If we’re gonna have an advocate, Michael Wright is a good one. So, I believe in him, I believe in everything that he’s done. I also personally know that he loves Stargate. Whether he wins that argument, I don’t know. Remember, first quarter last year there were plans to have the discussions and then the strike happened. In December, I shouldn’t say plan, the conversations were that Michael Wright would take it on MGM+. What that looks like, what it means, who’s gonna work on it, I don’t know. My understanding in December was that Hawk Ostby and those guys had moved on. So, I don’t know who would do it, who would direct it, who would develop, who would write it. I don’t know any of that and I have no information right now. I do know that the advocate that’s gonna most make the difference would be Michael Wright. Outside of that, ironically, I know everybody’s got their complaints about Jen Salke, she has continually brought up at production and development meetings Stargate. So has Nick Pepper. Now, I don’t know how much Nick Pepper’s involved anymore with it, because if it does go to MGM+, that would be Michael Wright. Nick Pepper is in charge of global, was in charge of global television. I think the other thing that’s important is there’s another article that came out last week about Amazon’s international plays that are going on. For Amazon internationally and globally, what they’re looking at: “Does this catalog title have legs globally?” That’s an incredibly huge part of their decision-making process. One of the things that Amazon does is, of course, they buy from other countries their content. As you’ve seen, Netflix has done it probably better and best than anybody and Amazon’s trying to follow that. In doing so, they’ve sent over their head of catalog, I think, to go to all of the major countries around the world that have a high level of streaming television through the Amazon contracts. Hold one second.

David Read:
I knew he was gonna win.

Jenny Stiven:
I can’t handle it. And have a conversation with each of those UK, Germany, Japan, South Korea offices that are the Amazon offices about what are they seeing, where is their audience and is there an audience for these titles that they’re bringing with them? One of those discussions was about Stargate. So, he’s bringing with him the catalog of titles in all of these different meetings that he’s having, saying, “OK, show me what you’ve got. Show me what you guys are developing and here’s what we’ve got in catalog. Do any of these find an audience for you?” I don’t know what the result was because this article was talking about the meetings that he was doing over the space of six months. That’s hugely encouraging, because that means that they’re bringing at least in mentioning Stargate. The last thing, Darren, to your point, is that if during COVID nobody was gonna “syndicate their shows” outside of their own streaming channels. Of course, what happened is they all realized that you cannot sustain a business model on your own and you have to syndicate out. Even Amazon’s gonna be looking at doing that with their own. I don’t think they’re gonna do it with Reacher, but my understanding is they’re gonna be doing it with a couple of others, where they’re gonna be looking to go ahead and “syndicate it on Hulu,” et cetera. I think that there’s three different areas there that give an opportunity that didn’t exist a year ago prior to the strikes.

David Read:
Shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation wouldn’t have existed without syndication. I was really surprised when they pulled back and were like, “No, we’re gonna keep everything siloed that’s ours behind our front door.” There’s so much of a money-making opportunity there. All you’re doing is sharing the content with more potential eyeballs. You gotta keep that door open, in my opinion.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s crazy. I get it, because they bought the thing from the fountain of youth or whatever, Shangri-La.

David Read:
2020 was unprecedented.

Jenny Stiven:
There is a business model. It was.

David Read:
For everyone alive today.

Jenny Stiven:
There’s a syndication business model, or a licensing business model, for a reason. Darren, you were talking about that MGM’s seen an uptick in its licensing. That’s also something that’s fascinating to me, is that the licensing and merchandising has not seen an economic impact from the rollercoaster. They’ve seen slight dips. I had a chart but I couldn’t find it. Taking Disney out of the equation because they’re always gonna be the 600-pound gorilla in the room; you can’t really compare it. If you look across the board, the different licensing and merchandising franchises that are big, there really hasn’t been a drop in any of them except for small little ticks, that’s it. When they’re looking at it, that is a huge part of their cross-functional decision-making in their business model. Stargate, I’m pretty sure from what I understood, again, from conversations in December, the reason they kept those going is because it’s a great way for them to test the audience, test the pond. “What’s out there? Who’s willing to buy?” That’s what a lot of licensing and merchandising of old franchises is for now, is they bring it forward. You’ll see something, you’ll think, “Why did that come out?” It’s because they’re testing to see if there’s an audience there. Which is then good news, again, because we’ve got more licenses that they’re doing for Stargate, so it means they’re testing.

Darren Sumner:
They’re thinking about the big picture of the franchise. They’re not thinking about what the next show is. They’re thinking about what’s the shape of the Stargate business in two, three, five years.

Jenny Stiven:
‘Cause none of them can do anything other than do the full. A franchise cannot be one media anymore. It can’t. It can’t sustain it.

Darren Sumner:
George Lucas taught us that.

David Read:
Chief toymaker.

Darren Sumner:
The other thing I’m watching is all the MGM catalog franchises, all those IP that Amazon picked up two years ago now. I watch the trades daily; I’m looking for development announcements. One thing that is helping me to hold out my candle of hope for Stargate: We were told Stargate was gonna be a priority. It was “told” in quotation marks there. It seemed that Stargate was gonna be a franchise priority once they got the ball rolling. I’m watching for other projects to get announced. A RoboCop project, a Legally Blonde project. Correct me if I’m wrong, so far, I haven’t seen any.

Jenny Stiven:
Legally Blonde is in pre-production, that I do know.

David Read:
It is?

Jenny Stiven:
It was in pre-production before the strike. When I’m talking pre-production, I’m talking Reese Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, was in talks with MGM and Amazon. My understanding is that those talks have picked back up. I’d have to go back and look to check to make sure, but that was my understanding.

Darren Sumner:
I’ve seen virtually nothing other than that on existing MGM IP getting a new TV series or movie green-lit publicly in development. That tells me that it’s not Stargate’s being left on the back burner, but that Amazon as a whole has not quite gotten around to doing MGM’s IP yet.

Jenny Stiven:
No, that’s exactly right. Everybody has to remember, to us, the strike ending feels like it was ages ago. It’s almost six months ago now. But in entertainment speak, even though we don’t exist in seasons anymore, you still think in seasons for TV. For development, when they’re talking about, OK, that means I have to look at what was in pre-production, what was in production, what was in post. The priorities are always gonna be what was in the can, what was in post-production. Those come first. Then after that, what was in production? Do we think it’s worth it still? How much do we have to pay – and this is what people forget – to get all those actors back who have other commitments now? So, a lot of actors had commitments in ’24, ’25 production that got pushed out. It is like the worst possible production board jigsaw puzzle you’ve ever seen in your life, for each of these studios and production companies and streamers and broadcasts to look at and say, “What am I gonna prioritize?” and then way at the very, very back of the line is pre-production. Then farther back from that is development. If you’re looking at Stargate was being in talks for development, this summer is probably when it would come back up based on all of the norms of what a cycle takes post a strike or any kind of delay, like what we went through. We’re not dealing with post-COVID delays anymore. What we are dealing with is, David, what you said at the top of the show: the economic contraction. So, between the delays that happened because of the strikes, you then have to deal with ’24, ’25 production that was already committed. Then you have to look at, we’ve lost half of our development team. Priorities become much slimmer and you go from 600 to 300 shows. The beauty of Stargate being catalog is it wasn’t a pilot. It’s not a brand-new show. It’s not something that they have to say or convince, “Hey, this is why this is a great idea.” That more than anything else is gonna, I think, serve it well because they can come forward and say, “There are a lot of people that love Stargate and know it that can write about it. We can bring those people forward. We don’t have to start from scratch.” I don’t know if they will. I’m not talking about Brad; I’m talking about current execs that are our age who watched it. So, therefore, Darren, going back to yours, the advocate in the room, and that’s Michael Wright.

David Read:
YukiAtHome asked, “How many people are usually involved in making these decisions, or is there typically a big guy at the top?” What percentage of control would Michael Wright have, or is he one equal voice among many at the table compared to Jen Salke and others?

Jenny Stiven:
It’s different at every single studio, production company, distributor. It’s different. David, you and I were in many of those meetings. You’d walk out going, “What the hell just happened?” I can be specific. It’s so ridiculous. I can be very clear as far as MGM Amazon is concerned. What I didn’t realize until I had talked to my source in December is that – we talked about this in July – Amazon and MGM were very clear who owned what in the merger, in the acquisition. I thought that catalog was gonna stay with MGM. It did not. So, all catalog decisions went to Amazon Studios. Amazon Studios is now Amazon MGM Studios or something like that. So, all catalog franchise decisions are with the Amazon Studios group. The last of the MGM mergers of people and resources happened in January. Some of those MGM people are now over there. For instance, Steve Stark still has his production shingle, but he will have nothing to do with it. So, the decision-making, to answer more directly, is with Amazon Studios. In this case, if it’s decided by Jen Salke and Mike and Nick Pepper that it’s gonna go to MGM+ and it’s a distribution, Michael Wright has quite a bit of say. He sits at the table, regardless, for creative development. He always has a say in, “I’d like this to be on MGM+.” You probably have, I would say, Amazon, while it has streamlined, still has a good 10 to 12 people involved in decision-making of development. It really comes down to her boss, Mike, Jen, Nick Pepper and probably one or two others of going from development into pre-production. I would say there’s three or four at the top that say, “We think this is worth it for Amazon from a business model standpoint,” and then there are many people underneath that that have to make the decision: Where does it go? What do we spend? Is it worth it? That would be another 10 people, of which Michael Wright, if it goes to MGM+, would be a major decision-maker. Then you have to bring in a production company. Unless they decide to have it be an original, which I don’t know that they would.

Darren Sumner:
My efforts to read the tea leaves and to watch what Amazon is doing with the IP has been obscured a little bit by what you mentioned, which is that in the course of the merger, Amazon has rebranded its studios as Amazon MGM Studios. Now they make announcements, I’m looking at a couple here, they announced a show development deal with Audible. MGM+ has also green-lit an adaptation of Earth Abides, which is a sci-fi. This one is from MGM+ Studios, which I understand is a different entity.

Jenny Stiven:
It is.

Darren Sumner:
As announcements come out, here’s a new sci-fi show from Amazon MGM Studios. Is there any way to tell anymore, or is it even relevant to ask, is this an MGM production or is this an Amazon production? Or are they effectively the same organization?

Jenny Stiven:
It’s relevant to us in the sense that The Earth Abides – I wasn’t gonna bring it up – but The Earth Abides announcement worried me, honestly.

David Read:
Really?

Jenny Stiven:
It’s a sci-fi by MGM+ Studios, which is what Michael Wright has now been put in charge of. If that’s being developed, then where does Stargate fall? It could be that Stargate gets developed by someone else and it’s distributed on MGM+, which is fine. But those are the things where I look at it and I go, “OK, if I’m Jen Salke and I look at that and that’s the money we’re spending for that this year, do we spend for another one that’s gonna go on MGM+?” Of course, they’ve got the new Rings of Power season coming out. Again, it’s not just about production, it’s about post-production. How many resources do you have? The production company that you bring on, can they provide for those resources? Then, just as important, marketing. So, OK, we’re gonna go, “where’s our audience for Stargate?” This is one thing that I love; Amazon does do consumer insights very well in the creative studio side. One of my best friends that David and I have worked for, Bettina Sherick, works for consumer insights at Amazon, she doesn’t have anything to do with the Stargate decisions or anything like that, but she’s been telling me about what they do in their research department. It’s amazing what they do. They really do look for, “where’s our audience? Who can we go after?” I will say that, to bring it back to the fans, there is no question in my mind from what my friends that work on the consumer insight side say that when we’re out there being active and vocal – I don’t know how many years I’ve been saying this – but don’t get tired, because the minute you get tired, then they’ll come to the conclusion that there’s no audience. It’s exhausting for us as fans. It is exhausting to feel, like you said, Darren, to say, “Let’s do it again.” They were very clear with me that Amazon – again, I’m looking at it from not just the fan, but the marketing side – I wish I had access to their research, because it’s amazing the insights that they get from their audiences, where they are, what they’re watching and they pay a lot of attention to the context. It’s not just about the numbers. They have people who give context to the data. I don’t know if people understand how unusual that is at a studio or a streamer. A lot of times, the data analysis, David and I have been in meetings where they come in and they show the numbers and you’re thinking, “OK, sure, but what’s the context? What questions did you ask?” So, what that you’ve got 30% female? Females doing what?

David Read:
What are you gonna do with it?

Jenny Stiven:
Who are they professionally? What do they watch besides that? That’s what Amazon does phenomenally well. If they’re saying, “We’re paying attention,” then we should be paying attention and making sure that they hear us. I sound like a broken record after 20 years, but…

David Read:
I always have hope because I remember sitting in boardrooms with you across from… I think it was Chris, whoever. I can’t remember the conversation that we had. They were like, “OK, here’s a stack of sticky notes. Go to town. I wanna see everything.” We spent, I forgot how many hours, plotting out every single plot point that the franchise had in order for us to visually illustrate: these are the ideas that exist now. We got to most of them, but we didn’t get to all of them.

Jenny Stiven:
No.

David Read:
There is always room to take a look at the catalog inside of Stargate itself and mine something out of it. At this stage, I think it’s more likely than ever, in my opinion, that they’d wanna go with something fresh.

Jenny Stiven:
Obviously, ’cause I work with The Companion too. I’ve talked to Brad. I think that ship has sailed and he’s fine with it. My God, he’s successful and he’s got so many irons in the fire. I think for fans it’s harder. I’m hoping that because there’s been enough time, that if we stay within the canon universe, which again, I have no idea, but if we did, I think fans could forgive a lot. If it doesn’t go with Brad, I think we all need to look at this, especially because there’s been so much time, more like a Star Trek reboot. Gene Roddenberry was always the producer on that, but quite frankly, he was certainly not the estate. He was a figurehead. He was not writing. He was not directing. He wasn’t even producing by the time Generations came out. I think what you wanna look at is if it stays at least in a Venn diagram somewhat overlapped into canon, I think that fans would get into it, for sure. We’d be bummed that Brad wasn’t a part of it, but I think, at least I hope, we’re at the point where it’s been enough time where we would say, “OK, we get it. We get why it can’t happen with him.” Darren, when you talked about the window of opportunity, that’s where the window of opportunity, I think, closed. That’s the part that really has moved on, to work with Brad and Joe and Rob and all those guys. That’s sad, but post-COVID, I think all of us are like, “Well…” I know there’s a huge percentage that still want it, but I think most of us, if it stays within canon, could say at least it’s an homage to Brad’s universe to stay within canon.

Darren Sumner:
Fidelity to the universe. I think of when right when Gene Roddenberry came away from Star Trek, what was the first non-Gene show that we got? It was Deep Space Nine. What a phenomenal show that was.

David Read:
It had a phenomenal showrunner in Ira Steven Behr.

Darren Sumner:
Exactly.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s right.

David Read:
That’s the key. Who is captaining the ship?

Jenny Stiven:
Who are they choosing?

David Read:
Look at Ron Moore and David Eick with Battlestar Galactica. BSG was a huge IP.

Darren Sumner:
It’s all about the creator.

David Read:
It comes down to the creator. Man, BSG 2004, it has more fans than the original did.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m one of the old-school original Battlestar Galactica fans, I grew up on it. I loved the latter better, so different time, different type of creator.

David Read:
There’s room for all of it.

Jenny Stiven:
Yep, I agree.

David Read:
If the right creator comes in and fans get a look at it and go, “Ooh, well, I wanna see some more of this.” Anything’s possible.

Darren Sumner:
Find the right creator, good writers, and then, Jenny, to your point, some connection to what’s come before; honoring or respecting the canon and its fans. We’re not fans of anything you throw at us. We’re fans of a particular universe that’s been shaped in a particular way. Then you think of, OK, when Star Trek went off the air and came back with JJ’s movie in 2009, whatever opinions you might hold about the Kelvin universe and how that all shook out, what was brilliant about that movie was the writers decided to find a piece of the canon and wrap it around this “reboot.” Which was getting Leonard Nimoy’s participation, connecting it with original Spock and the prime timeline.

David Read:
He was the flag bearer.

Jenny Stiven:
There’s lots of points of contact, David. That’s what we sat down that day. There’s lots of points of contact that you can do with that.

David Read:
The quantum mirror alone.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly.

David Read:
All you have to do is acknowledge it at the beginning in the first episode with this in some way and that would satiate plenty of people through that.

Darren Sumner:
Stargates can go to parallel universes. It’s been established in canon.

Jenny Stiven:
Over and over and over again. All we have to do is go with “Moebius” and go from there and we’re fine. Honestly, ’cause I’ve seen Roland Emmerich’s script, how he was gonna tie it to the TV universe was that. His was very much based on Daniel; the next movie was all Daniel-centric. All credit goes to Rob Hochberg and Kieran for that, because they’re the ones that convinced him at the time, in 2017, 2018, “If you’re gonna do this, you have to tie it,” so he was gonna tie it back to “Moebius.” OK, cool. Awesome. I think we all coulda dealt with that, no problem. Would have been great. So, there’s obviously precedent in other shows. In addition to that, I think there’s so much the fans will forgive if, David, like you said, it’s done well. If I hear one more doom and gloom, “superhero comic book movies are over.” No, sorry, I was gonna say bad words. Shitty comic book movies are over. Warner Brothers, you failed because you had bad movies, not because we’re tired of superheroes and comic books. There are too many people in that audience that love it, will go see a good one. Obviously, Barbie and Oppenheimer are the perfect example of one end of the spectrum to the other. I watched Road House. It’s good. It’s not great, but it’s good. It’s a B-popcorn movie and Amazon Prime has exceeded all streaming views that it’s ever had. Even Reacher. So, obviously the reason it works, it’s not great, but it’s written for the audience that it’s meant to be for, which is a B-popcorn movie audience. It’s not trying to be something it’s not. It’s lots of fighting, Jake Gyllenhaal with his shirt off, snappy, witty couple of repartee comments, Jessica being amazing and that’s it. That is the entire movie. There is no great deep plot to it. It’s just that and you can enjoy it for what it is. If we can get someone who can find that sweet spot…and here’s where the three elements have to be part of it. It has to be family team, it has to be humor and it has to have adventure. If it doesn’t have those three it isn’t gonna work for fans. If it doesn’t have those three, Stargate fans aren’t gonna accept it. It’s gotta have that team family feeling, it’s gotta have the humor and it’s gotta have the adventure. I don’t know that Stargate fans would even care if there was some overarching story, as long as that overarching story was we’re going through the Stargate again. That’s our story and go from there.

David Read:
Laura Smith, “Loving the conversation, really informative and helpful. Someone please tell Jenny that her hair is awesome. Great hair, Jenny. Looks great. Thumbs up, smiley face.”

Jenny Stiven:
Thank you.

Darren Sumner:
We did.

Jenny Stiven:
Thank you

Darren Sumner:
That’s her at the start of the show.

Jenny Stiven:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

David Read:
And great looking dog.

Jenny Stiven:
Thanks. Not that he has any industry insight, but he apparently, David, heard your voice and that was all there was to it.

David Read:
No, I’ll see that little boy soon.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s all there was to it.

David Read:
Weidier72, “Why is Dial the Gate being ignored by the Amazon executives talking to Stargate YouTube sites?” I don’t know anything about. I haven’t communicated with them.

Jenny Stiven:
I don’t know

David Read:
They haven’t communicated with me. Darren, have you heard from anyone?

Darren Sumner:
If there’s anyone at MGM who’s thinking about reaching out to content creators, you can find me by email. I haven’t heard anything from anybody.

David Read:
YouTube’s huge. There’s room for everybody.

Jenny Stiven:
I’ll be honest, I know why I’m not. I will be clear, ’cause I do wanna be super honest. The reason I’m not is because I’m still tied to Stargate Command. Internally at MGM, that was considered a massive bummer, failure. As part of that old guard, I know that they’re not gonna come back to me, which is fine. I think what’s far, far, far more important is making sure that the conversation we had with The Companion, when Brad said how important it is that all aspects of the Stargate community are supporting each other. That’s unbelievably crucial and I think that that has to be an inherent part of what that conversation is. I think that what I would want Amazon to not do is cut off its nose to spite its face, that just because GateWorld and Dial the Gate are supportive of and interviewing the previous guard – writing, creative groups, that doesn’t mean that you’re not looking forward to or supportive of a new franchise with new showrunners. If that’s what’s holding them back, then I would say that’s a massive miscalculation. You don’t want to miss the boat with an entire group of fans who are dedicated and who will follow you guys anywhere, off a cliff.

Darren Sumner:
I’m working under the assumption that it’s just timing. As we get closer to them having some material need of us…

David Read:
Precisely. That’s the only thing I can think of.

Jenny Stiven:
Marketing. It’s all about the marketing and announcement.

Darren Sumner:
The marketing team has to sit at a table and circle its ducks. Is that a metaphor?

David Read:
Wagons. Ducks work too. There’s a lot of flapping underwater.

Jenny Stiven:
Ducks.

Darren Sumner:
Get its ducks in a circle.

Jenny Stiven:
In a row. Ducks in a row, circle the wagons.

Darren Sumner:
Jenny, all the stuff that you did within MGM for so many years and are so good at, which is figuring out the communication strategy with fandom, with online content creators, et cetera.

Jenny Stiven:
Think about how long it took – and thank you for that, I appreciate it. I think that there’s so much time that happens between the discussion. David and I started talking with Michael Brown and those guys in 2015 and announcement wasn’t made till 2017.

David Read:
That was a long two years, man.

Jenny Stiven:
A long two years. I think that a lot of that is what’s going on here. Again, it comes back to the post-strike, picking up the conversation where it left off for them. As a fan, I’m gonna be so supportive; I wanna be there for whatever they do. I am genuinely optimistic because so far a lot of the creative people that are friends of mine, that they’ve chosen to work on different shows, are amazing creatives. So, Reacher has friends of mine working on it. Rings of Power, for whatever, I know everybody’s got different feelings about it, but those are some diehard fans. Amazon’s doing it the right way for people who understand and know the content. I would hope that they do the same for Stargate; that they pick somebody like Michael Wright, who knows and loves the content and then he would pick people that know and love the content.

Darren Sumner:
Jeremy Heiner: “We saw the Stargate: Timekeepers video game released earlier this year. Do you think that will have any impact on the future of the franchise?” More IP content, man. Keeping things going.

Jenny Stiven:
Play the game ’cause that’s a licensee. It goes back to Amazon pays a lot of attention in its research and its consumer insights as to where their audiences are. If you’re playing the game and you’re out there talking about it, then they’re gonna pay attention to it. It also shows that they’re willing to license to test the waters. They announced, Darren, something last month. I forget what it was. It was a new license for something.

David Read:
Was it the NFTs?

Jenny Stiven:
It was the NFTs.

David Read:
I was surprised to see that.

Jenny Stiven:
They’ve got some new people over there and it’s testing the waters. One of the things that the Consumer Insights group has found is that the people who are more willing to buy the NFT… Oops, sorry.

David Read:
We’re still here.

Jenny Stiven:
Sorry about that. That was my husband calling from Africa.

Darren Sumner:
Tell him to wait.

Jenny Stiven:
I did. I already texted. I’m like, “Dude, I’m on with David and Darren.” The audiences for catalogs that are older are more likely to do an NFT if it’s for a franchise or content that they’ve already believed in. So, the younger crowd is obviously they don’t care; they’re gonna try anything. But for people that are older, to get them into NFTs, into any kind of Web3 or Film3…

David Read:
That makes a lot of sense.

Jenny Stiven:
Go with content that they trust. I was so encouraged that they did that. That is a big foot in the water for them to test it.

Darren Sumner:
I’m looking at the products news on GateWorld to remind myself of all the new licensees. BlueBrixx. Lego-compatible brick-building sets. They’re based in Europe, so you’re gonna pay a pretty penny to get them shipped over here. Those are shipping right now. We’ve got a story upcoming on that. Master Replicas, we know, has its license to do new ships and props. We’re gonna hear more about that very soon. They did a limited edition of the Hammond for their collection. They did 500 of them and I think they’re gone. They’re gonna print more Daedalus. We’re gonna hear more about what they’re doing soon. Let’s see, what else is on here? Hollywood Collectibles is one of these high-end prop replica houses that does specialty items like Catherine’s Ra amulet. Those are selling now. Guys, I think 2024 might be the year of Stargate Funko Pops. I think it might happen.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s exciting.

Darren Sumner:
There was an unofficial Funko fan site – not a site, a Twitter channel – that at the beginning of the year, their information says that Stargate Funko’s coming. I have a little more intel since then that I haven’t confirmed. They went up on an Italian retail site, which we reported on on GateWorld. Everything starts with the movies. Jenny, you can explain to us why so many of these licensees start with the feature film. It’s gonna be a movie Jack and Daniel and a Horus Guard or something like that, maybe Ra.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s because they would have a licensee agreement with Lionsgate, not MGM. A lot of times they start with a movie that’s an older movie because it wouldn’t be in the public domain, but it’s a much, much cheaper license, much cheaper than the series. Series licenses are expensive, even catalog ones.

David Read:
Wow.

Jenny Stiven:
The Stargate 1994 movie would be much, much cheaper.

Darren Smner:
I know the NFTs started with the movie as well.

Jenny Stiven:
It makes sense. It was the same reason we did Origins off the movie, because we couldn’t afford, at the time when we started Stargate Command, we couldn’t jump right into Brad’s canon. It was gonna be a lot more expensive to pay for that. Because by the end, you had quite a few people who were part of that. It was Brad and Robert and Joe and Richard and Amanda. They all owned a part of it. So, that was gonna be a lot more expensive to develop something off that universe.

Darren Sumner:
Does their deal mean that they get a nickel off of a new tie-in spin-off?

Jenny Stiven:
Depending upon how the deal is done. In terms of licensing for this kind of thing, if they’re using their likeness, they have to be paid. For instance, the NFTs were easy because they weren’t anybody’s particular likeness. They could pay Lionsgate for the movie rights and they licensed for probably a year. They had super limited, I think it was 800 and 200 rights, so they didn’t have very many of them. That’s easy. It launched in March, I think they’re almost sold out. That was pretty straightforward.

David Read:
If the officials aren’t gonna authorize some things, some fans go ahead and create stuff on their own as well. I’ve got a number of pieces back here for Season Four. This Destiny countdown clock was created by William Murphy.

Jenny Stiven:
Yay.

David Read:
A friend of ours. It’s absolutely amazing. It has a timer feature that I mean to use. This box here down with the Stargate Earth symbol is created by a friend of mine named Jay Francois and there’s a Stargate inside of that and I’m gonna be planning on using that. Also, Martin McClean has outdone himself again…

Jenny Stiven:
So gorgeous.

Darren Sumner:
What’s in the box?

David Read:
What’s in the box?

Darren Sumner:
What’s in the box, David? Beautiful. He showed me his prototype of this. Hold it up. This is the ring transport control. Of course it’s Martin, so it’s fully functional.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s so cool.

David Read:
As much as it can be, considering our current tech. It’s dead. I can’t believe it. I’m gonna have to charge it. We’ll have to come back to it.

Darren Sumner:
Martin also made my Naquadah reactor.

Jenny Stiven:
I love that.

David Read:
Is it lighting up?

Jenny Stiven:
I love it.

Darren Sumner:
It is lighting up. It’s got a bright light shining.

Jenny Stiven:
I’ve got a Stargate mirror back here on my door. I’ve got the Stargate mirror. Then you probably can’t see it, but I’ve got the Stargate box back there and then I’ve got a Horus head somewhere in there. Simone Bailey painted a painting for me that’s back there of the Stargate.

David Read:
I have been wanting one of Simone’s paintings. Lucky you.

Jenny Stiven:
She’s so cool.

David Read:
So, if there is an industry out there, the point is that there will be fans who will be happy to take it along. I’m so embarrassed that I don’t have this ready to go, Martin.

Jenny Stiven:
Don’t be embarrassed, we still gotta see how cool it was. The thing is that I think the proof there, Sonia and everybody that’s being able to do some fan stuff, there was recently a cease and desist that was sent out at the end of last year by Amazon and MGM. In general, it has not been that bad. They are not Disney-level insane. I think what they’re letting people do is if you’re doing it as a fan, what I’ve heard from them, and again, this was all last December, but what I heard was they’re not gonna crack down. If it goes forward, then you’re gonna see a much, much tighter group of people because legal will suddenly be paying attention. But for right now, they’re excited to see that fans are still watching it and doing things that are involved, which is great. I love it. I hate to say, my husband’s having a bit of an emergency in Kenya and I need to go and help him with it. Are there any other questions or anything?

David Read:
Let me go through here real quick.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m so sorry ’cause I usually love to spend a nice long time with you guys.

David Read:
Hunda Tuam, “can we expect, you think, an announcement at San Diego Comic-Con, if anything is possible?”

Jenny Stiven:
Anything’s possible.

David Read:
Anything’s possible with San Diego.

Jenny Stiven:
I do know last year they were planning on it, but with the strike it didn’t happen. They were supposed to do it with Amanda and Michael, I think. That got thrown out the window, not just because of the strike, but because tons of people got laid off, including Rob Hochberg and others who would’ve been part of that. MGM loves San Diego Comic-Con; it has made a lot of announcements there. We made our announcement there in 2017 and 2018. So, it’s perfectly possible that they’ll do that. Again, I think it depends on the state of the industry by July. That would come out of PR now, not just marketing. It would really depend on do, they think that’s the biggest bang for their buck, and who else is going. There’s a little bit of a weird dance going on right now of: “Are you going? I don’t know if I wanna go. Are you gonna announce?” They’re all circling each other and nobody’s committing because they’re all waiting for someone else to make the commitment to go to San Diego. I think it’ll depend on that as well too. If they can be the biggest voice there and not have to cut through the white noise, then that’s an amazing place to make an announcement.

David Read:
Where are you gonna be for the eclipse, Jenny?

Jenny Stiven:
Currently we think we’re gonna go up to Mount Laguna, but we’ll have to see. I don’t know if that’s gonna be the best place to see it. How about you? I heard you’re going.

David Read:
My parents’ house is in Southern Illinois, right in the path. Everyone who’s listening, I invite all of you to come over.

Jenny Stiven:
I would love to go. That’d be amazing

David Read:
I missed the last one because I was in Phoenix, but I’m not missing this one.

Jenny Stiven:
No, me neither. Darren, how about you?

Darren Sumner:
We’re too far north. We’re gonna miss it here in Washington State. We had one a few years ago that we went out and saw. It was fun.

David Read:
So, you did see it.

Darren Sumner:
I would have to get on an airplane and fly someplace.

Jenny Stiven:
Supposedly we can see it in San Diego for, I think, 10 minutes or something like that, at most.

David Read:
A chunk of it.

Jenny Stiven:
We’ll see. It’s a good excuse to go to Mount Laguna.

David Read:
There you go. Let me try this one more time, Jenny. [Device sound] “Ring transport device origin P3X-246 is now activated.”

Jenny Stiven:
That’s so cool. That is so cool. It makes me so happy. I would sit there and play with that all day. That’s so cool. You gotta tell him just how absolutely beautiful that is.

David Read:
Check this out. [Device sound] “David Read mode is now activated.” I can sit this on my shelf, and it will blinky.

Jenny Stiven:
I love that it’s David Read mode. That’s awesome.

David Read:
He created that specifically for me.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s so awesome.

David Read:
The guy is a sick genius mad scientist.

Jenny Stiven:
Seriously, that is so cool. I love it. That is so cool.

David Read:
Please tell Tim that we say hello. Give him our best.

Jenny Stiven:
I will for sure. Everybody, I love to see everybody, love to talk to everybody. As always, I am on Twitter and Instagram @jsstiven or Jennystiven. I’m on TikTok at geekwithgrayhair and I’m on LinkedIn at Jennystiven and I can’t wait to see everybody. I will be at San Diego Comic-Con with my new client. She’s at sgblaise.com. Love you guys.

David Read:
Love you.

Jenny Stiven:
Go Stargate.

David Read:
See you soon.

Jenny Stiven:
Love you. It’s, as always, a blast to talk with everybody. Bye.

David Read:
Absolutely. All right, man. Let me reconfigure this real quick here. I apologize, everybody.

Darren Sumner:
Good meet.

David Read:
This is how the sausage is made. OK. One second.

Darren Sumner:
What is going on in chat right now?

David Read:
What is going on in chat? Let’s check in with everybody really quick before we go. How do I turn my video back on? I don’t know how I do that. OK, anyway, we’re gonna have to do it this way.

Darren Sumner:
It’s just gonna be me now? Welcome everyone to my new show, Dial the Gate.

David Read:
No, it’s gonna go back and forth. We had, I think, at our peak, 132. Jenny’s gone, so now everyone’s leaving. I don’t blame them; I would probably leave myself. I really appreciate you coming on and breaking in Season Four with me; wouldn’t have wanted to have it any other way. It means a lot that you took some time to come back on.

Darren Sumner:
My great pleasure. What can you reveal to us about the plans for Season Four? I know that you’ve posted some names over on the website dialthegate.com.

David Read:
Yes, I do not wish to utter them into the ether. I want to keep them on dialthegate.com. If you wanna go and have a look, those are everyone who have indeed confirmed. It’s gonna be a shorter season, I think. I hope to have a few more high-profile ones, especially with the Stargate feature film being the 30th anniversary. Do you have any plans for the 30th anniversary? Is there anything that you wanna accomplish?

Darren Sumner:
With Stargate anniversaries, it’s any year that ends with a four or a nine, has a whole bunch of anniversaries. So, this is a big year for Stargate. I haven’t figured out what we’re gonna do yet. In October it’s gonna be Stargate’s 30th. It’s gonna be GateWorld’s 25th. July is the 20th anniversary of Atlantis.

David Read:
Wow, that’s right.

Darren Sumner:
That’s what my focus is on right now, is figuring out what to do for Atlantis’ 20th.

David Read:
That’s gonna be a big deal. I might have to try and pursue Flanagan to get back on. I’ve asked him a few times since he’s done the initial appearance with us and I haven’t heard back. We may have to take some drastic actions.

Darren Sumner:
Did you see the Guinness ad?

David Read:
It was hilarious, absolutely hilarious.

Darren Sumner:
Him and Joe fulfilled a lifelong dream of doing a Guinness commercial, which I wanna say Joe mentioned to us, like, 15-plus years ago, that one of his dreams as an actor would be, pie in the sky, to do a Guinness commercial.

David Read:
So, can someone please go to YouTube and grab the full-length Jason Momoa, Joe Flanagan Guinness commercial and throw it in the chat for me, please, here? I’ll get a copyright strike if I play it. I’m sure there are people who are like, “What are they talking about?”

Darren Sumner:
It’s worth the watch.

David Read:
Wasn’t it a Super Bowl ad?

Darren Sumner:
I don’t remember seeing it during the Super Bowl.

David Read:
I didn’t watch the Super Bowl-

Darren Sumner:
It’s not available online here.

David Read:
It was Super Bowl worthy…

Darren Sumner:
It was.

David Read:
… let’s put it that way.

Darren Sumner:
The online version is two-plus minutes. It’s like a short film.

David Read:
It is. It’s a little action film, so it’s solid stuff. I’m really looking forward to the season. There’s a number of folks that we’ve wanted to talk with who, thank you, Jeremy and Sommer, who I think are probably gonna be sucked into our orbit this time around. So, there’s some good stuff. Did you enjoy Michael Shanks’s interview?

Darren Sumner:
I loved Michael Shanks’s interview. That was a ton of fun.

David Read:
He was great and I can’t wait to have him back this season. We’ll definitely have him back. He had a good time.

Darren Sumner:
So many of these actors – you see them on set, you see them on the TV screen, you know how good they are at that job. But then you go to a convention and you put them on stage and that’s a whole different side of them. That’s a different set of muscles that they work interacting with fans. Michael’s been doing it so long through conventions and interviews and such that he’s so good at it and he knows how to turn it on and be entertaining.

David Read:
There are some people – in terms of what we do here, we discover pretty quickly – their brain stores more information, it seems, than others. Martin Wood and Michael Shanks: you spit anything at them, and they can… It’s like winding them up and letting them go. It’s the wildest thing to watch. You can give them any bit of information and they’ve got it right there. I was asking him, “Who was this person?” and he said, “It was such and such. We did this and this.” I’m like, “That was 20 years ago. How do you know that?”

Darren Sumner:
You’ve been doing this for so many years and have talked to most of these folks multiple times at this point. I love it when, in an interview, you can say, “Tell us the blank story” and they know immediately what you’re talking about.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
You’ve now set up Dial the Gate as an oral history project, as sort of a permanent archive of the history of Stargate production. I love seeing that come out because I heard a two-minute version of that story on stage at Gatecon one year, but now we’ve got the full five-minute version of it permanently archived on YouTube for us.

David Read:
What do you have behind you there? I see a play button. What is that?

Darren Sumner:
I do. GateWorld passed 100,000 subs last year.

David Read:
Congratulations.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you for that. Check us out on YouTube at GateWorld. You’re gonna find a lot of Dial the Gate content there right now, honestly, because I’ve been busy with real-life stuff. I’ve been busy with real-life work. As of this week, actually, after we’re done here, I’m gonna go back to edit my David Nykl interview. So, that’s gonna be coming next. We’re gonna show off some more Stargate ships in an upcoming video. I’ve got a box that I have not unboxed yet to add to these guys here. We’re gonna add the Daedalus and the F-302, and Prometheus I have in a box.

David Read:
Wow, OK. That’s solid stuff.

Darren Sumner:
That’s coming up. We still do Dial the Gate clips every single week for folks who can’t turn up to the live show or don’t maybe have a chance to watch the whole two-hour interview with Rob Cooper or Michael Adamthwaite or whoever it is. We syndicate little Dial the Gate clips on GateWorld. I’m way behind.

David Read:
There was a lot of content last year, so I get it. If you’re only posting one a week, it’s gonna take a while. It is my hope to start putting those individual stories into clips so that people don’t have to mine the two hours of some episodes to pull that off. I’m frankly waiting for the wave to come along with the next Stargate project, whenever that’s gonna be, and then I’ll start putting a lot of those legacy clips out there. There’s tons and tons of stories that have been collected now. I was talking with you guys, I guess, a few months ago. With the people who have come on, with the people who have declined to come on or not responded, I think I’m past the halfway mark in terms of my plans for this thing. It’s gone well. I can’t thank you enough for helping me pull it off because you got out and pushed. You really did.

Darren Sumner:
You’ve done the work. You and your team have done all the hard labor. It’s been a gift to fandom. It’s been a gift to the history of Stargate. Look at the fact that when Ed Gross wanted to write a History of Stargate book, he came to you and he came to the archive of interviews on GateWorld, which are, by and large, I think, probably more than 50% also yours. So, that’s the sort of resource that you’ve produced for this franchise. It’s really incredible.

David Read:
I appreciate that.

Darren Sumner:
I think that we should all be grateful for you and your team and what you’ve pulled off here.

David Read:
We’ve got a long way to go. There’s a lot more to say and a lot more to see. Stargate’s not over by a long shot.

Darren Sumner:
Nope.

David Read:
It’s been napping. With the number of folks who I continually encounter publicly who are like, “I’ve seen that.” They’ve got a tiger by the tail if they wanna tug on it a little bit. They bring this thing back and there’s gonna be people who are like, “I used to watch that. Let’s have a look at this one.”

Darren Sumner:
I hope. Every time I talk with Jenny, I get a little more hopeful. We’re gonna get there eventually, ’cause, boy, it’s been a rough year or two for me mentally and emotionally. I can only tread water for so long. We can find stuff to do, we can find people to talk to and feature articles to write about episodes that aired 20 years ago. There’s always stuff to do, but we need the revitalization of new content, new fans and all that stuff. Man, you think about the amount of time that passed when Star Trek went off the air, when Enterprise went off the air, was not very long before Star Trek got going again in some form. Then you look at something like BSG, was off the air for 23 years and that required a total reboot, even though there were still some fans. There was a hardcore fan base who loved the show, who were sort of cheering on Richard Hatch’s revival efforts. After 20-plus years, it had to come back around and get rebooted. We’re now in between those two things for Stargate.

David Read:
Or Twin Peaks.

Darren Sumner:
Or Twin Peaks.

David Read:
Which I watched last year and inhaled.

Darren Sumner:
The dark side of my heart worries that MGM is gonna wait us all out. Through attrition, give us a reboot because it’s been, by the time they get around to it, 20 years. But talking to Jenny makes me hopeful.

David Read:
Is GateWorld healthy in terms of ad revenue, in terms of keeping the doors open? Do you have concerns? Or is it ticking right along, quietly waiting, that’s not an issue for you?

Darren Sumner:
Relatively speaking, it’s healthy. I can keep the lights on. The question is how much of my time can I devote to it? It’s more or less a one-man show right now. Adam does some content; he’s spooling things back up. He’s got some video ideas and some articles that he wants to write. We’ve got some guest contributors that are working on stuff right now, both on the video side and on the written side, but running the site day to day is me. When I start to flag and lose interest, or get really busy with my day job, it goes on the shelf. So, healthy is a relative thing. The lights are staying on, but is it gonna make it to year 26? Ask me in six months.

David Read:
Seriously? You’d be willing to shut it down?

Darren Sumner:
Ask me in six months.

David Read:
I’ve always assumed that this thing was gonna be around forever. You can’t let it go, man. We need this thing out there.

Darren Sumner:
I’m an old man and there’s no Stargate.

David Read:
I do not like the sound of this. If I have to fly up there and slap you, I will.

Darren Sumner:
Like I said, this is why talking with you and Jenny makes me feel better. Not only do we have a fantastic community of Stargate fans, but it rejuvenates me. It makes me wanna keep doing it. There are days right now where I’m ready to wash my hands of it.

David Read:
SG-1 Archive cannot outlast you. That is all I’m saying. Remember our old competitor?

Darren Sumner:
I’m sorry, I don’t.

David Read:
It’s okay. There’s been a few kids since then. Lou Gossett Jr.

Darren Sumner:
Lou Gossett Jr. passed away last week. Very sad.

David Read:
I so wanted to interview him. We tried a couple of times. Have you seen Enemy Mine?

Darren Sumner:
Years ago. I’m an ’80s kid, so that was a movie that I grew up on, along with Tron and Iron Eagle. We used to rent Iron Eagle all the time. Not that Louis Gossett Jr. was in Tron, but I’m thinking of ’80s sci-fi and my mind goes to Iron Eagle, which he did. He’s been a part of my film and TV enjoyment for my whole life. He had such a fantastic career. My first thought when an actor like that passes, is what an incredible legacy, what a gift this person gave to all of us through all these characters and all these performances. On Stargate he played Gerak in Season Nine. My second or third thought down the road a few hours is, that’s someone we’re not gonna get to talk to about his Stargate experience. That’s somebody we’re not gonna get on Dial the Gate.

David Read:
I’ve been leaning my focus towards some of these older folks to hope to get them on. I want to sit down with Tom and preserve some of his memories in commentary form for the episodes. I wanna fly up to Vancouver and sit down with him and get those recorded. These folks are old, many of them, and they don’t last forever. I remember when the announcement was made about Lou Gossett Jr. and Beau Bridges. They came out about the same time in terms of announcements for Stargate. I still think, as much as I loved Beau, I also think that Lou Gossett Jr. would’ve been a kickass General Landry. I think he would’ve been awesome.

Darren Sumner:
This is what we were told, for folks who don’t know. Behind the scenes, in between seasons, Season Eight and Season Nine, the Stargate office ended up in contact, casting ended up in contact with reps for Beau Bridges and Louis Gossett Jr., who are both stellar actors you’d love to have on your show and they were both available to Stargate. I think the way that I remember the story being told was the Stargate producers had their pick of the litter to decide who are we gonna cast as our new general? Who are we gonna cast as this really important character in the new free Jaffa story? Obviously, they went with Beau for General Landry and they went with Lou for Gerak. It could have gone the other way. Since Lou passed, I think every day about what it might have been like if we had him as our General Landry for two seasons.

David Read:
I don’t really know how I wanna put it. In terms of Beau, he’s like a “I’ll keep the light on for you,” in terms of that. I think with Lou Gossett, had he played Landry, I think that there would have been that tenderness as well, but I think that he could have reached some depths of “If my team are in trouble, you’re gonna have a real problem on your hands.” I think that had that gone the other way, we would have gotten a hard-edged when appropriate and soft-spoken also, really amazing character. It was a testament to the show that in both of these cases, they had family members who were fans. The same thing was with Mel Harris; her son Byron was a fan. They were coming on to do the show for their families in so many of these cases and it’s a testament to the quality of the work that they were putting out.

Darren Sumner:
Are there other folks? You and I have brainstormed offline about who we would love to see on Dial the Gate. I know that you have a long list and you can’t necessarily tell me who said no and who hasn’t responded. I think of folks who would love to get their stories on the record as long as they’re with us. I think of some of the older cast and crew, like…

David Read:
Who played Merlin?

Darren Sumner:
Who played Merlin? Matthew Walker.

David Read:
Thank you. He passed.

Darren Sumner:
He did? I didn’t hear that one.

David Read:
Yes. He passed on.

Darren Sumner:
He passed on an interview?

David Read:
No, he didn’t die. No. God. I’m sorry, no. He passed on the interview.

Darren Sumner:
Matthew Walker has passed.

David Read:
No. He passed on… God. That does sound awful. He passed on the interview.

Darren Sumner:
I’m with you.

David Read:
I do wanna try again. Ronnie gave us a wonderful interview on GateWorld. Ronnie Cox, I really wanna get him on Dial the Gate again.

Darren Sumner:
He’s the one that I Google every other week to make sure he’s still with us.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
How old is Ronnie?

David Read:
It’s a matter of time. How old is Ronnie now?

Darren Sumner:
In his 90s. Well into his 90s.

David Read:
85.

Darren Sumner:
He’s only 85.

David Read:
He’s only 85!

Darren Sumner:
Ah, spring chicken.

David Read:
There you go. Exactly. Who? Who’d you about to say?

Darren Sumner:
John Smith.

David Read:
N. John Smith.

Darren Sumner:
I would love to sit down with him on Dial the Gate.

David Read:
I would love to sit down with him and his wife, who was the location coordinator. I have no direct line to them and few people do in terms of my connections. I would love to get him on. Right now I’m trying to get Vanessa Angel on. So, there’s one there. I’m gonna keep my mouth shut on some of these others, ’cause some are in active play.

Darren Sumner:
Did you not talk with Vanessa already?

David Read:
I’ve never talked with Vanessa Angel.

Darren Sumner:
I would say I’ve seen her somewhere recently.

David Read:
She’s in production of a pilot right now, so she’ll have something to talk about. Brian J. Smith, I’m hoping to get back. His film, A House is Not a Disco, is currently in the movie-screening circuit, the movie conventions, whatever those are called, South by Southwest. I definitely wanna talk with him about that. There’s definitely some that we need to get on the record. Robert Davi, I’m still thrilled that we got. I’m tickled that we got him. He’s up there as well.

Darren Sumner:
You finished your sort of whole cycle through every season with Joe Mallozzi. What about other writers?

David Read:
Tor Valenza, we’re waiting on part two with him. I also do wanna bring back Heather Ash for Part Two, ’cause for both of them we have unfinished conversations. There are definitely a few more in play. I would love to get directors like Ken Girotti and a few others, but they’re so busy. The production folks, they’re constantly busy. I’d love to get the Davidson brothers on too.

Darren Sumner:
They’re hopping from one show to another.

David Read:
That’s right. They’ve always got something going on and good for them.

Darren Sumner:
So, which brothers did you say?

David Read:
The Davidson brothers.

Darren Sumner:
The Davidson brothers.

David Read:
The Davidson brothers. Mark Davidson was set decorator on the show and then his brother Robert, I think, did the same thing. I think he helped him as well. They were both set decorators and they worked through the entire run of all three shows. I don’t know about Robert, though. I don’t know about him for Stargate Universe, but definitely Mark went all the way through for SG-1. There’s a lot of folks to talk to. I also do wanna go up and sit down with—gosh, you released the interview with her where she shows the…

Darren Sumner:
You mean Ivana?

David Read:
Ivana Vasek.

Darren Sumner:
Vasek.

David Read:
I’d love to sit down with as many of the production people as we can and go through that book, go through that production book for SG-1 Seasons One through Five. I know that that one exists. There may be others that exist as well and I wanna go up there. I’m gonna fly up there. I bought a rig specifically for the purpose where we can film the book and us going through it page by page.

Darren Sumner:
Wow. That’ll be cool. We posted the clip of that where she shows off, was that I think Seasons One through Five of SG-1.

David Read:
Seasons One through Five.

Darren Sumner:
Lots of concept art. You mentioned something in the conversation about wanting to come up and scan it, make a PDF of this thing for posterity.

David Read:
I don’t know about that, but definitely get a 4K high-resolution and discussion as we go, like a slideshow.

Darren Sumner:
Getting that material archived somewhere in addition to the binder that sits on her shelf.

David Read:
Exactly right.

Darren Sumner:
Be amazing.

David Read:
I’d love to get Mario Azzopardi back for another conversation. I’m still pinching myself that we sat down with him. That was a thorough interview.

Darren Sumner:
I prepped that clip for GateWorld. That’ll be in another week or two.

David Read:
Did you watch the episode?

Darren Sumner:
The full interview with Mario? No, I didn’t.

David Read:
You need to watch that. That one’s good. He is brilliant and insightful. His brain is quite something to behold once you get it talking to you.

Darren Sumner:
He looked very entertained that you knew so much about a show.

David Read:
But he was also reminding himself the more that we talked. It’s in there, you have to tap the right spots and then it all comes pouring out.

Darren Sumner:
I love it when you find somebody who has not been in Stargate circles since they did the work on the show and you blow them away with your knowledge of not just the show, what was on screen, but your knowledge of the behind-the-scenes production, like the scratch on the film from shooting on Chulak.

David Read:
That was from a special feature for the “Children of the Gods” DVD that mentioned that. I had never heard that before. There are certain details that stick with you. You get it; the more that you have conversations with some people, the more things come back. But hopefully a lot more Stargate feature film content this year, as this is the 30th anniversary. Pie in the sky, I’d love to get Kurt Russell. I’d love to.

Darren Sumner:
We would all love to get Kurt Russell.

David Read:
I don’t think James Spader would be interested ’cause you said he did it for the paycheck.

Darren Sumner:
I wonder who else from the movie. Obviously, you’ve talked plenty with Alexis and Erik Avari.

David Read:
Mili Avital, I’d love to sit down and talk with her. I do wanna sit down and talk with the first Catherine Langford, who was, what’s her name?

Darren Sumner:
Viveca Lindfors?

David Read:
No, she’s long gone. The little girl.

Darren Sumner:
The girl.

David Read:
Who played her? It’s…

Darren Sumner:
She was in Origins. That cameo at the end of Origins.

David Read:
And her name is… And that’s the girl from 13 Reasons Why who’s also named Catherine Langford. Kelly Vint Castro. My friend Ryan Nixon got her on his show and I’d love to have her back.

Darren Sumner:
That’d be cool

David Read:
There’s Patrick Tatopoulos, Batmole said. That’s correct. Marcia Middleton said French Stewart. Batmole, thank you. Kelly Vint.

Darren Sumner:
French Stewart. How about Richard Kind?

David Read:
Richard said no. I asked him a few years ago and they passed.

Darren Sumner:
French Stewart would be fascinating, of course, because not just he has the grounding in the feature film as the original Ferretti, but he came back to the franchise and played another character much later.

David Read:
Correct. I’d love to talk to him about Third Rock From the Sun. It’s all good stuff here. All this is to say that miles to go before I sleep, if I may borrow from one of my favorite poems. Anything else to add, to report? Anything else to say or do before we… Jay Davidson. We’ll see, Sommer. He’s hard to reach. Not all these people have contact info because not all of them are in the industry anymore.

Darren Sumner:
Those that you can reach, a lot of folks, unless they have a new project that they can talk to you about, then they’re less likely to grant interviews. If they’re a working actor who’s busy six days a week, then they can slide you in as part of PR for their next project. If they don’t have something that they’re currently promoting, then they might be too busy.

David Read:
That’s how we got Armin Shimerman and he is open to coming back on. A wonderful human being and if I can get him back, I’d like you to be there with me for that one because he’s still promoting his Illyria series based on the Shakespeare books. We all love him as Quark, but he was one of the big reasons that the Nox remained such a staple for so long.

Darren Sumner:
Have you talked to the other Nox? Ray Xifo.

David Read:
Ray Xifo.

Darren Sumner:
Xifo.

David Read:
I would love to get Ray on. I think with Armin’s help I should be able to pull that off. I have been inviting Frida for a long time and my emails have gone unanswered. Man, all my bag of tricks are being exposed.

Darren Sumner:
I met her finally at Gatecon in 2018, but she wasn’t there year before last.

David Read:
She was there for 2018. I remember going up to her and saying, “Your character was so important to me,” and she was like, “Really?” I’m like, “Yes. Of course. You’re sitting here, aren’t you? You must mean something to some of these people.” There are some actors who are still always surprised that their work resonates, and it’s true. All right, man. A huge thank you to Matt Wilson, Eagle SG. I don’t know if you saw, but a certain spaceship was present at the opening of this episode. So, Eagle SG, Matt Wilson, he’s done some amazing work. His information is in the credits. We’ve got a few more ships to show you this season, depending on which guests come on. Keep an eye for some eye candy, some spaceship eye candy.

Darren Sumner:
Chel’nat.

David Read:
Chel’nat. Direct translation: very cool. Buddy, I appreciate you. You are always in my thoughts, even though we don’t get to talk very often anymore. I appreciate you coming on.

Darren Sumner:
Let’s do it again.

David Read:
Sounds good, man.

Darren Sumner:
Thanks.

David Read:
Be well. That was Darren Sumner of GateWorld. Also, we had Jenny Stiven, Clio Consulting, industry marketing veteran. Thank you so much for tuning in, it means a lot that you all are joining me for Season Four. Before we go, if you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you hit that Like button. It makes a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you wanna get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on the Dial the Gate and possibly GateWorld channels. We’ll decide at that point whether Darren wants to take a piece from this show or not. I think that’s all that we’ve got for you here. There are all kinds of things in development here that are happening, at least on this end for Stargate, in terms of Dial the Gate. I really appreciate Antony and Jeremy for doing our moderating for this episode. Big thanks to that team and everyone who are involved in continuing to help us stay afloat here. Tremendous thanks must go out to my moderators, my other moderators as well, Sommer, Tracy; you guys make the show possible. Big thanks to Frederick Marcoux at Concepts Web, he’s our web developer on dialthegate.com. Appreciate you guys for making all of this happen. My name is David Read and I’ll see you on the other side.