Writer and Executive Producer Robert C. Cooper returns! This time we are going back to (nearly) the beginning of SG-1. We’ve already discussed episodes like “The First Commandment” and “The Torment of Tantalus,” but what about the remainder of Season One and classic episodes such as “There But For the Grace of God?”

In this third installment, Mr. Cooper tells us stories surrounding the production of his remaining episodes in Season One, and Season Two! Our discussion covers everything from “Singularity” to “The Fifth Race.”

Cooper also takes a moment to reflect on Cliff Simon and his legacy with Stargate.

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:26 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:05 – Call to Action
01:48 – Guest Introduction and Robert’s thoughts on Cliff Simon
05:17 – SG-1 Season One
07:28 – “Singularity” (SG-1 1×15)
13:26 – Director Mario Azzopardi
15:33 – “There But for the Grace of God” (SG-1 1×20)
23:43 – Ronny Cox (SG-1 1×21 “Politics”)
26:17 – RDA’s contributions to the series
27:41 – Developing Tok’ra (SG-1 2×02 “In the Line of Duty”)
32:43 – “Need” (SG-1 2×05)
36:00 – Michael Shanks on Unspeakable (2019)
39:54 – “Bane” (SG-1 2×10)
43:23 – The past of Teal’c
48:16 – “The Fifth Race” (SG-1 2×16)
55:03 – David thanks Robert for his appearance
55:42 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
57:44 – End Credits

***

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

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Welcome to Episode 64 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Welcome to another Sunday. This is a pre-recorded episode that was recorded on March the 18th. Just got off with Robert C. Cooper. His schedule is such that we don’t manage to have him on the weekends, but we got to sit down with him for this week. And we discussed the remainder of the episodes from Seasons One and Two of SG-1 that we have not discussed before, so that’s gonna be the topic of the conversation today, and I can already tell you that we’re gonna have him back next month to discuss creating Stargate Atlantis with Brad Wright in more depth. But before we get started here, if you like Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal to me if you clicked the Like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and 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. This is key if you plan on watching live, and clips from this livestream will be released over the course of the next several days on the gateworld.net YouTube channel. We only had Rob for about an hour, but it was an extremely good hour, so we’re gonna jump right into it, and then I’ll get to some notes after the show. I appreciate you joining us. Let’s bring him in. Robert C. Cooper, writer and executive producer, Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe, thank you for joining me again, sir. It’s always a pleasure to have you.

Robert C. Cooper:
A regular guest of David Read and his podcast.

David Read:
I know. I am very fortunate. We lost Cliff Simon a couple of weeks ago.

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah, tragic.

David Read:
Or I guess about 10 days ago at this point. Your thoughts on Cliff as an actor, as a human being, as Ba’al, if you don’t mind?

Robert C. Cooper:
Cliff was such an easygoing, charming guy, and it’s always funny when you see really nice people playing villains, which is the opposite of not nice people playing good guys. He was just a charming, wonderful guy to work with and to have around. He was good friends with Michael Greenburg, which is how we first got to know him, and Michael pitched him as Ba’al to come on the show. So, yeah, he used to drop by the writers’ room and our offices when he was shooting, and he was very much what everybody’s saying now, which is he was someone who really enjoyed life, and he was an adventurous spirit. And it’s always tragic to lose somebody when they’re still in the prime of their life, you know?

David Read:
Ba’al was one of those– Not to say that the Goa’uld villains didn’t have arcs, but arguably, the most complete arc of the Goa’uld was that character right there. We saw so many facets and aspects of his personality, and a Goa’uld who really understood humanity, if there ever was one, who really seemed like he was willing to make it work on many, many levels. At a certain point, I mean, you know, it’s in Continuum.

Robert C. Cooper:
Well, because he also, you know, what we did with him was made him one of the few Goa’ulds who went undercover essentially and hid on Earth, so you could see him being a human being, or at least pretending to be a human being, and I feel like his character needed to understand humans more in order to imitate them. So, he had that dimension to him, and just seeing him sort of without the voice occasionally and–

David Read:
The flange.

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah, and that just made his character, his Goa’uld character, more interesting.

David Read:
On so many levels, he was fascinating. He will be missed for sure. Fandom is just heartbroken over it, and it goes to show what an impact he made on all of us, and how important the work that you created is to so many people.

Robert C. Cooper:
Well, that’s a sort of sidelight to more important things, really.

David Read:
Absolutely. I’d like you to take me back. We had discussed a couple of your earlier episodes, “First Commandment” and “Torment of Tantalus.” I’d like to proceed a little bit further into Season One, into your first year, if you don’t mind.

Robert C. Cooper:
OK. Season One is, A, a really long time ago, and B, the show was still forming. And I think those episodes had reasons for being, and came about the way they came about, but I don’t know that they were maybe as successful as some of the later season shows, episodes. But happy to talk about them anyway.

David Read:
Yeah, you could definitely make that argument, but I recently went back and watched a few of ’em, and they are charming on many levels. I think that’s a fairly reasonable word for them. And they are showing just how pretty well formed the SG-1 characters are after just a handful of episodes. When you look at a show like Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s really Season Two or Three before a lot of those characters are really starting to click. And with SG-1, I think it’s fair to say that happened much more rapidly. I think the writers got the characters more quickly. I think the actors found the characters more quickly. Would you–

Robert C. Cooper:
OK, in all honesty, I have some regrets. And I think Brad and John would both agree, and the other writers as well. But I think the thing that made the show great, and the thing that was there from the start, was that camaraderie and chemistry between the leads. And that’s as much to do, you know, to credit the actors that played those characters as much as our writing. Our writing kind of caught up to the performances.

David Read:
That’s fair. Well, you have to give it a little bit of time to get your feet wet. And one of those was yours, with “Singularity.” I love this episode. I think that it really was– It took Amanda Tapping from strength to strength, and it took Carter from strength to strength, because we already knew she’d already logged so many hours in enemy airspace during the Persian Gulf. She’d already proven herself as one of the people who had brought Stargate Command to where it was long before the movie even took off. And it was so cool to see, to finally get an episode of her that didn’t deal with an ex-fiancé or deal with her necessarily, her work skills, you know? We got to see some chinks in her armor, as it were, with exploring a relationship with a childlike Cassandra, and expanding on Fraiser’s role as well, Teryl’s great in that episode too. Tell us a little bit about “Singularity.”

Robert C. Cooper:
So, first of all, that ex-fiancé is one of the regrets I have, but–

David Read:
That was episode three, man. Cut yourself some slack.

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah. No, I know. So, it’s a good example– First of all, I generally have, and I think it’s become increasingly more so, I have an aversion to children-in-jeopardy drama. And I just think it’s kind of unpleasant and cheap, and I put myself a little bit in that category for having done that episode. However, I guess the thinking behind it and why it was a bit of an exception was because one of the things we do, and we’ve talked about this a lot, is we can explore real-life, real-world issues and themes in a science-fiction protective coating, to some extent. So, there are many examples of terrorist groups using children as human shields, or children in danger. And it just felt like that was a point worth making, but also a really difficult situation. I guess the way to get through to the core of who a character is, is to put them in a tough situation: a moral dilemma, a choice. It’s always about seeing them at their best and their worst. And we had– I felt like we needed that moment for Carter, and there was actually quite a bit of debate in the room, and in conversations with the studio and the network, about whether she would actually make that choice to go down that elevator. When you think about how valuable Carter is to the Stargate program, and what she means, I mean, if you were an empirical AI just doing a net benefit analysis of the situation, you’d be like, “Sorry, kid.” You gotta keep Carter–

David Read:
And O’Neill makes that judgment call. He says, “Get your ass back up here. This is not acceptable,” you know?

Robert C. Cooper:
Well, yeah. But look, fans would say that was an early indication of his personal feelings for her, but I do think yes. In O’Neill’s estimation, it was more that he had made the decision that it was likely a fait accompli anyway. So, why lose Carter? That’s a different scenario than sending people to an almost certain death in order for there to be a small chance of survival. So, the question was, was Carter literally sacrificing her life in order to comfort a child during her inevitable death? And I think deep down, Carter didn’t believe that was the case. She always felt like there would be one last solution, or one thing that she could do, and in fact, it wasn’t entirely true. But yeah, that was the debate behind it. And I guess that’s what I love about sci-fi storytelling, is being able to put characters in those extreme situations in which we test their moral compass and what they would do in those types of extreme situations. So, I also have a vivid memory of the director, Mario Azzopardi, who is a very animated and colorful guy, and was in Brad’s office. We were standing in Brad’s office, and he was pitching us how he wanted her to deal with this elevator scene. And he was demonstrating how upset he wanted Carter to get, and he threw himself against Brad’s wall. And this is the vague part: I think he cracked the wall. I can’t be certain. The walls in our office looked nice, but they were very flimsy. And everybody was like, “What the hell is going on?” And people came running, and that’s just Mario. Thankfully, Amanda chose to do something slightly more subdued than that. But the spirit was right in that we had not seen Carter go to that emotional place before. So, I think it was an opportunity to reveal an aspect of her humanity that we hadn’t seen before, and it’s always nice to be able to single a character out that way.

David Read:
And it continued to play out in a couple more episodes throughout the series. And it’s a great story. The Earthbound episodes that grew out of that, I mean, you bring her back in “In the Line of Duty,” which I’d like to talk about in a couple of minutes. But later on, “Rite of Passage” as well, there are lasting repercussions to what the team does out in the universe that come close to home. One of them is Cassandra.

David Read:
So, it’s a great– She turns out to, as a teenager, turns out to be a great foil for Carter, so there you go, and for Fraiser. “There But for the Grace of God” is the first episode that Stargate goes into multiple-reality territory, if I’m getting my facts straight, and I think that that’s right. It came from, I believe, a story by David Kemper, and you wrote the teleplay.

Robert C. Cooper:
Right.

David Read:
Was there talk earlier on about the possibility of going into multiple-reality territory with this show? Was it David’s idea? Was it a combination of a bunch of peoples? Where did that come from?

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah, I remember there being quite a bit of confusion from people not on the show, but outside the show, you know, studios, networks, people, marketing people, about what the Stargate actually did. And so, it’s very important to always have rules, and have those rules clearly defined initially and then sort of stick to them. So, we were like, “No, it’s not a time travel device, and no, it doesn’t go to other realities, and no, it’s not going into the universe. It’s a device that takes you from one planet to another.” And the time travel thing was very confusing for people because we were going to planets that looked like old Earth, so it looked like we were going back in time.

David Read:
Renaissance festivals.

Robert C. Cooper:
So, Brad and Jonathan did a lot of work to try and make that clear and establish those rules. So, when the alternate-reality story came up, it was like, “Oh, we can’t suddenly now say there’s an alternate-reality function on the gate.” It was a way of exploring and anticipating a worst-case scenario, right? It’s that worst-case scenario handbook of, “What do we do when and if this happens?” It was a way of visualizing that and having fun with it.

David Read:
‘Cause the Goa’uld never attacked Earth directly yet.

Robert C. Cooper:
No, and–

David Read:
So, their level of intensity and power was still an unknown as a collective, as a group.

Robert C. Cooper:
Brad and Jonathan knew that they wanted Apophis to show up at the end of Season One. This was a fun way of anticipating the consequences of that, so that that reveal would have impact. “Oh my God, this is what we’re facing.” And it was also another way of putting a character in a fun situation. It’s created, in myself and in my own work, almost a bias against alternate reality stories, because I learned some lessons in the making of that one and subsequent other ones, which is that it’s very hard– You don’t want the fact that alternate realities exist to undermine the importance of your main reality. And I think sometimes when you have so many realities and timelines going on, it can just sort of take away from the story and the characters that you’re following. And we had a lot of notes on that episode. In fact, there were people who didn’t really want us to do it, because the argument was, “Who cares about what happens in this other reality?” And I was, “Well, we care about Daniel and what happens to him. But where’s the tension? Because this is not our people. There was fun in seeing Carter and O’Neill doing things they wouldn’t normally do. And we had a lot of arguments with the Air Force, too, at the time, who didn’t want them to kiss, for one, because they were like, “Well, an officer would never do that to another officer.”

David Read:
A subordinate officer, yeah.

Robert C. Cooper:
So, “Well, it’s an alternate reality, so we’ll just make her not an officer. How’s that?”

David Read:
There you go.

Robert C. Cooper:
And they really didn’t have a choice at that point. They didn’t have an argument there. But that’s the problem with alternate reality is that it’s just not you. It’s when people are getting shot, it’s not the characters you know and love. It’s sort of a version, a pale version of them. And when you do it too much, or when you create too many multiples and intersect them too much, you lose the emphasis and the weight of your reality.

David Read:
I think it’s interesting because, in season–

Robert C. Cooper:
Sorry, just to finish that thought is that what came out of all of that and what wasn’t there initially, the biggest sticking point from the writing of the script was, what does Daniel bring back? In other words, what is the point of this mission? So, he has to go and learn something that he can then bring to our reality that has an impact there. So, because that threat was on its way, what can he do that he’s learned in the alternate reality that will help us in ours? That was the only way we could sort of sell the episode.

David Read:
The address and the message that they’re coming. I get goosebumps even thinking about that. That’s a good show, and it’s a dark show. And it’s interesting because, when we return to that aspect of the series and point of view, you give Teal’c the line, “Ours is the only reality of consequence.”

Robert C. Cooper:
Which was completely born out of all those arguments that we had at the time. And of course, to yourself, you don’t know what your other selves are doing in other realities.

David Read:
That’s fair. But he treats them almost like shadows, like they’re not people. Which is an interesting perspective.

Robert C. Cooper:
Very, very interesting.

David Read:
That is basically part one of a four-part story. It really is, within “Politics” and then “Within The Serpent’s Grasp” and “Serpent’s Lair.” And Brad and I once talked about the fact that SG-1 was really a hybrid show. You had standalone episodes, but you also could still do serialized stories and trusted the audience to watch them sequentially. And more or less wanted to make sure that, wherever possible, the syndicators would air them in the right order. ‘Cause there’s no reason other than to do that.

Robert C. Cooper:
It got more and more serialized as the show went on. And I think it’s a bit of a– We still had closed-ended– It wasn’t a complete cliffhanger at the end of the episode, so we would have a complete story. But still, the storylines of the episodes became much more mythology based as the show went on. I think that the complete standalone monster of the week didn’t really happen much after Season Four or Five.

David Read:
Ronnie Cox. I meant to ask you about him in the original notes that I sent you. As Senator Kinsey, when he comes in with that speech in “Politics” and he rattles everyone up, did you realize what an awesome character you and your team had in the works there for future stories?

Robert C. Cooper:
We knew that– First of all, “Politics” is a clip show. Let’s call it what it is. And these were done as money-saving endeavors. It’s a way– But look, if we approach it right, if we build the original part of the clip show properly, it ultimately ends up having a point. And fans will understand that in this case, which it ends up being a bit of a trial… The program is put on trial to some extent. And the footage we’re showing is essentially the case, the evidence that’s being presented. So, that, I think that worked. But you’re hanging so much of the weight of the show, the narrative of the show on one character. He better be a good actor. He better have some TV hue, as they say. Hey, Ronnie is fantastic. He felt like he was the guy, and he carried– Look, he was in the show for a long time after that. Because he was so great. And that is the– You can easily go through– I shouldn’t say this really, but you can go through the cast list, and when you see a character come back repeatedly like that, you can pretty much assume he’s a good guy. ‘Cause life’s too short and we loved …

David Read:
LTS.

Robert C. Cooper:
… having him. And we would have invented another senator or something if we didn’t like him. So, that’s a great way of telling how much we loved him.

David Read:
Absolutely. And he was a great foil for O’Neill. Rick, it’s not fair to say that he didn’t like to act because he certainly– I don’t think you could’ve done that show without him in many respects. But there are certain characters and certain scripts that when you placed him into a corner, he would fight his way out of it as an actor and absolutely make a meal of that script. And I think there’s a couple of scenes in “Politics” where he really does that.

Robert C. Cooper:
One of my favorite performances of his was “Paradise Lost.” I think that was one where he kind of did that. There were others. I think we’ve talked before that the first real spark I saw from him off-screen in which he got really excited about a script was “The Fifth Race.” He just loved talking to Thor. But yeah, you know, look, he had a comfort zone, and part of that came from all of the experience he had building his brand of who he was. He was capable of all kinds of incredible range.

David Read:
Season Two, you’re going into Season Two. At that point I think you guys knew that there were five seasons. I think the fifth season had been greenlit before the end of Season One. Am I correct?

Robert C. Cooper:
I think it was four.

David Read:
OK. Still at four at this point.

Robert C. Cooper:
It was four, I think, at one point.

David Read:
All right. You guys are gonna be around for a while. You’re beginning to really sink your teeth into the mythology of the show, and you’ve got some time to let a notch or two loose on the belt as it were and explore some other facets. And you guys introduce the idea of the Tok’ra, against Ra, literally. How early were they in the development phase? Were they anywhere in Season One where it was thinking that “We’re gonna have to have the– We’re gonna need to do more with the Goa’uld. Let’s create literally an anti-Goa’uld.” A group of them who are physiologically and the same species but go off into a completely different direction and use that as a story element to scare the audience into thinking that what happened to Kawalsky is gonna now happen to Carter.

Robert C. Cooper:
The thing, and I think we’ve talked about this before too, so forgive me for repeating myself, but it’s a recurring theme that in science fiction, one of the pitfalls and problems you have is you create people with superpowers essentially. You create villains that are super powerful, and I’m not just talking about flying around like a superhero. I’m talking about superhuman power, superhuman technology, and so you have problems where either it’s too powerful and you have to find a way to undermine that power. We talked about the fact that the replicators were in a way an invention that helped explain why Thor wasn’t just coming and destroying the Goa’uld.

David Read:
He was busy.

Robert C. Cooper:
He was busy. He had his own fight.

David Read:
He was doing important things.

Robert C. Cooper:
By having Apophis come at the end of Season One, and essentially we win, it’s like, “How do you avoid just going to the end?” And it’s all over. So, you have to create complexity and complication for the bad guys too. As much as you’re developing your good guys, you then have to add layers to the bad guys. That was really what came out of that, was where are we going with the Goa’uld and who they are? They’ve already attacked Earth and failed. Obviously, what’s stopping them necessarily from coming again, or different ones coming again and winning next time? Eventually that would happen, but we had to A, delay it, and B, we had to build their world out more. And so, the Tok’ra were the answer to how to add complexity to the Goa’uld world, and then also give us a way into that, a personal way in from our own characters’ point of view. Carter.

David Read:
With Jolinar taking her over. Gave Amanda a bunch to play with, that’s for sure.

Robert C. Cooper:
It was a great twist to see Carter’s eyes glow.

David Read:
Absolutely it was. When we think that that’s happened, a lot of us who are really following the show are like, “Well, that’s it.” We tried to remove– Of course, we’ll– She’ll more than likely survive, but how are they gonna pull that out? We tried to remove one and he killed the guy as soon as you tried to do it. So, what happens next there? And it was a great use of Cassandra as well because she’s your little Goa’uld detector. She can let everyone know, and she’s also one of the people who encourages Sam near the end there, “You’re gonna be all right.” That’s a great show.

Robert C. Cooper:
Thank you. I remember that one went through quite a few revisions as well just because, again, we were rewriting or writing the mythology as we went.

David Read:
So, you were pretty cognizant of, “OK, whatever we do here is going to be recorded as the way that it’s done, so we need to be careful as to where we lay down the tracks.”

Robert C. Cooper:
We were teeing up a whole storyline that we knew was gonna hopefully have legs, give us a story going forward.

David Read:
Talk about some amazing episodes this season for these actors. “Need” goes into a possible explanation for why the Goa’uld are as bad as they are with the sarcophagus, and you used Daniel and Michael’s performance to tell a straight-up story about addiction and addiction to power.

Robert C. Cooper:
Just say no. Just say no. Just saying no to the drugs.

David Read:
Just say no. I don’t think he even had the first choice. I think that he was brought up that–

Robert C. Cooper:
No, he got put into it. He got addicted. He got roofied. But it’s two things. It’s that ability to tell a story about an interesting thing that’s happening in the world around you in reality, and again trying to solve a problem, a logic hole essentially, which is, if the sarcophagus is so great, why aren’t we just using it all the time? Any time someone gets hurt, just pop them in the sarcophagus. It’s like you invent something, and in fact in that case–

David Read:
That’s from the movie.

Robert C. Cooper:
It’s from the movie.

Robert C. Cooper:
And they didn’t have the long-term– It’s like the problem in Superman, is if Superman can just fly around the planet real fast, backwards, undo everything bad that happens, he’s got an instant do-over every single time. And yet they just frankly ignored that going forward because–

David Read:
“We use that one time.” He gets one life to do whatever.

Robert C. Cooper:
It’s one time.

David Read:
That’s it.

Robert C. Cooper:
But that’s the problem is you have these high-powered advanced technology or people with superpowers, and you have to try and figure out why they aren’t participating in the narrative the way they logically should. And so that gave birth to the idea that, “Oh wait, maybe there’s a negative side effect.” As someone who has taken some medication in the past, it’s never without side effects. And so that was a natural progression of the idea that came to me, which was maybe this helps explain some of the world. If you have good Goa’ulds essentially, or Tok’ra, and you have this device, wouldn’t it be great if there was some connection between all that and then put your character through the gauntlet. So, it was– That was, again– Michael is a phenomenal actor, and he would eat up any opportunity we gave him to push the envelope and go as far as he could.

David Read:
He was terrific in Unspeakable. I’d like to take this chance to say that.

Robert C. Cooper:
He was. And I mean, that Unspeakable was a totally different thing for him too, because he was very restrained. Michael is an incredibly passionate guy, and when I first went to him to talk to him about that, I knew he would be in because he’s such a sort of social justice warrior. And he gets very passionate about it. And we talked a lot about it, and he had to find ways of making the character compelling without always going to 11. And there are scenes where he does get very upset and very angry and they pop up–

David Read:
He’s a dad. He’s got this little boy that’s going through, who I imagined was you watching this. I really thought that particular child was you, for right or for wrong.

Robert C. Cooper:
That was very close. Fictional.

David Read:
Fictional. It’s fictional, yes. He’s gotta get people’s cooperation. So, he’s gotta be at a certain level of diplomacy while recognizing the fact that his kid may very well die from this. He can’t just go in guns a-blazing. You can see the wheels turning while he’s dealing with this problem.

Robert C. Cooper:
Look, that’s, I felt that was one of my learning curves in life, and maybe I’m still learning it. And in fact, the real guy who that character was based on had the same problem, where he would maybe not handle the situation quite as diplomatically as it called for. But on the other hand, the people he was dealing with were such — how can I put this? — jerks, that it’s hard to believe he did keep his cool as much as he did. So, I just don’t think you ever really get anywhere from losing your temper. So, we kept it that he would lose his temper only after it seemed like there was no point in holding it back.

David Read:
For those who have not seen Unspeakable, it is available on Amazon Prime, I know, in North America. I’m not sure if it is in Europe, or some of these other countries.

Robert C. Cooper:
It’s in England for sure. And it’s also in the US on Sundance Now, if you happen to get that.

David Read:
Perfect. Yes. This is not a happy miniseries. You’re not gonna go in, in most of it, feeling warm and fuzzy. But I think it’s a very important one, and it’s Rob and Michael, and many characters at their best.

Robert C. Cooper:
To defend that, yes, I agree, there are some bad things that happen. But I do believe it does showcase the power of the human spirit, and how tragedy can bring out the best in people. And the worst, but it, there are definitely heroes in the story, and they are inspiring in the same way that we have seen heroes arise in our current pandemic tragedy that we’re all living through.

David Read:
Very similar case. There’s a couple of scenes, especially at the supermarket, that really echo that.

Robert C. Cooper:
In Canada, the DNA of some of the deficiencies we’re experiencing now can be, and frankly, some of the advantages that we’re experiencing are all born out of that scandal.

David Read:
Understood. “Bane.” I wanted to get to “The Fifth Race,” so I’ve got one more to go. We have “Bane,” which Christopher Judge to this day was like, “It was the bane of my existence. It was such a good story but I couldn’t go pee.” Turning him into a larva of flies.

Robert C. Cooper:
Look, that was an homage, I guess is the best way of putting it, to The Fly. It was a transformation show. That’s a fairly common sci-fi trope. And we’ve done that, we did that multiple times, multiple ways. Other shows have done it that way.

David Read:
Was that the nugget of the idea, transformation? Because I look at this and it’s, sometimes, you have to rely on help from unexpected places. I think that’s what I take away from it.

Robert C. Cooper:
I think I wanted to do a more, having come off of the child in jeopardy story, I wanted to show a child being more proactive, and not in danger, but helping. Being a positive aspect of the story. And also, I think that pairing children with your lead actors is just a different way of revealing who they are. Jack was totally different — I mean, you have his character history of his son dying, but you also, you just see how he treats adults versus how he treats children, and it shows you a different side of him. So, Teal’c was such a stoic and frankly physical and somewhat scary character from the beginning. Showing him with a child just gave us a chance to reveal a different side of him that was, I think, great. Fun.

David Read:
And when it comes to Earth, he is innocent in many respects, like a child too.

Robert C. Cooper:
He has that aspect and so seeing them play off each other in that way was also a lot of fun. Again, trying to find ways to put your characters in these extreme situations that give them a chance to show who they are. And Teal’c, his sacrifice of himself, even down to him taking the symbiote out, demonstrated just how trustworthy he was. That was always a thing for him. Did the people of Earth trust him? And he was very grateful for them taking him in. So, the fact that he didn’t want to become something that was gonna hurt anyone, I thought just really also revealed great things about who he was.

David Read:
You get this idea in watching Teal’c, right at the end of the pilot, that going to Earth is his last stand. Like, whatever comes after this, that’s it. He tried his best and he’s willing to lay it all down. We see that in “Cor-Ai.” With Teal’c, it’s very much you see this “My number’s up” quality coming from him throughout… in those earlier seasons, because he is weighed down by the awful things that he did. And it’s another great, great example of acting by Christopher Judge and Richard Dean Anderson in “Cor-Ai,” that they just… they fight over where do you quit, over the point at which you quit fighting and give in to your fate to allow someone some semblance of closure. But with “Bane,” you get an episode where he’s– Now we have this element that shows that he can’t trust every member of Earth because we’re beginning to introduce the rogue NID in Season Two. The Earthbound stories are starting to percolate and begin to boil, as it were. We’ve got Tom McBeath doing a wonderful job with Maybourne in that aspect of the society, going after Teal’c and looking at him more as a military asset rather than as a being.

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah, that’s 100% true. What I find interesting about the Teal’c character, even looking back at it now through the lens of today is what you were just saying. Look, you find one inappropriate tweet in someone’s past and they get …

David Read:
The electric chair.

Robert C. Cooper:
… canceled out of existence. And Teal’c was not dissimilar to a Nazi soldier …

David Read:
He was a murderer.

Robert C. Cooper:
… who was doing things that his leaders told him to or he was gonna die, probably, as a result. And he– This is a story about rehabilitation and redemption, and the value that someone can bring after change. So, the fact that we can’t look at someone who, and understand the context of why they were doing the bad thing they were doing and then understand what it takes to bring them around to doing the right thing and being a better person, and seeing the value they can bring as a result. So, it’s just we’ve gotten to the point where we can’t even begin to understand that type of nuance, or we do it and it’s just so incredibly selective.

David Read:
We choose to ignore information.

Robert C. Cooper:
Look, as a world, as a country, as politics, as people, we have all done bad things in our past. Some farther back and some more recent, and to varying degrees of badness. But you gotta look at context and intent. And then what is that person, country, whatever, doing moving forward?

David Read:
It’s interesting. I have friends who are very much– We argue over tweets and what people have done on social media and in their lives, and how there’s no forgiveness for them. But then we’re OK with talking about the ultimate virtue of Darth Vader. And it’s like, you find that interesting, don’t you? What? He was–

Robert C. Cooper:
Oh, yeah, there’s no discussion.

David Read:
This was a murderer, untold millions, but yet he can get redemption because we know his story.

Robert C. Cooper:
And again, I think there’s a separation in science fiction from reality. I think someone who’s responsible for genocide in our world would not ever get a second chance. But there’s a sliding scale that works its way down between a misguided tweet and genocide. And yet we seem to have lost perspective on what that …

David Read:
Context.

Robert C. Cooper:
… what that scale is.

David Read:
I’d love to end this on one of the most amazing episodes that ever came out of science fiction as far as I’m concerned. And I know I’m blowing smoke up your butt, but you know what? It’s well-deserved at this point because “The Fifth Race” is a tour de force for that cast, and it exemplifies… in summary, “I think we’re going to be all right.” What O’Neill says in the end of that, and I often think of that quote, and him standing on that ramp saying that, I have often thought of that in some of the darker days of this past year, and change. “We’re going to be all right.” What was the impetus for “The Fifth Race?” You laid the bones down with “Torment of Tantalus,” that there was a group of races that preceded us, that we’re not the first to start going through this gate. Where did the idea of “The Fifth Race” first come from? What was it that sparked it in you? Was it O’Neill babbling an alien language? What was the impetus of that story?

Robert C. Cooper:
I have a recurring fascination with stories about people losing their minds, or losing their identities, and sort of the process by which you, whether it happens quickly or slowly, whether you’re aware of it, and what you think about that. It’s another way of looking at mortality, which is something I get a lot of mileage out of. So, I loved the idea of putting O’Neill in that situation and then tying it into the four races from “Torment of Tantalus.” I mean, it was way too much of a loose thread not to go back to. Again, I feel like any time we can– Thor was always up there in his spaceship. God.

David Read:
He’s basically God.

Robert C. Cooper:
He even, quite literally, was a hologram illusion. He was a facade. So, he was the wizard. So, I just wanted to get to know him and the Asgard better. I wanted to know what was going on with them. And how they could fit into the mythology going forward. And it really, honestly, the impetus was, from a personal perspective, I didn’t have a great relationship with Rick before that. It wasn’t that we didn’t get along or whatever. He just saw me as a more junior writer, and I was moving up in the hierarchy of the show. And I had my designs on wanting, with everyone’s blessing, to be a showrunner. And so, I felt I needed to overcome that. I needed to connect with him, and so I decided I needed to write an O’Neill-centric show and engage with him in conversation about what the character was gonna do and how it was gonna go, and essentially take his notes. He frankly used to send his notes through Michael Greenberg, and I rarely had a chance to engage with him about that. So, with this script, when it first came out, I went down and sat down in his trailer with him and talked him through, and that’s when I first realized– I thought, frankly, my anticipation of going into that meeting was that he was gonna hate acting with the puppet because he’d think it was silly. And then it turned out he absolutely loved it. So, Rick was nothing if not unpredictable.

David Read:
And it gave birth to a whole host of Asgard stories with them. “They like me.”

Robert C. Cooper:
It was a lot of fun, that episode. So, it gave us an opportunity to, like you said, say some of those big things.

David Read:
Did you think that it would get as much traction as it has gotten over the years with people regularly calling it out in the top five, top 10?

Robert C. Cooper:
No.

David Read:
Did you get that feel when you were in the editing phase of this episode, that you had a real gem?

Robert C. Cooper:
Not really. Honestly, there are episodes where, in the making of it, I thought, “Oh, this is pretty good, and I think the fans are gonna like this one.” But no, it was too early at that point still for me to get a sense of what the scope of the fandom was gonna be like for the show, never mind for any one episode.

David Read:
From a mythology standpoint, once Gairwyn gets returned from the Biliskner at the end of “Thor’s Chariot,” she says, “Like us, you’re still far too young.” So, we’ll never see the Asgard again, and then we give them a reason because we show them how smart we are with O’Neill. “Maybe these are creatures worth paying attention to.”

Robert C. Cooper:
I was also playing with the idea that O’Neill, and particularly Rick’s interpretation of O’Neill, was that he was playing dumb guy, and it just seemed funny to me that he turned out to be the smart guy that impressed the godlike alien.

David Read:
That’s exactly right. Absolutely. Robert, fantastic as always. I would love to have you back to talk a little bit more about Atlantis and creating that show from the ground up with Brad, getting ready to, explaining its own facet.

Robert C. Cooper:
“Sateda” was, like you had written in your questions and notes, that was probably one of the most challenging directing situations I went through.

David Read:
“Sateda?”

Robert C. Cooper:
Yeah.

David Read:
But it was worth it.

Robert C. Cooper:
It was a huge show logistically, and it was a lot of fun.

David Read:
My thanks once again to Robert C. Cooper for joining us for this episode of Dial the Gate. We’ve partnered with 3D Tech Pro for the month of March to give you a chance to get your very own Atlantis puddle jumper and BC-303. To enter to win these items, you need to use a desktop or laptop computer and visit dialthegate.com. Scroll down to Submit Trivia Questions. Your trivia may be used in a future episode of Dial the Gate, either for our monthly trivia night or for a special guest to ask me in a round of trivia. Please note the submission form does not currently work for mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before April the 1st. If you’re the lucky winner, I’ll be notifying you via your email to get your address. Please be sure to check out our partner’s website for more Stargate-related merchandise at 3dtech.pro. And Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free, and we do appreciate you watching, but if you wanna support the channel further, buy yourself some of our themed swag. We’re now offering T-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts, and hoodies for all ages in a variety of sizes and colors at Redbubble, and we currently offer four themed designs and hope to add more in the future. The word cloud designs have both a solid background or transparent background options, so you have some flexibility between choosing a light or dark color. Do keep that in mind when you’re making your selection. Checkout is fast and easy, and you can even use your Amazon or PayPal account. Just visit dialthegate.redbubble.com, and thank you, as always, for your support. Next week at 12 noon Pacific Time, March the 28th, Joseph Mallozzi is gonna be joining us to discuss Season Eight of Stargate SG-1. If you really like the show, please like, share, subscribe. It helps out with YouTube’s algorithms and getting us promotion. We’re soon to hit 10,000 subscribers all thanks to you guys. Thank you so, so very much for that. And thanks to my moderating team, Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Reese, Antony. You guys are the best. Big thanks to Jennifer Kirby and Linda “GateGabber” Furey. Show wouldn’t be possible without all of you guys. My thanks once again to Robert C. Cooper and to you for joining us this weekend. My name is David Read. We’ll see you on the other side.