Stargate SG-1 Executive Producer Joseph Mallozzi returns to Dial the Gate to discuss the transformative ninth season of Stargate SG-1 and take your questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
00:22 – Opening Credits
00:52 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:29 – Call to Action
02:26 – Guest Introduction
02:57 – Producing Season Nine
09:18 – Building a Village Set
14:16 – New Team Members
19:41 – Rebranding the show and producing a spin-off
24:28 – Could the Ori story arc have lasted for five seasons?
25:12 – Power creep in Stargate
27:49 – “The Ties That Bind” (SG-1 9×04)
31:17 – “Ex Deus Machina” (SG-1 9×07)
36:15 – “The Fourth Horseman Part 2” (SG-1 9×11)
40:15 – Louis Gossett Jr. as Landry?
42:10 – “Ripple Effect” (SG-1 9×13)
48:54 – “The Scourge” (SG-1 9×17)
50:46 – “Camelot” (SG-1 9×20)
59:09 – Change in adversaries and the use of deity
1:01:33 – Tell us about horror series you’ve worked on
1:03:21 – What’s your favorite book?
1:07:43 – Why were the Ori warships pretty much untouchable until “Unending”?
1:09:28 – Are you a gourmet person?
1:11:09 – Who came up with “Ripple Effect”?
1:14:22 – Shen Xiaoyi (Tamlyn Tomita) for SGU?
1:16:21 – Was there ever any consideration of writing Amanda Tapping’s pregnancy into the story?
1:18:52 – “Hey Mitchell, when the time comes, cut the green one.” (“Ripple Effect”)
1:21:28 – Using Unreal Engine for the new Stargate show
1:23:34 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:33:33 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Welcome to Episode 78 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read, thanks so much for joining me on your Saturday. Hope all is well. Joseph Mallozzi is joining us for Season Nine today on Dial the Gate. We’re going to be reviewing SG-1 Season Nine in detail, particularly his episodes, particularly how the energy of the show evolved. We’re gonna take an honest look at Season Nine; the things that made it great, the things that maybe made it not so great. We’re really glad to have you with us. But before we really get into this here, I would invite you to share this, especially if you wanna see more content like this on YouTube. It would mean a great deal if you click 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. If you wanna get notified about future episodes, click that 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. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on the GateWorld.net YouTube channel. As with most of the shows, these are live, so if you are watching on youtube.com/dialthegate, feel free to submit Joe a question and I will do my very best to get that asked to him. For the first half of the show, I ask him questions and then for the second half I turn it over to the fans. That’s how we roll. So, without further ado, it is my pleasure to once again have us joined by Mr. Joseph Mallozzi, writer and executive producer, Stargate SG-1. Welcome back, sir. So, your projects are in development right now and you’re just making things, waiting for things to pan out?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Well, I’m working on various stages of projects and, as I said, hopefully one of them goes.

David Read:
Absolutely. Apologies to everyone for the audio issue. We are going to talk about basically what is in many respects a brand new series.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Stargate Command.

David Read:
Stargate Command. In many respects, Stargate SG-1 ended with Season Eight. Darren and I had always talked about, “How do you think it’s gonna end?” I always said, “To be perfectly honest, I think it’s gonna end with them fishing. I just have that feeling.” In many respects, that’s exactly what happened. Then Rick, it was like, “You know what? I’ve given you guys eight years of my life. I wanna focus on raising my kid. There are other things that I wanna do.” His philanthropic work was taking up more and more of his time and absolutely well-deserved. Then you guys decided to take it in a different direction, potentially even renaming the series. Tell us a little bit about coming into the office, or at the very least rolling out, finishing out Season Eight, going into Season Nine. It was not guaranteed, again.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. But near the end of Season Eight is when, again, we heard that we’d gotten another pickup. At that point, as I say, every season we approached the finale as though it would be a series finale, only to either in time, or sometimes not in time, discover that we were getting picked up. Robert and Brad decided this would be the end of SG-1 just because, as you mentioned, Rick was looking to spend time with his daughter. We’d kind of been phasing out the character over time but this was gonna be it. Rob had the opportunity to tie up all those loose ends, and we completed the SG-1 story. As you said, appropriately enough, it ends with them fishing. I think as far back as a season earlier, Brad and Robert had been talking about the spinoff, which they had named Stargate Command, and really what would it look like. There were no real plans or ideas cemented but the decision obviously was made to continue SG-1. It was a Brad and Rob decision, but also I think it was a decision made by the studio and the networks who felt like they wanted a continuation of the SG-1 brand. Rob had the inspiration to introduce this new enemy called the Ori. Since we had lost Rick, we were looking to have someone kind of step into that role, more or less. Around that time, I think maybe a season earlier, Farscape had been canceled. I remember pitching Brad Ben Browder. I actually pitched Ben for the role of John Sheppard on Stargate Atlantis, but Ben was shooting The Peacekeeper Wars at the time.

David Read:
Would that have been interesting …

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
… if he had been Sheppard?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. We were kind of looking to sorta decide what the next step would be and I suggested, “Why don’t you reach out to SyFy and suggest Ben Browder? I know they love Ben.” They did and SyFy loved the idea and we made Ben the offer. I remember he ended up watching all seven seasons of SG-1, sort of like cram school, like they do in Japan, and came very well-versed in Stargate lore. We had introduced the Vala character in, I believe it was Season Seven.

David Read:
Season Eight. It was “Prometheus Unbound.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Season Eight, sorry. We loved the character. She was very atypical of the type of characters we usually wrote for; it’s always kind of fun to write the rogue element. We pitched to SyFy that we would make both Ben and Claudia’s characters series regulars and SyFy was like, “No, no, no. We can’t have both Ben and Claudia be series regulars. That would be too much like Farscape.” I pointed out, particularly in Claudia’s case, her character was nothing like her Farscape character. But the network blocked so we ended up signing her on to, I’m not sure what it was, maybe a four-episode deal. We produced those episodes and we delivered the first cuts to SyFy and they were like, “Wow, we love this character. Let’s make her a season regular.” I said, “Well,” at that point the ship had already sailed because we’d already planned the rest of the season.

David Read:
‘Cause you can’t, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi:
If they wanted her to be a series regular, then just pick us up for a 10th season and she would become a series regular. Spoiler alert, it all worked out. Season Nine was very much a shift in dynamics, sort of creatively, also just kind of, I guess, in a way, sort of production-wise. Was this the season that Atlantis started or what?

David Read:
Season Eight and Season One. The last year that Rick was on as a general. That was the season that Atlantis started with.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
Atlantis was in Season Two when SG-1 was in Season Nine.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Right.

David Read:
So, SG-1 kind of became the infant again with new cast.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Totally.

David Read:
New direction and everything else. I remember coming in. Everyone was really excited about SG-1 and not that they weren’t excited about Atlantis, but SG-1 had enough new elements in it that everyone was like, “Check out what we’re doing now.” You guys built a ton of new sets that year.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
The village, what a massive endeavor that was. I remember Brad saying, in the scripts, “SG-1 comes to a village again.” It’s like, “Oh, a village. What are we gonna do?” So, you guys built a standing set.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yep. As I like to say, shot the hell out of it. I mean, we redressed it. It became the abandoned village in “Whispers.” It was one of the sort of off-world villages in “Ark of Truth.” It appeared in “Crusade,” “Morpheus,” just a bunch of episodes. We would always kinda obviously look to sort of mix it up and give it different looks because I remember we would be off looking for locations to shoot in and that was always tough. It was always tough. I remember there was one place, it was actually a Western town, and I kinda loved the look, even though it wasn’t really quite the Middle Ages aesthetic we were looking for at the time. It was an entire Western set. We looked at it, but ultimately they came back and they were like, “No, no one has shot in a couple of years. Those sets are ready to collapse at any moment.” We ended up building a standing village set. Ivon Bartok, our then special features producer, I remember he did a special feature called It Takes a Village, I think, or something to that effect. There was time-lapse photography of that village going up and it’s pretty amazing when I look back on it. I remember actually once, executive producer Carl Binder and I, took a video tour of the village. It was a lot of fun.

David Read:
I was impressed with the cave set that you guys built at the same time. It first appears as the Glastonbury caves in “Avalon” and later in “Morpheus” and a bunch of others. That was such a cool design as well. It reminded me so much of Planet Hell down at Paramount for all the Star Trek shows. You guys definitely made your own feel about it as well. There was just a lot of money that was poured into that season. One of the things that Christopher Judge said is that I think MGM had provided some cash as well to allow a lot of these things to be done. Is that correct?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah, we probably received some sort of breakage. Although, off the top of my head, I don’t recall. That’s maybe a question for Brad. I guess I would be surprised if that was the case because I know it was a big set and it was a big, expensive set. But then again, like I said, we shot the hell out of it. What I mean by that is, we made effective use of that standing set and that’s something that Brad and Robert always did; ensure that the money we had always ended up on screen. The way they did that was to do something like this; build a set that we would use more than once, for instance. Repurpose and get our money’s worth.

David Read:
Speaking of the standing sets, did the spaceship, the Prometheus set, did that start off at the Bridge and then eventually move to Norco for Season Nine? I remember going over, I think it was at Norco by Season Nine at that point.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It definitely was at the Bridge initially. I remember walking through and doing those walk-and-talks or watching them shoot those walk-and-talks. I guess maybe, was it moved to Norco? When did we pack up Norco? I remember there was a point late in the franchise’s run. It may have been Universe.

David Read:
I think by Universe, Norco was gone.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Where we had to pack up Norco.

David Read:
I remember the sprawling spaceship set. It went on and on. You guys seemed to add to it every single year. There was something new to that set. Man, you wanna talk about getting mileage out of a set. All those ships, the same one again and again. Slight changes to the bridge and gels and the lights and you got a new ship. What was it like getting a feel for the new team dynamic with Mitchell, with Vala? Teal’c’s joined the Jaffa High Council. Sam is at Area 51 having a baby and you’ve got Daniel ready to go to Atlantis again. It’s how the pieces are.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s classic getting the band back together. Ben’s character, Cameron Mitchell, was the driving force in reassembling the team. The new dynamics were not without its controversy, one being the much debated, hotly debated, command question.

David Read:
That’s right.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Who’s in charge of SG-1? Was it Cameron Mitchell who was given the team and is bringing everything back together? Or should it be Carter who was really second in command to O’Neill and then when O’Neill leaves, presumably she would assert command? So, that was a heated debate online, but I would say it was a very heated debate in the writers’ room as well.

David Read:
Really?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
I can certainly understand that because one of the things that I wanna touch on was there was a lot of feedback from Jonas. I loved that character. I loved what he added to the show. Not everyone did. A lot of the people who were very protective of Daniel had their reasons. Then Mitchell comes in and his first line in flashback is, “Remember, we are here to protect SG-1 at all costs.” I remember sitting and watching the show and I’m like, “They’re not gonna play him like they played Jonas at all. They’re gonna make him very deferential…

Joseph Mallozzi:
Deferential is the word, yes.

David Read:
to SG-1. I wanted to learn from the best. I wanted to learn from you, Sam Carter.” They wanted to make him a fan of the team and rightfully so. I think that was, or correct me if I’m wrong, one of the lessons that evolved from having Jonas come in. I’m sure you guys did not want that kind of reaction from the Rick fans to be like, “He’s not Rick. I’m not interested in this show without him.” When Rick was gone, I remember the fandom, a lot of people left. A lot of people stopped watching because they were watching for Rick.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think it was a different situation though, to be honest with you. I think the Rick fans were quite… not as angry, as we’ll say, because Rick made it clear he wanted to spend time with his daughter. It had nothing to do with the creative and had nothing to do with anything except the fact that he wanted to spend time with his daughter. Cameron coming in was really less of an O’Neill replacement.

David Read:
That’s fair. I agree.

Joseph Mallozzi:
We didn’t get that kind of pushback that we got with the Jonas character. Making him deferential, I think, made sense given who SG-1 was, given their cred, it was believable that someone stepping into those shoes would have a lot of respect for those who came before. Of course, as you said, it hopefully endears the character to the fans in that he’s very respectful of the classic team.

David Read:
Absolutely. He’s also from Earth. In “Fragile Balance,” when the F-302 pilots are getting their instruction from young Jack O’Neill, know Cameron’s in there. If there was ever a retcon scene, he would be there. We know that he knows these people. The other thing is, a lot of the story has been finished. He knows the chapter that has just been resolved in Season Eight so he gets it. I think Ben, I think Mitchell had more things to stand on than Jonas did, story-wise and minefield-wise walking in. You had indicated that Stargate Command was in development for a little while before Season Nine had come about. Were Atlantis to come on then, were we gonna create another spinoff series of SG-1? This would have been the second spinoff.

Joseph Mallozzi:
In development.

David Read:
OK.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Not really.

David Read:
‘Cause I didn’t realize that.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It was something that Brad and Robert had spoken on and off, again, about doing an SG-1 spinoff, which they named Stargate Command.

David Read:
Appropriately.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Then Atlantis came along and we ended up getting the extension, so we didn’t do Stargate Command. We had Atlantis as our spinoff, so it all worked out in the end, I guess.

David Read:
What I’m getting to is a chance to speculate with you here for a minute. Had the show been rebranded… is there, in your mind, a greater chance that we would have gotten, instead of a Season 9 and 10, a Season 1 and 2 of Stargate Command and potentially 3, 4, and 5, like Atlantis got had the show been rebranded?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I would say probably 90% chance that that would’ve happened.

David Read:
Wow. Now, fill us in on, if you don’t mind, on the reasons why rebranding the show would have done that. Is it a cost thing? Do costs go down when it’s a new show?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Some costs.

David Read:
What is the rejuvenation that happens behind the scenes?

Joseph Mallozzi:
It really depends. If it’s a new show, usually if you bring in a new cast, then those costs, for one, will go down. Just across the board, the costs will go down. But one of the things that we were able to do, for instance, with Atlantis, we shared that village set with Atlantis. We were able to amortize the costs over several seasons, but across two productions. That certainly helped. Though more than anything, I think in the case of Stargate Command, if it had gone, tonally, obviously it was SG-1 and it was very similar to Atlantis. Whereas when Universe came in, there was kind of a double reticence on the part of fans, and it stemmed from two things. One was the fact that they believed SGU’s pickup had led to the demise of Atlantis. Even though it wasn’t true, that’s what a lot of them thought and they resented it. They resented the series, so they turned off for those reasons. Obviously, Stargate Command would have pushed the development of Universe. So, more than likely, those Atlantis fans, you would have kept that, probably that sci-fi Friday double, tripleheader going, where the two shows would have supported each other and Stargate Command would have continued on its way. The other thing was, tonally, SG-1 and Atlantis are very different from Universe. Universe was a lot more serious. I think it’s a show that I see online people reaching out and saying they really appreciate now. They didn’t realize how good it was back then, but watching it now, they feel like the show was ahead of its time.

David Read:
Precisely. You were ahead of your time.

Joseph Mallozzi:
But for fans of Stargate, it was a tonal shift that they were unprepared for. So, it was two things that kind of shook them and as a result, we ended up bleeding a lot of fans. In the case of Stargate Command, that wouldn’t have been the case. Like I said, I say 90% because you never know in this business. I think it’s more than likely in my mind that we would have gone five seasons. Then we could have done a Stargate Universe and who knows? Maybe Universe would have run for another five seasons and instead of talking to you now about what came before, we’d probably be halfway through our fourth spinoff right now. Stargate Hawaii, that’s the one that Brad always wanted to do.

David Read:
Stargate Hawaii. That’s great. Do you, in hindsight, think the Ori story arc could have lasted five seasons? Or would you guys have wrapped that up somewhere in the middle and moved on to another situation?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, I think it had legs, the same way that the Goa’uld story had legs. I think they were more present in those early seasons. As you kind of build a mythology, or as you build more backstory elements, you’re able to draw from those other elements to tell different stories as well. I think they certainly could have played through the show’s five-season run.

David Read:
I think one of the advantages of Universe was you guys short-circuited a lot of problems that you had in terms of… What is it they say in the Magic: The Gathering world? Power creep? If that’s the right term, where you have Asgard beaming technology. You have these, basically the Asgard lasers and everything else at this point. “We are really a powerhouse.” There are a couple of examples throughout the show where you guys, in hindsight, while you’re going along, short-circuited some of those ideas. Three shots disintegrate with the Zat gun. At a certain point, that just stopped. It wasn’t implied that the Zats didn’t do that, but that we just weren’t gonna use it for that anymore. The advantage of Universe was completely separating you guys from the situation that you knew and going off into this other direction with nothing but the crates that flew through the Stargate with us when we first got to the ship. My point is, it would have been interesting to see how you guys would have handled that going further with, say, a Stargate Command and a Stargate Atlantis, with the tech that you had.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It was an ongoing discussion. I remember Ben Browder coming into my office one day. “You’ve gotta get rid of that beaming technology. It just makes things too easy.” We would always have to find workarounds. There was the ionic activity in the atmosphere.

David Read:
“There’s too much interference!” A classic sci-fi trope.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Exactly. Yes.

David Read:
Geez.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes. We were always well aware of that. Also, the fact, I think we sort of mentioned in a previous episode, that you could chalk it up to government bureaucracy. That technology, the alien technology, goes into R&D and attempts to reverse engineer it. It goes to Area 51 or Area 52. Then the unions take over and people are on lunch breaks or extended lunch breaks. “Oh, so-and-so will get back to you, don’t worry.” Then they never get back to you. It’s sort of typical government operations.

David Read:
That’s great. How many times did we have to go to Area 51 and say, “OK, what’s missing? Who didn’t do their job? Here comes SG-1.” That’s funny. Let’s go into your Season Nine episodes without further ado. “The Ties That Bind” was your first.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
I adore this episode. It was SG-1’s wild goose chase. There were some fantastic performances in this one. Blessed day! Blessed day! “I have to get out of here!”

Joseph Mallozzi:
There were so many. It was a fun episode. It’s another one of those opportunities to write the funny episodes, which I always embraced. It was a lot of fun. I look back on that episode, and I do remember it fondly, especially with the guest stars, Wallace Shawn. I remember we reached out to his agent and his agent was like, “Wallace is a huge fan of the show.”

David Read:
He was?

Joseph Mallozzi:
“Oh, this is great.” Actually, I went down to the set. I went down to wardrobe, as I usually do. I would go down and if it was my episode, I would welcome them.

David Read:
Say hello.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I was like, “Welcome to the show.” He said, “Thank you.” I’m like, “So, I hear you’re familiar with the show.” He’s like, “I don’t even own a television.” I’m like, “OK.” But I’m sure if he did own a television, Stargate would be one of his favorites.

David Read:
Gosh. Those agents, man.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think that’s what his agent meant, yes.

David Read:
Geez, because I was getting ready to reach out, go, “Well, if he’s a fan of the show, I’ll have to dial the key, he doesn’t even have a TV!” That’s great. He was terrific. One of the things that I remember Claudia mentioning when we were on set for Season 10 was one of her regrets about a scene that was cut in “Ties That Bind.” Her character was still being built at this point; she was still a guest star in this season. One of the things that she had said was we had shot a scene, either you guys shot a scene, or it was in the script, that followed up to the scene of Wallace Shawn where it’s basically, she completely took advantage of this guy. He says all these things that she did and later on, “OK, Vala?” She’s like, “No, it didn’t go down that way. I got him very drunk and I let him believe whatever he wanted to believe.” She said, “Because right now, it comes off that I’m a slut.” There’s only so much time. I watched scenes get shot, I was like, “I can’t wait to see that.” It never made it. That’s just the nature of the beast. The bracelets got a lot of mileage out of those first few episodes. I guess that was the in-story excuse for keeping her around. I always assumed it was a function of Carter not being there, that you wanted to have that fourth team member. Now it doesn’t sound like that was the case. It was the happenstance that occurred with Amanda going off and doing family stuff and then coming back in at the same time as her for that one episode.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Again, it was timing, coincidental timing.

David Read:
Absolutely. All right. “Ex Deus Machina” comes along. Ba’al is on Earth and we recently lost Cliff, so this is a very, a very poignant episode.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Another favorite, just because, as I mentioned, Ba’al was my favorite System Lord to write for because he’s suave and he had that sense of humor. Cliff was just so good at it. I remember we would come up with a story idea and then the title, we were like, “What we should call it is sort of Deus Ex Machina.” Then we’re like, “Oh, Ex Deus Machina would be even better,” because he’s a former God. I was like, “Oh, we could…” If he was a mechanic, we would have called it Ex Deus Mechanic. To call it Ex Deus Machina, I remember for years afterwards, people online would be like, “Ugh, it’s Deus Ex Machina, not Ex Deus Machina.”

David Read:
Oh my God. They thought you didn’t know?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah. That’s the gag. Again, it was another episode that was atypical. It took place almost all on Earth. I think it was completely Earth-based.

David Read:
The Jaffa High Council, too. He was infiltrating. That nefarious Ba’al.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I mean it also had those flashes of humor, which I always loved in SG-1.

David Read:
I think if it was any Goa’uld, if you could have convinced one of them to settle down on Earth and become like the next Bill Gates or something– like that, or find his way into some of those political, capitalist machinations– it would have been Ba’al. Depending on some of the people who are on Earth right now operating, I think he would’ve fit right in.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think we could have gotten a lot of mileage out of that one concept, and I think Cliff agreed because I remember him coming up to the offices one day after reading the script and he’s like, “We could do a spinoff. This could be a spinoff. Ba’al on Earth.”

David Read:
No, seriously, I mean, here’s the thing, if he got his tendrils in a great deal longer, especially with the prevalence of social media today, it would have been very hard for SG-1 to off him. People would have been like, “OK, what happened to this guy?” I mean, it would have been like a Weinstein kind of a situation. It’s like, “Oh, where did this guy go?” “What happened here?” They would have had to concoct this whole thing to explain what happened to him. I really do think, had you guys messed with that a little bit further– that really could’ve had some legs.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I agree.

David Read:
But at a certain point, you gotta go back out there into the galaxy and tell some more stories. One of the advantages that I really thought was advantageous about the show being as long as it was, was you being able to tell more Earth-bound stories as a consequence of the things that happened out in the galaxy. Do you overall agree with that, or do you think that your business as storytellers was to tell stories that were predominantly out there?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No… I mention this time and again, the fact that the great thing about writing for SG-1 is that it allowed us to write a variety of stories. You can do the scary story, you can do the fantasy story, you can do the more hard-sci-fi story, you can do the quirky, more humorous story. As time went on, we also delved into the more Earth-based story. Was it “Avatar” where Teal’c is…

David Read:
Plugged in.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Moving into his…

David Read:
“Affinity.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
“Affinity,” sorry.

David Read:
“Avatar” was the video game.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Sorry. “Affinity,” where he gets his own place and he’s moved in. This episode is a bit more Earth-based, we shift a little more focus on the NID. I love that about SG-1. We tend to do a little bit more of it in Seasons 9 and 10 just because it felt as though we had done so much of those galaxy stories in those first eight seasons and it was fun to do something new. We had established the NID, so why not follow through and give them some mileage as well?

David Read:
Makes sense. I remember being in the writer’s room in Season Nine when you guys were in production. On the whiteboard it says, “Fourth Horseman” and “Orlin.” I remember turning to Darren saying, “Guess who they’re bringing back? I hope they get Sean because he was terrific.” You wrote Part 2. We bring Don S. Davis back for a brief cameo. It warmed my heart to see him back on. Tell us about that kind of story because it was rare that we had the stories that would have impacted our world because you wanted to make it very much like this could be happening right now. The more that we tell about our world, the things that could be happening to us, the less it’s saying and I know this wasn’t the reason, but this was always the kind of thing that I was thinking was, “Well, that’s not happening to me so it’s definitely somewhere else.” There’s only so much that you can do in our world. But this one, topically, full blown pandemic. Who knows how many millions died. Tell us about “The Fourth Horseman.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
That was our midseason two-parter, I believe. Any season you wanna go big in that midseason two-parter. I just remember it was a tough two-parter. I remember, especially for some reason in the editing room, this episode was a real challenge. But I love these high-stakes type of stories. I think it was Lou Gossett Jr. and was it Cameron Bright?

David Read:
Cameron Bright replaced Sean Patrick Flanery.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I just love that ending where Sam goes to visit him.

David Read:
In an old folks home.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
I was like, “Where are the kids?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Sad.

David Read:
Absolutely it is. I imagine Sean was offered it originally and either he turned it down or there was a conflict and you guys had to rewrite?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah, there was a conflict, so we had to get creative with how we would bring the character back.

David Read:
It’s a question of, do we wanna just create a new Ancient or create a new circumstance? Or do we wanna leverage the…

Joseph Mallozzi:
…pre-existing relationship, which is what we really wanted to do. It’s one of those situations where it’s like he’s a kid now.

David Read:
But he still has those feelings. It was an interesting approach. Hats off on, the tap dance that you guys had to do around the fact that, “I’m here because I love you and I’m here because I’m gonna save you.” But Sam’s going, “Yeah, I care about you too. ’12-year-old boy.’ Geez.” What’s funny was Cameron Bright was in a film called Birth which had those very similar elements.

Joseph Mallozzi:
He gets in the bathtub with Nicole Kidman, I think.

David Read:
Correct and that created a whole thing at the time. I’m sure that there were, in his mind at least, references back to that kind of situation. A great sendoff for Orlin. That was a character that I did not expect to see again. What a sendoff for Lou Gossett Jr. What was it like having Lou Gossett Jr. in Season Nine? I think it would have made a great Landry.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Actually, in fact, I think we considered him as a possible Landry.

David Read:
Wouldn’t that have been interesting to have?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yeah.

David Read:
To have them switch, to have Beau Bridges as a Jaffa or some other figure. I remember this season, when we had come up, a few people had made the comment, “we really are taking advantage of our success at this point because so many of these heavy hitters want to do long arcs with our show.” People out there, like Mel Harris being one, have family members who love the show. Some of these more seasoned actors are in a position now where they can do what they want and they wanna do things that their family loves and watches.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I was always amazed by who we ended up getting, not only who we ended up getting, but also who were fans of the show. We mentioned Wayne Brady who, when I walked down to welcome him to the show, totally zoned me, tuned me out because he was so in awe of the Jaffa costume that he was wearing.

David Read:
Nice.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Isaac Hayes was another longtime fan who appeared on the show, which was also great.

David Read:
There was a lot of good fortune with this series. “Ripple Effect.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
This is actually one of my favorite episodes. It’s one of my favorite episodes because I remember when I wrote the outline. At this point, Paul and I were writing our scripts separately because he tended to do more uncredited rewrites on other scripts, which didn’t pay. I tended to do more of the originals, which did pay.

David Read:
You made it work.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I wrote the outline for “Ripple Effect” and there’s a point in the script where the AU team captures our team and there has to be a reversal of some sort. I had no idea what the reversal would be and I just wrote, “To be decided.” Usually between the time when I complete the outline and the time when I start the script, I usually get that figured out, but I didn’t. I was writing the script, and I was getting closer to that reversal; I had no idea how it was gonna turn out. It’s scary. It’s basically, it’s like walking that tightrope without the safety net because you don’t know. You could end up there and just get stuck and not have an answer. As often will happen when I’m writing, usually, it’s not always the case, it magically happened. I say magically because I wanna say, “oh, it’s because I’m very skilled and I’m creative.” But I have really no explanation for how, honestly, how suddenly the idea came to me and I was able to sort of work it out and come up with that reversal. Alternate universe stories are such a sci-fi chestnut, but I love those chestnuts because if you can find a way to give them a different spin, there’s a familiarity that fans really love, but at the same time if you can sort of subvert expectations, it makes it all that more special, specifically for sci-fi fans. It was fun and then we brought Teryl back.

David Read:
JR.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Martouf.

David Read:
Speaking back to where you hit a wall, you had mentioned an episode or two ago where you had spent a lot of time tooling with the scripts and then it all just laid itself out to your surprise. I think your subconscious really is working these problems when you’re not even aware of it ’cause, like we’ve talked about, your brain is always on story mode. Even when you’re at dinner.

Joseph Mallozzi:
But usually that’s more overt. I know when I’m on story mode.

David Read:
When are you not on story mode?

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
Hunting for ideas. I love the episode because it subverts a lot of expectations. It takes the broader universe of the shows, both shows into consideration because they’re attempting to go to Atlantis. After the episode aired you went online and revealed, “OK, go back and watch it again and recognize that the bad guys are in black and our good guys are in green.” So, bad is black and you can tell it that way. The little titbits that play into that.

Joseph Mallozzi:
There were so many in-jokes in that episode, and I feel bad because there were a bunch of scenes that I ended up deleting for time. I think I posted a bunch of those scenes on my blog. I think there was an interview scene with Daniel. I’m not sure if that actually made the episode. Daniel interviews the first season Daniel, effectively, who has the allergies, for instance.

David Read:
No, that didn’t make it.

Joseph Mallozzi:
That original Daniel had but somehow disappeared over time.

David Read:
He just got the better prescription.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Or a fear of heights. I love AU episodes for that reason, that you can actually pepper it with those throwaway gags that regular first-time viewers may not notice but regular fans will appreciate.

David Read:
It’s one of the dangers, though, that Rob Cooper actually brought this up to us in a recent interview where, when you do alternate reality episodes… Teal’c brought the point up in Season Three, “Ours is the only reality of consequence.” When you know that there are an infinite number of Janet Fraisers out there in the broader cosmic space and Martoufs as well, you take the risk of our Janet Fraiser’s death, our Martouf’s death, being less significant. Do you agree? Do you disagree?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I kinda disagree in that she was very much our Janet Fraiser and even if there was that other Janet Fraiser who came in and there was that moment between her and, was it Carter? Really, I don’t think it resonated as strongly with the audience because in their mind it’s not her. It’s sorta like when we talk about “Moebius,” one of the things that really seemed to irk the fans was that last line where O’Neill says “close enough” to the fish and the implication is that things have changed or this is not our team.

David Read:
It’s a gag, a Simpsons reference.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes. I think there were always fish in that.

David Read:
There’s always this line with Rick, especially with O’Neill, you can’t tell how much of what he’s saying… he’s just full of shit. There is a certain element of that. That’s how I took it. There were always fish in the pond. “The Scourge.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
It was a lot of fun. Again, another fun episode.

David Read:
Arc 7-5.

Joseph Mallozzi:
We got to bring back one of my favorites, Robert Picardo. One of my single favorite moments in Season Eight is that moment where basically he books it and charges past everyone at the first sign of danger.

David Read:
The man can take off. He’s 50-some-odd years old and he’s sprinting past those soldiers. That was really funny. A visual-effects-heavy episode, I would have to imagine, as well. Do you think that the bugs came off to your satisfaction?

Joseph Mallozzi:
In the original version, it was like a carpet of bugs that would swarm. The visual effects team told me, “There’s no way we’ll be able to afford it” so we made them burrow subterranean.

David Read:
I see. Subterranean.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Somewhere in there was a little bit of a, what is that, Tremors, feel to them.

David Read:
For sure. We also introduced Tamlyn Tomita as Shen, who would come back later on as a foil for Picardo.

Joseph Mallozzi:
One of my favorite Stargate Atlantis episodes.

David Read:
Correct, absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Tamlyn was great. Tamlyn is great.

David Read:
It made you wonder how many sites were out there, ’cause that was, I guess that was Gamma Site. It really had suggested that we had really spread our wings into the larger galaxy with a bunch of different sites that we weren’t even really aware of.

Joseph Mallozzi:
In my mind, there were plenty of them out there.

David Read:
Absolutely. “Camelot.” There is no magic involved. I had sat at Stargate Worlds with the marketing team and watched the guys in my group watch the show. One of the guys in this group was not a fan of the franchise. But that gag, especially when it happens the second time, he laughed out loud and he turned to me and he said, “This is the first time that I’ve laughed at this show. That was funny.” I was like, A, great, but B, how sad. This is a great episode. You guys went to town with this one. John Noble, great guest actor. I really, really wish that he had been given a part that would have allowed him for some meat in Season 10. He is terrific.

Joseph Mallozzi:
He is.

David Read:
I wouldn’t like to say that he was wasted with this character, it was certainly wonderful to see him, but I would love to have seen him again. Tell us about “Camelot.” Bookending Season Nine. Here they come.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s funny, I was thinking about this just the other day because I did a tweet thread titled, “Finales I Have Wrought.” I look back on and I’m amazed by– I’ve written a lot of finales. This is actually one of my favorites. What I always love to do in the finales is separate and conquer, or divide and conquer. By separating the characters, they’re all doing their own thing, and then in the climax it all goes sideways for all of them in different horrible ways. That lonely shot of Carter floating in space watching it all go down and sort of being totally helpless, that’s one of the images that really stuck with me more than anything in that particular episode. I just remember, also, it was one of those crazy episodes where we were dealing with Vancouver’s classic weather issues. It rained and then it was dry and then it rained and the visual effects team had to do their magic. I remember a friend of ours, Ross Hull, who was working at The Weather Network. He was a former actor, had actually worked with us on a show called Student Bodies. He was an anchor for The Weather Network and he reached out and was like, “Hey, I wanna do a feature on you guys shooting in Vancouver.” That was the episode it ended up featuring. There was this market scene, and it rained so actually it worked to our benefit because I think there’s that scene where Mitchell is rolling around in the in the mud. It works because it had rained that day.

David Read:
That’s right. It’s one of those things about such a precarious location as Vancouver is. You’re going to have rain on a near-constant basis. You can watch the episodes, especially the earlier episodes of the show, in terms of, I guess not necessarily the earlier, but you can watch SG-1 and see from shot to shot, this side has rain, this angle does not. You had to do the best you can. Just hope that with post-production, with kind of coloring and everything else, that you can make it as subtle as possible. It’s just one of those difficult situations that you gotta work with. The episode was a powerhouse for the in-house visual effects department. You guys had built this team up over a few years and I don’t know if they asked for or were handed the final sequence, but someone had said, “We can do this.” That whole sequence, that whole end sequence, was done by them. I just remember you guys being absolutely blown away by how well it had been pulled off. One of the things to understand for listeners is that you farmed out a lot of the content to facilities like Image Engine and Rainmaker at the time, but you guys also had your own internal team as well on site at Bridge.

Joseph Mallozzi:
In the later seasons we ended up just exclusively using our internal team. We built up that visual effects department. James Titchener was our original visual effects supervisor and then he handed off to Michelle Comens and then Mark Savela. I just kind of remember at the beginning it was very much that we would farm the visual effects out to vendors. Our visual effects supervisor, it would be up to him, as the savvy individuals they were, to know this visual effects house is really good at Zat blasts and this one is very good at ships and kind of divvy up the work that way. As time went on, we began to realize it would make more sense to create our own in-house team and we ultimately did. They were housed on the lot in this kind of rickety brick building that they would evacuate at the first tremble of a potential earthquake. I remember going to visit with them there. It was very homey. They’d usually come to the offices and bring us the visual effects but sometimes we’d go there and they’d run through it. Just an amazing, amazing team. The later seasons, it was Mark Savela and I remember Krista McLean, who used to do the most amazing match shots. Bones and the gang.

David Read:
Those shots of Destiny later on in that franchise, man, oh, man. Some of those visuals, especially with it flying through the gas giant in darkness. That was so cool, man.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Beautiful, beautiful shot.

David Read:
You guys really had it going.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s amazing because I ended up watching, or rewatching Universe with my wife, Akemi, and she loved it. She was amazed. She was like, “How long was this show?” The visual effects really hold up.

David Read:
Then we get to the end of it and we’re gonna carve your heart out with a spoon.

Joseph Mallozzi:
We’ll get there.

David Read:
Joel Goldsmith’s music plays and yes, we will. “Camelot,” just a great show, all around. It was really one of those where it was like, if you were new to the franchise, you get to the end of it, half the cast is potentially dead. Executive producers comes over the screen and is like, “That’s it?” It’s like, “That’s it.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
My favorite kinds of finales.

David Read:
Absolutely. We’ll deal with how they escaped… next episode, but until then, let’s leave them with this. Originally with “Beachhead” in Season Nine, earlier on in the season, your plan was for the ships to come through. At some point the decision was made, “let’s keep this to the end of the year.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Yes.

David Read:
I think it worked out in everyone’s favor because it built up the anticipation, I think for the better. Fan questions.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Let’s do it.

David Read:
Let’s see what we have here. All right. William Arends, “Joe, could you discuss how the change in adversaries seems to literally go from Goa’uld snakes in the Edenic Gardens of the Milky Way to the ascended fallen angels that were the Ori?” I haven’t thought of it that way.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Well, that’s interesting and that would be actually more of a question for Robert Cooper because he’s the one who actually came up with the idea of the Ori and he was also responsible for The Ancients. So, pretty much along those lines.

David Read:
OK. Interesting. Part of me would be, “do we really want to go here? You know what? Let’s do it.” I’m interested to see what your response is. You must be thinking, “Oh God, what’s he gonna say?” Occasionally this does come up in the online forums, even today. With the use of other cultures’ deities, was there ever any talk about bringing Jesus as an ascended being?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I heard this a lot and there was zero talk… no.

David Read:
Was it just too close to home? You used gods from all sorts of different backgrounds so it’s a fair point.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think most of the gods that we explored on the show were no longer sort of revered in a contemporary capacity. Egyptian gods, Roman gods. To be honest with you, it’s not even something we discussed and dismissed. It was just something we never considered.

David Read:
If they were captured, if these humans were captured 5,000 years ago, these would not have been contemporary deities anyway. These would have been the ones that existed around that time, so that makes sense. Tracy, “I’ve been following your blog.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thank you.

David Read:
“Was wondering if you were able to share anything further about the horror genre pitch you’re working on?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Let’s see, which one? I’ve got one… No, seriously. I’ve got a couple. I’ve got a horror script that is out now and I’ve got a small-town horror series that I’ve developed with my friend, Tara Yelland. How would I describe it? I’d describe it as, I guess, The Haunting of Hill House meets Paper Moon. Are you familiar with Paper Moon?

David Read:
Very much so. Great movie.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I loved it. It’s Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, father and daughter who play father and daughter con artists. It’s horror, but there’s humor and it’s one of those pitches that it’s not super-visceral horror. It’s more really slow-burn, creepy, more ghostly, supernatural horror. It’s one of those scripts that actually has gotten a lot of love from different places, yet not enough love to put it into development.

David Read:
Really? OK.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Whenever we send it out, people always wanna sort of have a discussion with us to talk about it and it just hasn’t gotten anywhere yet, but who knows what the future holds? It was the same deal with Dark Matter, where it wasn’t getting a lot of love and I thought the project was dead and then suddenly we were heading into production. Hopefully that’s the case with this or one of the other projects.

David Read:
Well, best of luck. Absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thank you.

David Read:
Let’s see here.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thanks for asking.

David Read:
Tracy also wanted to know, “any books that you recommend, one of your favorite books that you recommend for summer reading?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
Man, I used to be, I hate to say this, such an avid reader. I would go through 100 books a year, at least 100 books a year. Last year during the pandemic, or the lockdown, I figured I would have more free time to read, but I didn’t read a lot, and I haven’t been reading a lot lately. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is, why I can’t bring myself to read as much anymore. To be honest, when I’m in production, I can sort of carve out free time for myself. I know what has to be done and I complete the work and then anything after that is free time. When I’m not in production, I feel guilty not writing or not working on something. So, reading as a leisure activity feels like an all too guilty pleasure. Even though, in my mind, I try to sort of justify reading as research for potential IPs, which they are. In terms of a reading recommendation, a summer book, some of my favorites include Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, Jonathan Tropper’s This Is How I Leave You, Karen J. Fowler We Are Completely Beside Ourselves. Get these down. David Benioff, one of the showrunners of Game of Thrones. I’ve read his novel City of Thieves before, way before he did Game of Thrones. It’s one of my favorite novels.

David Read:
What’s the genre?

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s during World War II, I believe, in Russia. A deserter and another soldier are basically arrested and brought together, and they are given the task of finding two dozen eggs for the wedding of this general’s daughter. Apparently, it’s a story that is kind of based on David Benioff’s grandfather’s story. It’s at a time where no one has anything and being able to track down a dozen eggs will be next to impossible. They have to do it in one night or they’ll be executed. It’s a great story because it has a sense of humor, which is something all these books have. It’s that undercurrent of sense of humor. There’s The Rosie Project. What was his name? Was it Simpson? Simsion was the author. There was another book which is kind of atypical. It’s called Dear Committee Members and it’s just a series of e-mails or letters written by this professor at this liberal arts college whose career is going down the drain and he’s trying to keep sort of a stiff upper lip and keep it very upbeat. But all his letters, there’s this passive-aggressive, almost sadness about it. It’s a really darkly humorous book and I unfortunately don’t recall the author’s name, but Dear Committee Members is another one. If you like thrillers, I love Gone Girl.

David Read:
Gone Girl is good.

Joseph Mallozzi:
You is another one.

David Read:
Julie Schumacher is Dear Committee Members. Gone Girl, though, is an excellent film. Tracey, you got your reading program for you.

Joseph Mallozzi:
All right. Get to it.

David Read:
Jeremy, “I’m a huge fan of “Camelot.” It has to be one of my favorite space battles. Can you tell us a bit about how the battle at the Supergate came to be and why the Ori warships were pretty much untouchable until “Unending?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
We wanted to create a formidable opponent. As you said, you sort of build and build and build towards that confrontation and then you have the payoff. You’re hopelessly outmatched so basically you build up and you have that showdown. In presenting a villain, or opponent, that is so formidable that it almost seems hopeless, you set up such a hill to climb, both in terms of our characters but also creatively for us, in Season 10. That’s what you always want; a battle against a far greater foe and that’s what we did with “Camelot.” After a full season of building we pay it off and in a kind of a very shocking fashion.

David Read:
We lost one ship just a few episodes before and then we lose another one, not to mention pretty much everyone else in this fleet. It was intense and you were definitely striking a hopeless note, for sure. Teresa, “Joe, are you a food connoisseur of sorts?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
I would not say… Don S. Davis, when we used to go out, would claim he was not a gourmet. He was a gourmand. The distinction being that he just appreciated food, as do I. I have to say my wife has a much more discerning palate than I do. She will be able to pick up the different ingredients in a plate, whereas I simply enjoy food. I was actually just tweeting today the fact that maybe I enjoy it a little too much. I’ve basically cut down to two desserts a day. But chocolate doesn’t count. Chocolate basically, you can have whenever you want. But only two desserts a day. I wanna see if I can stick with it and see how it goes.

David Read:
There you go. Were your chocolate parties only during Stargate, Stargate’s production, or did you continue them after?

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, it was only during Stargate.

David Read:
It was only during Stargate.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Every year I would import chocolates from all over the world. I would shut down a restaurant and invite 40 members of the cast and producers and people I’d work with and we would have a meal. The restaurants would service a meal and then afterwards we would just eat an insane amount of chocolate. Akemi, my wife, she bemoans the fact that she was never able to attend my chocolate parties because they ended before I met her. Maybe someday.

David Read:
Bring it back once we’re out of this mess. Absolutely. Goran Andonovski, “Whose idea was it in creating and writing “Ripple Effect?” Who came up with the nugget of the idea and was it good to see Teryl back on SG-1?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think Brad came up with the nugget of the idea. I’m not sure if it was Brad or maybe his daughter actually pitched him an idea. I think SG-1 stepping through the gate and it was the SGC or it wasn’t the SGC, or maybe it wasn’t SG-1. I don’t know. But it was just a seed of an idea and we kind of took that and ran with it. Of course, it was great seeing Teryl. I did miss her and that’s why I wrote the scene with her. Her dog used to play with my pug, Jelly all the time back in the day.

David Read:
So, sweet. I remember JR, we were supposed to have him back for “Summit” and there was a scheduling conflict. I always felt like we were kind of robbed of his proper ending. I was always curious as to see what “Summit and Last Stand,” which for the longest time were my favorite episodes, would have been with him in them, how the story would have gone.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Probably even better.

David Read:
This is true. I do wanna run a point past you, before we move on from that I meant to bring up with “Ripple Effect.” One of the things that Rob was talking about when we had him on was that for the longest time in the beginning, you had difficulty, I don’t know if it was with studio executives or just other people in general, difficulty trying to get the point across of what the Stargate did in the beginning of the show. Was it a time travel device? Was it an interdimensional device? It’s like, “No, it’s just a door from one place to the other.” As the show got on, you started doing other things with it that people would have thought originally that it did when, at the beginning of the show, were like, “No, this is not what it does.” But at a certain point, you have to add other capabilities or other situations on, because the material at a certain point requires that you go other places.

Joseph Mallozzi:
The two classic sci-fi tropes are alternate or parallel worlds and time travel. We want to introduce that into our world, but yet on the other hand, you don’t want to introduce another device. You already had a very cool device that does something similar. Really, all you have to do is find a way for your original device to do it as a result of, what? Solar flares? Is it some sort of radioactivity? Something you find, you use that, the device you have. That’s what we did with “Ripple Effect.”

David Read:
That makes sense. Akos: “Was there any consideration in moving Shen to Destiny instead of Camile Wray?” What was the likelihood that they knew each other? Was Tamlyn in consideration for SGU or were you wanting to create a new IOA member? That’s interesting.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, that’s more of a question for Brad and Robert. I think they wanted to create a new character for the new series. I love Tamlyn and she’s an incredibly talented actress. I think Brad and Robert just wanted to create a new character for the new series.

David Read:
I think that given more seasons of the show, she would’ve been amazing. I don’t think she was short-changed in Seasons One and Two. I think there was so much potential for that character that we didn’t get to see.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think also the difference between her and the Shen character, Shen is very much a, I wouldn’t say a bureaucrat, but very much a confident official. Whereas Wray was a civilian and really more, I think, grounded… kind of more of an eyes-in character for audiences at home and I think that’s why they wanna go with that character. I thought Ming did a wonderful job. I find her character incredibly warm. That is sort of owing to Ming’s performance.

David Read:
Absolutely and still she can have a jaded edge at the same time, depending on who she’s dealing with. Shantel: I haven’t considered this. “Was there ever any consideration of writing Amanda Tapping’s pregnancy into the series?”

Joseph Mallozzi:
No. I tried to think back to that time and how did it work with Claudia? I think she was not pregnant, but we wrote her pregnancy in for her character and then she became pregnant.

David Read:
Really? She was very pregnant when she came back in “Crusade.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
We were shooting around that and then, when was Rachel pregnant? Was it Season Four?

David Read:
Rachel was pregnant in Season Four.

Joseph Mallozzi:
OK, so it wasn’t really around the same time as Amanda’s was first. No, I think one of the reasons why we didn’t wanna do it was then it would open up a can of worms. It was no secret, I was more the Jack/Sam shipper. If she got pregnant then it would either mean, A, she was having a relationship with her superior officer, which would’ve been frowned upon.

David Read:
Really? By the Air Force.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Or B, it would’ve been Pete’s baby and then that would’ve given more weight to that relationship. Those are two very good reasons why not to write it into the show.

David Read:
Absolutely. That’s fair. Let me see here, I lost my place. Goran Andonovski: “Who did you find an easier time writing for? Ben or Rick, as leads?

Joseph Mallozzi:
To be honest with you, Rick was, I think, throughout SG-1, he was the easiest character to write for because he had that kind of everyman sense of humor that you just love to write for. So, definitely Rick. Not just O’Neill in comparison to Cameron Mitchell, but really O’Neill in comparison to any other character on SG-1.

David Read:
That’s fair. Rachel Baker: I forgot about this. “Mitchell, when the time comes, cut the green wire.”

Joseph Mallozzi:
“Cut the green wire.” Yeah, that was actually the last thing that alternate Cameron Mitchell tells our Mitchell before he leaves through the gates at the end of “Ripple Effect.” I remember actually finishing up the script, and Damian Kindler, who was one of the writers on the staff, he’s like, “You know what you should say? Cut the green one.” I’m like, “I like that.” So, basically, I include it in the script and to this day people continue to ask me. Of course, through the way sort of alternate realities play out, he never had the opportunity to be presented with a situation.

David Read:
Correct. He’s not from the from the future. He’s from a parallel. It’s still an interesting mind screw. Clearly, they’re pissed. I loved that little thing. The little things like that just keep you coming back. Eva, “in “Ripple Effect,” was there any cut scene between Janet and Sam? I always thought that there should have been their own scene similar to Martouf and Sam.” That could’ve been a two-parter for fan service for all intents and purposes.

Joseph Mallozzi:
It’s possible. I would have to actually go through my blog. If you go through my blog and do a search for “Ripple Effect,” you’ll probably come up with one of the entries where I posted a bunch of the deleted scenes. Maybe there is one.

David Read:
Absolutely. I think I remember something around that time being the case. Jeremy: “In your mind, what became of the children of the Ori, the people, after Season 10 and Ark of Truth?” Did the Supergate remain? Did they, the ones, the soldiers in our galaxy, retreat back to theirs? What are your thoughts on how it panned out?

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think basically everybody went home, resumed their lives and they went on to become productive members of their respective societies.

David Read:
Geez.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Beloved, beloved productive members.

David Read:
Strike Force Alpha: Do you think that the next Stargate should use Unreal 5? Like Mandalorian and all these others.

Joseph Mallozzi:
I think, absolutely in terms of establishing those alien settings. I think the only knock against Unreal engine is that they serve as amazing backgrounds, but they’re not interactive so you’re still gonna be building interactive set elements. But that’s kind of a small price to pay when you’re able to create that alien world look. If we woulda had that when we were on SG-1, just imagine; the different looks we could have achieved.

David Read:
Absolutely. When SG4 comes about… I can’t wait to see the taking advantage of the visual effects now. Once Upon a Time was one of my favorite shows. A Disney soap opera, if there ever was. They used set extensions all the time for the fantasy world. From Season One to Season Seven or Eight, whenever the show ended, it is a marked difference in technology. With the amount of time that SG-1, that Stargate’s, been off the air, I can’t imagine what it’s gonna go looking from SGU to SG4. It’s gonna be a trip. Joe, thank you for listening to my rambling and coming on.

Joseph Mallozzi:
No, this was always a pleasure. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

David Read:
Always a pleasure to have you and there’s gonna be a lot more to come. Next month we’re gonna be going into Season 10 and closing out SG-1.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Wow.

David Read:
Thank you for coming on and joining us once again.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Thanks for having me.

David Read:
Absolutely, sir. You take care of yourself and I’ll be in touch, all right?

Joseph Mallozzi:
All right.

David Read:
Be well, Joe.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Have a good night.

David Read:
And you, sir.

Joseph Mallozzi:
Have a great weekend.

David Read:
And you, sir. Bye-bye. Joseph Mallozzi, executive producer and writer of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. He’s been joining us every month to cover one season of the franchise and now we’re going to be moving on to Season 10 with the month of May just trucking right along. I have some fan questions submitted. Questions and comments regarding the concept art episode. “Can we buy any of these?” These are not commercially available. These are ones that I acquired while I was involved in the production of the show and I hang on to them. Basically, when I die, MGM’s gonna get them all back. Though MGM already has copies of all of them so I hang on to them just as I bought a lot of them through the various auctions that we’ve had. I mainly hang on to them as a production resource. Ezsparky, “Did you work as part of the Stargate production crew?” I did not, just as a journalist. “Will you be doing a room tour of your props?” I will show the house at a certain point here, probably, I don’t know when yet. But there are props and art pieces and more of these dudes throughout the house. He’s one of four, so yes. “Do another concept art video,” a lot of people are requesting. Yes, all right. We will go into Season Two. I think I’m gonna combine Season Two and Three because there were 17 seasons, 17 rounds of concept art. The first one was a test of Season One and then the rest I’ll do another eight episodes of two seasons each. I think that that’s my plan. My hope is to entice James C.D. Robbins to join us once we hit Season Six so we’ll see where that goes. Michelle Palmer, “Are you and Joe going to do the same kind of discussion for Atlantis?” Yes. So, next month we’re going to do SG-1 Season 10, that’s May, and then June we’ll be starting on Atlantis Season One. Joe is in for the long haul, spending every month covering one season of the series. Questions and comments from the Carl Binder episode. People are asking to have Carl Binder back. OK. We will definitely have him back. Raj, “what I wanna know is how they came up with the idea for Destiny to have AI but not include it in Atlantis. Plus, why not have Atlantis have a solar power collector technology as well?” That’s fair. My guess, and this is just a guess, is that Destiny did not have AI. I think that we were thinking that it was, but it was actually the solar system builders. That is my hunch from everything that I’ve watched Brad and Rob and all of them do, is that it wasn’t Destiny at all. It was this alien race making everyone think that it was Destiny. The same thing happens with TJ; she’s thinking that she’s receiving visions at the beginning of Season Two of her baby and then they ascertain that it’s Destiny doing what they have to do to keep the crew healthy. I’m thinking it’s the alien race. The other option is that Destiny was… because it’s so old, it predates all the other technology. It doesn’t make sense for Destiny to have that kind of knowledge or that kind of technology like AI, when Atlantis didn’t have really that kind of its own kind of essence, its own kind of being. The other option is that as it traveled throughout the universe and accumulated knowledge, it became self-aware. That’s the other option. But I really think that the Obelisk Planet Builders, I really think that they were playing a bigger role in the show than we actually were led to believe. Northern Lights, “Any plans streaming on Twitch? You definitely would get more viewers than it deserves.” I don’t know anything about Twitch so that’s interesting. I don’t know. I’m gonna have to look into that. Is that something that can be simulcast? That would be certainly something that we could consider. But no, I have no clue. I’m gonna have to look into it. Comment from Strike Force Alpha, “Thank your team. I’ve been going through the videos, have been very impressed.” Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. My team is just stellar. “GateGabber,” Linda, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, Antony, you guys are fantastic. Sommer as well. Sommer is taking a break right now so we will wait. We are eagerly awaiting to have her back and I hope that she’s doing well. We’ll see what happens. Someone, one of the mods posted, “Ask David Blue. David Blue probably knows the answer about Destiny.” I’m sure he does and he ain’t telling. That’s what we’ve got here. Dial the Gate is this month offering a giveaway. We’ve partnered with Big J Customs for April to give you a chance to get your very own custom Pop Figure. To enter to win one of these items, you need to use a desktop or a laptop computer and go visit dialthegate.com and 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. There are three slots for trivia, one easy, one medium, and one hard. Only one needs to be filled in, but you’re more than welcome to submit up to three. Please note, the submission form does not currently work for mobile devices. Your trivia must be received before May 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 bigjcustomsart.com. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate you watching, but if you want to support the show further, buy or sell 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. We currently offer four themed designs. The word cloud designs have a solid background or transparent background option, so you have some flexibility between choosing your light and dark color and 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 for your support. We have, tomorrow, a long day planned. 10:00 AM Pacific Time, this is the earliest I’ve ever done a show. We’re starting off in the UK for our first two episodes. Sally Malcolm, Fandemonium founder and novelist, she’s going to be coming on to talk about that series. Sally and I go way back to the very beginning when she launched this series of novels. They have been pumping these out… just crazy over the years. It’s gonna be great to sit down with her and talk with her about a lot of the different novels that her team has produced over the years and a lot of the different stories. Hopefully she’ll give you some titbits into where the shows went in the novel universe after each series. Some of them are set after Atlantis and some of the books are set during SG-1 and Atlantis as well, most of them are set during. If you look at the front of the book, it tells you in between which episodes a lot of them took place, but they definitely wrote a number to conclude the Atlantis series as well. She’s at 10:00 AM tomorrow, Pacific Time. Suanne Braun will also be joining us from the UK for her second episode. She is host of HathorHosts so she is coming on to reveal her guests for the rest of season two which is going on now at youtube.com/hathorhosts. She’s gonna be joining us at noon and then at 2:00, I cannot wait, Musetta Vander. She’ll be joining us tomorrow at 2:00 PM Pacific Time to discuss her career and Shan’auc. I have always loved her performance, not just in Stargate, but in Star Trek Voyager and in a few others that I’ve managed to catch. It’s a real coup that we’ve got her on the show, and we will be bringing her to you tomorrow at 2:00 PM Pacific Time. Once again, thanks to my production assistants, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, Jennifer Kirby, my mod team; Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, Antony and Sommer. You guys make this show happen. I think that’s all we got for you here. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow starting at 10:00 AM Pacific Time for Sally Malcolm and then Suanne at noon and Musetta at 2:00 PM. That’s what we’ve got. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. Thanks so much for tuning in everyone, we’ll see you on the other side.