Welcome to the premiere episode of Dial the Gate! GateWorld’s Darren Sumner joins David Read to discuss the state of the Stargate franchise, GateWorld’s origins, and to announce 30 guests joining us for the remainder of the year! Plus trivia!

RELATED ►
★ Gatecon Cast Reunion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOeeEah3IAQ&t=1149s
★ Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game @ Comic-Con 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTJj5TAdy8Q&t=6264s

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:36 – Welcome
2:20 – Our Composer, Neal Acree
4:33 – Episode Structure
8:08 – Introduction to Darren Sumner
11:43 – The State of the World
13:09 – Gatecon 20th Anniversary Retrospective
18:22 – Destruction of the Tollan
19:32 – Issues with Canon
25:28 – Why This Show Now?
34:18 – David’s Introduction to Stargate
37:02 – Darren’s Introduction to Stargate
40:21 – GateWorld’s Origin Story
44:00 – Trials, Tribulations and Highlights
49:08 – Building Relationships
51:58 – David’s Set Pieces
55:21 – Custom-Build BC-304
58:12 – Custom-Build Goa’uld Ha’tak
1:02:11 – David’s Stargate Jobs
1:11:01 – Stargate Movie Premieres
1:13:18 – Episodic VS Serialized Series
1:17:18 – David’s Favorite Series
1:20:10 – SGU is Perceived as Replacing Atlantis
1:21:19 – David’s Favorite Episodes of Stargate
1:23:24 – Darren’s Favorite Series & Episode
1:24:32 – Heroes
1:25:39 – Guest List Introduction
1:27:07 – Guest List: Christopher Judge
1:29:22 – Guest List: Joseph Mallozzi
1:31:04 – Guest List: Wyvern Gaming
1:32:37 – Guest List: Alexis Cruz
1:33:22 – Guest List: Simone Bailly
1:34:07 – Guest List: Rainbow Sun Francks
1:34:54 – Guest List: Julie McNiven
1:35:20 – Guest List: David Blue
1:37:22 – Guest List: David Hewlett
1:39:15 – Guest List: Torri Higginson
1:40:14 – Guest List: Tom McBeath
1:42:24 – Guest List: Martin Wood
1:43:25 – Guest List: Andee Frizzell
1:45:28 – Guest List: Robert C. Cooper
1:47:43 – Guest List: Suanne Braun
1:48:55 – Guest List: Neil Denis
1:50:05 – Guest List: Gary Jones
1:50:46 – Guest List: Tony Amendola
1:51:24 – Guest List: Jay Acovone
1:51:45 – Guest List: Paul McGillion
1:52:26 – Guest List: Katharyn Powers
1:53:17 – Guest List: Jacqueline Samuda
1:54:22 – Guest List: Garwin Sanford
1:55:00 – Guest List: Neal Acree
1:56:25 – Guest List: Colin Cunningham
1:57:48 – Guest List: Rick Worthy
1:58:58 – Guest List: Teryl Rothery
2:00:07 – Guest List: Joe Flanigan
2:00:53 – Guest List: Amanda Tapping
2:02:27 – Guest List: Dean Devlin
2:05:54 – Guest List: Sam J Jones
2:06:46 – Wave One Actor Selection Strategy
2:08:12 – The Importance of Hitting “Like”
2:09:20 – Stargate Trivia
2:20:16 – Trivia Submission
2:24:34 – Fan Question: Is Dial the Gate like Hathor Hosts?
2:25:02 – Fan Question: Is Stargate returning?
2:25:59 – Fan Question: Why are there no models of ships?
2:27:47 – Fan Question: Stargate Andromeda?
2:28:41 – Stargate Oblivion Idea
2:29:50 – Fan Question: Are the Replicators all extinct?
2:30:54 – Fan Question: Which was built first, Atlantis or Vis Uban?
2:32:30 – Fan Question: Any talk about more Origins or shorts?
2:33:41 – Fan Question: How long will these interviews be?
2:34:30 – The DTG Schedule Won’t Be Consistent
2:35:40 – Fan Question: When and how did GateWorld become THE Stargate resource?
2:37:48 – YouTube Notifications
2:39:25 – Fan Question: Has the Superfan group disbanded?
2:40:59 – Fan Question: Will you do anything for Stargate Day, October 28?
2:42:17 – The Channel Will Be Full of Clips
2:43:12 – Fan Question: Will the interviews always be Saturdays?
2:43:39 – Fan Question: Can the show be done earlier in the day?
2:45:08 – Thanks to Darren
2:45:51 – Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game Kickstarter
2:46:40 – Episode Categories (Outdated)
2:49:25 – Stargate Fan Art: Hito
2:50:56 – Call to Action
2:51:55 – Our Animator, Brice Ors
2:52:56 – Next Week’s Guests
2:54:12 – Wrap-Up
2:54:53 – End Credits

***

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

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello everyone, my name is David Read. I apologize for the delay, we had some sound issues. I guess that’s just how these things work. We’re gonna figure it out. We started on time, five minutes before the top of the hour and everyone could hear me and Darren talking, and it’s like – this isn’t right. I’m on mute; and how’s this supposed to work? So, I dropped an s-bomb. Hopefully you won’t be hearing that copy. Welcome I’m so glad to have you. My name is David Read: and I am the longtime co-editor of gateworld.net. I am back with the band now because I wanted to launch this new project with my old business partner Darren Sumner. And this is going to be – what I hope to be – my legacy in terms of my relationship with this franchise, my relationship with Darren, and the hundreds of casting crew that we’ve been privileged to know over the years. So, thank you so much for joining us. I want to be clear that this set first episode is going to be, crazy. You’re gonna watch me fall on my butt. And that’s just how it is. We’re figuring this technology out together. So please forgive me for that with the tech. The other thing – and this goes for the entire run of this show – I am a loudmouth and I apologize. I am a boisterous laugher and I am grating, and everything else – as Darren will tell you. So upfront for that, I make no bones about it but I do apologize. The opening music was created by Mr. Neal Acree – who is the last surviving composer of all three Stargate shows. He and Joel [Goldsmith] did every series and I am privileged to have him with us. It feels like there’s some real Stargate DNA as part of this show. So that was, I mean, it was like Christmas morning when I got the music. So, the opening theme was created by him, the closing credits at the end of the show he also created, and it really feels like Star… and it is Stargate for all intents and purposes you know. He told me last night, he says the best Stargate music I’ve made in years. That made me laugh. So, let’s get into this. The show is going to have – the meat of the show will be the confirmed guests. We have thirty confirmed Stargate guests for the remainder of the year and January. So actors, the crew and actors – it’s like herding cats with the schedule. So, there will be schedule shifts. You’re going to want to subscribe and click the “Bell” icon in the event that there’s a last-minute schedule change. These talent are working – and this is a good thing. I was not expecting them to be working now. And we’ve got some intel on some projects that I can’t even talk about yet that I’m extremely excited about, but we’re waiting for agents to clear a lot of this stuff with us and they’re not getting back to my email. A couple of them are not responding to the things that we want to talk about, like, ‘can we publish this news story?’ ‘This is tremendous!’ ‘This is a big show!’ And I’m not getting any responses, which says to me that they don’t have permission yet. So, we’re gonna keep a couple of these things in the bag for now, but we’ll talk about them as the show progresses. The last thing before I want to get into the run of show is, congratulations to Suanne Braun for a wonderful Season One! She and Amanda Tapping – I believe they may be still talking – but I believe they just wrapped on Season One of “Hathor Hosts”, which you can check out on YouTube. I totally recommend it. So, congrats Suanne for that. Let’s get over to the structure of a typical “Dial the Gate” show, at least what it’s intended to be. So, introductions I’ve already made. Any upfront notes that you need to have are going to be given to you at that point. Then the guest Q&A will be first, once I introduce the guest – obviously I have to bring the guest in for that first. Then we will have a Q&A in discussion. With Darren – this is gonna be a little bit more casual as my business partner – so he’s not strictly Stargate talent. And then normally we will take questions. We’ll be pretty back and forth with the chat for this episode but in the future it’s gonna be pretty structured. I will have my questions and then we will shift to guest questions at that point. Once I let the guests go, there will be announcements. In this main episode all the thirty guests that we announced – thirty some odd guests – are going to be in the body of the show. But in the future, new guests will be after the show in announcements and if there’s another show later in the day then that’s where that’s going to go as well. And then I will also take any questions that Sommer was given. Sommer Roy – she is in our chat as moderator and… where are you Sommer? OK, so she’s Sommer SDR – that’s her alias. She’s going to be my right hand in the chat and she’s going to be getting me all this documentation. Yes, I believe Sam Carter asked, “Is this like Hathor Hosts?” We’re gonna get into that here in just a minute and any news about Stargate returning and everything else. So that’s where that’s gonna go. After the announcements, and any personal Q&A that you have for me, we’re going to go to a special section that’s driven by the fan community. And it’s Fan art. I am a member of several Facebook groups and there are a number of Stargate channels that have a lot of art that [has] been shared by the community. There [are] some really talented people out there and that’s where this is gonna go. So, we’re gonna show off some of that. If you’ve created anything Stargate – I know [someone] out there who’s created little like Stargate dolls – you know it doesn’t have to be physical artwork. You can email the show and provide us that, as long as you know you give us clearance to show it. So, this is the basic structure of the program. Call to Action is just – actually that’s also what I’m about to do with you right now. Before we bring in Darren, let’s go ahead and show how you can contribute. Before we get started, if you like “Stargate” and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you would click the “Like” button. It would really make the difference with YouTube’s algorithm and would definitely help the show grow its audience. Please consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to 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 any text notifications of any last-minute guest changes, because believe me this is going to happen. This is key if you plan on watching live. Clips from this live stream as well will be released over the course of the next several days in both the “Dial the Gate” and gateworld.net YouTube channels. And the clips are designed for people who don’t have a chance to sit through the whole show because – I mean, look, Australia, New Zealand you guys are getting shafted. I’m so sorry about that but we had to put the show somewhere and the biggest, the biggest group is in Europe. So, here it is. We’ve been waiting for him, and he’s been waiting. I know, I’m sorry about that. Mr. Darren Sumner.

Darren Sumner:
Hello!

David Read:
Hello sir.

Darren Sumner:
Hey, here we go.

David Read:
Didn’t mean to make you waiting so long.

Darren Sumner:
That was a long introduction.

David Read:
Yes, it is.

Darren Sumner:
But that’s OK. We’re clearing the cobwebs. We’re getting the gears greased and ready to go for a brand-new show. I am so excited for “Dial the Gate”.

David Read:
I am too. Thank you for – I approached him – was it two months ago? And I said, “You know, we really need to get together and do something again.” And it was actually [Darren] who made the comment – he was the one who said, “You know, if you really want to come back and do something for the channel, or for “GateWorld”, you’re more than welcome to join us again. And it got me – I’d already been – we’ve always been kind of like in tandem with one another in terms of thoughts.

Darren Sumner:
As in sharing the same brain.

David Read:
Yes, exactly. That happens a lot and it seems to be the case. And I had already been thinking about this and we we’re going to be talking about a little bit more about why now. We’re going to be getting into that as we move forward here. But you’re doing good?

Darren Sumner:
I’m doing well David. For those who might be newish to “GateWorld”, GateWorld’s been going for almost twenty-one years. David was a little bird who came to me as a young little sparrow and was nurtured and I fed him fed him worms – directly into his mouth. I’m pushing the metaphor way too hard here. David came up on GateWorld all the way through – What? End of high school through your college years?

David Read:
Yes, 2003.

Darren Sumner:
Into your professional career. And then…

David Read:
You listed the show as me joining in 2004. That is not true.

Darren Sumner:
In 2003. I got it wrong.

David Read:
You’ve got to correct that news story.

Darren Sumner:
I’m gonna fix it. I have the power. But here’s the point, David was with GateWorld for a lot of years. You’ve seen, if you’ve been following GateWorld at all, you’ve seen his interviews, you’ve seen his video content, you’ve seen his editorial content for years and years, and then he left the nest. We sent him off and David has done all kinds of amazing things. He’s worked for “Stargate Worlds” – the MMORPG video game that never came out. Which is not David’s fault. He worked for Propworx…

David Read:
Don’t get me started on Stargate Worlds. We’re going to talk about it. [Inaudible]

Darren Sumner:
Selling all the – I hope that we talk about it. When the Stargate sets closed down and they auctioned off set pieces and costumes and props, David was at the heart of that figuring out what everything was. You did the official magazine for a while. You did…

David Read:
That was thanks to you. You got me that job. Let’s be honest.

Darren Sumner:
I passed that one off to you. But, then eventually David ended up working with MGM directly on “Stargate Command”. And so recently – 2017 to 2019 – you’ve seen him co-hosting “Dialing Home” with Christopher Judge. And so, our little bird left the nest. He grew up into a, beautiful eagle. I don’t know, this is – but now he’s come home and I’m so excited that he’s come back to the nest.

David Read:
I’m grateful to have a place at the nest still. It could have been like, “We’re not gonna have you back; you soiled it elsewhere. Look what you did!” So yeah, it’s good to be back, and it’s good to be with you again, and it’s good to have you as the first guest. I don’t know if this is – the show – is going to come of anything, but our guest lineup I think will make that the case. How are you dealing with this?

Darren Sumner:
Dealing with being on the live stream?

David Read:
No, I mean the two thousand pound – you know the sixty thousand pound Stargate in the room. You know, the Covid-19.

Darren Sumner:
We’re dealing with it. 2020 is a weird year. It’s the year that just won’t quit. But we’re making it happen. I live in the Seattle area and I’m fortunate enough that the work that I do I get to continue to do online. I’ve been teaching online and kind of haven’t missed a step. In fact, I’ve gotten a little bit more work. It’s been a little bit busier. But you know, I’ve got three kids. The kids are all home; they’re doing home – school from home on zoom so it’s crazy. But you know, it’s great to have outlets like Stargate and GateWorld and Dial the Gate to relax a little bit and have a little bit of normalcy. Right? Go back and re-watch favorite episodes of SG-1 brings a little bit of like comfort food for your eyes.

David Read:
Well… I have always said Stargate is chicken soup. You know? You watch it and it makes you feel good. Some of it is darker than others and that’s fine, but at the end of the day I think that that’s what it really boils down to for me and I have – I’m really glad to hear that a lot of the talent are working again and when we did – I don’t know if you saw the GateCon 20th Anniversary retrospective about a month ago – we had an after show. It turned into one! An after party, with Garwin Sanford, and Simone Bailey. And they talked about this a little bit and I’d like to bring in their perspective here.

David Read:
LA is okay. I have a couple of friends there. It’s pretty rough right now.

Simone Baily
[Inaudible] I’m not going to restaurants. I don’t do any of that kind of stuff.

David Read:
Garwin, you getting some air out there? You guys okay?

Garwin Sanford
Yeah, I’ve been self-isolating for like six months basically. Literally. I mean, I just turned down – I got offered a movie and it was one of the bigger roles I’ve been offered in ages and I looked at the script – this was just a couple of weeks ago – and, I looked at the script, and it had me in a room with 20 people – all actors and background without masks – and I looked at the… crew of 50 or 60 or 70 – and I’d be in a room for a few weeks. At least that many people.

Garwin Sanford
I don’t think that is the smartest thing to do.

David Read:
When are they shooting?

Garwin Sanford
Pardon me?

David Read:
When are they starting shooting?

Garwin Sanford
They started shooting about two weeks ago. I got offered it four days before it went, and I just thought – It was a big decision for me, because – you know, I’m going, “eh.” And I had been auditioning, because in Vancouver everything had started to drop. We were down to zero cases, and that’s when I started auditioning big time and started looking for stuff. And then this offer came and I had to think about it quite seriously. And I told my agent, I said, “Actually, now the reality is here that I look at it… And then I realized – I phoned him – I said, “Look, I can’t do this. Because – at the risk of bringing it back to my family – I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.” And what was it for? Some money? I liked the role but, you know, it just isn’t smart. So then I said, “I’m gonna have to just pull out of the business until this is over because I can’t take that risk.” If I was living on my own I might have thought of something different possibly, but… you know, you go, “eh.” So the world has changed. I’m no longer a working actor until this is finished.’ It becomes, you know…. Although, one of the bonuses is…[French: Since the beginning of the COVID-19 quarantine, I have been immersed in learning French on my own.]

David Read:
You’ve been working on your French.

Garwin Sanford
I’ve been spending the last five months teaching myself French because I hadn’t. I’ve always wanted to do it. I had high school French and that was it. And I went through it…

David Read:
This man is a jack-of-all-trades. He built his own house, he’s a pilot, this man never fails to impress me.

Garwin Sanford
I have to challenge myself somewhere or I’d go crazy. But it’s been a real joy. I’m actually getting to the point where I can converse and listen in French. So, that’s been fun so there’s something coming out of it. You could say I force myself into focusing on something while I was sitting in my house for six months.

David Read:
Simone, you doing OK? I know I have friends in LA. It’s pretty rough right now.

Simone Baily
Yeah, I think what’s interesting is just seeing how even in my friend group how the views are so different on masks, or not, and whether you should – you know, business as usual or not – and I agree that you should be safe, and responsible, and considerate. So, I’ve gone through great lengths to make sure that I’m keeping myself and everyone else safe. I’ve spent most of this time as well – like alone – which is interesting. But I’ve really found new depths in myself and I’ve learned a lot of things and I created my YouTube show and there’s been a lot of growth and kind of a deeper understanding. I think this is a really good time – if we can take anything positive out of it – is that we push the reset button. And there’s something about – when answers come to you in the silence a little bit. So, yeah. And it’s deepened the connection with a lot of people from all over. You know, and even the fans too. It’s really cool. Because they lift me up. Because we all feel the depression. We – I mean – you can’t not be affected by the pandemic and the politics and, you know the way of the world, and the injustices. I mean it’s just, it’s quite glaring.

David Read:
I apologize for the audio issues guys. I’m not sure what’s going on there. I’m gonna have to figure that out. So, I apologize for the loops. I’ve got some kind of channel wrong. Darren, can you hear me? And, hang on just a second. I’m not hearing you. Just….

Darren Sumner:
Sorry, I muted myself because I was listening to Simone.

David Read:
Yes, you did! Stop that!

Darren Sumner:
I can hear you and I can hear Simone.

David Read:
Alright, perfect. Someone brought [up] in the chat – made pretty clear that the Goa’uld destroyed the entire Tollan civilization.

Darren Sumner:
The Tollan were knocked down; right. They were kind of a superpower by Season Five. They had advanced technology. They were knocked down as a way of building up Anubis. As a way of demonstrating how much more powerful Anubis was than all the other System Lords. He knocked down the Tollan. He punched the Asgard in the lip at the end of Season Five.

David Read:
“I know something you don’t know.”

Darren Sumner:
That’s… very likely.

David Read:
Garwin and I got to talking one day and there was another episode planned.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, to bring Narim back?

David Read:
I’m gonna let Garwin talk about that. So, he’s one of our guests and there was this whole thing that was going on here.

Darren Sumner:
OK, I want to hear. Roll the clip!

David Read:
No! I don’t have a clip. We have to bring him on.

Darren Sumner:
Garwin’s going to be on the show.

David Read:
Garwin’s going to be on the show.

Darren Sumner:
All right.

David Read:
Absolutely!

Darren Sumner:
All right, I’ll watch that one.

David Read:
Yeah, absolutely. So, before and – you know that’s not the only thing. The fan community is a group that debates the minutiae. And one of the [issues] that [has been] stuck for years – and it just will not go away: Nicholas Rush said that Destiny was launched hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, yeah.

David Read:
And it appears to be older than Atlantis. But Atlantis was quote, ‘Several million years ago.’ So which is older?

Darren Sumner:
This has confused me for a long time. I want an answer to this. I would love to get a Brad [Brad Wright], or a Rob [Robert C. Cooper], or a Joe [Joseph Mallozzi] on the show and get an answer to stuff like that… particularly because Destiny’s stargates seem to be like a version one point err, zero point five. Right.

David Read:
Yep, yep.

Darren Sumner:
Seem to be not quite as developed, they don’t go as far, they can’t go across an entire galaxy for example. Right. So, we figured that the Destiny gates – and Destiny’s launch – was probably, first. It’s probably the oldest. But then we get this line in the pilot of hundreds of thousands of years ago is when it launched.

David Read:
Well, I reached out to Brad [Wright] and I asked him that. And I said, can you please definitely…

Darren Sumner:
Pull the clip! Oh, you don’t have it. I think you’re doing – I keep thinking you’re doing setups.

David Read:
No. Well, I mean – hey, I’m…

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
It’s possible there may be a few more. There is something more later. But, in terms of the Destiny answer, I asked [Brad] because you’re the canon guru in terms of like show canon – regardless of what Rush said, because he’s just making a comment – what’s the answer? And [Brad] said, “Destiny is older.” Period. So, I mean – there’s gonna be fans who are like – well you know, Rush said it so that’s what it… According to Brad Wright – who created Nicholas Rush – Destiny is older. So, that’s all there is to that.

Darren Sumner:
So, we had we had all these kind of weird little issues when you and I were working on the “Stargate Omnipedia” on a weekly basis. Which is, we have to count what happens on screen as canon but every once in a while they’ll be a little slip up. Right? So, canon has to account for the fact that these characters are also human beings who sometimes misspeak.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Or estimate a date wrong.

David Read:
Yes. Just because they say something does not mean it’s definitive.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, there’s an episode where cam Mitchell references one of SG-1’s previous missions and he rattles off the planetary designation and he transposes two of the digits.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
That doesn’t mean that the planet is now called that, he just – right. Mitchell got it wrong in the hallway. That’s fine.

David Read:
Daniel – I mean; this the same thing happens with Daniel. He said… the Asgard’s galaxy is Ida in Season Two and then in Season Seven he tells – I think it’s Elizabeth – he says, it’s Othala. When that’s the name of the planet. He’s just misspeaking. They don’t exist they don’t occupy in two galaxies. And then you’ve got story changes that happen because the story evolves. And in Season Six “Ascension” did not make you all seeing and all-knowing, and by Season Eight it did. That’s when replicator Carter was probing his mind. And that’s just how it is, you know. So… one of the things that was an issue with me when we were doing Stargate Origins with Catherine Langford’s origin story – so many fans were like, “Well Catherine didn’t do that.” Well, how do you know? “Because it didn’t happen in canon.” Well, as I’ve just demonstrated, canon evolves as the show moves forward based on what the storytellers need. So, Stargate Origins – take it or leave it – but…. if you look at that – and I was involved in the production of [Stargate Origins] – you look at Catherine’s book there’s a picture of a symbiote in there. The DHD is in there. The reference to the dial home device being the one that they have in Berlin is a reference to Season Five in “The Tomb” where Daniel reveals that the Germans dug up the gate and dug up the DHD, which is – the Germans had it. So, it makes sense that the Nazis would have – the Germans would have come in at some point in the story. And so that’s – those little things.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. There [are] lots of, lots of those little touch points in Stargate Origins. Like the harcesis was a bit more prominent of a reference to SG-1 cannon.

David Read:
Yes, the harcesis too. I completely forgot about that.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, but you know all the Origins ultimately does I think in terms of canon is, it just says that Catherine doesn’t remember. Right. Spoiler alert for the end of Stargate Origins, she just doesn’t remember that this happened to her.

David Read:
Yeah, exactly. So, I think it solidifies the relationship with the movie and the show more than not. And I look at that like – I’m a huge fan of the original “The Shining”. A huge fan of the book – the original Shining. That’s what I mean by that, not the Stanley Kubrick version. I saw the Stanley Kubrick version for the first time just a few years ago. And it’s fine. It’s a great horror movie but it’s not the story. It takes elements of the story. And then what “Doctor Sleep” did, as a book, was show that the mini-series – the ABC miniseries – was actually more appropriate to what happened because in the end of the mini-series Daniel Torrance graduates with honor. I’m sorry for any non-Stephen King fans out there. I apologize. But, the elements of the miniseries were actually in Doctor Sleep. And then the movie comes out – Doctor Sleep – and it tries to merge the Kubrick vision with the King vision of “The Shining”. And that’s I think what Origins really tried to do. So, whether you think it succeeded or not.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, it took a lot of inspiration from the feature film but I think it works pretty well as glue between the two – between SG-1 and the film.

David Read:
So let’s move on.

Darren Sumner:
Welcome everyone to the Stephen King podcast.

David Read:
[Laugh] There are worse things to discuss. Happy…

Darren Sumner:
No, I really…

David Read:
Go ahead.

Darren Sumner:
I really want to know why you decided to jump on this bandwagon now. We know you have been very busy with Stargate Command up until it closed its doors in 2019. I’d love to hear as much as you’re allowed to tell us about the content that you were working on – like Season Two of Dialing Home – that did not get released, or has not been released yet.

David Read:
Let’s, OK. Let’s, let’s roll that back a little bit. So, why now? The world stopped spinning. For all intents and purposes in many respects and it presented a new opportunity. One of the things that we were struggling with was a level of quality with Dialing Home in terms of the presentation at MGM. And that was one of the conversations that was repeatedly had – was that, we like this interview but…. I’m not going to get into it. Then standards dropped – like an anvil. Because now we’re all stuck…

Darren Sumner:
Because of the pandemic; yeah. Suddenly everybody’s use to zoom; for everything.

David Read:
Webcams. Exactly. You have – we have no choice, if you want to make new content.

Darren Sumner:
Martin Gero, who pitched – who is of course a writer/producer from Stargate Atlantis – Martin Gero pitched a zoom-based TV show. And it got picked up by a network. I think NBC.

David Read:
We’ll leave it to Martin. Man, that guy – holy cow.

Darren Sumner:
That’s the world that we live in. He can make a show out of anything.

David Read:
Yeah. [Inaudible] Seriously.

Darren Sumner:
That is the world we live in now. Yeah.

David Read:
Yeah. That was the big thing. So, I had been wanting – when MGM closed up Stargate Command it was crushing. Because Stargate Command was – what I was trying to do in terms of – and this is what this show is – this is my answer to the “Archive of American Television”. And if you don’t know what that is, I highly recommend that you YouTube it because it is a great series of long-form interviews with cast and crew of people who have defined television.

Darren Sumner:
You and I many years ago watched the – how long is it? Two, three-hour long interview with Rick Berman.

David Read:
It’s fantastic.

Darren Sumner:
From Star Trek: The Next Generation; was one of the best – as a kid who was made by Star Trek: The Next Generation – this was one of the most insightful – kind of long-form pieces – that I’d ever seen on that show or that franchise. So, you and I were talking years ago about – boy, we want to do, we want to do that with Brad Wright someday. We want to do that with Joseph Mallozzi someday.

David Read:
Yeah exactly. And Brad was the one that I actually approached and said, “If I’m gonna do this, I have to have your involvement.” There’s no other, there – I don’t want anyone else as my first guest but Brad. And so we we’ve stayed talking and then he went and started talking with MGM for a new Stargate series. And it was like, “What do I do?” You know, cause he’s busy working on that… So I reached out to him and I said, “OK, Covid’s given us this window of opportunity – pardon the pun – and I want to do a new show with interviewing cast and crew. Do you mind if I go on and do that while you’re working on this?” Because I want to – if something is going to come of Brad’s relationship with MGM and building a fourth Stargate series comes between him doing the show and him doing Stargate, I need to be out his way.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, yeah. You need to leave him alone. If that’s what he’s doing right now.

David Read:
And so, hopefully one day we’ll be able to sit down with him for several episodes. But it’s just not gonna happen right now. And that’s cool. But we have a tremendous number of guests that we’re going to announce later on that would make any convention, just excited.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, this is amazing. I mean, you approached me about the show two months ago and I knew that you had the contacts and we’re gonna make this into something special but – I gotta say – even I have been blown away by this opening roster for the guest list.

David Read:
Yeah, I’m very proud of this. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna just make this thing happen. If it works, it works. If no one shows up – the next thing about the “Archive of American Television” and its content is that it’s there on YouTube and this is here on YouTube. YouTube is – for better or for worse – Google [has] created earth’s video memory. And if you’re going to create a space where past fans can come and learn about specific details about each individual episode – depending on the Dial the Gate episode that you click on – with directors, with cast, with crew. I can’t think of any better place to put it than YouTube. We tried to do that with Stargate Command and it got sent to seven countries. The whole world deserves access to – of Stargate fans – deserve access to this content – and for free.

Darren Sumner:
Yep, one hundred percent. And GateWorld – we have for two decades – GateWorld has thought of itself – and has approached our work – as an archive of the Stargate Universe. Both the fictional universe and also the production of the show. So I’m thrilled that Dial the Gate is living here with us at GateWorld and is serving this sort of archival purpose.

David Read:
Exactly, that’s the intent. Whether we do that or not is something else entirely.

Darren Sumner:
That’s up to you. You got to get the work done now.

David Read:
Well and – it’s not just that, but it’s convincing the talent to do it. Try approaching Amanda Tapping and saying, “Will you sit down with me for 15 hours?” You know, that’s insane.

Darren Sumner:
That’s a long time.

David Read:
She’s a working director. So…

Darren Sumner:
No, I can get 20 minutes out of her every now and then.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. You just can’t get into the minutia. And the other thing that we haven’t brought up yet is…

Darren Sumner:
She likes you better than me.

David Read:
Well – I mean – I’m not gonna challenge that. But, I mean the… [Laugh] Oh come on. The other thing is, a lot of them you know, they don’t remember this stuff. But they remember more than they think they do. I was having that conversation with Tori – don’t kill me – but, Tori Higginson, and she was like, “I don’t think I’m gonna remember as much as you think I remember.” Ah, for Season Two of Dial the Gate. It was ultimately a three-hour interview. No, it was two hours that we shot.

Darren Sumner:
For Dialing Home.

David Read:
For Season Two. “Dialing Home” not “Dial the Gate”. Excuse me. Thank you. And it’s in Season Two. Hopefully MGM will release it on YouTube. But once we got to the end of that she was like, “You know, I remembered a lot more than I thought I would once you got me talking.” And that is the point.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, you’ve gotten very good at this. I can’t imagine anybody else doing a show like this right now because you’ve spent 15 years – more than 15 years now – talking to these folks and – not just building trust with them – but, learning the skills of how to draw out conversations and anecdotes for stuff. They shot this stuff 10, 15 years ago.

David Read:
In some cases, more. Like with SG-1. One of the things that I really want to do with this show eventually – hopefully – is do the commentaries for – especially – the first three seasons of SG-1 that we didn’t get because they weren’t created for DVD yet. And a lot of those – we only started really doing interviews in earnest, Season Eight. So, there’s a lot of that content that – I mean, there was some stuff and you were definitely reporting earlier – but there’s a lot of content for the earlier stories. It’s not out there. You know.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
I mean, it’s out there… [inaudible]

Darren Sumner:
There’s not much. Because the internet and the fan community online was still in its infancy when SG-1 premiered in ’97.

David Read:
Exactly. Yeah. The earliest writers on the show – Katharyn Powers is one of the people that we’re going to be talking to. She helped create the Tollan. She helped create the Asgard, and she didn’t want them to be Roswell greys. That was not her intent. So, I’m interested to hear what her intent – I prefer that they’re Roswell grey’s frankly I can’t think of them being anything else – but I want to know what her intent was. When you created this content, what was it that you were trying to do? And what were some of the conversations that were going on in the office? And I’m not looking for gossip.

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing, yeah.

David Read:
I’m just looking for what the creative process was happening at the time. And I’m not interested in knowing [about] fights around the office or anything like that. That’s not productive.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, just the anecdotes of the building of [Stargate] lore.

David Read:
Exactly right. Exactly. So, that’s the intent there.

Darren Sumner:
You were a fan all the way back then, right? Before you came – obviously before you came to “GateWorld” circa 2003 you were already – you’ve been watching the show for years and years. Did you start at the beginning?

David Read:
So, I started, I think about the time that you started. So, I was in eighth grade and I watched a lot of programming on Saturday nights. The local ABC affiliate had late night Saturday nights at like ten o’clock, nine o’clock, in the evening. They had the “Outer Limits” and “Poltergeist the Legacy”, which ultimately – which were shot at [Bridge Studios]. And I loved these shows, I absolutely loved them. And then one night I was watching and – I think one of them aired. And then the second hour – I think it was supposed to be Poltergeist, or something. I think Poltergeist came on second. And… these guys are playing poker in this big gray space and there’s this big expensive ring and I’m like, I vaguely recognize that thing. ‘Is that the Stargate?’ Because I think that that was the thing that was sitting next to the “Fifth Element” at the DVD center at Walmart, because it looks like that. And those were sitting next to one another on the shelf for – at my recollection – years. I think that’s what that is. And then the opening titles come up and it says, “Stargate” and I’m like, “Oh. OK, they’re doing a TV show. Isn’t that interesting.” And I don’t typically go out and watch new stuff… without… doing my research first. And I sat around and I watched it. And I watched it. And the first hour ended. And then there was a second hour.

Darren Sumner:
It just kept going.

David Read:
It’s like, I’m too tired. So, I put the recorder on and I watched the second episode the next day, or the second half. And that’s how I got into it. Then, that Sunday night, NBC’s movie of the week was “Stargate”. And that had to have been on purpose. I don’t I don’t see how that could have been anything else. And then…

Darren Sumner:
Somebody, yeah. Maybe somebody called in a favor at Showtime.

David Read:
Exactly. So, then I – we didn’t have cable, we just got satellite because I’m from a farming community; cable was not allowed to run through the ground. So, I watched Season One in syndication and Season Two on Showtime in tandem. And that’s how I – so after “The Enemy Within”

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
I went and I turned – and I subscribed to Showtime and I watch “Jolinar’s Memories”. Not “Jolinar’s Memories”. Uhmm…

Darren Sumner:
Tollan.

David Read:
No. Oh, for God’s sake. Come on, all these – “In the Line of Duty”. Sam gets taken away by Jolinar.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
So, I – that’s, that…

Darren Sumner:
There were “Jolinar’s Memories” in that episode. So, you’re very close.

David Read:
Technically yes, I suppose that’s true. Anyway. But when did you get involved?

Darren Sumner:
It was right about the same time, it was – Season One was airing in syndication – I think – and Season Two was on Showtime. I had discovered that they were making a Stargate show when I was in college. I’m a little older than you are. I remember very vividly standing in the grocery store line, and seeing the TV guide, and seeing the announcement that they were making a show based on Stargate and that MacGyver was gonna be in it. And… I was sold. I was hooked. But, I was also in college. In the 90s. With no TV and certainly no Showtime. So, it was a year. I finished college and moved across the country. I moved to Chicago and I ended up living in a place that had Showtime. And I found it. I found the show in – it was airing. So, I would watch – let’s see – it would have been new episodes of Season Two on Friday nights. Everybody remembers Sci-Fi Friday. Or they called it Sci-Friday on Showtime. And then on Saturdays, they would do back-to-back syndicated episodes and I would be catching up on Season One while I was watching Season Two and trying to figure out what’s what. So, I actually can’t remember the first episode that I saw. I don’t know which episode was first. I think it was probably…

David Read:
You don’t remember your first?!

Darren Sumner:
I don’t remember my first. I think it was probably like, late Season One syndication. I think it was probably something like “Tin Man” or “Enigma”. Something around there. But yeah, because then I was watching the show weekly on Showtime in Season Two while I was trying to back fill all the story. Like, I didn’t know who Bra’tac was when he first showed up on screen because I hadn’t seen “Bloodlines” yet.

David Read:
Shame on you.

Darren Sumner:
Well, I caught up.

David Read:
Eventually.

Darren Sumner:
I caught up.

David Read:
There were a few like – it was a while…

Darren Sumner:
I think I’ve seen all of them now.

David Read:
[Laugh] That’s funny. Oh gosh, and – but before I forget – happy 21st anniversary!

Darren Sumner:
Thank you.

David Read:
To GateWord.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you. Oh! To GateWorld. Yes.

David Read:
It’s the, 22nd?

Darren Sumner:
And also my marriage.

David Read:
Not – is it to your marriage as well?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, my wife and I got married in July.

David Read:
Interesting.

Darren Sumner:
And I got her hooked on Stargate of course, and we were watching it weekly. And then middle of Season Three – on Showtime – the night that “Jolinar’s Memories” aired was the night that GateWorld was born.

David Read:
Why is that?

Darren Sumner:
So, it’s just, another couple of weeks now. It’s twenty-one years a couple of weeks from now.

David Read:
You put the punch line at the beginning.

Darren Sumner:
I put the punch line – well, I’ve told this story.

David Read:
Well, you’re gonna tell it again.

Darren Sumner:
The people in the chat have heard this story before.

David Read:
Maybe not.

Darren Sumner:
I’d be really curious. People in the chat – how many of you used to listen to us babel on the podcast? On the GateWorld podcast.

David Read:
I would like to know that as well.

Darren Sumner:
And how many of you are brand new to the two schmoes here on the screen. What was your question?

David Read:
How did you –

Darren Sumner:
Something about Stargate?

David Read:
Why did you –

Darren Sumner:
Oh.

David Read:
Yeah. That one show with the round thing.

Darren Sumner:
“Jolinar’s Memories”.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
So, I was – you want the short version of this or the long version?

David Read:
The one-minute elevator pitch.

Darren Sumner:
The elevator pitch. “Jolinar’s Memories”. Good show. Website.

David Read:
Yeah, the one-minute elevator pitch. Not the one minute – I don’t know what that was.

Darren Sumner:
So I was…

David Read:
The McDonald’s window pitch?

Darren Sumner:
When I was in college in the 90s I taught myself HTML and pulled together some websites here and there. But you know, what really grabbed me in the third season – second and third season of the show – was the show’s mythology and the way that it was not just episodic… Most Sci-Fi shows, most television shows, in the 90s were episodic. Nobody really was doing serialized arc storytelling all that much except for shows like “Babylon 5”.

David Read:
I still haven’t seen it.

Darren Sumner:
Here was this show – we’ll talk about that later.

David Read:
Yeah, I know.

Darren Sumner:
Here was this show in “Stargate SG-1” that kept making references back to its past. That kept me – it was, it was mostly episodic – but it kept referring to…

David Read:
Mythology.

Darren Sumner:
So, it was rewarding the audience for paying attention. It was rewarding the audience’s intelligence. Recognizing the audience’s intelligence. So, it was – yeah, it was everything coalesced in the season cliffhanger – the mid-season cliffhanger for Season Three – where they go to Netu. SG-1 goes to hell to rescue Jacob Carter and the reveal at the end of this episode is that Na’onak the prison warden – or the right hand to the prison warden Bynarr – Na’onak takes off his hood, right. It’s Apophis – raised from the dead.

David Read:
And we were totally like, sold a false bill of goods with the voice being different the rest of the episode.

Darren Sumner:
I was blown away. Yeah, yeah. They totally tricked us. It worked like a charm. Peter Williams agreed to have his name appear in the end credits, instead of the beginning credits, so they didn’t spoil the surprise for people who know who plays Apophis. And, it was just great. I was blown away. And so, what I wanted to do was make a website that followed these interconnecting pieces. Trace the mythology. I could help –

David Read:
“Follow the Story” – I think you called it.

Darren Sumner:
“Follow the Story”. We did that for a while. And it could help people go back and figure out – okay, who was that guy? Why is this important? When did he die again? And kind of create a Stargate version of a site that I had followed for years and years when I was enjoying “Babylon 5” – which is “The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5”. They connected all the story pieces, the plot beats, what do we know, and also collated all of the creator’s commentary. All the behind the scenes production stuff. So, I could watch the show and then go on and spend an hour reading The Lurker’s Guide about that episode. I wanted to do a Stargate version of that.

David Read:
I’m interested to know why Follow the Story doesn’t exist like – like, this is like – the genesis of GateWorld. Why doesn’t it exist in the current version? Like, clickable on the side of the screen where you can – “Jaffa Revenge” starts in Season Four and then it ends in 48 hours.

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah, the ‘follow-the-storyline’. So, we used to do this on the episode guide in the older version of the site. There was a little ‘follow-the-story’ box and you could just click ‘next’ and follow like the ‘replicator story line’, or whatever it was. I have had every intention of bringing that back over the last several years but it’s been one of those projects that’s kind of sat on the shelf because we had higher priorities. I’d like to do it. And I’d also like to do some feature – kind of editorial content – like that. That is, ‘here’s a self-contained story’ – we’ve been doing that a little bit. Here’s a self-contained story, like – I just want to watch all the replicator episodes.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
OK, here’s a list of them.

David Read:
Yeah. Star Trek did that with the DVD collections… for a little while there.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
You have a ‘Borg’ collection, a ‘Q’ collection. it’s really cool idea. I would love to see that feature added back to GateWorld. I mean, I’m just saying. So, if you have a chance to do that at some point. I’d be happy to sit down and organize all the episode plugs. So, I’m just putting that out there in the universe.

Darren Sumner:
Good. Good, we’ll get it done.

David Read:
So, you’ve been doing this for twenty-one years. Triumphs, tribulations, highlights. Tell us about them.

Darren Sumner:
Triumphs, tribulations, and highlights. There’s a lot there. Boy, it’s been – we’ve been through a lot and this guy on the screen. Which direction do I point? This guy has been my brother through most of those years. So, we’ve had a lot of great memories together. Going to conventions, talking to cast, talking to other fans, exploring – not just the shows, but the world of fandom. Exploring people who write [fan fiction], people who cosplay, people who are other content creators now that YouTube is a platform for other people to share their love of Stargate. Believe it or not, GateWorld had been around for years already before YouTube was a thing. GateWorld predates YouTube. GateWorld predates podcasting. GateWorld predates blogs.

David Read:
OK… stop. Yeah, you’re good.

Darren Sumner:
It’s very – I’m very old. No, what I’m saying is, I’m very old. Much older than I look. But no, it’s having the incredible opportunities to visit the set. One of my shining moments that is always going to stand out to me is walking onto the SG-1 set for the first time and reaching my hand out right onto the concrete wall of Stargate Command and – guess what? It’s not concrete.

David Read:
Fourth wall broken. It’s the same thing. You told me about that.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, it’s amazing because this is about it’s totally self-contained in this set.

David Read:
Yeah, right.

Darren Sumner:
Even the red klaxon that spins over the door when filming commences – that’s a functional piece of the SGC set. But it’s actually part of the Bridge Studios to notify people when filming is happening. It was amazing to see the production design up close and to not even recognize that this was – what is it? A sculpted and painted foam. Or whatever they use.

David Read:
Yeah, exactly.

Darren Sumner:
It was amazing. And then getting to go across to Stage Six and walk onto the Atlantis set for the first time. My first visit to Bridge Studios was in 2004 before Atlantis had premiered. They were filming the first regular episode after the Pilot. They were filming “Hide and Seek”. And so, I to get to go onto that set and hang out with that cast. And David Hewlett came to the lunch tent and hung out with me and just wanted to talk about websites, because you know he’s a geek. It was fantastic. It was, it was amazing. It was a dream come true for a 20-something nerd like me.

David Read:
Absolutely… When I first found my way to that set for the first time – and I had remembered that you had been talking about that experience where it was like, ‘you know, when you go your perception of this thing is going to change forever.’ And I was so excited to get to get the opportunity to go with you – I think when Season Nine of SG-1 was whispering. So, the very next year I got to go with you.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, 2005. It was Season Nine of SG-1 and Season Two of Atlantis.

David Read:
And I did the same thing that you did – where I put my hand on the wall and I had the exact same visceral experience. And once you break the fourth wall, you can’t un-break it. Like – the magic is gone. At least for me it was. I mean, I can still watch the show and I can get into it and I can completely be swept away in the narrative. But when you know all the players – when you know… how the sausage is made – you know, I mean, okay that’s not… a very good way of describing it.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, we get it.

David Read:
But, when you know how it’s done, you – the magic is gone – largely. And you can still enjoy it.

Darren Sumner:
Well, the magic changes.

David Read:
OK, that’s a fair point.

Darren Sumner:
I wouldn’t say – I wouldn’t say the magic is gone. I’d say what it’s done for me – and I think it’s been the same case with you – is, what it’s done is it’s created a whole new way to enjoy the show, because you start to enjoy the production of it. You get used to Martin Woods little directorial ticks.

David Read:
Yeah, that’s true.

Darren Sumner:
And you get to – you’re gonna recognize an Andy Makita episode when one comes on. And you appreciate –

David Read:
Wasn’t he the pineapple guy?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, pineapple guy. You appreciate the use of space, right. I was shocked when I stepped into the gate room – how small it is compared to how spacious it looks on screen. And you just – you know the tricks. You know how they’re spinning sets. The mess hall in Atlantis – they shoot the mess hall where the Stargate is.

David Read:
And the gym.

Darren Sumner:
And the gym. That’s the same space.

David Read:
And they use it for other things. It’s the exact same space. They just – there was a circle in the floor. If you notice. If you’re looking closely. And that’s where they put the Stargate when they’re not filming it. They just, put it down.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, they could just lower the gate down and hide it.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
It’s amazing!

David Read:
It’s genius.

Darren Sumner:
And the infirmary is like a hallway.

David Read:
Yeah! Basically – for all intents and purposes. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
So, I came to love the shows in a different way. It added a new dimension to me.

David Read:
The – yeah, the magic – what magic was removed for me was replaced with the relationships with the cast and the crew. Very much with the crew, because… they took us around and – Bridget Prochaska, Carole Appleby, love you both. You guys were amazing!

Darren Sumner:
For sure.

David Read:
You guys – year after year we would go back there and just build these relationships with these people. And they were they were working a job you know, but they were loving it.

Darren Sumner:
It’s become more common I think for web-based media and for fan media to get access like that but it was pretty unheard of 2004, 2005. It was a real joy. And they were just – it was absolutely professional, you know, treating us like we belonged there.

David Read:
Yep. That’s you. You created great websites.

Darren Sumner:
That’s the weirdest thing – was walking around great sites Bridge Studios and being treated like I belonged there.

David Read:
Right. Once we told them who we were, they were like, “Ah!” It wasn’t like, “Ugh.” You know. Like, “Oh, you’re with that…” It was it was very much like, “Oh, yeah I’ve seen that. I enjoy your work.” I’ll never forget Charlie Cohen… who was at MGM for years. I want to interview Charlie so bad.

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah. That would be amazing.

David Read:
He was a genuine Stargate fan and he’s a lot of the reason why Stargate was on the air for as long as it was. I met Charlie at least once, at a lot of the launch parties for, I think at least – I can’t remember where it was – but he said, “When I wake up in the morning and I sit down at my computer, I go on to a…” What do they call it? “A fantasy baseball site.” [laugh] Of all things.

Darren Sumner:
OK

David Read:
“And I log into that and I log into ‘GateWorld’.” And when he said that – that was like, “Wow.” One of – I think he was [Vice President] at MGM – wasn’t he?

Darren Sumner:
He was a VP, yeah.

David Read:
My gosh, that was cool.

Darren Sumner:
Everybody in the chat, you owe Charlie Cohen so much of what Stargate became.

David Read:
More than you think that you do. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
More than you know. He’s – as far as I understand – he’s largely responsible for the show continuing after Season Five when it moved networks.

David Read:
Yeah, he’s very important to that puzzle. There’s a 10th anniversary [“Stargate SG-1 – A Celebration of 10 Years”] book – those of you who may have the book out there – the “SG-1 – A Celebration of 10 Years” – if you go to the end of it there’s a picture of Charlie, and there’s a reason for that.

Darren Sumner:
Good.

David Read:
So, any of these other questions that we want to go over – do you have anything else for me before we get into the meat.

Darren Sumner:
I want to talk about all this.

David Read:
Yep. I don’t know how much time you have.

Darren Sumner:
I have until my family gets home and starts being really noisy behind me.

David Read:
OK. [laugh] That’s fine. I don’t think we mind.

Darren Sumner:
We got time. No, but here’s what I want to ask you, because I know you’re going to be spending the next forever on your weekends interviewing Stargate cast and crew – we’re gonna have the guest announcement here a little bit later in the show – but this is my chance to interview you a little bit. I want to hear more about your experiences working in the franchise, but first I want to know what on earth is going on behind you? Can you tell the people about some of your collection that is going to be your set deck for this show?

David Read:
I’m clearly a very big “Babylon 5” fan.

Darren Sumner:
Oh come on.

David Read:
Yeah. So, some of these some of these are models –

Darren Sumner:
I see the Pegasus wall plaque there.

David Read:
Yes! So, Dean Newberry made that for me. My buddy. We were at Propworx. We fabricated a Pegasus logo and – you can even see the scene, the original machine CNC work done on the original in that copy – and then he painted the replica. And I love it. So, the “Window of Opportunity” piece – I won that at GateCon a few years ago. It’s an original Ori helmet. That’s the Telchak device. That specific one.

Darren Sumner:
Telchak device.

David Read:
Yeah. That’s not from Season Seven. That’s from 200. So, the one that Mitchell’s holding because it lights.

Darren Sumner:
OK. They rebuilt the prop for 200?

David Read:
They did indeed, yeah. So there were a few different versions made.

Darren Sumner:
That was the Pierre Bernard sequence?

David Read:
That’s the – exactly! The [growl, growl] you know.

Darren Sumner:
The zombie sequence, yeah.

David Read:
And then one of my favorite Federation ships, Prometheus. The ice cream cone – Aurora class – ice cream cone phaser. That’s there. It actually still works. That was like 2004, 2005! The batteries still work on it.

Darren Sumner:
Oh my goodness.

David Read:
Oh, and the pain stick.

Darren Sumner:
That’s the pain stick there.

David Read:
The um – I forget, like the oldest battery in the world that still runs is like 150 years or something. So, it’s a chemical reaction.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
At the top from “Rite of Passage” – what do you think this is for? Mobile emitter. That was a trip to the El Nido in the Philippines – over Boracay in the Philippines at the very top there. ED-209 – Ronnie Cox reference. The Enterprise. The Wraith grenade. That’s an original kino. That is one of –

Darren Sumner:
An original kino.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Beautiful.

David Read:
Laura Roslin burnt that in “Sometimes a Great Notion” – my favorite episode of Battlestar Galactica probably. The storm trooper helmet. And then, at the bottom there – that you can barely see it – but it’s one of McKay’s Game Boys and the doll from “Whispers”, that I think Dusty picks up if I’m not mistaken.

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah, yeah.

David Read:
And the Sodan staff.

Darren Sumner:
Nice. Yeah, that’s a shorter staff weapon.

David Read:
Right. Sodan staff. Prior staff.

Darren Sumner:
It’s not a regular staff weapon. That’s the Sodan staff from Season Nine.

David Read:
And then a Borg from “First Contact”. So, that’s what’s behind me here. But I had – for Season Two of “Dialing Home” – I had models commissioned. And then I got the models and all the shooting was in Vancouver and I was like, I’m not flying with this thing. [laugh] I’m gonna break it. So, let me show this. This is my pride and joy. Let me get this over here. Chris Baker – he built this for the show.

Darren Sumner:
What is this? Oooh, my!

David Read:
So Darren’s actually looking on a different camera than what’s being broadcast… on the channel. So, I’m showing this –

Darren Sumner:
Am I ahead or behind?

David Read:
What do you mean? So, anyway – yeah. So, what I’m saying is, you’re not gonna necessarily see the full thing here. This is a BC-304. Clearly. Seven thousand pieces of styrene.

Darren Sumner:
Oh my goodness.

David Read:
And it’s more than seven thousand – he stopped counting. So –

Darren Sumner:
He stopped counting at seven thousand; I would too.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
That’s beautiful.

David Read:
So I don’t know how good the resolution is going to be, but every individual piece on there is an individual unit. He sent this thing to me and it had an instruction manual that actually came with the model. He made… a custom instruction piece, because – all the comm towers – all the little the pieces – these individual pieces here…

Darren Sumner:
The little antennas that stick up?

David Read:
Yeah. Those did not come installed. So, he had little poles with holes in them and he said, “OK, this one goes here. This one goes here. This one is here.” So, I’m gonna like – these things, they come off! [laugh]

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing. Don’t pull it off.

David Read:
Oh, sorry. And yeah, it’s like… has an edge to it, like it’s halfway. It’s cut slightly so that it fits in plushly – flushly. So, there we go. But this is a brilliant piece of art. It took him months to make this and we didn’t get to feature it in Dialing Home.

Darren Sumner:
Uuh.

David Read:
Now it’s going to be a part – this is going to be the closest you’re going to see it.

Darren Sumner:
Well, there it is.

David Read:
It’s going to be in the back from now. On this lovely custom stand that he – oh, I need to clean that. [Ugh!]

Darren Sumner:
How cool. I love it.

David Read:
Anyway, it won’t have dust. But that’s in production right now, or this is already made.

Darren Sumner:
I just want a half decent Lego set for the Daedalus.

David Read:
Do they make that?

Darren Sumner:
No.

David Read:
They don’t?

Darren Sumner:
Oh, there’s fan made 304s all over the place.

David Read:
There’s – I love the Stargate – quote-unquote – Legos that have been created and prominently on – it’s not a Lego brand – and then on the box it says, “Will work with ‘other’ buildable sets.” Like, “Hmm I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Darren Sumner:
No. MGM gave the license to Best-Lock.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
One of the not quite Lego knockoffs.

David Read:
Exactly right. Then Steven Barr created one last model – I swear to God. The other two are still on the way. They’re not here yet and I’ll introduce them when they get here. This is a printed a 3d printed Ha’tak. So…

Darren Sumner:
I haven’t seen this one. This is phenomenal.

David Read:
Yeah. This is precious to me as well. Steven did a great job with this.

Darren Sumner:
Is it – oh it’s three. It’s three sided Ha’tak, not a four-sided Ha’tak. Which are very rare.

David Read:
Well, yeah. That’s a pyramid ship. So this is the three-sided. I’m trying to get used to the perspective of this camera. But yeah.

Darren Sumner:
You know the story of the four-sided Ha’tak from “Double Jeopardy”?

David Read:
Ah… that Bruce was talking about? The Rainmaker digital effects producer?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
Tell it.

Darren Sumner:
They had – of course a Ha’tak has three sides, as David just showed us. A pyramid ship, like Ra’s ship that we saw in the feature film has four sides.

David Read:
To fit on the pyramids.

Darren Sumner:
To fit on top of a pyramid. And the writers wrote SG-1 had acquired a Ha’tak in “Double Jeopardy”.

David Read:
Correct.

Darren Sumner:
Episode 421. I was thinking of “Exodus”, but no that’s the next one when they already have it. So they get Cronus’ Ha’tak and we see it landing on a pyramid, but it is definitely a Ha’tak – it’s not a pyramid ship. So the visual effects team had to go in and like specially alter and – magic wizzi-wig it.

David Read:
They did it in 2d. Which means they keep it as a static shot so that you don’t notice when the thing lands on its long side that the other two sides are not going to be fitting and that’s how they pulled that off. Yeah…

Darren Sumner:
So the end of “Double Jeopardy”, watch it’s a three-sided pyramid ship landing on a four-sided pyramid.

David Read:
It’s interesting because – I mean Daniel goes on and on – they back sell this from the feature film because he doesn’t bring it up in the movie that he believed that the pyramids were landing pads for alien spaceships. And then you create the spaceship for your show and you don’t make it pyramid compatible and it’s like – um, okay…

Darren Sumner:
It’s just a different class ship, right?

David Read:
I suppose.

Darren Sumner:
That’s what we thought at first.

David Read:
But you’re supposed to land on pyramids. That’s the intent.

Darren Sumner:
Apophis has a different class of ship.

David Read:
I guess. You know, it’s one of those things that I want to ask Brad. I mean, was this an accident? Is this like a Tyler O’Neill slash Charlie O’Neill accident from the feature film or was this just deliberate – where they’re supposed to be three-sided pyramids? Because – I mean the pyramid doesn’t have to be four sides. Does it?

Darren Sumner:
I want to see the three-sided pyramids on Chulak.

David Read:
Right. Yeah, exactly.

Darren Sumner:
We just redo “Children of The Gods” again.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
Just give us a really final cut of “Children of The Gods”. And I want to see three-sided pyramids. It makes total sense.

David Read:
They may be on Dakara, because that wider shot in the in the extended version there’s the Ha’tak sitting on the background. They have to be sitting on something if they’re supposed to be landing pads for them. So, but anyway. Maybe the Jaffa just don’t care. Maybe they just land ‘em on the ground. Anyway, that’s way too much minutia. I apologize.

Darren Sumner:
Anyway, you got this cool collection of stuff; a lot of which is not on screen. I know you told me some of it’s going to make an appearance on the show in your background. People can tune in every week and look for new stuff in your background.

David Read:
Yeah, this Borg is going away. So this is the last time you’re gonna – a lot of the Star Trek stuff – I’m not moving the Enterprise because the cells are about to go.

Darren Sumner:
No, don’t move the Enterprise.

David Read:
But a lot of the Star Trek stuff I’m switching out. Over here there’s – I’m gonna show you what’s there. Actually I just took it off the wall to show it in just a minute here because I’m giving it away at the end of October. Should I talk about that now or – no I’ll talk about that in a minute. But yeah.

Darren Sumner:
OK

David Read:
So that’s what I’ve got going on here.

Darren Sumner:
So a lot of this a lot of this comes from your time at Propworx I imagine and the connections that you had – not just with the original set pieces.

David Read:
That’s a lot of the pieces, yeah. I did not steal them. I did not lift them. So at the end of the auction, I purchased them.

Darren Sumner:
No, you bought some auctions. I know. Yeah.

David Read:
Right. I want that out there. This is all – I paid for all of it. MGM got paid.

Darren Sumner:
Of course. I want to know of all the Stargate jobs that you’ve had in your life – Stargate, Stargate Command, and Propworx, and Stargate Worlds, and the magazine – excluding GateWorld. I know GateWorld is your favorite, but what memories do you have from those years of working on different aspects of this franchise?

David Read:
I mean – That’s big. I mean that, that’s like deep yo.

Darren Sumner:
It’s like most of your professional life has been Stargate.

David Read:
I was a radio DJ for six years – from like, September 11th to 2007 that’s the reason that I was able to spend so much time on GateWorld because that’s all that I was really doing was just sitting there spinning discs and hanging out with you. Stargate Worlds was my first like real job and that was tremendous and when they closed the doors it was just devastating. But – And I’ll talk more about Stargate Worlds as we move forward – hopefully I’ll have some of the people that will be involved – that were involved with Stargate Worlds – to be involved with the show as well with Dial the Gate. And I have so many good memories from that experience. Propworx was a beast in and of itself. I didn’t want to move to L.A. and I was in Phoenix. I stayed in Phoenix. I’m originally from St. Louis – the east side of St. Louis, Southern Illinois – and I moved to Phoenix – which is where I am now – for Propworx [correction] for Stargate Worlds” which was based in Mesa Arizona. And I’m south of there now. And then when that closed I stuck around for about a year and a half. I worked with Jenny Stiven with Fox Home Entertainment. I met her through you and through GateWorld and so I did a number of home entertainment releases with her just to stay afloat. And then I talked with Alec Peters over at Propworx. We went up to – he needed a consultant – I went up to Vancouver and helped them pick out which props had significance. And by the end of that he offered me a job. And it was like, “I’d rather not move to L.A.” and he’s like, “well that’s the job.”

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, but you were perfect for the job. I can’t imagine – again it takes somebody who knows and loves the franchise, because as far as I understand it production – MGM and Bridge Studios weren’t dedicating a whole lot of resources to this project. So they found somebody to sort of clearing out the props and identifying stuff.

David Read:
Propworx? You’d be surprised how much they helped.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, they did.

David Read:
Mark Davidson, the set decorator and Valerie Halverson the costume designer at that point – they were with us every step of the way while we were there.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. Yeah.

David Read:
But they don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of the on-screen content and what’s relevant.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, but you can recognize stuff, right. You can, you can recognize a Tollan hand weapon and know exactly – not only what it is and what episodes it appeared in, but as you said – how significantly it is.

David Read:
Exactly. No, that’s a fair point and a lot of stuff was modified later on and so it became other things. But, you know, it’s like we – this wasn’t as important later but I need to get it for the auction because it was this at that point. There was a lot of that. Mark Davidson and Valerie Halverson. Mark was set decorator. And his entire team they… stored stuff before we got there and they actually built certain things for us – like the end caps on the Stargate Atlantis Stargate pieces. Those were all created for Propworx for production. They were so helpful. And we spent a week there pulling stuff apart and cataloging costumes and everything else. And I had a few interesting arguments with Valerie Halverson where it was like – you know she had created some really amazing costumes and so she was really close to them on aesthetic grounds – and I was like, “But it has like five seconds of screen time and no one’s gonna buy it.” That’s the thing. And I thought – we take this stuff back to L.A. and it’s interesting to watch what stuff sells for a lot of money and which stuff people don’t care for. So even I wasn’t right a lot of the time you know. I’d never done anything like this.

Darren Sumner:
There’s a big difference. I would imagine there’s a big difference between, you know ‘screen used’ and Amanda Tapping ‘screen used’.

David Read:
Yeah. It’s a big thing. Propworx was 18 months of my life and it was some of the… I think probably the hardest I physically ever worked running that warehouse.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah you were working hard. I remember you were doing kind of weekly auction updates for GateWorld.

David Read:
Exactly. That’s right!

Darren Sumner:
And you were working hard. You were in the warehouse all the time.

David Read:
And just learning how to use a pallet jack and learning how to use a forklift and moving stuff around – a lot of the bigger stargate pieces that we had. We had the stargates from the gate room that the outer shell of it – the inner pieces they just, they just cut it up. And – it was too big, you know. So we had the outer shell that we sold. But the location gate – we kept that. And here’s an interesting story for you – if you can believe it. The Sci-Fi museum in Seattle – the MPSFM – I don’t know if it’s called that anymore.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. It’s MoPOP [Museum of Pop Culture] I think.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. We had it all ready to go for the first auction – and the first auction was held there – for the first auction we were going to have the location SG-1 gate. And that week SGU needed it for the episode where they go back to Tollana. Not to Tollana. To, um to, Langara. So the week that we were having the auctions, is the week that they were shooting that episode just a few hundred miles south. And so I was like, “You know, I’ve had this thing in my warehouse for nine months and Mark and his team had to fly down drive it back from L.A. to Vancouver to be used in this episode of Stargate Universe the same week.” And then the nice thing that happened was that the museum bought the location SG-1 gate. So, I didn’t have to ever see it again. And at that point believe me, that was like, I don’t want this again. I’ve already allocated that space to other things. I don’t need it. That was a big deal for me, not getting the location gate back.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah I’m glad they got that. I’m glad they got that. That needs to be on display.

David Read:
I don’t know if they’ve… if they’ve put it up.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know if it is on display.

David Read:
I think it’s in storage. I don’t know if they’ve ever displayed it.

Darren Sumner:
I am a terrible Sci-Fi fan. I haven’t been up there yet. I haven’t been to the museum. I live an hour away from it.

David Read:
Aren’t you like 70 miles away, yeah. So, but yeah absolutely. So that was really cool.

Darren Sumner:
That’s cool.

David Read:
So I think Propworx in many respects is some of my favorite memories. Then also, going on and – I’m probably gonna miss a job at some point or something – but, Stargate command was really special because I got to work with Jenny Stiven, my producer over at Fox. We had worked on – the first thing that we did together was content for Stargate Continuum. We created this whole alternate reality podcast, video podcast, with my buddy Sam Deiter. And it’s out there on the web somewhere. I’m not entirely sure if you can find it. But it’s set in the Stargate Continuum alternate universe. And it’s this guy who builds a video podcast – and it’s 10 episodes long I think – and he’s talking about how he thinks that history has been altered and he can’t explain why. And we had photos, classic photos, like of – is it Johnson that replaced Kennedy? Johnson replaced Kennedy didn’t he? Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yes. Sorry.

David Read:
And being sworn in on Air Force One and Ba’al is in the background in a suit and tie. So…, to show that Ba’al was on earth – when he says he hasn’t been there in this life but we wanted to say in the podcast series that in the Stargate Continuum alternate timeline Ba’al had been on earth for a while. And in the end I actually had a visual effects supervisor come in and we had the last episode – the last podcast – is Sam running through his apartment complex and he’s looking up and the Ha’tak energy beams the plasma blasts are coming down out of the sky and raining total carnage. And then he dies. And that’s how it ended.

Darren Sumner:
And that’s how it ends.

David Read:
That’s how it ends. And I don’t know where that is.

Darren Sumner:
That’s great.

David Read:
Jen and I – we go way back.

Darren Sumner:
I’d love to see that.

David Read:
Oh, it looks terrible. The visual effects are great actually, but everything else is, [meh]. Sam did a good job though. But my relationship with Jenny Stiven is – she’s one of my best friends to this day. And being able to work with her on Stargate Command was a dream come true because, like you, we just grok one another. We get one another and I really hope that we can get her on the show at some point and… we get what we get.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. She’s a fan and she’s got it, she’s got it deep in her soul.

David Read:
Absolutely she does. So yeah, that’s my Stargate journey for the most of it.

Darren Sumner:
You reminded me, you mentioned “Continuum”. The other awesome memory that you and I shared was when we were visiting the set in – 2009 I guess it would have been.

David Read:
Was that the year that they came out?

Darren Sumner:
Was the year that Continuum came out –

David Read:
It was 2008.

Darren Sumner:
No, 2008. Yeah. So, they shot him in 2007, they came out in 2008, and we got invited to the cast premiere of the film.

David Read:
Oh, that’s right. Yes. In San Diego.

Darren Sumner:
But we went to…

David Read:
No. Vancouver.

Darren Sumner:
…the theater in Vancouver…

David Read:
Right. That was during the week of the Creation Convention.

Darren Sumner:
…with the cast and the crew. They had it during the week of the of the convention.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
And we got to interview – you put together a little video montage of our screening Continuum on the red carpet that’s still on GateWorld.

David Read:
I did a whole red carpet thing afterwards.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. We talked to a bunch of – everybody who was there. It’s really low-res unfortunately, as are most things that we shot 12 years ago today.

David Read:
What we can with what we got.

Darren Sumner:
But it’s so great and it was a joy to be there it was amazing because I ended up watching Continuum – I love Continuum. Continuum was one of my all-time favorite Stargate stories. And the first time I saw it, I was sitting in a theater row directly behind, I think it was, Michael Shanks.

David Read:
It was Shanks.

Darren Sumner:
And Lexa Doig. Yeah.

David Read:
Was it? Yeah, because Michael – I remember that for that event Creation had had a meet and greet scheduled for Michael. And in exchange of that everyone got to go on the bus with Michael, who had gotten that meet and greet to go to the Continuum screening with him instead, because he wanted to be there for the premiere. And so that’s what that was that was. There was some hi-jinx that happened there that I’m not going to get into. But it was nothing to do with Michael, but with the fans.

Darren Sumner:
It was super cool though. It was amazing.

David Read:
It was so cool!

Darren Sumner:
It was a great memory. And then just a couple years ago, when we went to the premiere of “Stargate Origins” on the deck of [USS] Midway in San Diego harbor, I was sitting behind Chris Judge and Tony Amendola.

David Read:
Yes. They were there.

Darren Sumner:
Watching them watch the film.

David Read:
Yep. Absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
Which was a lot of fun.

David Read:
Were you there for Comic Con – no you weren’t [there] when we did the screening for Continuum on [USS] Midway. I don’t think you were there for that.

Darren Sumner:
For Continuum, no. No, I wasn’t.

David Read:
OK. That was a good event. I wanted to raise a question to you real quick before we get into fan feedback. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this. The GateWorld poll that’s up there now – I don’t know how long it’s been up there – but sixty three percent of voters want the next Stargate series to be serialized. I was surprised at that. Twenty eight percent want episodic.

Darren Sumner:
That’s really – interesting.

David Read:
You have any feedback on that?

Darren Sumner:
Let me look at the polls. The polls been up for a few months now I think.

David Read:
That’s a curve ball; I’m sorry.

Darren Sumner:
No, you did tell me this was coming. I’m just – I’m now trying to load up the poll so I can see it in front of me. We asked fans, what kind of Stargate series do you most want to see next? Because we know that Brad [Wright] and MGM are working on something. We just don’t know what it is yet and what form it’s going to take, where it’s going to be available, etc. So, we asked what kind of Stargate series do you most want to see? Do you want to see serialized a show? One ongoing storyline. Something like a “Stargate Universe”, or “Lost,” or “Babylon 5” that’s serialized. Episodic; each episode can stand alone. That’s kind of classic “Stargate SG-1”, “[Stargate] Atlantis”. It’s kind of, it’s kind of classic 90s storytelling I guess. Or an anthology. Now we know Brad Wright – before he worked on SG-1 and even at the same time as the first few seasons of SG-1 – Brad worked on “The Outer Limits” for MGM. Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner were both producers and writers on The Outer Limits and so they’re used to doing an anthology show, which is a stand-alone story every single week. New setting. New characters. You watched The Outer Limits, didn’t you? When you were watching “Poltergeist: The Legacy” and Stargate SG-1, you watched The Outer Limits? The new Outer Limits.

David Read:
Absolutely. Yeah, that was Poltergeist and Outer Limits… I was watching them for years before. I’ve never seen the original. But yeah, the one that Brad and Jonathan did is the one that – which I think was one of the reasons why…

Darren Sumner:
That was an MGM production that they shot at the Bridge Studios. And it’s one of the reasons why you’re gonna see so many of those actors – not to mention behind the scenes personnel, but a lot of the cast from The Outer Limits – ended up on SG-1 at some point.

David Read:
Yeah, my favorite episode of Outer Limits has Teryl Rothery as a Presidential aide and that character is the reason that she is Janet Fraiser.

Darren Sumner:
Shanks did an episode. Amanda did an episode. Lou Diamond Phillips did an episode.

David Read:
Before they were cast?

Darren Sumner:
I think Michaels was after, but I’m not sure about the others.

David Read:
OK, yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, Beau Bridges was on there.

David Read:
Yeah, he sure – well he premiered it with him and his father and his son, they premiered with the “Sand Kings”. So, absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. So, I would love – I love Sci-Fi anthology series and I know from his Outer Limits experience Brad is really good at them. I don’t think it’s very likely that we’re going to get a Stargate anthology series, where it’s just sort of story set in the Stargate universe, but I would love it. That would be fantastic. So yeah, we put out this poll for fans and the – by a mile the biggest draw here is a serialized show. Sixty four percent of the vote – one ongoing serialized show. I guess it doesn’t surprise me because it’s so kind of common nowadays.

David Read:
I think that’s just what we’re used to. We’re use to a novel.

Darren Sumner:
Especially, especially for streaming.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
If we get a ten or a thirteen episode season of something on a streaming service – that’s the way that the medium has gone – it tends to be serialized storytelling.

David Read:
That’s a fair point.

Darren Sumner:
What did you think of that? Was it surprising to you?

David Read:
It was shocking to me because… I’m in a lot of the Facebook social groups and they’re all, “Bring back Stargate! Bring back Stargate Atlantis! Bring back Universe!” It’s funny to me now. I call it ‘the vaunted mantra’. The – oh, there we go, the vaunted mantra. Bring back Stargate! So… the poll surprised me in that they don’t want it brought back exactly as it was. They want it more brought back as SGU. Which is fine by me, because SGU was my favorite. I don’t make bones about that.

Darren Sumner:
Is that I’ve heard you say that before, recently. I think you said it on – when you were back on the GateWorld podcast for our 150th celebration.

David Read:
It’s true. I can’t….

Darren Sumner:
And that surprised me at the time.

David Read:
Well, I won’t….

Darren Sumner:
Why has SGU become your favorite?

David Read:
Because it allowed the characters – the storytelling enabled the characters to grow to such depth so fast – and especially in the last ten episodes of that show – that you could really see where it was going. I don’t look back on SGU as my favorite as, what it was. I look back on it as my favorite on what it was going to be in addition to what it already was. Because those characters are still continuing, even if they’re icicles for me. But, also, I can’t throw on SGU if I’m at a restaurant and want to watch an episode. I throw on “Tangent”. I throw on “Red Sky”. I’ll throw on “Sunday” or “McKay and Mrs. Miller”. But SGU really is my favorite.

Darren Sumner:
The show is so well done.

David Read:
Oh my God, all of their…

Darren Sumner:
They’re really at the top of their craft by the time they got there.

David Read:
Yes. Exactly. The production studio that had existed since MacGyver. Because a lot of those people came over from they came over from MacGyver.

Darren Sumner:
They came over from MacGyver.

David Read:
Exactly right. Had been going.

Darren Sumner:
But you know, we had talked. We had sort of annual conversations with the creators of that show – with Brad and Rob – once or twice a year kind of ongoing during our set visits. And every once in a while kind of in between we do phoners with them and we got the sense of the show that they wanted to make before they announced it.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
And so looking back at it now I see a lot of people still making the comments of, “oh, you know it was just a ‘Battlestar Galactica’ rip-off, they were just doing dark because dark was in fashion.” And that’s really not where their head space was.

David Read:
Not for them personally, no. I can’t speak to the network. But not for them personally.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, can’t speak to the network… they wanted to make a show that was in continuity – obviously with what had come before – but really was a new take on Stargate storytelling. And they did it really well. But yeah, I think, I think you’re right they created this as a five-year story.

David Read:
Yeah, and they got two years out of the gate.

Darren Sumner:
And so we got two years. But SGU also gets – takes its licks sometimes because it has a slow start.

David Read:
Not just that.

Darren Sumner:
It takes a while for the crew to start to feel like a family, for them to get along, for them to want to be there.

David Read:
But with television that we watch now that is normal.

Darren Sumner:
It’s normal because it’s conceived as a five-year story.

David Read:
Right. That’s true as well.

Darren Sumner:
That’s why it took a year and a half for them to decide that they wanted to be there and pursue the mission of Destiny… It’s roughly the end of act one when they start that for a five-year story.

David Read:
But let’s address the elephant in the room. SGU is perceived as replacing Atlantis. Period.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, that was a production issue.

David Read:
That was a production issue.

Darren Sumner:
The fact that Atlantis did not get its sixth season and instead SGU came on the air. That’s all behind the scenes production stuff that ends up affecting fan perception of the show.

David Read:
Yeah exactly… Elena Huffman and I talked about this at some detail – at length on [Dialing Home]. I’m gonna do this for a while.

Darren Sumner:
Dial that Home. Anything that has the word dial in it is the correct show.

David Read:
Dialing Home. Dialing Home.

Darren Sumner:
Dial that gate home.

David Read:
I don’t know if that episode is up on YouTube yet on the Stargate command channel – but she talks about – even to this day – people will come up to our conventions [and quietly say], “I like Stargate Universe.” She [replies], “Say it louder so people can hear you!”

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, she got some guff and she’s been on the record in public interviews with how poorly she and some of the other casts were treated.

David Read:
For no fault of their own! They were just doing their job.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, it’s a shame.

David Read:
So yeah, I am an unapologetic Stargate Universe fan.

Darren Sumner:
OK. so [Stargate] Universe is your favorite show. What is your favorite episode?

David Read:
Of [Stargate] Universe?

Darren Sumner:
Individual hour of any of the three seasons.

David Read:
I’m having to refresh myself on the names of the episodes, but I would probably have to say “Epilogue”. It’s the ending that we got that wasn’t supposed to be the definitive ending. Which, for now, unless Brad pulls a rabbit out of his hat with MGM – please God, pull that rabbit – that’s the ending that we got. And “Epilogue” is my favorite.

Darren Sumner:
It’s a great choice.

David Read:
“Time” is back there too. And I hadn’t seen [the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”] at that point and I watched “Time” and it ended and I’m like, “What the hell is this? What did I just watch?”

Darren Sumner:
Oh, Rush’s line as he’s running into the gate?

David Read:
Ryan’s line. Well, that too! But Brian ending the show. It’s like, “That’s it?” And for artistic purposes I bought that pretty much immediately. “Oh, that’s it. We don’t need any more story. We get it.” Yeah, but still it was like – and then, the more I thought about it – I was like, “That was cool.”

Darren Sumner:
They did a little tag. They did a little kino webisode as a tag at the time that kind of explained.

David Read:
They did! Which they shouldn’t have done. I think that that’s unnecessary… for the supplemental content.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, but it’s a great artistic piece.

David Read:
Yes, but you know.

Darren Sumner:
I mean Rob was a new director late in Stargate’s run and newish. By the time he did “Time” he had been directing for a few years. But all these like super cool stylized episodes that we got from the later years of Stargate – “Time” and “Vegas” on “Stargate Atlantis”.

David Read:
“Vegas” is very un-Stargate, but it’s cool.

Darren Sumner:
“Sateda”. Those are all Rob episodes.

David Read:
Yeah, they are. When you get to 320 some odd episodes at this point when you create “Time” you have to ask yourself, “God what have I not done yet?” And if there are going to be three time loops, should we show the third one or can we show the second one and infer the third? And that’s what’s cool about “Time”.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah it’s really well done. This is all great.

David Read:
Your favorite series?

Darren Sumner:
My favorite series is still Stargate SG-1.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
Because… it has an advantage in the fact that it ran for 10 years. But it has played such a huge part of my life. Atlantis and SGU have as well, in their own way. But it’s been like my entire adult life basically. I started just out of college watching SG-1 and the storytelling and the humor and that cast and just that show is magic. Every show. All the Stargate shows are magic in their own way, but that one just has a special place in my heart.

David Read:
Absolutely. It’s good. You ready to introduce the guests?

Darren Sumner:
And I’ve told you for years that my favorite episode is “The Fifth Race” and I think I officially have to go on the record now that it’s changed.

David Read:
Really?

Darren Sumner:
It’s “Lost City”. “Lost City” is Stargate at its best. It is – I mean there’s a lot of great Stargate.

David Read:
I can see that.

Darren Sumner:
But “Lost City” is perfect.

David Read:
Perfect?

Darren Sumner:
“Perfect.”

David Read:
Yeah, OK. I’ll give you that. I would pick “Heroes” first. Before “Lost City”.

Darren Sumner:
That’s tough to watch. See I don’t go back and watch “Heroes” very much because it’s so tough to watch. Same with “Sunday”.

David Read:
Yeah I don’t look at an episode is my favorite or not in terms of how difficult it is to get through, but what they try to do with it. And “Heroes” – a lot of what this show is, is heroes. It’s one of the points that I want to make about what I hope to be getting out of these cast and crew – is who their heroes are. I want to make this a show about heroes. There’s so much negative stuff in the world right now I think it’s important to highlight the good pieces of humanity because you get the bad all over the news right now every night.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. “Heroes” is almost without exception cited by cast members as their favorite episode of SG-1 and… I think it’s because that was what they aspired to. That portrayal of the military. That portrayal of the stakes. That portrayal of sacrifice was what they – the world that they aspired to create every single week.

David Read:
Exactly. You ready to get into our guest announcements?

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
People have been waiting forever.

Darren Sumner:
Oh man. Oh, there are people watching us? I thought it was just you and me.

David Read:
There are actually people. Right now there are 47. A lot of those people in Europe.

Darren Sumner:
We’re just having a good time.

David Read:
They’ve probably just fallen asleep in the corner and just left it playing. I don’t blame you guys. I’m sorry about this. And I will get to your questions after we announce.

Darren Sumner:
Well I’m very excited to hear the guest list.

David Read:
Absolutely. I’m excited to give it.

Darren Sumner:
This is – I’ve been calling this – this is not Show One really. I’ve been calling this “Show Zero” because this is our kicking the tires….

David Read:
In many respects. I thought about labeling it episode “Zero”.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, it’s almost like – you know, you and I used to do a weekly podcast together. This is just – we turned our webcams on this time and are live streaming it. The show – Dial the Gate – is going to be your long-form conversations with some of these marvelous cast and crew that we’ve gotten to know so well over the years. Who’s coming up?

David Read:
Who’s coming up? Who’s coming up indeed. So let me get all my ducks in a row here. I’m still trying to figure out this system. So our first episode – and keep in mind, things may change. These talent are working again, so things may switch around. This is all tentative. You’re going to want to go to dialthegate.com, which points to gateworld.net/dialthegate. But I recommend dialthgate.com – sorry Darren – for all the current guests.

Darren Sumner:
Bookmark it.

David Read:
Our first guests – barring any unforeseen issues – Mr. Christopher Judge.

Darren Sumner:
Hey!

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
I’m excited.

David Read:
I thought it appropriate to continue from – which is essentially a spiritual successor to Dialing Home. And didn’t you have a question about Dialing Home for me? You brought it up earlier.

Darren Sumner:
Well we mentioned it earlier. I wanted to know – because you guys shot so much and have so much in the can.

David Read:
We shot a lot of episodes.

Darren Sumner:
We got a trailer for Dialing Home, Season Two, that had people like Robert Picardo in it. I want to know, if you know, if MGM’s going to release any of that stuff at some point?

David Read:
I don’t know. I don’t know. I know their intent is to… If you go to stargatecommand.com and you go to the frequently asked questions, it says that Dial the Home – dialing…

Darren Sumner:
Dialing the home gate.

David Read:
This is what happens when I’m between two worlds right now. I’m leaving “Dialing Home” and moving to “Dial the Gate”. Dialing Home, and Recon, and some of those other content pieces that Karen and Jenny and I created are going to ultimately be on the Stargate Command YouTube page. They haven’t posted anything in six months. Seven now.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, they ported over most – I don’t think all – of the old content to the public YouTube channel.

David Read:
Correct. A fraction of it. A fraction of it. And I’m hopeful that that’s a COVID thing. So we’ll see.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, hopefully they get the rest up.

David Read:
I would love to see it there. Because this is intended as a continuation of a lot of those – like I’m not going to interview Christopher [Judge] again – full form. The full form was recorded in Dialing Home Season One. We didn’t get to “Arc of Truth” in “Continuum”. And that’s what we’re going to do with Chris. And we’re going to talk about….

Darren Sumner:
OK. So he’s going to be here. Is he going to be next week? Is he going to be the next guest?

David Read:
The intent – yes. Yes. I will get to the next week’s schedule at the end of the show.

Darren Sumner:
OK. So your Chris conversation is going to be focused on the SG-1 movies.

David Read:
Yes, and I want to talk about specific elements of “Dialing Home” that were really memorable to us. Specific stories. So it’s going to be kind of like a ‘best of’ for sure.

Darren Sumner:
Nice.

David Read:
Next on the list – we need to go a little bit faster than this because we have thirty guests to go through – an embarrassment of riches – is Joseph Mallozzi.

Darren Sumner:
You’re not announcing all of those are you?

David Read:
I am!

Darren Sumner:
Oh my goodness, yes! This is Christmas! OK.

David Read:
It is! Believe me it’s been like it’s – I’ve been a kid in the candy store for weeks now. Joseph Mallozzi, writer and executive producer.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent.

David Read:
So, worked on all three shows. He is going to be with us for the rest of the year. So about once a month. All of these guests – I might as well explain now – pretty much everybody has agreed to one show. So, that’s okay. The first interview will be an overview interview. And every interview will have fan questions. The first interview is going to be an overview of their career and then if they agree to do more, then we will get into the minutia. So that’s the intent behind it. Joseph Mallozzi is already front loaded to get into the minutia. And he’s one of the best to do that because he was around for most of the years.

Darren Sumner:
He was one of the minds that created this world.

David Read:
Right, so my intent for his first episode is to have an overview and also the beginnings of his being hired, and maybe we get to “Window of Opportunity” and “Scorched Earth”? I’m not sure yet. We’ll see. So that – but that’s the intent with him.

Darren Sumner:
Get your questions ready everybody.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
“Window of opportunity”, “Scorched Earth”, “Exodus”.

David Read:
Joe – I’m so excited about Joe. This is – he’s giving up so much of his time to do this… I mean it’s going to work itself out to like 13, 14, 15 hours over the next 12 months.

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing.

David Read:
So we’ll see how it goes.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you Joe! If you’re watching.

David Read:
Yes! My God.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you in advance for giving so much of your time to this.

David Read:
Next on the list. Whoops! That was the wrong transition. But anyway. Brad Ellis and Wes Walker of Wyvern Gaming. They are creating the upcoming Stargate SG-1 role-playing game. So their Kickstarter is going to be October 6th through the 29th. So, for that window of time we’re going to
be having some role-playing game content. So this next Sunday – not tomorrow but the following Sunday, which is the 11th – is it the 11th?

Darren Sumner:
A week from tomorrow? Two weeks from tomorrow?

David Read:
Yes, the 11th. Yeah, we’re going to have an interview with them and I’m going to take them – I’ve played a role-playing game, a tabletop role-playing game with them online for this Comic-Con. There will be a link to that in the episode below along with the GateCon 20th Anniversary interview with the piece that we had with Garwin [Sanford] and Simone [Bailly]. Those links will be below. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, so please bear with me. But, for the 11th I’m interviewing Brad and Wes about what their intent is with this project and where they’re going to be going with it and what fans can expect from it. And then, the following weekend on the 18th at 2 p.m. Pacific time right here on Dial the Gate, we’re going to have a play test of an actual simulated Stargate mission with the role-playing game.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, so we can watch the game being played in real time.

David Read:
It’s like a team going off world and encountering a planet for the first time. And to do that….

Darren Sumner:
Wow. Is it regular nerds? You gonna get regular nerds on to play this for us?

David Read:
Ummmm, I’ve got Alexis Cruz.

Darren Sumner:
Alexis Cruz. Skarra himself.

David Read:
Skarra himself. Alexis is a world-class nerd. So he’s going to be joining us. He’s also agreed to do interviews for Dial the Gate. He will be joining us for the role-playing game. In addition to that – and Alexis, I can’t I can’t speak highly enough of this man. He’s become a friend…. Do you have anything you want to say about Alexis before we move on?

Darren Sumner:
Alexis is a prince.

David Read:
He is.

Darren Sumner:
I just had a chance to meet him finally at GateCon in 2018.

David Read:
Oh really!

Darren Sumner:
I hadn’t met him before, but yeah. And he’s recently become a father I heard.

David Read:
His baby is so adorable. So he will be joining us for the game and for future interviews.

Darren Sumner:
Great.

David Read:
Also joining us for the game, Simone Bailley. The Jaffa Ka’lel.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
Kaa–lel. Not Call–El. She’s not a Kryptonian.

Darren Sumner:
She’s not Kryptonian.

David Read:
No.

Darren Sumner:
She’s Ka’lel.

David Read:
Ka’lel. Yes. Simone and I have recently gotten close. Not like close, close, but we’ve become friends. She has her own YouTube channel that she’s….

Darren Sumner:
And she’s very engaged with the Stargate community.

David Read:
Yes, exactly. So, she’s like, “I’ve never done this before.” I’m like, “That’s the point. We want people who have never done a role-playing game before to join us.” So she’s going to be joining us and… we’re going to have her back for interviews later on in the year. So, she’s one of my favorites. In addition to that, also joining us for the role-playing game, Mr. Rainbow Sun Franks.

Darren Sumner:
Aaaye!

David Read:
‘den’ – Ai-den. Ford.

Darren Sumner:
Lieutenant Ford.

David Read:
Yes. A major nerd. We’re gonna have some fun with this. And Rainbow has also agreed to do Dialing… Dial the Gate. (God’s sakes Lord, please help me.) Dial the Gate episode.

Darren Sumner:
You named this show.

David Read:
I know! Man, it’s my own fault.

Darren Sumner:
You could have called it something else.

David Read:
I could have indeed.

Darren Sumner:
You could have called it ‘This Old Chevron’.

David Read:
‘Full Service Gas Station’ for all that it’s worth. All right, yeah. So, he’s going to be joining us for the role-playing game on the 18th and he’s going to be joining us for the for interviews as well. Next on the list.

Darren Sumner:
Cool. Very cool.

David Read:
Julie McNiven. Ginn from “Stargate Universe”.

Darren Sumner:
Ginn from “Stargate Universe”.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
We’ve interviewed most of all these folks on GateWorld at some point, but not Julie.

David Read:
Not talked to Julie.

Darren Sumner:
That’s great.

David Read:
So we’re going to be interviewing her and she’s going to be joining us for the game.

Darren Sumner:
So we’re going to see these – most these folks we’re going to see him in the game first.

David Read:
We’re going to see them in the game first; yes.

Darren Sumner:
And then down the road they’ll be back for an interview.

David Read:
Yep. Exactly. And I just peeked into the live chat – someone already called it. David Blue. He’s joining us for the live game on the 18th. Mr. Eli Wallace himself.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent. So cool. Nicole Penland in the chat, you called this. David Blue would probably be all about RPG as well.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Here he is.

David Read:
I can tell you he is. And I was like, “We need another girl.” And I was like, “David?” And he’s like, “Let me call Julie.” So he put me in touch. So yes, there’s going to be a reunion between David Blue and Julie McNiven. And in addition to that, our sixth role-playing game guest –

David Sumner
Yeah.

David Read:
Oh, before I do that –

David Sumner
There’s more?

David Read:
There’s one more.

David Sumner
You already have somebody from all three shows.

David Read:
I need to say this. David has not agreed to – it’s not saying he has not agreed – he has yet to agree.

David Sumner
He’s not officially booked yet.

David Read:
Booked for interviews for Dial the Gate. So I’m hopeful to convince him. He’s doing the game right now. So I’m over the moon about that.

Darren Sumner:
Cool.

David Read:
Hopefully he’ll be interested in me interviewing him because the two of us when we sit down and we talk it’s like a house on fire. I mean it’s just two nerds. It’s – we’re going way too fast.

Darren Sumner:
Well when SGU premiered and we met Eli Wallace for the first time – we were like, that’s kind of like a canon version of David.

David Read:
I felt like that, in so many respects. I’m not saying that they made a character for me, but they wouldn’t have had to try harder. Because I watch Eli and it’s like, “Yeah, I say that. Yeah, I would say that in that situation.”

Darren Sumner:
And now you even have the camera ball.

David Read:
Yes, exactly.

Darren Sumner:
You have your own kino now.

David Read:
Yeees! Where is it? Oh, there it is. Anyway.

Darren Sumner:
It’s back there. You’ll pull it out for David on the show.

David Read:
Yeah. I’m so thrilled that Brad and Wes are taking the time to interview and we’re going to have with us, for the week after that, these amazing cast members: Alexis Cruz, Simone Bailey, Rainbow Sun Franks, Julie McNiven, David Blue, and Mr. David Hewlett. Rodney McKay himself will be joining us for a play test. So, he was absolutely phenomenal in the Comic-Con one. He played an Unas. And I was like, “You’re not going to create a like, a scientist?” He’s like, “No, I want to create an Unas.”

Darren Sumner:
So he’s done that already.

David Read:
OK. Yeah, exactly. So he’s done – I don’t know if he’s going to continue the Unas character. I don’t know. I’d like Simone to play a Jaffa. She’s probably not gonna want to play at Jaffa. You can.

Darren Sumner:
Maybe.

David Read:
I wanted to get Garwin. So that Garwin could play a Tollan. Because in the game you can play a Tollan.

Darren Sumner:
Simone would make a great Aturen.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
The new Nox-like species.

David Read:
Yeah, Aturen. Yeah, the Nox shoot-off species. They’re not a… they’re not technically Nox. They’re a human variant who kind of hold up the Nox and revere them.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
And it’s one of the things that we’re going to discuss next Sunday with Brad and Wes in terms of the game style. But yeah, Hewlett’s going to be joining us and it’s going to be fantastic. Watching him play as the Unas was so funny. He got into – because when you advance through the gameplay you have to describe what you’re doing – and he just got into this habit of rolling into every situation. OK, before I attack this enemy, I’m gonna roll into the enemy and attack them. And it’s like that became like his power attack – it was so ridiculous.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
So, that is….

Darren Sumner:
So he’s got experience. Everybody else, watch out.

David Read:
Yes. So, Sunday the eighteenth.

Darren Sumner:
Hewlett’s got experience.

David Read:
At 2 p.m. Pacific time – this group of cast members is going to be joining us for a live off-world mission roleplay, play test, thing.

Darren Sumner:
That’s going to be epic.

David Read:
Yes. So the rest are interviews that have been confirmed for the rest of the year. Schedules may change, but here we go.

Darren Sumner:
But we’re gonna have the full schedule; Go to DialTheGate.com

David Read:
Yes. The schedule – of what there is a schedule – DialTheGate.com. Miss Tori Higginson. I love this woman. This is one of my favorite people.

Darren Sumner:
Yea. Hold my applause? Or may I clap for everyone?

David Read:
You may. You may. Yes, just keep it golf applause.

Darren Sumner:
Tori is that first year that I visited the set before Atlantis premiered.

David Read:
Yeees!

Darren Sumner:
Tori was my first or second interview probably. I remember we were outside like sitting on the back of a truck or something outside of stage six and I was interviewing Tori and I told her my name and she was like, “Oh, Sumner. We have a Colonel Sumner in our pilot.”

David Read:
Yes, that’s exactly right

Darren Sumner:
Well, I guess you do.

David Read:
And Andee Frizzell did the same thing with you when we met her in person. She said, “That’s the first man I killed.” I’m like, “Well actually Andy, the first man that you killed was an Athosian. And he’s sitting at the table.” So anyway. But I don’t think I did that then, but I was thinking it. So Tori is joining us. I am delighted to have her.

Darren Sumner:
She’s marvelous. Love her.

David Read:
She’s so wonderful. The next one is a – has become a friend of mine as well and I couldn’t start this project without him. Mr. Tom McBeath. Damn it Harry!

Darren Sumner:
Maybourne!

David Read:
Maybourne. Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Maybourne is going to be on Dial the Gate.

David Read:
Maybourne is going to be on Dial the Gate. I’ve been in touch with him and he’s like, “I’m not good with tech” I said, “We’ll make it work if I have to do it every step – if I have to send you an iPad.”

Darren Sumner:
We’ll figure it out.

David Read:
“We are going to make this work. So, if you have a wi-fi, we’re good. I’ll mail you an iPad if I have to.”

Darren Sumner:
Good. Good. That’s fantastic. I also at GateCon met him for the very first time two years ago. So everybody if you haven’t been to GateCon yet, come to GateCon in 2021.

David Read:
You didn’t meet him then for the first time.

Darren Sumner:
I didn’t?

David Read:
Uh-uh. You and I were in Creation Chicago together when he was a guest.

Darren Sumner:
Was he in Chicago?

David Read:
Yes. That was the year that you and I met for the first time and did a stage appearance. Yeah. And I had interviewed him like a year before and he didn’t remember who I was.

Darren Sumner:
Well shame on me!

David Read:
And I had taken him out to one of the parks in Vancouver… Granville Island.

Darren Sumner:
On Granville Island.

David Read:
And we had gotten ice cream and everything. And he didn’t remember me.

Darren Sumner:
He didn’t remember you. That’s OK.

David Read:
It was fine. He remembers me now!

Darren Sumner:
Well clearly I have now forgotten having met him in Chicago fifteen years ago.

David Read:
Well that’s the thing. You know that’s why we have to have this – well you’ve proven it right there. This is why we have to have this show now, because a lot of these memories are just going away.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. All my Chicago memories from 2004, 2005 – whatever year that was – are Chris Judge memories.

David Read:
Exactly. Yes. No, that’s the thing but –

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
We have to have this show now because these people are getting older. I mean, we’ve lost Carmen [Argenziano]. We’ve lost Don [Davis]. They’re gone. But, I mean, Carmen – we’re still gonna have him in the show. I have an un-aired interview with him from an Atlanta convention called TimeGateCon and it’s going to be featured on this show.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
So Carmen’s gonna – I didn’t create a plaque for him. I should have. But Carman’s gonna be joining us.

Darren Sumner:
That’s so great.

David Read:
It’s an absolutely great interview from – ten years ago?

Darren Sumner:
That’s so great.

David Read:
And it’s like an hour long. So I I’m delighted to have Carmen with us.

Darren Sumner:
Never before seen unless you were in the room at TimeGateCon. Nobody’s ever seen this.

David Read:
Exactly. No one’s ever seen it otherwise. Yeah. He was, he was – I can’t get started.

Darren Sumner:
OK. So maybe we should speed this up because I also have some trivia questions for you.

David Read:
Yes. Oh, OK. Got it. All right. Mr. Martin Wood. If I had to pick one director – if I could only talk with one – it would probably Martin and then like Peter Deluise and Andy Mikita.

Darren Sumner:
You don’t have to rank them. They’re all great. But yeah.

David Read:
I don’t have to rank them. Your absolutely [right] – Wil Waring.

Darren Sumner:
Martin is gonna be a fantastic conversation.

David Read:
Martin has agreed to a whole year of interviews.

Darren Sumner:
Oh my gosh!

David Read:
The man directed 60 episodes. No. How many – chat, how many episodes? Can someone check on “IMDb”?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, “IMDb”.

David Read:
How many episodes he directed.

Darren Sumner:
I want to say it’s over 70.

David Read:
We’re going to talk about them all. And Martin… I’ve interviewed him in person before – it’s all there.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
He can bring up any episode.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, yeah.

David Read:
So this is going to be…

Darren Sumner:
He has complete faculty.

David Read:
It’s going to be with him and with…

Darren Sumner:
“Sanctuary” as well.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
He could yeah he could tell you anything about a “Sanctuary” episode by title.

David Read:
Yes. With him and with Joseph Mallozzi. This is going to be fascinating. So, the more crew interviews indeed. Absolutely. That’s one of the intents of the show is to really highlight a lot of the crew. So Martin, thank you so much for joining us for that. We’ve already mentioned her before, Andee Frizzell. So, Andee – we met her, Darren and I did for the first time, years ago outside of a convention. We met. We had dinner with her at “Earl’s”. And then we interviewed her back in a hotel lobby with terrible lighting.

Darren Sumner:
That’s right. The hotel lobby with terrible lighting.

David Read:
Oh my God! Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
That was the interview where we learned about lighting.

David Read:
We did. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
With apologies to Andee.

David Read:
This beautiful woman. We make her look like crap. So, anyway. Andee will be… [Martin directed] 46 episodes. Thank you. That’s it? Of all three shows?

Darren Sumner:
No, no. You gotta add SG-1 and Atlantis.

David Read:
Yeah guys. OK. Anyway, yes. So, Andee Frizzell will be only joining – she is in Thailand right now.
So, this episode is going to be pre-recorded. Do you have the form ready? Do you want to talk about the form?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. The form is going to go live right after this stream is over. You’ll be able to go to dialthgate.com, and that will redirect you to the Dial the Gate landing page on GateWorld. That’s where you’re going to find the schedule of who’s coming up scheduled for next week. The time of day on Saturdays and Sundays is going to be changing; so check the schedule. Follow GateWorld on Twitter. Follow Dial the Gate on Twitter. We’ve got links to all the Dial the Gate social media there. But there’s also going to be a link to a form. You can submit questions in advance for those guests who are not going to be here live. You could do a live stream chat. So we could have an active chat during a during a live premiere for a pre-recorded interview.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
But this way – yeah.

David Read:
But those questions would not be. Because it’s pre-taped.

Darren Sumner:
This way folks get to get to use this form and send in questions for our pre-taped guests.

David Read:
Because of the time difference in Thailand – I mean this room is probably gonna be dark when I interview her. So use that form for Andee. Andee is a pre-taped guest. The other guest you must show up live or have a friend show up live to ask a question for you, because the idea is to get people to show up for the live show to ask questions and incentivize that way. This guest, as well as the next guest, are pre-recorded. Mr. Robert C. Cooper. Oh my God.

Darren Sumner:
I love Rob’s stuff.

David Read:
The creator of the ancients. The creator of the Replicators and the Ori. He is the one who holds all this knowledge.

Darren Sumner:
Co-creator of “Stargate Atlantis”. Co-creator of “Stargate Universe”.

David Read:
Absolutely. So, he will be pre-taped as well. His schedule is insane. The drop – the form, for the pre-asked questions – is that a thing? The form for the questions that you want to submit will be on dialthgate.com and it will only be active for those two participants. Right? There will be a drop down menu?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, so I can choose from the drop down menu I want to submit a question for Rob Cooper or a question for Andee Frizzell or I can just send David an email.

David Read:
Yeah. So everyone else is live for now. They may change their minds – want to do pre-taped. If pre-taped happens, we will add their name to that list – that’ll be turned on. Otherwise, if it is a live show, you have to be there to ask them questions in person. Rob – I can’t wait. I am over the moon. It’s really like talking with Brad.

Darren Sumner:
I told you recently… I did a long interview with Rob Cooper around the time of “Stargate the Ark of Truth”, which he directed. It was his… baby. His big project. We had a long form conversation. We ended up publishing it on GateWorld as a multi-part interview. You can find it now in our interviews section. But there was a piece of it that I removed. I was a theology student at the time – I was a seminary student. And Rob and I had a long conversation about religion, and the religion of the Ori, and how religion was portrayed on Stargate. And I snipped it out because I wanted to use it for a different piece. And then I lost it.

David Read:
Oh my God!

Darren Sumner:
I had a total computer failure before it was backed up. And I recently rediscovered it.

David Read:
What?!

Darren Sumner:
I have to go back and – I have to go back and kind of compare the bits and pieces to what we published.

David Read:
You found it!

Darren Sumner:
But I found a copy.

David Read:
I’m so excited!

Darren Sumner:
So I might be able to recover that sort of lost interview with Rob. But yeah, you guys will have a chance to talk here on “Dial the Gate”.

David Read:
That’s fantastic. Good. I’ll reference that content before we get started. So, yeah. Rob I’m extremely excited about. Some may have already guessed this, maybe not, Miss Suanne Braun. “Hathor Hosts” herself will be a hostee. Will be an interviewee…

Darren Sumner:
She’s been working so hard all year with “Hathor Hosts” –

David Read:
She has.

Darren Sumner:
And she just wrapped up her first season I think.

David Read:
Yeah, Amanda asked her questions today. She had Amanda Tapping on.

Darren Sumner:
Good. So she wrapped up her show, and she’s gonna be here with you.

David Read:
Yes. Absolutely. For interrogation. We’re gonna put Hathor in the hot seat. That’s kind of cool actually. So, yeah. She has worked so hard. And I must say, she is one of the reasons that this show is happening. It’s kind of fortuitous that her season ends and mine begins. That was not set up that way.

Darren Sumner:
It was good timing.

David Read:
Yeah, it’s perfect timing. So like, next week we’ll have our first official guest – sorry Karen. But she demonstrated to me that [it] is possible to do this. And so that – when I saw her program that put me over the hump in terms of setting this thing up. I really have a lot to thank her about. So it’s perfect that we’re starting our show in earnest next weekend. So yeah, I’m really excited to have her. Mr. Neil Denis. Rya’c himself.

Darren Sumner:
Neil Denis; Rya’c himself. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in years.

David Read:
He is in a place called – and I’m probably going to butcher the name – Si-Chili’s?

Darren Sumner:
Seychelles.

David Read:
Seychelles?

Darren Sumner:
The Seychelles.

David Read:
By the seashore?

Darren Sumner:
I suppose so. He’s been living it up in paradise.

David Read:
He has a kid now.

Darren Sumner:
Does he?

David Read:
Full circle. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent.

David Read:
He’s living up in paradise with low internet [connection] – with low speed internet.

Darren Sumner:
Our Rya’c. All grown up.

David Read:
He’s all grown up. I don’t know how we’re going to make this work, but we’re going to make it happen.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
He may be pre-recorded.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
We’re… he and I are going to do some tests. But I am so excited to have this young man on because he’s not a young man anymore. I’m so excited to have him.

Darren Sumner:
We talked to him in Vancouver.

David Read:
We did.

Darren Sumner:
When he was a young man. I don’t know how old he was in that interview. Maybe sixteen?

David Read:
He had just done – no he was older than that I think.

Darren Sumner:
Seventeen?

David Read:
Around there. He – yeah. He had just done “Sacrifices”. So, his last appearance. So, yeah. We’re gonna have him on as well. Mr. Chevron guy, Gary Jones.

Darren Sumner:
Gary Jones is coming to “Dial the Gate”!

David Read:
Yes, “Dial the Gate” will be blessed.

Darren Sumner:
Of course he is. No form of Stargate media is complete without Gary Jones.

David Read:
As far as I’m concerned, I completely agree. Yeah. So we’re gonna have him on. And we’re probably – I haven’t figured out when with Gary – but, yeah. I called him. I was out in North Carolina hanging out with some friends and I was like, “You know what, I wasn’t gonna have him in the initial guest lineup because, you know he’s – I’m always asking him stuff… this poor man.” So we’re going to have him. I’m really excited.

Darren Sumner:
Good.

David Read:
Bra’tac of Chulak. Tony Amendola.

Darren Sumner:
Bra’tac himself.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Tony Amendola is coming!

David Read:
Yep.

Darren Sumner:
I looove Tony.

David Read:
I contacted Tony yesterday. And I said, “So we’re making this announcement; do you want to join in?” He says, “Yes absolutely. I will be there.” You know this is – that amazing voice of his. So yes, we will be having Master Bra’tac himself. I’m really excited to have him.

Darren Sumner:
Perfect.

David Read:
And then I also called my New York – one of my New York buddies…

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
We had to of course have Mr. Jay Acovone. Charles Kawalsky.

Darren Sumner:
Ah, yeah.

David Read:
Jay will be joining us as well. Jay is also one… Umm, he’s like, “I’m not big on the tech” I’m like, “We’ll make it work. I promise you we will find a way to make it happen.” So yeah, Jay is going to be joining us as well.

Darren Sumner:
Awesome.

David Read:
And it wouldn’t be a “Stargate Atlantis” show without Carson Beckett.

Darren Sumner:
Oh my goodness.

David Read:
And I’m not getting the accent right at all.

Darren Sumner:
You’re trying. That’s what counts.

David Read:
I’m trying and I’m failing.

Darren Sumner:
That’s what counts. Your trying.

David Read:
I sound like Martin Gero in that special feature “Road to a Dream.”

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah. That’s one of the best DVD Bonus features of all time was Martin Gero on Atlantis.

David Read:
Oh my God. Yeah. Him and Ivon Bartok were just crazy for that.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. Paul is fantastic. If you want to get the Scottish accent right – as far as Stargate fans are concerned – all you have to say is, “We baby turtles.”

David Read:
We baby turtles. That’s right. Yes.

Darren Sumner:
My wee baby turtles.

David Read:
Turtle timeline. Hashtag, turtle timeline. All right. Katharyn Powers, one of the earliest writers of Stargate SG-1.

Darren Sumner:
Hey, you were talking about her earlier in the show.

David Read:
She’s going to be joining us. Yes. She will be talking with us about a lot of those early episodes. I was not… the biggest fan of episodes like “Emancipation”. I watched that with her.

Darren Sumner:
Early, early SG-1.

David Read:
Diana Botsford and I did a commentary with her. That was fascinating. And I’m like, if you can be turned around on a show like that… with the writer telling me about… what she had in development for the series. I mean, anybody.

Darren Sumner:
So Katharyn Powers was on the main writing staff during – was it just Season One?

David Read:
Yes, and then she was I think a story consultant.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
So, yeah. But we’re gonna…

Darren Sumner:
So a lot of that early SG-1 world building.

David Read:
Yep.

Darren Sumner:
She was in the mix.

David Read:
We’re gonna have her on to talk about the world building. Exactly. We can’t have a new show on without a Goa’uld. Jacqueline Samuda.

Darren Sumner:
Hey! One of my favorite Goa’uld.

David Read:
One of my favorite Goa’uld. Absolutely

Darren Sumner:
That’s Nirrti.

David Read:
Yes. Yes, absolutely. So we’re going to be having Jacqueline on. We had a conversation at GateCon that was supposed to be recorded for Dialing Home. And so MGM has that, hopefully for Season Two. We’ll be seeing that at some point, if they release Season Two. But Jacqueline will be joining us later this year as well. So I’m really excited to have her on.

Darren Sumner:
My first time to GateCon in 2018 was my first time to meet a lot of these folks who’ve been kind of regular convention goers for a long time and I met Jacqueline Samuda and I was blown away by how terrific a person she is.

David Read:
She’s amazing.

Darren Sumner:
But also how different she is from her character. I mean obviously she plays a very evil character.

David Read:
Very. I would argue one of the most evil characters in the entire show. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. Very cunning and manipulative.

David Read:
When you’re stooping to using kids as weapons, yeah.

Darren Sumner:
But, oh my goodness, then you meet Jacqueline and she’s, you know, a bubbly Canadian girl.

David Read:
Exactly. Yeah, she’s very talented.

Darren Sumner:
A lot of fun.

David Read:
And we’re gonna have a good time. Mr. Garwin Sanford. Garwin and I have been talking a lot lately through the whole pandemic and I cannot do the show without Narim. And Simon. We can’t forget Simon. Garwin we had felt – we had interviewed him for Season Two of Dialing Home. He’s just one of the most salt of the earth people that you can possibly imagine. The guy is so friggin talented. I mean he’s learning French for crying out loud through the whole pandemic. Why not. He is a go-getter extreme – through the extreme. I’m really excited to have him on. Mr. Neil Acree. Now Neil is a part of our program. He is the reason why we have the music that we do and he’s absolutely… I I’m thrilled to have him with us. So, not only is the musical DNA of Stargate in the show, in this particular episode in the opening and closing credits – which I can’t wait for everyone to hear the closing credits they’re fantastic – it’s like Stargate music. He’s going to be joining us for an interview as well and it’s just going to be fantastic to have him. He is a student of Joel Goldsmith – and that’s Joel right there on the Daedalus set – and so a lot of who he is, and the man, the musician that he has become, he learned from Joel. We’re going to be talking about his career and the stuff that he’s accomplished. I mean, if you’re a fan of “World of Warcraft”, “Diablo” – his music is there. He’s done every “World of Warcraft” cinematic since the “Burning Crusade”. They’re all on YouTube. You got to check them out. They are awesome! And you can feel the musical grammar of Stargate kind of beneath the surface. I mean, maybe I’m just hearing things, but I can’t wait to have Neil on.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. He’s so talented.

David Read:
He is. Colin Cunningham, Major Paul Davis.

Darren Sumner:
Major Davis.

David Read:
Major Davis. What happened?

Darren Sumner:
Major Davis.

David Read:
What happened here? They took the ship. Q’s in there. He’s living in Utah now.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
He was a part of the mass exodus from New York. We’re gonna be talking with him. And I love this man. I love this man. So really excited to have him on.

Darren Sumner:
He’s so talented. He can fill up a character. He can become anyone or anything.

David Read:
Oh my gosh, yes.

Darren Sumner:
Did you ever watch “Falling Skies” on TNT?

David Read:
No, I couldn’t get into it.

Darren Sumner:
The Noah Wiley show. Yeah, he was off the wall chewing the scenery.

David Read:
Really? He ate the stage huh?

Darren Sumner:
Amazing character in [John] Pope. Yeah.

David Read:
OK, I’ll have to…

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, great character. The exact opposite of Major Davis.

David Read:
If someone can throw me a scene to watch, I’ll certainly watch some of his stuff from it. Absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
You should watch his short film “Centigrade”. It’s my only – to this day – Apple purchase. “Centigrade”. It was my… I think it was like, ‘your first purchase is free’. And so “Centigrade” is the only thing that’s in there. Go and check it out. It is fantastic. Fifteen minutes.

Darren Sumner:
Good.

David Read:
We can’t start our show without a Cylon.

Darren Sumner:
Ah, that’s a different show.

David Read:
Oh, sorry.

Darren Sumner:
This is a Stargate thing.

David Read:
I would not say that this will be easy. But if you want to be free, Jaffa, you must have Katano.

Darren Sumner:
Rick Worthy.

David Read:
Rick Worthy.

Darren Sumner:
Yes.

David Read:
Absolutely. I love this guy.

Darren Sumner:
Katano, from “Stargate SG-1”.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
You recognize him from “Battlestar Galactica”. He was one of the Cylons. You recognize him if you watch the “Magicians” on Sci-Fi channel.

David Read:
I haven’t seen it. I need to.

Darren Sumner:
He’s Dean Fogg.

David Read:
Dean Fogg?

Darren Sumner:
A fabulous character. Dean Fogg.

David Read:
Dean like name or Dean like a title?

Darren Sumner:
He’s the Dean of the college. So that’s his title. Uh, Henry I think is his first name. Henry Fogg.

David Read:
OK. No, his first name is Rick.

Darren Sumner:
Fantastic character on a great show. But if you don’t recognize him from Stargate, he was – not really a Jaffa, was he?

David Read:
No.

Darren Sumner:
When he appeared in Season Five.

David Read:
Don’t spoil it! Ah hell, it’s years old.

Darren Sumner:
The show has been around for a while.

David Read:
Right. Rick Worthy will be joining us.

Darren Sumner:
Awesome.

David Read:
So excited. I also want to talk about [“Battlestar Galactica”] and one of my favorite shows “Man of the High Castle”. And he was a robot in “Star Trek Voyager”. So we’re gonna bring that up. Dr. Janet Fraiser. Terrell Rothery.

Darren Sumner:
Hey everybody, Teryl Rothery’s coming to “Dial the Gate”.

David Read:
I could not start this show without Teryl Rothery. Yeah. So I’m really delighted to have her on this. You know she’s never watched “Heroes”?

Darren Sumner:
I think I heard her say that at a convention. And it does not surprise me.

David Read:
I would love to have her do a “Heroes” commentary. I would love that, but that’s – I’m not going to push her.

Darren Sumner:
That’d be tough, yeah.

David Read:
That’s a sensitive thing. I don’t want her to watch it.

Darren Sumner:
To put her on camera.

David Read:
Not to watch it [with] us for the first time. I want her to go and watch it first. But, can you imagine getting to sit down and watch that episode with Janet – with Teryl herself?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
I’d love to get her and Michael. My God.

Darren Sumner:
That would be astounding.

David Read:
Michael and Terrell make those three episodes happen. They all do. Not to diminish Christopher or Amanda, you know Rick, anyone else.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, there’s wall-to-wall great performances in those two hours.

David Read:
Yeah. Yeah… I can’t wait to have her on. A little bit more Atlantis for you?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. give me some more.

David Read:
Joe Flanigan.

Darren Sumner:
Joe Flanigan. I’ve heard that guy.

David Read:
Yes, I have heard of him as well. Yes, and his hair. So, Major John Sheppard will be joining us. Major John? Colonel John Sheppard. Probably a General right now.

Darren Sumner:
Yep. Major, then Lieutenant Colonel.

David Read:
Lieutenant Colonel then full Colonel I think.

Darren Sumner:
And his hair.

David Read:
And his – and him and his hair joining us. Yes.

Darren Sumner:
And his ears. Good.

David Read:
And his ears. Oh! Remember the elf lady? Anyway – that’s a fandom reference.

Darren Sumner:
I have not gone to a Stargate convention yet where Joe’s ears have not been mentioned by someone.

David Read:
Oh my gosh! That’s the truth, yes. So Mr. Flanagan will be will be joining us soon. I’ve already have him scheduled in. He’s coming up shortly.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent. He’ll be coming up soon.

David Read:
Yes. I’ll have that at the end of this. Moving on. Amanda Tapping. She just did her show with Suanne today…

Darren Sumner:
Yep!

David Read:
The plan is to have her as well. I am so tremendously excited to have Amanda on.

Darren Sumner:
She’s an all-star. She is the queen.

David Read:
She is. No, yeah. She’s Sci-Fi royalty. and she’s terrific.

Darren Sumner:
She’s all we need. We don’t even need you.

David Read:
Well love is all you need.

Darren Sumner:
Just put her on camera. Well I love Amanda. And I love Samantha Carter.

David Read:
You really can. I do, I love them both.

Darren Sumner:
You know Sam is still my favorite character.

David Read:
I’m not surprised. Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
I have a lot to talk about with her. The world has really evolved in interesting ways and I have a lot to talk about with her as a director and as a human being. And I’d love to know who her personal heroes are.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
Every one of these people are going to be asked that question. Who are your heroes? Who are the people who made you? Why are you the person that you are? What are the building blocks that made you the performer that you are and the human being that you are? And so Amanda’s going to do that. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this next guest. So let’s just roll the tape.

Dean Devlin
Stargate fans, I’m Dean Devlin the producer and co-writer of the original “Stargate” the movie. I wanted to let you all know that I will be joining David Read: on October 17th at 2 p.m. on his new show “Dial the Gate”.

David Read:
Dean Devlin.

Darren Sumner:
Wow.

David Read:
Uh huh, Yep.

Darren Sumner:
Wow!

David Read:
Yep. Co-writer and producer of “Stargate” the movie. He’s gonna to sit down and talk with us.

Darren Sumner:
One of the creators of “Stargate”.

David Read:
He’s booked.

Darren Sumner:
We’ve been doing this for twenty-one years and we’ve never talked to Dean Devlin or Roland Emmerich before.

David Read:
I bumped into him at WonderCon in Anaheim when he was shooting “Bad Samaritan” – when he was doing the publicity rounds for “Bad Samaritan”. And I said, “You have no idea how much I appreciate your work and what it’s done to the trajectory of my life.” And he said, “You want to sit down and talk? We’ll talk.” And I reached out to his agent and said, “Is he still game?” And she said, “Yeah, he’ll do it.” And so he recorded this message and I’m just – I’m blown away.

Darren Sumner:
Ah, that’s fantastic. Thank you Dean.

David Read:
Yes. Thank you Dean. And Roland Emmerich, will also be coming on. But Roland cannot be involved right now he’s too busy working on another project.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
It’s a gentleman’s agreement that Roland will be on.

Darren Sumner:
We hope to book him.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
He’s not booked. We hope to book him.

David Read:
Yes, but Roland is – well he’s the other co-writer and the Director of the story.

Darren Sumner:
The Director of Stargate. Yeah.

David Read:
He’s not a hard yes, so not enough for me to make a tile for him, but –

Darren Sumner:
We’re working on him. Good.

David Read:
Working on him. So I’m really excited about that.

Darren Sumner:
Boy, so much so much lives inside Dean Devlin’s head in terms of the origins of Stargate.

David Read:
I want to know what he was wanting to do.

Darren Sumner:
And what he wanted to do with the franchise.

David Read:
Dude! Why are – why are there nine chevrons? Why? You know.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, I got all kinds of questions.

David Read:
Is it a design aesthetic? Did they just look better with more chevrons on the stargate?

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah. I got all kinds of production questions.

David Read:
Or were you doing something with them?

Darren Sumner:
We have to brainstorm for that.

David Read:
Did the stargate go to more than one place? What was your intent? I don’t know how much of this…

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. How close are the Bill McKay books to their original intent?

David Read:
Exactly right.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t think they’re the same thing. I don’t think they’re an adaptation.

David Read:
I don’t think so either. I cannot describe how excited I am about this interview.

Darren Sumner:
OK, this is my question. You asked the nine chevron question. My question would be: If they had six chevrons that they could dial, and Catherine says this is as far as we’ve ever been able to get, why didn’t they just try each of the other symbols in turn?

David Read:
Well I’m not gonna like – poke holes [in] his film. There are some story issues with that movie…

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. I have some I have some head canon reasons for explaining that.

David Read:
OK. Well then we need to articulate to that one another off camera.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
Before I go on… cause I’m not gonna grill this man and say, “You know this is really – this doesn’t work Dean.” It’s a movie. It’s a summer blockbuster.

Darren Sumner:
Don’t have to grill him about plot holes in his twenty-five-year-old movie.

David Read:
Right, exactly. No, exactly. Last, but not least, I ran into this person at Comic-Con in 2008 and I’ve been here carrying their business card in my pocket. OK, it’s been in my fire safe for twelve years now.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
And I was like, “If I’m ever going to call…”

Darren Sumner:
I hope their number didn’t change.

David Read:
Exactly! And the web address that was on there – it didn’t work. It was gone. And I was like, “Oh God. Please God let this work.” And I – OK I’ll just show it to you. Sam Jones. Eris Bach.

Darren Sumner:
Oh! Eris Bach.

David Read:
The only guest star we’ve never talked to.

Darren Sumner:
Another one we’ve never talked to.

David Read:
The only guest star who has ever had a comic book made for him that did not turn into a main character later. Because I know Vala had some.

Darren Sumner:
Yep. He just has one episode.

David Read:
One episode.

Darren Sumner:
And it’s a fan favorite, “Dead Man Switch”.

David Read:
And it’s one of the most memorable characters of all time. It’s an amazing performance. It’s just so witty. And so, that’s it folks.

David Read:
Eris Bach. Sam Jones.

Darren Sumner:
Incredible. Incredible.

David Read:
He’s busy right now. We will we will have him in January. So we won’t have him this year.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
The intent is to bring him in, in January. So that’s the plan there.

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing.

David Read:
That’s all I got!

Darren Sumner:
Boy you’ve been working hard on this I know for a couple of months getting all this ready to spill to us and – I’m I knew some of these secrets but I’m blown away at this initial lineup for just the first – what, the first three months or so?

David Read:
Dude I don’t know. This was probably way too much.

Darren Sumner:
Well you’re taking on a big project. Yeah.

David Read:
Cliff Simon. You know I’m pretty close with Cliff and I’ve not asked Cliff yet… and I intend to… I need people that I have talked to and I need people that I’ve never spoken to before to strike a balance there.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, it’s a good balance.

David Read:
And it’s like, where do I draw that line? And there’s a number of actors that we’ve communicated with before that are not in this guest list yet that hopefully will be. I reached out to Ming. Ming’s just finished with Mulan. All the publicity for Mulan – she can’t, she can’t do it. And Ming has always been wanting to go for an interview. Hopefully next year.

Darren Sumner:
The time will be right.

David Read:
The time has to be right. Exactly. So that’s my list.

Darren Sumner:
Boy, that’s amazing. This is going to be an event.

David Read:
Oi. Exactly!

Darren Sumner:
This is going to be an event. You’re working hard and I’m going to be here even though I’m not going to be on the show I’m going to be tuning in live as much as I can.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
But then folks can also watch the shows after the fact.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
It’ll be archived and available on – right here on the Dial the Gate YouTube channel.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Everybody subscribe before you leave if you’re not subscribed.

David Read:
And it’s very important – I cannot describe how important it is – if you’re on YouTube all the time you get the message all the time. But please hit that ‘like’ button if you like what we’re doing. Because YouTube’s algorithm is designed so that once the ‘like’ button is triggered it increases the likelihood of other Stargate fans watching the content. That’s the only way that we’re getting this out. I’m not doing any advertising for this show. This is all word of mouth. That’s the intent. I don’t have the money for that. So if you want more of this content, please consider hitting that ‘like’ button so that we can grow this audience. Because that’s how it’s gonna have to happen.

Darren Sumner:
We’re so grateful for everybody who showed up today but we’re also excited for the support. We’re grateful for the support of other “Stargate” fans because you know we don’t have a show yet. We don’t have a new “Stargate” series.

David Read:
No.

Darren Sumner:
We’re waiting for some kind of an announcement from MGM as to what’s going to be next for the franchise. And you know “Stargate Command” has also been closed now for coming up on a year.

David Read:
Don’t get me started.

Darren Sumner:
So the fact that fans have this – this is new content for us to log in every weekend and enjoy.

David Read:
Yeah. Exactly right.

Darren Sumner:
I think it’s a gift to the fans that you are doing this and that you’re using your talents this way and that it’s available as you said at the top. It’s gonna be available to the whole world.

David Read:
I’m happy to be here. And I’m going to get to your fan questions in just a second. Darren and I are going to do a quick round of trivia though.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
All right!

Darren Sumner:
I’m ready.

David Read:
Me or you first?

Darren Sumner:
I’m going to do my best to stump you, but I gotta say – well number one, you’ve always been better at this than me.

David Read:
Yeah, but… you’ve had a chance to think up some questions.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah but also some of this is a little rusty for me.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
I would have done a lot better at this five or ten years ago.

David Read:
Then you asked me first.

Darren Sumner:
So let’s see, you asked me to pull together an easy question, a medium question, and a hard question.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
So I’m gonna start easy.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
And we’ll work our way up.

David Read:
Jeopardy style.

Darren Sumner:
Everybody in the chat play along at home. This question comes from “Stargate Universe”.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
In which episode does TJ begin an attempt to amputate Matthew Scott’s arm?

David Read:
That’s the dream episode.

Darren Sumner:
Title of the episode. Give the chat a second. Look like you’re thinking really hard even though you already know it.

David Read:
[laugh] The episode names – no.

Darren Sumner:
Give them a second.

David Read:
The episode names are gone for me. A lot of the episode names are gone. He and Chloe are on an off-world planet where killer plants from “seaQuest DSV” are attacking them. I don’t remember the name of the episode.

Darren Sumner:
That’s right.

David Read:
Yeah. “Cloverdale!” That’s it. Thank you, “theZzZzZzZzZz.”

Darren Sumner:
“Cloverdale.” Good job “Z’s”.

David Read:
I don’t know the name of the episode.

Darren Sumner:
Good job chat.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
“Cloverdale”. Season Two, Episode Five.

David Read:
Yeah. I remembered the episode, but I didn’t remember its name. OK, next. Geez! If that’s an easy one, I’m in trouble.

Darren Sumner:
Well do you have easy, medium, hard?

David Read:
I do.

Darren Sumner:
OK. Ask me the easy one next. We’ll go back and forth.

David Read:
OK. In Stargate SG-1 “Nemesis”, when Teal’c is in the pressure chamber in his spacesuit Jack invites Teal’c to say something. What does Teal’c say?

Darren Sumner:
What does Teal’c say? He’s in the space suit.

David Read:
Jack goes, “Say something.”

Darren Sumner:
I’m trying to remember if this is before he goes outside.

David Read:
He’s in the he’s in the pressure chamber.

Darren Sumner:
He’s in the pressure chamber. In the airlock.

David Read:
Listen to my words. In the pressure chamber, in the space suit, Jack invites Teal’c to say something.

Darren Sumner:
I’m thinking of other similar scenes.

David Read:
I really hope you’re not in the chat, because they’re just blowing it.

Darren Sumner:
I’m not looking at it. I’m not looking.

David Read:
OK, good. Come on guys! Wait until he’s answered it.

Darren Sumner:
One small step for Jaffa.

David Read:
Luanne! Luanne! [Hrrmph!] You’re buying dinner next time Luanne.

Darren Sumner:
I’m not looking at the chat.

David Read:
OK. I know. But still.

Darren Sumner:
Did you hear my answer?

David Read:
No!

Darren Sumner:
One small step for Jaffa.

David Read:
Yes, that’s it! Zero – One. Your serve.

Darren Sumner:
Oh my. Boy, if that was the easy one this is not gonna get pretty. Here’s a medium difficulty question.

David Read:
On paper.

Darren Sumner:
This one comes from – we’ll see how your brain works – this one comes from “Stargate Atlantis”.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
That first year I got to go to the sets for SG-1 in Atlantis, I also got to meet some of the cast of another MGM show called “Dead Like Me”.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
And they were having a photo shoot. And I got to go and interview some of those cast members during their shoot. And I met Laura Harris – who I love.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
I’m not going to ask you the name of the episode.

David Read:
Is she the blonde? “The Game”.

Darren Sumner:
Laura Harris – she’s the blonde – Laura Harris puts in an appearance in “The Game”, in Season Three. Name the two countries that were at war on the planet M4D058. This might be harder than I thought it was.

David Read:
I mean Futura and Terrania?

Darren Sumner:
OK. Name one of the countries – name one of the countries that was at war in “The Game”. This is not very easy.

David Read:
Yeah. If this is a medium question, I think I want to shoot myself for the hard one.

Darren Sumner:
A hard one might be easier for you than this.

David Read:
I want to say Futura, but that’s SGU. I don’t remember them. God! I used to know.

Darren Sumner:
Chat! Help us out?

David Read:
They already – oh, Geldar?

Darren Sumner:
Geldar is correct.

David Read:
Caledonia?

David Read:
No.

David Read:
Caledonia. That sounds like, um…

Darren Sumner:
Caledonia is from Jonas’ planet isn’t it?

David Read:
That sounds like…no. Caledonia is from “Icon” I think.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, from “Ethon” and “Icon”?

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. Ah, it’s Geldar and Hallona.

David Read:
Haaallona?

Darren Sumner:
Hallona. Sommer has the name right here.

David Read:
For Pete’s sake. Yeah, okay. All right.

Darren Sumner:
I ah, yeah. It’s a high fast ball off the plate. I thought you were gonna be going after this a little bit harder.

David Read:
Proper nouns – I can give, like, details… I’m not asking you for proper nouns. Maybe that’s the key.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
So, number two. Medium. According to the “Stargate Omnipedia” the one thing that I started off on that you forgot that I started off on.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t remember.

David Read:
Lucius Lavin. Lucius Lavin is a resident of a planet in the Pegasus galaxy with specialties in baking, herbs and spices, and what?

Darren Sumner:
Baking herbs and the other specialty of the planet?

David Read:
Baking – comma – herbs and spices – comma – and what? And I would I’m gonna help with this one.

Darren Sumner:
OK. I’m gonna leave my wisecrack in the vault and see if I can come up with the actual episode. We were on set for this episode.

David Read:
We sure were. Yeah. The opening the opening scene of the episode when they first go into the village.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, when Lucius first walks up.

David Read:
And the scene where they are all at the table. [Lucius says,] “Well get the such-in-such. We haven’t even started the second course.”

Darren Sumner:
I’m gonna have to straight up guess. Unless you’re passing out hints.

David Read:
I’m prepared to give more information. So what does he give as gifts?

Darren Sumner:
This episode is “Irresistible”. Early Season Three. My confession, my confession to you and the world of fandom is that I’ve watched this episode exactly one time.

David Read:
Really?

Darren Sumner:
So I’m gonna say – yeah, there’s a handful. This is one of them. I’m gonna say, fine wines.

David Read:
Shoving candles into gourds.

Darren Sumner:
I was definitely not gonna come up with that one. Shoving candles into gourds.

David Read:
So, One to One. The score is One One.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
All right.

Darren Sumner:
You ready for a hard question?

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
This is from a television show called “Stargate SG-1”.

David Read:
I think I’ve heard of it.

Darren Sumner:
Actress Jillian Barber played the Kelownan Ambassador Draylock. Later appointed First Minister of Jonas Quinn’s home planet. But that wasn’t her first role on the show. What episode did Jillian Barber previously appear in and for bonus points what role did she play? You said come up with a hard one!

David Read:
Is it the “Game Keeper”?

Darren Sumner:
It is the “Game Keeper”. Who did she play in the “Game Keeper”?

David Read:
“Tell us about what it’s like outside.” I don’t know what you call those people under the drapes.

Darren Sumner:
That’s gotta be right, yeah. It’s she’s credited as a resident.

David Read:
Residents. The residents.

Darren Sumner:
Resident number one.

David Read:
Do not interfere with our residents.

Darren Sumner:
She’s a resident of Barclay’s VR world.

David Read:
So I get the hard one. How crazy is that? All right. Well, I’ll last one for you.

Darren Sumner:
All right, I’ll remember proper nouns next time. That’s where you struggle.

David Read:
Well I mean, no. I mean, I need to know this. I’m re-watching the show – obviously.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
If I have any sense. Final question. Hard question. In SGU “Incursion” Part 2. Destiny comes out of FTL near a binary pulsar. What is the pulsar emitting?

Darren Sumner:
What is the pulsar emitting?

David Read:
Yes, what is the pulsar pulsing?

Darren Sumner:
Pulses? Radiation?

David Read:
Um – ah, OK. Gamma radiation.

Darren Sumner:
Should we get more specific than radiation?

David Read:
Gamma radiation is one of the two. What is the other? It’s sending out two things into space.

Darren Sumner:
Gamma radiation and ah, recipe for mama Rush’s hot chili

David Read:
For God’s sakes, come on.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know. All I remember is the radiation that burned the Lucian Alliance guys to a crisp.

David Read:
Correct. It was gamma radiation and you get these when you go to the dentist every six months or a year.

Darren Sumner:
Ahhhh…

David Read:
Or when you get a broken bone.

Darren Sumner:
Fluoride. Fluoride. It was sending out fluoride. Is the correct answer.

David Read:
X-rays. Smart ass.

Darren Sumner:
X-rays! Gamma radiation and X – that is a hard question.

David Read:
I thought it was originally microwaves.

Darren Sumner:
Now I don’t feel bad about asking about Geldar and Hallona.

David Read:
I was thinking about the question – I was like, “What is the pulsar sending?” I thought it was microwaves, because you watch a Lucian cast member get cooked.

Darren Sumner:
I apparently was not paying close enough attention because I thought that was just the gamma radiation.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
Shows you what I know.

David Read:
Nah, it’s all good.

Darren Sumner:
With my humanities degree.

David Read:
An interesting fact about that episode. They have since –

Darren Sumner:
Sommer says, “But Nintendo’s go through everything.”

David Read:
Nintendo’s do go through everything! That’s right. An interesting fact about that episode – they posited that there was a potential pulsar out there in the universe that had those characteristics – of like orbiting every twenty-two minutes, or whatever it is – but it wasn’t found. It’s like this theoretical. Within the last few years a pulsar has been discovered out in the universe that demonstrates these characteristics.

Darren Sumner:
Cool.

David Read:
So Stargate did it first.

Darren Sumner:
Very cool.

David Read:
Yeah, and we bring this up in the GateCon retrospective. Which again will be linked below.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah and of course the whole science of the cosmic microwave background radiation that’s based on actual science.

David Read:
Yep. Exactly. Well thank you for playing!

Darren Sumner:
Thank you.

David Read:
Very good.

Darren Sumner:
We did okay.

David Read:
So, trivia.

Darren Sumner:
Both of us got at least one right.

David Read:
Exactly. Trivia, for you out there in the interwebs – is the form ready?

Darren Sumner:
The form is not ready.

David Read:
I haven’t seen it yet.

Darren Sumner:
The form will be ready for people to submit their trivia questions to you and your special guest. It’ll be ready sometime this week.

David Read:
Not every guest and I will play trivia questions. Like Joe Flanigan and I. We’re not going to play trivia. We don’t have that kind of relationship.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
Joseph Mallozzi probably will. But I want to invite everyone to submit trivia questions to us through the form that Darren is going to build. You can email them to… Dial the Gate – God help me – [email protected] but I wouldn’t though because then I’m going to see them. These trivia questions are for the guests to ask me.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. So we’re going to set up a form that sends it to you in a way that you can’t see the question…

David Read:
I will forward it to them or their agent. Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah you’ll kind of collate this and it’ll go to them so they will have the question that fans submitted and be able to ask you right here.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Cool.

David Read:
The first thing that I’m going to ask for people is to submit the trivia questions via the form at dialthegate.com when Darren decides to post it up. Every month there’s going to be new artwork – there. And at the end of the month that artwork is going to be given away to the person who submitted the best three trivia questions – easy and medium and hard – to the show.

Darren Sumner:
Nice.

David Read:
This month.

Darren Sumner:
Oooooh.

David Read:
This is Ken Rabehl’s initial concept art of the Beliskner.

Darren Sumner:
Holy Smokes.

David Read:
The print of this will be given to the person who submits the best interview questions for the month of October.

Darren Sumner:
Tell me more about this piece. This doesn’t look like the final ship.

David Read:
Well yeah. The Asgard ship wasn’t designed yet.

Darren Sumner:
This is concept art from the show. This is not fan art.

David Read:
Yes. Correct. This is concept art. Ken Rabehl – may he rest in peace –he created this.

Darren Sumner:
Wow.

David Read:
I will be mailing this print anywhere in the world to people who go to the trouble of submitting the questions to us.

Darren Sumner:
Cool.

David Read:
The best – the best three questions by a person will be – will be best. So, will be the one that I [select]. That’s not the only one. I’m also sending you – this one. So this is concept art for “Into the Fire”.

Darren Sumner:
Oh wow.

David Read:
When they pull away the back of the …

Darren Sumner:
Hathor’s fake Stargate Command.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. When they’re removing the doors behind the Stargate – that’s actually a production thing. There’s a space back there for the camera to go. But in this episode there was a green screen. And this is what was behind that. These two pieces of artwork will be going to the person who submits the best three trivia questions. And you’re going to want to do it in the form. So do it properly so that I didn’t see the questions beforehand.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. That’s incredible.

David Read:
I am on the lookout for a couple of… producer’s assistants. If you’re interested send me a message at [email protected] – because I need help organizing these questions and there are other things in the works for the channel as well.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. This is gonna grow. I was telling you before we started – Dial the Gate is going to build its own community. And the folks who showed up here on day one I think are the foundation of this new community that we’re building for Dial the Gate.

David Read:
Yes. So thank you for being here for Episode Zero. Episode One technically, but yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Thanks for being here. But you’re gonna be looking for production help and you chat moderators as we get more and more people here for the live streams. Stuff like that.

David Read:
Yep exactly. So fans have been itching to ask us questions. So I’m gonna run through these real quick. OK. For you and me.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
Sam Carter asked – and thank you Sommer for moderating. I really appreciate you. You have no idea. I’m also needing moderators. Please [email protected] if you’re interested. You’ll get first dibs on questions for guests. Let me tell ya. There’s a whole schedule coming up that we just need help with. Sam Carter asks, “Is this like ‘Hathor Hosts’?” Yes. I haven’t seen all of Hathor Hosts I’ve seen just a few of them. But essentially yes, that’s what this is.

Darren Sumner:
It’s you and a guest, in a long form conversation, with a live stream, with a chat. Suanne really kind of demonstrated the proof of concept.

David Read:
That’s – well she did it. Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
She was the one who pushed me over the edge and said, “Yeah, absolutely.” Raj [asks], “Is Stargate returning?” Vaunted mantra.

Darren Sumner:
What do you think?

David Read:
Well Joe said five chevrons locked, didn’t he?

Darren Sumner:
That’s the last thing that we’ve heard and that we’ve reported on GateWorld. And we’ve got a video about this on our GateWorld YouTube channel. Joe Mallozzi is in conversation obviously with Brad Wright – they’re friends – and the last thing we heard from Joe is: somebody asked him how close are we to a new show and he told him, “Five chevron’s locked.” So that’s close. It’s not there yet. It’s not ready to be announced.

David Read:
I’m hopeful.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah but Brad’s working on something. So in the era of COVID there [are] extra hurdles that need to be hurdled before we get it. But I remain the eternal optimist. I think we’re going to get a Stargate.

David Read:
I think so as well.

Darren Sumner:
I really do.

David Read:
If Brad is talking with MGM, it’s music to my ears.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
Absolutely. Let’s see here, Raj [asked], “I wanted to know why there are no models of the ships?” I think that’s just a licensing thing. If a modeling company approaches MGM with an offer it’s in its MGM’s decision to extend the license or not. I do know that those of you in the 3d printing community are full bore on a lot of this stuff and there are people out there, like Chris Baker, who makes exquisite pieces.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, did some really great stuff.

David Read:
The paint is coming off because it’s hotter than hell here and it’s 50c in the summer – 120f this summer and so the house gets up to like 85 degrees while I’m gone and some of the paint is transferred off the bottom of Daedalus. Anyway!

Darren Sumner:
Wow. Yeah, and we featured some of that fan made 3d printed Stargate stuff on GateWorld. Gate builder – my boy Martin – has put together some amazing stuff that we’ve been able to feature.

David Read:
Wow! That’s legit.

Darren Sumner:
I have pieces – I’m again ashamed to admit that I haven’t assembled it yet – but he sent me pieces of a… power thing.

David Read:
The power thing.

Darren Sumner:
Naquadah generator.

David Read:
Naquadah generator.

Darren Sumner:
He 3d printed a naquadah generator. And it’s gorgeous.

David Read:
And he sent it to you.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
That’s OK Darren.

Darren Sumner:
And he set it up so that you can put… a little power brick inside of it and use it to charge your phone.

David Read:
Yeah. Wow. Well I mean you’ve only had two months to prepare for this show. I mean, it’s all right you can get around to it someday.

Darren Sumner:
No, I’ve had the model longer than that.

David Read:
OK. Sommer. Yeah Sommer, I know. All right. “I hope they finally meet the Furlings.” Yeah, me too.

Darren Sumner:
Me too.

David Read:
They were not koalas. They were not giant koalas. That was not a thing. So let me see here. Raj [asked,] “Always wanted to know if the ancients seeded the Andromeda galaxy with stargates – maybe there should be a series in there called Stargate Andromeda.” I wouldn’t be surprised.

Darren Sumner:
It’s a close galaxy and it’s a name that’s familiar.

David Read:
Diana Botsford and I – I’ve never talked about this publicly. She’s probably gonna kill me.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah don’t say too much.

David Read:
About Stargate Oblivion?

Darren Sumner:
Don’t say too much. There’s a project.

David Read:
There was a project.

Darren Sumner:
There’s an idea.

David Read:
There is an idea, called Stargate Oblivion, and it was – what we were trying to do…. What are you doing?

Darren Sumner:
I’m trying to get this out because I want to ask you if you’ve listened to this yet?

David Read:
Yes. Can I go on?

Darren Sumner:
I wasn’t going to interrupt. I was just fumbling with my box. And then you asked me about it. So this is what was in it.

David Read:
Yes. It’s really – no, it’s really good. That’s funny. Yeah. No, it’s really good. It’s a really good score. But Diana and I – Diana Botsford.

Darren Sumner:
Yes.

David Read:
Her father, Ward, [co-wrote with Diana] an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation [Season 6, Episode 7: “Rascals”] and she’s written a couple of Stargate novels. And I approached her at a convention about this idea that I had called Stargate Oblivion and it was a six-part book series. The idea is Star Fleet core of engineers – and we presented it to Fandemonium – and we went back and forth like a year and it never came to anything. And I’m hopeful that one of these days we’ll be able to do something. I’m not gonna go into that any further.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, don’t go any further. I hope it happens someday because I think Stargate, um – Fandemonium does such a fantastic job with the novels. I would love to see a self-contained series with new characters in a new setting – like the Star Trek franchise has done – that just lives in novel form. I’d love to see that.

David Read:
Yes. They wanted everything to focus on the team, because team stuff sells better. And this didn’t. This was going to be – I mean it was going to have guest appearances. But yeah, that’s where we stalled. Maybe we’ll come back to that. Let’s see here, Raj, OK. Mirella – except I am so sorry I’m not gonna be able to say that last name without absolutely butchering it with a spatula – Mirella [asks,] “Are the replicators all extinct?” Technically. But I don’t think so. I mean that they are – which replicators are we talking about? Which generation? I think Season Eight “Threads” definitively, probably, possibly ended them. But I mean not all of them necessarily had to have come forth when the Asgard triggered Reese’s subroutine. And those were all at once.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. It was all replicators everywhere. But the device on Dakara that eventually wiped out the replicators – correct me if I’m wrong – I think that that connected to every stargate in the Milky Way galaxy. So if there were other replicators hanging out in other galaxies who did not come forth when they got the call, the theoretically they exist somewhere.

David Read:
Exactly. Another one from Raj, [asks,] “Which do you think was built first, Atlantis or Vis Uban?” That’s a good question. I don’t know.

Darren Sumner:
A good question.

David Read:
Because Vis Uban was supposedly the last one on the list. I think Atlantis would have to pre-date Vis Uban, because Atlantis was in the Milky Way longer and Vis Uban was like one of their last projects. So I don’t think that Atlantis is as old as Praclarush Taonas, but I think that you know it’s definitely there. But destiny is older; as Brad Wright just told us earlier. So, yeah.

Darren Sumner:
It’s ah – people who are watching wondering what Vis Uban is, it’s the ancient remains of an old civilization. An old city from “Fallen”; the premiere of Season Seven of SG-1.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
And I… it gets wonky with the ancient timeline because there’s all the stuff they did in the Milky Way before Atlantis went to Pegasus. And then there’s all the stuff that they did after the evacuation 10,000 years ago.

David Read:
Yeah. Yeah – well, I mean you’re making up… the mythology as you go for 14 years – it’s pretty sound in my opinion. But yeah, there’s going to be some holes….

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, some of those I don’t know how to date. Like the time loop device. That civilization in “Window of Opportunity”. I’m not sure.

David Read:
They’re ancients. Yeah. But that’s just before the plague happened. And then, they gave up.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. So the hint that we get is, they were suffering from the plague. That’s why they did this. And so it would seem to be plausible that that was before Atlantis left.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. Corporal_Hicks_23 [asks,] “Have they ever talked about doing more origins or shorts?” Christopher Judge wanted to do a Jaffa story. I think it was like young Bra’tac. I’m not entirely sure. It may not have been that at all. I’m not sure where that was going to go. I still know that he wants to do something and when he comes on we’re going to ask him about that. A second season origins was on the table for a really long time when I was at MGM we took over a board room and Jenny [Stiven] and Kieran [Dickson] and I put sixty sticky notes on the wall.

Darren Sumner:
Sixty different ideas?

David Read:
Of plot threads from Stargate. Everything from Aris Boch and young Jack O’Neill to the – oh hell what are they called? The obelisk race that’s apparently the most powerful force in all of Stargates.

Darren Sumner:
Oh, from SGU. Yeah.

David Read:
The star system builders. Oh man, I would love that explored! And the Nakai and the Ursini and everything else. So yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

David Read:
The fish people – Nakai. Fish like people.

Darren Sumner:
The Vanir.

David Read:
Sam Carter [asks,] “How long will these Dial the Gate interviews be?” Well…

Darren Sumner:
Not as long as this one.

David Read:
Not as long as this one, that’s for sure. I’m not gonna…

Darren Sumner:
This is two old two old friends who haven’t talked to each other for a while.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. So I apologize for the length folks. I imagine a lot of people are like, “I can’t stick around, I gotta go.” So I understand.

Darren Sumner:
Thanks. Yeah, thanks for everybody for sticking around.

David Read:
An hour and a half. Ninety minutes is the intent. So when we really get into the weeds…

Darren Sumner:
For each guest.

David Read:
Bringing guests back repeatedly and going systematically through the work – that is Stargate. An hour with me and half an hour with the fans in the chat. That’s the structure.

Darren Sumner:
Good.

David Read:
I have to have set up and everything else.

Darren Sumner:
That’s great.

David Read:
So it’s like fifty minutes with talent and me and then afterward. So come down with questions ready to go.

Darren Sumner:
So what I also want to say to people as you’re nearing the schedule here is, there are some days where you’re gonna have one guest – like today, it’s just me – and there are some days where you’re gonna have multiple guests. But those two guests are not necessarily scheduled back-to-back. So there might be a live stream at… noon Pacific time and then another one later in the day.

David Read:
Yes. they are not going to be consistent. You have to go to DialTheGate.com – especially like the day before.

Darren Sumner:
So watch the schedules.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah watch for the announcements those were two guests that are not, probably not going to be back-to-back.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
So, it’s effectively two shows in the same day.

David Read:
Joseph Mallozzi… I scheduled him for like the second for the day… just in case he has more time to talk with the fans because he’s really good about communicating with the fans. So the second episode in the day may go over. We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. But the intent is ninety minutes, but some of them may run a little long. That’s the nice thing about this is it doesn’t matter as long as the guest is willing to, I’m willing to sit. I can adjust in my chair and everything else. My tailbone start hurt a little bit, but that’s OK. That’s the intent. Um… I’m so sorry guys… and I need my glasses. I can’t find them. [Inzitezania asks,] “Darren, obviously when you started Gateworld it was just one site. When and how did it become ‘The’ Stargate resource?”

Darren Sumner:
Well it still is just one site, it’s just grown and evolved over the years. We just – we came up with new things that we wanted to do. And so the challenge was continuing to do the old stuff – the episode guide and news coverage and interviews – and then add on new pieces. So when David joined in 2003 – I’ve been reminded – with the Omnipedia it was a new project right I had in mind I want to do an online encyclopedia of everything Stargate but I didn’t have the resources to do it. And so David and his genius brain came along and suddenly we could do it. We wanted to do a screencap gallery and we decided to put our shoulder to it and we went out and recruited a whole bunch of fans to help us with all the DVD screen capturing – and we did it. We wanted to do a video project – we did it. We want to do a podcast in 2009 – was just kind of one piece at a time adding on to what we had and fortunately people liked it. Fortunately, people liked the content that we’ve been doing for two decades and they keep coming back.

David Read:
Yeah. The fans are the thing. Because if they don’t provide that click through, then… there will be no reason to continue. Which is why it’s so important to share this. The other point that I wanted to make about the schedule changes – they are gonna happen all the time. So I really recommend that you click the bell icon if you’re subscribed for the show, because I’m trying to figure out – there’s a lot of shows that I watch when there’s a schedule change they send a text out to everyone in the subscribe list. They message everyone and I don’t know how to do that. And I’ve googled it and all the Google and YouTube videos are outdated.

Darren Sumner:
You’re talking about YouTube alerts?

David Read:
YouTube alerts, yeah. Do you know how to do it? The ones that you can – it sends out a text. And I’ve checked on Google, I’ve YouTubed all the videos. All the videos –

Darren Sumner:
Folks will get a notice.

David Read:
Yeah. They’re all outdated. They don’t – it’s not configured the same way anymore.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. So you have to subscribe to the channel. If you’re subscribed to the channel you’re gonna get stuff recommended to you more often. And when you visit YouTube, Dial the Gate is gonna show up for you. But you have to also ring the bell. Click on the ‘bell icon’ to turn on notifications. And if I’ve turned on notifications for Dial the Gate, then my phone’s going to buzz when Dial the Gate goes live. Or when Dial the Gate publishes a new video I’ll get an instant notification.

David Read:
Absolutely. Yep. Thank you for that.

Darren Sumner:
It really does help. It’s a great way to support any content creator that you like their stuff. Click on the ‘like’ button make sure you’re subscribed to their channel, enable notifications, and then watch their content when it goes up! Those are the sorts of things that the YouTube algorithm looks at and decides, ‘Hey, people are interested in this. Maybe the algorithm should recommend it to more people!’

David Read:
Exactly. It’s a vast system.

Darren Sumner:
Which is what we want for growing Dial the Gate.

David Read:
Yep. Yep. TonyRichards93 [asks,] “What’s the latest on Stargate these days anything progressed or are we still awaiting news?” We discussed that earlier in the show.

Darren Sumner:
We’re awaiting news.

David Read:
We’re awaiting news.

Darren Sumner:
We think something’s going to happen.

David Read:
Kinda of in a holding pattern.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, most all production is in a holding pattern with COVID, but we think something’s going to come down the pipe. Now we’ve been saying that for a couple of years now, because something’s been in development for a couple of years now and it’s just – it takes time for it for it to happen. It’s the business.

David Read:
Sarah-lupa–scu? Lupascu? Lupa? Sarah. Sarah [asks,] “Just joined the live show. Just wondering if the super-fan panel is still a thing or has it disbanded?” Well I know at least one of them is in the room right now. Hello, Marsha.

Darren Sumner:
Oh who’s here? Hi, Marsha.

David Read:
Marsha Milton. I don’t know what’s going on with that. That’s an MGM thing. Originally the plan was for them to be changed up every year. And then instead we got changed out. So, we got our marching papers at the end of the year. It’s like, ‘Well, all right then.’ I don’t know. I doubt it though. I doubt it. The super-fans would probably have more information than I would. So hit up Marcia Middleton. Very good. Brazat, hey buddy – well there’s another one right there, Brazat. There’s another super-fan. Brazat. Bra’zat.

Darren Sumner:
Bra’zat. Like Bra’tac.

David Read:
Right. Exactly. “SG-1 and SGA and SGU trivia questions – can we contribute at all?” Asked and answered. So, yes. There will be the form at Dial the Gate.

Darren Sumner:
After this stream is over.

David Read:
Right. DialTheGate.com

Darren Sumner:
DialTheGate.com doesn’t work right now, but after the stream is over it’ll be opened up and you can you can submit questions and trivia.

David Read:
Yep. Give Darren a chance to straighten everything out. Also, he has to [upload everything] – because… I don’t have access right now. So he’s gonna have to load all the new guests that I introduced. So it’s gonna take a little while. And at the end of this you’ll also see who’s scheduled for next week. There [are] four guests – five scheduled for next Saturday and Sunday.

Darren Sumner:
Five?!

David Read:
Well, one’s a twofer…

Darren Sumner:
Five guests?

David Read:
One’s a twofer.

Darren Sumner:
One’s a twofer; whew!

David Read:
My glasses. [Chat asked,] “Will you be doing anything on Stargate day?” Which is, Wednesday October the 28th. I didn’t have any plans. What do you think?

Darren Sumner:
I hadn’t planned anything this year. It’s not a big anniversary. Last year was the big anniversary.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Last year was 25 years since the movie dropped.

David Read:
That’s right. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. So we may. Dean Devlin… we may have to… Stargate – that’s when the film premiered, right? October the 28th?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, the film in 1994. Depending on how soon you get Dean on, you could bake him a cake.

David Read:
Right.

Darren Sumner:
And just make him look at it through Zoom.

David Read:
Oh my God, can you imagine? Dean, I baked you this. Hmmm, tastes good.

Darren Sumner:
Mail him – mail him some cupcakes.

David Read:
Master sheet. When do I have him on? He already mentioned when he was on. October the 17th at 2 p.m. So, you know what? I will ask him to, do something. We’ll see. We’ll figure it out. It may just be a clip from his live stream that we’ve that we post on October 28th.

Darren Sumner:
Hey, by the way, have you listened to this?

David Read:
Yes, I have. Thank you. Anyway, moving on. One of the things I want to point out is that the channel is going to be full of clips from these particular episodes. Because not everyone wants to sit down for three hours like Darren and I and like you lovely people are willing to do. And I enjoy it. Like Joe Rogan. I love his podcast. And the best thing I like about it are the clips, because it takes 10, 11, 12 minutes of the episode and highlights it. So you’re gonna be seeing those as well. And I’ve designed the imagery so that it looks different from episode imagery. So as you’re scrolling – you can tell at a glance. And also, please for the love of Pete, use the playlist feature. I just discovered this thing, it’s awesome! So you can go in and categorize between clips, between interviews, between commentary, if we have them eventually. Things like that.

Darren Sumner:
For the love of Pete Shanahan?

David Read:
Yes, exactly.

Darren Sumner:
Because a lot of people don’t love Pete, I gotta say.

David Read:
Well, I love Pete. You know the rest of them, they can go fly a kite. Sam-Carter [asks,] “Will the interviews always be on Saturdays? Will the days vary as well?” Right now, Saturdays and Sundays. I’m not opposed to doing one on the weekdays, but that’s where it’s at right now. And I missed one [question] by Claire [who asks,] “10 p.m. UK time – will you do it any earlier at all?” I work late the night before. I’m out until three or four in the morning. As you’re about to see, Joe Flanigan’s gonna be at noon pacific time. That’s the earliest I can go. I really am sorry. That’s the problem with the global audience you know. At the very least the show is on in seven countries.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, but that’s good though.

David Read:
I have to figure it out somewhere.

Darren Sumner:
I learned from living in the UK for three years – I learned that daylight savings time is on a different schedule in the UK.

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Our daylight savings time in the States ends, I think, later. So we’re currently seven hours apart. It’s gonna go back to eight for a couple of weeks? I don’t know, somebody look it up. But 12 o’clock depending on what week it’s on. 12 noon pacific should be 7 o’clock in London.

David Read:
Yeah, I’m not entirely sure. Arizona doesn’t change our clocks. Pacific time 12 o’clock will soon become pacific time 1 o’clock, which means I will be able to do an hour later. Which means that we can start at 11 o’clock pacific time without me like busting my butt.

Darren Sumner:
David’s trying.

David Read:
I need my sleep.

Darren Sumner:
With apologies to our Aussies and Kiwi friends.

David Read:
Yeah. Yeah, I feel so bad for them.

Darren Sumner:
Trying to schedule early pacific time so that our friends in Europe have not gone to bed yet.

David Read:
Yep. Sommer I think I’ve answered them all. If you want to wipe those away – and I’m just going to go ahead and wrap it up… if we get any stragglers, I’ll do my best. But Darren, I really appreciate having you on and I think that this is gonna be great.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you. Thank you for letting me be your first guest to help you kind of kick the tires and learn the streaming tech a little bit.

David Read:
Kick the tires and light the fires big daddy.

Darren Sumner:
Uh, yeah. I had a good time. I always have a good time talking to you and we’re gonna have more chances to connect with the Stargate community, with the GateWorld community, and build the new Dial the Gate community from here. Thank you my friend.

David Read:
Thank you.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you for this work. Not just for today but for the work that you’re gonna be doing for all of us over the next months.

David Read:
Absolutely. I do appreciate you taking the time. You take care of yourself and I’ll be talking with you really soon.

Darren Sumner:
Will do.

David Read:
So Darren Sumner creator and owner of GateWorld.net. Sommer [asks,] “When is the Kickstarter? If you wanted to address that.” So the Kickstarter for the Stargate SG-1 role-playing game. The date that I was given – if I can find it here – is going to be – and I just read it off earlier and it’s gone now. October 6th through the 29th is going to be the Kickstarter. That’s gonna be really cool and to have the Stargate guests join us for next Sunday for the roleplay for the gameplay – I can’t, I can’t tell you enough how cool that’s going to be to actually experience that with you guys. So, I want to show you an idea of what the segments are going to be like before – or the episode types are going to be like – before I make the guest announcements. Let me see here – all right. Briefing Room is what we just did – and why is it not playing for me? OK, it’s not gonna play. I don’t know what I did wrong. All right, so the different – sorry guys, welcome to Episode One. Briefing Room is the show that you just watched. It is not a typical interview series. Briefing Room is going to be when we have Darren on and when we have news, announcements. Please, a fourth Stargate series will go there. We’ll have – it’s our news channel, Briefing Room is. Then we have interviews. And interviews are going to be the meat of the shows. Those are going to be like every episode. Pretty much [every episode] that we have is going to be in the interview category. Additionally, to that – and this is still early – fandom. We’re gonna have a fandom segment as well. I’m gonna invite people to come on pre-recorded segments and talk about why they love Stargate, and how it has affected their lives. Sommer, in our chat, will probably be the first. I want her to come on. Stargate has helped her out medically in many ways. She’s the only person I know who is actually prescribed Stargate by her doctor. It actually helped her in her situation. And so her story is a tremendously cool story. So we’re going to have her on as the start of that. And if you think that you would be good to be featured in a segment, contact me at [email protected] and we’re going to start to organize those. But this won’t be for a few months still. I want to bring that up to critical mass. Our social channels on Facebook, Instagram – let me get into that in a second. Off the Grid, a random episode. Like if Dean Devlin wants to come back and do a chat about “Independence Day”, that would be where Off the Grid goes. It deliberately echoes the episode title from Stargate SG-1. Those are them. Briefing Room interviews, Phantom, and Off the Grid. Eventually, hopefully, we’re going to add commentary next year. We have to build an audience first. I’m not going to bring guests on like Martin Wood and Amanda Tapping and Richard Dean Anderson to discuss – to watch “Solitudes” live with y’all and then take questions until we have a few people to watch with. But that’s the intent. I want you to know where we’re going with that. And that’s pretty much it for that. So, artwork. I am so thrilled that we have Stargate fan art and Stargate fans in the community who are willing to share their art with us. This is created by a fan artist by the name of Hito. She is a huge Stargate fan. I saw this on Facebook years ago and I’ve been hanging on to it and I for – I mean as you do – and then I posted this and [asked], “Who’s the artist? I know it says Hito, but I mean does anyone have Hito’s contact information? Because I would love for permission to post this.” And I managed to get in touch with her. I love this piece. And I want to feature more things like this as we as we move forward. If you want to submit your Stargate art to us, you can do so at [email protected]. You’re going to need to be prepared to provide me with a paragraph of why you created this piece and what it means to you and what your intent was in in communicating it. And also, keep in mind the artwork will be posted on our Instagram account after the show airs. We have a Facebook account we have an Instagram account and we have a Twitter account as well. Let me discuss that once again before we go, because that’s pretty important here. If you like what you’ve seen in the episode – and I apologize my stumbling all over myself here because I’m still getting used to this – I would really appreciate it if you click the ‘like’ button, because it makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help with the show and growing its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the ‘subscribe’ icon. If you plan to watch live, I recommend giving the ‘bell’ icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes – which will probably happen all the time. Bear in mind as well, clips from this live show will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Now the clips are designed for people who don’t have time to sit through an entire show. That’s what that intent is. I think that that’s all I have and I really appreciate you guys joining me for this first show. I didn’t expect the audience that we managed to get. Thank you so much to Sommer. One last shout out. One last before I let you go. I have an amazing – absolutely amazing – animator by the name of Brice Ors. He’s designed the animations that you’ve seen so far. I’ve done a few of the live ones, but I mean the Intro and some of this content that you’ve not even seen yet. This man is absolutely amazing. And his name is Brice Ors is he’s French. He’s a part of the Stargate network. They created the interactive – it is a video game but it’s not. It’s kind of like a walkthrough of SGC and Abydos and a few other planets as well. He is absolutely brilliant and he has been helping us to create a lot of the bells and whistles that you’ve been seeing in the show. The backgrounds are his, the Intro is his, the logo design is by Debbie Bell – old Stargate friend and Stargate friend of mine and Stargate fan. Thank you Debbie for the title design. And thank you again Neil for the music. This is the part of the show that I’ve been looking forward to the most, which is to share next week’s guests with you. Here we go! Christopher Judge is going to be joining us Saturday, October the 10th at 1 p.m. pacific time – that’s 4 p.m. eastern. That is subject to change, so do bear that in mind. Check out dialthegate.com at the very least the day before for the current schedule. Joseph Mallozzi will be later on that day, Saturday, October the 10th at 3 p.m. pacific time – that’s 6 p.m. eastern. For Sunday we have Mr. Joe Flanigan. October the 11th at 12 noon and he will be joining us as well. I haven’t talked with Colonel Shepard in a while, so it’s going to be good to talk with him again. And then later on that day the Wyvern gaming team – Brad and Wes at Wyvern – they’re going to be talking to us at 2 o’clock pacific time about the Stargate SG-1 role-playing game that’s in development and the Kickstarter that’s going to be happening October the 6th to the 29th. That is currently next week’s schedule. If it changes, dialthegate.com will have all that information. And that’s all I’ve got for you. Thank you so much for joining me and thank you so much for making this thing become whatever it’s going to be. If you have trivia questions, I hope you’ll be you’re willing to submit them through the form that Darren’s going to be posting. And that’s all I’ve got for you guys. Neal Acree composed the end music to our program and I cannot imagine doing this show without him. It has meant so much to me that he is a part of this process and so I’m going to let Neil take it away. I appreciate you joining us. Sorry about the length of time. We’ll make it shorter next time. And see you on the other side!