Starting off as an assistant to the producers of Stargate SG-1, John G. Lenic worked his way through the ranks to become a full producer and production manager in his own right. He joins us on Dial the Gate for a pre-recorded discussion on his journey through the franchise and shares behind the scenes details you’ve never heard before!

Plus, stick around for something personal from David immediately afterward.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello everyone, my name is David Read. Welcome to Dial the Gate, Episode 312 of The Stargate Oral History Project. I really appreciate you being here for this pre-recorded episode. This is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a really long time. John G. Lenic started off as a producer’s assistant in Stargate SG-1 Season 1. He worked his way through unit production manager and full producer for the different series all the way through Atlantis and Universe. He is a critical player behind the scenes to so much of what got through on screen. There are people who are responsible for budgets and esoteric stuff that we don’t normally think of as audience members in terms of getting a show out, and this guy was one of them. Over the course of the next hour, hour plus, because I have something special at the end after John, you’re gonna get some real interesting glimpses here. I’ve had the fortune of having N. John Smith on, who’s been able to explore some things in great detail, but John Lenic goes even further. He and I go way back, way through production, through Atlantis, and I am thrilled to finally have the opportunity to sit down and talk with him now on Dial the Gate. This was recorded about a month ago, so we’re gonna go back in time and bring him in. John G. Lenic, producer for Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Universe. John, there are few people that I’ve had the privilege of talking to who have had as many hats as you have had to wear throughout this whole production. I know I’ve been dogging you for years to get you on. I’m sure it’s like, “All right, fine. I’ll do it. God, just leave me alone.” Since this is a pre-recorded show and I can bleep myself, I would like to professionally apologize for all of the bullshit that I’ve put you through during Dial the Gate and during Gate World when I was on there. It’s like, “What are they doing now? They did what? OK, I’ll talk to him.” All right.

John G. Lenic:
All good. No, it’s through you and through the fans the show had that it was so successful for so many years. You don’t see that very often, or at least I don’t.

David Read:
There is an alchemy, I think we spoke about this before I turned on the record button, that was circling around this whole production and we were responding to it in the fan base. You were a baby when you really started this; you’re not much older than I am. When you started this production, how old were you? How did you get into it? How did you watch it evolve over the 17 television seasons? What was that like?

John G. Lenic:
It was crazy. Not many shows go for as long as it did. Let me back up. I started on the show as a producer’s assistant and I moved up, I believe, to co-E.P. in the end. It was a phenomenal experience from beginning to end. On a show like this, call it a sci-fi series, call it cheesy, call it whatever you want, when you’re talking to the professional world out there, they kind of look at Stargate like, “What’s that?” Every show was like a mini-feature and we would do huge special effects. We’d have huge insurance claims. Very few shows give you the experience that you have because you’ve handled everything. You’ve handled cast being sick and having to shut down for a day. You’ve handled insurance claim related to film, which you can’t say you do anymore. In the beginning, we shot on 16mm and then changed to 35. That was a crazy time. I have a lot of people to thank for that, obviously, and a lot of people that I really enjoyed working with over the years. As you said, it is about the alchemy of the crew and there was an alchemy there that was amazing. Just seeing it all happen and evolve over the time and develop was fascinating.

David Read:
It’s an interesting slice of time, because not only are you learning your craft throughout this whole thing and helping this thing grow. Also, from 1997 to 2010/2011, the range of transformation in the industry going from super 16 to 35 to experimenting with digital in Season Four a little bit with one episode. Then bringing it on tentatively for Atlantis, but I only recently realized it was not full HD. It was a crunched HD to save some money here and there so that we could squeeze out some more money for effects shots and everything else. Then by the end of it, full-blown Universe. That ship, it’s an extraordinary amount of amazing work from hundreds of amazing people.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely. For Universe specifically, James Robbins developed that ship and it was beautiful and stunning. It was really a pleasure to work on that project. The cast were phenomenal and it was a great experience.

David Read:
Every one of these shows had their own little personalities and quirks and everything else. I’m curious, when you started, how old were you? Were you an assistant to specific producers? Did they pass you around?

John G. Lenic:
Let me use my calculator to figure out how old I was.

David Read:
You’re a numbers man!

John G. Lenic:
Exactly.

David Read:
Oh my god, he’s got a calculator on him. Everyone’s got a phone.

John G. Lenic:
I think I was 22.

David Read:
Did you come out of film school? What was your background beforehand?

John G. Lenic:
I went to film school at Vancouver Film School. I finished that and a local producer came and scouted my parents’ house for a movie, a Canadian feature film called Whale Music. It was starring Maury Chaykin and Paul Gross way back then. They came to scout and I was there and I asked the producer, and he asked me if I wanted to be in the business. I said, “Absolutely.” He invited me to lunch, I went to lunch and I never left his office. I worked in his office for free for the first while and then when Whale Music was green-lit and starting to be made, they asked me to be one of the producers’ assistants. I said, “Sure.” They said, “Well, we only have $500 in the budget a week and there’s three or four of you. Would you be wanting to split the money or do you wanna take the whole check yourself?” I said I’d split the money with them. Three or four of us got hired on Whale Music and I used that to learn. I learned movie magic budgeting on that show because I went and spent time with the production manager to really understand it. He gave me some budgets to take home and play with in the program and figure it out myself. There was a producer in Vancouver who was moving from UPM to producer. Her name is Tracy Jeffrey and she hired me on as her assistant. We did 10 TV movies of the week together over a year and a half, that was phenomenal. On the last one, Ron French was the production manager and he was transitioning over to Stargate SG-1 as the producer, production manager in Season One. At that point in my life, I was like, “This is the biggest show coming to Vancouver. I wanna get on this thing.” I’d willed it into my head that I wanted to do this. When Ron asked me to come and be a producer’s assistant over there, maybe for Michael Greenburg and Richard Dean Anderson, I jumped at the opportunity.

David Read:
You saw the writing on the wall.

John G. Lenic:
I guess, maybe.

David Read:
Are you a sci-fi fan?

John G. Lenic:
I love Star Wars, but I’m not a big Star Trek fan, and I guess I did Altered Carbon as well–

David Read:
Absolutely. Altered Carbon and Mr. Robot. I talked with you a little bit through Mr. Robot. That final season, oh my god. What do you think it was when they scouted the property? What do you think it was that they saw in you? Toot your horn a little bit, John. I know it’s hard. Was it your thing for numbers? Is it that you keep a cool head? Is it that you were willing to work your ass off? What was it that they said, “You know what, let’s give this guy a shot?”

John G. Lenic:
I think it was that I was willing to work my ass off and was good for free and also showed I cared. I think my ability to anticipate and then also how to read a room, very important.

David Read:
You have to read a room. You have to, because there’s a lot of money at play. John Smith and I had this conversation where there is so much on the line and you have to be able to keep your cool. If you can’t, you’re not gonna last; you’re just not gonna make it. That’s wild.

John G. Lenic:
That, I think, is a big asset of mine; knowing how to read a room and also keeping my cool and also dealing with things very frankly. I’m not gonna embellish or undervalue what I’m saying.

David Read:
You were brought in alongside Ron French for Season One of SG-1 as assistant to the executive producers.

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
You’re watching this thing. So, before “Children of the Gods” went to frame one.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right. I started November 4th, 1996.

David Read:
My gosh. What was it like watching this? Had you seen the film?

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
What was it like watching this thing come to life around you, from Richard Hudolin, the carpenters, Mark and Robert Davidson, the painters. You’ve got everyone from Bridget McGuire all the way through Christina McQuarrie. You’re riding this wave. What was that like, watching this thing unfold?

John G. Lenic:
It was amazing. I remember getting on it and being enthralled with what was happening and very into the art department; what they were designing and every aspect of it. Scared of Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright, as one is.

David Read:
Glassner I can understand, but Wright, really?

John G. Lenic:
They were the bosses; they’re the executive producers, they’re the showrunners. That was a phenomenal experience and really dealing with everything was amazing. To back up, I did see the movie. I loved the movie; I love the movie of Stargate. When I heard it was coming, I was like, “Wow, I really wanna get on that.” In sci-fi, as I learned over the years, it’s all about problem solving. In sci-fi, inevitably, you’re gonna be tight to the budget. You’re gonna spend all your dollars designing this, building this world that has to exist, that people have to believe in and that sort of thing. You’re gonna have to solve problems. That’s why I love it; there’s so many layers to it and it’s so challenging from a production standpoint. I love that. Call it a jigsaw puzzle, that’s how I look at it. I really enjoy that and I feed off that. It is the ability to deal with many different people, many different personalities over the years and know how to pivot and address each one. The wave was fantastic. Being with the cast when they first came to Vancouver…

David Read:
SG-1?

John G. Lenic:
SG-1, with Christopher, Michael and Amanda specifically, they were in awe of what was happening. We got to walk the red carpet for the opening of Planet Hollywood in Vancouver. At that time, Planet Hollywood coming to Vancouver, this little town getting a Planet Hollywood and to walk a red carpet the full city block length with all these people was wild. Having that experience, at the time, was, “Whoa, this is crazy.” I remember for the premiere of that first season, I got to fly on the private jet that flew the cast down to Santa Monica, go to the premiere and come back on the private jet. That was amazing. At that time, growing up, my dad was a commercial fisherman and my mom stayed at home with us. Being in the film industry was completely stepping out of the box and the comfort zone of my family and that sort of thing; to be able to do these things that were crazy. How often do you get to ride on a private jet? It was very cool.

David Read:
Did you feel like as you’re walking this tightrope, that you had a net underneath you? Or did you feel like you had no net? The environment that you’re surrounded in, you have a bunch of people who I know for a fact were willing to teach, and eager too.

John G. Lenic:
There’s never a net below me.

David Read:
Really?

John G. Lenic:
I operate like there’s never a net.

David Read:
God. What is your enemy? Is it time? Is it money? Which one do you feel like you go to war with every morning as a producer, being on set?

John G. Lenic:
As a producer I like to put as much in front of the camera as possible, spending the money on things that will be seen on air. It really pains me when crews get entitled and all that kind of thing. That’s annoying and takes it off the screen in my opinion in a lot of ways. What I really struggle with is when you have to go backwards on creative that is so good because you have to meet the budget. The budget in TV is the final arbiter of what you’re able to spend. On Stargate, what I did learn from people like John Smith was how to try and get more in front of the camera as possible. Love it or hate it, we did a lot of tandem units and that sort of thing and it put more money on the screen. That really has helped me further in my career as well, ’cause that’s where you really learn how to get the most on screen and not spend it frivolously, if you will. That is my biggest thing. I wake up every morning thinking about whatever show I’m working on and how tight is the budget gonna be and what do we have to worry about? Building a contingency in because things are always over budget and all that sort of stuff. Also wanting to support if the DP wants to have three cameras because of this, this and this reason. You wanna be able to support those things so that everybody feels good about it, but sometimes you have to make decisions because of the bottom line. That’s when it gets hard because some things fall by the wayside and you constantly think, “Hm, we would have been better with that.”

David Read:
Or when you have planning for three cameras, like in “Vegas” with the drop fall. You know the story I’m talking about?

John G. Lenic:
Yes, I do.

David Read:
Were you there for this?

John G. Lenic:
I was.

David Read:
You wanna tell this anecdote?

John G. Lenic:
There’s a lot of stories from that episode. I think they ran out of film and they hadn’t even jumped off. That was crazy.

David Read:
And no one bothered to say anything.

John G. Lenic:
No.

David Read:
I can’t imagine who it was who had to go into Rob’s office back when we were in Vancouver saying, “Rob, I’m so sorry. Here’s what we have right now.”

John G. Lenic:
That was me, I think. I can’t remember. I got the first phone call, I think, from post going, “We didn’t get the whole fall on this.” I can’t remember how it happened, but that was crazy. I forgot about that one actually. That’s crazy.

David Read:
I was having a conversation with him and you count on people to be straight with you: “Are we good? We good? We got it? We got everything?” I said this to Neil Jackson as well, “If he’s gonna risk his life, guys, at least film it.” Oh, my God. It’s little things like that that you have to deal with. Thank God there were backup cameras.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right, absolutely. There are so many stories like that that I’ve probably forgotten over the years. There are so many amazing stories. So many things, moments in time that I remember from Season One, Season Two, Season Three, Joe, Paul, everything. It’s amazing. That was such a huge part of my growing up in this industry and really learning the ropes, so to speak.

David Read:
What are some of the bigger ones that stand out? Are there any that are percolating as we’re talking? I’m curious to grab one or two if they come into focus.

John G. Lenic:
Nicole Forest and I would have so much fun in the first season working on budgets. That was fun. Julie Waterhouse back in Stargate Universe time was the accountant and we’d have so much fun there too. Julie still, to this day, is practically a sister to me. There are so many moments over the years. The learning moments from Michael Greenburg and Richard Dean Anderson; I learned so much from them in a short period of time. It was crazy.

David Read:
Is this something that we don’t normally think of, especially as Americans down here? Canadian dollars! A lot of them are American productions and you’re working back and forth between the US dollar and the Canadian dollar.

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
I would think that, especially as a budget guy, that’s a big deal in terms of how much extra you’re gonna be able to squeeze out that can get on the screen.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely.

David Read:
Can you tell me about how that process works and what it was like when, later on in the show, my understanding was that because of the change in the markets and everything else, you couldn’t get as much out of the difference as in some of the earlier seasons? If ever I’m wrong, straighten me out.

John G. Lenic:
No, you are right. Right now, for example, the dollar’s at 69 cents. I think on Stargate, we got down to a 62-cent dollar, from what I recall.

David Read:
That sounds right.

John G. Lenic:
Maybe it was around that. That was the lowest I’ve ever seen it and I can’t remember the year or whatever. Now, we’re in a 69-cent dollar. Quite honestly, when I started the show I’m working on now, we had a higher exchange rate and since it’s come down. We put millions of dollars back in front of the camera because of that and that really is the difference in some cases. In those early years of Stargate, they would write big episodes and we would make them. We’d be spending, I wanna say, $150,000 an episode on some of these big, huge sets that we built in Season Three/Four, I think. It was because of the exchange rate; we were able to put so much more in the early ’90s in front of the camera because of that.

David Read:
We, as audience members, don’t even think of that!

John G. Lenic:
No. Absolutely. I can’t even remember the budget. I think we started at 1-7-5-0 per episode, 1,750,000.

David Read:
For everything? That’s from cast to catering?

John G. Lenic:
Yes, per episode in Season One, I think. That’s the number I remember. When we finished Universe, we were at 6,000,000 an episode.

David Read:
Wow.

John G. Lenic:
The difference in the exchange rate was huge. It was low in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

David Read:
It’s interesting because, according to Brad Wright, other things were fixed, for instance, a puddle pass. My understanding is one person going through, not just one shot, so anytime a person went through, if there were four people, it was multiplied. My understanding is one person going through is $5,000.

John G. Lenic:
Yes, absolutely.

David Read:
By the end of production with SGU, one person going through was $5,000.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely. It was crazy.

David Read:
It was better. The quality and the craftsmanship going into each pass was improved so with the same amount of money, you got the improved quality of the shot.

John G. Lenic:
Correct. Absolutely. There were so many things like that. Jump to the end of it all, when we had to liquidate everything and we hired an auction house, that was just gut wrenching.

David Read:
I was right there.

John G. Lenic:
To have to get rid of all that stuff, it was so much stuff that another show could easily use, but to see it all go at fractions of the price and everything. There were spacesuits that we built for the last season or one of the movies.

David Read:
“First Contact” and “The Lost Tribe,” it was adapted for Universe.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right.

David Read:
I have one in my living room right now. Joseph Mallozzi said R&D was 100G a suit.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right. They were 50 grand after that to build multiples.

David Read:
Wow.

John G. Lenic:
I kept two of them because they were gonna go for a fraction of that. I probably spent more in storage. A couple of years ago I donated them to the planetarium in Vancouver ’cause I have no need for them.

David Read:
But they’re not gonna get destroyed.

John G. Lenic:
No, exactly. I didn’t want anything to go in the garbage bin.

David Read:
I told this story repeatedly on the channel, I remember going up there, working with you, you were in pre-production on Season Two of Universe. You were moving a number of the Universe sets into, I believe, stage five, which is where SGC was. You opened the door into Stargate Command. I had seen it a few years before, a couple different years, and the only thing that is left is the spiral staircase.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right.

David Read:
My heart sunk. It was like, “Oh my god, it’s gone. This was here for years.” “This was your guys’ identity.” Universe still had a year or two to go, you were still gonna be using that space, but I’ll never forget that experience; that feeling of “it is completely gone.” That’s just the way of these things. They’re here for a little while, use is made of them to put them on celluloid or digital or whatever and then they’re cast away.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right.

David Read:
It’s kind of a remarkable thing to think about. It’s kind of similar to our lives, so what is it that you leave behind?

John G. Lenic:
That’s a good one, it’s interesting. With each show that I do, I guess learning it on Stargate was how I learned it because that was the first. When we got told it was coming to an end, I still remember. We were on an aircraft carrier.

David Read:
Universe?

John G. Lenic:
Yeah.

David Read:
You were on the Carl Vinson.

John G. Lenic:
Yes, that’s where we were, exactly. I remember getting that call and it was, “ugh,” it was like a gut punch. There’s a finality to it and you really see that. I was in charge of liquidating everything and getting rid of it all, et cetera. It’s a challenge. It is a challenge after that many years. There’s emotional investment, there’s your personal investment and there’s your work investment in it. To see it all go away that quickly was a real challenge. Going forward, now I’m much more cold and calloused about it.

David Read:
You have to be.

John G. Lenic:
I’m like, “Turf it out and we’ll deal.” Or, “How long’s it gonna take to put on disk and then let’s get rid of everything else.” That’s what we should do. I had a similar experience recently. I was in Australia doing a show called Metropolis with Sam Esmail and the strikes and everything got us shut down. That was three years of my life. To see all the amazing work that the artists did that we were working with and put together to build, the look of these sets were gonna be amazing and everything. When we got shut down because of the strike, that was another challenge because it was such good work that these people were doing, amazing work, to be honest, that won’t be seen.

David Read:
It’s not gonna be seen at all. It’s one thing if it’s complete through its use.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right.

David Read:
But if it’s not gonna come out at all? Oh, man.

John G. Lenic:
We went against what the studio said and we took the time to put stuff on disk. It was backed up so that it is all recorded and able to be accessed in the future. We were told to get rid of it because we were obviously burning money every day and the studio wanted us to shut down because of the strike. We were told to throw everything in the dumpster and get out of there. That was also a challenge. It’s very few shows that you put in that much of your blood, sweat, and tears and that you care about to do that with, so it’s different. For me, a pilot that you do in two months is “get ‘er done and throw it all in a stage, lock it up and move on.” Whereas when you’re involved in something for so many years of your life, whether it’s Stargate or Metropolis – Metropolis was three years and even Altered Carbon was only 18 months or something like that. Metropolis was a huge part of my life and being as well, to have to part with that was a challenge.

David Read:
Wow. You talked about hanging onto some of the suits from production. Is there anything that you still hung onto from Stargate that’s precious to you? Or are you past that point now where it’s like, “it’s all give to the wind?”

John G. Lenic:
No, I do have the miniature staff weapon that was built for the miniatures.

David Read:
The puppets?

John G. Lenic:
Yeah.

David Read:
That’s great, for “200.”

John G. Lenic:
I have that. That’s the one thing, that’s all I need. I have a few other things, I’m just trying to think of what they are. It’s been a few years, they’re all in a box.

David Read:
Scripts, documents, probably.

John G. Lenic:
No, I did get rid of those at one point when moving and stuff. I have so many photos from that time and going back through those, I have so many memories that way. It’s the staff weapon that I have and I know I have a couple other things, can’t remember what they are.

David Read:
This is the one that was used on screen by the Teal’c puppet?

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
Aw, good. There were some odd things that came out from that production office that we got through Propworx. There was a double-ended staff weapon that never made it to the screen and it wasn’t full size. It was like two thirds. I was like, “Why did they make this? Were they making it for something? Or was it just someone had some time on their hands and they’re like, ‘You know what? Let’s just create this’?” And other things where you have to wonder what’s going on. One of the Furlings had a wraith belt around him, a leaf Jaffa symbol on his head, a knife, and it’s like, “What?” We sold him as that because someone put him together. It’s like, “I don’t know what the story is behind this, but we’re not touching it. We’re putting it out as is.”

John G. Lenic:
No, totally. There were things like the staff. I think somebody thought in a meeting it would be a good idea, but when they saw it practically, they’re like, “See?” That kind of thing. In those early days with the Furlings and that, the Furlings didn’t come back, did they?

David Read:
No, in Season 10 for “200,” that’s the one that I was referring to. You guys built the giant koalas with the little ears that moved.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right.

David Read:
I was talking with Rob, and I’m hoping that you can relate this story from your perspective because you have to sometimes be the bad guy on set. He was telling me about “Unending” and the final night where it was going early into the morning and he said, “We probably went into overtime.” He was talking about, “I was looking at Lenic and he was doing this [tapping his watch].” He ran over on his last day and the last shot of the show is of the team going up the ramp. I think you’re into 1 in the morning at this point. Tell me about that night, would you?

John G. Lenic:
Gee. That was with Ben and Claudia, right?

David Read:
Yeah.

John G. Lenic:
That was a hard night. It was hard finishing that show. There was so much that happened in my life and career from those first 10 years that it brings back a lot of emotion. There were highs and lows and everything in between on that. It was a hard night, I remember it was a challenge. Everybody was emotional. We knew it was coming to an end and we knew there were things on the horizon that were good and movies.

David Read:
There were movies coming, but this is the show ending.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right. It was bittersweet because with that, there were some personalities there that we didn’t really jive with and you’re like, “OK, thank God.” But there’s others that you have spent a lot of time and energy with and really cultivated friendships and relationships that you know you have to say goodbye to for a little bit.

David Read:
Man, I can’t imagine being there for that. Bruce Woloshyn from Rainmaker came down. There were apparently people from production who pretty much never came to set who were here for that final pass.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely.

David Read:
I can’t imagine.

John G. Lenic:
It was coming to an end on the show that started it all, or the TV part of it that started it all. There was a feeling of a conclusion to it, which was nice, but also a feeling of you didn’t know if you’d have the same success going forward.

David Read:
That’s true, too. Everyone’s personalities are a little different. The artistry, the creative, the core people who are making the show from top down, you guys really set the tone. You can’t assume anything going forward. Universe was canceled right when it was getting good, as an audience member.

John G. Lenic:
I agree.

David Read:
I’m curious what you think about this because when you started off, you were guaranteed four seasons and then a fifth pretty quickly after that.

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
That, I imagine, you’ve never seen since.

John G. Lenic:
No.

David Read:
In terms of having the creative expectation that “we do have this runway built out, let’s play in this.” Rather than season after season after season. Except with Universe, you were guaranteed two out of the gate, but no one knew about that.

John G. Lenic:
No, exactly. It’s been interesting. Every sci-fi series I start, I’m like, “Do you guys wanna buy two seasons off the top? You’d have more money to amortize things over so you could build these sets, amortize it over two seasons and put more on screen.” Nobody wants to do that these days. It’s a challenge because you have these amazing IPs to world-build and to build worlds from scratch that look completely different than your world. Stargate, at least, was tied to Earth. Everything, you could believe, was brought from Earth in modern day. When you’re building a civilization from scratch, you have to assume there’s nothing from Earth just because they have their own widgets and gadgets and knives and blah, blah, blah, blah. They maybe look similar, but have they followed the same progression? You have to think about all that; the world-building aspect is the most costly. You have to think about everything that you come in contact with, we take for granted. Whether it be a glass, a spoon, a knife, a whatever, it has to be redesigned or rethought. How is it gonna develop in this world that may be on the surface 500 years, either ahead or behind us? Who knows.

David Read:
We have to be able to recognize it, but you can’t pull anything from Home Depot or Lowe’s or any kind of home improvement store. If you do, you have to fully redesign it to mask it.

John G. Lenic:
That’s right. That is really one of the biggest things. That was what was so great about Stargate, because in the first one, we could tie to Earth. Going forward from that, having it tied to Earth is a big, huge help. The Universe ship was not tied to Earth so that was a huge cost to build that.

David Read:
James Robbins said you built with steel.

John G. Lenic:
Yeah, we did. It was amazing. That set really was phenomenal, I have to say, in every way, shape, and form.

David Read:
Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell me, through the main chunk of your run for production, maybe it was all the way up till the end the same, how you would tackle a script? When you’re looking at an episode, can you tell me your arc, your involvement in it, from beginning to end, in terms of what your influence would be in production? Where were you through the majority of the time on Stargate, in terms of the production of an episode? What were your chief responsibilities and what was your hand in it? You kind of alluded to it.

John G. Lenic:
Everything from soup to nuts almost in the early seasons. I take a script, I read it, and then my immediate reaction is to want to break it down into a one-liner to see how it schedules out. I do that process which gets my head more into the script, into the details of it, and I know logistically how it’s gonna be tackled. You look at it in a one-liner, you can see where your holes are, schedule-wise, at least. “OK, there’s only two pages in this one location that is not near anything else that we need. Is there any way that we can either change that or adapt it or those sorts of things?” At that point, I take it to the executive producers and I say, “OK, all of this looks good.” Or, “Is there any way we can maneuver certain things around to make them fit a little bit nicer?” They would say, “Yes,” and you get into that dialogue about, “Instead of being in a gravel pit, can it be in a X?” I can’t think of it right now.

David Read:
You know your region in terms of what’s available, I would imagine.

John G. Lenic:
Exactly, and what’s going on.

David Read:
If you’re gonna have to go out on location, are you relatively accurate in terms of estimating the amount of time it takes to get through a page, the budget based on what it is that they’re looking for? I would imagine that all comes into it.

John G. Lenic:
Totally. Yes. Usually once you work with people on a show, you get a sense of their cadence and you can understand, depending on the director or this person, that person, what they’re able to accomplish in a day. Peter DeLuise, you’d know you could easily do a seven-page day and not have…

David Read:
He said nine.

John G. Lenic:
Yes, I’m being generous. He sometimes did nine, ten pages, and we’d all be like, “Oh my God, is he gonna make it through it?” He did, he was amazing at that. Sometimes you get directors that you’re like, “No, we’d be lucky if we get through two pages.” That’s the variable that you can’t control. If you are working with a director day in, day out, or the same group like Andy Mikita and all that kind of thing, I knew how they would look at it. “This will fit with this” or “this won’t fit with that.”

David Read:
Vancouver rains a lot. Would you try to push locations earlier in production for an episode? Am I right it was a seven-day shoot or eight-day shoot for episodes typically?

John G. Lenic:
Yeah, it was seven days, it was seven and a half days, it was eight days, it was six days. Depends on the season.

David Read:
Would you try to shoot location footage earlier in the episode so that if God did decide to dump it on you, you guys could move that around later on? What was the perspective?

John G. Lenic:
Yeah, we would look at locations and go, “OK, when do we think this can happen?” Honestly, when you’re shooting shows in a few days, it’s a bit of a crapshoot in Vancouver. There were times where we would do locations early on because we knew that the weather would turn on us down the road if we left it too long. There were locations where it didn’t matter because we knew that the weather would be similar. We always went to camera in February, so if you’re shooting in February, March, it doesn’t matter. If there’s a snowstorm coming on the horizon or there’s even talk of that, you’re gonna try and do stuff up front so you don’t hit that.

David Read:
That makes a lot of sense. There were the occasional episodes that were square peg in round hole in terms of your production, I’m thinking “Heroes.” This was a show where a lot of it was shot over the course of months; you could get some here, you could get some there. Most of it’s on the base. It allowed Rob the time to turn what I believe was a good 55 minute script into two hours from that. Were there just episodes in that kind of situation, that rare situation, where you just got here and there and, “OK, Rick’s here on this date. Let’s get this shot.”

John G. Lenic:
Yeah, there was a lot of that. In later seasons, we did tandem episodes or tandem days. I remember there was the day and the week where we were shooting Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and every day we had main unit running and every day we had second unit running, doing a different episode of a different show. It was, “Who’s on first? What’s on second?” Laurel and Hardy did it and it was crazy. That time that we did SG-1 and Atlantis overlapping each other, we would shoot the seasons at the same time, in parallel, out of the same office, out of basically the same prepping crew and different shooting crews. You couldn’t have a meeting in the room while they were having a meeting in the room, or while they were in the boardroom having a concept meeting or production meeting. It was a big pain in the butt. It was a challenge because you’d constantly have to think about what the other show was doing and where they were and this and that and could they, would they, be willing to shift to accommodate this or that? That was really hard work.

David Read:
My understanding is that Atlantis could not have looked as good as it did without sharing the SG-1 assets, especially behind the camera.

John G. Lenic:
100%. It did capitalize on the fact that we had such a strong base for SG-1 and such a strong groundwork. We had our own warehouse of assets and set dec and everything and all that could be repurposed over that many seasons. I think it was Season Eight? We had eight seasons of Stargate SG-1 before Atlantis?

David Read:
That’s right.

John G. Lenic:
That was eight years of stuff that you could reuse and you could repurpose at times.

David Read:
Man. It’s a wild thing to think about the amount of content that was generated from the number of people who came through. What were your longest days and did you ever think, “I don’t know if I can do this next year. This has been great, but I don’t know, man. This is really pushing it?”

John G. Lenic:
No, I never thought that. The last part.

David Read:
“I was made for this!”

John G. Lenic:
I thought that on subsequent shows, not that one. Never thought that on that one. It was such a great experience and I felt the respect and the love and I felt great. It was wonderful. What was the first part of that question?

David Read:
What were some of your longest days?

John G. Lenic:
The longest day was on episode 100 with Martin Wood and he went over nine hours. There’s a law in BC where you can’t shoot over nine hours without a rest or else you have to pay the crew meal penalty and all this stuff. It was insane. I had to pull the plug on him in the middle of a take, when the zombies were coming up the ramp or down the ramp or whatever.

David Read:
So, this is “200?”

John G. Lenic:
Sorry, episode “200.”

David Read:
No! The scene with Mitchell in the gate room.

John G. Lenic:
Yes. That was, “No, you’ve gotta go home. Cut, that’s it.” That was the first time I remember having to do the proverbial plug pull very vocally and send everybody home.

David Read:
Wow. So you avoided the consequences of that?

John G. Lenic:
No, we had to pay the crew.

David Read:
You did? So it’s not like “OK, we’re in it. Let’s keep on going.” There’s no option for that?

John G. Lenic:
No. That day had a $50,000 overage, for that day alone.

David Read:
Wow. That episode, though!

John G. Lenic:
It was one of the best episodes. It was awesome.

David Read:
And you were in it, in the wedding episode.

John G. Lenic:
Yes.

David Read:
When you get to 200 shows … what I have understood from what people have said was that every department was firing on every single cylinder to make every one of these segments extraordinary. Everyone was so thrilled to be doing it because they recognized that, “We’re firmly in bonus territory now in terms of what a typical show gets to do. We’re gonna have a great time at this.”

John G. Lenic:
Yes, absolutely. There’s a sense of pride when you get to that many episodes. There’s a sense of pride, a sense of hope, a sense of accomplishment. It’s something everybody has in every department; that they’re on something that is gonna become a part of history. How many shows get to that point? Being proud of the fact that it had such a fan base. At that time, it was, I think, huge. We’d have people outside the gate, standing and waiting to get a glimpse of things. It’s amazing to have that kind of feeling and that kind of sense of, “We’re doing something that means something.”

David Read:
When you have a character like Carson Beckett, Paul McGillion – “Sunday” continues to be my favorite episode of Atlantis, Martin Gero’s episode – gets knocked off and you have fans hire a bagpipe band to come to the gates, to share this overwhelming amount of love and support for a character from a fictional TV show. It’s mind-blowing.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely. It goes, “Whoa. OK.” I think now, I look back on it, I probably didn’t think this then, but it’s amazing how much that show affected so many people and how it brought so many people together and how it continues, even through conventions now. It brings people together. There are very few shows that do that, even now. Think of shows that go for 13 seasons or 10 seasons and have two spinoffs. It’s few and far between.

David Read:
No one gets that now.

John G. Lenic:
No.

David Read:
You may get a 10 to 15 episode run, looking at a show like Severance, or that smaller level sci-fi in terms of production budget, but it doesn’t happen. Even Lord of the Rings with its however many billions of dollars amortized over five seasons. Wow, that is extraordinary. These things don’t happen anymore.

John G. Lenic:
No, they don’t. I was really proud of that and I don’t think I was that proud back then. Now, being in this industry longer, you realize that really was a special thing.

David Read:
Stargate Universe comes along, Atlantis has ended, Syfy has canceled it. I think that had the Wraith story been wound down, fans would have probably responded to the end of Atlantis differently. We’re also drunk on the fact that SG-1 got 10 seasons. We’d like another one of those, please. Do you remember what it was like seeing that response from the community in prepping for Stargate Universe? What were your feelings about that then? Were you just keeping your head down doing the work?

John G. Lenic:
I was keeping my head down. I wasn’t personally as big of a fan of Atlantis. For me, it was too sci-fi, if that makes sense. It was too much, whereas at least SG-1 was tied to Earth and I liked that, I enjoyed that. It had some Earth-based episodes, which I loved. I loved those the most because, for me, it tied the sci-fi elements into Earth. I enjoyed that. I was reading the scripts for Universe and I love the characters in it and I love the character drama that it was. It really was more like Battlestar Galactica with the characters in that, I did love Battlestar Galactica as well.

David Read:
And Firefly.

John G. Lenic:
Yes, absolutely. I really loved the characters that were being put together for Universe, so I was really head down, really focusing on that. Yes, Atlantis came to an end. I wasn’t one of the ones that was sad about that.

David Read:
It’s interesting. I’m gonna level with you, John. I have probably more communication with the Atlantis cast than anybody, but in terms of what the work is, it’s my least favorite of the three, largely because it did not have a Daniel. It did not have someone to say, “Hey, whoa. Should we really kill those humanoid replicators? Is this really the right thing to do?” I think it lacked that voice in that regard and that’s all that I’m gonna say about that. I still love the show. When Universe comes along, it’s clear to me, and maybe you can shine a little bit more of some perspective on this, that everyone’s dialing it up to 11 in terms of production. “We know what we’re doing with this now.” Bridget McGuire said you could’ve built stuff for NASA with that production team; with the tools that you guys had accumulated behind the scenes to create this stuff. Your in-house digital effects team, Mark Savela, when “Air” comes out, I’m watching this, “This is a completely different show. This feels like it’s happening.” It doesn’t feel like a sci-fi action Indiana Jones romp in space. I believe that this could be occurring. Did you get that feeling as well? How much do you think the learning and the exploration of tools and building things and resources brought everyone up to, “OK, we really have this down now?” Not that it wasn’t before, but by the time that Universe came along, everyone knew exactly what it was they were doing and just dialed it up even further.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely. Everybody tried to strive for bigger and better and really put this new show in a place where it was gonna be successful, whether that be with all the piping in the ship that Mark Davidson and all those guys put together. That was amazing. Everybody did dial it up because they were proving themselves, reproving themselves, if you will. Stargate’s over and now this is a new show and we have to prove ourselves. We can’t let it fail in any way, shape, or form and we have to be on for all of it.”

David Read:
Walking onto that set was like walking into Jules Verne. I got lost.

John G. Lenic:
I don’t blame you.

David Read:
It was like the Nautilus; it was like one of his books had come to life. The grates that you would have for the dry ice and the natural lighting. James Robbins just went to town.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely. He did a spectacular job on that. That set is something that I’ll always be proud of ’cause it was something that you don’t get to do very often. Even on a show like Metropolis, building sets is so costly these days. Having that ability to build that kind of scope and know you could possibly amortize it over two years was huge because you would have no way of doing that with a single-season budget these days. You’d probably have enough to build a gate room and maybe some of that and you’d have to add on into it the following season and then keep going and that sort of thing. To be able to do that off the top was amazing.

David Read:
When you moved into Season Two, the bridge was built on stage five. I think the shuttle was brought over, I think it was upstairs so that you could do the thing with the door. Having a door that would go into the ground and saying, “OK, we’re at the top of the ship now.” Little things like that were extraordinary to behold. As an audience member, again, we’re not thinking about that kind of thing, but hearing behind-the-scenes stories behind that! You’re right, doors always go sideways or up. What was that last season like? Was it more of bringing the A game and doing the next thing? Were there any memories that stood out?

John G. Lenic:
The cast was awesome. They were so much fun. Robert Carlyle was amazing. Just seeing him emote and act the way he does was phenomenal to be around that presence. All the other actors, because of that, brought their A game every single day. Louis Ferreira, who’s still one of my closest friends, he and Bobby would set the tone and really, if any of the actors stepped outta line, they’d haul them back in. That was so great. It was amazing to have that from the top down and everybody cared so much on that show about everything, every element of it. That was inspiring to see that group work together and really do that. Every one of them, Jamil, David, Elyse, phenomenal.

David Read:
Did you work with Joel at all? Joel Goldsmith?

John G. Lenic:
Yes. I went down with Brad to the orchestrations and all the recordings just north of Seattle when we did the two movies. That was an amazing experience with him and the way he would orchestrate and write. I learned so much about sound and music and what goes into a score at that time. It was phenomenal to watch. The way he would write the notes down on the piece of paper and then they’d play that and then he wouldn’t like it. He’d do a little change of that and he’d give it out. It was phenomenal. It was amazing to watch.

David Read:
I can’t watch the last 15 minutes of Universe without… I have a physical reaction to the end of that show because of that piece of music that he wrote. I think that it is the finest piece of music that he did. When you were doing “Gauntlet” was there a “this could be it?” Was there a finality to that? Andy Mikita said something similar when they were editing. He was like, “This, it may not be, but I think this may be.” Was there any of that feeling? What do you think about that particular piece of music? I’m curious.

John G. Lenic:
We had a sense that potentially could be it. I think we kept moving time slots, or there was a whole shuffle there. That’s when wrestling went on Friday nights and we moved back to Tuesdays or something like that, I can’t remember. Based on that and based on seeing the way we were moved around, we all thought that this could be it. There was a sense of dread, if you will. Obviously not knowing for sure, there was always a “This could be it.” I remember, even shooting that, with Brian and Elyse and everything, everybody had a sense that this could be it. “We’re hoping it’s not, but let’s see.” It was a challenge. The music is phenomenal. It really is. Joel was phenomenal. I can’t say anything else. That piece of music was awesome.

David Read:
I was lucky to meet him a couple of times. We talked a little bit. It’s one of those regrets of mine because we had exchanged words. He had called me to make some edits on an interview that I had done where I was sloppy. He was saying, “Hey, just do this, do this, do this.” I was like, “Oh, shit, OK, OK. Do it right.” By the time Universe came along, I didn’t ask him to come on for an interview because I was butt-hurt that I, as a 22-year-old reporter, couldn’t get my shit together and get names right in an article. Then he died and I never got the opportunity to tell him that his music from Universe was the best that he had ever done. I carry that with me to this day and it’s one of those things where it’s like, “Please God, someone release it.” Reach out to his wife. Rick Chaddock is gone. If there’s anything that I could do within my power to get that music out, I will do it. There was no one like him, maybe his dad.

John G. Lenic:
I know. I agree with you 100%. It was amazing to see him work and his process was amazing. I can still hear his voice on the phone.

David Read:
Do you have any memories of Don?

John G. Lenic:
Don Davis, absolutely. He was just a pleasure. He was awesome. Every time, “John,” he’d come in and he’d sit down and he’d kick the shit with you.

David Read:
Talk about a voice.

John G. Lenic:
He was a real salt-of-the-earth person. He cared and he was amazing. When he died, it was tragic. There’s very few people you remember the place and where you were and all that kind of thing, and he’s one of them. He was such an amazing human.

David Read:
That Ozark bass voice! Whoever had the idea to name the ship after him, he would’ve been so thrilled. That was a great, great nod. He’s one of those people that those of us who had the privilege of knowing him and being able to watch his work and see his artistry and carving and painting and everything else, we were all made fuller by his presence. I think that it’s folks like Don, folks like Joel, Carmen Argenziano, Cliff Simon, Willie Garson, Louis Gossett Jr. Louis Gossett Junior! My God, how do you get this guy?

John G. Lenic:
That was amazing. I grew up with him and I remember when he was hired on the show, it was like, “That’s amazing.” Then I remember going, “Wait, how old is he?” At that time, I think he was 72 and our insurance, there was a special thing we had to do with anybody over 70. I went through the process; we had to get a doctor to fill out his stuff and everything. I remember him coming up and I’m just like, “Please don’t die. Please don’t die on our show.”

David Read:
Stay well.

John G. Lenic:
Exactly. Thank God, it was all great. As soon as I saw him, he looked to be in great condition and all that so that was great. It was amazing.

David Read:
Do you remember the other story about that?

John G. Lenic:
No.

David Read:
Christopher Judge told me this. You’re filming him, it’s in the morning. I think this is his second or third episode back, he’s in his robes and they’re doing the council meeting. He has the big speech and Christopher said, I forget exactly what it was, but Lou said, “OK, I’m done. I’m gonna be in my trailer.” I forget who was directing, but someone was like, “Does he think we’re done?” Christopher was like, “Well, Lou is done for the day.” It was like, “Well, then we’re gonna have to move some pieces around. This is Lou Gossett Jr. We’re thrilled to have this guy. If this is his expectation, in terms of the amount of time that he’s on set, we’re gonna move heaven and earth to make it work, if it’s reasonable.” It’s little things like that that you as a producer are like, “OK, what can we jigsaw in here to make this work?” Because there’s always something.

John G. Lenic:
Absolutely, there is always something and you’re always trying to think of how to solve the problem.

David Read:
Wow. Before I let you go, the last thing I really wanna ask is, you mentioned Louis. I’ve talked a little bit beforehand about what Brian Smith and more have said. Who do you take with you from this production who are still firmly a part of your life, even if it’s just a text here and there? Who do you feel the most thankful to in terms of the production? You’re never gonna be outta work, John. What it is that you are expected to do for productions is not an easy thing to do. Not everyone can do it, the amount of pressure and everything else. Who do you owe your thanks for the most, for giving you the opportunity to show that you could do this over the years?

John G. Lenic:
Ron French for bringing me into the show, firstly. Michael Greenburg and Richard Dean Anderson for giving me a shot and ’cause I fucked up a couple times the first season. They were like, “Just learn from this and move on.”

David Read:
“Are you gonna learn from it?”

John G. Lenic:
Totally, 100%. To this day. Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright for really supporting me in those first couple years. Then Brad Wright and Robert Cooper after that for every other season and beyond, and for Universe, and giving me the opportunity to produce. I was a producer before I was age 30. I owe them almost everything. I’m thankful for John Smith and Kandis Armstrong in the first season for really taking me under their wing and showing me. They could have easily shipped me out the door as well. That was fantastic, it was a great feeling. To this day, I still keep in contact with most of them. Brad Wright and I had dinner in Toronto a few weeks ago, I talk to Amanda every couple months. We see each other. Our kids really look up to Amanda and her daughter, Olivia. Rob Cooper, Andy, and Kandis as well. That was such a special time in all of our lives in that we all grew in certain ways together.

David Read:
It’s not really fair that I pinned you into a situation, now that I’m thinking about it. “Name everybody, John.” You can’t do it. That’s not fair, so I apologize for that.

John G. Lenic:
To this day, I’m still in touch with everybody; a lot of the cast from Universe, Brian and Louis specifically.

David Read:
Brian is extraordinary. The talent behind that guy is just… I’ve been trying to get a screener copy of his film. These people will never be out of work. They are so good at what they do in their craft that they have so much to give and share. We, as audience members, really have something exciting always coming out if you watch one of these people. This has been a thrill for me, John. I really appreciate you coming on and sitting down and talking with me. It means the world to me to finally be able to sit down and talk with you and get your perspective on these things. I hope you had a good time.

John G. Lenic:
I did, absolutely. It’s been great. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking me down memory lane, so much of that I had forgotten about.

David Read:
John G. Lenic, Stargate producer. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did recording it. My tremendous thanks to Robert C. Cooper for finally convincing John to come on. I’ve been trying to get him on for a few years now and he finally agreed. I really appreciate it, man. The stories that he shared, his unique perspective, thoughtfulness and his willingness to explore some of the more esoteric things. On Dial the Gate, when you get to episode 312, come on, we’ve dialed in a lot of stuff. We can go meandering through the weeds sometimes on this program and he gave that in spades. Again, thank you, John, so much for coming on and sharing so many behind-the-scenes stories with us. We’ve got a big season heading your way this year with a lot of folks in front of and behind the camera and a lot of creativity from fans as well. I really hope that you’re enjoying the content that we’re putting out week after week. We have no control over when Stargate comes back. MGM and Amazon, they’re gonna do something at some point. It could be tomorrow, it could be years from now, it could go either way. Our job is not to ask when they’re gonna be doing this, what their decisions are. I can certainly ask those questions on behalf of all of you. When it comes right down to it, we really have to keep the spirit of the show burning; we have to keep the candle burning. We share the stories from production before and if they choose to do another one, that’s gonna be awesome. Until then, there are plenty of stories from production to share; from the beginning of SG-1 all through the end of Universe. We’re gonna keep on trucking. If you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, click the Like button. It does make a difference with YouTube and will continue to help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. Clips from this episode will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. I’ve been off for a couple of weeks. What you’re watching right now, the day that this aired, is the end of the second week that I’ve been away taking care of some personal things and hanging out with some people that I care about. I don’t usually talk about my personal life on the show very much, pretty much never. There isn’t a ton to say: I don’t have a spouse; I don’t have kids. If I did have a kid, or at least a little brother, it would be this one. This is Ethan. I’ve known him since he was four years old and I’ve watched him grow up into an amazing young man. He’s 19 years old now and he is a regular chip off the old block like his dad. He’s a snare drummer. His dad’s also a drummer and every time I turn around, he’s in a new group working on a new set. I would like to share something with you that I got to see firsthand over the last several days with his team putting together for a world-class percussion final where they placed recently. I’ll fill you in on a little bit of that after the fact. The program that you’re about to watch took six months for them to develop. It’s called From the Bottom, that’s its name, From the Bottom, and his dad calls it percussion theater. If you were in Color Guard, you know what this is. If you were part of that program or if you have kids now, you’re probably aware of this, otherwise, maybe not. I can guarantee you; it will be the coolest thing you will see all day, even cooler than John G. Lenic. I got to see these guys perform up close, rehearsing this time and again and then going into finals and placing repeatedly, besting their score from their previous day’s event. It’s the same performance again and again and what I ended up getting with my iPhone was three angles of rehearsals. I decided to put them together into this edit that I’ve made and show off Ethan. I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed seeing this thing performed in person. This never got old. Take a look at From the Bottom. That’s Tyrus yelling at the end there, he always does that. What you saw took six months to create with 45 performers and every time they performed this weekend at their national championship, they gained over their previous points and ended up placing ultimately seventh at the top end. It’s quite an impressive feat. Not a lot of people can do what you just saw. Ethan’s only been drumming for the past couple of years, if you can believe it or not. I wanted to record the live event, but they say, “No cameras.” It’s like a moth to flame for a video producer. Tell me, “No cameras? Oh, that’s interesting. Click.” That’s why I wanted to share the rehearsals. It’s pretty remarkable what they’ve managed to put together for such a show. On top of that, Ethan’s dad experienced a pretty major tragedy about a week before what you just saw and Ethan went out and did that anyway. He performed and he was brilliant. It meant a lot to me to be able to be there to see them all execute this and see him fulfill something that he’s been working on for a really long time. The kid’s tough as nails; he’s a brilliant performer and I’m really glad that I have him in my life. Thanks so much to my moderating team; I can’t get this done without you guys – maybe the prerecorded shows like this one. Antony, Jeremy, Marcia, Sommer, Tracy, Raj, Lockwatcher, Kevin, you guys make this show possible week in and week out. My producer, Linda “GateGabber” Fury, Kevin Weaver, thank you guys. Thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb for keeping dialthegate.com up and running. At some point here in the near future we’re gonna have a new version of the website, we’re gonna see how that’s gonna go. We have an enormous slate of content. Currently 17 are scheduled for the next month on the website that I’m really excited to get to, most of them are live shows. We’re just gonna be chugging through them one after the other, so keep it right here on Dial the Gate as we move through this content and share some brand-new, old Stargate stories from content that we all cherish and love. I think that’s all that I’ve got, everything looks good on my end. We’re gonna wrap this up and go over to Peter Bodnarus who was the art director for two seasons of SG-1 and two seasons of Atlantis. We’re only gonna cover the SG-1 episodes because we ran long, so we’re gonna save the Atlantis stuff for later. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in and I will see you on the other side.