David has never been shy about Stargate SG-1’s “Cor-ai” being his favorite Teal’c episode. We are privileged to sit down LIVE with the writer behind the show to discuss his original idea for the episode and how it ultimately evolved.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:30 – Opening Credits
1:03 – Welcome
1:15 – Guest Introduction
1:39 – Tom’s Writing Background
6:40 – The 1988 WGA Strike
10:19 – SG-1 Had Episodes to Fill
12:08 – Creating “Cor-ai”
17:32 – General Hammond
21:46 – Hanno
25:54 – Differences Between Script and Screen
29:40 – Jack Fears the Worst
32:11 – Don’s Strongest Performance To-Date
32:50 – The Goa’uld Arrival — Contrivance?
36:06 – Hanno’s Mercy
37:57 – Deleted Hospital Scene
41:41 – The Byrsa Were Once Advanced
44:03 – The Byrsa and Star Trek’s Ba’ku
44:33 – Shak’l Returns
46:20 – Teal’c: Convenient Good Guy?
47:49 – Teal’c’s Scene with Tomin in Ark of Truth
48:33 – Writing for Mackenzie Phillips in So Weird
49:21 – Why Tom Never Wrote for Stargate Again
52:30 – Why David Loves “Cor-ai”
53:30 – Thank You, Tom!
54:08 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
55:04 – End Credits
***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Welcome to Episode 267 of Dial the Gate – The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. I appreciate you being with me here today to welcome writer Tom Astle, who wrote “Cor-ai,” which is my favorite Teal’c episode of the entire franchise. And probably Tom, it’s in my top five episodes of SG-1. So it is a real pleasure to have you, sir. How you doing?

Tom J. Astle:
I’m well and thank you. That’s very nice to hear.

David Read:
So you are in Southern California and tell me a little bit about your background as a writer and, you know, and as a photographer – we talked a little bit about that over email. Tell me a little bit about you.

Tom J. Astle:
OK. Well, I actually, despite what IMDb has always said, and I’ve never been able to correct it, was not born in Sherman Oaks, California, but in Billings, Montana. Trying to correct yourself on IMDb is a Sisyphean task. I will just put it that way. But in any case, I was born in Billings and growing up, I didn’t know that the job of a screenwriter, television producer, whatever existed. I mean, you know, I went to the movies like anybody else and watched TV and… You know, but I came from a family that was a storytelling family. I mean, all humans are storytellers, but my family was, you know, we have these Sunday dinners and everybody would just tell the same stories over and over again, which is, I think, a common family trait in many places. But nobody was really listening to anybody else. You’re just waiting for the other person to stop so you can say the thing that you want to say. But it was pretty raucous and fun and I always liked that. And then I grew up and eventually found that you could do that for a living. When you’re in a good writer’s room, it is like a great dinner party that you get paid for. When you’re in a bad writer’s room, it’s like being on two cross-country flights in a row with a whole bunch of people who are sick. So it can be either way, but I’ve been very lucky. I started out as a chemical engineer… I was a chemical engineering major at Montana State, and then I transferred to Northwestern after my freshman year and became a film major. And I did it because it was something I didn’t really know anything about, but I always thought it would marry kind of art and science in a way that I hadn’t really considered before. I was kind of a science kid. I liked biology. I still do like biology. The photography side of things is… I’m a macro photographer. I take pictures of insects and tiny creatures. And so that’s sort of my kind of… whatever is less than a job and more than a hobby is what I do a lot of. But separately from that, I majored in film at NU, and I just kind of got into movies and TV that way. I was always a reader. I always liked writing. And then after college, I ended up in Southern California couch surfing a little bit. And then, you know, after my wife and I were married, I worked… first gig was… I worked as a runner – basically a gopher PA, but you know, PA makes it sound better than it was – for a company… a guy who is a film producer who was making a movie about the Hells Angels. And he had all this found footage. The Hell’s Angels had started to do kind of their own home movie. And then the footage never went anywhere. So he shot some new stuff and re-edited it and eventually got released as this film called “Hell’s Angels Forever.” So I, you know, my first job at show business was like picking up Hell’s Angels at the airport and taking them, you know, into town and for things. It was just strange, you know, “What, and quit show business?” kind of job. But I had, I had… there’s… you know, I could tell a lot of stories from that, but I won’t.

David Read:
I can only imagine the conversations.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah. No, let’s just say that the producer, who was a pretty good filmmaker, but he had all this money that he had gotten, you know, from a limited partnership to kind of fund what he was doing. And he quickly blew through it because: cocaine, and…

David Read:
Because cocaine.

Tom J. Astle
And so.. it was the 1980’s. And so… I got a quick education in a side of Hollywood that is kind of strange. But, you know, my first paycheck bounced.

David Read:
God. Come on!

Tom J. Astle:
He never he never bounced a check to the Hell’s Angels. So he was, at least, you know, that savvy. But in any case, and then I worked for Canon Films for – after that – for a little while. Canon is famous for the, you know, American ninja movies and the Chuck Norris stuff and the break in “Electric Boogaloo” movie, and things like that. And I did the credits for all their films. I’m not a lawyer. They would just hand me the piles of contracts and say, “Make sure we are not breaking any laws.” And so, you know, I would make sure that everything was contractual and with the guilds – I had to learn the guild rules for the Writer’s Guild, Director’s Guild, the SAG and stuff like that. And I literally did all the credits for the… advertising, front and end credits. And finally, I quit that and just tried to write. It took a while. My wife supported us and I wrote spec scripts and eventually I sold a freelance script to the new Twilight Zone. And that was my first episode. I turned it in – I’ll tell this very quick story…

David Read:
Yeah.

Tom J. Astle
Before we get to the… because you said an hour, but I could do this for a really long time. My very first episode of television that I ever sold – the one that I used to join the Writer’s Guild – was this episode of the new Twilight Zone. As I was writing the script and finishing it over a weekend, the Writer’s Guild called a strike to start Monday morning at 9 o’clock. So I finished the episode on Sunday. And on Monday morning, I drove to Hollywood to the production office at 8AM. They weren’t open yet. There was nobody there. There was probably no reason to go in that day, frankly. And I wrote a note on the cover that said, “I am turning this in at 8AM. The strike does not start till nine so you can use it.”

David Read:
That’s correct.

Tom J. Astle
And I literally slid it out of the door, and then I went and picket it for my… and so it was kind of a momentum killer, I will say at that point. But it to this day remains my least rewritten piece of television or film because they couldn’t change it. So they shot it in Canada. It had Colleen Dewhurst in it. And, you know, it was kind of thrilling for me. Then after that strike was over, I went along. I will say, just to segue into the Stargate of it all, that that episode of Twilight Zone that I sold is emblematic of a way a lot of people – writers – could get into TV that is, I think, not really… it’s not common and it’s almost unheard of today, which is the freelance episode. Back then, the Writers Guild band-aided or highly suggested that if you had a television series in a long enough order that you were to hire at least one or two – I don’t remember what the number may have just been – one episode from a freelancer. And so this was a way for new writers to break in. Plus it was a way for… let’s say that somebody didn’t get staffed on a show – that happened all the time in television, after the season was staffed in the spring because back then it was mostly just network so that was there was a season to that as opposed to year round. And, you know, maybe you didn’t end up on a show but you knew somebody on the show and you’re like, “Well, they’ll have you come in and pitch.” And if they like something and they buy it, maybe they have a hole in their staff they need to fill and they’ll bring you in. So it’s a way to kind of, I don’t know…

David Read:
You’re almost auditioning.

Tom J. Astle
You’re almost auditioning. it’s a little bit like that, but it was nice because… that’s basically how I sold the Stargate episode. I was actually busy that year. The year before, I think I had just finished working on “Coach.” That was the last season. And then I had written a pilot, or was writing a pilot. I had just sold it to Henry Winkler’s company that eventually became the Disney Channel show “So weird.” And then I got staffed on a show in the fall called “Over the Top,” which was this ill fated Tim Curry sitcom. I mostly worked in comedy, to be honest, and children’s television. But I kind of liked everything. So my whole career, I’ve sort of done… I mean, you don’t always get to pick. Sometimes you take a job because you can get a job. But I certainly have kind of done all kinds of things because I like all kinds of things.

David Read:
And it’s nice and rounded. I kind of like that kind of journeyman approach of like, “You know what? Let’s try this. Let’s try that.” And I see in your credits here, you did an episode of Outer Limits called “Regeneration,” Season Three, which Brad [Wright] and Jonathan [Glassner] were running at the time. Did that lead into Stargate SG-1 at all? Or did they not have to do it to each other at all?

Tom J. Astle:
Well, I know Jonathan going way back. So I guess they have something to do with, but, you know, if I’d done a bad job, I guess it would have ended right there. But, you know, I’m grateful to Jonathan for… but he was like, “Hey, I’m doing this new show based on the movie.” And I had gone to the pilot premiere – they did the kind of a movie length pilot for the show. And I had been to the screening, liked it, and told him so. And he just said, “Hey, we have room for a couple freelance episodes.” Because they got… as you know, their initial order was forty-four. Back then twenty-two was a typical season for television, which, you know, is kind of rare now, except in… not even in network shows, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But to get forty-four was just crazy. So, you know, he had a lot of episodes to fill up. They did – he and Brad, both. But so I, you know, I said, “Yeah, I’d love to.” And so I thought of a couple of things. I don’t remember what else I pitched. This might have been all I pitched to them. But yeah, it’s… and so then and then I went on to do it. I was on another show after that and then next year “So Weird” shot and I was on another sitcom. So, it kind, because of their shooting schedule, kind of slotted nicely in between seasons of the TV that I was already working on.

David Read:
Where did the nugget for “Cor-ai” begin? Did it begin, you know, watching Teal’c save all of these refugees going over the hill on Chulak? Where did this idea come from? I am dying to know.

Tom J. Astle:
Well, it’s interesting, you know – I have to go into the way back and machine a little bit, of course, to think about it. But I do have… oh, and I have to say this; I rewatched the episode, obviously, because it had been a while, but then I looked back for my original script… and I probably did a couple drafts, but I have a draft of it, and it was written in Microsoft Word because a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away nobody used Final Draft yet, or the program at the time was Screenwriter. They were really nascent programs at that point and nobody was… it was certainly not the standard. So you would use Word, but with little things to make it you know jump from dialogue to description and stuff. So, whatever.

David Read:
Wacky formatting.

Tom J. Astle
Yeah. Happy formatting, yeah. So i had to actually translate it forward into the modern version of Microsoft Office and there’s some formatting issues. I’m not sure it’s really publishable at this point. But in any case… in any case it came from character, the idea. I’m looking at the show and it’s probably at that point it had… obviously I had seen the pilot. And I don’t remember how far into shooting they were, not far probably. I probably read another script or two, but that’s it. But I knew the characters and so I thought, “Well, science fiction is, of course, often a morality tale of some sort.” It’s a way to use metaphor and stuff in storytelling – that’s one of the fun things about it because you can… it doesn’t have to be that way, but it often is. But I thought what was interesting about the character Teal’c is that he’s a bad guy who became a good guy. And, you know, we love redemption tales, right? That’s a staple of storytelling in any genre or, you know, just in writing in general. But I thought there was a little more to it than that because I thought, “Well, if they’ll do an episode like this, that would be pretty cool.” Because I thought, “He’s a bad guy who became a good guy. But there are a lot of planets out there that still think of him as a bad guy.” And I thought, “What if you did an episode in which they run headlong into that without anticipating it, and he has to answer for his sins.” And it isn’t just about Teal’c, of course, because he’s not the lead in the episode – he’s one of the team. But I thought it was a way for, in particular, O’Neill, to have to slam into the, “Are we the good guys or not?” You know the meme that goes around from the old Mitchell and Webb show, “Are we the baddies?” That’s what this was. The idea that we’re always the good guys and that we tell ourselves that we’re on the side of right is… I mean, we like to think that and I think it’s often true, but war does messed up things to good guys and bad guys. And sometimes that line isn’t a line at all. It’s just a big blur. And I thought it would be interesting to do that and for O’Neill to… really, what the episode is about is O’Neill. Who the episode is about is O’Neill. It’s about him confronting whether or not he’s a good guy. And so that’s… but I thought, you know, you’ve got this character who that’s what you could explore with it. And to not do that would seem almost like you’re just not going to talk about this over there, you know? He’s now one of us. But O’Neill just… and I’m… Teal’c is the kind of character, like when he’s confronted with this he accepts it. He’s got this sense of honor that… O’Neill is like, “But we’re fellow soldiers. We’ve all done things.” There’s a line in the script that I don’t know if it’s in the episode, I don’t think so, but it’s in the episode in spirit, in which he says basically… he’s defending Teal’c in front of the…

David Read:
Bysra.

Tom J. Astle
Yeah, the Bysra. And he says, “It’s easy for you and I to do the right thing, because we were lucky enough to be born on the side of what’s… on the right side. On the side of right. On the side of the good guys,” he says. But he had to invent his own conscience, basically. So he’s making this… so it’s this assumption that… O’Neill is proceeding from that. And Teal’c keeps going, “No, no, no.” And it just frustrates the hell out of him because it upsets him. You know, there’s the scene in later in the episode when they go to Hammond and he’s like, “We got it. Come on, you got to let me come in and rescue him. This is ridiculous.” And Hammond says, “But he’s a war criminal.”

David Read:
And he’s not technically a citizen.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, he’s not technically a citizen, but it’s the war criminal part that Teal’c just gets enraged at – because if Teal’c is a war criminal, then maybe I am too, and he doesn’t want to think about that. So, I don’t know, the moral ambiguity… all of the arguments: I was just following orders, we’re on the side of the good guys, sometimes things happen, he’s changed – none of it matters because talk is cheap. He did that thing. Unless he’s forgiven by the people he did it to, none of your words matter.

David Read:
When I go back and I watch this, my favorite scene is when O’Neill asks the Bysra guards to leave the Cor-ai Chamber, and he starts talking with Teal’c one on one. He’s like, “OK, just level with me. What are you…? Why are you doing this? What’s going on here?” And Teal’c eventually says to him, “This case represents the many for me. And O’Neill shouts at him, “Well, it shouldn’t.” Because at that moment in O’Neill’s mind, O’Neill is on trial just as much as Teal’c is.

Tom J. Astle:
The whole thing is that’s why he’s so mad about it.

David Read:
Yeah. And O’Neill knows that were he dropped into certain countries on earth, the exact same thing would happen to him. And one of my favorite lines from the show is, you know, “I’ve spent many years in the service of my country and I’ve been ordered to do some damn distasteful things.” And it’s like, this is where this guy is… I think that’s one of the reasons that he has such a strong tie to Teal’c, because he understands the sacrifice that Teal’c made and where he came from before in having to do things that he doesn’t agree with morally, but he’s forced to do them by his society for a greater good. The moral ambiguity in this episode, it’s really, it’s really strong.

Tom J. Astle:
Well, and I think it’s why Teal’c… I think it’s why Christopher Judge is so good. I mean, he was really good in the episode. I will have to say, I think it’s one of his strongest episodes. I’m not saying it because I wrote it. I’m saying it because of his performance. You have to remember; Season One, actors are still finding their characters. It takes a while to go, “OK, what are the strengths and weaknesses?” And he’s very good at playing that stoic thing. And the comic relief of that stoic thing even evolves later. Much more than in the first season. It becomes not always funny, but he minds it for that. But confronting… we used to say this thing in some writer’s rooms that I was in, and that thing was: “backstory sucks.” And, now, we said that because I don’t care what happened. What’s he doing right now? What’s he saying right now? That’s what matters for the character. Now, of course, that’s not the way we write, and certainly actors want to know, “What am I bringing with me when I come into this scene?”

David Read:
“What’s my baggage?”

Tom J. Astle
Yeah. “What’s my baggage?” Well, the word ‘act’ is in ‘actor’ – “what’s my action? What am I doing here? What do I have that I want, don’t want, whatever?” So yes, backstory is important. But when you make a thing and you are watching it, you’re not watching backstory. You’re watching what they’re doing and saying. And the trial is about that. All the backstory that they keep saying, you know, “He did this nice thing for me and he helped the orphans out of the bus and,” like, whatever. The Bysra don’t care. They don’t care. It’s not relevant to the… you did this thing, now you pay for that thing you did.

David Read:
Tell me about Hanno. Tell me about constructing Hanno. I love this character. David McNally – we’ve had him on the show. The character is thoughtful and considerate, and really could have just nailed Teal’c right away and not heard them for anything – “I want his head. I want his head.” And he doesn’t go that way. You see his side of it. You see him acknowledging, “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. But can you bring my dad back?”

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, he did an amazing job. He was, like you say, he’s terrific actor and brought… it’s a big part. Guest starring in an episode is one thing, but he’s the primary antagonist. But he’s kind of on the side of right, you know? And the getting… I thought it would be interesting… there’s that whole, you know, innocent till proven guilty. But that’s really… it is, in fact, as Daniel [Jackson] says, kind of not that common. And also, this isn’t a trial. It is a way to publicly acknowledge the guilt that you have. And so I just thought it’d be interesting to turn the culture around a little bit and say, “This is a guilty unless proven innocent, but it’s not a negative.” They’re doing that because nobody lies. If somebody, you know, stole your chicken and they get caught, “I’m sorry, I stole your chicken. You can now take a chicken from me and we were even.” I don’t know what the… it’s not a very good episode of Cor-ai… the chicken stealing episode, but I’m just saying, you know, they… in the the script, you know, Daniel even says the last murder was like, you know, 800 years ago.

David Read:
Oh, that didn’t make it to screen.

Tom J. Astle
That didn’t make it to the script.

David Read:
Wow! And one of the maidens says at one point, “if he were not guilty, there would be no Cor-ai.” Cor-ai is not a trial. Cor-ai is, you know, airing of the grievance.

Tom J. Astle:
This is how we… yeah, it’s the airing of grievances, exactly. It’s Festivus.

David Read:
Yes!

Tom J. Astle
It basically is a way to acknowledge a thing that was wrong, and for the person who did that wrong to apologize for it, and then to atone for it in whatever way is appropriate. In this case, it’s taking a life. So, you know, the person who feels the pain is the one who decides what the proper [punishment is]. If he forgives you, fine. But it’s not a trial. It’s a way… and it’s a way for the whole society to share in that…

David Read:
Acknowledgement.

Tom J. Astle
Cathartic release. In that acknowledgement.

David Read:
Cathartic grace, yeah.

Tom J. Astle
I don’t know, I certainly didn’t presage anything intentionally in this way, but I think that this has always been a problem in all cultures, you know, right? We, you know, ‘the victors write the history,’ as they say. it goes to stuff today about, you know, whitewashing the history of our own country and just only telling the good stories, and you can’t do that. That’s not an evolved culture. An evolved culture acknowledges when they did shit wrong. So, anyway. So yeah, just getting back to Hanno’s character; he’s somebody who… he stands in for the whole culture, but he’s also really smart. I also wanted to play with the idea of primitive versus advanced societies. And, you know, this society looks primitive. They’re basically a hunter-gatherer, agricultural culture, right? They live in huts, they have animal skin clothes, they don’t have any technology of any kind. They run and hide in caves when the Goa’uld come. So they seem to be pretty primitive, but in fact it’s… he’s a pretty good advocate for his side and he out argues O’Neill at every turn. And, you know, there are… it’s interesting, one of the things when we were setting this up, you said you were curious about differences between maybe the script and how it comes out. Some of those are mundane. Editing has to be X number of minutes long, and sometimes things just fall out. But one thing that’s different, and I think credit goes to Richard Dean Anderson, I think, a little bit for this. When I wrote the first draft of it, as I recall, O’Neill is the primary…

David Read:
Oh, the advocate, they didn’t break it up between them?

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah. They didn’t really break it up.

David Read:
OK.

Tom J. Astle
And I did that on purpose because, when I first pitched it, we’re like, “This is an episode about Teal’c, but we need to make sure our lead has stuff to do.” These are the practicalities of making a show: you have an actor, and he doesn’t want to just sit and watch. So his role became that of the advocate. But when Richard Dean Anderson read the episode, I remember Jonathan said something to me like… he really liked it, but he said something to the effect of, “My character isn’t a lawyer. My character is an action guy. He’s a soldier, and he’ll get frustrated being out argued.” He didn’t want… he wasn’t doing the movie star thing of “I don’t want to have this other guest star have better lines than me.” He was not doing that, to be very clear. He was saying, “I think this should be shared among all of us.” Like Daniel is obviously a scholar more than he is. And so he should do stuff. And, you know, it’s breaking it up among the three of them. First of all I think it’s just a good idea. But it came from Richard Dean Anderson saying, “I don’t think my character is capable of doing this. He would get frustrated too quickly. And I want to do something… so I’m going to go back and…” which he does in both the script and the episode, he goes back to talk to Hammond, but, yeah. That’s one difference in it, is that a lot of the… some of the same lines, frankly, but it gets broken up. And so, in the script, it’s very much that you just see O’Neill just get… he’ll present this argument and just get slapped down by Hanno because Hanno’s like way ahead of him.

David Read:
Well, yeah, go ahead.

Tom J. Astle:
No, that’s it.

David Read:
Well, I think you acknowledge it in the script because when one of the Bysra asked him who will be his voice, O’Neill has to… O’Neill is his commanding officer. O’Neill must be his voice. And then the others are like, “Well, you really can’t pull this one off probably alone.” And the Bysra allow this kind of triangulation around Hanno, which is in some ways unfair. But at this point, early on in the show, we’re still getting to know these characters. It’s nice that Michael [Shanks] and Amanda [Tapping] had more to do in that scene. They were relevant, particularly because of Daniel’s relationship with Teal’c because of Sha’re. And that really gets leveraged here as well. They’re basically making a… what do you call it? They’re basically character witnesses for him. And we’re all dancing around the main issue that; yes, he has changed, but the central sin has not been washed away.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah. I don’t care if you bake cookies later. It was like, at the end, he still did this. That’s why it’s not not fair also because our human characters, our team, don’t understand until really late that this isn’t a trial. They don’t kind of understand… they think if they all gather together… and in the script, Daniel talks about trades, does all those things, but it doesn’t matter.

David Read:
And I love that Jack’s instincts at the very beginning are, you know, Daniel’s talking about, well, nearest I can figure this is a simple trial and Jack goes right to it. He sees through it: “What if their idea of a simple trial is a simple beheading?”

TJS:
Yeah.

David Read:
You know, “I saw the way that this guy looked at my guy, looked in his eyes. He’s out for blood.”

Tom J. Astle:
Well, and O’Neill is making the presumption that these are primitive people. We can’t trust that they’re going to be as advanced as us and want to do a real trial. But he’s wrong about all of that. They’re actually both wrong in that circumstance, which is sort of interesting. And in fact, you know, Hanno, when he first sees him, you know, is pretty, like, he would probably almost have killed him there if his friend doesn’t intervene. In the script, there’s a tiny change which… It does not matter. I’m not complaining about it. So I won’t say that. But he says… it’s right after the cold open when you cut to the credits. You come back and he’s got his thing up to his throat. And the other guy goes, “You can’t do this…” I actually looked at it, wrote it down, sorry. He says, “Do not take revenge in this manner, or we are no better than the gods.” Which is… that’s the first example… and it gets changed to Goa’uld, I think. But I wrote it that way on purpose, not just because they kind of do think of them as gods, but to say from the very get-go that everything is not what you seem here, it’s the opposite. So we think of God as an all-powerful, but essentially benevolent force in life. They see God as all-powerful and morally inferior. So that’s like not how we think of gods. So, and that’s the argument that gets through to him. He’s like, you know, “You’re right. I don’t want to be as bad as a god.” And so, essentially that’s what… his friends talk sense into him. And then that’s what happens.

David Read:
Our gods don’t regularly visit us and harvest us like brussel sprouts.

Tom J. Astle:
Exactly. Yeah.

David Read:
They would have a justification for that kind of… or an acknowledgement of the lack of justification for that kind of behavior. We see what they are doing. We will not be that.

Tom J. Astle:
Yes, exactly.

David Read:
One of the… I think that Don S. Davis mops the floor with his scenes as well. I think it’s probably Hammond’s strongest performance, Don’s strongest performance as Hammond up to this point. Because he has to recognize… he has to play the center. He has to play baseline. I am answerable to the president directly. There’s only so much that we could… I can’t send our soldiers in to save this guy for a host of different reasons. If SG-1 is going to do it, SG-1 has to be the one to do it. And O’Neill said, you know, “it would be nice if we could do it without bloodshed.” But then you have an interesting twist in this episode, and I’ve wanted to talk to you about this for a long time. You have to have something to incite Teal’c’s rise in salvation. And early on in the episode, there’s a little nugget that’s planted. It’s obviously on purpose: we’re overdue for a visit. Because, from a story standpoint, it is kind of a contrivance. Aren’t we lucky in the nick of time? Here the Goa’uld are to give us a reason to prove ourselves once again. How was that in terms of massaging that into the story that this is our chance for Teal’c to prove himself?

Tom J. Astle:
Well, I mean, the events that happened at the end are – when the Goa’uld show up and there’s the battle and stuff. From the character’s point of view, they’re not doing this to help Teal’c, they’re doing it because there’s bad guys there who are killing everybody. But I will say, I used to work on a show that someone said – a networking executive or somebody said to another writer, “I don’t know, this part of the story seems a little contrived.” And the writer said, ”I know it took me all morning to contrive it.” And so, you know… yeah, i’ll acknowledge that; yeah, yes it is. But it’s also an action show. There’s a lot of masters being served in something like that, but that was always a thin. But it actually goes toward the only thing that can actually save Teal’c. Talk to us again, talk is cheap. The moment you said… what you mentioned with Hammond, if you recall, he says basically the same thing that Hanno’s friend says in the opening of the show, which is, “If we do this, we’re no better than them.”

David Read:
We’re killing innocence.

Tom J. Astle
So now, Hammond is arguing this – he literally says that. So at the end, the only thing that will save Teal’c is an action. And Hanno has to see it. He has to see him do this selfless thing that he would have sacrificed himself. You know, all of that testimony is great, but it’s not proof because it’s just… it is actually just hearsay. You know, we have – we the audience – have the benefit of a flashback where we can see it’s true”, and that makes it more real to the audience and hopefully makes it more frustrating as we watch this guy who won’t defend himself. But none of the people at the Cor-ai proceedings see that, you know, they just hear words. These are a lot of nice stories. But when he sees him do this thing, he sees, “OK, well, those words are true then because I have now seen him. He would have… he could easily have been killed just now. He’s been wounded and he’s willing to go through with it. And I can’t be as bad as a God,” basically. He doesn’t say that, but that’s what that moment’s about.

David Read:
And the acknowledgement of Hanno. Everything at this point in the episode is riding on him, because if he so chooses, he could literally – as Teal’c hands the staff weapon over to him. Hanno could really say, “You know what? I really appreciate everything you’ve done for my people today. You’ve really saved us. Now it’s time for you to go.”

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, “You killed my father, prepare to die.” Yeah. So he could Inigo Montoya him right out of the series. That certainly would have changed the show.

David Read:
I think it would have. And the look on the look on the teammate’s face, it’s like, because Teal’c is offering it up to him like, “I am the one, I am the one.” And everyone’s just like, “shut up!”

Tom J. Astle
“I’m saying that.” Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

David Read:
We’ve been given almost a second chance with this incident. What are you doing? He is that morally founded. He knows what he deserves. And another favorite line of mine: “I have done far worse.” So this is a chance for him. If he can help this one, “I can at least give justice to this one.” Part of him is willing to do it, and I love the character for it. I think that we need him out there, but he’s willing to give his life up knowing that this can provide retribution. And he’s not looking for redemption. He’s not looking… he knows that what he’s done is awful.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, no. He’s not asking for forgiveness. He’s like, “no, I did it.” And, you know, he never waivers at all from that. And that makes O’Neill question whether he would be so noble under the same circumstances. You know, it’s interesting; there’s an improvement in the episode – which happens all the time, by the way, when you’re writing, over what’s in the script. And it goes to that that moment that they have at the end. It’s a very silent moment with O’Neill and Teal’c after Hanno says, “no, that Jaffa is dead, you killed him.” After he says that, and O’Neill and Teal’c basically just share a look. But after all that they’ve been through in the episode, we know that that look is saying, “I admire you. I don’t know if I could do it again.” There’s a lot going on in just the looks on those two actors’ faces. And I always like it when you can do that and not have to use dialogue. Listen, a great line is a great line if it can help a scene.

David Read:
This is a visual medium, too.

Tom J. Astle:
It’s a visual medium, too. And it’s always nice when… and especially early in a series when, you know, I mean, it’s a few episodes in at this point, but people are still learning their… and you have to have a director that trusts it. You have to have good producers who say, ”no, no, no, we don’t need a line here.” Or, “we have a line here, but let’s just go out on the looks between them. Let’s just double cut that,” or whatever. And I like that. In the script, there’s a wrap up scene that – the show, ultimately, kind of didn’t really do a lot of those.

David Read:
No, tags were just not really there.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, but they do do that at the end of the script. And I have a line where he says… they’re basically in a hospital room and having a few beers and at some point Carter and Daniel exit, and Teal’c is just there in the bed, you know, healing up, and Jack says to him that they’re going to be closing the gate permanently. And they’re going to help them blow it, you know, do what they need to do to basically bury it.

David Read:
On Chartago.

Tom J. Astle:
On Chartago. ‘We will never go there again,’ as opposed to ‘we’re going to help them defend themselves. We’re going to make it so they don’t have to ever worry about being attacked again.’ And so, “We won’t be seeing your friend Hanno again” he says. “Just as well, it’s one gate we probably don’t mind closing.” Teal’c says, “yes.” He says, “it must feel good though, getting to start over.” Teal’c says, “I don’t… I don’t understand.” he said, “you know, wipe the slate clean, get rid of the black mark you’ve been living in.” Teal’c thinks about it. He says, “it does feel good. As you say, a mark has been erased.” And O’Neill is like, “how come you’re not celebrating?” The rest of them are having beers and maybe he shouldn’t because he’s in the hospital bed. But, you know, and he’s just kind of letting them celebrate. He says, “how come you’re not celebrating?” He says, ”because I have erased only one.” And so that’s, I think, a strong line. And that’s the end of the episode. Nobody speaks after that. So it’s like, “oh, fuck! This could happen again.” And he’s appreciative that he was able to get rid of this, but he’s still not letting go of the “I still have all these other things that I’ve done.” And that’s going to be… he’s going to carry that with him his whole life. But I will say that, although I do like the line, it is fine. I like the moment just between the two actors, because I think it still says that. I think it lets the audience bring what they want to that moment and let the actors say it with their faces.

David Read:
That’s a great scene, though, Tom. That’s really… thank you for sharing that. That lines up with everything else.

Tom J. Astle:
Well, you asked, you know, what are the things that are different and the same? And I will say it’s largely the same. You know, I mean there’s one example like that, but there’s also a very small plot thing that I think maybe was cut for time or maybe it’s just decided, “oh, it’s this is a… it’s an interesting tangent, but not an important one.” And at some point in the script, Daniel finds a piece of technology and he holds it up and it’s like kind of an old broken down looking bit of a transistor radio or something. And the others are like, “what’s that?” And he says, “this is a nine-hundred year-old radio. It’s just being used as decoration, like a trinket on the wall of one of the hots or whatever.” And he says… because if you remember – I’m sure you do – that first season, there’s a lot of, like; this culture’s from this part of earth, this planet, this culture. And there’s always like; this culture is kind of a mix of like Carthaginian and maybe some Greek and like, It’s got these things, but why would the culture be more primitive than the culture that spawned it? It’s an interesting question for Daniel. And he says, “what I learned is this proves that they weren’t. They developed technology and were going along and then decided to abandon all of that.” And the others are like, “why would they do that?” And he said, “well, because of the Goa’uld.” The Bysra learned that the more technologically advanced they became, the more they were persecuted by the Goa’uld. So they made a conscious effort, decision…

David Read:
To go agrarian.

Tom J. Astle
To go agrarian, go the other way, evolve their culture morally and ethically, but not technologically. So it’s a moment where they go. So the whole like, ‘we’re the advanced culture and they’re’ – that may be true in terms of, you know, gadgets. But it is not true in terms of the way they think about morality. This is a culture that never lies. That’s why this is a trial. So it’s kind of cool. I’m saying why it was cut because I would cut it too. At least, again, it may have been for time. But because it’s an interesting thing, but it’s being demonstrated in other ways in the same episode.

David Read:
And you did with the Bysra what “Star Trek: Insurrection” did with the Ba’ku. A couple of years later, this is a race who abandoned technology in pursuit of other higher inward things. So that’s a really awesome nugget.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, so that’s just a little difference. But again, I think one that was… whether it was wisdom or practicality – sometimes it’s both – was trimmed from the episode or changed. And I think that was a good choice.

David Read:
Was it your idea, Antony wants to know; was it your idea to resolve Shak’l’s arc from “The Nox” to bring him back and allow Teal’c to knock him off? Or was that, “OK, Tom, we’ve got this other character. This would be a great opportunity to show that he is now progressed in Apophis’ society. Let’s bring that back in.”

Tom J. Astle:
In the script, I think I used… I’d have to look at it exactly. I don’t think I used his name. But the Jaffa that’s there in that moment basically recognizes him, says, “oh, this is great. Your head will adorn the hall, and I’m going to be a rich man.” And then Teal’c kills it, basically skewers him through the middle with the knife that the kid gave him. So it’s the same moment, but I think in the making of it, they made it that character… I probably wasn’t even aware of that character or certainly wasn’t thinking about him. You know, they’re trying to go, “well, if we’re going to do this with a soldier, Jaffa, you know, Serpent Guard guy, why don’t we pick one that we have already?” And so I think that’s what… I think that probably came from them.

David Read:
That makes a lot of sense.

Tom J. Astle
The moment came for me. But the making of that character, I think came from them.

David Read:
Did you still have him apologize after he stabs him?

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, that’s exactly the same. That’s word for word. So yeah, no, that’s… I thought, again, it’s like, the whole not a trial and the whole like… and that’s a sincere thing, you know, like where he’s, “I’m sorry that I lost my temper before. I was…” you know, and again, the whole team was like, “OK, maybe this won’t be so bad.” But they’re still not fundamentally understanding what it is that is happening.

David Read:
And Hanno gets… because he grants mercy, Jack turns around and says, “OK, Now that this is all out of the way, can we get to the moment when we just came back through the Stargate? We’re going to help you defend yourselves. We can now offer this because you saved him.”

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, there’s a line… I can’t remember if this is in the script… just in the script or in the episode. But it’s basically Hanno’s point of view. He says, “it does not show virtue to abandon evil simply because you think evil will no longer win.” And that moment’s in there. I don’t remember if the line is in the episode written quite like that, but it’s that notion that, again, it’s like; yes, he became a good guy because you said, you just said, because he saw that this was finally a chance to fight them. So he just did it because it looked convenient is kind of what that argument makes. And so that’s not what O’Neill meant, of course, but he keeps having his words turned back on him like that.

David Read:
Absolutely. Yeah. There’s a line later on in the franchise, you know, where they’re trying to get some technology and to fight against the Goa’uld. And O’Neill says, you know, “let’s just not do everything we have to do to get this technology. And then when the Goa’uld show up to destroy us, I’m sure we’ll all feel great about ourselves and our high moral standards.” It’s that kind of thread. Did you see “Stargate: The Ark of Truth”?

Tom J. Astle
No.

David Read:
In it, there is a great speech by Teal’c, where he is encountering another soldier who has done much like he did. And it’s a two or three minute long scene. It is my favorite scene from the movie. And it is very much referencing this episode. And I will send this scene to you so you can see.

Tom J. Astle:
Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I watched all of SG-1, but I will confess that I have not seen that.

David Read:
He admits, you know, “just get over the fact you will never forgive yourself. But your journey doesn’t have to end because of that. Fight for others.” And that’s what this episode exemplifies. Tom, this is tremendous. Lockwatcher wanted to know; how was it writing for Mackenzie Phillips in “So Weird”?

Tom J. Astle:
It was awesome. She was a joy to write for. You know, we felt lucky to get her. She was kind of starting to act again. She’d acted in an episode of a show that a friend had done. I can’t even remember the show sitcom. I worked a lot of sitcoms and knew a lot of sitcom writers. And he’s like, “man, she was really good. You should see her in this.” And then when So Weird came around, I was like; rock and roll background, actor. And she was amazing. She was amazing. A real pro, and I think [she] was perfect for the part.

David Read:
Was there ever any desire on your part to pitch for the show again? Did you pitch for the show again? Did the opportunity just not arise? I mean, after Cor-ai, I would be like, “yes, please. I would like another one of those.” As an audience member.

Tom J. Astle:
Yeah, no, thank you. That’s very, very kind. I don’t… I think it was mostly because frankly, I was busy. Knock wood. You know, that was a very… I was usually on a show anyway. And so I just didn’t have time.

David Read:
And you’re in LA.

Tom J. Astle:
And, you know, like that was my career, right? So I worked on a lot of sitcoms, a lot of other stuff. I think it just didn’t happen for whatever reason. I did write an episode of… I can’t remember what year this was, but there was this show called “Invisible Man,” that you probably have seen. And it was another one of… Jonathan ran it, and he’s like, “hey, we have the show and it sometimes… it’s got a little bit of humor in it. And would you want to do a freelance episode of it?” It’s like, “yeah.” So it was another one of the same thing. I pitched… when you’re a comedy writer – I mean, I haven’t just written comedy, but I like to write comedy. And when you’re a comedy writer and you go to a drama show, they think you’re the funniest fucking person in the world. Because if you put like one joke on a page, it’s like, “holy shit.” Whereas in sitcoms, it’s three jokes a page is not an exaggeration.

David Read:
You have to.

Tom J. Astle
And… your training is that everything is a quip and everything… of course it’s not a realistic kind of writing, but it’s a form. And when you learn that, you become good at rewriting and become quick and your tendency is to make jokes. So I wrote an episode of Invisible Man that was… it wasn’t, you know, a comedy episode, but there’s a character in it that… there’s a kind of a biological weapon that gets used on the station, or whatever. And one of the characters who’s kind of a comic actor anyway, he’s the only one who doesn’t get sick. And the reason he doesn’t get sick is because he eats these really horrible, kind of, expired mayonnaise sandwiches from the shitty restaurant across the street. So he’s just finished this awful botulism sandwich, or whatever. You know, E. coli sandwich, but the toxins from it defeat the other thing. So then everybody has to eat this expired mayonnaise in order to survive. So, not a real serious episode of television, but I did that for Jonathan. That was quite fun. They were very nice to me there, and as always. But yeah, I think it just was opportunity. I was pretty busy at that point, and maybe I just didn’t have time.

David Read:
So you weren’t there for the filming of Cor-ai?

Tom J. Astle:
No, no.

David Read:
OK

Tom J. Astle
Wherever it is they shot it, I was probably embroiled on something else.

David Read:
OK. Well, It continues to be a shining example of the best of science fiction. It’s not a highly advanced sci-fi episode with buttons and techno babble and everything else. It is a simple story. And I think it’s a great example… I can show this to friends and be like, “sci-fi doesn’t have to be technical: it can be a drama, it can be a courtroom, it can be a noir. So it can be all these kinds of shades. We’re just getting to see this angle of the character because of these particular circumstances.”

Tom J. Astle:
Sci-fi lets you say “what if?” So that’s what’s really fun. It’s like, “what if our good guys were suddenly confronted with people who thought they were the bad guys? What would they do?”

David Read:
Yeah.

Tom J. Astle
That’s a good place to start a story.

David Read:
It’s really been a treat to have you on and I thank you for taking the time and sharing this episode with us.

Tom J. Astle:
Well, I appreciate you reaching out. To be honest, this was a while ago.

David Read:
Yeah!

Tom J. Astle
There is no writer or actor or whatever who doesn’t like hearing that somebody likes something. We do these things for an audience, and hopefully for pay.

David Read:
Yeah.

Tom J. Astle
But, seriously, I appreciate that people still like it and that you enjoy it so much and I’m very happy to talk to you.

David Read:
Thank you, Tom. I’m going to go ahead and wrap up the show. Appreciate your time.

Tom J. Astle
Thank you.

David Read:
Tom Astle – writer of Cor-ai. You’re watching Dial the Gate – The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. We’ve got Alan McCullough coming up in just a few minutes here – producer and writer for Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. And so we’re going to be switching gears here in just a moment. My tremendous thanks to my moderating team: Marcia, Antony, Tracy, Jeremy, Sommer. You guys are continuing to make the show possible every episode. Linda “Gategabber” Fury, my producer, Frederick Marcoux ConceptsWeb, keeping DialtheGate.com up to date. Go over to DialtheGate.com to check out the complete list of the upcoming shows. I’m going to be out for much of July, so a lot of what you’re going to be seeing there is going to be pre-recorded, but that’s the plan. We’re going to keep feeding the machine while I’m taking July off. Alan McCullough coming up in just a few minutes. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, and I will see you on the other side. you.