The news has just broke! Join us as we discuss the possibilities of the fourth Stargate series filming in the heart of the United Kingdom.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Darren, how you doing?

Darren Sumner:
[muted]

David Read:
One of those days indeed. You got plans to go to London?

Darren Sumner:
My first thought today was, “I need to get this news story up.” My second thought today was, “I need to renew my passport. It expired more than 10 years ago.”

David Read:
How did you get into Vancouver with me?

Darren Sumner:
Stargate’s going to London. I think you and I should go too.

David Read:
I haven’t been in a couple of years. Stargate’s going to London. My gosh.

Darren Sumner:
We can make a trip of it. We can go to Scotland. Back to my old stomping grounds.

David Read:
I have not been to Scotland. You must show me. So, there’s this certain website called GateWorld that just reported this news. Let’s go and check it out here. I do apologize to everyone. I’ve got some new tools that are running here, so things may take a second to load on my end. I’ve also got a new camera running, so it’s nice and warm. I’m a little more rosy than usual. If you have questions that you wanna get over to us and you are in the Dial the Gate livestream, new procedure. Put a question mark as the first character at the start of what you’re submitting in the livestream, and it will go to me directly. It won’t go to the mods. It’ll skip the mods. Mods are there for crowd control, so everyone in there, behave. Darren, do you have a procedure for people submitting questions to you?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. If you’re in the GateWorld chat right now, would you tag me @GateWorld.net so that I can see your comment or your question, and we’ll try to have a conversation with you guys here as we go through this news.

David Read:
This is a big one. We’ve been wanting to hear about this one for a while. I’m sure there are all kinds of feelings in the audience about this, so we’re gonna get to that here, but let’s run the news. All right. Stargate to film new series in London this year by Darren.

Darren Sumner:
That’s me. Don’t wear it out.

David Read:
So, in the UK, I’m trying to figure out how to insult you. Wouldn’t we call you a wanker in that case? Is that the technical term?

Darren Sumner:
I think that’s very rude.

David Read:
I apologize then. Stargate to film…

Darren Sumner:
We’re gonna have to ask our British friends.

David Read:
Yes. “The latest entry in the venerable science fiction franchise has set its home base with production slated to begin in 2026.” That’s this year. So, Darren says, “London will serve as home to the main stages and production office for the fourth live-action series of the franchise, which is created and executive produced by Martin Gero (Stargate Atlantis and Blindspot). Amazon MGM Studios officially announced the project in November, and the series will stream globally on Prime Video. Watch the video below for the original announcement” featuring yours truly times two. “While the main stages will be in London, the show will be shot all over the world, a source tells GateWorld. Production is slated to begin in the fall of 2026 with the studio currently discussing a possible September start.” Oh, really?

Darren Sumner:
The two big takeaways — or we can go through this paragraph by paragraph if you’d like — but the two big takeaways for people is, number one, we were waiting to see where, if they were gonna shoot in locations all over the world, where was home base? Where were they gonna set up the production offices and where was the main stage going to be for whatever the home base is for the show? Is it gonna be Vancouver? Is it gonna be Los Angeles?

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
Now we know as of today that it’s gonna be in London or the London area. They’re gonna put their production offices there. They’re gonna build sets there. And the second big takeaway is, as we speculated, they’re gonna target the fall of this year to begin shooting.

David Read:
To begin shooting. Man, oh, man. That makes a lot of sense. The ramp-up, in terms of development for something like this, was gonna take a hot minute. I didn’t think that they would have aspirations to start shooting in July. They probably won’t even be done with casting by July, I would think so.

Darren Sumner:
We might start to get casting. Based on the fact that Martin Gero has told us that this takes about two years. From the time that he announced it with us last November to starting a writers’ room in January, it takes about two years to go through this process for various reasons that we can get into. That this show’s not produced like the old Stargate series were produced week to week. But if it takes about two years and the writers’ room is working the first part of 2026, then you can start to game it out and think, “OK, they’re probably gonna be casting maybe by the summertime and shooting by the fall, filming on, if it is a ten-episode typical big-budget streaming series, those shows, like a modern-day Star Trek show, they tend to film for eight or nine months. And so, we’re talking about late 2026 through the first part of 2027, potentially the first half of 2027 for principal photography, and then they have all the visual effects and post-production and other stuff.

David Read:
They’re gonna be pretty darn busy.

Darren Sumner:
So, I still think late, very end of 2027 is probably the absolute earliest we’re gonna see this premiere.

David Read:
Easily. I completely agree.

Darren Sumner:
But the timetable fits. Starting principal photography this fall fits that timetable that we were guessing.

David Read:
What do you think about… Let’s get back to the news, and then we will ask more…

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
… because maybe I’ll learn something.

Darren Sumner:
You have read it, haven’t you?

David Read:
No, of course not. I only knew about this an hour ago.

Darren Sumner:
You just saw the headline and said, “Let’s go live.”

David Read:
Dude, I barely had a pee. All right, here we go. “While the main stages will be in London, the show will be shot all over the world. This timetable compares with Gero’s statement to fans last month that the first season will be in production for approximately two years before it premieres. Several months of principal photography that stretch into 2027 will be followed by post-production and visual effects work, as well as the process of localization that’ll allow for simultaneous global release in multiple languages.” That’s everything that’s required to get it into the shape that it needs to be in for it to work in that region, right down to colloquialisms. So, a great example of this is “Emancipation,” SG-1. In the English-speaking world, when they’re talking about not being able to share this new plant or whatever it is that may be a cure for something, O’Neill says, “Well, there goes that Oprah interview.” And Teal’c says, “What is an Oprah?” In France, in French, do you know what it says?

Darren Sumner:
No.

David Read:
“There goes my shot at a Nobel Prize.”

Darren Sumner:
They just changed the dialogue.

David Read:
That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
‘Cause there’s no context for, “What is an Oprah?”

David Read:
There’s no context. So, the audience is left with the same feeling in the end.

Darren Sumner:
Exactly.

David Read:
And that’s the goal. Like in Inside Out, the nasty food on the table that the kid has to eat to go, “Ugh,” the food was changed region for region based on what kids would think there. So…

Darren Sumner:
How funny.

David Read:
… this is all regioning. So, really cool stuff.

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing. We’ve been celebrating since the announcement that one of the strengths that Amazon brings to the table for this show is a truly global simultaneous release. Unlike in the olden days when here in the States we would watch it on Showtime or SyFy Channel, and then in the UK, they would get it on Sky. Was it on Sky?

David Read:
Sky One premiered Season 8, 9, and 10 first, I’m pretty sure.

Darren Sumner:
UK people in the chat, let us know where you watch the show.

David Read:
I remember torrenting for “Reckoning.”

Darren Sumner:
So, most seasons it would be at least a month behind. And then it would roll out to other countries. French fans would get it a few months later, Italian fans would get it a few months later, Czech fans maybe a year later. And it was this staggered thing, and it was a great source of frustration for online fandom, which of course is global. We’re all in the chat talking to each other right after an episode premieres. So, if we want a really global experience as a fan base, we gotta build in all that extra time. Because you’re talking about hiring voiceover cast and recording all the dialogue and doing all of that post-production for the voiceover. And then you’re also talking about translating the subtitles, the closed captions, so that you have on-screen text in your local language and getting all that synced up. Third parties usually get hired to do that work region by region.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
But that’s part of post-production now for a show that drops in over 200 countries and territories at the same time. So, that’s part of what we’re gonna be waiting for after principal photography is wrapped, not just all the sparkly visual effects, but the localization. And that takes time.

David Read:
Sorry. There’s a schnook flying over my head. There’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into the post-production process, not just visual effects, down to subtitles, everything else. The big advantage for this was, and I’m so thankful for it, that every Stargate fan the world over gets to share this show at the same time.

Darren Sumner:
Exactly.

David Read:
And none of us have to feel like we’re on the high seas just to get a copy of the thing. We get to put our money where our mouth is, which is what I have been saying to Stargate fans from day one…

Darren Sumner:
Support it.

David Read:
… 14 years ago. Support whatever comes next if you wanna see more of this thing. And they’ve got one shot to do it right, with that pilot. It better be a banger.

Darren Sumner:
Because remember…

David Read:
… I think there’s a pretty darn good chance it’s gonna be.

Darren Sumner:
… Stargate is new to Amazon, and Amazon is new to Stargate. So, other than the data that they’re getting from the streaming of all the previous shows they’re gonna be watching the numbers on this show to decide if this is a franchise that’s worth investing in.

David Read:
That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
Or are they gonna look at the numbers and say, “Ah, I guess Stargate fandom’s not really that big…”

David Read:
“We tried.”

Darren Sumner:
“… or not really that energized anymore. So, we’ll just run this show out, maybe let it rest for a few years and think about what it might be next.” Now, if we really want a franchise, which is what I’m hoping for, I’m gonna do some more content, some more videos over the course of the next two years on the fact that I want Amazon to build a franchise, which means potentially more than one show in production at once, different kinds of projects in production. The first one’s gotta be successful. It’s gotta have the numbers to back more ambitious plans.

David Read:
CasuallySandra, “Why do you think the UK was chosen as opposed to Canada?” Differentiation? Is that a word? Differentiation. Tax breaks maybe? I actually have a UK citizen who submitted a video to us who just found out about the news.

Darren Sumner:
Good.

David Read:
And he brings that up a little bit as well. This is Tommy Valentine, formerly of The Companion.

Tommy Valentine [clip]:
So, the news has just broke that the new Stargate series is gonna be filming in my city, in London. And honestly, I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve spent my whole career living and working in and around London, even in various of the film studios, like Leavesden and Pinewood. Amazon MGM have ownership of Shepperton, so I’m sure stuff could be happening there. Either way, I’m just so excited. London’s got a great history with film and cinema, with things like James Bond, but also with sci-fi. Star Wars was filmed in Elstree Studios in 1976 when no one knew what the hell they was getting into. Even reusing props later from Dr. Who, another famous sci-fi show that’s filmed over here. So, we’ve got great history for it, and I’m really, really excited by this news, just on a real personal level. We’ve got such a great crew system in and around London as well, all experts working on dozens and dozens of productions because everyone loves those UK tax incentives to filming over here. So, I’m really, really excited about this. I can’t wait to see what’s in store. Even hearing that they’re gonna be filming a bit more internationally is really exciting as well. But having a strong hub in London with our amazing studios over here just gets me really, really excited about the new fresh direction of this show. I love Vancouver. It’s one of my favorite cities, honestly, on planet Earth. And I love the ties to Stargate and how attached that they felt in the past, I think that’s been very important. But I think for the future, this is an exciting new bold step. And as a Londoner, as a local, I couldn’t be more proud and excited.

David Read:
So, tax incentives is a big one, I would think. There’s some…

Darren Sumner:
Gonna be a piece of the puzzle.

David Read:
… pretty good ones coming out of…

Darren Sumner:
Which was the case for SG-1, Atlantis and Universe when they were shooting in British Columbia. We had the tax incentives from BC film and television, as well as the strength of the American dollar relative to the Canadian dollar back in the day.

David Read:
It’s true.

Darren Sumner:
That’s gonna be a factor. How far does Amazon’s money stretch shooting in the UK?

David Read:
And these are gonna be made on euros, I guess, at this point. Are they gonna be GBP? Not entirely sure. What’s the politics going on in London right now?

Darren Sumner:
They’re on pounds.

David Read:
They’re back to pounds.

Darren Sumner:
They’re still on the pound.

David Read:
OK. They are. Or they are again.

Darren Sumner:
And apologies to Brits in the chat who are watching later. Yes. It is the autumn, not the fall.

David Read:
Yes. They don’t have yards, they have gardens.

Darren Sumner:
That’s right.

David Read:
And someone asked, “Why do some people spell MacGyver with a U?” Because they’re wankers. The fact of the matter is that there are a couple of studios now that could be flagged for this. Is that right?

Darren Sumner:
So, this is in the GateWorld news story. There’s lots of places around the world that Amazon owns or has interests in. So, they lease space or they own space in lots of different places. In Toronto, in London, in Los Angeles area obviously. But the two prominent ones that we currently have our eye on, in the UK, in the London area, is Shepperton Studios, which Tommy mentioned. That’s in Surrey. That has space that is leased. It’s apparently a big behemoth. They added more space to it, more sound stages. I think it’s now the second-largest shooting space in the world.

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
And they’re currently leasing to both Amazon and Netflix. But in 2024, Amazon also purchased Bray Film Studios in Berkshire, which is a historic film studio. Tons of stuff has been filmed there. Most recently for Amazon’s part, The Rings of Power and Citadel.

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
Both shot at Bray Film Studios.

David Read:
Citadel is… I’ll be darned.

Darren Sumner:
Shot or are shooting. I think Citadel got canceled.

David Read:
You’re kidding. Which one?

Darren Sumner:
I think so.

David Read:
Wasn’t that gonna be a franchise?

Darren Sumner:
It was.

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
I think the first spinoff, or spinoffs, are still going ahead, but I wanna say that maybe the experiment didn’t work.

David Read:
Aw.

Darren Sumner:
Don’t quote me on this. I’d have to go look up the news story.

David Read:
If it was canceled, that’s not a good sign.

Darren Sumner:
… either the experiment didn’t work or the executive who was spearheading it… this might have been a Jen Psaki project and it might have died when she left Amazon.

David Read:
I’m still just sitting here digesting the implications of this. There’s so much positive about this. For one thing, if you want access to more arid locations, if you want access to Africa, to the Middle East, to a few more alien spots than you could over here, basing it in London would give you better access to it. And I think we could probably infer a few things. But if you’re going to film worldwide, it would make a lot of sense to place it in London rather than in the United States, in LA or in Vancouver. I’m wondering if Gero and company are gonna shift their location, go over there, or if they’re gonna do what Lucas did and hunker down at Skywalker with his T1 line…

Darren Sumner:
It’s a good question.

David Read:
… and connect with everybody. I wonder what their master plan is.

Darren Sumner:
I wonder if Martin’s gonna move out there temporarily or manage from afar. That’s a good question. A lot of these shows, I think, that shoot worldwide, they do those international locations, by and large, for their externals…

David Read:
Let’s explain externals.

Darren Sumner:
For their location shooting. Their outdoor scenes. And then they use the sound stages for all the stuff where they can build sets, and have it fixed, and control your climate and lighting and all that, and shoot around the clock. So, Obi-Wan Kenobi, for example, filmed some stuff in the UK and Los Angeles, but then when they go on location, you want a nice big desert. Instead of using the volume, or some other way of faking it, if you wanna film in Tunisia, you’d have a unit that is scheduled out for X number of days shooting in Tunisia, and you just run that unit. I was looking through the credits of Fallout for reasons that we can get into, that are also related to this story, and Fallout had, I think it said, a Namibia unit. Where they did a bunch of externals in Namibia. So, I imagine for Stargate with a budget, that’s probably what we’re looking at for worldwide. It’s probably all the internal stuff, the sound stage stuff, is gonna be in London, and then go around the world for alien planets. Instead of the Vancouver forest and the rock quarry, and that’s kind of it. They can find alien planets by looking at different shooting locations all over the world.

David Read:
I’m thrilled that they’re doing this. They certainly don’t have to. One of my favorite shows that they killed was Netflix’s 1899. And it…

Darren Sumner:
That was the one on the ship?

David Read:
… looks like a million bucks. They do this shot where they’re in the middle of this mountainous area, it looks like Pelennor Fields. You got this rocky, grassy terrain, and then all around is just a wall of mountains, and there’s this big black square in the sky where it’s an artifice. The technology’s extraordinary now, and the fact that they are choosing to go back out there and do it, I think says a lot about Amazon’s commitment to making a fantastic product. This is solid stuff.

Darren Sumner:
Every time you’re watching something on screen and saying, “Well that’s really pre–” Like a wide shot, let’s say a character is walking across a big green field with mountains in the background and a spaceship hanging in the sky. You can look at that and say, “Well that’s pretty, but I can tell it’s fake. I can tell that it’s entirely CG.” Or maybe they filmed an actor on a green screen walking, and that part’s composited in. I wish they would spend the money on shooting stuff practically. That was a lot of what Star Wars fans took issue with as we entered the digital revolution with the Star Wars prequels, was, “Boy, I wish filmmakers would shoot more stuff practically.”

David Read:
That’s when potential starts coming back.

Darren Sumner:
And that’s what you can do if you spend this kind of money to go on location, to take a team to Tunisia, or Prague, or wherever you’re going, and shoot it practically. Shoot as many of those elements, you gotta composite the spaceship into the sky still, but shoot all the other elements as practically as you can. And it’s gonna look real. Especially in 4K.

David Read:
Iceman0003, “Any announcement as to whether or not it’ll be set in the current year?” The new Stargate will be set in the now. It’s a staple of the franchise at this point, unless they’re telling a period piece like Origins was. They’ve definitely confirmed that this is gonna be in the now, and it’s gonna be elements that you can recognize, colloquialisms that you can low-key recognize, as my godson would say, please God, don’t have them talk like that. I went back and forth on this. You and I did an episode, what, two years ago at this point? That was basically asking what, the 12 things that we would like to see in SG4. But I swung for the fences. I was like, “Set it in 2070, 2080.”

Darren Sumner:
Oh yeah?

David Read:
Give us our own Stargate at this point. Have humanity… We have a fricking Asgard core. The Asgard had to have been able to build Stargates if they wanted to. That would be a great homage to them. Build a Stargate out of Asgard technology. But they still, I suppose, could at this point. Any thoughts on that?

Darren Sumner:
We’ve also talked about the fact that if you don’t want Earth to be a modern galactic superpower, that you have to deal them some kind of setback. Whether it’s setting up the show and where things are on Earth that Stargate Command today, or whether it’s something that’s imposed by maybe the new antagonist. There has to be a limitation, and I wonder, because of “Unending,” and because… Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think we did much with the Asgard knowledge base in the years following “Unending.”

David Read:
Other than create replicators again.

Darren Sumner:
They created replicators in Ark of Truth.

David Read:
And a cello, and some Tretonin. But other than “Unending,” no it wasn’t really utilized again.

Darren Sumner:
We got beam technology. We got, from “Unending,” we have…

David Read:
We already had that.

Darren Sumner:
From “Unending,” we have…

David Read:
Lasers. The Asgard…

Darren Sumner:
Beam weapons.

David Read:
The Asgard beam technology was used in Atlantis. It wasn’t fired on the Lucian Alliance in-Universe, interestingly enough.

Darren Sumner:
What I’m thinking is, we could very well pick up 15, however many, 20 years later, and maybe the explanation is we haven’t been able to crack the code. We haven’t been able to figure out how to… weaponize is the wrong word. How to actually deploy…

David Read:
Utilize?

Darren Sumner:
… what’s in the database. It’s integrated into the Odyssey. We’re having a hard time replicating their technology, the ability to build a Stargate, the ability to build a ship. I was participating in a Reddit conversation last week where we were talking about, could we build something that’s the equivalent of the O’Neill, advanced Asgard warship?

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
And one of the points I was making was, one of the limitations would be, we would have to find a source of neutronium.

David Read:
We would need… Well, it’s a composite of… The alloy used to make the O’Neill is a composite of trinium, naquadah, and carbon.

Darren Sumner:
Is it trinium? Not neutronium?

David Read:
It’s not neutronium.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
No, neutronium was what the moon Doomsday Machine was made of.

Darren Sumner:
So, something that’s not natural. Whatever it needs to be made of in order to be as advanced as the O’Neill was.

David Read:
Exactly right.

Darren Sumner:
Would be something that’s not native to Earth, so we would have to find it. We would have to set up a large-scale mining operation, figure out how to ferry it somewhere where it can be processed, and then used in manufacturing.

David Read:
Unas. We have lots of Unas. The Odyssey is a huge can of worms.

Darren Sumner:
We have lots of Unas.

David Read:
We do have lots of Unas. Hire them.

Darren Sumner:
Wire them in. Put them to work.

David Read:
I gotta share this right now.

Darren Sumner:
I’m just thinking those are the sort of story beats where you could explain why we are not the Asgard in 2028 in terms of our level of advancement.

David Read:
This is absolutely true. The thought that ran through my head because we were talking about the pyramids a little bit last year with everything that was thought to be found underneath there… Dagnabit, sorry guys. “You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable Unas labor.”

Darren Sumner:
That’s exactly it.

David Read:
They’re doing it for their heritage. They’re doing it in memory of their fallen brethren. Continue to mine this…

Darren Sumner:
On that planet they were.

David Read:
… trinium over… Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
How about we scoop up 10,000 of you and put you to work elsewhere?

David Read:
Geez. I still feel really weird about that.

Darren Sumner:
It might be slave labor.

David Read:
Exactly. I think they’re gonna have to hobble the Odyssey in some way. And please don’t destroy her. But I would not feel safe…

Darren Sumner:
Too valuable to fly around.

David Read:
… flying it around with all of what is left of an entire civilization. I think that that would be relatively irresponsible. “Let’s fly it into the Ori galaxy.” Ugh. And if there’s anything…

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. The only reason that made any sense was because it had a cloak and you needed it.

David Read:
She did have a cloak.

Darren Sumner:
But these days I would say Odyssey needs to be grounded for study.

David Read:
Put her in dry dock.

Darren Sumner:
And security.

David Read:
I think we owe it to them as the fifth race to hang onto it.

Darren Sumner:
We can make copies of it.

David Read:
That’s the thing. We…

Darren Sumner:
Of the database.

David Read:
We can or we can’t?

Darren Sumner:
Remind me how “Unending” plays out. I feel there was dialogue about it’s so integrated into…

David Read:
It’s integrated into the Odyssey systems.

Darren Sumner:
… the Odyssey’s components.

David Read:
I don’t think you’re gonna be able to get it out.

Darren Sumner:
That it couldn’t be removed, it couldn’t be turned off. And this is probably just my headcanon, but I want to say it’s gonna be really tough for Earth to make copies of it.

David Read:
I think so too. If anyone has any input on that…

Darren Sumner:
Go to it.

David Read:
… put a question mark or something in the chat.

Darren Sumner:
Get information out of it.

David Read:
You can. I don’t know if I would at this point. I think you pull up Thor or Heimdall or Freyr and…

Darren Sumner:
It’s one of a kind.

David Read:
… you tell them what’s going on. They’re like, “You know what? I think we’re taking this away from you for a little while. You tell us when you’ve sorted this stuff out and then we’ll give it back. We’re gonna park ourselves behind the moon.”

Darren Sumner:
We could get Holo-Thor back.

David Read:
We could, for sure. I still think that the Vanir… I went back and rewatched “Unending.” And Thor says, “The last attempt to solve our genetic problem has left each of us with a rapidly debilitating disease.” So, we don’t have to give them wiggly bits. We have to solve that. So, if we can get a little bit of Vanir DNA, we may be able to reset it back to that point.

Darren Sumner:
Not a fix, just a reset.

David Read:
Enough of one, for sure. This is so wild, man. Do you have any questions on your side?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, I’m looking through questions. TeleEditing says, “In “The Last Man,” end of Atlantis Season Four, we see the Phoenix having an Asgard core or at least a console on the bridge.”

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
“So, that part was replicated.”

David Read:
That’s the Hammond…

Darren Sumner:
“Granted an alternate timeline, however.”

David Read:
The Hammond is the Phoenix.

Darren Sumner:
So, it would have been a different ship than the Odyssey and I wonder if it is just a console and not the core. ‘Cause for Odyssey the core went in engineering. And we’ve also seen Asgard consoles on the Daedalus. Heimdall or Hermiod had one, didn’t he?

David Read:
Hermiod did have one. I swear I’ve seen an Asgard console somewhere else too. I’m not entirely sure though. TeleEditing is Teal, Tilemachos, he’s our new video editor.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent.

David Read:
He is responsible for this dashboard working tonight. And boy, was that serendipitous, buddy. Thank you so much.

Darren Sumner:
Fantastic.

David Read:
Why are you still up in Greece? Go to bed.

Darren Sumner:
OK. Aels224, “Let’s hope they don’t do a SyFy Channel and don’t only focus on US numbers. There’s nothing more insulting than being ignored.” I think that’s exactly the point that we’re making about Amazon doing this show globally is because they’re a global company, they have to pay attention to the global numbers. Every view counts. It’s not just the people with a Nielsen box. It’s not just the people with a Nielsen box, living in the United States, who are watching on the Syfy Channel, because that particular basic cable network is helping to foot the production bill. It really is. This is the first chance for Stargate fans, really, that all of us and our viewership really do contribute to the success of the show.

David Read:
That’s it. Clbcl5, “Every alien world had either pine trees or sand. Can this be done in Great Britain?” I think we’re expanding our palette a little bit here.

Darren Sumner:
I think we’re gonna be amazed at what alien worlds look like, and not just because of the volume and CG.

David Read:
Mm-mm. I think they’re gonna use all the tools that they have at their disposal. We asked Martin Gero a very similar question to that: “What are you gonna use now?” And he’s like, “Well, everything that’s available to us will be a part of the canvas of options to remove from the tool chest and utilize.” Again, I think principal photography, I suspect, would certainly take place in London, but what’s implied here is that it’s the central base for whatever they’re gonna shoot. It’s not all gonna be shot in the UK.

Darren Sumner:
Let’s talk about… Certainly, they could use locations in the UK for exteriors. But let’s talk about the production process. What we were used to with the previous Stargate shows, when you’re doing 20, 22 a year, is you’ve got constantly rolling through episodes. There’s scripts being written. There’s stuff being prepped. There’s an episode or two being shot. There’s a couple, three in post-production, and they’re just moving through the pipeline at warp speed. And so, when you’re shooting a particular episode, you’ve got, I think, their typical shooting was eight days for an episode? Is that right?

David Read:
Yes. That’s correct, and there was an overlap day.

Darren Sumner:
So, you’re local. That’s why a location like Vancouver works so well. You shoot on the sound stage. You shoot on the special effects stage. You got a couple of days out at the rock quarry for your location. You patch it all together, and that episode is more or less done in eight days. For this, what we’re talking about is map out the whole season, figure out all the locations that we need for every episode, and then when we’re on this planet, we’re gonna be in Tunisia or Prague or wherever it might film, Vancouver. And they’ll do all that stuff for all however many episodes it ends up being. They’ll shoot all of that with that unit, while they’re in that country.

David Read:
And get that bulk of it out of the way. The nice thing about having all these episodes scripted in advance, which I suspect they’ll largely be, is they can do whole chunks at the same time. Game of Thrones was certainly shot that way. They were shooting, to my recollection, they were pretty much shooting the entire canvas of episodes throughout principal photography. That’s the added benefit of having advanced planning.

Darren Sumner:
And as much as people don’t like the idea of eight or 10 episodes, that’s one of the advantages of eight or 10 episodes is you can optimize that production process, optimize principal photography. You have everything planned and know exactly what you need, and so you don’t have to rely on, “We gotta drive a circus of trucks out to the GVRD and shoot for two days in the rain.”

David Read:
Exactly. Speaking of, we haven’t talked about the fact that Vancouver is not gonna be Stargate’s home base anymore. Aren’t you supposed to be having a Vancouverite on to speak on this issue?

Darren Sumner:
Yes.

David Read:
How will this change that discussion, in your mind?

Darren Sumner:
I sent Andrew an email this afternoon, sharing the news with him and seeing how it might change. It certainly will change our discussion because I’m having on GateWorld’s livestream tomorrow afternoon, I’m having Andrew Reeve come on. Andrew is a big Stargate fan. He’s a long-time fan. When we did our livestreams right after the announcement in November and put out a call asking for fans to get involved in what we’re doing on our channels, Andrew was one of the very first who contacted me. And he’s also got a foot in BC politics. He’s a news commentator, and shortly thereafter, he wrote an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun arguing for why it would be great for British Columbia for Stargate to come back to Vancouver.

David Read:
That was on December 11th.

Darren Sumner:
So, the tone of the conversation was to be, here’s why Vancouver and the British Columbia film community should go after Stargate, should try and actively solicit it, try and woo it back to Vancouver. Now that home base is gonna be in London, that shifts that conversation a bit, but again, Stargate’s gonna shoot worldwide.

David Read:
Correct.

Darren Sumner:
And I hope that one of those locations is still Vancouver. So, we’ll have Andrew on tomorrow to talk about it.

David Read:
Absolutely. Give him a shot, for sure. I’m very interested to hear about how that conversation goes. I’m gonna try and tune in for that one live if I can. Judith Remkes, “Darren, can you tell us any more about the producer that you’ve listed?” You haven’t mentioned him.

Darren Sumner:
The additional name that we didn’t have before… We have confirmation, we know Martin Gero is creating and executive producing and show running. Martin’s production company is Quinn’s House Productions, which will be in the end credits, just like we used to get different people’s production companies for Double Secret and Gecko. Those are different production companies that are attached to different executive producers. So, here we’re gonna get MGM Studios, Amazon MGM Studios. We’re gonna get Quinn’s House Productions. Electric Entertainment will be on the end credits. That’s Dean Devlin’s outfit. Centropolis Entertainment, you might recognize. That’s Roland Emmerich. But then the additional name that we got is James W. Skotchdopole. I apologize, James, if I butchered your name. He’s also listed in the publication Production Weekly, has a listing on the new Stargate show, and his name shows up there.

David Read:
Dude, he’s a producer on a ton of great films. Holy cow.

Darren Sumner:
He’s been a major film producer since the ’80s, and he’s done a ton of stuff that you know of.

David Read:
Birdman.

Darren Sumner:
The ones that I called out in the news story are Sleepless in Seattle, Crimson Tide, Django Unchained, The Revenant. 30 or 40 years of film production, and then just recently, he’s apparently got involved in television and streaming production. So, his last two credits are Amazon projects, The Peripheral, which is an excellent one-season show from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. I like The Peripheral a lot. And then he also worked on the first four episodes of Fallout as an executive producer.

David Read:
So, he’s already in the Amazon family.

Darren Sumner:
He’s gonna be involved, or he is involved, GateWorld can report, in the new Stargate show. I presume he’s gonna get an executive producer credit on screen, but I haven’t confirmed that yet.

David Read:
A lot of unit production manager work. I suspect he will be on the ground.

Darren Sumner:
I suspect he might be the N. John Smith of the new show. Unit production, John Smith on Stargate SG-1 was the executive producer who kept the trains running on time.

David Read:
He sure did.

Darren Sumner:
Made sure that the show came in on time and on budget.

David Read:
This is good news, man. The caliber of folks that are involved in this thing…

Darren Sumner:
It’s exciting.

David Read:
It sure is. Let me have a look here.

Darren Sumner:
And I do hope we get a Vancouver forest.

David Read:
WhoIsThis…

Darren Sumner:
You can’t go too many episodes without a Vancouver forest.

David Read:
WhoIsThis505… I need Grouse Mountain in at least one shot. Maybe we’ll ski down it one time. WhoIsThis505 asks, “Does the location mean no US Air Force or US Space Force participation?” I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. They certainly can participate, and I certainly hope that there is a hope of that, because the Air Force and Stargate were inextricably linked in particularly SG-1, but they were definitely acknowledged in all three shows. I asked Rob Cooper that specifically; why wasn’t the Air Force more a specific presence? And he says, Atlantis was governed by the IOA, so it didn’t make sense for there to be more Air Force oversight in that instance, because it was a multinational expedition. And it was something very similar for…

Darren Sumner:
Even the military contingent was international.

David Read:
… something very similar for Universe as well, and there was a heavier Marine influence there as well. So, I think Greer was a Marine. He was a Seven I think. But it makes a lot of sense, I hope the Air Force is consulted for sure.

Darren Sumner:
There’s no reason that they would not be unless there was a particular story reason. I would guess that SGU didn’t use the Air Force quite as much also because it was a darker show. It was people who were stranded galaxies away, who were…

David Read:
IOA oversight.

Darren Sumner:
… potentially at the end of everything. So, there wasn’t much, if any, oversight. So, I would guess that they were not eager to have the US Air Force knock back any story ideas or dialogue.

David Read:
You think that’s what it was, to make the story a little bit more their own? That’s a great question for Brad and Rob.

Darren Sumner:
For Brad and Rob. I’m just guessing based on the tone of the show and the sorts of things that their characters did. We’ve heard stories of SG-1 getting notes over the years about ways that they didn’t want to see a uniformed Air Force officer behave, things that they shouldn’t do.

David Read:
Correct. There’s a reason O’Neill resigns before he kisses Carter in “Window of Opportunity.” A, it makes a funny scene. B, it’s a funny scene. But C, I’m sure the Air Force was like, “What? That’s the whole reason…” In “There Before the Grace of God,” Rob Cooper told us the last time we had him on, “We’ll just make Carter a civilian in this alternate reality.” Because they were like “Alternate reality, alternate Air Force, still our Air Force. Even if it’s an alternate one, we’re not gonna crack.” And that made sense. I think it was great that they made her a civilian.

Darren Sumner:
And then for SGU, think about all the things that Colonel Young went through, all the things that he did.

David Read:
God. That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
You know, with locking Telford up and taking all the air out of the room, almost killing him. Young had an arc.

David Read:
Killing Riley with his bare hands, you know?

Darren Sumner:
And I don’t see the Air Force signing off on any of this.

David Read:
I don’t think the Air Force would’ve been thrilled with that, for sure.

Darren Sumner:
So, I think it depends on what the story is. In Martin’s new story is the Air Force, is the US military even involved in the operations of the Stargate program? We don’t know the answer to that yet.

David Read:
That’s it. TeleEditing again, Tilemachos, “Would having home base be in London make it harder or less likely for older cast that live in Vancouver/West Coast to appear in the new show, let alone a lack of US Air Force when it comes to advice and support?” You know who else lives in London?

Darren Sumner:
Who?

David Read:
Anna Louise Plowman. They moved the show for Anna Louise. I got it. I called it.

Darren Sumner:
Well, if they bring her back, I want her to get Goa’ulded or some time travel shenanigans or something. I wanna see Sarah Gardner, but I don’t wanna just see Sarah Gardner. I wanna see Osiris chew on some scenery.

David Read:
I just wanna see Sarah Gardner, absolutely. No, I think that that’s fair. Not gonna drive it into the ground, man.

Darren Sumner:
You wanna start to think of all the UK talent. Who’s…

David Read:
Of course.

Darren Sumner:
… who’s already out there?

David Read:
What was her face? She was locked in the mirror thing in Superman. She was a Tok’ra. Garshaw.

Darren Sumner:
Sarah Douglas.

David Read:
Sarah Douglas. Absolutely. I remember her doing this a lot in one of the Superman scenes. I think she’s UK-based. There’s a couple of other actors…

Darren Sumner:
Very likely.

David Read:
… over there who are as well. What’s his face who played Darrell in “Bounty?” He’s in the UK now as well. “When she looked back, and she looks good.” Iceman0003, “David, do you think the gate would be made public, such as what happened in “2010”?” I really doubt it. I was having this… Diana, please forgive me. I’m gonna share your idea. But Diana Botsford and I, we’re…

Darren Sumner:
You’re looking up to heaven, praying like she’s not with us anymore.

David Read:
She’s not with us at the moment. I’m looking up to Wisconsin… Wisconsin? Michigan. The fact of the matter is that that is a huge story point, and you don’t just mow over that and, “Oh, by the way, it was revealed.” They were going to hang a whole movie on that idea in Stargate: Revolution, were they not?

Darren Sumner:
Say again? I’m reading chat. What are they doing in Stargate: Revolution? They’re going public?

David Read:
Yeah. Was that the idea or is that what was talked about?

Darren Sumner:
That was the plan for Stargate: Revolution.

David Read:
Wow.

Darren Sumner:
The canceled SG-1 movie that was gonna come after Continuum. And I remember vividly standing in Brad Wright’s office at Bridge and talking about the Stargate going public at some point in the future. This was far before the end. And he said to us — I think you were there — he said to us, “That’s a story you can only tell once.”

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
And he wanted to put it in his pocket. In our reality. He wanted to put it in his pocket because it was such a plum story to tell, the revelation of the Stargate to the public. He wanted to put it in his pocket, at that point, I think, potentially for a movie. He was still thinking about an SG-1 theatrical feature film to tell that story with. Eventually, Stargate had DVD movies, so it was gonna be a central plot point for Stargate: Revolution. But it’s a story you can only tell once. And because Brad valued that story so much, I’m pretty skeptical that the new show will just leapfrog over it and not tell it. And just have the Stargate be public.

David Read:
I still think that disclosure could happen at some point, but…

Darren Sumner:
In this show? You think?

David Read:
I think that it would be a season-long plot. I don’t think that they’d hang it on the end of a season or do something with it that… It’d make everything change as a result. You would want to absolutely pound as much money as you could into this thing and give it as much exposure as you could, because it’s such a huge deal. Casuallysandra, “I’d expect them to retire those ships and have a new fleet by now, especially because the core needed to be studied.” Absolutely, study that core. Didn’t you just have Ryan Begemann on, Mallacore, RJB?

Darren Sumner:
I did.

David Read:
That showed his Earth fleet. Man.

Darren Sumner:
We went through everything. I had a blast with Ryan.

David Read:
And he has a process for each and every one of those spaceships. Isn’t he wild?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. The way that his mind works as an artist, that he approaches it not just as the aesthetics of making a beautiful piece of work, but as a fan, getting into the details and not only knowing what needs to be there on this side of the hull of this ship, but imagining from there. So, we talked a bit about the fact that his Daedalus has hangar doors that are closed, which I don’t think we ever saw on screen, but he just sort of went there as an artist and said, “Well, I feel like the ship needs to have this.”

David Read:
I’m showing some of his art on the screen right now. But yeah, Dauntless class. Man, this guy is good. So, DeviantArt, we’ll be sure to put a link in the description below. And Ryan, if I haven’t done that by the time you see this, kick me in the pants over an email. The possibilities here are really pretty extraordinary for this. I do feel for the Vancouver folks who were really heart-set on having this thing produced there. I get it. And it, this has, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this yet, quickly outdated a huge portion of our December photography.

Darren Sumner:
I was gonna say, we hung out with a bunch of them.

David Read:
A lot of them, and they were really looking forward to the possibility of that. But again, as you said, it’s not impossible that they could shoot some of the show there, and I think that it would make sense for a host of reasons to do that. Part of one of the things that I am really looking forward to is the possibility of bringing one or two familiar faces back as new cast, as aliens, or to have them altered in some way. It’s also been 20 years, so people don’t look the same. I think we’re long overdue to have Garwin Sanford come back as a third character.

Darren Sumner:
As a third character?

David Read:
Yeah, as a third character.

Darren Sumner:
He’s still pretty recognizable.

David Read:
Or David McNally, we need to bring him back for a third character. So, there are a few of them in there who played humans more than once, and it’s, there’s a huge palette of folks who were previously involved in the show, whose characters are presumably still alive in this universe, so it makes a lot of sense to invite a few of them back. And I think if they don’t bring back one or two people before the end of this eight, nine, 10, 11 episode run, I think everyone will be disappointed, so I don’t see that happening. They’ve gotta bring back someone.

Darren Sumner:
Part of the texture, I think, of continuing the universe that we know and love, continuing the canon, is the Free Jaffa are out there, and the Tok’ra are out there. They have a big shiny new city now.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
It makes sense to see those, to see some characters. There’s not necessarily a whole lot of bandwidth if it’s a 10-episode season. If it’s not a lot of it is set. I don’t know that it’s set in the Milky Way galaxy, frankly. I’m still thinking we might go somewhere else in the course of this show.

David Read:
We might go somewhere else.

Darren Sumner:
So, as the story permits, I’d love to see some of those faces. You and I have spent so much time in Vancouver and hanging out with cast and crew, and they’ve been so generous in giving us their time and their thoughts and their memories of working on the shows that we’re cheerleaders for…

David Read:
Of course.

Darren Sumner:
… the Vancouver film and television industry as a whole…

David Read:
We love these folks.

Darren Sumner:
… and as well as these folks in particular, and their desire to work, their desire to return to the characters that they helped to give life to.

David Read:
Eating is so much better than not eating.

Darren Sumner:
I would love to see it. I think fans would love to see faces back.

David Read:
I’m with you. I don’t see this thing being set in any environment that we’ve seen before. Every new show has introduced a new network, at least, of Stargates. And maybe it’s set in a pocket of our galaxy that we haven’t accessed. Stargate: Oblivion, what I pitched to Fandemonium along with Diana Botsford, was set in a dwarf galaxy called Segue One, which actually exists. And at the time, it possessed the highest concentration of dark matter that we could detect in at least the local group of galaxies. And the pitch was that wormholes don’t travel through dark matter. And they tug on dark matter. So, your route through space is not consistent. And your path could be blocked if you pull on too much of it, if you have a Stargate open for too long. So, you would have to jump around the galaxy in order to get where you wanted to go or to get home. They could do something like that here…

Darren Sumner:
Interesting.

David Read:
… where they’re in a part of space where the Stargates have to be really used strategically, and so anyone who has the ability to move them with a spacecraft, if someone got their hands on a seed ship. Whatever happened to the Milky Way seed ships? They didn’t plant this thing. They would have had to have conveyed, or the Pegasus seed ships would have had to have conveyed, the Stargate somehow. It only made sense.

Darren Sumner:
It’s interesting. An interesting point of speculation that I don’t think I’ve ever had this conversation with anybody, let alone you, Destiny and the seed ships introduce that question that you’re addressing directly which is, how did the Milky Way gate network come about? How did the Pegasus gate network come about? Were those Stargates placed by some automated means like seed ships?

David Read:
Like seed ships.

Darren Sumner:
Or were there Ancients whose job it was to fly around in hyperspace as fast as they could and drop Stargates and it just took them thousands of years to put thousands of Stargates in our galaxy? I’m also thinking about the fact that I think the Milky Way is underexplored, frankly.

David Read:
From our perspective, yes, it is. There’s potentially millions of Stargates out there, or is it billions? I forgot the math when you carry the four and you do them in mass.

Darren Sumner:
The math on the number of addresses that you could potentially dial…

David Read:
It’s wild.

Darren Sumner:
… certainly gives you permission to make the network bigger, to do a pocket over here, or to just have a region of the Milky Way that has no gates. The Ancients never went there. In millions of years living in our galaxy, they never went there.

David Read:
Or there was a threat that they refuse. Can you imagine the strategic advantage if you discovered a seed ship in an asteroid field, dug it out? I mean, you could start your own little Stargate fiefdom in a corner of the galaxy and you could reign supreme with that darn thing.

Darren Sumner:
Which is kinda what Ba’al wanted to do.

David Read:
It’s what he wanted to do.

Darren Sumner:
He was scooping up Stargates in order to make his own little network.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
I think there’s a lot of story potential there, even just in our galaxy.

David Read:
Did he get that idea from Jay Felger? Was that a result of the Avenger 2.0 incident? Reprogramming the DHDs?

Darren Sumner:
Not that I recall specifically.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
Might have to, I’m gonna have to re-watch that or read the transcript.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
‘Cause he got that idea in his head, that he could somehow isolate his own little fiefdom using the Stargates. But the galaxy is so big.

David Read:
It’s pretty big.

Darren Sumner:
Star Trek over the decades has done a great job illustrating the fact that our galaxy alone has these, in Star Trek, four quadrants: Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Delta, Gamma, and you can’t fly across it really fast.

David Read:
They’ve done a fair job recently unillustrating that fact as well with the spore drive. But for Voyager, it’s…

Darren Sumner:
For Voyager, it’s gonna take you decades.

David Read:
To borrow from O’Neill, it’s big.

Darren Sumner:
It’s honkin’ big.

David Read:
Big and honkin’.

Darren Sumner:
I imagine the Milky Way, if we had a map of the Milky Way in the Stargate universe, and then you took all those Stargates that the Ancients ever plotted down, all the Stargates that the Goa’uld ever moved around, I imagine that would take up a relatively small portion of the Milky Way galaxy.

David Read:
For sure. It’s 110,000 light years across. That’s a heck of a lot of real estate. And the number of alien races out there that the Ancients never even touched is probably extreme.

Darren Sumner:
Or the Furlings. Hey, somebody’s gonna bring up the Furlings before the stream is over.

David Read:
Dude.

Darren Sumner:
And I’m currently, the video that I was editing before I was so rudely interrupted by breaking news is about the four races…

David Read:
Really?

Darren Sumner:
… and their alliance. And so, I’ve had Furlings on my mind for a while, working on this video, and I think it’s entirely plausible if the explanation turns out to be the Furlings are still alive and well, they’re still out there, they live in our galaxy, they’re just really far away and they don’t care about us.

David Read:
Or they’re really tired of us and just…

Darren Sumner:
They don’t have any Stargates.

David Read:
“Leave us alone. Stop calling us giant koalas.”

Darren Sumner:
There are no Stargates near them. We’ve never found them. Our ships have never gone there. The Tok’ra have never come within, you know, 10 years at hyperspace of even reaching their territory.

David Read:
It wouldn’t surprise me, though. The Nox gave up gate travel, for crying out loud. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had abandoned it, so absolutely. Anything else on your end? Anyone…

Darren Sumner:
Let’s see what’s going on here.

David Read:
… trip on in?

Darren Sumner:
Guys, tag me in the GateWorld chat at gateworld.net if you want me to see your comment or question.

David Read:
Put a question mark in the Dial the Gate chat as your first entry in a chat if you wanna submit one to me.

Darren Sumner:
TeleEditing says, “We could also have a new long-range transportation device. We know information can travel across galaxies through subspace. In theory, you could have a long-range Asgard beam device.” That’s interesting.

David Read:
Would replace Stargate though, the Stargate travel, wouldn’t it?

Darren Sumner:
Or maybe piggyback on Stargate travel. I’ve seen…

David Read:
Piggyback.

Darren Sumner:
… questions again, on Reddit and social media, what would happen if you sent an Asgard transporter beam through an open wormhole? Could you rematerialize it on the other side? If we could rig a Stargate to send and receive that kind of, of a…

David Read:
It’s an awfully complicated piece of information, radio waves.

Darren Sumner:
… transport.

David Read:
That’s kinda wild. Bypass some…

Darren Sumner:
‘Cause you’d need something on the receiving gate that was smart enough to rematerialize the energy pattern.

David Read:
There’s something similar that was used in Stargate SG-1, “The Alliance,” that was in development by Perception in Australia, where Anubis had sent something through to SGC, and when he dialed in again, the iris could not be shut. So, it interfered with the signal of the base computer communicating the information to the iris and actually interfered with the mechanism that was next to the iris inside of the embarkation room into locking it. And it was a great idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that is the case. The possibilities are limitless.

Darren Sumner:
Look at this. If we had our own TV show, we could do all sorts of things. And Martin is way smarter than we are.

David Read:
He is indeed.

Darren Sumner:
Aels224, we’re talking about the Furlings here, I think. He says “Or they might think the Tau’ri killed the Asgard and are back to avenge their late friends.” “Or they might think the Tau’ri killed the Asgard or the Furlings… and are back to avenge their late friends.”

David Read:
I suspect the Furlings are thinking that the Tau’ri killed the Asgard.

Darren Sumner:
Maybe the Furlings come to kill us because they think we’re responsible for the death of the Asgard. I think that’s the point.

David Read:
Little Suspiria coming to take vengeance for “The Caretaker?” I will never call us the Tau’ri. I’m not gonna do it. That is a designation given to our planet by one of our greatest enemies.

Darren Sumner:
The Tok’ra used it too.

David Read:
They did?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, on occasion.

David Read:
OK, I rescind that remark.

Darren Sumner:
Aels224, “Do you think they might do slices of life in the back times to set events on the long stretch of nothing or rather jump straight in and fill in on the need-to-know basis?” So, correct me if I’m wrong, is this the question: is the show just gonna start in the present day and blast forward with its story, or are they gonna take time to fill in some of the missing years…

David Read:
14 years.

Darren Sumner:
“… some of the lost years by telling stories through flashbacks or other means?”

David Read:
I really don’t think they’re gonna play it, “Here’s what you missed.” Flashback. This is going to cater at least 51% to a new audience. We’re going to have dialogue filling in any necessary pieces that we’ve missed because, obviously, the Stargate program would have continued in some form, unless they killed it. Unless some version of Robert Kinsey managed to step in and say, “Look, yeah, we’ve got the ships now. This is not a good idea. Let’s get this thing off planet or just put it under a couple of rocks and shut the thing off.” It could entirely be possible that there hasn’t been an ongoing program that way. Who knows how our modern Earth may have impacted the events in that series. There may be an inextricable link between modern Earth and the story that they want to tell. We haven’t really explored that very much.

Darren Sumner:
I haven’t been thinking much about the events of modern Earth since …

David Read:
Space Force.

Darren Sumner:
… since the election of President, what’s his name? On the show.

David Read:
Hayes.

Darren Sumner:
President Hayes. Since we had a presidential election around about 2003 and the swearing in of a new president, that, for me, that kind of solidly put us in an alternate universe.

David Read:
Alternate universe. That’s right. That was one of my issues with that when that happened: OK, if you really want to get down into the dirt about it, and not that far down even, obviously, that’s not the guy. But we’re still asked to join them on a journey, and whether it’s us or not, “Ours is not only the reality of consequence, O’Neill.” So, there’s a lot of ways that this could play out. Lgrfbs, “Easter eggs from other sci-fi series in Stargate?” Look no further than 200. I would suspect that there will be some nods to some other shows. There would have to be. I would want there to be some references. One of my favorite references is indirectly to Signs. Was it “Orpheus,” the Erebus episode?

Darren Sumner:
When they’re in the weight room.

David Read:
“Do you know, do you know how we defeated them? Water. Who invades a planet that’s 80% water?”

Darren Sumner:
I love Sam just being exasperated.

David Read:
Exactly right. That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
And Daniel, I mean, meanwhile, Daniel can barely remember his own name.

David Read:
That’s it. “Thanks, Jim.” I still like your theory, though, that they named the George Dzundza character specifically that…

Darren Sumner:
In “Threads.”

David Read:
Yeah. I don’t think, Robert, you could get him to say either way. I don’t think he remembered.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t think he remembered. Seems like an easy yes.

David Read:
So, I asked Robert this, and I want this to get on the record here in the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.

Darren Sumner:
Executive producer Robert C. Cooper.

David Read:
Robert C. Cooper. I sent him an email and I was like, “How would I convey this to get Robert to say that so that it’s a part of the fabric of our channels?” But you know what? I can just say it. Let me see here. I asked about the etymology of Naquadah. Talk about getting down on your knees.

Darren Sumner:
The name Naquadah.

David Read:
“I can’t believe I’ve never asked this question, Rob. Did you come up with the term Naquadah? Its first appearance is in “Singularity.” I’m also wondering if you could consider this as its proper spelling, N-A-Q-U-A-D-A-H. In the feature film, the city was referred to in documentation as Nagáda or Nágada. So, I’m curious about the etymology. In Stargate Origins, they refer to Naquadah as Nagadah as well while speaking to young Kasuf…”

Darren Sumner:
That was a very interesting element of Origins.

David Read:
“… in his own language.” That was very interesting. Absolutely. And he says, “To be honest…”

Darren Sumner:
‘Cause that’s from the film script, right? The name Naquadah for the Abydonian city.

David Read:
City. That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
That’s in the script for the movie. It’s not something that Origins made up.

David Read:
Correct. That’s it. That’s a carryover. He says, Coop says, “Honestly, I don’t really remember. I don’t think it was related to Nagada. I do remember a lot of debating as to the pronunciation. Was it Naqúadah, Náquadah?” So, that was one of the things that was bantered back and forth. But I still like to think that it was extracted from the film. So, unfortunately, we don’t really know for sure, but “Singularity” was the first use of that because, obviously, it was an important plot detail being a part of Cassandra’s body at that point. So, that’s a good little nugget for everybody. What else we got here? Matthewhammond9575, “Will the bad guys have English accents?” So, Star Wars was shot at Leavesden? No. Where was it shot in the UK? Whatever film studio it was. So, it just became part of that trope…

Darren Sumner:
Pinewood?

David Read:
Pinewood. That, the villains are all played by British folk, so if they do speak English and they are bad guys, there better be at least one of them in there that has an English accent.

Darren Sumner:
At least one. Need some good British Goa’uld. Let’s see, we had Osiris. Who else… Did we have anybody else with a British accent?

David Read:
Yeah, Sarah What’s-Her-Face, in the glass in Superman.

Darren Sumner:
Sarah Douglas.

David Read:
Douglas, that’s it. So, she had to be on board.

Darren Sumner:
She played Garshaw.

David Read:
Good.

Darren Sumner:
Head of the Tok’ra in Season Two. Yes. Cliff was South African.

David Read:
He was indeed South African, and so is Suanne.

Darren Sumner:
Suanne’s South African.

David Read:
But she has more of a British accent, but she can really bring out the South African accent if she wants to. Suanne is in the UK. This is fantastic.

Darren Sumner:
Now, it’s easier for local casting, obviously…

David Read:
For sure.

Darren Sumner:
But let’s also bear in mind that these guys are gonna have money, so they can cast from anywhere in the world.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
And if your part requires you to go to Tunisia for three weeks, Amazon’s gonna pay to fly you to Tunisia. If they want you in London, they’re gonna pay to fly you to London. And I get the sense from the shows that I watch, the streaming shows that have lots of money, that they bring people in from all over the world. They’re not just using local casting. But they will use local casting, for sure. This will be a boon to the UK film and television industry.

David Read:
100%. I’m wondering if at least 50% of the cast will need to be, not necessarily from a British territory. What was the requirement in Stargate for Canada? I think it was at least 50% of the cast had to be from either Canada or from the UK or from a British government.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, I don’t know if it was the cast, but it was definitely crew.

David Read:
Definitely crew.

Darren Sumner:
It was definitely the jobs that the show created, there was a minimum set for Canadian citizens.

David Read:
That’s it. TeleEditing, “The Ancients used naquadah for the Milky Way Stargates. What did they call it and did they use it?” We don’t know what the Ancients called naquadah. “Did they use it for Pegasus or Destiny?” Definitely not the SGU Stargates, considering you could shoot at it with weaponry and the side of it would just blow a chunk out of itself, like the drones did in, what was it? “Common Descent?”

Darren Sumner:
In “Common Descent.” Which is something that I find really fascinating about the SGU lore and the seed ships is…

David Read:
They’re fragile.

Darren Sumner:
The seed ships had to use whatever materials they could scoop up along the way. So, that’s fascinating that it’s even possible to make a Stargate that can connect a wormhole using everyday household items that you find under your sink. Whatever minerals happen to be scooped up in that star system or the one before.

David Read:
Freeze-dried Stargates, just add water.

Darren Sumner:
It’s kind of amazing.

David Read:
The implication was, I don’t necessarily think that naquadah was abundant in the galaxy, just that it wasn’t native to our system, which is why they came to us when they wanted to harvest hosts, and then when they had their fill of us, they stopped. Which also lent a good reason as to why Ra no longer required Earth as a base after a while when he decided, “Ah, enough with them.”

Darren Sumner:
They had so many humans already scattered across the galaxy.

David Read:
That’s it. Why didn’t he wipe out the Egyptian population from orbit? That’s an awfully un-Goa’uldy thing to do.

Darren Sumner:
That’s an open question. I imagine it just wasn’t worth his time to fly there in hyperspace.

David Read:
Those may have been controlled by people who rebelled against him. He may have been the only one able to pilot the ship and get the hell out of there.

Darren Sumner:
And think about this. Think about Teal’c’s estimation at the end of Season One where the ships are on their way to Earth, and Teal’c gives an estimate for how long it will take based on the ships’ speed. Sam estimates it’ll take at least a month to get to Earth.

David Read:
I thought a year.

Darren Sumner:
Was it a year? I thought it was a month.

David Read:
It was a year.

Darren Sumner:
Whatever it is…

David Read:
It was gonna be a while. They had time.

Darren Sumner:
But the point stands that it ends up being very wrong, ’cause they arrive in a matter of hours, presumably.

David Read:
Yes, their hyperdrive is really accelerated.

Darren Sumner:
What’s your head canon for this? Either Teal’c is super wrong and doesn’t know how fast a Ha’tak can fly, or the Goa’uld have recently improved their engines and they can go a lot faster than they used to. So, maybe Ra’s ships, if Ra’s flying around in a pyramid ship, an older model, maybe it’s slower and it would take him months to reach Earth.

David Read:
He talks about the Ha’tak vessels, and that’s definitely what those are. It’s one of those things, it’s a non-sequitur. It doesn’t follow. The convenience of the hyperspace velocity was up there with the convenience of dragon speeds in flight in Game of Thrones, from one place to the other. All of a sudden, by the end of that show, they got anywhere very fast. It’s one of those things, as my dad would say, “You gotta buy it.”

Darren Sumner:
They fly at the speed of plot.

David Read:
They fly at the speed of plot. That’s it. That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
Aels224 reminds us, “To be fair, they didn’t even have a name for ZPMs. Janus admits that they don’t have a name for ZPMs.”

David Read:
When is that the case?

Darren Sumner:
Do you remember that? I don’t remember that line in “Before I Sleep.”

David Read:
Of course they would have a name for ZPMs, even if it was a power cell. That’s not true.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know if he’s… I’m trying to remember the dialogue.

David Read:
He asked Elizabeth what you call them. Let me have a look here.

Darren Sumner:
So, she called them ZPMs, and I don’t think he… I don’t know that they didn’t have a name for it, but he didn’t tell her what it was.

David Read:
OK. Grinding halt. GateWorld.net “Before I Sleep” transcript. Let’s see here. “You said the shield collapsed shortly after your arrival. I have to find a way to extend the supply of power.” “What is it you called them?” “Zero Point Module.” “Yes.” “They’re designed to operate in parallel with all three providing power to the city simultaneously.” I didn’t mean to burst your bubble, buddy, but that’s… They would have a term for their most valuable asset. What did you think of the idea that Joseph Mallozzi posited for the Season Six Atlantis finale where they found access to the location where all the ZPMs were built, their manufacturing site? I think it was somewhere on Atlantis. In a pocket of something.

Darren Sumner:
Joe was working on this idea of the ZPM factory being in a pocket dimension. That could be accessed from Atlantis.

David Read:
And it was something that he and I had talked about. I was really proud of that, ’cause it would have to be accessed from Atlantis because, if this is the crown jewel of the Ancient domain, you would have access relatively straightforward to that.

Darren Sumner:
You’d need batteries.

David Read:
And you wouldn’t want them to hurt your base.

Darren Sumner:
If the writers told us that manufacturing ZPMs, which is, it’s a universe in a bottle.

David Read:
Have been created.

Darren Sumner:
It’s a little pocket of subspace. If the writers were to tell us that manufacturing ZPMs is extraordinarily dangerous and touchy, I would totally buy that it happens on another planet or in a pocket dimension or somewhere where the Ancients could access it when you gotta change the batteries in your smoke detector. But it’s not in the city proper.

David Read:
That’s it. I’m thrilled that we know where this thing’s gonna be now. Where was this initially reported? Where did you find out about this?

Darren Sumner:
GateWorld.

David Read:
Really? So, you got a tip?

Darren Sumner:
It was initially…

David Read:
GateWorld has learned.

Darren Sumner:
It was originally…

David Read:
Is this an exclusive?

Darren Sumner:
… shared with me… There’s production assets that are out there for the production industry, including Production Weekly, which lists a snapshot of: here are the production companies that are involved in this project, here’s their address, here’s who you would contact if you wanted to work on this show. It’s bare bones details of “this project is filming here and these are the executives who are doing it.” And that… They publish weekly, and Stargate showed up on it this week. So, from there, I went to GateWorld’s sources and got some confirmation and a little bit of extra detail that’s not in the Production Weekly report.

David Read:
This is so sweet. Man, oh, man. This is gonna be great to chew on. We’ve got several friends in the UK, Jakub Olejarz, my lead archivist. Sorry, Jakub, you got another transcript to deal with, buddy. He actually does take part in filming around there, so he will have a lot to say about this.

Darren Sumner:
It’s fun to see Tommy and other UK fans so excited about this.

David Read:
Matthewhammond9575, “Will Rodney McKay and John Shepherd make an appearance in the new show?” Of course they will. I would hope so. We will see. I’m really looking forward to tearing apart, morsel by morsel, every cast announcement as they come through, and it’s gonna be really exciting to, I hope, get a chance to get to know some of these people before they get to know their characters. One of my proudest interviews is sitting down with Brian Smith before he got to know Matt Scott. And a lot of it was what wasn’t said during the live conversation, what was said off the record, ’cause he had wanted a dog and I’m like, “Dude, that production is very dog friendly.” And then he went and got his King Charles Spaniel, Cassie. These people are walking into something very special. If I were them, I wouldn’t want to know too much about us, not because we are so threatening, but there is an intimidation factor there. A number of the Star Trek cast over the years, including Elizabeth Dennehy, was like, “Had I known that it was as big as it was, I wouldn’t have been able to do my job. I couldn’t get it done.”

Darren Sumner:
OK, that’s a good point.

David Read:
It factors in. You have to keep your head down and go to work.

Darren Sumner:
They don’t want it to get in their head.

David Read:
That’s it. That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
Hopefully you and I will have the opportunity to visit the production while they are shooting.

David Read:
I sure hope so.

Darren Sumner:
That’s my dream. We got to do it in Vancouver for several years running.

David Read:
I think five years in my case in a row, four or five.

Darren Sumner:
That’s my dream, so I wanna get my passport together. Hopefully we get to go to London.

David Read:
You haven’t gotten your passport together? You should have your passport ready to rock and roll.

Darren Sumner:
No, I told you at the start of the stream. It’s been expired for over 10 years.

David Read:
We knew it was gonna be filming worldwide! As soon as you got that, the next business day you should have been like, “OK.”

Darren Sumner:
I got time.

David Read:
Yes, you do. That’s true. But don’t wait. All right.

Darren Sumner:
It’s ’cause it’s so easy to get to Vancouver from here.

David Read:
I know. Have we talked about what we shot in Vancouver? I don’t think so. I think…

Darren Sumner:
No, certainly not on my channel.

David Read:
… that Season Five had already wrapped as I continue a Season Five episode right now. What was…

Darren Sumner:
Before we talk about all that content, let me get one more comment in here…

David Read:
All right.

Darren Sumner:
… on our previous conversation, ’cause this is funny. This is worth talking about. PhobicDragon8263 [?], we’re talking about the idea of Ba’al creating his own little fiefdom by stealing Stargates and kind of hacking his own little gate network. PhobicDragon says, “Ba’al got the reseeding idea from Anubis and the Alteran device,” not sure what that one is, “and helped getting it going using the god of gluten, Goa’uld scientist.” He’s talking about Nerus.

David Read:
Nerus. Nerus, he figured out how to dial all of the Stargates simultaneously. Alteran device, does this mean Attero device? Alterans are the species that the Ancients came from when they were still joined with the Ori. But it’s…

Darren Sumner:
Maybe the Dakara device.

David Read:
That could be as well.

Darren Sumner:
So, Ba’al got the reseeding idea from Anubis and the Alteran device. Maybe just the idea of…

David Read:
Used to rebuild life in the Milky Way…

Darren Sumner:
Using the Dakara device for…

David Read:
… after all the plague thing.

Darren Sumner:
… for terraforming.

David Read:
That’s probably a good idea of what that was.

Darren Sumner:
Nerus is a good call-back. Ba’al was not singularly smart. Ba’al hired smart people.

David Read:
There we go. Antony Rawling, one of our mods, “Amazon has a long-term lease with Pinewood’s Shepperton Studios.” So, yep. There’s a lot that’s gonna be coming that way, for sure. Which project that we filmed in December are you most excited about fellow fans getting to watch?

Darren Sumner:
We spent three days in Vancouver in December. And we shot some fun stuff. We revisited some old friends. I’m excited about a lot of it. I had a lot of fun with Rob Fournier’s P90 demonstration.

David Read:
So, did I.

Darren Sumner:
I know you did. I imagine that’s a particular subset of fans that are gonna geek out over the P90 and the various sci-fi weaponry that he had on display for us. I’m excited to see how fans react to the seaside walk-and-talk. Which I have not seen, because I was shooting the wide shots from a distance, so I have no idea what anybody said in that. I’m looking forward to watching it, to be honest.

David Read:
It was definitely a good conversation. I’m sharing some of the footage right now that Rob had with us for the P90 demo. Myself and Remington Phillips were fortunate enough to get to fire these. Each of us got a chance to shoot one of the ten weapons that they had gotten for production, and it was a great opportunity that he gave us. So, I’m just thrilled that…

Darren Sumner:
That was a very memorable experience, including the stuff that we didn’t get to film. It was very memorable seeing what they have. Do we get to talk about who was in the seaside walk-and-talk?

David Read:
So, that was Ellie Harvie…

Darren Sumner:
Or was it public?

David Read:
… and that was Gary Jones, and that was Paul McGillion. So, we were very privileged to be able to have a conversation with the three of them. They did this down in, where was this? What bay is that called? I’m trying to remember its name.

Darren Sumner:
I forget.

David Read:
I’m trying to remember exactly where we were. But that was…

Darren Sumner:
We went for about a week while we were there and then left my fron.

David Read:
Left your fron. Let me pull this up here and share this real quick.

Darren Sumner:
But it was a beautiful day. This was the tiny, skinny, beautiful window in the middle of a very rainy week.

David Read:
It was. So, we had this huge fear that the weather there was gonna completely do us in, and Gary Jones kept on telling us, “It’s gonna work. It’s gonna be fantastic.” And we’re looking at the weather, and it’s raining cats and dogs the entire time, and boy, he was absolutely right.

Darren Sumner:
He had his own Touchstone back at his flat. He made it happen.

David Read:
The Touchstone. It’s absolutely the case. But, yeah, it was a good time. So, I’m really looking…

Darren Sumner:
We are here–

David Read:
… forward to the conversation that we had with Richard Hudolin, you and I one-on-one. That was a treat. That was really special.

Darren Sumner:
Richard Hudolin was the production designer on Stargate SG-1 for the first five seasons? Eight seasons?

David Read:
First five seasons of SG-1.

Darren Sumner:
OK.

David Read:
So, when they went to Season Six, Bridget McGuire took over for him, and then she did 6 through 10. Was that correct? I think she did six through 10, then James CD Robbins was involved later.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, so Richard and his team are responsible for so much of the look of the show, translating things over from the movie, Stargate Command. What does the Stargate look like? How is it different? And then episode by episode, we talked, or listened to Richard, and then later with the round table with some of his production teammates. Long stories about…

David Read:
Long stories.

Darren Sumner:
… the tomb, the tomb in Season Five, and how they got that looking just right. Really wonderful stuff that I had never heard before. 30 years as a Stargate fan.

David Read:
There are stories that go on in production where it’s like a family, yes, and families squabble. And you have creative people who are wanting to make something beautiful, and they don’t always go at it at a straight line. They have to figure their way out, and some people go one direction, some people go another direction. And so, we get into the detail of that more than one conversation with these folks. And it was, frankly, refreshing to hear that, oh yeah, “these folks, they put their pants on just the same as everyone else does.”

Darren Sumner:
But there’s so much history about the show that lives in their minds. It was really wonderful to sit down with them and hear those stories and be able to ask them questions.

David Read:
Especially since a lot of them are getting up there now, so it’s important that we sit down and we talk with them while we can.

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. You are in between seasons right now with Dial the Gate.

David Read:
Technically.

Darren Sumner:
OK, first of all, do you wanna talk about your premiere, when you’re coming back, and when we’re gonna start to see all this awesome content from Vancouver? But then second, why did I just see a Robert Picardo interview come up if you’re supposed to be off?

David Read:
Because when The Doctor asks, “Can you do Wednesday?” you say, “Absolutely, yes, I can.” So, I tagged him on the end of Season Five, and so is this, by the way. So, technically, Joe will be our first. I’m talking with a very special doctor right now about joining us for early Season Six, if we can get an apple box for her to stand on. There are a number of great folks who are going to be joining. Paul Weber…

Darren Sumner:
Oh, wow.

David Read:
… our casting director, who cast…

Darren Sumner:
Did you get him finally?

David Read:
We got him. He’s the furthest…

Darren Sumner:
Casting director. How many stories do you guys think the casting director has to tell?

David Read:
Oh, God, I hope he has a couple at least, please. So, Paul is casting director… He is on March the 13th. James CD Robbins is actually back to join us as well. I haven’t updated that, but let me have a look here as to when that is real quick. I think he’s in our opening weekend, if I’m not mistaken. The 8th of February, James CD Robbins is joining us at 10:00 AM, and Paul Weber’s joining us at 2:00 PM on the 13th of March. Yeah, I’m really interested in what Paul has to say. It all comes down to his memory, just how much ginkgo has he been drinking? So, we can really sum up all of these… He’s gotta be able to tell us some of these stories about what was it like casting Joe Flanigan? What was it like casting Amanda Tapping? Michael Shanks? Whom I was convinced for about five, 10 minutes was James Spader when I watched “Children of the Gods” for the first time.

Darren Sumner:
You’re not the only one.

David Read:
I hadn’t seen the feature film. I saw it the next night by coincidence. It’s not just the look, it’s the mannerisms. How do you cast as well as you do? And he has cast tremendously. The music of Joel Goldsmith is something that I am really particularly fond of. I am a huge fan of Joel’s music. And so, what we have done is create a… if I can find it here. And of course, I can’t find my opening file. It’s called Destiny is Calling, and it’s the opening scene. Give me just a moment here. I have been blessed to have a relationship with Joel while he was alive, and the fact of the matter is that we’re still hoping that more of his music will be released at some point here in the future. Because there’s so much wonderful content that he created over the years. I was just with some of my peers listening to the music for “The Fifth Race,” and that should have given him an award. That piece of music was just so insanely perfect. But we’ve got so much that’s coming that is going to be an honor to him. We’ve created this opening sequence that I’m showing right now for the documentary that we’re doing that is going to explore his musical journey that actually is based on an image out in my hall that a fan created by the name of Chris Diston of Destiny launching from Earth whenever it did. And we’ve brought that to life. And Rachel Luttrell, she has gone and created a whole series of clips. She’s hosting the thing for us. We have contributions from Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, and it’s basically everything that I could have wanted to express my love for such a brilliant artist. We’re thrilled. I have a whole team of editors that are working right now to create this thing.

Darren Sumner:
I’m really looking forward to this.

David Read:
It was supposed to come out on Thanksgiving, but we’re doing it now. And this will be simulcast with GateWorld.

Darren Sumner:
I’m really looking forward to seeing this.

David Read:
Absolutely. Anything else before we wrap it up?

Darren Sumner:
So, your official season premiere for Dial the Gate, Season Six is February…

David Read:
February 7th.

Darren Sumner:
… the 7th with the great Joe Flanigan. I wanna say, have you not talked to Joe Flanigan since Season One?

David Read:
Episode 4.

Darren Sumner:
Episode 4.

David Read:
Four.

Darren Sumner:
So, you’ve learned a trick or two.

David Read:
We talked for two and a half hours, so I have a lot to discuss with him. I would like him to go in depth, if he’s willing, into the story behind… Because he attempted to acquire the Stargate brand from MGM, did he not?

Darren Sumner:
He attempted to “lease” the license for Stargate.

David Read:
Lease it, interesting.

Darren Sumner:
The story that he’s told at conventions is that he went and got a bunch of international investment partners and took a plan to MGM, and said, “Give us the license for 10 years and let us make a show.” And they turned him down flat.

David Read:
Wow. OK. Vegan.Peace.Rider2500, “Since Starfury Ascension is August 28th through the 30th in England, are David and Darren maybe going?” I wouldn’t be surprised if they reach out to Martin and company and invite them. August, they’ll certainly be able to communicate something. They may be able to coordinate some kind of a teaser, from some of the elements that they’re gonna be working on.

Darren Sumner:
That would be cool.

David Read:
He could show off some of his concept art there. That’d be really cool.

Darren Sumner:
He told us he had a stack of concept art.

David Read:
He has a whole stack.

Darren Sumner:
Eventually we’ll get to see. That might be a really cool place to do it, is at a fan convention.

David Read:
Exactly right.

Darren Sumner:
I was just gonna say, because their production offices are apparently not gonna be set up until September or later. Maybe next year? I wonder though if they’ll be fully in the swing of things if the same event happens again in 2027.

David Read:
Could be. I was predicting that production would have wrapped by this time next year of principal photography, but if they’re starting in the fall, it depends on when they’re starting in the fall. It could be done, if it’s 10 episodes, they could probably do it in, what, four or five months?

Darren Sumner:
I think that would be fast because they’re doing international with multiple units.

David Read:
They’re doing multiple units, OK.

Darren Sumner:
Once in a while I’ll see Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, I’ll see its production dates for the season come up and kinda do the math, and I should go and look one up as an example, but I kinda feel like those 10-episode seasons take in the neighborhood of eight to nine months of principal photography.

David Read:
Principal photography, really?

Darren Sumner:
It might not be quite that long, it might be six or seven, but it wouldn’t surprise me. If they’re starting in the fall, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re still shooting next spring.

David Read:
It certainly could be. I’m excited, man.

Darren Sumner:
But, hey, the more days fly off the calendar, the more information we’re gonna have, and we’re gonna be able to get Martin Gero himself back on and ask him some more questions that he will hopefully be able to answer.

David Read:
But let’s definitely have him back. I wanna ask him back, you know, at least once before they start filming. I don’t think it’s fair to ask him back more than that, but we’ll see.

Darren Sumner:
I think by that point, we’re gonna know more about what the show is. Where it’s set, maybe who the main characters are. We’re gonna start to get casting news come out as they cast the main parts, and he’s gonna be more free, not completely free, obviously we don’t wanna spoil everything, but more free to talk about some of the substance of the show before the cameras start rolling.

David Read:
The idea of it. I’m trying to remember. I don’t know if you exclusively released the Stargate Atlantis plot about the Wraith. Did GateWorld get that exclusively about the Wraith…

Darren Sumner:
The Wraith is…

David Read:
… calling the Pegasus Galaxy for food, ’cause I remember sitting there with just…

Darren Sumner:
I don’t recall.

David Read:
… my mouth watering, not my eyes watering, reading your…

Darren Sumner:
That’s called crying.

David Read:
Yes. It’s also called I’m cutting onions. Breaking down the initial Atlantis idea, I think it was months before? I think they had already started shooting by the time that had come out, though, so there’s a lot of time to kill.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t remember…

David Read:
This will not go fast.

Darren Sumner:
…when we learned everything about Atlantis, about where it was set… being in the Pegasus Galaxy. I think that by the time they announced SG-1 was being renewed alongside this new show, at that point they told us that it was gonna be in another galaxy so that they didn’t step on each other’s toes every week, so that Atlantis doesn’t get into a problem and just run to SG-1 for help. I think we knew that much at least, but the details about the characters and the Wraith, I don’t remember when we found that out. But I visited in April of 2004 when they were shooting the second episode.

David Read:
“Hide and Seek,” they were shooting it in April. I guess ’cause…

Darren Sumner:
“Hide and Seek” in early…

David Read:
Don’t they usually start principal photography in March.

Darren Sumner:
SG-1 was typically February.

David Read:
OK.

Darren Sumner:
Mid-to-late February. But yeah, I think it was the first part of April that I was out there, and they were pretty early on. They had spent several weeks on the pilot at that point. So, by the time I went there and was on set, I think we knew what the show was. That was not new to me, and that was not a secret I had to keep.

David Read:
For sure. What was a secret you had to keep? I don’t remember you getting back and telling me, “Oh, I can’t talk about this.” You probably did.

Darren Sumner:
You remember how Stargate Universe rolled out.

David Read:
They shut down the press except for us and maybe…

Darren Sumner:
But before that, before the show entered production, when Brad and Rob were working on the idea and kinda hammering out what it would be, you and I were privy to some information…

David Read:
The name.

Darren Sumner:
About things like the name. They wanted it to be called Stargate Universe.

David Read:
Which we premiered exclusively. And they hadn’t nailed it down for sure yet.

Darren Sumner:
And also, they were toying with the idea of it not having a traditional antagonist like the Goa’uld or the Wraith. Which it didn’t. I don’t even know to this day if the blue aliens, the Nakai, are an antagonist or not.

David Read:
They’re an antagonist, but I don’t know if they would’ve been principal antagonists.

Darren Sumner:
They’re antagonistic in the story sense.

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
We had some of those pieces early. I don’t think they had even written the pilot yet.

David Read:
I don’t think so. It was still very broad strokes at the time.

Darren Sumner:
GateWorld broke some of that news. GateWorld broke the news of the title of the series.

David Read:
I remember the logo having a purple outline.

Darren Sumner:
It had that little purple swoosh.

David Read:
I don’t know, did I go to Gero… Was it Martin Gero I asked, are the chevrons gonna be purple? I don’t know, one of them said something, and I was surprised when they were white. That’s a great question. We need to start a pool. What color are the chevrons gonna be this time around? Your favorite color is green. Stargate was green.

Darren Sumner:
I’m an old green. So, if it’s in the Milky Way Galaxy, I want everything to be as it was.

David Read:
As it was. Speaking of, I’ve been doing some spring cleaning in the winter.

Darren Sumner:
What did you find me? A big piece of paper. Ooh. It’s upside down.

David Read:
Is it? Frack.

Darren Sumner:
But it’s still pretty.

David Read:
It’s round.

Darren Sumner:
Holger Gross. This is the feature film Stargate…

David Read:
Feature film.

Darren Sumner:
… sketch.

David Read:
Yeah. You can see these in a little bit better detail. You can go and search the Dial the Gate archive for David’s Stargate collection. We go through these here.

Darren Sumner:
Very nice.

David Read:
But yeah, no, it’s, there is a lot of cool stuff that they can mine from the legacy content. Who knows if we’ll get to see anything that’s familiar. I’m honestly looking forward to the new stuff. As much, if not more, than the old stuff. ‘Cause it means that I get to collect new things.

Darren Sumner:
I wanna meet a new team.

David Read:
New team. I hope that at least one known actor will be a fixture in this, that will be some draw. I hope that they have a Richard Dean Anderson or a Bobby Carlyle to bring in a little bit more … legitimacy is not the right word …

Darren Sumner:
Gravitas?

David Read:
So, a little bit more, imagine Next Generation without Sir Patrick Stewart.

Darren Sumner:
But you don’t mean…

David Read:
It would’ve been a completely different show tonally.

Darren Sumner:
You don’t mean necessarily somebody from the previous shows as an anchor point, you mean…

David Read:
I’m meaning a new…

Darren Sumner:
… an actor with some real gravity.

David Read:
Who has a familiar face, who has some gravity, yeah.

Darren Sumner:
A Holly Hunter, yeah.

David Read:
A Holly Hunter.

Darren Sumner:
Paul Giamatti.

David Read:
What do you think of her as Aki? We’re talking about Starfleet Academy, folks.

Darren Sumner:
We’re talking Starfleet Academy now. For just a hot second, I appreciate that her character is different, and the way that she plays her character is different than any other captain or leader that we’ve seen on the show so far. I appreciate her performance. I think she’s making some interesting choices.

David Read:
Curling up in the captain’s chair like a cat.

Darren Sumner:
She’s like a schoolteacher. She’s like, they put the schoolteacher in charge of …

David Read:
I was really hoping for an Admiral Brand type. I loved Admiral Brand in “The First Duty.” And it’s one of those things at this point, I didn’t tell this to Bob Picardo, but I love Holly Hunter. But how I felt with what’s her face, who played Dr. Smith in the new Lost in Space, I’m not crazy about the casting choice for the role. I think she may be miscast. But I love the actor, so it’s like I’m stuck on this, so there’s…

Darren Sumner:
But she kind of sold me. What’s her name?

David Read:
Aki? Captain Aki? Holly Hunter?

Darren Sumner:
No, Lost in Space. I know the actor.

David Read:
It’s… Hell.

Darren Sumner:
Parker Posey.

David Read:
Parker Posey, that’s it. I was not…

Darren Sumner:
Parker Posey won me over to the…

David Read:
… crazy about her as Smith in the entire first season.

Darren Sumner:
I was skeptical about the casting, and that’s one where she won me over, over the course of three seasons or whatever it was.

David Read:
Oh, so you finished it. I haven’t gotten past Season One. Is that worth finishing?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, I enjoyed Lost in Space. It’s a good kind of traditional by-the-numbers family science fiction.

David Read:
Does it have an ending?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah. As far as I remember. It’s been a few years.

David Read:
Have you seen Paradise?

Darren Sumner:
Everybody, by the way, this is what David and I do every time we get on Zoom. It inevitably goes to, “Oh, so what are you watching right now? Oh, have you seen…”

David Read:
Exactly.

Darren Sumner:
“Yeah, have you made it through…”

David Read:
Have you seen Paradise?

Darren Sumner:
No, I have not.

David Read:
I’m really looking forward to hearing what you think about Paradise.

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know what it is. I’ve heard of it a couple times.

David Read:
It’s 10 episodes long, and it is one of those sleeper sci-fis on NBC. I watched it with my folks, and we got to the end of it.

Darren Sumner:
NBC.

David Read:
NBC, on Peacock, I think, and it was one of those where my dad got to the end of it and he was like, “I can’t wait to watch this again.” My dad doesn’t watch anything twice. Everything that happened, he was saying, “If this was real, this will happen next.” And it does.

Darren Sumner:
And it does?

David Read:
He’s like, “Oh my gosh.”

Darren Sumner:
So, you think it’s sci-fi enough that it’s gonna hold my attention?

David Read:
Yeah. All right.

Darren Sumner:
I am currently watching Silo, which I love. I just finished…

David Read:
It’s interesting that you say Silo, because there’s something very Silo-esque about this.

Darren Sumner:
…rewatching. I just finished rewatching the first season, which I watched a couple years ago, and then I was gonna watch Season Two with my brother when we got together, and we were too busy during our vacation and didn’t get to watch it, so now I’m finally watching Season Two after waiting way too long. But I love Silo.

David Read:
Is it fulfilling your expectations?

Darren Sumner:
So, far, yeah. I just wanna binge it instead of working and sleeping.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
So, it’s having that effect on me.

David Read:
I’m looking forward to finishing Rogue One. Not Rogue One, Andor.

Darren Sumner:
Andor.

David Read:
I haven’t seen the second season. I’m looking forward to that. Most of the Star Wars I have not watched at all. More of the animated stuff I have than anything else. There’s some good animated Star Wars out there. It’s just, there’s so much I’ve sat back. I need to see the new season of Strange New Worlds and not watched that. But there’s a lot to catch up on. There’s some decent stuff, and there’s some really great stuff. Where are you with Severance? Have you started Severance at all?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, I’m all caught up on Severance.

David Read:
You are. OK, good. I think it’s just rocking.

Darren Sumner:
I’m digging that show. It’s no Silo, but I’m digging it.

David Read:
Did you see Pluribus?

Darren Sumner:
Not yet.

David Read:
You and I will have a lot to talk about with Pluribus.

Darren Sumner:
It’s on the list.

David Read:
The shape of our society and its implications for us as we become more of a hive mind with our technology. And the fragility of our nature. You yell at someone and they can’t handle it. There’s a lot of modern…

Darren Sumner:
Black Mirror-esque.

David Read:
Modern parallels. It definitely could be cut from Black Mirror. Except that the activation is not a technological one, but there is a technological component to it, for sure. Looking forward to talking about that with you.

Darren Sumner:
The family right now is watching Farscape.

David Read:
At this moment?

Darren Sumner:
At this moment, on a nightly basis.

David Read:
On a nightly basis. Where are they in the show?

Darren Sumner:
I continue to nag you and get on your case.

David Read:
I know.

Darren Sumner:
You have to watch this show.

David Read:
A brand-new car! That’s all I remember about it.

Darren Sumner:
You have to watch this show.

David Read:
You’re right. I watched Peacekeeper Wars.

Darren Sumner:
You have no idea the acting chops of Ben Browder and Claudia Black until you watch this show.

David Read:
OK. I have a hard time buying Rigel. Pilot is cool. We’ll see.

Darren Sumner:
It takes a while. It’s episodic ’90s TV, so it takes a while.

David Read:
So, hard.

Darren Sumner:
Fall in love with characters, and they…

David Read:
That’s true.

Darren Sumner:
… go from being at each other’s throats to being a found family, and the story arcs kick in at the end.

David Read:
I really like the monochromatic character. She’s kinda cool.

Darren Sumner:
The monochromatic, Chiana?

David Read:
Is that Chiana? OK, yeah.

Darren Sumner:
Chiana. Gigi Edgley.

David Read:
And the plants character is cool. I had a bad encounter with her at a convention once. And then she was on my wallpaper, and I lost the subscription to it, and then she was stuck as my wallpaper on my desktop. I could not get her off of it. Man.

Darren Sumner:
So, what are you watching, then?

David Read:
Below Deck. That’s my palate cleanser. What am I watching right now? I’m not watching anything.

Darren Sumner:
This is the problem. This is why you’re not watching any…

David Read:
I have no time!

Darren Sumner:
… sci-fi shows, ’cause you’re busy.

David Read:
I went to school last year.

Darren Sumner:
And when you do watch TV, you watch…

David Read:
I know.

Darren Sumner:
… Below Deck.

David Read:
It’s something that you can turn on and off. If I’m gonna commit myself to something, I have to be ready in the mind, in the mental space for it. That’s why I’ve left The Expanse untouched. I look at it like a gift still wrapped behind the Christmas tree that I’ve never put away. Once I go in, I am all in.

Darren Sumner:
You’re not getting any younger, though.

David Read:
I’m not.

Darren Sumner:
I tell you, when you’re knocking on the door of 50, you start taking an index of what…

David Read:
43.

Darren Sumner:
… you wanna do.

David Read:
OK. That’s fair. No, absolutely. It’s sit down and watch a lot of television is the answer, I suppose. OK. The next show that I watch, what is it? The next one that I start, what is it gonna be? That we’ll report back and I’ll have something to say about?

Darren Sumner:
There are a lot of shows that I want you to watch, and they are different…

David Read:
OK, you don’t have to tell me…

Darren Sumner:
… levels…

David Read:
… right now.

Darren Sumner:
They’re varying levels of time commitment.

David Read:
That’s the thing. Just text me. Anything else before we wrap?

Darren Sumner:
No…

David Read:
I wanna know…

Darren Sumner:
… I just wanna say-

David Read:
… have we watched Fallout? Have you watched Fallout?

Darren Sumner:
I watched the first season.

David Read:
Oh, you did? OK, good.

Darren Sumner:
I haven’t seen Season Two yet.

David Read:
I watched the first episode. I do a lot of watching of first episodes.

Darren Sumner:
First episodes…

David Read:
If I can get through it.

Darren Sumner:
… just to get a taste of it?

David Read:
‘Cause I’m a huge Twin Peaks fan, so that was obviously a connection there with, hell, what’s his face?

Darren Sumner:
That dude.

David Read:
It was great.

Darren Sumner:
Basically, I have three lists of shows running. One is what we watch together as a family. The shows that my wife and I watch together after the kids go to bed, and the stuff I watch by myself. There are shows like Fallout…

David Read:
I don’t have the time.

Darren Sumner:
… that my spouse is also excited to watch with me so I have to wait for her availability. Then we have to get through three other shows before Fallout comes around.

David Read:
Any TV that I’ve been watching, or when my folks come to town is the case, and generally speaking, if it’s not completely interesting, my mother has a habit of falling asleep. But the last thing that I think we really watched together as a family was Pluribus, and we watched it in three days and she was up through the entire thing. And it’s Vince Gilligan. I don’t know if you’ve seen Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul?

Darren Sumner:
Just the pilot.

David Read:
Of both of them?

Darren Sumner:
Of Breaking Bad.

David Read:
I see, OK. I’ll never forget Brad Wright’s comment about Better Call Saul when I sat down and interviewed him once. He said, “It unpacks very slowly and I love it.” And that sums it up. He’s an excellent storyteller, and it’s excellent sci-fi, up there with Severance in terms of Ben Stiller? Ben Stiller? He’s a huge Trekkie. And Vince came from X-Files, so it makes total sense.

Darren Sumner:
That’s right.

David Read:
This is a great idea. All right. You have certain people to pick up with your vehicle.

Darren Sumner:
We will talk more about other sci-fi shows on another stream.

David Read:
We really appreciate you tuning in, folks. This has been great. You have tomorrow night, another episode?

Darren Sumner:
This is a lot of fun. Over on GateWorld, we do usually Fridays at 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern Time, and that’s the case tomorrow as well. We’ll talk more about this news, about the Stargate shooting in London, and also what it means for Vancouver, with Andrew Reeve. Thanks to our mods who are here in both chats. I’ve got Hell Cats has been helping mod tonight, and Jeff from Suns and Shadows. Hey, if you guys haven’t checked out Suns and Shadows podcast yet, they are doing Thursday night chats about Stargate. They do a re-watch with two episodes every week, and tonight at 8:15 on YouTube, 8:15 Pacific, they’re gonna talk about “Summit” and “Last Stand.” Nice chance to go check them out.

David Read:
I’ve been saying this for a long time. That’s great. Very good.

Darren Sumner:
I was on a couple of weeks ago and those guys are fun to talk to, so we’ll give…

David Read:
They are, they are, yes, absolutely.

Darren Sumner:
We’ll give the Suns and Shadows team a plug here. Go, look up Suns and Shadows on YouTube. You wanna find their podcast tonight.

David Read:
Yup, absolutely. You’re gonna catch me back with Joe Flanigan again the 7th of February at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. Joe is gonna be a great draw.

Darren Sumner:
Very good.

David Read:
And we’re gonna have a lot to catch up on. It’s been a while.

Darren Sumner:
I’m excited that he’s coming back.

David Read:
Yep, indeed. For sure it’s gonna be great. Visit dialthegate.com for the complete list of upcoming episodes. There are nearly 20 shows that are planned. We’re gonna be throwing out a lot of content at you very quickly, and I’m gonna do everything I can to absolutely break every single bone in my metaphorical staff’s body getting these ones out. Just how much do you love Stargate? Come and see.

Darren Sumner:
There’s a lot of stuff in the works. There’s all this stuff that we shot in Vancouver in addition to all the new Stargate stuff that we’re gonna be covering…

David Read:
We’re not gonna sit on it for long.

Darren Sumner:
News, breaking news at GateWorld.net, and then all the deep dive conversations that David’s gonna have on Dial the Gate. We got it. Raj Luthra is also here modding. Hey, Raj.

David Read:
There we go, and he’s in mine. Dude.

Darren Sumner:
Excellent.

David Read:
You traitor.

Darren Sumner:
Double teaming.

David Read:
Double teaming…

Darren Sumner:
It’s collaboration.

David Read:
Yes, absolutely. And also had Antony Rawling in there for a while. I appreciate my entire team. You guys really step it up when we could throw something like this together at the last moment, and I’m so thrilled that we have the infrastructure now, and the time to pull this off, so it means the world to have you with me to do this.

Darren Sumner:
I imagine this will not be our last spontaneous livestream.

David Read:
I suspect not.

Darren Sumner:
When exciting things happen and we have the ability now to just go live together and talk about it in real time with you guys, let’s keep doing it.

David Read:
Absolutely, guys. We appreciate y’all tuning in, folks. I’m David Read for Dial the Gate. He’s Darren Sumner for GateWorld.net. We’ll speak to you soon. See you on the other side. Bye.

Darren Sumner:
Bye, guys.