Stargate Atlantis, here we come! In our ongoing franchise retrospective with Stargate Writer and Executive Producer Joseph Mallozzi, we have come to Season One of the SG-1 spin-off set in the Pegasus Galaxy. Joe explores the origins of the show, getting a feel for the characters, his particular episodes from Season One, and takes your pre-submitted fan questions!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:26 – Welcome and Episode Outline
00:47 – Call to Action
01:51 – Guest Introduction
03:57 – Wraith beam from “Letters from Pegasus” (SGA 1×17)
05:39 – What are your thoughts on the future of Stargate?
07:42 – Process of producing Stargate Atlantis
11:38 – What was the hardest episode in Season One? (1×05 “Suspicion” and 1×09 “Home”)
15:06 – Midway Station (“The Return” SGA 3×10&11) and energy issues in Seasons One and Two
17:43 – “Suspicion” (SGA 1×05)
18:45 – Which character was hard to write for?
22:36 – Character arcs in Season One (Aiden Ford and Carson Beckett)
27:40 – Don S. Davis in “Home” (SGA 1×09)
29:27 – Tell us about crafting the Wraith attack to Atlantis
31:57 – What was it like watching Torri bring Elizabeth to life?
34:59 – Roles of each character (Ford)
37:26 – “The Siege, Part 2” (SGA 1×20)
41:07 – Effectiveness of frenemies (Genii and Wraith)
49:29 – Producing 40 episodes per year
53:56 – Ancient message on the staircase in the gate room
55:54 – The hardest episode to execute from Season One (“Home”)
1:02:46 – How come the Ancients in Atlantis didn’t appear to have any major technological evolution over time?
1:06:20 – Wraith’s supernatural powers
1:08:02 – Was Robert Patrick’s character intended to appear more?
1:09:47 – John Sheppard always saved the day. Do you disagree?
1:12:46 – Were Sheppard and Teyla going to get together?
1:16:04 – The biggest challenge in writing Wraith and aquatic feel in Atlantis
1:18:01 – Was there anything you wanted to include early episodes that didn’t end up working?
1:19:55 – Zat gun vs Wraith stunner
1:21:05 – Is there an upcoming Stargate project coming soon?
1:24:05 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:25:27 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome to Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thank you for joining me in this episode [98] we’re covering Stargate Atlantis season one with Joseph Mallozzi, who is returning I believe for part nine of his discussion. We’ve been moving through the entire franchise gradually and it’s that time that we cover Stargate Atlantis. But before we get started, if you like Stargate, and that’s the wrong button, if you like Stargate, warts and all man, and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click the Like button, it really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will help the show grow its audience, especially now that Amazon is buying so this is the time to strike. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that Subscribe icon and giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guests changes. This is key if you plan on watching live and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels, particularly GateWorld. Joe and I are doing this pre-recorded. So thanks to everyone on the YouTube Dial the Gate page who submitted their questions, we had a number of them and we got a lot of them answered. So let’s go back in time and bring in Joe for this pre-recorded episode. Joseph Mallozzi, Writer and Executive Producer, Stargate Atlantis. Welcome back to Dial the Gate, sir, as we enter the second series in our ongoing discussion. How are you?

Joseph Mallozzi
I am great. One down, two to go. I’ve been looking forward to this.

David Read
Yeah, we’ve been doing this now since what, October of last year? And now we’ve finished SG-1, we’re going on to the second series. How does it feel walking down through these stories and through the process? Was it what you expected? Has some memories come to the surface that you didn’t expect? How’s this been?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. It’s always a lot of fun. And I thank you for prompting me throughout the show. Because whenever I go on podcasts, I’m always somewhat reticent because I feel as though I’m going to do all the heavy lifting. But you’re actually very good at kind of spurring the various topics of conversation and kind of prodding my memory because I have a terrible memory to be honest with you.

David Read
While I’m happy to and I’m so thankful that we have had a a diehard fan base, who has been prompting me as well. I mean, in this particular situation, because we’re doing a previous pre-recorded show I’m moving this month, I had the benefit of reviewing all of the questions beforehand. And I had a couple of things came up here that I was like, “Oh, I need to check the episode for that. Oh, I don’t even remember that.” So I’m interested in having a discussion with you about this one because a) it’s a new show, but b) because I have the benefit of everyone submitting the questions beforehand. I feel like it’s going to be a little bit more of a fruitful discussion, because I’m on my point from the very beginning with what they want to hear. So yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
And I’m kind of nervous now because if you didn’t remember them, you know those elements.

David Read
So well, the only thing and the one thing that I’m speaking of that I’ll bring up to the front here because it was one of those like odd little things. And I can’t find the question here to save my life. So I’ll reference the person who submitted it later. But one of the fans had asked in Letters from Pegasus, the Wraith fire a beam at the planet. And I was like, a beam, what are you talking about, like the culling beams? And they said, it’s never referenced again, whatever this is they’re like sucking life out of the planet or something. And I went back and I’m like, sure enough, it’s a huge component of that episode, this shot of this energy beam and [inaudible]

Joseph Mallozzi
That’s a question, I’ll be honest, that is a question that gets answered, I think gets asked once every couple of months.

David Read
Seriously?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, absolutely. And I’ll head off that question by saying actually in the same way I do. Who wrote that episode?

David Read
I think it was Binder.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. That is a question for Carl Binder. You can find him, he is on Twitter, CP binder, @CPbinder. And I’m sure he wouldn’t be delighted to field your Stargate related query.

David Read
I would have to, that’s fair, folks. Yeah, check that out. When we go through the Q&A I’ll give a shout out to the person who asked that particular question. But I mean, I think that they’re extracting life from the planet, and that would like just feed the hive ship. Because the hive ships are organic and the cruisers were organic, what did they eat? In your opinion did the Wraith share some of their life energy with their ships? Were they were they that conjoined?

Joseph Mallozzi
In my opinion, they sucked the life out of a planet.

David Read
Okay, yeah, it makes sense.

Joseph Mallozzi
Exactly. I will confirm your hypothesis. But there’s no way to know for sure until we speak to the man.

David Read
The man himself.

Joseph Mallozzi
Carl Binder.

David Read
Absolutely. Before we get into the meat of Atlantis, talking season one. Trig0r wants to know, “What are your thoughts on the future of Stargate and how things can be affected by the the Amazon purchase of MGM?”

Joseph Mallozzi
I believe that with the Amazon purchase, it will accelerate potential new Stargate. What form that will take remains to be seen because I think, in the end the executives at MGM realized the value of the existing fan base, the value of the existing franchise, and so they reached out to Brad, and he’s been at work on developing the series. And it’s something I’ve kept saying, if executives are smart, they will greenlight a show that offers the best of both worlds, a perfect jumping on point for new fans, at the same time set in the canonical universe that was created. And hopefully created or developed, created by Brad Wright. If they don’t, I think the fans will be very, very angry, and they’ll let their anger be known online. But hopefully it won’t come to that.

David Read
Well, I am cautiously optimistic. Part of me thinks that could go 50/50 They may look it up and go, “You know what, we’ve got to start fresh.” But I keep looking at shows like The Expanse and the care that they’re putting into trying to reach out to the Lord of the Rings community. And I have hope.

Joseph Mallozzi
As do I, as do I mean, basically I’m just kind of fielding best and worst case scenarios. In any case, I think Stargate is coming back.

David Read
Yeah. Oh, it’s just a matter of time. We’ll get that ring, one way or another. It’s just what form will it take and the participants that are going through it. Louisvlleguy wanted to know, “Joe, what was the process for creating SGA?” Was it mainly Brad and Rob or did they meet with a larger group of writers to brainstorm some general ideas for the new concept?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Absolutely not. No, it was all Brad and Rob, and they developed it, they pitched it, and then and they wrote the one and two, Rising, one and two. And at that point, the rest of the writers were kind of brought on board and we helped kind of develop a series after that, but the show was fully developed and created by Brad and Robert.

David Read
What do you think of Rising?

Joseph Mallozzi
Ah, I like Rising. I mean, to be honest with you, I look back on it and I think it still holds up. That majestic sequence of Atlantis rising up out of the water always kind of gives me goosebumps.

David Read
Rainmaker outdid themselves. The work was just extraordinary. Bruce Woloshyn and his team it’s like, man, just absolutely crazy. So Rising, and the characters and all that were fully formed by Brad and Rob, and then you guys got to come into that sandbox in the season and start playing with the toys.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, but it wasn’t as easy as that. I mean, I think back to the casting, and the casting was particularly challenging. I’m not sure what you heard. But for instance, there was a doctor, I think Dr. Benjamin was [inaudible]. Dr. Ingram, okay, was a character created for the role. And we held auditions and no one really popped. And as kind of time went on we’re getting closer and closer to production we realized we didn’t have a Dr. Ingram and at which point Rob suggested, “Why don’t we bring someone on from SG-1 an established character?” And he suggested Rodney McKay. And first we were like, “Ah, I guess so.”

David Read
He’s villainous, almost.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. And so it was actually really interesting in that it was kind of a eleventh hour decision, and what could have been if we’d cast that Dr. Benjamin character, we never would have developed the Rodney McKay character beyond SG-1.

David Read
Yeah, I mean, Rodney could have ended up on Universe, for crying out loud. Who knows. But I mean, I cannot imagine Atlantis without the energy of David Hewlett and Rodney McKay.

Joseph Mallozzi
I agree.

David Read
They are synonymous.

Joseph Mallozzi
I agree

David Read
The man I think shouldered at least 50% of all the dialogue. If you add up word for word, geez. REDUX wanted to know, “When you’re looking at Rising and your interpretation of the return of that character from Frozen, Ayiana, what do you think the story is there? Was there signs of some kind of break up to move to another galaxy?” Her husband in real life was giving her quite the stink eye because those two were actually married. I think it had something to do with the plague but there’s no way to know for sure.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. No, it definitely has something to do with the plague. But again, this is one of those elements that I referred to earlier. That for me is kind of lost to time. Now again, Brad and Robert, wrote the episode and I’m sure in their mind, they still fully remember the game plan and all the pieces that they put together to tell that particular story. So I will have to beg off that question.

David Read
All right. That’s fair. And Dan Dutton, “Of the episodes that you did in season one. What was the hardest to crack?” Before we get into them.

Joseph Mallozzi
Which? I mean, I look back on season one, I have to say that unlike SG-1 where I look back in season four, episodes we wrote for season four, I think that’s one of the strongest seasons of writing we did. I don’t think it was until seasons four and five of Atlantis, that four and five were our strongest. Season one, I’m trying to think back and I have to say except for the finale, I think there were no real for me like episodes that really stood out as episodes I thought, “Wow, we really hit out of the park.” I’m actually gonna bring them bring them up on IMDb.

David Read
Yeah, you did Suspicion, Home, Letters from Pegasus, and The Siege two.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, okay. No, I didn’t, we didn’t do Letters for Pegasus

David Read
Excerpts.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, excerpts.

David Read
My apologies.

Joseph Mallozzi
It’s only three three episodes.

David Read
Feels like more.

Joseph Mallozzi
So yes, Suspicion was kind of tough because it was our first episode. Home was hell because the network hated it. Because I included like a bunch of, actually because I had to do like a total rewrite because it wasn’t, there wasn’t enough action in it. I had sequences where O’Neill is introducing Teyla to the world and they go to the park, they get an ice cream, and it’s kind of like a fun little, and they were like, “No, we just gotta get to like the cool sci fi things.” And it was fine but I remember they reacted very adversely to that particular episode.

David Read
You said O’Neill, did you mean to say Sheppard?

Joseph Mallozzi
Sheppard, yeah.

David Read
Sheppard was introducing… .

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Teyla to them

David Read
Yeah, I think he takes her like shopping or something. I enjoyed the episode because it’s an alien race that’s hidden kind of beneath the surface. We don’t know that there’s involvement of another species and there was so few opportunities or a few times where we had a noncorporeal threat, other than like the Ori for instance, but a fresh new alien species. And I thought the mist as an intelligent form was a cool idea and the fact that when the wormhole opens you end up killing some of them because they’re literally what charges the gate.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I just kind of love those type of episodes. Kind of the twist where basically you think the first twist is it and then they throw in another twist and a third twist. Pardon me, actually, I got…

David Read
I’m sorry, you want to pause?

Joseph Mallozzi
So no, no, no, I’ll be fine. I’ll fight through it. In my mind, I always thought you know what a fun way to end the series would be to suddenly go back to the home planet and having them wake up and realize that seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 were all a dream.

David Read
So Newhart style.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
Oh my gosh, your on a hotel in the mountains, we were under the sea. That’s crazy. You’re the one who’s responsible for the intergalactic Gate Bridge though, too.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well I had the idea for it. But I mean, Brad calls the shots and so basically we ended up spinning the idea and yeah, I mean, I guess I am kind of the one.

David Read
It is a great idea.

Joseph Mallozzi
It is a great idea but I mean like you said it’s more fun having them cut off.

David Read
Absolutely. And the benefit of it is once you create something you can always destroy it later which presented the wonderful Midway episode, I think Carl Binder’s episode and just a Teal’c Ronon extravaganza. There is a lot of good that came out of it, as long as the end result later on is that you get the pieces reset so that everything is more difficult. So season one they are they’re still cut off from Earth and in hindsight would you have extended that arc longer if you could have? Or do you think one season was enough?

Joseph Mallozzi
You know, there’s no reason we couldn’t have extended it, to be honest with you. I mean, it was destroyed, you can just rebuild the network. So I mean, we could have. From a story point of view, in retrospect, there was a convenience.

David Read
Now let me back up. I meant for season one. They were stranded. Was season one long enough time for them to be stranded or would you have continued that arc into like seasons two or three? Where they were just on their own?

Joseph Mallozzi
In retrospect, I probably would have preferred to keep them isolated. I think that would have been more interesting.

David Read
Yeah. Because you have the ZPMs start coming in. And then one of the things in the back of fans minds going in from from episode to episode is okay, what power level is Atlantis? How capable are they of defending themselves if something happens, and then when they come under attack that power level just starts going down? That was, in my recollection, one of the issues with the show was like, because Atlantis itself when it was fully charged it was invincible. And you couldn’t really work with that from a story perspective because otherwise it would have just been left, you would have been left with the same note that the Ancients ended on 10,000 years ago where they were just under siege.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yup.

David Read
You had to have some sort of story flexibility to go to the past.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yup.

David Read
Suspicion. Before I get a couple of notes on Home. Suspicion is our real parting ways with our first friends in the Pegasus Galaxy, the Athosians, and testing their honor and testing Teyla’s honor. Now in the pilot episode, the necklace that Sheppard picked up, was that a deliberate carryover into Suspicion, that story thread? Or was that “Oh, we can use this in the pilot as something that we can use later on?”

Joseph Mallozzi
I think it was more of the latter, to be honest with you.

David Read
Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
And then we kind of layered in and, yeah, I mean, it happens so often that you’ll introduce certain elements that kind of slot in nicely in later episodes, whether subconsciously or not, it just kind of works out.

David Read
Okay. Which of these characters, before we move into the season, were the hardest for you to write for in retrospect.

Joseph Mallozzi
Hmm… Hardest to write for. I can tell you the easiest to write for was obviously Rodney. And I mean, the writers loved writing for Rodney. He’s the comic relief and even though he spewed the technical gobbledygook Yeah, he was just kind of a blast to write for and all the writers gravitate towards him. Sheppard probably comes in second just because he’s in many ways very similar to O’Neill in his sarcasm. Yeah. That was always fun.

David Read
With sarcasm a mandatory ingredient in him when you started, the irreverence?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes, absolutely. It was written into the character. And that’s something that Brad and Robert were looking for in whoever auditioned, the ability to kind of deliver that. And I think that’s why what Joe especially liked about the character is that he was obviously the lead and yet he was serious, the other time he had that kind of that sense of humor that enamored him to the fan base.

David Read
When I was going back, I put little quotes from each of the characters, things that stand out that they said that really drive a message home or something like that. And when I’ve, I’m gonna be honest, when I’ve had Rachel on, I go in and I try to find dialogue from Teyla that’s not just servicing the story. That’s like something that’s pointed that everyone says, “That’s a Teyla line.” And I have a really hard time, they’re there, but I have a really hard time finding them.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. I mean, as kind of the alien outsider, she was a little tougher to write for. I mean, outsiders are often difficult to write for, unless they come from a place of humor, like on Dark Matter, the Android was kind of the outsider to the human world, which was a blast to write for because it was that sense of humor. Whereas with Teyla it was a bit tougher, because I mean, you compare her to Ronon, even Ronon was a lot easier to write for because he had that kind of a that humor, that kind of fish out of water, that irreverence. Where as the Teyla character was a bit more serious. And so as an alien, aliens tend to speak a little more formally, so in that respect I would say maybe her character was a little more of a challenge to write for.

David Read
Did that reveal itself in the number of stories that she got? Did you find yourself having to get slightly more creative with that character in order to come up with something interesting?

Joseph Mallozzi
Not really, we tried to give each of the characters their spotlight episodes, I think Suspicion was, in many ways a Teyla episode. And more often than not, of course, like Rodney and John got a lot of the lion’s share of the episodes because they were kind of more the leads. But we always try to find stories for each of the characters in a way that kind of shed light on their backstories, or who they were.

David Read
Rainbow Sun Francks is in season one of the show. And he has been very public about saying that season two was really his meat, where he actually had an ongoing story. In season one was it difficult finding a place for him? And so much of it is… Go ahead.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. to be honest with you, I think the first season there’s so many growing pains, and you’re trying to establish the world, you’re trying to establish a series. And sometimes it’s a little more difficult to focus on those character stories. I mean, I would have to go through season one, and compare it to the ensuing seasons. But my instinct is that season one was comprised of less individual stories, and more I would say group stories as really the focus was on the city of Atlantis, the expedition, the mythology, and just kind of the world of Stargate. So you kind of establish the foundation. And then from there you move on and tell the stories, but I mean, we always kind of tried to service each of the characters. I remember Rainbow when he did his audition, he had an audition and he wore this hat in the audition. And all everyone could fixate on was that hat. And so we were like, “Before we send your audition to the network, why don’t you try the audition without the hat?” And he did, and he was amazing. And I think he is terrific. But in the case of season one, yeah, I don’t disagree with him, that his character didn’t really get an arc, well until season two. But now I’m trying to think of what characters did get an arc in that first season.

David Read
Beckett was a sleeper. I mean, Paul McGillion, was in a majority of those episodes. There was something that I mean, maybe the stories required a doctor, that is certainly the case that that happens. But there’s something about that Scottish character that was just magnetic, and the fans felt it too.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, I mean, that was almost all Paul McGillion. When the character was created, he was really a secondary character and then Paul popped on screen. And like Rodney, we liked to write for the character and Paul could always deliver. And the fans loved his performance, his chemistry with especially Rodney. And so kind of as the show went on this, originally this envisioned minor character kind of came into his own.

David Read
This softie that everyone adored, everyone was like, “I see myself in that guy.” Even one of one of my favorite beats of the entire character and this isn’t even in the season but it’s just coming to mind. I want to make sure that we hit it, is in Duet, the dart crashes and the shields over the canopy goes down. And he makes eye contact with the Wraith. And his gun goes down because his instinct is to help. That’s who he is. He wants to heal his enemy. And it’s just, the character just always seemed to fire on all cylinders.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yep, yep. Paul McGillion. All right, yeah. I’m a big Paul fan. So, ah.

David Read
Absolutely. The Ben Cotton, you had Ben Cotton in a couple episodes of season one.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, that’s another brilliant actor, Kavanaugh, he was a great character and a great foil for everyone, especially I guess Weir to a certain extent. And yeah, Ben Cotton is very strong.

David Read
Absolutely. I would have loved to have seen more of him. And I was delighted when you brought him back in the finale for just like one last go around. That was terrific. I think it’s, you’re not Star Trek, you can have conflicts between between the characters, different ideologies, different approaches, and he was one where it was like you really need to watch your back. Never know what this guy could do. And would Weir actually carry out her threat of putting him off on a distant planet?

Joseph Mallozzi
We’ve all worked with people like him. No, yeah.

David Read
Absolutely. Don S. Davis came back in Home. This is his, I think his only Atlantis appearance. It was just a great nod to all of his time on SG-1 getting to see that character in Atlantis, even if it’s just for like, an expository or like service role of we have to have the General on the base that everyone reports to. It was so good seeing Don in that episode. It seemed like any chance you guys had to use him and Don was always up for that. Maybe there were a few times you couldn’t get him but I was curious to know about that.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, no, I think back to my time on Stargate and I got along with most everyone but in terms of like true friends that I’ve made, that like I would go out for dinner with, Don was one and Bob Picardo is another one. And yeah, I mean, I always had a lot of respect for Don and he had great respect for the franchise and especially Brad and Robert and was always kind of very appreciative of the big break they gave him. And he loved playing Hammond and really the opportunity to have him back was just too good to pass pass up. And of course I mean, you reached out to Don and he was always more than happy to come on by and return and play.

David Read
Absolutely. There’s just something about Hammond that works and everyone has always loved that character and with good reason. With this season, as with SG-1 season one, the bad guys are coming, that’s kind of like the setup near near the end of the first season. It works itself towards our primary foe is coming to get us. We have to overcome that threat. And much like season one and the beginning of season two of SG-1, season one and the beginning of season two of Atlantis really was a four-parter with the start of Letters from Pegasus. Tell us about going into that final stretch for the season.

Joseph Mallozzi
Um, I mean, it was exciting. This was one of my favorite episodes of the first season and also just in general in terms of the entire show. And I always love the epic two-parters, this was a three-parter basically it’s one and two and then we finish up with with season three. Yeah, but this was an interesting episode. The Colonel Everett was it?

David Read
Everett comes in into Siege two, yes. I want to focus on Letters from Pegasus first if you don’t mind. You have the handycam the letters home which is kind of like the framing of the storytelling device, the framing of the storytelling and then you have Sheppard and Teyla on a mission to save some of her friends from a planet who is in the direct path of the Wraith hives to Atlantis.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, that was one of those episodes where I mean I’ll be honest with you it’s one step removed from a clip show. We’re heading towards a big season finale and you need to save money for the visual effects and so we did this episode was a little quieter and had a little more to do with our characters and it was a nice episode and Carl Binder always excelled at these types of episodes. But I mean in terms of excerpts, when the writing’s credit say excerpt all that means is they’re referencing an episode that a scene that I wrote in the past. So really, this episode is a Carl Binder [inaudible]

David Read
It’s a Carl story, understood. Very good. Before I go on to Siege two, Torri Higginson, took the role from, took is the wrong word, received the role. Okay, Torri Higginson got Jessica Steen’s original role of Elizabeth Weir in Lost City, and then we go into New Order and Rising, and it’s now Torri. What was that like watching a civilian take over a military team in another galaxy? What was it like watching Torri bring Elizabeth Weir to life.

Joseph Mallozzi
Torri is amazing. I mean, I remember actually that when we were looking to cast, we went out and we were considering some big name actresses for the role. And they were in discussion with some big name actresses. And we looked at Torri and she has such an empathy, her performance, that I mean, she perfectly embodies the civilian facet of the expedition. It was kind of very interesting to write for a character who was really almost diametrically opposed to the command structure that we had been writing for on SG-1. So, I mean, it was interesting, it was a challenge. I think the biggest challenge though for writing for the Weir character was the fact that she remained in the city while the team went out and had their adventures. I mean, in the case of Hammond and Landry in SG-1 they were truly supporting characters.

David Read
She’s second billing.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, yes, exactly. So you really wanted to give that character her due. And just because Torri is so amazing, you want to make efficient use or great use of her character in a performance. But sometimes that was just kind of a challenge in that the story would really be, it would be an offworld focus story. So how does this Weir character kind of fit into the mix? And I mean, we went through this like a number of ways, and there were some instances where she was involved in negotiations with the Genii in future episodes. But, um, that was kind for us always a bit of a challenge.

David Read
Yeah, she’s an administrator, if she’s off having adventures with the team she’s not administrating. I think that it gets back to kind of the larger point that I was kind of trying to tap into, which is with Ford and some of the others. In some cases, I can’t imagine it does… Let me start over. For what I’m trying to say is, when you create a character, you have the expertise of that character, for instance, Ford it as a weapons expert. If the character does not service the stories that are created, there’s only so much that the actor can do regardless of how good the actor is, because the actor doesn’t have a chance to because the character doesn’t have much utility in the stories that are created. And so…

Joseph Mallozzi
Exactly

David Read
At the point, it’s like, do we continue this? Or do we alter the character, like transform them in such a way where they are compatible? Or do we try something else? I think with Ford and with Weir, perhaps this was the same way at a certain point, we wanted to go in a different direction. You have to make those decisions as creators.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yep. Yeah. And that’s exactly it. It all comes down to the script and like you said, and the stories that service the overall arc, and I guess, thrust of the series. And yeah, I mean, when we came up with kind of that storyline for Ford that was kind of interesting. I mean, it’s always interesting to have characters go dark side. And obviously, the actors love to play the dark side characters. That was kind of an interesting story. But I mean, of course, in doing that, it creates kind of a more interesting storyline for the character, but at the same time, it detaches them from the kind of the home base of Atlantis.

David Read
You’re burning through their fuel tank a lot faster too, depending on the nature of the storyline, and where it’s going to go.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right.

David Read
Because at a certain point Ford blows up with the Wraith ship. Unless something shouts, “Ford” later on in the development of the stories that you’re doing, you have to have a good excuse to bring the character back. Because again, it comes down to the characters utility.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yep, exactly.

David Read
The Siege part two, which actually has one of the better Ford moments and taking over one of the real guns, a visual effects extravaganza, and good character beats as well, while they’re dealing with this imminent threat. The storylines that you have engaged in throughout that season, and little character beats between one and the other, really come to fruition in this episode, when we are under attack. Tell us about bringing the Siege to life.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean, I love writing the finales in that it allows us to dovetail all those storylines and arcs that you’ve been nurturing over the course of the season. And sort of like juggling to a certain extent, I mean, and you want to have all the balls in the air at the same time and you want everything to pay off nicely. So I look back on, I think there was one point where I looked back at all the finales I had done and they all were kind of very similar thematically. If I look at like, Camelot and, anyways, there’s that kind of all hope seems lost moment at the end, which I always love working towards and then having to find a way to work out of when you come back next season.

David Read
One of the things that I noticed about SG-1 and I want to know if it’s deliberate or if it just happened. When you would watch Next Generation, or some of these other sci fi shows, if there was a cliffhanger it would say “to be continued” on the end of it. And often it was the case with SG-1 and Atlantis, that everything gets shot to hell, it closes, and then just executive producers. Was that a conscious decision to leave people with slightly less hope, saying that it will be continued, knowing that it’s going to be continued, and I just say executive producers, it’s over? Hopefully, you’ll hopefully…

Joseph Mallozzi
No, I mean, there is that kind of initial instinctive reaction to that’s it, that’s the end. But I mean, you give the audience the benefit of the doubt, to know that next episode will pick up this storyline, it will be a continuation, except in the case of Time, which is like another question I keep on getting asked. So we’ll talk about that episode when we would come to that.

David Read
In due course.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
So it wasn’t a conscious decision not to put to be continued. You just felt that…

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, it was like a conscious decision. It just to be honest with you, again, it was a Brad Wright or Robert Cooper decision. But in my mind, “to be continued” is kind of silly. I mean, to be continued next episode, so on and so on. It just, you know if that’s the way it ends, it’s gonna start off, you’re gonna pick it up and pay it off in the next episode.

David Read
Or like the end of a Marvel movie, Spider Man will return in Avengers End Game, or something like that, so you got to give the little kids some hope. Geez. The use of characters, like the Genii. You reintroduce these wildcard characters in season one, early on, we don’t know if we’re going to be able to form a relationship with them. And then by the end, Weir just basically throws herself, her head into the lion’s mouth, to get a pair of nuclear bombs in the outside hope that they’ll be able to arm themselves. What were your thoughts on the effectiveness of the Genii as a foe as allies?

Joseph Mallozzi
I love the frenemy setup, so to speak. I love the kind of the rogue players, the individuals or groups that you can’t trust to were antagonists in one episode, and then later on the line maybe proved to be unlikely allies. I mean, from an individual character standpoint, Rodney McKay was kind of an antagonist.

David Read
He was.

Joseph Mallozzi
Kind of a jerk, and then we redeem him. The character of Woolsey is another one who was kind of the representative of the IOA and he was a pencil pusher and he’s still remained kind of a pencil pencil pusher. But you got to know the character, and you kind of redeem him a little. And kind of the same way, I mean, in terms of groups is a little more challenging, and still a little more interesting, because those groups are made up of individuals. And so, was it Colm Meaney? He was a great villain. And on the other hand, you had Ryan Robbins.

David Read
As Ladon. Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, who was really not so villainous, and someone that you could potentially trust up to a certain point. So I found the Genii endlessly interesting. And sorry about the Genii but back in season four, when we were working on the show, Rob Cooper came into my office and asked for some alien names for the episode and I think, I think it was Scorched Earth. And he’s like, “I can’t make up this, the last alien race I made my made up was a Furlings and I haven’t heard the end of it.” So I came up with a list. And Gadmeer was the one that we used for the episode. But the Genii was, I think, number two on that list and it wasn’t until…

David Read
Years later.

Joseph Mallozzi
Years later that we ended up using it for Atlantis.

David Read
Well, you know, save all all notes and scraps of paper for one day you may be glad you did.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, exactly.

David Read
Absolutely. How do you feel the performances of James Lafazanos, Andee Frizzell, and the Wraith. paid off? Do you think that you guys achieved everything you wanted to with the Wraith early on?

Joseph Mallozzi
I would say yes. I mean, as the performances were amazing, I mean, there were behind that was it like latex or those masks…

David Read
A lot of K-Y and the gloves and things like that.

Joseph Mallozzi
And yet, they were able to convey emotion, and they were brilliant. They were really brilliant. And so as villains, it’s just kind of interesting, you introduce the villains and then as kind of the it, especially that first season that go on, you kind of tweak them. So in those first episodes they were impossible to bring down, right? I mean, it would be shot.

David Read
They get right back up.

Joseph Mallozzi
They get back [up.] Right, right.

David Read
Like the replicators did in their first episode too. You shoot them and they come back together.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. And then their illusory abilities was something that we introduce. And that after a while that, we kind of refined the enemy and I just think, like the Genii, they were kind of an interesting enemy in that they weren’t evil, although they certainly look downright creepy. But it was interesting, there was a certain faction of fandom who were huge supporters of the Wraith and were like, the humans ended up waking them up, which is something that we bring up in the later episodes. They’re the ones who basically cause the issues.

David Read
We caused a lot of our own issues, Michael for crying out loud.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, they’re trespassing on their feeding grounds, it’s just like vegetarians get mad at meat eaters, the same way you get mad at Wraith, they’re just answering their biological needs for survival. I always thought it was a bit extreme, but and then in the later episodes, we introduced the Todd character, which is also kind of interesting. We’ll get to him in the future. Yeah, but I really liked them as a villain. I mean, the System Lords were always my favorite, just because they were as System Lords very unique as individuals, whereas the Wraith were more very much kind of a hive mentality. And yet, as kind of a general villain, I liked them. So I mean, I think I would go Goa’uld, Wraith, Ori.

David Read
All right. There you go. For anyone who wants to know Joe’s order he just said it. And from a philosophical perspective, I had a long conversation with the Stargate novelists who in the Legacy series Atlantis novels, there’s eight books now, they really dive into the Wraith as a species. And so they spend some time going over what you just wrestled with, which is they didn’t ask to be what they are, they are what they are. And they exist, again, because the Ancients made them, either advertently or inadvertently, and they simply exist. And the novelists tapped into what I was very keen on thinking as well, where we’d revisit the Wraith in that a solution to that species, were you to have had a season six, would not necessarily be to wipe them out as was done with the Goa’uld and was done with the Replicators because wiping them out, the Wraith out, we’ve already done that to a lot of our other enemies. We have to find a creative means of declawing them or perhaps not changing their nature but sidestepping the issue because you can’t make peace with this force. They are what they are.

Joseph Mallozzi
And we do try in later seasons to arrive at a solution but as you mentioned, like in the case of Michael you end up opening up a whole other can of worms.

David Read
Absolutely. Every time I watch it, was it Judgment? Was the episode Judgment or no, or is it, um. Let me see here. It’s the trial episode in season five. Oh, what is its name?

Joseph Mallozzi
Start with an “I”?

David Read
Inquisition, no.

Joseph Mallozzi
Inquisition? Yeah.

David Read
Is it Inquisition?

David Read
I think so.

David Read
Inquisition. You’re absolutely right.

Joseph Mallozzi
One of those rare instances where I’ll say something like, I think the episode starts with a letter of the alphabet. And nine times out of 10 I’m wrong.

David Read
No, you’re right. Inquisition.

David Read
I watched that episode. And it’s like, one of us really should have gone to prison with what we released on the Pegasus Galaxy, and we get out because of because of Woolsey’s guile. It’s just an interesting approach to that. But I have fond memories of watching that first season with friends and really kicking off a brand new adventure and you guys did yourselves proud. You gave some real legs to the start of a show that was gonna do another four years on television.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean, I look back and I continue to be amazed at the fact that we would produce at that time for the first season of Atlantis, the first time we produced 40 hours of television. And nowadays…

David Read
I don’t know who…

Joseph Mallozzi
Now ten hours is like a big, it’s like a huge deal that will take a room months.

David Read
If you had the chance to do it over again, would you? Or be like hell no. Yeah absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

David Read
I can’t imagine the exhaustion Joe.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. No, but I mean, I think you get into a bit of a rhythm. I mentioned when we’re talking about season 10 of SG-1, how we would go off on with our scripts, you try to get as many scripts as possible before you go into production, and then the machine eats it up, you have to sort of stay ahead of the machine.

David Read
You’re putting track in front of the train.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah, I pushed myself and end up writing three episodes. Again, I don’t remember I think Memento Mori. I forget what the other two were. But you do it, you can do it. Back in the day was I remember reading that the idea of running a four minute mile was was unheard of. And then when someone did it, everybody started to do it.

David Read
Right. Exactly.

Joseph Mallozzi
So that’s what it kind of was like for us. I mean, we did it and then we did it again, we did it again. And I think most showrunners are kind of soft nowadays. I have to say it, they’re kind of soft having the luxury of their three or four month rooms so that they can put the finishing touches on those 10 scripts.

David Read
I would argue, though, that there are fewer duds, in shows when you have 10 episodes of a season, there is fewer opportunities for things to go wrong. Not to say that there were things going wrong in your 40 episodes. But there is something to be said for television, people can only produce a certain number of ideas per year in their minds, regardless of the size of the team that you have. So if you’re cutting down on the number of hours, the excuses that you have to not put out the best of the best get fewer and fewer.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, excuses I would agree with but yet on the other hand, I think, like we got used to producing 40 episodes of television a year and making it work. I’m sure in many cases, people get overly comfortable with the time, a lot of them to produce 10 episodes of television. And I would argue the fact that a lot of those 10 Episode runs are serialized makes a huge difference. [inaudible] everything is kind of, yeah, whereas if you’re trying to come up with a single episode, or standalone episode, it theoretically should be easier to come up with 10 as opposed to 20 or 40. And yet, I gotta say, I mean, I still think there’s a lot of bad television being made.

David Read
Oh, unquestionably. For sure. Yeah, it just looks better and improved. But I mean, if it’s still drek, it’s drek. It’s one of the comments that I forget who I was talking with about something. Some of these films that are like $250 million movies, you can make something look spectacular. It does not guarantee that it has any substance. I have some fan questions for you, about 12 is that okay?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
REDUX wants to know, and we go from like specific to esoteric to kind of all over the place and a lot of production oriented questions, behind behind the scenes questions I just want to throw at you and get your responses anyway. REDUX wanted to know. “So there is a message in font substitution from English to Ancients, on the staircase in the atrium. And it basically opens with, for more or less, “A hearty welcome to those of other worlds. Welcoming you into our arms. Welcome back.” Who came up with the idea of having a welcome message? And was there any particular meaning into it? Or was it the production team decided to throw that up there?

Joseph Mallozzi
No, I think that was a production team I think specifically that was Boyd. What’s his last name, worked in the in the art department, and I’m sure he ran it by Brad and Robert. And they were like, “Great,” and so it was kind of an Easter egg for the fans

David Read
Boyd Godfrey?

Joseph Mallozzi
Um, Yes, yes.

David Read
Ancient’s alphabet. All right,

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah, I just remember, more than the writing on the stairs, was that potted plant, but Brad was like, “Oh my god,” after we shot…

David Read
Can we get rid of the 10,000 year old potted plant?.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. He gave Weir that line.

David Read
Well, I mean, that makes sense, there’ll be certain things that when they left the way that, they weren’t planning on coming back, at least not for a long, very long time. So we know that Ancient plants don’t self water. Or they would have absolutely taken over the city.

Joseph Mallozzi
I have to say, for 10,000 years old that plant looks pretty good all the same.

David Read
Those alien genes, there should have been nothing but a pot.

Joseph Mallozzi
Dust, a pot of dust.

David Read
“What was,” Dan Dutton, “the hardest episode from SG-1 to execute?” From SG-1 from season one. I’m sorry. Let’s see these don’t even work. Yeah, from season one to execute?

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, Atlantis?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, it would have to be Home just from the script standpoint, because the network hated it. And so we have to keep on coming back. And I remember actually, Brad was on the phone with them. And he’s like, “You got to come in and talk to the network.” And I thought, I was like, “Oh, sure.” And so we went in and we have to argue the point, then we made the changes, and then Brad took over the script and made some changes and he included the scene, the moment where where Sheppard shoots the other character, and every once in a while, it’s like Atlantis had more of those incidents then then any other.

David Read
Uh huh.

David Read
Atlantis was more action.

Joseph Mallozzi
SG-1 and I mean, I think SG-1 had like a similar amount of action. Yeah. There’s only one episode of SG-1 that we were really spinning our wheels off and then we just kind of threw our hands up and handed it to Rob and [Brad]

David Read
We can leave that my friend, what was that?

Joseph Mallozzi
What was it? I remember I always used to make up these ridiculous placeholder titles and the placeholder title was Fool’s Goa’uld. And what was the episode where they end up stranded with Apophis’ ship?

David Read
Enemies?

Joseph Mallozzi
Was it Enemies?

David Read
They’re stranded across the universe.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah, was it Enemies before? Anyways, we were writing the script and Rob kept on giving the note, “No, you have to move up this action into the script.” And so we’re like, “okay,” and we sat down to write and we’re like, “It doesn’t make sense.” And he’s like, “No, no, you have to do it.” And we’re like, “It doesn’t work.” I remember being, what’s the word, really annoyed? This is where this isn’t working and Paul and I were banging our heads trying to make it work.

David Read
You’re not cracking it. Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
And we’re like, we can’t do this. Like, you know what you want to do? It’s all yours. And so he took it over, he wrote it, and then he realized he couldn’t do it. And we’re back to sort of what we had done originally. So I again, yeah.

David Read
As an editor, I encounter that with people who are like, “I want this” and I’m like, “It’s not working.” They’re like, “Well do it anyway.” And I do it and they’re like, “Yeah, okay, you were right.” You have to go through that process and do what you can, and sometimes you just have to show, even Robert C. Cooper that, “Hey, you know, what? Do your best.”

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, but again, if there’s one episode I have not great memory memories of it’s Home, this script writing process. I mean, the episode was ultimately a lot of fun and actually loved like I said, the kind of the twists and turns and little subtle hints we put in with, I think was, Weir’s jewelry. And what she was wearing, what she had, which she didn’t have in other episodes, and you can go back and kind of. I love putting those little subtle hints that you missed the first time and you rewatch the episode, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, there it is.”

David Read
How much influence did the network have to stories? I mean, I imagine most of this is all politics. We’ll give you a little on this one. Later on we expect a little ease on a script later. How much really did they have? Or could you guys say no, we’re be all like, “Well, no, we’re I’m not cooperating.”

Joseph Mallozzi
I’ll be honest with you. I mean, Brad and Robert sometimes had some real rows with the network executive. I mean, it’s a collaboration, right? So you do your best to address the notes and Paul would always say, “Don’t say no on the call.” But, my instinct, when I get the notes is like, “We can’t do this.” And he will, Paul would always look for the spirit of the note. I mean, why are they giving this note? What are they looking for, instead of addressing it in the way that they’re requesting maybe there’s another way that makes sense. So, I mean, we had our battles. Brad and Robert, really, I mean, ran on point on that. And they had like, the biggest battle, I remember actually one episode, where Paul and I run on with the network, and I think it was the Tower. And they did not like the Tower. And we were going back and forth. And the call abruptly ended. They were like, “We don’t accept this episode.” And we’re like, “No, fine.”

David Read
Yeah, at a certain point. I remember, this is kind of a little off topic. But it’s kind of oh, it’s not off topic. But it’s not with your show. But it rings true to the same spirit of feeling. I was watching The Last Frakkin’ Special for Battlestar Galactica. And they had brought in some of the network executives in for the show. And one of the network was executives were saying, “You know for Battlestar, I really wanted a puppy.” And I’m sitting there going, “Are you crazy?” Are you …

Joseph Mallozzi
I know that it’s funny you should mention that.

David Read
What are you talking about? Why?

Joseph Mallozzi
Because that executive visited the Stargate offices, and said the same thing. She’s like, “I would love to have a puppy.” And I remember all of us looking like, “What?”

David Read
I mean, Sedgwick makes sense. I was a proponent of bringing Sedgwick on the Daedalus because that makes sense that Atlantis should have a dog. But that’s inside the story itself. But I mean, if you’re just looking for like, “Okay, on the spreadsheet here, we need to dial up some cuteness for this for this particular…” It was so bizarre. And I think that kind of thing when you’re talking with the networks it’s like, “Oh, gosh, that how much of their pound of flesh do they actually get?” You got to do what you can, man and I…

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean, there’s always, honestly, there was always the challenge from the script stage where you would come and sometimes look, the notes will be great. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re always like a lot of great help that sometimes you would kind of be at cross purposes, and it would just be a challenge.

David Read
Yeah. And I like Paul’s approach. What’s the spirit of what’s trying to be done here? Because if everyone is in tune to the spirit of what’s trying to be done, certainly you can compromise somewhere.

David Read
Blahz I wants to know, I think it’s, I’m pronouncing that right, blahz blasts. And this is an issue that I as a fan of Star Wars always have. “How come the Ancients in Atlantis didn’t appear to have any major technological evolution over the multi-millions of years until they went back to Earth just 10,000 years ago?” There’s a quality of you’re literally dealing with eons of time how realistic is it to put in a technological evolution? And at a certain point, does a race become technologically stagnant and just exist at a certain level?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Look, I mean, it’s a valid point. And to be honest with you, it’s a question that I would ask you to add, ask Robert, right? Because he is steeped in the mythology of the Ancients. And I’ve been fairly vocal about my, what’s the word? Dislike for the Ancients, and their esoteric backstories.

David Read
They’re a plot device.

Joseph Mallozzi
Again, I’m more of a sci fi guy and I find the, I say esoteric, but they really feel more like fantasy to me. And there’s almost like a spiritual aspect to them that I kind of find off putting, which is why I just would always kind of almost tune out when we would have to kind of like, address them.

David Read
This came up in my mind the last time that you brought that up, and I do think that your point is valid on a lot of levels. I do wonder though, Joe, do you think that there is no place for metaphysics in science fiction?

Joseph Mallozzi
No, no, I’m just saying, I don’t want to write it.

David Read
Okay, that’s fair.

Joseph Mallozzi
I mean, no, to be honest with you. I mean, like the Ancients certainly, they absolutely do have a place in Stargate, in a huge place. And Rob wrapped his head around it and wrote some wonderful scripts related to the Ancients. I personally, I mean, it’s like ask me to write an hour of a hospital drama. I guess I could do it but I certainly wouldn’t be having any fun doing so.

David Read
And I mean, you have to ask yourself, how many times did you have the opening of the story as Atlantis team comes upon abandoned Ancient tech? It was the mechanism to get to a larger story. Those Ancients were the worst garbage leavers throughout the universe. And they all had their own goals and everything else. And like, I was reading an online the other day someone was saying, “Do you think that the later gate networks had the ability to connect to Destiny? ‘ And I’m like, “Do you really think with as many separate tangential ideas as all those different Ancient scientists had, that they would have even considered connecting the Destiny later, they were on to the next thousandth project.” Screw Destiny. That guy lived 5,000 years ago, we’re not interested in what his approach was. I’m sorry. I appreciate you letting me ramble. Jennifer Jensen, first off, “Love Atlantis. In season one of SGA, we’ve seen more Super…, you touched on this, we see some more supernatural powers of the Wraith, getting into people’s minds, and Teyla being able to create fire with her mind. And this appears to fade as a more prominent feature.’ And she says, “For my memory, I know there’s an instance when Michael gets into Teyla’s mind to release him from his bindings and but in the later seasons there’s less and less utility of this.” Can you talk about why we don’t see more of this throughout the seasons, particularly with Teyla?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s another case of an element that doesn’t serve the story or really doesn’t serve the story as effectively, as originally envisioned. And at times kind of gets in the way of the story. Like in my mind, for instance, we talked about the bullets and the fact that it took more bullets to take down the Wraith in those initial encounters then it did in later encounters. And my thinking is, “Oh, they realized and they switched to whatever armor piercing rounds.”

David Read
That’s a fair point.

Joseph Mallozzi
Kind of the same way. Yeah, and I think the Wraith perhaps realize that we were on to their tricks, and so made less use of them.

David Read
Yeah. I mean, I would have contacted Earth in that first initial message and say, “Bring knives, bring swords, we need to cut off their hands and then they can’t feed anymore. Problem solved.” Goran Andonovski, “Was Robert Patrick considered for more episodes and more time in the show, besides the pilots, once you knew what you got?”

Joseph Mallozzi
No, absolutely not. Brad and Robert written that two-parter with a plan to kill off the character. To set up the character and kind of do a misdirect where you announce Roberrt Patrick’s gonna be in the new Stargate series, and everybody’s obviously gonna think Robert Patrick’s gonna be the leader of the new Stargate series. And then when he gets killed off, surprisingly, at the end of his episode, the end of the two-parter, then we kind of move on. So, no, there was never any plan. I mean, there are those rare occasions where someone, you write a script, where the character dies, but they’re so good that you think that we’ve got to find a way to bring them back and because it’s sci fi, you do. But no, in the case of the Robert Patrick character, the plan was always to kill him off.

David Read
It wouldn’t have been interesting though. I mean, if Atlantis were made today to have Sheppard as more of a prodigy and to build a show as having you know, Robert Patrick in it, and then to have the twist be that no, the prodigal son, the mentee is going to rise up and actually be the one to exist in his mentor’s footsteps?

Joseph Mallozzi
It will be interesting. Spin off.

David Read
There we go. And also Goran wanted to know, “Was Colm Meaney your first choice for Cowen?”

Joseph Mallozzi
I believe he was, yeah.

David Read
Okay. And when you get a caliber of that kind of an actor, man oh man. Lisa M, “I liked the storylines of Atlantis and challenges that the Atlantis team had to face. However, in my point of view, it often felt like a one man show because it was Sheppard who was frequently saving the day. I got that he was the leading character but I would have liked a more balanced approach. What does Joe think of this? Does he agree? Does he disagree?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Again, I mean my mind, memories kind of hazy that first episode but so certainly in later episodes you can kind of chalk that up to Rodney being the guy, the one who kind of steps in and saves the day. So maybe in that first season it was a bit more Sheppard, lean on Sheppard a little more in terms of being kind of the hero. Much the same way we kind of we set up, there was a dynamic on SG-1 in the early goings where O’Neill was the hero and yet I guess SG-1 was very different because Teal’c had his own storyline to deal with in a way that the Atlantis characters didn’t and Carter really stood on her own and she was like a sort of a counterpart, it was really, I mean, O’Neill, Daniel and Carter and Teal’c was important too but he was kind of like, he’s kind of separate storyline but those three characters were all very, very equally, I think equally strong, even though it was “Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate SG-1.” But in in Atlantis, it was really more at the beginning certainly Sheppard and the other characters. And then as time went on, Rodney came to the fore.

David Read
I think that to be perfectly honest, in SG-1 the characters have their own separate utility in different scenes, whereas a lot of times in Atlantis, Sheppard is goading Rodney to solve a problem and Teyla and Ronon and Sheppard are, standing guard while Rodney is working, and there’s a banter quality between all of them that’s actually the thing that’s engaging to watch in that particular instance. It’s just a different group.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, and like you said, they have like a certain utility. It’s hard when you’re dealing with like outsiders, like Teal’c whose story is rooted in the Jaffa, who’s not from earth and is not from the SGC. And it’s kind of much the same way that Teyla was not originally from the Atlantic expedition, but her backstory allows us to tell stories that we wouldn’t be able to tell with the regular Earth or human group.

David Read
That’s fair. Teresa MC, “Were there ever plans to put Sheppard and Teyla together, even briefly in a romantic storyline?” Or that wouldn’t have worked with her on his team? We see allusions to this in like, the dream sequence. And…

Joseph Mallozzi
You know it’s one of those instances, the shippers versus non-shippers was something that existed on SG-1 and existed on Atlantis, and it’s something we did toy with. And then Rachel got pregnant. And we were like, what…

David Read
Is it Sheppard’s?

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, there was one, for like a half second, we thought, “Should this be Sheppard’s baby?” And then I remember Paul was like, “There’s no way it can be Sheppard’s baby.

David Read
Just from an honor perspective?

Joseph Mallozzi
I guess, yes, yes, I think that was the issue. And so by not making it Sheppard’s child, that pretty much killed the potential kind of relationship between between the two of them.

David Read
I just wished that there would have been some kind of way to get more mileage out of the Teyla – Kanaan relationship. We see him for one scene, after he’s restored, and I just wished that there had been a way to get more out of that in terms of the story. But again, it’s the stories that you want to tell and what’s available.

Joseph Mallozzi
It’s always the case sometimes like you have a friend and they end up getting together or marrying someone and you’re always like, “Man, they can do so much better. What is going on? What do they don’t know?” And then Kanaan was like a perfectly nice guy, I’m sure there was there was a side of him that we never got to know. But on kind of surface you think Teyla could have done kind of better.

David Read
In hindsight, would you have hooked Sheppard up with someone before it was all said and done? Or do you think he’s more of a lone wolf?

Joseph Mallozzi
It was Sheppard’s greatest wish, Joe Flanigan’s greatest wish, to be able to do a little more Kirking on the show.

David Read
He did plenty of Kirking.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, well, not enough.

David Read
You don’t think so?

Joseph Mallozzi
No, no, no. And I mean, I remember he did pitch sort of maybe bringing on another character as a kind of a supporting character. And the Jilll Wagner character from Travelers.

David Read
Larrin.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, it was initially introduced to sort of potentially fill that role. And but I mean it was just one episode. And then she went off and got Wipeout.

David Read
Yeah, she was unavailable. That’s a shame. I think that there could have been something there. Sheppard is such a guarded character and there’s a part of him that still, I think, in Antarctica basically scrubbing toilets, as it were, after what he did in Afghanistan. And I think a domestic kind of Sheppard would have been interesting to see in terms of how it would have changed any of his characterization when he was on the battlefield. I always felt that he had something to fight for back in Atlantis, but I’m talking like something to fight for, like someone to fight for, would have been interesting.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yep. I agree.

David Read
“What was,” Spinobreaker, “the greatest challenge from the Wraith point of view in writing them?” Is it the hive mentality, was getting inside their heads, the novelists had an interesting approach to this as well, when they were writing the Wraith, because they had to actually label them. It was the only way to actually make the novels work.

Joseph Mallozzi
I think, yeah, I think the biggest challenge was the fact that really, until Todd, and I guess, for certain extent, Michael came along. They weren’t as distinct as individuals, as let’s say, the System Lords, which is what I loved about the system was that they were all very colorful, they’re very unique.

David Read
They deliberately [inaudible]

Joseph Mallozzi
Like yeah, they were kind of a hive and it just kind of tough to give a villain personality, and you love to give your villains personality. So that I think was the biggest challenge for when it came to writing the Wraith. At least in the early going.

David Read
Okay, that’s fair. Stephers Tune, “Although the Wraith are this horrifying enemy. The palette for the city of Atlantis was lighter than a base buried in Cheyenne Mountain. Was that a conscious choice to set a different tone for the show compared to SG-1, from the beginning?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, no, it absolutely was a conscious decision to give it a obviously more kind of aquatic feel. The blues are all over that place. And that’s something Brad and Robert can specifically speak to because when they were designing that set they were very involved. And I’m sure sort of, again, the aquatic theme ran throughout the kind of the early going, the early conception of the Atlantis, city of Atlantis.

David Read
Three more, two relating to Atlantis, and one to you specifically. CarlosTakeshi, “Season one introduced many things that would become critical recurring elements, the Hoffan drug, the Genii, and Teyla’s connection with the Wraith. Was there anything you wanted to include in those early episodes, the early going, or did include that didn’t end up working like you had hoped? Or were any of those recurring elements from season one bigger deals than had originally intended?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Um, I look back and, no, there were no stories that I remember pitching that were turned down. I mean, very much in that first season, the show is finding its footing. So, I look back, I think, as the series progresses, especially in the late goings of that first season, I think it really comes into its own. The first, I think, two or three episodes are like very strong and then the middle of that first season I think it’s probably the roughest go of the series, as a whole in my opinion.

David Read
Okay, with the hurricane and everything else.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, actually, no, actually, sorry. I think that midseason two-parter stands out amongst the, so basically start strong, continues along, then we get really strong with that midseason two-parter. I mean, I look at, you mentioned, there are certain stories that work and some that don’t and hits and misses, and there were misses in that first season.

David Read
You can only produce so many rabbits from hats.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right. Yeah.

David Read
Sometimes you have to go with something else, not to say that you’re giving up but you have to, I can’t imagine the pressure that you guys were under every year, you’d have to see what sticks. Me Anytime, the last Stargate related question, and this is one that I also assumed was going to be the case considering the Zat gun adoption in SG-1. “In SG-1 they adopted the Zats. In Atlantis the Wraith stunners when they become guns, when they become pistols by the beginning of season two they weren’t adopted. Thoughts on why this was?” I was kind of always expecting that.

Joseph Mallozzi
Um, I guess from a sort of practical standpoint, I don’t know if the Wraith, the stunners, did they work on the Wraith?

David Read
I believe so.

Joseph Mallozzi
Hard to do some effect. Well, then we should have. I guess we should have.

David Read
Yeah, I think the one thing that I can think of is Zat guns can kill and the stunners can’t. So they only have, this seems to be the word of this episode, they only have so much utility. So maybe that’s the thing. But I had always been under the assumption that, yeah, well we acquire the alien tech, like the mandate was for Stargate Command. I think that the Asuran stunners and I’ve got one right over here. Those were badass. So would love to have seen that. And Joe, Tracy wanted to know, and thank you for walking through season one with us. This is, as always, every episode is fantastic to engage with you on this level. Tracy wanted to know, “You’ve been tweeting some interesting teasers. Is there something your fans should be aware of? Is there an upcoming project coming to fruition soon that will be perhaps on the air soon?”

Joseph Mallozzi
I think this is probably a reference to the Stargate concept art and videos I’ve been posting every day. No, I mean that I have nothing to do with developing the new show. That is all Brad. And hopefully we’ll be doing a new Brad Wright series sooner than later. To be honest with you, I don’t even know what I have on my laptop. I did a search for concept and I came up with a file folder I didn’t even know existed or two file folders, one labeled SG-1, one labeled Atlantis, and they’re broken down into seasons. And so I’m working my [way], I think I’m near the end of season two, and I post one piece of concept art on Twitter and on Reddit every day. And then usually, like I’ll post like a season’s worth on my blog every every week or so. And in the meantime, I also did a search for like MOV files, which had been played, and I transfer them to MP4s. And I’ll find the most amazing stuff like schematics, kind of like ND Graphics and from the shows and I’ve been posting those as well. No meaning behind it. The usual, I mean, basically, I’ve been posting behind the scenes stuff for going on least 12 years now or more. So in answer the question, no, I’m not hinting at anything. If there was basically was something to say, I would come out and say it

David Read
Right. You’re just filling our plates with something during the drought.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes, exactly.

David Read
I am really excited about the Amazon news. And I think that if they are smart, and want to fast track anything, they can look at this low hanging fruit that Brad has been wanting to get off the ground for a couple of years now and say, “Let’s go with that.” We’ve got a 350 hour database of product that’s sitting right here. There’s an active fan base that loves it, a new generation that is discovering [it] now that wasn’t even born then. Let’s do it.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I certainly hope so. And that would be the smart thing to do.

David Read
I completely agree. Or blow it all to hell and start over from fresh and make you know millions of enemies. Joe, as always, it’s a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, a lot of fun as always, thank you.

David Read
Thanks so much to Joseph Mallozzi for returning once again for another episode of Dial the Gate. This time we covered season one of Stargate Atlantis, and many more to go 2, 3, 4, 5, 1 and 2, so another 6, 7 episodes to go before we run out of Stargate content to talk about. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free, and we do appreciate you watching. But if you want to support the show further buy yourself some of our themed swag. We’re now offering T-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages in a variety of sizes and colors at Red Bubble. Checkout is fast and it’s easy and you can even use your Amazon or your PayPal account just visit dialthegate.redbubble.com and thank you so much for your support. And if you enjoy the show, please consider liking, sharing, subscribing, commenting, all this engagement helps the show fuel further episodes so that we can continue to produce this content that everyone loves. So, my name is David Read. Thanks again to Joseph Mallozzi for joining us. Thanks to my amazing team of moderators and staff, Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy Rhys, Antony, Linda “GateGabber” Furey and Jennifer Kirby. Thank you all for continuing to make the show happen with me and get us to that 100th episode. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. See you on the other side.