Dial the Gate returns with a bang for Season Two with three brand new interviews on our first day! Right out of the gate is Executive Producer and Writer, Joseph Mallozzi, who will share stories from the production of Stargate Atlantis Season Two (in our ongoing, season-by-season coverage) and take your fan questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
1:01 – Welcome and Episode Outline
3:33 – Catching up with Joe
7:52 – Atlantis Season Two, Running SG-1 and Atlantis Simultaneously, and New Writers
11:32 – Ships and Set Designs
13:56 – Jason Momoa and Ronon Dex
17:35 – “The Intruder”
21:41 – “Michael” and Connor Trinneer
25:00 – “The Tower” and Script Writing
32:00 – Aidan Ford’s Return
33:18 – “Duet”
35:48 – “The Long Goodbye”
36:29 – “Allies”
38:53 – On Writing
42:50 – Fan Questions, and “The Tower”
44:34 – More Fan Questions
45:49 – “Aurora,” “Reunion” and Weapons
49:28 – Ancients and Zero Point Modules
50:50 – The Longevity of the Series, and Actors
53:49 – Teyla and John
56:41 – Dark Matter
57:49 – Stargate Universe
1:00:19 – “200,” “Wormhole X-Treme” and Breaking the Fourth Wall
1:02:33 – Goa’uld and Wraith Hybrids, and Todd
1:07:05 – Any Actors Joe Wanted to Work With, Robert Picardo and Ming-Na Wen
1:09:52 – Character or Storyline Regrets
1:11:34 – Thanking Joe
1:12:25 – David’s Props and Questions
1:26:23 – Post interview housekeeping
1:26:57 – End credits

***

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

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read
Welcome everyone, to Episode 101 of Dialing the Gate, Dial the Gate. 101 and I can’t even get the name of my own show right, Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. Thanks so much for being with us here. Joseph Mallozzi, Writer and Executive Producer of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, Universe is with us, ready to go here. So this is a brand new season, season two, and I appreciate you being part of it. I am so thankful that we are almost to 20,000 friggin’ subscribers, I had no idea that that was going to happen over the summer. So very thankful for all of you being here. Interested to see how many show up in the live stream this weekend. We have Joe right now, we have Colin in a couple of hours, and then David Hewlett one hour after that. So if this is your first live stream, this is how we do it. Join us in the YouTube live chat if you want to submit questions for Joe, those questions are going to take up the second half of our presentation today. We have moderators standing by collecting those questions and sending them over to me. And so that’s what we’re going to use for the second half. So we’re going to get your questions answered. For the first half it’s me and Joe. We’re going to catch up a little bit, we’re going to talk about a couple of things. Season two of Stargate Atlantis is the focus for this particular episode. Because we’ve been going through the entire franchise with him a season at a time, it’s been a really refreshing retrospective process to have. But before we get started, if you like Stargate, and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean so much if you click that Like button, it really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will continue to help the show grow its audience. And please also consider sharing this video with the Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that Subscribe icon. Giving the Bell icon to click will notify you the moment to new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guests changes. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. And stay tuned after Joseph Mallozzi, we’re going to take a look at some of the new pieces of hardware that have been submitted by fans and I want to give them credit where credit is due and may give you a peek at something else if you’re really good. Joseph Mallozzi, Writer and Executive Producer of Stargate. Welcome back my friend. How are you? 101 and 10 so you make up 10% of my show, and it’s a good 10% So. [laughter then no audio]

Joseph Mallozzi
…because I feel as though give it another year and I’ll remember even less. It’s funny because I frequent the Reddit, the Stargate subreddit, and occasionally someone will have a very specific question, about an episode I wrote. And I mean obviously I remember the episode, but I will not remember the details and be unable to answer the question.

David Read
Sommer, I’ve got it fixed. Thank you.

Sommer Roy
Okay, thank you.

David Read
Yeah. Well, you know, it’s particularly, it’s not like you guys didn’t do just a little bit of content over the years, you guys. I can’t imagine coming in every the beginning of every single season and going, “Okay, what haven’t we done?” And what you’ve indicated before, is that so much of it was built on what came, of every season was built on what came before and informed so much of what you did next. But I would still be like, I’ve got to try something fresh, or I’m just going to bash my brains in on this because, not everything can just rely on something that came before. You want to always grow as a writer and as a creator.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, but I mean, it’s something I mentioned in previous episodes, that writing Stargate became actually a lot easier because we had built that backstory in those various storylines that we go and kind of mine moving forward. It’s those standalone stories, while fresh and exciting, they always prove very challenging to come up with.

David Read
On looking back through this journey that we’ve gone together. Do you find the standalone stories stand out a little bit more in your positive category in your mind in going through these or more of the ongoing A to B to C to D arc stories?

Joseph Mallozzi
Personally, for me, I always find the standalone stories stand out the most. I look at episodes like Window of Opportunity, we did almost all of them in our our first season, season four of SG-1 were all standalone stories, The Curse and Point of No Return. But I look at other standalones like Revisions from SG-1, that’s one of my favorites. Ripple Effect, another one of my favorites. And when in Stargate Atlantis season four, I always forget

David Read
Information, Tabula Rasa?

Joseph Mallozzi
No, it was the one, we did the three different storylines, and I explored Woolsey’s love life. With the…

David Read
Yes. With AI, the sentient, Sekkari.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes. Yes.

David Read
Sekkari. Atlantis, that was the episode, Remnants.

Joseph Mallozzi
Remnants. Yeah, that was like one of those pretty satisfying episodes where it’s a standalone and yet you’ve got multiple storylines going on that find a way to dovetail at the end. Those were always my favorites.

David Read
And you have, it’s also another example of what you can do in this genre that you can’t do in any others. I mean, you bring back Sheppard’s, in my opinion, archenemy for a terrific coda, if you will. So but we’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right, right, right.

David Read
Season two of Atlantis was going on concurrently with season nine of SG-1. This is your second season of doing 40 stories. Do you recall any feelings going into that for the second go around that, “Okay, we’re not doing 22 We’re doing 40 for another year.” Paint a picture of what’s going on in season two.

Joseph Mallozzi
I liken it to when I had one dog and then I got two dogs and I was like, “Wow, this is very different.” Then I got three dogs and people would think, “Wow, that’s even harder to do.” And in fact, no, actually, three dogs wasn’t much harder to take care of than two. Much the same way, after that initial draw, and you adjust. You make an adjustment and you learn how to produce 40 hours of television a year. And we did it. And we proved we could do it. So heading into the second season of Atlantis and ninth season of SG-1, we knew that we could do it. So I mean, there was really no pressure although I mean, looking at 40 episodes of television, heading into the year, it does feel a little insurmountable.

Joseph Mallozzi
No one does that anymore. I don’t think. Your horsepower also increased too with the number of staff writers that you had. It’s important to point that out. How many staff writers did you guys have in season seven of SG-1 versus say season two of Atlantis. You added Martin Gero. You added, the someone…

Joseph Mallozzi
I think Carl Binder came in.

David Read
Carl came in. That’s it. I’m sorry, Carl, so that must have infused…

Joseph Mallozzi
It absolutely did. I mean, whenever you bring a new writer into the room, they will, you say, infuse the creative with kind of a whole new, I guess spirit. And Martin and Carl, just great to work with, fantastic writers, and each of them had obviously their own strengths and what they brought to the show, and you look at their episodes. And Martin did a lot of the big epic episodes. Whereas Carl did a lot of sort of fantastic character driven episodes

David Read
Constantly. Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, great character episodes. And yeah, and it certainly injected new life, I think, into the franchise as a whole.

David Read
I had Carl on in season one. And I would probably have to say, Before I Sleep is up there in terms of my favorite ones that he did. And we were having the discussion about that episode. And I love just the nucleus of the idea. And he turned to me and said, “Actually, that was Joe’s.” What if the first time that we experienced this is not the first time that it actually happened. He said that that was your idea.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t recall. It was kind of him to say though. Yeah, I mean to be honest with you it’s just there’s so many stories that have been done before that he would just find like a little twist just to make it different. And then if I came up with that idea, great. But at the end of the day, he wrote what was I think one of the best Atlantis scripts over this shows five seasons.

David Read
Season two comes in. We’ve had the almost obligatory at this point for Stargate, main enemy has come to attack us by season end of season one, what do we do? We fought them off. It’s just one of those in this context, in this story that that you do, just kind of the story that has to be told. We introduced the Daedalus. So I think you guys expanded the spaceships, the Prometheus set for the Daedalus in season two. Am I not mistaken about that? Definitely the bridge was redesigned.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right? Yes, yes. I mean, just because we wanted to make more, kind of expand our world a little, we did. Although, I mean, I look back on it and even though we did expand the set, I feel as though we were still walking through the same 25 feet of corridor. And I remember I actually was, I forget which episode it was, but it was Martin Wood, and how he would do the walk and talk, and would be walking, walking along. And if you’re watching the show, they’re walking along, they take a left, or they take a left, and they end up walking, they take it right and take another right, they take a left and it looks all very different. But really what was happening was they were doing the walk and talk and as we were shooting the walk and talk the set dressers were adjusting the turn so that instead of like a left turn, would take a right turn and flipping out, switching plaques and making the corridor look different. So it’s essentially the same corridor…

David Read
In real time?

Joseph Mallozzi
…walking around. Yeah, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Wow. The only time that I remember, this is a quick aside, the only time that I remember going, “Okay guys, come on.” is in the season four finale Exodus. Carmen is, I can’t remember which SG team members, they’re doing a circle on the Goa’uld set. I mean, they’re making four 90 degree turns and they just keep on going. And it’s like, “Okay, where are you going?” What a gorgeous set. And you guys added to that over the years, with plexiglass pieces and everything else. And you really got a lot of mileage out of that. The other thing that you guys got a lot of mileage out of is a certain actor by the name of I think his name is Moma? Momoa. Jason Momoa.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Yeah.

David Read
So first impressions of him.

Joseph Mallozzi
Um, you know, it’s funny, we were looking for a new character. And Rob Cooper, I think I mentioned this before, I mean, we were all fans of Survivor and it was a character called Rupert, who was kind of a fan favorite. He was kind of this happy-go-lucky, almost sort of huge guy, looks kind of larger than life character. And he said, “I want a Rupert, I want a Rupert.

David Read
Survivor?

Joseph Mallozzi
He was a character, he was one of the contestants in Survivor, but he wanted a Rupert-like character, or like the bigger than life character. And we’re looking to cast, and I remember, we were looking, looking, and then Rob was like, “This is the guy.” And we saw Jason Momoa and it was perfect. And we’re like, “This is the guy.” And MGM was like, “Actually, no, we like this soap opera actor.” And we’re like, “No, that’s not the guy at all.” And of course, Rob went to battle and we ended up casting Jason Momoa. And one of my favorite characters obviously on Atlantis ended up writing…

David Read
So was he an offer or did he submit a tape?

Joseph Mallozzi
I believe he submitted a tape.

David Read
Okay. Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
I think it was coming up. What did he do North Shore and Baywatch?

David Read
Baywatch was the only thing I remembered him on. I only seen him like a couple of episodes is like, “Oh, yeah, I know that guy.”

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Read
So, I remember Brad saying, “We wanted him to be dangerous.” They really had this kind of, I don’t know if the Chewbacca thing was intentional with Sheppard.

Joseph Mallozzi
That was not, to the best of my knowledge, I would say that was not intentional. In fact, actually that line, calling him Chewie was an ad lib by Joe Flanigan.

David Read
Of course it was. Did you think that, how do you feel about how Ronon’s character evolved over the series? Do you think you guys took him interesting places? Do you think you didn’t do enough with him? Or do you think it was a good balance?

Joseph Mallozzi
I think it was a good balance. I mean, look back at the episodes we did. We explored his backstory we showed like different sides of him. I know Jason would often come by the office and be like, “You know I want to go,” for instance he said, “I want to go dark side next season.” So I was like, “Okay, fine.” And so we ended up doing was it, Broken Ties, I think? And I think that was probably his best performance on Atlantis because he did it all in that episode. The dark side kind of went through that kind of like weird withdrawal at the end of the episode. So I mean, definitely I would say he got his share of the spotlight just simply because I love the character. And I enjoyed writing for him. So I mean, I certainly did my part.

David Read
Absolutely. And you look at what Rob did in season three basically giving him a movie with Sateda. There was a lot of road to cover there. Let’s take a look at some of your episodes this season. So The Siege part two, okay was season one. The Intruder.

Joseph Mallozzi
The Siege part three though, no, so that was Martin Gero.Yes, yes sorry. Yeah, The Intruder. Yes.

David Read
The Intruder. So this is a almost a bottle show in and of itself because they’re on the spaceship going back taking the two week journey back to Atlantis. What was your approach for Intruder and the Wraith virus?

Joseph Mallozzi
I think we wanted to sort of create one of those was locked room mysteries. And what better way to do that then in a spaceship? I mean, you can’t get any more isolated than that. So that was kind of fun. And again, it was an opportunity to show off our new set and um, yeah.

David Read
And you’re tying up a lot of loose threads from season one. We’re resolving, Sheppard is now a colonel and we’re resolving Weir’s relationship with Simon and there’s just a lot of closure there. There’s Sheppard visits, I was just about to say Rainbow’s family, like that’s wrong, it’s Ford’s family and explains what happened as best he can. There’s the slower moments of that episode I’m the bigger fan of. And I would argue that Atlantis didn’t do slow nearly as much as like SG-1 or Universe did. It was much more of an action focus. So when you got those actors sitting down in a more comfortable setting, not running and gutting, given the script they could act.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean it’s always very satisfying to be able to explore aspects of the characters, their backstories or side stories, or the relationships, obviously over the course of various seasons. But just like you said, having Sheppard go back and see Ford’s parents or Ford’s family, dealing with Weir’s fall out with Simon, they’re essentially housekeeping beats.

David Read
Right.

Joseph Mallozzi
Really they all go to character. And at the end of the day, as I’ve often said, “Viewers will tune in for the hook but they stay for the characters.” And Stargate fans love the characters and just anything you can do to sort of shed some light on these characters is always greatly appreciated. So, I mean, I agree with you, I always prefer the character moments over the running gun or obviously, even like the mystery element of this particular episode.

David Read
Having said those things, the show also stretches its legs with the F302s. We get really an extended dogfight between a couple of F302s that was really a lot of fun to watch. The visual effects of Atlantis were really beginning to come together.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. Thank you Mark Savela, Visual Effects Supevisor.

David Read
Absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. I mean, it’s funny that you can look back and every year the look of the show just evolves and progresses. And of course, that also has to do with the fact that you bank those visual effects, the ships and what have you. So you don’t have to spend money on on another Daedalus, you already have it modeled, so you can spend money on bigger and better stuff. I mean, that was always a great thing about science fiction is, sort of every year from a visual effects standpoint you talked the year before.

David Read
Absolutely. This season, also introduced probably one of if not the core villain, for Atlantis. Connor Trinneer, came in and played a human that turned out to be a Wraith. And anyone who was reading spoilers at the time knew well in advance what was going on before the episode. This is the thing that I hate about spoilers. It’s like, “Why? Why did these things leak?” And if you haven’t seen season two of Atlantis yet, and you’re watching this, I’m sorry. But it was one of the coolest reveals that you guys did over the years. Tell us about that.

Joseph Mallozzi
So that was interesting, because when you mentioned Carl saying I came up with the idea for Before I Sleep. Originally, the plan for Michael was thet capture the Wraith, that were going through the experimentation, or reading the pilot, and it was good. It was a good. I started reading the outline and it was good. But I was like, “You know, what’d be cool. If we don’t know, the audience doesn’t know.” And so rather than introducing the test subject from the beginning, we don’t know what’s going on until that mid-episode reveal where you got that horrific shot of the Wraith, of Michael, original Michael. Yeah. And again, it’s just kind of a small thing but it just brought that episode together. And I mean, Carl is such a fantastic writer, especially when it comes to character. And you felt sorry for the character yet at the same time you feared him. And it was very nuanced character and Connor Trinneer did a fantastic job.

David Read
Well, what’s the thing that separates sci fi from other genres? Sci fi is about ideas. And that’s the core distinguishing factor, in my opinion. And you have a chance by adjusting the narrative direction, just like you’re turning like a telescope, to change the focus on instead of on our allies, on our enemy. And have us really sit in his shoes for a little bit here and say, “Okay, the Wraith, did they ask to be the way they are?” We eventually find out the Ancients made them. They didn’t ask to be this way. But they are what they are and they are, it’s a crappy situation.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. I mean, and like you said, it puts us in their shoes and allows us to, if not empathize, and certainly sympathize with them a little. And that’s why I think in subsequent seasons, the Michael character garnered such a huge kind of fan support, because we kind of felt sorry for him and they understood him, even if they didn’t necessarily excuse his behavior.

David Read
Well, sure, absolutely. The Tower.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes.

David Read
I loved the idea of another city.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes.

David Read
And that it was taken over by the pettiest of people. Jay Brazeau is back.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes. And who’s the actor Brendan?

David Read
Darren was a huge fan of this guy. I’m gonna see here the bald gentleman.

Joseph Mallozzi
No,

David Read
No? Let’s see here, I’ll pull it up for you.

David Read
Peter Woodward, Jay Brazeau. David Bloom. Brendan Fraser, Tavius.

Joseph Mallozzi
Please.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes.

David Read
Brendan Beiser, Beezer?

Joseph Mallozzi
Brendan Beiser.

David Read
Beiser.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. That episode stood out for me. Now that one at this point in our Stargate run Paul and I were writing our scripts separately.

David Read
Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
So this was his script.

David Read
Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
That I think it was a lot of fun. I love like, all the performances were great but Brendan’s especially just really stood out to me. This episode I remember because the network hated it. And…

David Read
They did?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, we would get on on our conference calls and talk to them. And I think we delivered the first draft, or probably deliver the first draft. And they were like, “Well, we don’t like it. And it takes too long for the action to get going.” And so we tried to sort of talk it out with them. And they were pretty adamant. And then, Paul, it’s funny because when we used to be on conference calls and the network would give us notes, I was always the one who’d be like, “I don’t know if we can do that.” Whereas Paul would always be like, “Oh, yeah, we can do that. We can, yeah, no problem, no problem.” And then when we sit down to do the rewrite, he’d be like, “I don’t think we can do this.” In this case they just wanted to throw out this script completely, which Paul found completely kind of unhelpful. So and he’s like, and in situations like that, if the notes are, I hate to say it, but not constructive. You look for the spirit of the note, what is it they’re bumping up against? So he’s trying to find that out. And it became a very combative situation on that call. And I was sitting there. And Paul’s like, “Well, no, I’m not going to do this rewrite.” And then the executive was like, “Well, we don’t accept this episode.” And Paul was like, “Okay, fine, then don’t accept the episode.” And hung up. And that was that. And it was, I mean, we’d had conflict with the network on in other aspects, creative aspects of the series.

David Read
But was that a peak of that?

Joseph Mallozzi
Ah no, It wasn’t a peak. Yeah, it was one that stood out for me just because the extent of the note, and Paul’s atypical response to it.

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. So, Joe and I are smiling at each other because there is backstory behind this episode. And I’m not going to speak too much about that, only to say that had Darren and I known that going in, I think in analyzing and reviewing that episode for GateWorld our approach, and in terms of what the reviewers that we had at the time, were saying, I think probably would have been a little different knowing the sensitivity to the hurdles that you guys had to overcome, just to get the darn thing on the air. That’s quite the story. And you don’t really think about those kinds of situations when you’re watching. The number of people and and processes that each script has to go through in order to just get, just go in front of the camera.

Joseph Mallozzi
There’s no reason the audience should know that or need to know that. But I mean, it’s different with every episode is different with every, I mean, I can tell you how many times someone will comment on, I mean, I remember when we were working on Stargate, that fans would like, “This writer wrote such a great episode, why are they not being able to write more episodes?” And in my mind, I’m like, “Well, actually, that writer was totally rewritten by Brian Wright.” Brad Wright wrote that script, but he’s not going to publicly say that.

David Read
No, it’s politics and it’s not right.

Joseph Mallozzi
So yeah, so…

David Read
Interesting. Yeah, no, having said all that was there, out of genuine curiosity, was there any script that ever came along that the network said, “Leave it as it is we love it.” Or was it a group of people or a body that always just had to justify their existence?

Joseph Mallozzi
I never recall an episode where they said, “Good job.”

David Read
Jeez.

Joseph Mallozzi
I will have to say though, on the flip side, Charlie Cohen at MGM, the Vice President, he was a Stargate fan, but always an overall science fiction fan as well. And he was our biggest supporter, obviously within MGM, but he genuinely loved the show. He genuinely love the characters, and he would always let us know. Which I gotta tell you, having been in this industry for so long it’s so rare for that to happen. I mean, it does happen. But it’s rare.

David Read
What would he let you know?

Joseph Mallozzi
I mean, just “I love this episode, this is great.” I mean, even after Stargate ended he would drop me an email out of the blue, and he’s like, “I’m watching Dark Matter. I love Dark Matter. Melissa’s great too.” And he’s like I said, just a very genuine sci fi fan. He’s a good guy, and a great executive.

David Read
He is, I would suspect, I’ve had the privilege of meeting him a couple of times, and just a just a standout guy. I’m hoping to get him on the show.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, that would be great.

David Read
Absolutely. Season two ends with Allies. You know what? Let me back up. Let me back up. Before we get there, there’s a whole whole list of episodes that I’d love to get your thoughts on. We brought Ford back and really if Rainbow’s in the room, he would probably say that, and he has said before, that he got to act this season. He really really found something for him to chew on that worked. How did you feel about the return of that character and the Wraith enzyme and giving that character really his due this season?

Joseph Mallozzi
Look, I mean, every time you turn a character dark side he becomes infinitely, he or she becomes infinitely more interesting and the actor portraying them loves it. So I mean, I agree I found the Ford character a lot more interesting in this season just because, I mean, obviously because he went dark side but also you created that kind of very unique storyline for him that really set him apart and as Rainbow said, he really sunk his teeth into the role and that turned into character.

David Read
One of Martin Gero more recognized episodes is Duet and for me this, for better or for worse, was an early sign of taking the show into a more lighter, frothier, funnier direction in tone than SG-1, in my opinion. What are your thoughts on that?

Joseph Mallozzi
I don’t know if I agree. I mean, it look like this was like Window of Opportunity and Point of No Return and Wormhole Extreme. And I feel like we never really did that many episodes like that on Atlantis. I mean, there’s Duet but then I think back to Harmony was another one. I remember being in the room for that one and really, sort of being very involved in the breaking of that episode, just because I just loved that premise. But I mean, also Martin Gero is a very funny guy and let him do what he does very well. And that’s, yeah, convey humor.

David Read
That’s absolutely true. And we had great gues’ts performance in that episode. And the name is blanking on me. So I am going to…

Joseph Mallozzi
Jaime Ray Newman.

David Read
Jaime Ray Newman. Absolutely. Who we saw once again later on in the season with Critical Mass. Was there ever a hope or consideration to bringing her back after that?

Joseph Mallozzi
Again, like most characters you always have like the best of intentions when you introduce them and they pop and Jamie was terrific and I really liked the character. But I mean, production is such a machine that sometimes creatively you end up heading in another direction and the storylines that you may have wanted to pursue suddenly become unpursuable if you will.

David Read
There was a rumor I heard, I think this may have been confirmed that at some point in the script for Grace Under Pressure, she was supposed to be the officer in the front part of the jumper that sacrificed herself for McKay.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, that does sound familiar.

David Read
Yeah. And then you guys changed that just in case you wanted to bring her back.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, yes.

David Read
Alright. The Long Goodbye. That was another one of my favorites for that season, giving Torri a chance to run and gun.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Tearing it up.

David Read
Absolutely. It’s just another great sci fi premise. It really reminded me a lot of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield from the original Star Trek series, where you’ve got two people who just aren’t going to put an end to their struggle and are just going to basically do whatever they have to do to wipe themselves out, even if it means putting another civilization or group of people in their way. So.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, now that you mentioned it definitely has that feel.

David Read
Allies, we wrap up the season with the wonderful return of Andee Frizzell, who had been back for the mid-season two parter. And James Lafazanos as the various Wraith. He plays a Wraith scientist in this one. We are creating a substance which turns the Wraith human, and they can then turn around and eat those humans. Pretty…

Joseph Mallozzi
Dark?

David Read
Shaky water. Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Or, yeah, ethically ambiguous?

David Read
Right. Exactly.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. suspect?

David Read
Do you recall who came up with that original idea? I mean, I guess it was kind of grown out of the idea for the Hoffan drug. If we can protect ourselves from them maybe we can transform them to the Iratus bug.

Joseph Mallozzi
I do not recall who came up with that one. I don’t think it was me.

David Read
I don’t think it was me.

Joseph Mallozzi
But I love those types of situations, those kind of I guess morally ambiguous scenarios. I think it was season three or four where Sheppard makes the decision to feed this kind of dying man to the Wraith, or okays is the decision. It was very dark. And I remember the fans complained. But I do like placing our characters in those ethical dilemmas.

David Read
That was Miller’s Crossing. I think. Yeah. The other one that continually gets me is Fran, creating a sentient life form as a bomb.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah.

David Read
And that performance was was so wonderful that you guys brought her back in season five, which I thought bringing that character back in some way, or actress back, was just dynamite.

Joseph Mallozzi
She was fantastic. Was it a Morgan…

David Read
Yes. Michelle Morgan.

Joseph Mallozzi
Michelle Morgan. Yes.

David Read
Hey, there you go.

Joseph Mallozzi
My memory is not it’s only 50 percent.

David Read
I think you’re doing just fine. Joe, this is this is terrific to go through the season and pull out all the little pieces. This is…

Joseph Mallozzi
This was a sort of a lighter Atlantis season. In terms of writing for me because I was at the time we were doing both SG-1 and Atlantis. We’d brought Carl on, we’d brought Martin on, so they’d done most of the heavy lifting on Atlantis whereas I really focused more on SG-1 at the time. What season was…

David Read
This would have been season nine of SG-1. So I mean, in many ways it’s the new show. It was essentially Stargate Command, you’ve got a whole expanded sandbox to play in there. What would a typical, I don’t think I’ve ever really asked you this and I was curious. How often would all of you meet together to hash out stories? Was it a specific section of a week or season or would you meet every day for X hours to do XYZ?

Joseph Mallozzi
Not at all. It was never scheduled. But the problem was that we were constantly writing, if we were not constantly reading, we were constantly prepping episodes. If we weren’t prepping episodes, then we were either doing post on episodes or dealing with what have you. So to be honest, it was half the time.

David Read
You’re all good.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, half the time we weren’t able to get all of us together. So

David Read
Oh, wow. Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
Like, for instance, there’d be times when, for instance, Martin would have sort of an idea, and he would want to spin. So he would just go around to every office and say, “Hey, we want to spin, are you available?” And I would be writing a script, I’d be like, “Sure, I can take some time off,” and we head into the room and we’d spin for a few hours. So more often than not, that’s the way it works. Now, at the beginning, or at the end of every season, is when we would all be able to get together. Because at that point, more or less our work was done. And we were able to all concentrate on the look ahead to next season. And then when we came back, that’s when we would be able to get together. And then as sort of the production machine rolled, we rolled along, we all kind of went our separate ways and became harder and harder for us to sort of convene.

David Read
Wow, I didn’t really look at it that way, I always assumed that you guys were in constant meetings all together as a group. But that’s not necessarily really efficient. And depending on the nuances.

Joseph Mallozzi
I mean, as I pointed out, Rob could be writing a script, while Brad could be in meetings prepping an episode, while Martin could be on set dealing with the episodes of shooting, while I would be maybe in editing, dealing [with] finishing up posts on another episode. So just by the nature of the production machine, it was very rare for all of us to be free at the same time.

David Read
And I’m sure all of you are like doctors on call, to be ready to put out any kind of half a dozen, a dozen, two dozen fires, quote, unquote, that may come up in production that you have to tackle, drop everything and tackle immediately.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, exactly.

David Read
Like something downstairs on set is not working, we’ve got to revise this portion of the script. Or so and so’s not getting out of their trailer until other so and so does, which I don’t think happened that much on on the show.

Joseph Mallozzi
No. A Jon and Ponch thing from Chips, I think.

David Read
Absolutely. But man, what a ride. And then all of that dealing with the weather of Vancouver. Let’s go to fan questions.

Joseph Mallozzi
Great.

David Read
All right. So thank you all for being so patient and submitting. Let’s see what we got here. Jordan Edmond wanted to know, “Joe, how did The Tower become so covered with mountains and buried?” Was it just there over time? Or was there something else going on you think?

Joseph Mallozzi
No idea…

David Read
To set up for that episode?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, no, the idea was be was that it had been there a good, long time. And you’re right. I mean, in terms of a premise, I look back and on the various stories we did, and that was one that I think a) we could have exploited more and really kind of delve into beyond the episode we did.

David Read
I honestly think that, it sets up a larger question that really should have been answered before the end of the series. It wasn’t because Atlantis is considered to be the crown jewel of the Ancient domain. What was this place? And if it was, at least the command tower is certainly the case, was it identical to Atlantis? Or was it like a, I can’t remember if it was exact, I guess it was an exact duplicate of the city. I always imagined that there was like some kind of sci fi explanation where the city had been twinned somehow and that was just, it was a fluke. That it was perhaps actually an Atlantis from an alternate reality. So Atlantis really was the crown jewel of the Ancient domain but something funky had happened and we got more drones. Jett Ison, “I know you did a few guest spots but could you see yourself taking on a recurring role in a future series?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, I could do something like, like a Boba Fett where I’m pretty much covered all the time, right and…

David Read
You’re taking part in it.

Joseph Mallozzi
You can tweak my voice and I wouldn’t have to convey a wide range of emotions. So in that respect that would be pretty cool, but outside of that unlikely, but thank you for asking.

David Read
You excited about the Book of Boba Fett?

Joseph Mallozzi
I believe we discussed this. I got off the Star Wars bandwagon with Return to the Jedi.

David Read
My apologies.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. So I don’t even know what that is.

David Read
Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
I don’t even want to know what that is.

David Read
Understood. That’s all good. Gate Gab, “Does Suji have cosplay outfits from any of your shows?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Ah, sadly, she does not have any cosplay outfits. My wife ended up making her a Nibbler outfit.

David Read
You dress her up I’m pretty sure.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. So that’s about the extent of her cosplay.

David Read
Gosh, that’s funny. Aurora, Goran Andonovski, “Aurora was an excellent episode. Did you consider introducing more Ancient warships to be found by the Atlantis team?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Beyond that episode, we did not. And what often happens is, I mean, to be honest, if you pitch an idea for an episode, because you wrote it, more often than not, if it turns out well, it’s an idea you sort of you want to go back to. So for instance, I wrote Reunion for for Jason. And Mark Dacascos was amazing guest star. And I just kind of love that set up. So when Jason came in and kind of pitched Ronon going dark side, I came up with essentially the sequel to that episode, and was able to revisit the episode. And the reason we were able to do it was because I’d done the episode and I loved the first episode and I wanted to do the second episode. So I don’t recall who wrote Aurora. So if that would have been really more a question for them if they really wanted to push it.

David Read
Let’s have a look here. That was, I know Martin Wood would have directed it.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, Carl Binder.

David Read
Carl Binder wrote the teleplay story by Brad and Carl. Absolutely. And I’ve got…one of these ancient stunners from Aurora.

Joseph Mallozzi
I was going to say, “Hey, you’re holding it upside down.”

David Read
Ancient ice cream cones. Okay, so here’s my beef with your continuity. As soon as you guys introduce…

Joseph Mallozzi
Personally my continuity or…?

David Read
General your like, to all the Stargate production. As soon as these things were introduced, you should have found a cache of them in Atlantis, because Lantean technology from that era, and look at this — still lights.

Joseph Mallozzi
Amazing.

David Read
Original battery.

Joseph Mallozzi
Amazing.

David Read
Oh, and it says, “Made in China” in Ancient, so.

Joseph Mallozzi
Amazing,

David Read
A plot substitution.

Joseph Mallozzi
But also a lot of it had to do with the cast members and what they felt comfortable wielding. So, for instance, we talked about the P-90s and the fact that we use the P-90s, whereas the military had moved past the P-90s at that point. But we used them because the cast found them very comfortable because the way they rested they were always able to kind of rest their arms on the P-90. So they liked the P-90, so we kept the P-90s. So given a choice between a sidearm or one of those things. I think the cast would have much prefer the sidearm.

David Read
Okay, that’s fair. Absolutely. And it may have just been standard issue onboard the spaceships. So that’s completely fair as well. Yeah, I guess when you think about i, that way creature comforts for the actors. They would have a lot of the last say on a number of different things. I would think if given the opportunity.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, I mean, our input obviously. Can you hold that prop up again? Okay, upside down. It kind of looks like a one of those K-pop fan sticks,.

David Read
K-pop?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Are you a fan of Dreamcatcher?

David Read
No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Joseph Mallozzi
Alright, nevermind.

David Read
It looks like it’s from Dairy Queen. Okay, this is going to be an interesting one to answer. Keith (KCII18) wanted to know, “Why did they never ask, in the few times that they met the Ancients, how to charge the ZPMs?” Never came up in conversation?

Joseph Mallozzi
It’s a very good question. I would imagine, how often do we end up meeting the Ancients? I mean, there was Aurora.

David Read
Yep, there was Before I Sleep. Um. Yeah, there weren’t a lot but it’s, I would think…

Joseph Mallozzi
I think in the heat of them moments.

David Read
Yeah, that’s true.

Joseph Mallozzi
And we should have totally done a scene where it’s like, “You know what? You know what we should have done? We should have asked them how to recharge the ZPMs.” And they’re like, “Ah!” And then basically we do Aurora. We do another everyone’s like, “Oh shit, we should have done?” and he’s like, “We should have asked, yeah, okay next time for sure.”

David Read
That’s hanging a lantern on it, right?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
Well, the I mean, the obvious answer is you don’t want to blow that handicap because then you’re too powerful.

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, I mean, that’s an obvious…

David Read
That’s the real reason.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Yeah, that’s the creative production reason.

David Read
Right. But in universe.

Joseph Mallozzi
But in story Yeah. In universe reason, it has to be a little more believable.

David Read
Kapa1611. Absolutely. Kapa1611. Yeah. And there’s, it’s at a certain point, and I had this conversation with Rob Cooper this past week for a pre-recorded show, he said, “At a certain point, you have to buy it.” At a certain point you have to accept the fact that there are only so many actors in Vancouver, and they can’t change their face every time they come on as a new role.

Joseph Mallozzi
I mean, who knew we’d be doing 300 episodes?

David Read
I remember sitting in my bedroom when at 14-years-old, 15-years-old, season one comes on in syndication, saying to myself, “You know, if they do the right thing with this. If they can change up the characters like MASH did this thing could go on for a really long time.” But I never would have imagined 300 episodes.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. It’s funny. I recall Paul telling me that he was on a line, like some supermarket line, and there were these two actors talking in front of him and one of them was like, “Oh, I just booked a gig on Stargate.” And the other guy was like, “You know, I’ve auditioned for them like three or four times and I still haven’t landed anything for them.” And he’s like, “Well, from what I hear they’re done anyways this season.” I think it was season seven for SG-1. But we ended up, did end up casting them.

David Read
Oh, you did?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Eventually.

David Read
Was it because you were, was it partially because…

Joseph Mallozzi
No, no, not at all.

David Read
Oh, it didn’t help at all. It just happened to be coincidence that they cast them?

Joseph Mallozzi
Okay. Yeah.

David Read
Wow. Yeah. Tom Mcbeath shared a story where you guys were doing or they were doing a read through for a script. And it was one of the earlier episodes where he was as Maybourne. And Michael Greenburg, who was Rick’s other half writer wise, was an executive producer, was sitting there, turning to him and saying, “Why did you never audition for MacGyver, you would have been great.” And Tom Mcbeath leaned forward and he said, “I audition several times and you never gave me a frickin’ part.” And he did it with a smile on his face. But it’s like, sometimes the shoe fits and sometimes it doesn’t and you go with a different actor. And that’s all there is to it. It’s completely subjective.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yep. Yeah. You just sometimes you write a part and you have someone in mind. And sometimes you frankly cast the wrong actor. And, I told you that Evangeline Lilly story where she came in and auditioned, and it was for a one-line role. And I was like, she’s first starting her career and I’m like, “She’s fantastic. I’m not gonna burn her on one line.” Then she went off to do Lost and now that recurring Atlantis role went to someone else, but she did all right regardless.

David Read
Oh, absolutely she did. But she would just be magic on Atlantis. Kirsty Green, “Was there a route you almost took a character down, but ended up changing your mind on where you took them in terms of their their overall journey?” That’s kind of a broad question.

Joseph Mallozzi
In terms of overall journey, I don’t think there was like an overall journey that we had sort of mapped out that they wanted to fallow through on. One of the roads not taken dealt with the whole Teyla pregnancy. And there was a brief internal discussion of making John the father that was quickly quashed. So in terms of creating that, that was the first one that really comes to mind, but then in terms of other paths. I can’t really think of one.

David Read
That would have been a big one. And I’m trying to remember where you fell on that debate.

Joseph Mallozzi
I was actually neutral. At the time it was brought up I thought it was kind of interesting. And I didn’t even have a chance to really process the pros and cons. I think it was pitched and I was thinking about it and Paul at the time was like, “No, there is no way we could make him the father.”

David Read
And now?

Joseph Mallozzi
I think that was the right call, I think it would have done a disservice to the character.

David Read
There’s a certain amount of wanting to leave the characters detached. And then you get the reverse is the opportunity of either disaster, or true emotional payoff for said characters when you reach the end of the show. And part of me would love to have seen that relationship get really, really tight. Imagine the Prodigal with the scene on the rooftop with Michael battling the mother and the father of that baby.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. I mean, in the Stargate Extinction movie I ended up killing off Kanaan. And the last scene finds Sheppard and Teyla on, where was it, on the balcony of Atlantis and he’s kind of consoling her and then having like a quiet moment together with suggestion that who knows what the future holds?

David Read
Yeah, you’re leaving a door open.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
So we can only hope. After you, oh, Tracy. Hello, Tracy. Moderator, Tracy, “Joe, there are a lot of Dark Matter supporters in the chat. Any updates that you might be able to share with them?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Sadly, no, I think I had mentioned Netflix passed, sadly. So now it is in Jay Firestone’s hands, he is the President of Production on Dark Matter. So he is the one who sold the show initially. So he’s gone out and we’re gonna see what comes with it. I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, and I hate to say it, but the easiest thing for me to do is set up another show and use the popularity of that show to set up a Dark Matter mini-series. So when that time comes, who knows?

David Read
Yeah, I mean, I totally get that, take take advantage of banking that popularity where you can and saying, “Hey, by the way, we got this thing over here.” Look at what George RR Martin did with Nightflyers. For better or worse on the Nightflyers. Let’s see here, Gary Jordan, “After years of Stargate not having love scenes, whose idea was it to put one into the pilot of Universe?” I wouldn’t really call that a love scene. It was kind of, yeah, it was a real left turn.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, well, I think that was Brad and Robert. I don’t know who specifically came up with the idea but their desire to really differentiate Universe from what had come before. And really, that scene certainly differentiates it tonally from the likes of SG-1 and Atlantis.

David Read
And to be fair, in my mind, and there’s gonna be a lot of fans who are just going to disagree with me in many respects, not because of that, but just tonally Universe felt more real in a lot of ways for me in watching it. It just felt like for better or for worse that these characters were far more plausible to exist.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I agree it felt more real, but that doesn’t necessarily mean, real is better.

David Read
That’s true, too. You know, that’s…

Joseph Mallozzi
I mean, I loved Universe and I mean, my wife loved Universe too. I was amazed by how much she loved it. And she couldn’t really get into Atlantis. But just from a writing standpoint, I look at like, Dark Matter owes a lot more to SG-1 and Atlantis that it does to Universe tonally and I kind of like, not necessarily the light-hearted tone, but the opportunity for humor. Which I think allows you to kind of color a character in ways that more kind of straightforward. productions that don’t have humor have a harder time doing.

Joseph Mallozzi
And it’s a way to genuinely reach the audience, because anyone who’s wanting to be entertained will at least be open to the avenues of humor. I think that’s one of the reasons that the franchise was as successful as it was because everyone gets that.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, I agree.

David Read
CJ Martin, “No one broke the wall in the writers room. If Joseph could have done it who would have chosen to do it?” Broke the fourth wall.

Joseph Mallozzi
Broken the fourth wall?

David Read
Yeah, I think that you guys really pulled that off in 200. If we’re talking, I mean, we’re not exactly saying that. “Hey, I’m Richard Dean Anderson and I played Jack O’Neill in this episode.” But there was a fair bit of winking and nodding.

Joseph Mallozzi
Even Wormhole X-treme, I mean, we were really poking fun at everything from our executive, some of the creative input from executives.

David Read
The sexy femaile alien.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, sexy female alien, to spray paint those kiwis, what is it purple? Or what was that line, that was an actual line from Peter DeLouise.

David Read
Into a painted kiwi.

Joseph Mallozzi
So, I mean, yeah, we did do a lot of that. No wall punching. I think in terms of production, our show was very different. Although I’ve often said strike was always a very supportive atmosphere, even though it could be very challenging at times. There’s no animosity between any of the writers and those in charge, very much, Brian, Robert, were always very good about listening to others and letting everyone have their opinion and say. But I mean, I would hear stories, again this was before the mood, the atmosphere change in Hollywood, where showrunners would come in and they would throw scripts at writers and reprimand them. And I can’t imagine someone throwing a script at me. If somebody regardless of who they were, if someone threw a script at me they would be eating that script, page by page.

David Read
Oh, gosh. BRIANONEALSINGLETON, “Was there ever a thought on pursuing a Goa’uld Wraith hybrid?” This often comes up and…

Joseph Mallozzi
No, this comes up a lot of the times and I personally was never a fan of crossing the two shows. I mean, having the occasional character come in, that was fine.

David Read
Pegasus Project was amazing.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. No, it was great episode, but I just in general, I like to keep SG-1, SG-1, and all out of Atlantis. So the idea of a sort of a cross over sort of a Goa-uld inhabiting a Wraith. It’s kind of interesting. Obviously you would have to find the right story. And what do you gain? How is a Goa’uld and a Wraith any more of a threat than a regular Wraith or a regular Goa’uld?

David Read
Exactly. You don’t just want to do it just to do it. I mean, if the Wraith’s handicap is hunger, and the Goa’uld provides them with perhaps a satiation. There could be, I don’t know, anyway, yeah, the one thing that you guys I think did that was really successful and it was within the same show was in Dominion, I think with putting Ba’al in Adria. But there was a story reason for that and it was clever. And the question is, okay, does Ba’al override Adria’s dominant personality? And the answer was, “yes.” So that was really cool. But for how long? We never will know. Wryeth Hunt. “Did you guys know at the time in season three that Todd would become such a liked and recurring character.” Christopher Heyerdahl is a powerhouse.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Chris was just incredible in the role. This is just kind of another example of you write a script, you create a character with the intention of them appearing that single episode. And then usually by virtue of the actor’s performance, this character ends up popping and you end up bringing the character back and just enjoy writing for the character because the actor does so much with what you give him. And it just like I said, kind of a symbiotic relationship and the character evolves. And that was very much the case with the Todd character.

David Read
You said that, it’s not just the writers or the actor, it’s a combination of the two. You’re observing what the actor is doing well, and the actors pulling things off the page that you didn’t necessarily always think, “Oh, I didn’t necessarily intend it that way. Or, wow, they took that in that direction, they put it over the top.”

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. And I mean, not just in dailies or in episodes, but auditions as well. Whenever people lose auditions they get depressed because they think, “Oh, it’s something I did.” And I always tell people, “It’s not what you did or didn’t do. It’s was something that someone else brought to their audition.” And it’s exactly that you’re talking about, where you’re watching an audition, and you wrote the scene, and imagined it a certain way. And then the actor delivers it in a way that is totally unexpected, that delights you and sets their audition apart from all the others, and then you end up hiring them based on that audition. More often than not that audition tends to be a microcosm of what you’re looking for in an overall performance in an episode. And in the case of Chris, with Todd, I don’t recall the the audition but I remember, what was the episode? Starts with a C. Was it Condemned?

David Read
His first episode? Yeah, it was in season three, I think it was John Scalzi’s story if I’m not mistaken. It was…

Joseph Mallozzi
It was Condemned.

David Read
No, it’s not.

Joseph Mallozzi
No? Oh, Common Ground.

David Read
No. Common Ground. Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Sorry. That’s what I meant. Yes, that’s it, the C, starts with C. Yes, yeah.

David Read
Was there any actor who you knew you’re going to get and you’re like, I cannot wait to put pen to paper for this person.

Joseph Mallozzi
Besides Robert Picardo?

David Read
Okay, that’s true.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, he was someone I’d wanted to work with for a long time. And when I got the opportunity, it far surpassed my expectations, just because, I mean, you you see him on Voyager and China Beach and all the other stuff he’s worked on.

David Read
And he’s scene stealer.

Joseph Mallozzi
He’s fantastic and you can give him anything to do, and he will deliver it. And so in that respect, he surpassed my expectations. But also, he’s just a really, really good guy to work with, just a pro and just very grounded, down to earth. individual. So really, he’s the one that that readily comes to mind.

David Read
My best friend and I we had, until I left Phoenix, we had movie night every week. And last year I saw Innerspace for the first time. And so the cowboy character that he did. I mean, I had heard about it, but I’d never seen it. Man, was that good. That was just great. It’s like I’ve known this actor for years, personally, and I’ve never seen this performance. So Innerspace, I cannot recommend it enough if you’re a Robert Picardo fan. He is funny.

Joseph Mallozzi
He is great. So another actor I should mention is Ming-Na Wen, who we ended up casting on Universe and of course, I’ve seen a number from Joy Luck Club and various other performances. And much like Bob, just a pro. She would just deliver time and time again, no matter what you gave her she could do. And also just really, really fun to work with, just a great, great attitude.

David Read
We’ve wanted to have her on the show. She’s agreed, but it’s just a matter of scheduling. So. She’s in the Book of Boba Fett.

Joseph Mallozzi
Like an address book, or what is that?

David Read
I think the implication is similar to like a biblical book, like this is his story like the book of Job. So

Joseph Mallozzi
So not an address book.

David Read
Definitely not.

Joseph Mallozzi
Okay, that would be more fun. It’d be like Boba Fett loses his address book snd suddenly it’s like, “Oh, what happened to it?” Or basically someone finds his address book is like, “We don’t know whose address book it is.” And anyways, I want to pitch that to Disney.

David Read
I think season two. There you go.

Joseph Mallozzi
Maybe.

David Read
Sabina Pilchová, last one for you, “Any regrets regarding a character or a storyline that, I mean, clearly hasn’t nod on you over the years, but nod on you at the time. You know afterwards, I was like, “You know what? I really wish I could go back and tweak this one thing.”

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, all the time, but I can’t really, I held my head. I mean, basically, I would have loved to get Sam and Jack together. I know, like some fans…

David Read
Some.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes, would want to see that. But I think it would have been nice after 10 years and it wouldn’t have to be overt, like heading back home Jack’s making dinner or something. I kind of think of sort of the kind of our various characters. And in terms of regret, I don’t think so. I mean, there was some… No, I mean, I can only speak to ultimately sort of the stories in which I was actively involved. I can’t say like I regret any of the Ancient storylines, because they’re very much part of the mythology of the show. They’re just stories that personally never interested me.

David Read
That’s fair. I really wished that Anna-Louise Plowman had come back.

Joseph Mallozzi
Who?

David Read
Anna-Louise Plowman.

Joseph Mallozzi
Oh, yes.

David Read
Osiris. I wish there was a story opportunity that would have come back in as a coda. She was dynamite.

Joseph Mallozzi
She was.

David Read
So this has been a pleasure, my friend, having you on.

Joseph Mallozzi
It’s always a pleasure. Thank you.

David Read
And I thank you for taking the time. And I want to thank everyone for submitting the questions. Same time and place in December?

Joseph Mallozzi
Sure. Let’s do it.

David Read
Okay. Sounds good.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right.

David Read
I’ll reach out to your agent and we will schedule that time.

Joseph Mallozzi
Excellent. Excellent.

David Read
Joe. Thanks again, many thanks for being a part of this journey with me and for taking the time with the fans. We all really do appreciate it. And you give that pupper a hug for us. Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
I will. A big kiss on the nose.

David Read
Absolutely. I’ll see you before Christmas. You have a good November. All right, sir.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. All right. Thanks.

David Read
Take care of yourself. I’ll close things up on my end.

Joseph Mallozzi
Thanks, guys. Bye bye.

David Read
Joseph Mallozzi, Writer and Executive Producer from Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. And I promised to show you guys a few pieces behind me here from our new set. So questions for me, everyone in the chats. Want to know how you’re doing? And did you have a good summer? Thank you. I had a terrific summer, it was interesting. I had four months off from work and relocating from Phoenix to Nashville. I don’t know if you can hear that dog barking outside. But I’m in a much more rural area now. And ironically, I have fiber. For the first time, I don’t know if you’re able to tell a difference on your end. But the speed at which I’m able to upload information is substantially faster. So things are going well. My life is a little bit more complicated than it was before. And I say complicated in that my weekends are going to be a little bit busier. So we are going to be taking weekends off here and there. I think right now the plan is to take US Thanksgiving weekend off because I’m gonna be out at San Diego Comic Con Special Edition working on a project. So don’t expect 100 episodes in season two. I can’t do it. We may, I mean, hit close to that but the velocity of the show will not be as breakneck as it was for season one. And I’m hopeful that the overall quality of the show will increase as well. So keep that in mind.

David Read
A couple of things I want to show you guys. Firstly, new house, new set, and a little bit more of a tighter room as you might be able to tell. So the stuff behind me is closer than it was before. And my hope is to rotate some of it here and there. This summer I had some submissions from fans for the set. And I would like to show a few of those pieces to you right now. Later on this season I’m going to be inviting these individuals on to discuss their work and their process and take a better look at the things behind us. But I wanted to give you a real quick look all the same here. This little fella is one that needs no introduction. His brother is still being mailed to me right now the second kind of configuration that I think was introduced in Enemies, the smaller version, but this is the one that was introduced in, of course Nemesis. This is a life size Replicator, produced by Kevin Szabo of 3dTech.Pro. And I’m just going to do one of these, because it is a complicated piece of hardware. And one of my life goals of owning a Replicator has been achieved. So Kevin did magnificent work. I mean, there are no words. It is absolutely amazing. So I’m gonna put this back down and I think those are still available at 3dTech.Pro.

David Read
This little guy, naquadah reactor, this was submitted by Martin McClean. His Twitter is @SGAGateBuilder and I hope to feature him later on this season. His pieces came in clamshell boxes, like military grade, spectacular. And lights, his work is so cool. This is a guy who you can tell cares about the the minut details. That’s the battery door and if you want to talk about really cool, I mean even here the backside of this is in Ancient and he’s thought it all through, just absolutely clever. And then he also has done his own version of the Ancient scanner. So, now here’s the one that he has designed. Here’s my battered to hell one that was used in production. And his actually works, so you can scan and I think it’ll initiate an attack scenario. The dude is just frickin’ clever. And he put an Atlantis sticker on the back. He even put like a glow inside of the device itself. So it is one of the cooler replicas that I’ve seen, where he literally wanted to create like a device that is in the spirit of the actual device. And you can play with it, the buttons and toggles, and then it has that base station as well. And the version that I got has the clamshells. Martin’s has done an amazing job and I’m looking forward to having him on this season. A lot more fan interaction is going to be coming this year in terms of fans who have designed content, and I really intend to feature them more specifically.

David Read
There is another fan that I have to give tremendous shout out to Frederick Marcoux in Canada. Drumroll please, has redesigned our website, brand new website. So GateWorld was presenting us for season one, for season two we are standing on our own two feet. And huge thanks to Darren for giving us the opportunity to work with him. The clips will continue to appear on GateWorld, our partnership has not ended. But we’re moving away from leveraging GateWorld’s name recognition and trying to stand on all fours or all twos, stand up straight. So that has taken off into a new direction including rebuilding the website. So let me see here. Okay, dialthegate.com is now live on its new website, and you can go to it just by dialthegate.com. So there’s a couple of things here that are really cool. The upcoming shows are going to be on the right. Please God help me always have time to update that. We have an exclusive poll that’s going to be available on the sites, we’re going to be using polls to help us flesh out a lot of the fan content as we move forward here. And you can see our most recent videos here, the live event counter is here, and I’m hoping to get more familiar with this interface so that we can always keep it fresh and current. And all of our current videos are below here as well and this really snazzy pretty colorful interface. So it takes advantage of all the rainbow colors that I kind of go nuts with. And you can see all of the content right there. If you want to look at individual episodes, and just pardon me, this is a Firefox issue, you can access them here. The interviews themselves from one to 101 are all listed here. So you have access to that. And you can also view them based on each of the individual playlists that exist on YouTube. The podcasts, you guys have been asking, and I’m finally beginning to deliver. So we are now on iTunes, and Google Play. So I’m at episode 22, I still have a little bit of a ways to go. So give me a couple of weeks on this to catch up and all the backlog of content is going to be finally available in podcast format. So you are welcome. And this has been quite the task to figure out but Frederick and I have managed to straighten it out. And so we’ve got that going here. In addition, we also have new merchandise and a new store that is through my Spreadshop so the merchandise is now launched and there is a lot more content. I’d like to share a few of them with you. I’d rather be watching Stargate, I missed Stargate for this?, I’m taking this loop off, Got gate?, Tok’ra in the streets. Goa’uld in the sheets,, A Disney inspired design for Atlantis, I knew Thor before it was cool, Shal’kek Nem’ron in white and black design, I’m a Goa’uld without my caffeine in white and black design, and of course Keep calm and Dial the Gate. Those are just the first few editions that we have here. So here’s the thing with the merch portal right now, on the website it only displays each piece, each style with only one item and we’re going to have to make a correction so that like, It’s the perfect analogy Burns as Goa’uld, well that’s great but I want that in something other than a man’s t-shirt. I’m not sure how to get to that from here other than to go to open it in a new tab to go actually to the my Spreadshop portal and Show More and go down to that design. It’s the perfect analogy Burns as Goa’uld. You had me at Indeed, I think that’s the cutest thing. And Nintendo’s pass through everything, of course. You can click here on the design and then see all the merchandise that is available in, It’s the perfect analogy Burns as Goa’uld. So what I’m trying to do, if we can update the website, is have it so that this page is the page that’s default, the the page that shows the designs and then if you click on a design, you can then see how you can get that design in the various products and then you can click on a product and customize your color and size and go from there. Because each each product has numerous different designs. Like so lose it, go crazy, nuts, insane, Bonzo, no longer in possession of one’s faculties, three fries short of a Happy Meal, wacko. It’s been most commonly featured as a mug on the YouTube website but you can get it in all kinds of different designs. So if you want to explore the designs, my recommendation is to go to dialthegate.com/merch and then for the time being Open in New Tab and then Show More so that you can see all of the designs. And then if you click on the design, Things are about to calm up, How about we name it later, Nintendo’s pass are everything, then you can see all the products that are available for that design. Click on the product you want, and customize the color and size. So good luck keeping all that in your brain. But yes, so you can visit the merchandise at dialthegate.myspreadshop.com. And we appreciate your support. The show is 100% free. And so if you want to give back that’s a way to do it. Buy yourself some something cool for the holiday season.

David Read
I think that’s all that we have for you here. My tremendous thanks to Frederick for helping us build out the website. Oh, let me show you his website just so that you have a look at that here. His website, if we go to our About page is available through Concepts Web and he is at conceptsweb.ca, he is our web developer. I love this guy. He’s just terrific. He’s been such a huge supporter of us. So big thanks for Mr. Frederick Marcoux and a big thanks to my moderating team Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, Antony, you guys make this show possible. A big thanks to my producer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey. We’ve got Colin Cunningham coming up in a half an hour. We have him for one hour, and then we are bringing in Mr. David Hewlett, Rodney McKay. That’s it. That’s what we have for you. I appreciate you tuning in. My name is David Reed for Dial the Gate and we will see you on the other side.