Eighteen months ago Dial the Gate launched, and Host David Read and Stargate Executive Producer Joseph Mallozzi began a meticulous, season-by-season journey through his years on the franchise. Now, we are proud to welcome Stargate Executive Producer (and Joe’s long-time writing partner) Paul Mullie for his first appearance. At the same time, we will close us out of this chapter of Dial the Gate, with a focus on SGU Season Two and a Q&A with the LIVE audience!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:50 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:57 – Welcoming Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
05:13 – Joe and Paul Meeting and Early Career
10:48 – Garbage Dump Movie Night and Early Stargate
13:19 – Stargate Universe Season Two
18:22 – “Intervention”
25:03 – “Awakening”
29:13 – “Trial and Error”
36:56 – “Resurgence”
39:48 – Season 2.5 Overview
42:38 – “The Hunt,” Stories of Joe’s Writing, and Heartbreaking Moments with Eli and Volker
47:02 – “Gauntlet” and Book-ending the Story
52:30 – Final Thoughts, Season Three, Learning of the Cancellation
58:48 – Fan Questions
1:01:48 – Props Questions, Paul’s Baal Shirt
1:05:46 – Additional Fan Questions
1:11:16 – Are Comics Canon? Ginn and Robert Knepper as Simeon
1:15:47 – Nicholas Rush’s Character and Its Evolution had SGU Continued
1:17:21 – Miscellaneous Questions, Comments and Memories
1:21:12 – Colonel Telford’s Death
1:22:18 – More Questions with Fans
1:25:34 – Wrap up with Joe and Paul
1:27:15 – Post interview housekeeping
1:32:21 – End credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Welcome to Episode 131 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. When I started doing these episodes, I reached out to a few people who I wanted to take this journey with me. One of them was Joseph Mallozzi and he’s followed me through this thing from beginning to end. And we are here for the last installment of the core content that I set out to create specifically with him, which is his final season of Stargate, so far, Stargate Universe season two. And we have a wonderful guest, in addition to that in the form of Paul Mullie. Now, this was the other thing that I was hoping for from the beginning of the show, eventually having both of them on at the same time. And we have achieved that in this episode. They are both here live. So I am thrilled. So before we get into the thick of things. If you like Stargate, and you want to see more content like this to continue to be produced here on YouTube, it would mean a great deal to me if you hit that Like button it will make a difference and help the show grow its audience further. We’re already at 20,000, let’s see where it goes next. Please also consider sharing this video with the Stargate friend and if you want to be 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 and clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on GateWorld.net. And later on Dial the Gate in the summer, during the summer hiatus. As with most of our shows, this is a live stream, which means that if you’re at youtube.com/dialthegate my moderating team, Sommer and Tracy, are standing by there to take your questions for Joe and Paul. The first half of the episode will be me talking with them. Getting Paul caught up about what we’ve done, getting his insights about the franchise, and both of their insights about Stargate Universe in closing this chapter of their lives. And then in the second half of the show, we’ll bring your questions in. So without further ado, enough of me babbling along. Joseph Mallozzi, Writer and Executive Producer, Stargate Universe and Paul Mullie, Writer and Executive Producer, well actually, of Stargate Atlantis and SG-1, not of Universe, is that correct? Or were you Executive Producers on Universe [inaudible]

Joseph Mallozzi
We were Executive Producers.

Paul Mullie
Second season.

David Read
Second season? Yes, that’s it. Executive Producers all. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining. Paul, welcome to Dial the Gate.

Paul Mullie
Glad to be here.

David Read
Thank you so much.

Joseph Mallozzi
I have to say this is gonna be very exciting for me, because, we put out the Tweet and on Facebook, and of course, fans who may have sort of come across it and seen that these two young dynamic writers, these up and comers. And thought, wow, I gotta get some questions here. Here’s some insights from these, for these young guys.

David Read
You guys, there’s only so many photos of the two of you, who are available. Joe, I reached out, I didn’t have direct line of communication with Paul, I reached out to Joe I said, “Is there like a headshot of Paul that exists, that we can, that I can use?” Like, “Well go online.” So I did.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, they took pictures of us like the first season there. The publicity people like we should take pictures of you are like, “Why we’re the writers who cares?” And then that was it. That was the only time they ever did it I think. I think that’s from like season one, or maybe two. I mean, season four for us was season one for us.

Paul Mullie
From Dark Matter, you guys would have like something.

Paul Mullie
He probably does I [inaudible]

Joseph Mallozzi
Not really.

Paul Mullie
Nobody ever wanted to take our picture. They want pictures of the cast, they don’t want pictures of us.

David Read
You know, it is a shame because I remember all the times the Darren and I went to the office and it’s like I don’t think we ever asked to take pictures with, and in hindsight it’s a genuine travesty. You know, like Joe Goldsmith, I had one picture that I took with him and I can’t find it. And he’s gone now.

Paul Mullie
Yeah.

David Read
And it’s like,

Paul Mullie
You know what?

David Read
son of a [inaudible]

Paul Mullie
I agree with you because I never took pictures with people, with the cast or with the crew or whatever. I was never, like that kind of guy like, “Hey, let’s take a selfie or whatever.” And now I regret it. Now I wish I had those pictures. I just never did it. But yeah.

David Read
Exactly. Well, let’s talk about further regrets, including the end of Stargate Universe and what we would have done in season three and beyond. I’m mostly kidding of course. Joe, before we get really into that though, tell me about meeting Paul.

Joseph Mallozzi
We met in a creative writing class, a college creative writing class, and we had a mutual friend. And apparently the mutual friend told him, warned him about me, and said, “He’s pretty weird.”

Paul Mullie
Very fair. Very fair. Yeah. Yeah. What was weird about Joe at the time, mostly was wardrobe related. He had his own sense of style. This was sort of, we were like 18, 19 years old, and he was wearing suits to school, like a white suit with like a black tie and I was like, “Oh, my, like Mr. Rourke or something.”

David Read
Not a smudge on it, I’m sure.

Paul Mullie
And like weird Mandarin collars and stuff like that. And so yeah, I was like, “Okay, this is an interesting dude. But whatever”. Yeah, it was, ironically, creative writing class, which is strange in a way.

Joseph Mallozzi
And then that evolved from creative writing to Dungeons & Dragons to eventually co-writing.

Paul Mullie
Right?

David Read
Wait, you guys play Dungeons & Dragons together?

Paul Mullie
Yeah.

David Read
I never knew that.

Paul Mullie
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
He had, what was it, a monk? Kaito Kid?

Paul Mullie
Yeah, the monk, yeah, he was like a martial arts dude.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, mine was a goblin fighter with an 18 Charisma.

Paul Mullie
Didn’t you name your company after your — Moorsym, right?

Joseph Mallozzi
Moorsym. After an NPC, yeah.

Paul Mullie
I thought it was one of your characters.

Joseph Mallozzi
No it was just an NPC villain.

Paul Mullie
Okay,

Joseph Mallozzi
Appropriately.

David Read
And then that moved into somehow forming this partnership? I mean, how do you make the leap from Dungeons & Dragons to that?

Paul Mullie
I can tell you exactly. Okay. So he was always interested, when we were both interested in writing, we did meet in writing class. But I swear to God, this is true. I never thought of scripts as like movies or TV as being something that was written. Like it just never even occurred, writing to me was writing prose, it was writing short stories or novels or whatever. And we both tried that and we did that for a while. But then Joe out of the blue said, “I’m gonna write a script.” Actually, he had written a novel and then he turned it into a script, right?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. And this story is I wrote a novel, and it was a terrible novel. I remember you reading it, you read it and said, “You know, I’ve seen you know, you’ve been better stuff,” and you said, “But I can see this more of as a script.” So I transformed that terrible novel into an equally terrible script.

Paul Mullie
That’s funny, because I remember the exact opposite. I remember being completely surprised by you taking it and making it a script. But once he did that, it was like, “Oh, script writing. That’s cool.” And then he got into animation and…

David Read
That’s right.

Paul Mullie
And was making money writing animation. And he was like, “You should try it.” And so we had a mutual friend. What was his name? Was it? Thomas.

Joseph Mallozzi
Thomas.

Paul Mullie
Thomas Lapierre was his boss at CINAR, the animation company he was working, and he needed writers. So he gave me Thomas’s number, and I phoned him up, and then I started writing for them. And then somewhere along the way, while we were doing this, we had an idea for a feature that we co-wrote, because I started to write that and I had no idea what I was doing. And I got like 10 pages into it and I’m like, “I don’t know how to write a feature”. This was even before the animation, I think. And so I gave it to him. I’m like, “Can you work on this?” We’ve never really worked together,,,

David Read
Collaborate

Paul Mullie
Before that time. And so he was like, “Yeah, this is a good idea.” And so he worked on it, we tossed it back and forth, and it never got made but it did get us eventually, through this really torturous route of various people who had it. Our agent, Carl Liberman, and one day, Carl phoned us and said, “There’s these guys on the science fiction show in Vancouver who need writers. Do you want to pitch for them?” And we had actually pitched Outer Limits.

David Read
Okay.

Paul Mullie
Years before, and the irony is that Brad was, I think it was the Executive producer of Outer Limits. I don’t know. But the pitch never went to him it went to Trilogy, the production that one of their companies that was overseeing it. And then years later we told him this story and we told him the pitches and he was like, “I would have bought those pitches,” but he never even saw them, they never even got to him. So yeah, so anyway, we did pitch it to Stargate and they liked some of our pitches. And I think we wrote an, it was like this whole test period, right? Like you write an outline. And then if your outline doesn’t absolutely suck, then you get to write a first draft. And if your first draft doesn’t absolutely suck, and we just kept making these hurdles, and then eventually they were like, “You want to move to Vancouver for six months?” Six, it was supposed to be six months, I believe,

Joseph Mallozzi
The final season.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, yeah. Season four that’s it, six months you’re done.

David Read
Season five was was greenlit at that point.

Paul Mullie
Oh, was it? Okay. But we didn’t, but we weren’t.

David Read
Oh, I get it.

Paul Mullie
We didn’t know that they were going to hire us back.

David Read
Right. Of course you’re [being tested].

Paul Mullie
Probably assumed we weren’t going to go back. I remember and I never left. That was 22 years ago, and I never left.

David Read
Now Joe had mentioned to me in a previous conversation, that you guys had these garbage dump theater nights where Stargate was one of the shows that came across the screen at one point, where you guys watched some movies that were not always considered the top shelf?

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I mean, they were kind of, they were what’s the term? Guilty pleasures? Maybe? I don’t know..

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Well, we would be called like, bad movie…

Paul Mullie
It was called bad movie night. It was called…

Joseph Mallozzi
Bad movie night. We saw Barbed Wire. Color of Night with Bruce Willis.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, that was a good one that I remember one.

Joseph Mallozzi
Battlefield Earth, Boxing Helena.

Paul Mullie
Oh, I was gonna say what was the one where she wound up with no [inaudible]

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, Boxing Helena was probably the worst.

Paul Mullie
Was Stargate one of them? I feel like that’s not very fair to Stargate.

Joseph Mallozzi
No, but I mean, the fact was we heard it was a bomb. And then we checked it out. And it turned out to not be a bomb. It was actually a very good movie.

Paul Mullie
Right. But then when we came on the show, we didn’t know the show. It was they were done three seasons. I hadn’t seen it. And I’ll never forget it. They sent us the bible. And it was…

Joseph Mallozzi
Thicker than the Bible.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, bigger than the actual Bible was the joke that we made because in only three seasons, they had developed so much mythology, it was overwhelming. And of course little do we know, we were gonna take that and go way, way, way further.

David Read
Quadruple it.

Paul Mullie
But yeah, but it was intense. And like, I was like, “I can’t read through this thing.” So we just, I just skimmed it. And we watched episodes. You know you watch episodes, you watch the pilot, we watched a few other episodes just to get the feel, right? The voice, what the tone, that kind of thing and just kind of went from there. But it was intimidating coming on that show. Yeah, for sure.

David Read
Did you ever feel like “I can’t do another season of this?”

Paul Mullie
All the time.

David Read
Please let it be the last one.

Paul Mullie
No, I wouldn’t say, “Please let it be the last one.” We wanted to keep doing it whether we thought we could, was like, “We’re out of ideas.” We’re in season five, we’re like, “We’re done. We’re out. We can’t do anymore.”

Joseph Mallozzi
Well, it was the end of season four. I remember you coming into my office and saying, “This is it, we’ve come up with all the ideas. I don’t know how we do this again next year.”

David Read
And it becomes this thing that changes your lives.

Paul Mullie
Absolutely. Completely.

David Read
Let’s take a step forward past Atlantis, Stargate Universe, Paul, has now been on the air for one season. Evidently SyFy had greenlit two seasons out of the gate, which is my understanding, but it wasn’t that public knowledge they wanted to see how it was going to do. They didn’t want fans to just kind of, “Ah, I’ll see it when it’s done.” Second season comes along, what were your impressions for what Brad wanted to do for this second chapter of the show and where this thing was going? He’s checking his database here.

Paul Mullie
I’m getting my cheat sheet going. Yeah, see, when you guys talk about like when were we greenlit for the next season All of that really I don’t remember those details. Like when we were writing this did we know this was going to happen? And that’s kind of a blur for me. I guess, were we two seasons greenlit from the beginning?

Joseph Mallozzi
No, we have to hit a certain number to get…

Paul Mullie
Oh, right.

Joseph Mallozzi
…a season greenlight. And then on average we did.

Paul Mullie
But we knew before we wrote the end of season one that we were coming back.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Yeah, I think we were pretty sure.

Paul Mullie
Well, for me because of where we left off it was just we need to keep going. Right? Like, you can’t leave off where we left off.

David Read
Right. So exactly.

Paul Mullie
So and that’s this is a perennial challenge every year on Stargate. This was a challenge. It was a challenge on Dark Matter. It’s when do you know, or if you think, well we might get canceled at the end of this. You ideally want to know because you want to end on a cliffhanger.

David Read
Right?

Paul Mullie
Get people excited about the next season.

David Read
Exactly.

Paul Mullie
But you don’t want to end, like this is what happened to us on Dark Matter and we’re still bitter about it. Right? You don’t want to end on in the middle, literally in the middle of a huge cliffhanger and never get to pay it off. Right? So for me did season two of Universe was just, it didn’t feel like season two to me. It was just, we’re just gonna keep going.

David Read
This is a continuation of the story.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, there’s stories we need to be telling here. Well, I mean, that’s what we did. And so I was very excited for the opportunity to keep doing that show.

David Read
Okay. What did you think was special about Universe compared to the content that came before? Sets? Setting? Cast?

Paul Mullie
All, I mean, everything was very different. It was it, we’ve completely reset and took a different approach to almost everything. We took it a different approach to the way we shot it, the way we lit it, the set obviously was, you guys talked about in the last episode, it was incredible. But from a writer standpoint, what it really was, was the way it was written, was the way it was darker, you guys talked about that, it was definitely darker. It was more about the interaction. A lot of the conflict came in interaction between the characters as opposed from from outside, which you know was the old Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, was more about people attacking us from the outside and the core group is getting along for the most part, maybe needling each other or whatever. And there’s a lot of humor and stuff in that but the conflict is coming from outside not from within. And SGU was, there was conflict coming from outside, but there was plenty more coming from within the group of people. So that was a whole, it was fun to be able to do that for a change. There’s not to disrespect the way the other shows were written. I love it. I love those shows. But from a from a creative standpoint, it was nice to try something different in that regard.

David Read
Joe, season two for you? Before we get into the the individual episodes, what were you excited about continuing or getting started with?

Joseph Mallozzi
I don’t know. I don’t [know how to answer] that question, he fairly sums it up I mean. You know, after what was it like, this was our 12th season?

David Read
A lot.

Joseph Mallozzi
On the franchise? I mean, it’s like a machine.

Paul Mullie
Something like that.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah

David Read
Yeah, it’s considerable.

Paul Mullie
Yeah. And he’s right. It does kind of feel like you’re on a treadmill sometimes. Like you are, you’re feeding a machine that’s rolling in front of you and you can slow down. The machine keeps going and there’s no time for you to stop. So creatively it can get tiring. And like I said, we thought we were out of ideas in season five, right? So you’re under a lot of pressure to constantly be coming and you know, we’re not alone. Obviously, we had a great writers room and we’re bouncing ideas off of each other all the time. But I there was something refreshing in that regard about having a new style of writing to do. It’s still the Stargate franchise, we’re still honoring the franchise as much as we can but it’s a different type of writing. And I think that gave, it gave me anyway a kind of a new energy.

David Read
So Intervention starts off the season, the crew gets kicked off the ship. We think that the Lucian Alliance have gained control. We have a great B plot in the form of TJ going on what she perceives to be a journey back to the planet from season one, the obelisk world. And we later find out in the season, that it’s the ship that’s trying to, or so we think at this point, it’s the ship that’s trying to console the crew at this point, and get them into fighting shape so that they can be prepared for the mission that they’re going to take on, whatever they’re going to face they have to be in a certain mindset to do it. And I think Intervention was really establishing that. Joe, would you agree?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I mean, the challenge, really the biggest challenge going into that episode was TJ’s pregnancy. And as I pointed out in previous episodes, at this point in our careers Paul and I were writing, even though we were sharing credits, we were writing scripts separately for the most part, and this one was his.

David Read
OK

Joseph Mallozzi
The premiere, and the challenge he had and he’ll speak to that was how to deal with the baby. Like you didn’t want, I mean, the thought of raising a child on the ship just seems so beyond dark, but then again having her lose the baby was equally dark. So it fell on Paul to come up with a solution and I remember Robert Carlyle coming up to the office and saying, This is fucking brilliant,” after reading the script.

David Read
Paul?

Paul Mullie
Well, he’s right. I mean, that was 100% about, not that it was brilliant. It was okay. It was okay brilliant. But no, I mean, right about the challenge of pregnancy. And we had done this before, right? We’ve been down this road before on both, Amanda got pregnant on Stargate and, of course, Rachel got pregnant. So it’s like, you’ve got two choices.

David Read
And Claudia.

Paul Mullie
Yep, you can either play it, or you can shoot around it. Right? And sometimes shooting around it works. It’s hard, but you can sort of do it, especially if you can write the actress out for a certain number, like we did with Rachel for a while, “Oh, she’s kidnapped, she’s somewhere else.” But there was nowhere for TJ to go and once the baby was there, there was nowhere for the baby to go, right? Like it’s, Destiny was this enclosed environment. So there’s, and there’s not very many people and like Joe said, it was such a dark environment it’s like you can’t have a baby here. But you also don’t want this grim ending to the episode. So yeah, we came up with that idea. And I think it was, I thought it was beautiful. I really, the end of that, I don’t remember who it was, if it was actually my idea for that nebula. Maybe it was I don’t remember. But we needed something, we needed some glimmer of hope at the end of that episode. Not just for her, but for the whole, for everyone else on board and for the audience. Like it was going to be too, what I don’t remember and Joe maybe you can speak to this. I don’t think that we knew that it was the ship at that time. Like we had not decided that this, we had sort of left it open in our own minds whether this was real or not.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I think so.

Paul Mullie
So when, whatever it was called, when they came back. Then we made that commitment and even then at the end of that you can kind of still argue it’s still not 100% really clear.

David Read
I agree. I think it’s the obelisk aliens. They were pushing the balls around.

Paul Mullie
What, yeah, so in my mind, I didn’t want to kill the baby. So like Joe said we couldn’t have that baby around. So we had to do something. And well, some shows cheat, right? Like remember Ross and Rachel? They had a baby and like within two weeks they’re like, “Where’s the baby? She’s with the grandparents, she’s at the nanny’s.” Whatever. They just stopped dealing with it. And we didn’t have that option on that ship there was nowhere to go. So so we had to deal with this, I think was a good solution, honestly. And it gave Alaina something really wonderful to play.

David Read
I agree. Yeah, that girl, man, can she act. Holy cow.

Paul Mullie
She’s wonderful. And as I was going through, I was watching these to brush up for this, I had to get my memory going, so I watched some of these episodes, rewatched them. And you know what I remember, when I think most about SGU is the moments where I was on set with actors who were reading my dialogue, because that’s when I would usually on set, I was the set producer. And just taking it to a level that, you’re writing you think this is gonna be good, I hope. But then you see it on its feet with actors playing it. And we had such a great cast. And they would just, she was just reading the stuff that I had written, playing it. And just, I was so proud. It was so moving to watch her do that stuff.

David Read
Joe?

Joseph Mallozzi
I yeah, I agree. I think back to Alaina especially, and her casting, and we loved her. And for some reason there was a resistance on the part of of the network because I think they wanted someone else.

Paul Mullie
I remember.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, at the very beginning, Brad went to bat and he’s like, “No, this is who we want.” And he was proven right. She’s excellent. She’s excellent.

Paul Mullie
You know what was really lovely about Alaina was she had no process, or at least it wasn’t visible to me. So she would be completely normal person, she would be Alaina and talking chatting with you, and then they would go, “Okay, they need to on set.” And she would go into set and just instantly be in this, because I was writing some fairly intense stuff for her, just instantly be there with like tears in her eyes and just really incredible intensity. And then she’d come up to me and say. “Okay, I’ll see you later.” A lot of actors, they really have to work themselves, not that there’s anything wrong with this, but they have to work themselves up for stuff like that. And to me, at least it seemed on the outside to me, that it was effortless for her which was just incredible.

David Read
I’m sure it was.

Paul Mullie
Then, but it looked that way, which was amazing.

David Read
Awakening the next episode here, which you guys have, which is one of my favorites because it introduces a couple of great elements, the seed ships and the Ursini or as Mark Savela called them, Fred. This was a really cool show, because it’s starting to establish, helped establish the mythology of what was going on and how it was done. We got our peek at seeing a Stargate manufacturing plant. I still regret that we didn’t see more of, but it was cool. You know, it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, now see how the sausage is made. And it gave us a solution for Lou Diamond Phillips for being on the show. We had to put him away somewhere for a few episodes, but he’s still out in the universe. So at least he’s on our side of the cosmos. Joe, you want to speak to that? Was this your episode now?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing I remember most about this episode was how tiny or narrow that set was. See it was Andy Makita directing and because the set was built for the height of these aliens, the ceiling was very low, the quarters were not very wide. And there were certain, I was amazed that the camera guy was was able to get through certain recesses. But he’s…

David Read
It’s not a passenger ship.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right, right.

Paul Mullie
I think that was the idea. I think, as I recall, it was somebody said, it might have been Brad or somebody said, “The idea is they’re inside a machine basically.” Right? Because, like you said, it’s not a passenger ship. It’s not really designed for people. It’s an automated ship, basically, that just pumps out.

David Read
Yeah, you’ve got Jefferies tubes and that’s it.

Paul Mullie
Yeah. Yeah, it was very cool.

Joseph Mallozzi
And I think the best thing to come out of this episode was, I can’t believe they did this, but Mark Savela and the visual effects team created a blooper with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred, the alien.

Paul Mullie
I’d forgotten that.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Included in special features, the alien like they’re just talking between setups and Lou tells the alien a joke.

David Read
Balls! Now we released it on Dial the Gate and it’s a hoot, it’s really great. Awakening’s introduced the Ursini, they would come into play later on in this, I don’t think I’m not sure if we even saw them again. But the visual effects in this episode, with the Nakai in season one, and with these guys, man oh man, you created believable aliens. And there’s a story purpose for it because this far out in the universe the Ancients never had a chance to muck around or put DNA out there so there’s no humans. So what you’re going to see is legitimately aliens, which I’m sure you guys wanted to do in Universe. Am I right, Paul?

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I mean, that was a discussion from the very beginning when they were, Brad and Robert were coming up from the original concept of the show. We were like, “Well wait a minute, you know that there’s not gonna be any other people out there. Right? Like, if you’re gonna do aliens, they’re gonna have to be alien.” But the visual effects had evolved to the point where we were fairly confident, we weren’t going to have them running around all the time because it’s bloody expensive, but the quality would be there. That we would be able to get glimpses of full CG aliens because there was no other, that it was of necessity when you take the concept and you know right away okay if we’re going to see aliens they’re going to be, and we weren’t going to do rubber masks, and so it was part of, it was baked in to the concept from the beginning and then when we finally got to see it, it was pretty cool.

David Read
Legit. Trial and Error. Destiny, or whatever this thing is that’s communicating with them out there, is running him through drills almost like Kobayashi Marus one after the other and getting him and basically his mind in shape to get over the awful thing that he had done to Sergeant Riley. I’ll let people look that up and getting him basically in fighting shape to take command, to man up and become the leader that he was born to be. You know this I love this episode because well, not only does Louis Ferreira do an amazing job performing in this but it begins to bring out the promise of the character to the audience, which is that he was placed in this situation. He’s got his own load of baggage, but you know what? He’s got to set those things aside and begin to take care of the people and the mission who are involved. Who wants to speak to this is this [inaudible]?

Joseph Mallozzi
This was Paul Mullie joint. I will point out though, also that there’s a terrific scene between Brian and Louis. Is this the episode I think where…?

Paul Mullie
Yes, this is it.

Joseph Mallozzi
Where Scott challenges him, gets in his face and pushes him up against the wall. And I remember Brian, who played Scott, when we cast him fresh out of Juilliard, being so excited about this scene, like more than I’ve ever seen him excited about playing a scene on the show’s run.

Paul Mullie
So this was an example of what I talked about before where, what I remember most and the impression I get when I think back on Stargate Universe was those moments where I was watching actors do scenes that I had written and just taking it to… Because because we were writing, like I said, the writing was way more intense, right? There was way more intense emotional stuff than there had been in the previous incarnations of the show. And so it was a new experience for me to write stuff like that, and then go and see actors play it. And this episode was all that, there was a lot of intensity going on. I told Louis right before we even started shooting, I think I was like, “You know you’re gonna get beaten up in this, I mean emotionally, literally and figuratively beaten up in this episode.” He had to, he’s got to work his ass off in this episode. And he just, bit into it and did an amazing job. But yeah, this was one of those episodes where I was like, “Oh, man, we’re gonna put the actors through the ringer on this one and let’s see what they can do.” And it was just so wonderful. The scene you’re talking about is one of my favorite scenes that I’ve ever written actually, because we’ve seeded it by so slowly seeing him kind of decline. In previous episodes he was drinking a lot and we had to have it come to a head at some point. And he had been under so much pressure from the very beginning. He always had…

David Read
Killed one of his guys,

Paul Mullie
You know, you always have Telford…

David Read
…in his mind.

Paul Mullie
So yeah, you always had people saying you weren’t the right guy for this job, and blah, blah, blah, wasn’t supposed to be you. And so yeah, and then he had to, killing Riley that was a whole other can of worms. I mean that was that was an incredible scene too. And it’s like he…

David Read
Oh gosh, one of he hardest hours of television to watch.

Paul Mullie
Yeah. So it, you have to do something with that. You can’t just have him go back to being a normal guy. Like that was the show, right? That was showing the actual emotional consequences of some of the crazy stuff that they were going through, and letting the actors play it. So that was the idea behind this. I remember, Joe and I had been pitching ships sort of remotely communicating inside people’s heads for a long time. We’ve had lots of different Stargate ideas over the years that were basically that whatever ship we might be on is sort of an artificial intelligence but can’t communicate just by talking to you but sort of gets in your head and affects your brainwaves essentially, and it can give you dreams or illusions or make you see things or hear things or whatever. We’ve been toying with ideas like that for a long time back and forth. I don’t remember at what point we kind of Brad or whoever said, “Yeah, the Destiny can do that.” I don’t, we pitched it or I don’t remember, it was another one of those ideas that sort of evolved for a long time. But we always love those kinds of scenarios where you can see, something incredible happen. And then you get to do stuff like blow Scott out of the ship.

David Read
Right, through the observation lounge. Yeah.

Paul Mullie
So those kinds of episodes allow you to do stuff like that. And that actually, that moment is also another thing I will never forget. I will never forget Brian doing that stunt.

David Read
The ratchet.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, the ratchet because we were in the effects stage and they determined, the visual effects people and the stunt people as well were like, “The best way to get the right body language is to actually pull him up.” So he was hanging, he looked like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, just hanging on this thing with the camera under him looking up at him. So he’s here and then it was just, he just went up to the ceiling. And I remember he said, “It wasn’t scary.” He went high. Like it was a high ceiling. It wasn’t scary. The pole wasn’t scary but at the top he kind of went, it kind of bounced him down, like it went up to the top and then went like that and then he hung there. He said that was the scary part because he sort of had this moment of freefall. And then they lowered him down. I’ll never forget it. That was an incredible day.

David Read
The scene that I do, not sure if it’s in this episode or air in a subsequent episode, it may be in a subsequent episode. But the scene that really comes out to me is from, that really starts off in this episode is where Young goes back to the IOA and they’re pushing him around. And I don’t know if you guys recall this, but they’re like, “Okay, we need you to do XY and Z, and you’re going to do it.” And he basically tells them, “Go to hell. These are my people. This is what we’re doing. And if we choose to stop talking to you, we will. So you’re playing this on our terms.” And it was one of those situations where it’s like, “Oh, Jack O’Neill is on one side of that argument essentially. And then you’ve got Young on the other and I understand them both.” But I really got to hand it to Young for standing up and saying, “This is my ship. This is my crew. This is what we’re gonna do.” Joe, do you recall that?

Joseph Mallozzi
I do not. I do recall. I do recall. Rick guest starring but I do not recall.

Paul Mullie
This was the tea bag episode wasn’t it? Was this a tea but there’s…

Joseph Mallozzi
Every episode where with Jack is drinking something out of a mug is called a tea bag episode.

Paul Mullie
Puts his finger into it and like, pulls the tea bag out and kind of does that. I’m pretty sure he did that in this one.

Joseph Mallozzi
But in every episode, when he’s holding a cup, he’ll always at some point near the end, look down, reach in and pull something out. And…

Paul Mullie
Yeah. he didn’t know what it is and then throw it away. Yeah, that it’s funny because that’s the stuff we remember sometimes, we should be thinking, focusing more on the content of the scene, but yeah.

David Read
At least something sticks. Resurgence, the mid season two-parter introduces the drones. And this was one of those ideas that carried into the end of the show, it had lasting effects for the outcome of the series. And it was one of these great ideas where we have a similar force to the replicators that we can’t appeal to, there’s no stopping these things, we just we can’t outrun them, we can’t outturn them, we have to outfox them. And at a certain point, they just keep on getting smarter and smarter. And in this episode, Lou Diamond Phillips and the seed ship catch up to us and save our cookies from one of these monstrosities. And we go off on another adventure where we’re about to get ourselves wiped out. What did you guys feel about the execution and results of Resurgence? Which one he wrote it?

Paul Mullie
So you wrote part one, right? And I wrote part two?

Joseph Mallozzi
I think so.

Paul Mullie
i think.

Joseph Mallozzi
i think so. Yeah.

Paul Mullie
It’s funny, David, because I literally watch these two-parters. And we always split them up. And our names are on both. And I’m like, wait a minute.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, I don’t recall. We would always read each other’s scripts and offer stuff like that.

Paul Mullie
But yeah, it was a collaborative. I don’t remember who came up with the idea for the drones specifically. I loved the idea. And we again, it was an idea that we had sort of toyed with the idea of an automated, something from long time ago that somebody just left and would click on as soon as it was like from proximity or whatever. And then it was just a machine like you said there was no reasoning with it. This is what it’s designed to do. And we love the idea of what it looked like a debris field turning into “Oh, that’s not all debris. Those pieces aren’t, those pieces aren’t debris.”

David Read
That’s no moon.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, exactly. That was a very cool, cool sequence.

David Read
I think we lose the seed ship in part two. The last of that race they give themselves up for us in the last attempt to take these things out. And you guys really ratcheted up this threat throughout the rest of the season. We had already have… Twin Destinies had already come out at that point? No, that was after Deliverance.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, that’s right.

David Read
The second half, I’m gonna say it right here, of SGU season two was some of the best science fiction ever, gentleman.

Joseph Mallozzi
We get a lot of that and it’s kind of sad. You know, it’s one of the things that people either say, they love the show, or, they couldn’t get on board the first season, but then in the second season, especially at the end, it got so good. And then it was cancelled.

David Read
It was the idea that, a time travel twist seeds a whole civilization of people. And it was one of those things that I was like, “Oh, had there been a third season, I would have loved to have watched a season of this.” And then at the end of the season we were potentially going to skip over the whole who knows what was gonna happen, but the idea was potentially the idea that’s left for us to see is skipping over that for something else. Whose idea was it to do this twist that sets off the journey for the second half of the year?

Paul Mullie
You mean the drones specifically?

David Read
The descendants of Destiny.

Paul Mullie
Oh, the Twin Destinies.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, that that actually came about, I think, from idea Paul had that we incorporated into the Stargate Atlantis movie that we never got to produce. Do you remember that, Stargate Extinction were on their way back to Pegasus, the city of Atlantis encounters some problems with a wormhole drive and ends up stuck in the, was it the Triangulum Galaxy?

David Read
Something in the Local Group, I’m sure.

Joseph Mallozzi
And they end up encountering a civilization where they encounter isn’t a descendant of of Teyla along with a future version of Todd.

Paul Mullie
I forgot about that.

Joseph Mallozzi
And so when we were, and that we wrote that script and it just sat on the shelf for so long. Then we were discussing the backup of season two, we talked about doing this and remember Paul, you said, “Okay, but if we do this, that means that…”

Paul Mullie
We’re not doing the Atlantis movie, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
We’re not doing the Atlantis script. And at that point it was it was pretty evident that we were not going to the Atlantis movie, sadly.

David Read
So Extinction took one for the team and kind of gave its idea to season two. Well, that was well worth it. So it’s a great way to finish off the second half of the year. Great way to introduce more characters to the show. And some great performances especially as we move forward here. The Hunt showcases more of Jamil, and I believe Jamil Smith and Mike Dopud, who was coming to his own as Varro, what a great episode.

David Read
This was Joe’s episode, but I want to say one thing about it right off the bat. First of all, it scared the crap out of me because this was the CGA monster show. And I think…

Joseph Mallozzi
We had done one before.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, you guys mentioned…

David Read
The bear

Paul Mullie
The bear episode. Yeah, so this could have been the bear part two, right? So this is I was like, “Are we sure? Are we sure we want to do this?” So what do you think, Joe? How did it turn out for you?

Joseph Mallozzi
It turned out well, but I mean, when you’re writing an episode like this, you’re always mindful of, you’re seeing a lot of creature POV. A lot of movement.

Paul Mullie
It’s a bit of it moving in the foreground.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. And then you sort of build towards that reveal. And, I think Mark Savela and visual effects team did an excellent job. And I mean, one of the reasons I kind of really liked this episode, is just for the performances of Jamil and Mike. And they’re two actors that I love to work with, two fantastic performers. And I just love their characters, so it was great to give them something meaty.

Paul Mullie
There’s also, the thing that I mean, I know that the monster is the monster but what I remember are the character moments and the other great character moments in this episode. There’s two that really stand out for me under both Volker. One is when he’s trying to chat up Park in the infirmary and, what was the other guy’s name was it Morrison? There’s a guy in the next bed who keeps interrupting him.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

Paul Mullie
That scene is a classic Mallozzi scene where he’s like, “A cracked rib. I should be so lucky. I’ve got a broken ankle.” And Volker’s is talking to Park is like, “Is there anything else I can do?” “Yeah, can you take my sock off? My foot swelling up.” That’s a great, that is a classic Mallozzi scene.

Joseph Mallozzi
But that character. I think we drew our inspiration from fellow writer, Carl Binder.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, probably.

Joseph Mallozzi
But I think I called them Carl.

Paul Mullie
The curmudgeonly guy. Yeah. And then there’s another moment at the end where he goes to the infirmary and has his heart, that I’m talking about Volker, has his heart ripped out of his chest because Park, Jen, I’m getting all the names of actors and Jennifer Spence’s character is now with somebody else. And once again because I think he and you even had him holding flowers. Like oh my god was like, “Oh, how mean,” and of course Patrick is such a great actor. Just the heartbreak is like right there on his face.

David Read
[Sings] Love’s exciting and new.

Paul Mullie
Because I believe You also wrote the scene where Eli had his heart ripped out by Chloe, when she said, “You’re a really good friend.” You wrote that too.

David Read
The finale of season one.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yes. Oh, yeah.

Paul Mullie
You liked to take the nerdy male characters, they don’t get the girl, the hunky military guy gets the girl instead.

Joseph Mallozzi
This is reality. Unlike when Martin Gero writes a script and nerdy McKay lands the beautiful Jennifer Keller.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

David Read
Well it’s one of those great scenes, I made a meme out of it at the end of season one, where it’s you see the look on Eli’s face is like, squarely in the friend zone.

Paul Mullie
It’s good thing, because her response is great. When she says, “You look at me like I just gave you a second prize.” Or something like that. I don’t remember the exact line. And you kind of get her point of view of it a little bit, too. It’s not just strictly from his point of view. It’s a great scene, but he does rip his heart out. And he didn’t do it but he did it to Volker as well and it feels unnecessary. It’s like, “Come on!” It’s a great moment.

David Read
Gentlemen, we come to the end of quite the run with Gauntlet.

Joseph Mallozzi
This was a true [collaboration]. I mean, I say we would often write separately and then we would kind of do passes with each other scripts. But this is one of those scripts where it was kind of old school where, I’d read a few pages, then he’d read my pages. And then forge ahead and write some original pages and I’d rewrite and forge ahead. We pitch them back and forth.

David Read
Oh, you’d rewrite while going. Okay.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, and the one thing I remember about this episode, I said I mentioned it maybe in the last episode, or I mentioned it quite often is, we weren’t sure if we were coming back or not. We were editing this episode. And then you came up with the idea. You’re like, “You know what, just in case what we should do? We should bookend this potential season and …

Paul Mullie
With the opening shot, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. So in the opening shot of the pilot you have us rising up through the various levels of Destiny with the lights turning on, the ship turning on. And so we just use that in reverse with accompaniment by Joel Goldsmith’s beautiful score.

David Read
I think it’s best piece of music he did.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah.

David Read
In my opinion.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. The Destiny always like gets me in that final shot where basically it jumps into FTL.

David Read
It’s continuing, and we’re left behind.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. That was a great, he’s right, that was a true collaboration and it was a great script. I’m so proud of that episode. And it was, like I talked before about the problem of writing and ending when you don’t know whether you’re coming back or not, right? You don’t want to cheat the audience but you want to do something exciting and cool. See, I read something where you described it as a cliffhanger, Joe, and I was like I don’t really consider that to be a cliffhanger. It’s a good, it delivers because it’s an ending, but also possibly not an ending, which it had to be and that was hard to do. And you mentioned Joel, I want to say the same thing. Like I didn’t get a lot of chances to work with Joel. Brad did most of the music throughout the whole franchise, he was the one who talked to Joel the most. But for this episode for that ending piece I spoke to him and I’m not a musician so it’s very hard for me to sort of speak in musical terms, but I tried to convey to him what we were after. And obviously, the film itself shows what’s needed and he just frickin’ nailed it. It was so good. So good.

David Read
Brad told me he said he had, Joel had called him and Joel said, “I want you to hear what I have.” And he played the music for him. And Brad said, “I’ve got tears in my eyes.”

Paul Mullie
Yeah. it was fantastic.

David Read
Fantastic piece of music. I miss Joel so much. I was so lucky that we got to know each other a little bit. But I mean, man, that guy what a rock star. He’s so much responsible for so much of the soul of the franchise.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, absolutely. I was going back, I told you before, I was going back and in preparation for this I was watching episodes and he has a, there’s a recurring theme that he used, that we reused in sort of quiet, sad moments. he played it in the end of the two-parter when Chloe’s being sent off to the aliens and she’s having that last moment with Scott and that is playing in the background, and then I saw it in other episodes and it’s so haunting and so [beautiful]. Like there was just so many of those throughout this show, well, I mean the whole franchise, but we’re talking about SGU and it was just, yeah, amazing.

David Read
There is a Thanksgiving scene, essentially.

Paul Mullie
The meal. Yeah.

David Read
Which is kind of like, I mean it’s one part Last Supper. Yeah, it’s…

Joseph Mallozzi
That encapsulates for me what makes truly great sci fi or what really to me makes truly great sci fi. Whether it’s the the crew of the Enterprise, or SG-1 heading through the gate, or the Atlantis expedition, or the crew of the Destiny, ultimately, I think sci fi is always about family. And I kind of press that point home in that particular scene.

David Read
This one fought like cats and dogs to earn that scene, though. They were at each other’s throats. And then, this was earned. This is why I love it so much.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I read in your on on Gate, on the website in the notes you’re often quoted because of your blog. And you said that it was Erika’s idea originally, Erika Kennair was a SyFy executive. Originally, it was just a shot of them having a meal in a montage. And then, I had forgotten this, and then she said, “No, I want to hear them. I want to hear them talking. I want a scene.” So credit her for that because that was her idea and thank God we did that.

David Read
How cool is that? Joe, any final thoughts on rounding out that particular episode and this whole adventure?

Joseph Mallozzi
No. I mean, like I said, we at the time, I think, we were under the impression that we might get a third and final season. And that was what was being talked about. And so when we produced this episode, we didn’t really know whether we were coming back or not. And sadly, we didn’t come back. And in the end that was that. I think, usually what we would do is we would wrap and then once the season had wrapped the writers would get together what like a couple of weeks later, and we start breaking for the following season. And I don’t remember if we find out we were canceled. I mean, I found out at the office, but apparently Brad and a lot of the cast were, where were they?

David Read
The USS Carl Vinson, they were at sea.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Mullie
Oh my god.

David Read
Twitter, I think couldn’t get news or something. It was one of those early things.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I don’t remember how much we talked about season three. Like…

Joseph Mallozzi
No, we didn’t. Unlike unlike season six, where we had that kind of half-ass idea board on the whiteboard. We did not discuss season three, in hindsight we can talk about potential ways it could have gone but we never had the opportunity to actually sit down and strategize.

Paul Mullie
Right. I also don’t remember when we introduced the stasis pods. Did we know we were going to do that ending when we developed them?

Joseph Mallozzi
[inaudible] stasis pods or when we find them?

Paul Mullie
There was a couple of episodes before it was actually…

David Read
Was it just Blockade? It was before that it.

Paul Mullie
I think, it might, was it Blockade?

David Read
I think it had to have been earlier.

Paul Mullie
Because I remember that there was a whole sequence where they were farting around and they got locked in and all stuff. Whatever, it doesn’t matter but in the end it provided just a really kind of sad but moving way of sort of sending them off into the universe, not killing them.

David Read
No. Well maybe Eli, but we don’t know.

Paul Mullie
But but it’s… Yeah, maybe Eli. But it worked so well because they’re not dead. But they’re also not going in, they’re not continuing to have adventures that we don’t get to see. Right? Like they’re out there but they’re frozen. Yeah, so they’re just gonna like [inaudible]

David Read
And then as Alaina said, “Never aging.”

Paul Mullie
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that in theory, 100 years from now, there could be, obviously not because the actors, well they’d be CG at that point I guess. But from a certain audience standpoint, it’s like, because I think if we just left and said, “Okay, they’re gonna keep going, and you just don’t get to see it.” That’s kind of rude. But also blowing up the ship is kind of rude too so it’s like, it was the best we could do here.

Joseph Mallozzi
A fair compromise. But frankly, if any show could come back, we had set up a finale that would allow us to come back, it would be Stargate Universe. I mean, 20 years later, those pods kind of malfunction, so maybe some of them look a little older, some of them didn’t make it

Paul Mullie
In my mind. I look back and I compare the endings, right? The endings of SG-1 and Atlantis and Universe. And they all were kind of cool in their own way. They were all endings, right? So none of it’s good in that sense. But I mean, SG-1 10 seasons, what are you gonna do? Nobody was complaining at that.

David Read
Movies.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, that’s right. But that felt like a really appropriate ending and Atlantis too could have kept going. I mean, there was nothing ending in that sense about that last scene, but it felt like it still delivered that moment where they were all together and looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge, you have to do something like that to have some sense of closure. Otherwise, it’s just so annoying to just be left hanging. But you don’t want to just completely wrap it up. Because there’s always the possibility that you come back. Right? So it’s a tricky thing. But I think we’ve done some pretty good versions of that.

David Read
Absolutely. So this is the first that I heard that it’s possible that the pods were not created to be the element that ended the show.

Paul Mullie
I don’t remember, to be honest, I don’t remember if we said, “We need stasis pods for the ending of the show.” Or if it was like, “Well, we got these stasis pods. Why don’t we use those?” That’s the way it goes on Stargate, right? Like there’s so many years of just so many elements. And we had to like kind of almost have a catalog in your mind and be like, “Oh, we’re pitching a story.” And it’s like, “How do we get out of this one? It was like, “Well remember that planet we went to, that guy was there, he had that thing? Why don’t we bring that back?” Because that could get us out of this particular problem. So going back and trying to remember how the order of things and how it was all planned. It seems like it was all planned out but I don’t know how random it was at the time. Although that was a tricky element of SGU in general, because we couldn’t bring new things on the ship very easily. We really had to like set stuff up,

David Read
Dial Pittsburgh and go and get some new outfits.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, exactly. That was why, that was one of the reasons why that whole civilization was a great idea. It was like, “Oh, we can have people and we can have other stuff that looks familiar and yeah.”

David Read
Beef Jerky or something like it.

Paul Mullie
Beef Jerky survives. Yeah, that’s right.

David Read
And that Muzak in the elevator. Oh my gosh.

Paul Mullie
Oh, my god. Well that episode, I mean, that’s Carl Binder at his absolute finest. What was it called again?

David Read
Epilogue and Common Descent.

Paul Mullie
Epilogue. Yeah,

David Read
Some of my favorites.

Paul Mullie
I mean, that is a classic Carl Binder episode, if ever you wanted to see one. He was always the mushy guy, right? Like Carl was the mushy guy. And all the babies being born and everything like that’s all classic Binder. And it was such a great episode.

David Read
I have a few questions from fans if you guys wouldn’t mind sticking around and answering.

Paul Mullie
Sure.

David Read
And Joe, I will let you delegate. General Maximus, this is just a remark here. “This is my first live Dial the Gate and I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to say a very genuine and sincere thank you for all the stories and adventures you have given us. And the journeys we have been on with the characters. I watched SG-1 from day one when it originally aired, and it isn’t a coincidence that after all these years and despite the influx of streaming and new content, Stargate continues to be one of the best TV shows ever made.”

Paul Mullie
Wow.

Joseph Mallozzi
Thank you.

Paul Mullie
Thank you.

David Read
William Arends’s, “Was it ever stated or in your mind how far into the universe or to what other galaxies that Destiny and our crew had traveled?”

Paul Mullie
I don’t know if we got specific. I think it was we were kind of like three quarters, or something like that, all the way through.

David Read
Out to the edge or…

Paul Mullie
Something like that. It was past halfway, I believe. I don’t remember. I mean, how do you even write the unit? Right? Like, yeah, you counted in billions of light years, right? And we would just say billions of light years from home. We never said 8 billion light years. I don’t think they…

David Read
Several billion is the line.

Paul Mullie
Not sure if they knew. They had that course and in the beginning you watched it going, and they’re like, “Are those stars? No, those are galaxies.” You know, that was a great scene. But I don’t know how specific we ever got in our own minds. I don’t really remember, we just billions and billions.

David Read
Did you? I’m curious, did the possibility of a loop, like space bending, occur in the conversations that you were…

Paul Mullie
We talked about that.

David Read
Okay,

Paul Mullie
I talked about that with Brad, because I didn’t exactly know what Brad had in mind for the ending. And we talked about the background radiation and stuff like that, but in my mind, there was always a possibility that they would come back to Earth, but it would be like a million years in the future or a million years in the past.

David Read
The long way around.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, there would be some weird time effect to it or something. But it’s that classic if you if you walk on a balloon and eventually you get back to the starting point

David Read
And the balloon is expanding or contracting [as the universe does].

Paul Mullie
Yeah, exactly. So we did talk about that. But we never got far enough into the discussion to really iron out what it would be if we if we wound up doing that.

David Read
Hilda Bowen, “Did you guys ever play Dungeons & Dragons with David Blue? He’s a D&D player.

Joseph Mallozzi
No, that was about, Dungeons & Dragons was well before the Stargate time.

Paul Mullie
Yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
We got a lot ofit out of our system by that time.

David Read
Jack Heiter. “Have either of you played the the new SG-1 role playing game?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Believe it or not…

Paul Mullie
I haven’t.

Joseph Mallozzi
I haven’t. I can’t speak for Paul.

Paul Mullie
I have not.

David Read
Yes, we need to check it out. It’s really cool.

Paul Mullie
Okay.

David Read
George Fotis Dramesiotis, “Are there any props that you got to keep?”

Paul Mullie
Well, I’m glad you brought that up, because I’m actually wearing one right now. Technically not a prop. This is a costume not a prop. I have to lift it up and point because I’m backwards here.

David Read
Ex Deus Machina, I believe.

Paul Mullie
Tthis is the Ba’al symbol. Of course, everyone out there will recognize this. And he actually wore a shirt like this in the episode, Cliff Simon, one of our favorites who sadly died last year. So this is for you, Cliff. I saw the dailies, I saw him wearing this and I went to the costume department and said, “I need one of those. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” And so they gave me one and they made me one.

Joseph Mallozzi
Did you get to keep his ZPM?

Paul Mullie
No, I had one in my office for the longest time, it was actually broken and like a little corner of it had broken off and then somebody took it. I don’t even remember what, I think somebody at some point was like, “You can’t have that anymore.” And then they took it away from me.

David Read
I probably sold it.

Joseph Mallozzi
Who would tell you can’t have that?

Paul Mullie
I don’t remember. I never got to take it home.

David Read
Propworx got, I think, three ZPMs and one of them was in a gray crate that I think Ryan Robbins has in Coup D’etat. And one of them, because they’re made of, this one was made of candy glass. And like every time I touched it a piece of the end chipped off. And it was, “Hey, no one touch this thing. We’re done.”

Paul Mullie
Well, mine was very solid and it was in two pieces. And the little part of the top had been knocked, it had fallen down and knocked. So that’s why they gave it to me. “This one’s broken you can have it.” And then I don’t know, I don’t remember what happened to it. But yeah, sadly, what about you buddy did you have any props?

Joseph Mallozzi
I got to keep the a couple of the rubber bugs from the episodes of the Scourge, SG-1. I actually kept a prop from our very first episode, Scorched Earth. It’s an alien petri dish that was in Lotan’s ship. And I had a pain stick but I gave it away during a fan giveaway a couple of years ago.

David Read
Did you give that to Jenny because I have it. There was one of those in Continuum, I have it over here.

Paul Mullie
[He’s got a pain stick, it’s right behind him.]

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, that’s it. That maybe, yeah, I forget who won it.

David Read
So for Stargate Continuum, this was one of the giveaways at a convention. And I saw that thing and I was like, “Oh, I’m paying for that one?” And I think people were scared to outbid me. I felt really bad because I only got it for like 200 bucks.

Paul Mullie
Oh, David wants it. Nobody, nobody {bid]. Yeah, David [inaudible].

David Read
I know, I felt bad, that was like this is a steal.

Paul Mullie
You know what, Joe had in his office for a long time, I don’t know if he ever told you this story. Wasn’t a prop it was a piece of the art department. It was a blueprint of the set from…

Joseph Mallozzi
Window of Opportunity

Paul Mullie
Window of Opportunity. Right one of our first episodes.

David Read
Yeah, yes.

Paul Mullie
He had it on his wall, but I don’t know if you know that blueprints if they’re exposed to light, maybe they don’t anymore, but at that time they fade. Okay? So it was on his wall for years and it just kept fading and fading and fading, but we look at it and we’re like, “As long as it doesn’t disappear completely, we’ll keep making the show.” It was what was keeping the show alive all that time. It was like the Picture of Dorian Gray in reverse. It was like as long as that and it was getting really faint. I was like, “You can’t make it down. It’s the only thing keeping us going. As soon as that thing disappears, we’re done.” Then eventually, he got a new office. He got his office expanded, and he got rid of it like, “What an asshole.” But anyway.

Joseph Mallozzi
I think the final season, it brought it upon us.

David Read
Popcorn Power, “Many bad shows I see simply regurgitate what they have seen on other shows. How important do you think varied life experiences of writers are to the quality of stories?”

Paul Mullie
Good question. You answer that one, buddy.

Joseph Mallozzi
That’s a really tough one for me to answer. I don’t know about life experiences. I mean…

Paul Mullie
Especially when you know…

Joseph Mallozzi
…you. You can’t help but convey experience in your writing. So whether you’re writing a, grounded drama or something, like a Stargate Universe where you’re out in space. I don’t know, it’s a tough one to answer, I guess.

David Read
Okay.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I think Joe’s right. You always, consciously or not, you’re always gonna bring your own experience to something but we are out in space. I mean, the thing about science fiction is you’re in space, or wherever, in the past or wherever you are in some kind of science fiction setting, but you’re still dealing with human beings. Right? So obviously they have to be relatable. So you’re going to draw from your own experience of how people interact with each other, to write this stuff. But it’s very hard to sort of say specifically, like it’s not like I wrote scenes that were things that actually happened to me. Maybe certain jokes and stuff like that, yeah, maybe we would have done stuff like that. But otherwise, it’s just more a process of osmosis. Right? Where it just kind of happens organically.

David Read
Ákos Tamás Nováki, “Which of your own storyline, character, race or planet would you not mind seeing revisited again, in a future spin off?”

Paul Mullie
Yeah. I mean…

Joseph Mallozzi
I’ve always had, I’ve been a big fan of Richard Woolsey. I’m a big fan of Bob Picardo. So in terms of characters, he was always a blast, which is kind of, you think of sort of the vastness of the Stargate franchise there’s a lot of alumni that I want to revisit, but I just had the most fun working with him in writing his character.

David Read
Absolutely.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, I don’t have an answer for that. There’s too much out there. Woolsey is a good answer. I love Bob Picardo, but yeah, [inaudible] all of it.

David Read
Teresa Mc​Question, Paul and or Joseph. “Are there episodes you wish you could go back and tweak?”

Paul Mullie
Huh, in SGU specifically? I don’t think so.

David Read
I think this is more general.

Paul Mullie
Yeah. I’d have to I’d have to go back and sort of like revisit and sort of look at, it was mostly probably like technical stuff. Like visual effects like the bear, the bear wasn’t our episode, but things that we got better at over time that we couldn’t maybe maybe do quite so well the first time around. But you can’t dwell on that kind of stuff. Right? We were always moving forward, we weren’t worrying about, “Well that episode didn’t turn out quite as well as we wanted it to.” Maybe if so, yeah, and there’s all kinds of production limitations that come in that maybe make something a little bit disappointing. Weird stuff like just, ‘Why? How did they, why did they block that scene like that? He should have come in from that, like it’s fucked everything, sorry, it messed everything up.” But yeah, I didn’t hold those things in my head.

David Read
Joe, is that fair?

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, that is fair.

David Read
Okay. Time Prophet, “Any news on the Dark Matter pitch?”

Joseph Mallozzi
No, no, basically. You know, Jay basically said he’d be interested in doing a mini-series and I don’t know, I think I leave it in Jay’s hands because he’s the one who would have to set up a Dark Matter miniseries as Paul and I don’t own the rights. It’s in the hands of Prodigy Pictures so until I hear from Jay, I know nothing.

David Read
Okay. Mark B, no question, “I just wanted to say a fantastic job in all Stargate and Dark Matter got me through a tough time when I had a motorcycle accident. I couldn’t walk for three months so those were my lifelines.” The show really, like Sommer is a is a perfect example, she’s the only person I know who was prescribed. I don’t know if you can hear me some are you there? Now she’s, she’s watching the live feed.

Sommer Roy
I’m here.

David Read
She’s the only person I know who has prescribed Stargate by her doctor, isn’t that right Sommer?

Sommer Roy
That’s absolutely correct. I’ve had over 35 major surgeries in my life. So they they noticed that every time Stargate would come on, my blood pressure would go back to normal. So doctor said, “You must watch Stargate every day.” Okay. I can totally do that. It’s not a problem.

David Read
But I mean, it’s things like that where, you have to remember that, I mean, obviously you’re going in, you’re putting out some piece of entertainment. The entertainment is really hitting some people where they need to be, where they need this stuff. So it’s overwhemingly…

Sommer Roy
Deffinitely, definitely,

Paul Mullie
Yeah, again I’m glad we could help.

David Read
Regal Giant, “Do you guys consider the Stargate comics canon?”

Joseph Mallozzi
I’ve never read Stargate comics. I always say that, you know, when fans ask, “Is it canon?” I will say, “Sure, you can consider it canon, until the point where essentially we launch a new series.” At that point it will probably cease being canon depending on what, cause I mean what Brad ultimately has in mind for like a new series, but if it set in the existing Stargate Universe then he will probably touch on aspects of previous incarnations of the show. And he’s certainly not going to be beholden to any kind of spin off merchandise.

David Read
Oh, absolutely.

Joseph Mallozzi
You know, that was created after the Stargate Universe.

David Read
I always considered it’s canon until something bumps it. So that’s how I look at it. The One with the Many Zs, “Was the character of Ginn created for season two of Universe or had you planned to introduce her at the end of season one? It felt odd to suddenly have her there in season two without having seen her in Incursion?”

Joseph Mallozzi
Sorry, who?

David Read
Ginn.

Paul Mullie
Ginn, that was a bit of a cheat. That was a little bit of a cheat. Again, I said I’ve mentioned this before, because when you bring stuff on the Destiny, it’s like, okay, we got a new group of people, well have enough of them, so you can’t see all the faces. So that it’s not crazy when suddenly that one of them becomes a character that we see and talk to and it was, she was not physically there when they came on the ship at the end of season one,

David Read
The actress, but the character was, yeah, she just did… I mean, Kiva exited, which gave room for her to come in.

Paul Mullie
So yeah, the really cool one with that for me was Robert Knepper because you can’t just suddenly have Robert Knepper appear out of a group of people, like he got layered in which was quite good. And it was weird because it was like, “Hey, that’s Robert Knepper, why isn’t he doing anything?” And he’s just there, he was like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. It was like, at some point this guy’s gonna blow and do something horrible because it’s Robert Knepper, you know he’s good. But he was a good example of you can’t just pop, because it’s Robert Knepper, him in but yeah, she was a bit of a cheat, I think because she was not there amongst the original crowd. I gotta assume she wasn’t.

David Read
Right.

Paul Mullie
Yeah.

David Read
You know, and you guys did something similar. I’m forgetting the name, the chat will correct me, but there was an Air Force officer in season one who was on medication. And so he was kind of a ticking time bomb as well. And then, and I think it’s Justice he offs himself, rather than harming anyone else, and so this season, you guys, yes. You guys this season were not messing around. It’s like this guy and Simeon’s one of the great villains of the franchise.

Paul Mullie
So we had that discussion with Brad and that was another thing that was baked into the concept is like, okay, there’s only so many people, so you can’t just suddenly have new, so the idea was let’s have a large group of people and not really just see all the faces that was at least believable when a soldier or somebody in six or seven episodes later could become a character, that we hadn’t necessarily met right from the beginning. But you could only do that a little bit.

David Read
Right, exactly.

Paul Mullie
You couldn’t push it too far.

David Read
Lockwatcher, “How did French Stuart react to coming back to Stargate?” Did anyone have that conversation with him?

Paul Mullie
I did not.

Joseph Mallozzi
I did not. That wasn’t our episode, was it?

Paul Mullie
No.

David Read
I mean, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. I mean, the truth was we were all a mini show runners to a certain respect. We all we wrote our individual episodes, we ran our individual episodes, we produced our individual episodes. And because we were focused on our episodes, we didn’t really get a chance to interact with much of other people’s productions.

Paul Mullie
I think he came up to the office and we met him and said, “Hi,” but I didn’t have a conversation with him.

David Read
Okay. William Arends, this is more of a Brad question but I’m curious as to your guys’s thoughts, “Had SGU continued, how do you think Rush would have evolved as a character?” Would he have continued to remain a self-centered egomaniac? Or would that have been, kind of like how Rodney evolved, that would have like continued to be part of his personality but he would have continued to be more along the alignment of the military of the other characters. As we saw it beginning to happen in Twin Destinies.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, he got sort of humanized a little bit over the course of the show. He softened a little bit, but he was never that core part of him was never gonna go away. And it was always fun to do that. Like when he saves Chloe, right? It’s like, and Ray says, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you put I think one individual over [the other],” and he says, “That’s the problem. You don’t know any better.” Right? Like he’s still an asshole. Like even when he does nice things, there’s always another possible ulterior motive to it. Like, did he do that for their sake? Or is it just something that he needed to do? And he sort of made it look like he did it for somebody else’s sake? So I don’t, he was softening a little bit, but I don’t think it ever would have gone to the point where he’s like, he was a fuzzy, warm and fuzzy guy. He was always going to be that guy. Which would have been fine. It would have been great to see that character continue to go because it was amazing. I loved what, I loved that about him. I love that we could do stuff like and he just had that look like he always just was like, “Wait, what is he thinking? Did he mean what he just said?” Like he just always had that element to him and it was fun to watch that.

David Read
barry barry, “I always wanted to know if there were any scenes where the actor went way off script, and it was so funny, you guys in the dailies you guys managed to keep it in.

Paul Mullie
I can’t remember an exact…

David Read
Rick was notorious for this.

Joseph Mallozzi
Not so much in Stargate Universe. I mean, SG-1.

Paul Mullie
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Joseph Mallozzi
Notorius.

Paul Mullie
The script was just a guideline for Rick you never knew what he was going to say. So, in fact, he would go out of his way to say something different. Like if you wrote hello, he would say hi. If you wrote hi, he would say hello. Like, he had to do it. It was but yeah, and he also adlibbed, he did a lot of funny stuff to that stayed in. And so, but yeah, no, SGU was too, there wasn’t I mean, let’s say there was some humor, but it was pretty intense. So it was, it we stuck to the script pretty much.

David Read
Multiple people in the chat loving the vibe between Paul and Joe. Paul, will you please come back to Dial the Gate?

Paul Mullie
Sure.

Joseph Mallozzi
You know what he should do? He should go back to season four of SG-1.

David Read
You’re jumping ahead Joe.

Joseph Mallozzi
So he can sort of catch up with me.

David Read
So I wasn’t I mean, I wanted to see you know how much he enjoyed our show and because like having him one on one with me, sorry Paul, I know you’re in the room, will be a little bit of a different vibe. But I mean Rob Cooper and I are doing seven episodes now so I think we can make it work, so.

Paul Mullie
Yeah, but we’re like a comedy duo, right? You need to cut back and forth.

David Read
Absolutely, Paul, my hope is that you and I can go back with material but I think we’ll be a little bit more aggressive with the timeframe. I won’t take as long with you. You’ve got your family and everything going on so but I would love to have you back.

Paul Mullie
Well listen, I want to say thank you for having me because I told you guys before we started this that when I watched your last episode, I was scared because I was like, “I don’t remember anything which is horrible. I’m gonna be really bad at this.” So I went back and watched it, I watched the show again. I didn’t watch all 40 episodes because that would have been much in a week. But I did watch quite a few and it was fantastic. I did I was so glad to, 12 years of my life and kids and everything and I forgotten a lot, not forgotten but just sort of put it aside and not thought about it for a long time. And preparing for this, I went back and I’m really glad I did. Stuff like we talked about Joel’s music was like. “Wow, I remember this. This is so awesome.” And just moments on set and stuff like that. I was very glad I did it because it was a cool thing.

Joseph Mallozzi
The truth is, as writer producers, we rarely actually watch finished episodes because we’re watching dailies, we’re watching director’s cuts, we’re in editing, watching and rewatching the episodes. And then we’re watching them again during the mixes. So…

Paul Mullie
You’re watching them for a reason. You’re watching them for a production reason, like even the mix, which is, everything’s locked visually. And some of the visual effects might be done, but you’re still not watching it just to enjoy it, you’re working on it. And so, and then you move on, because we’re making more episodes, more episodes, you don’t go back. So years can go by and then you go back and you go, “This was a good show.”

David Read
Absolutely.

Paul Mullie
That’s what happened to me. I rewatched it and I just appreciated it all over again.

Joseph Mallozzi
I rewatched, like a couple of years ago, when Akemi asked me to watch and I thought,” Oh, she’s being nice. And so maybe we’ll watch the first episode or two, and then she’ll get bored and we’ll do something else.” But she was totally on board. She absolutely loved the show, which actually surprised me so much that she was incredibly disappointed that it only had two seasons.

David Read
Joined the club Akemi, join the club. Andrew P, “What was it like to kill off Telford by electrocuting him?”

Paul Mullie
When that happened, but we almost killed him. We choked him.

David Read
Yeah, that’s right.

Paul Mullie
That was my episode. And I was on set for that. And I was blown away by that. Unfortunately, the electrocution he just kind of froze, which was cool. And that shot of his eyes, it was really cool. But for me when I saw him choking to death and playing that, that performance was [incredible] I was like, “Is he really holding it like that?” It looks like he was choking to death.

Joseph Mallozzi
His face turning beat red.

Paul Mullie
He wasn’t, I guess what’s the term? He wasn’t choking.

Joseph Mallozzi
He was asphyxiating.

David Read
Yeah, Lou Diamond Phillips, man, he was run through the wringer, man when you think about it. Holy cow.

Paul Mullie
So great. He was so great to have on the show. He’s such a great guy. And he’s such a professional and he’s just easy to be with and he just comes in he’s like, “Where do you want me to stand? What do you want me to say?” That’s it. He just gets into it. It was great having him.

David Read
Raj Luthra, “Paul, if Brad invites you back. If Amazon proceeds with his fourth Stargate series, if Brad were to invite you back would you jump at the chance or would you be like, “No I have to think about it.” What’s your thoughts on that?

Paul Mullie
I would jump at the chance. Absolutely. I would work on, first of all I would work on Stargate again without hesitation because I loved it so much. And second of all, I would work with Brad again same reason. So yeah, no, that would be a no brainer.

David Read
Okay, and a fun one to finish off with, KhaosNite just dropped this one, “Dream show or franchise from past or present that was for posterity, do you wish you could have writing credit on, outside of Stargate?”

Paul Mullie
Oh, Jesus. It’s a good question. Writing credit on. There’s a lot out there.

Joseph Mallozzi
Have a writing credit on, actually not, what does that mean? Just the credit but not have the experience.

David Read
I’m trying to interpret the question here.

Paul Mullie
Would have been associated with?

David Read
Yeah, what’s the show that you love that you wish that you could have, if you’re given a wish to go back and sit in on a on a writers room from a show.

Joseph Mallozzi
Okay, to be honest one show that I absolutely loved. I have like five top shows, Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Rome. Shows that are fantastic but there’s always like one thing in the show that kind of bothered me or didn’t work for me. But there was one show that I thought was perfection and that was The Shield. The way they used to always kind of paint their characters into corners. And I’m like, “There’s no way they’re going to be able to write their way out.” I would just be very curious to be in that room to see how far ahead they planned, or if it was a situation where they painted themselves into the corner, came back, sat down was like “Okay, now what are we going to do?” And how they went about kind of unraveling.

Paul Mullie
I don’t know. I don’t know if I have one. A bit like Breaking Bad probably would be up there. That was a show that I just completely loved from beginning to end. In terms of genre it’s a bit trickier. Maybe the original Buffy, I loved that show. I would have loved to have been a writer on that show. Although, recently stories have come out that said maybe it wasn’t so much fun to be a writer on that show. But but in terms of the content it was, I love that.

David Read
I’ve been rewatching, I don’t know how YouTube’s algorithm works with me. But you watch something and it just keeps feeding you more. I’ve stumbled upon this Breaking Bad clips channel. And it will occasionally serve me up just random clips from the show and I’ve watched it twice all the way through but it’s been years and I see these clips, it’s like, “Damn, this is good. I’ve gotta go back and rewatch.” I’m waiting for Better Call Saul to finish and then I’m gonna mow it all down. I’ve not seen the last few seasons. That Vince Gilligan man is brilliant.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah. Well, he was on The Shield.

David Read
Okay, there you go. Gentlemen, it’s been a privilege to take time with you to go through this material together. Paul, I’ll reach out to Joe and see if I can get your information directly. I’d love to schedule time with you in the future to come back. I have a lot of questions for you and I would really enjoy stepping through this piece of your life with you, over the course of a few shows at some point here in the future. It would mean a lot. Joe, my friend, I cannot thank you enough for coming in and taking us step by step through your processes, your episodes, your emotional states, through these trials and discoveries of figuring out what you were made of as a writer. This has been a treat for all of us.

Joseph Mallozzi
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And like I said, I reached the point many months ago when I said, “I’m kind of done with the podcast and the interviews and the stream cast.” But I always made an exception for this show, because it was a different and I always appreciated the fact that you David, you were always, you’ve been very prepared, and made it different and made it very enjoyable. So thank you.

David Read
Gentlemen, thank you so much. I will be in touch with you both. And I appreciate you for coming on.

Joseph Mallozzi
Right.

David Read
Be well, guys.

Paul Mullie
Take care

David Read
Thank you so much.

Joseph Mallozzi
Take it easy

Paul Mullie
Bye bye.

Joseph Mallozzi
Bye

David Read
Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, Executive Producers for Stargate Universe. It has been a pleasure having them on and thank you so much for tuning in. We have a great crowd in the chat. Before I let you guys go, I just wanted to give a shout out and thanks to my team, Sommer and Tracy. They make the show possible and are continuing to be in there for the moderating team as well as Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, and Antony as well, our moderators. Big thanks to my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey, she continues to promote the show week after week. To Frederick Marcoux at Concepts Web our web developer on Dial the Gate and also a big thank you to Jeremy Heiner, our webmaster who keeps the site up to date. We have t-shirts available. Just to let you know, we bring you the show every week for free and we do appreciate you watching but if you want to support the show further Buy yourself some of our themes swag, T-shirts, as well as tank tops sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages as well as cups and other accessories in a variety of sizes and colors at dialthegate.com/merch. You can click on a specific design and see what items are being offered and checkout is fast and easy. You can use your credit card or PayPal, just go to dialthegate.com/merch. And thank you so much for your support. We have David DeLuise coming up in just a few minutes here he is going to be joining us, Pete Shanahan from Stargate SG-1. Let me take a look at what’s coming your way. Next week we have on the seventh of May at 12 noon Pacific Time, Katharyn Powers, I have a pre-recorded episode with her. I went out and visited with her out in California at her home and we did a pre-recorded show as well as commentaries. We recorded episode commentaries for several of the shows that she wrote. This interview is going to be more of an overview of her life. It has a little bit of Stargate content in it. But it really is, she was one of the first woman writers in the sci fi field for Hollywood. And so we have those conversations with her and she’s very frank about some of her experiences in LA. And she’s going to share her life with you and she’s one of the more interesting people that you will ever come across. She is a medium and she practices witchcraft. And she wrote for the first few seasons of Stargate SG-1. And sitting down and listening with her was a journey for me because I set aside my, I’ve known her for seven or eight years now, and I’ve set aside my preconceptions and just let her tell her story. And so next week she will do that in a pre-recorded interview, which you will find fascinating because it gives you some insight into the Asgard. And it gives you some insight into some of the stories that she was weaving at the beginning that were adjusted as the show went along. Then the 14th of May at 12 noon, Stargate Science with Mika McKinnon and David Hewlett, and this is an episode that I am really looking forward to just because these two folks are absolutely amazing. Mika was the Science Consultant on Atlantis and Universe and she is a wealth of knowledge about pretty much anything astrophysics related that you can think of. So she’s going to be live, with David Hewlett and myself, the 14th of May at 12 noon Pacific Time. That’s what we have here. I did see a couple of questions that were dedicated to me. Theresa Mc, “What area would you like to be involved in: props, makeup, anything of that such?” If I were in production, I would definitely want to be at Evil Kenny’s side in the props department and with James Robbins in the Production Department as they were bringing these things to life. I would like to also sit in on the writers room as well. I don’t know. That’s tough. Raj Luthra, “What were your favorite episodes?” Okay, for SG-1 probably have to sayThe Fifth Race. For Atlantis it would have to be Sunday. And for Universe it would probably have to be a combination of Common Descent and Epilogue. I appreciate you guys tuning in. We had a great crowd in the live chat here. Thank you all for submitting content. Thanks once again to my moderating team, couldn’t do this show without you guys. David DeLuise is joining us in 20 minutes. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I really appreciate you tuning in. And I will see you guys on the other side. Thanks so much.