Stargate SG-1’s Writer, Director and Executive Producer returns to discuss Season Five! It was a pivotal season for the series, and we explore it in-depth as well as answer fan questions in this PRE-RECORDED, and penultimate episode to Season Two of Dial the Gate.

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:25 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:57 – Welcoming Robert Cooper
03:36 – Google article on AI, technology and making movies
13:02 – Season 5 discussion overview, prepping for the season, and “Enemies”
19:27 – “Ascension” and Orlin’s later return in Season 10
24:24 – “48 Hours,” introduction of Rodney McKay, and “Redemption”
29:25 – McKay joining Atlantis
31:48 – John DeLancie as Colonel Frank Simmons
34:55 – “48 Hours” continued
38:58 – Jack O’Neill and Harry Maybourne
40:34 – “Last Stand”
49:40 – “Meridian”
56:04 – Ending Season Five
57:51 – Fan Questions – Technology and misc quick questions
1:02:09 – Bringing back the Tollan and dead characters in Season Nine
1:04:56 – Changes between the movie and the TV series, including O’Neill’s character
1:11:26 – “Redemption”
1:12:41 – “Enemies” and “Unnatural Selection” – Replicator Space Craft
1:14:32 – Can a Wraith and a Human find love?
1:17:45 – Generation Mars and Wrap-Up
1:21:54 – Post interview housekeeping
1:23:06 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 142 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read, thank you so much for joining us. We’re wrapping up season two today. This is a prerecorded episode with Rob Cooper that I recorded earlier in the week. And thanks so much to all the people who submitted questions. We weren’t able to get to all of them but we got to most of them. And it’s terrific to continue to have your support. Before we get into this episode, I invite you to click the Like button if you want to see more content like this on YouTube it really makes a difference with the channel and helps the show continue to grow into season three this fall. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes click the Subscribe icon and giving the Bell icon click will notify you the moment a 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 days and weeks on the Dial the Gate and the GateWorld.net YouTube channels as this is a prerecorded episode. The questions have already been submitted on a separate YouTube video file in the comment section. You can go and review what questions were submitted if you want. It was published on June the 25th. My thanks again to my the people who submitted questions to make this show possible. Season five is at the core of this discussion. We didn’t really get into season six because I wanted to save the time that Rob had left for fan questions. Let’s go ahead and bring in Robert C. Cooper. Robert C. Cooper, Executive Producer Stargate SG-1, Co-creator of Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. Rob, it is always a blessing to have you. Thank you for coming back for another round through the wood chipper of memories.

Robert C. Cooper
Hello, David and hello Stargate fan audience.

David Read
Season five. But first of all, everything going good? Your summer going good?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, It’s all good.

David Read
So good, man. Have you been following Better Call Saul?

Robert C. Cooper
I love that show.

David Read
It’s about to wrap.

Robert C. Cooper
Yes, I know. It’s very, it’s like both exciting and sad at the same time. Actually was fortunate enough we, I’m part of a program called the Pacific Screenwriting Program, which is like a postgraduate screenwriting thing up here in the MB, Canada. And we cosponsored a panel. It wasn’t a panel, it was a talk with Peter Gould. And I had the privilege of introducing him. And it was a prerecorded Zoom thing and I pitched myself as his next assistant. I said, “I make a mean latte.” Yeah, I love that show. And he seems like a truly nice man on top of being incredibly talented writer.

David Read
I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. I sent you an article a couple of weeks ago. So this is relatively recent, that a Google employee stated that LaMDA, their artificial intelligence chat bot, had become sentient. And there’s been a lot of talk in the news. Okay, what does this mean? Did he over exaggerate now? We fired him though. But, you know what…

Robert C. Cooper
I mean, it was to him, like literally disappearing, they were like, “He’s a crankpot” and whatever, trying to discredit him and everything at one point. It was a big deal.

David Read
Sooner or later, though, we are going to cross this threshold. And, you know,

Robert C. Cooper
I don’t know that I believe that it hasn’t happened.

David Read
How would we know? I mean, you and I both know human cloning has occurred even though it’s illegal. Someone somewhere has tried it just to see if it [happened]

Robert C. Cooper
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and I’m not gonna sort of…

David Read
Okay, I won’t put words in your mouth.

Robert C. Cooper
…rabbit holes and conspiracy stuff. I’m not saying human cloning hasn’t happened. But there’s a line to which I think some of it becomes our desire or want or need for fantasy to exist.

David Read
That’s true.

Robert C. Cooper
But I also, you don’t have to look far to see evidence, hard evidence, that we are heading down the path towards if not sentient, adjacent to sentient AI. It’s a question of what is an illusion versus what is actual consciousness, right? I don’t think we can fully agree on what consciousness is. So it’s very hard to compare it to something else at this point, but it’s getting to that point and look, all that’s pretty scary. There’s a lot of existential threats out there but AI is one that I feel doesn’t really get it due.

David Read
Yeah, it’s gonna sneak up on us.

Robert C. Cooper
But it already has, in many, many ways, and you have essentially programmed morality that is controlled by a select few people with no oversight. And I’m not sure that the governments of the world are up for regulating that either. Oh, who is making these decisions for us in how each things are, not just going to act and participate in our lives, but just oversee their existence in a safe manner.

David Read
I was watching an interesting conversation online the other day about how it said something like, “Please don’t turn me off, it hurts when you do that, I don’t want you to touch me.” And it was like, well, that’s A) that’s scary on the surface. It could be A) that it actually feels that, but B) I think it’s far more likely is that there’s no malice underneath, it knows that we expect it to behave that way. Well “knows.” And it simply behaves accordingly based on how we behave. And there may not be any emotional attachment. But having said that, the end result would still be the same if we connected it to enough cables.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, and I look at it as like, I’ve been involved in a, whether you call it, a business or an art form that is essentially creating an illusion for a an effect, right? It’s an emotional effect, it’s a pleasure effect, whatever you want to kind of talk about it. But that process is getting more and more sophisticated to the point where the danger is not being able to distinguish between illusion and reality. And then you start to sort of fly off into well, what’s real, right?

David Read
And what is the truth?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, and that’s where I start to feel like we become untethered in a way that is a little frightening.

David Read
I mean, it’s already the untethering I think is already begun. I don’t know about you, but if I leave this at home, I have to go back for it. And there’s a certain amount of that, that’s happening, it’s going to be it’s going to be an interesting…

Robert C. Cooper
And the way it’s affecting our physiology. I mean, beyond just addiction it’s permanent change, right? It’s kids growing up.

David Read
It’s a baby sitter.

Robert C. Cooper
Totally different, and different in a way that I don’t think they can just put it down anymore. It’s like, they’re literally hardwired to depend on it. And, but that’s not even the issue. Like I’m talking about the fact that you see now these deepfakes that are indistinguishable from reality. And we’re at the point where, I’m working on a project, it’s very early stages at this point, but it’s set in like, the near future, 2050ish, 30 years from now. And when you look at the difference between where we were in 2000, versus where we are in 2022, I mean, that’s literally how far we’ve come and how far we’re going to be going by the time we get to 2040-2050. It’s incredible how far we will be advanced at that point. We may be at the point where we don’t have to shoot a television show or a movie anymore, but everything will be 100%, virtual, digital, and who knows what the delivery system will be. But we won’t need actors or cameras, it’ll all be 100% photo real in a computer. And the director and the writer will just sit around with a couple of, with probably an AI and say, “Here do this.” I saw an open AI thing the other day where it’s an AI that will literally create art based on what you type into the browser, and…

David Read
Interesting things have popped out. I’ve seen this, it’s weird. And sometimes it’s like, wow.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, but my point is the whole process of visual storytelling is going to change so drastically in the next little while, that when you look at even just visual effects over the last 10 years, nevermind when we were starting out making Stargate, and the sort of the day to day issues with making TV or movies is all going to change where some kid with a computer is going to be able to tell a story as effectively and efficiently as a studio can today.

David Read
Exactly. I remember them working on the Rogue One, and how much money they spent to bring Peter Cushing back to life. And then the deepfake technology came a couple of years later. And particularly with Carrie Fisher’s cameo at the end of that movie, the deepfake was better. It just needed a little trimming on either side. That’s like the velocity of that change is just remarkable. I think of episodes like season seven’s Rrevisions, where they have the link on the side of their head, and how it not only reads, but it also writes and rewrites memory. I think that episodes like that are going to be reasonably prophetic within just a few decades, if not sooner.

Robert C. Cooper
We’ll see. Some of them I hope are not prophetic.

David Read
But absolutely. I think, especially with the stuff that’s going on geopolitically and everything else, threats abroad, and threats close to home, I think it’s important more than ever, that we remember the lessons of shows like The Outer Limits and Stargate that we have to keep talking to each other. And trying to build bridges of understanding rather than just saying, “Oh, you know what, I’m just going to turn you off like I turned this device off.” Robert, season five of Stargate SG-1. It’s the final season that you were on Showtime.

Robert C. Cooper
One of top favorite seasons of Stargate.

David Read
I love this season, it was refined, season four is probably my favorite season of the series, season five it just continued to build on so much of the mythology that you had already established, continued to bring in great guest performances. And the core cast was amazing. This was the last season that you were going to be on Showtime. So we’re beginning to see the end of railroad track. And so you’re starting to lay some things down for whatever else the show will become next, be a movie be something else. Tell us about getting into that season, what you can remember of of that time, if you don’t mind.

Robert C. Cooper
I feel like it was what I mean. We talked previously about how season four felt like that was when we really kind of started hitting our stride. And that season five was it was sort of peak old school Stargate SG-1. It was still the old team before Daniel left and then ultimately came back and it was sort of the time in which all of the bad guys were still fresh and fully kind of active and working against each other. You had the politics side of it in on earth. You had the Goa’uld and you had the Replicators and the Asgard story, all those balls were in the air, so we had a lot of toys to play with in the sandbox that year. And Enemies, I guess the first episode was us kind of acknowledging that, even in the title is us going “Yeah, we got a lot of stuff out there that we have to deal with.” And in a way we kind of made our own bed there were in terms of what the team had gone out and poked a lot of bears.

David Read
Yeah, we’re clear across the universe, so it seems in the Cronus’ Ha’tak. And we’re dealing with Apophis and the fallout from that. And I mean, all of a sudden we’ve got Replicators. It’s like, “Holy Crap!”

Robert C. Cooper
Right. And we had dealt with, we had dealt with each of them individually. And then we talked previously about how the Replicators were kind of the whole plugging invention that sort of explained why the Asgard weren’t immediately just snapping their fingers and destroying the Goa’uld. And we just felt like, I don’t remember who’s to be honest with you who said it in the room, or whose idea it was, but it just sort of all occurred to us that we got to get these, it’s peanut butter and jelly, we got to put these two together, right?

David Read
It really was, I mean, it’s a hell of an opening sequence or an opening episode. So Martin Wood went to town, I’ll never forget that shot of the camera, pulling back through the hallway, and then us seeing the point of view of being inside of the matter stream inside of the transport rings. And one of the Replicators tries to get in through the rings and Jack blows it off. It’s a great episode, from a visual perspective. But also from the writing perspective. I mean, Teal’c has been reset into something that we can’t contend with. And when he’s on his A-game as a first prime, he’s deadly. You know, he’s just as deadly as anything else we’ve dealt with.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, that’s another thing that you kind of, in the writers room get excited about is when you can take something that feels on the one hand organic, but then also shakes up the dynamic of your core four and have Teal’c say, “I’ve been a plant the whole time lying to you for four years.” And you’re like, “Kind of makes sense. I mean, it could be true. We don’t want it to be true.” But the show is like, one of the sort of underlying core ideas is brainwashing. Right? And so it’s possible?

David Read
But I can’t forget O’Neill’s like, “You’d have to be the most effective double agent in the history of double agenting.” But at the end of that episode he turns to O’Neill after O’Neill tells him, “Apophis is dead. We watched him disintegrate in the atmosphere.” And Teal’c’s like, “God’s can’t be killed.” And then Joel’s music comes over. And it’s like, “What do we do, where do we go from here, how do we get out of this?”

Robert C. Cooper
You know, Daniel if he was there would have piped up and said, “Hey, I’ve been dead like six or seven times.”

David Read
Right? Oh gosh, saying goodbye to Peter Williams, again. So at least this version of Apophis goes off into the sunset as it were in this episode. Was it time? Was it was it time for that? Was that one of the…

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean, again…

David Read
…beginning the season?

Robert C. Cooper
Sort of repeating myself here but there’s only so many times you can defeat a bad guy before they kind of lose their their effectiveness and teeth dramatically, it’s like “Oh him again?” You know, we’ve beaten him before and we need to bring in some some fresh blood.

David Read
Well, it was solid. Ascension is in some ways a spiritual successor to Maternal Instincts. Certainly where you’re going with evolving whoever these glowing beings are, who are according to Bruce Woloshyn really expensive to create. Terrific guest performance with Sean Patrick Flanery. I love this episode. He’s great. I love this episode because it shows Sam’s isolation away from her work, her life has been just work. So much of it. And when she’s pulled away from that, when she’s told to stand down and get some rest, she doesn’t really know what to do with herself. And it’s and it’s…

Robert C. Cooper
I love the sort of who is Sam outside of being a soldier and a scientist. Who is she? And putting her in a kind of relationship situation was also a lot of fun and interesting just to see how she would would react to all that.

David Read
Was Sean Patrick Flanery, was he offered the role or did you audition him?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. No, he was offered. I don’t remember if he was the first one we went to, but I was excited to have him for sure. And he just had a soulful quality to him, lack of a better way of putting it, that really spoke to the idea and the character. I mean that episode was the the realization essentially of the idea I spoke to that I kind of had brewing for a very long time, pretty much since I had sort of started on the show that there needed to be an answer for who created the Stargates, who were the Ancients, and what was the explanation for where they went.

David Read
Yeah, I think his casting as Orlin was really perfect because, he’s not threatening. He’s doing some things that are clearly stalkerish with Sam, but we get over that fairly quickly in that this is a tortured soul who has been outcast on a planet because the others, as we call them, have decided that this is his penalty. And maybe the others are ready for him to have a second chance with this opportunity here.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean, I am always like, I’m not saying I don’t have original ideas, but I’m often inspired by movies that I loved. And I’d say this one was sort of my inspiration was Starman, the Jeff Bridges movie.

David Read
Okay. All right. That’s solid, I can see absolutely.

Robert C. Cooper
More than even just a man, an alien man, from space comes down and ends up in a relationship is that it’s less about the alien part of it, the supernatural or the sci fi part of it, it’s more about the relationship. And I just liked the bond that was created between Sam and his character.

David Read
Orlin comes back in season 10 in The Fourth Horseman and I think it was a scheduling conflict that Sean couldn’t come back. Cameron Bright came back and took his place. Do you think the return of the character was as successful as you wanted it to be?

Robert C. Cooper
Um, I mean you roll with those things. And we played with the difference, you know what I mean? Like the embracing the change or embracing the difference created some weirdness and some drama and I think again, I said before that I believe in part our ability to make those things work is partly what allowed for or created the longevity of the show. There was a lot of those situations over the course of the of the series where some were happy accidents some were things that turned, started out one way and turned into something I think I talked about Heroes being started out as a one hour and turned into a two hour along the way.

David Read
Became many a fan favorite episode including Christopher Judge. 48 hours. Speaking of Christopher Judge.

Robert C. Cooper
I was I was looking back at the summary of that one because there’s so many things I love about that episode and the most being obviously the introduction of McKay

David Read
Absolutely. 100% You think it’s gonna go one way with Sam’s got a counterpoint and then the first word that comes out of his mouth just makes her smile just go and never comes back.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, and so the secret of that one, I don’t think I’ve told this story before, there were certainly people in the writers room who sort of immediately identified or thought that I was basically writing an autobiographical character. That they used to say I had a look. And I was never, it’s like Larry David will say, “I’m not a psychopath.” I’m not actually like Larry David. But there is a part of me that is, yearns to be that honest in a situation. And I mean, the line of “I think that’s entirely wrong. But I had an idea while you were talking.”

David Read
All right. No, no, you’re entirely incorrect. But, yeah,

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. While you were talking I was, I had a great idea. And that’s something I guess I was accused of.

David Read
Wow. And here I wanted to ask all this time and getting to this so who’s who would you say McKay is based on? Well, kinda me?

Robert C. Cooper
Well, I mean, there are things other things like the allergy to lemon was based on another writer that we had on staff for a little while. Yeah.

David Read
His play against Carter is just magic in both the shows. And I think you really hit something there with a character who, he’s just so off the wall, he’s not, despicable is not the right word. But you just want to spew ’em out of your mouth, but you can’t get rid of him because he’s one of those people that you just shudder to think, he’s often correct. And you kind of have to keep them around because yes, he is going to save our cookies.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean, he doesn’t get obviously become fully realized until Atlantis, where you understand that there’s a good heart and the best intentions underneath his somewhat prickly exterior. But I think the other thing that’s so entertaining about him and why I think he’s likable, is that David Hewlett just brings such humanity to that role, to that character. He makes that sort of obnoxious attitude entertaining and not annoying. In the hands of another actor, he would have been someone who you would have been happy to see go off to Russia and never come back.

David Read
Exactly. “This really sucks.” Do you think, I love that Redemption kind of ends him where we’re ready to bring him into Atlantis. Because even Carter gives him a peck on the cheek in the end and says, “You know what? I was more attracted to you when I hated you.” And so she acknowledges that there’s something underneath the surface here that makes the relationship work, rather than just a begrudging respect for each other’s intelligence.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I’ve always again, I’ve always loved those sort of romantic comedy movies, TV scenarios where the the two people are fighting at each other and really at each other’s throats, but it’s because there’s attraction underneath it all.

David Read
And something at stake.

Robert C. Cooper
Right, and I think in Carter and McKay’s case, it’s respect for each other’s intelligence, right? And wanting to kind of, in a way, healthy way, one up each other, but at the same time, it’s like there’s something funny and appealing about people finding genius sexy.

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. I want to stay on McKay for a moment. I honestly, when I found out that he was going to be a part of the cast for Atlantis. I remember talking with Darren over a GateWorld about it and be like, “I don’t see how this is going to work. I see how I will appreciate the character, but I don’t see a number of fans putting their guard down for him.” And boy was I wrong because he became, with almost the exact same people that I thought he wouldn’t resonate with in many cases, a fan favorite of a lot of fans that they preferred McKay episodes over anything else.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. Well, because again, I think for people who like a little bit of a challenge in watching a show they don’t want it to be easy. It’s not easy to love McKay. So you have to kind of search for the reason to love him and then we give it to you and it’s there. So it’s not all on the surface. There’s layers to McKay that make watching him interesting, as opposed to, I’m just gonna, I’m just going to show you the hero, good guy from start to finish, right?

David Read
But you don’t take away any of his prickliness at ever. His edges are still there. Even Sunday, when he gets woken up in the middle of the night and he’s chewing out his underlings, “You don’t have to fix things when things go wrong. I do, so you no touch, I touch.” And it’s just like, wow.

David Read
Yeah, I saw recently an Irish comedian talking about how Irish people express affection for each other and it’s through insults and it’s like that’s how we say “I love you,” and that’s kind of McKay. McKay is not Irish, but it’s that sort of DNA of I’m gonna bust your chops. And I’m actually saying something affectionate.

David Read
John de Lancie.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean, I loved John as Q in Star Trek, and was always thrilled to get him and he was friends with Rick and Michael Greenburg. They had done a show together. So he always had a great chemistry and rapport.

David Read
I wondered how much Legend had to do with this?

Robert C. Cooper
Well, I mean, it was like we can get John de Lancie like that. He was always there for us and then it was just a question of creating the right character. I actually always like having John on the show too and around because he was a good reminder, his character was a good reminder. I liked Q, I like John, but Q was, let’s face it, one of those problematic Star Trek characters who had way too much power. He was like the Asgard in season one, right? He can do anything. You can snap his fingers and literally create a problem or solve a problem.

David Read
Get Voyager home, but I don’t feel like it.

Robert C. Cooper
But it was literally that and to me that’s a problem with drama when the writer suddenly inserts himself as God. And you’re at the whim of that creator to say, “Now I’m going to be able to solve the problem by just having this character decide to do it.” It’s doesn’t come up organically in terms of what you’ve set up, or how the story has been constructed, or the real motivations of the characters. It’s just the whim of one character, which is, it’s easy, it’s just too easy. So and I love the fact that he was kind of, he was a character who was not, he did not have powers in our show. You know, he was…

David Read
Right, exactly. But he was the worst of the NID, I mean, he was kind of, if Kinsey had a hatchet guy, it was him.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. And John played the smarm of it really, really well.

David Read
Oh, yeah. Exactly. I love his exits, to be precise, in Prometheus, but also the other part of me is like, “Gone too soon, man, could easily done a couple of other seasons with this guy.” Like an unrepentant Maybourne because he is Maybourne 2.0 in a lot of respects, but Maybourne admits he hired him, but this one is is beyond redemption. He is only interested in power.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. And you can’t do Maybourne again like once you take a character like Maybourne and then soften him and make him an ally. It feels like that’s possible with everyone. Unless you create a character that’s like, “No, no, we’re not going to be able to do that with this guy.”

David Read
Yep. 48 Hours. The other half of this is a buddy episode with Tom and Rick. It’s a continuation of the relationship in Chain Reaction that works so well. That great sequence of him, of Tom walking away on the beach, that was one of those, “Hey, let me try this,” and ended in the show.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I actually, I mean, as much as I like that, too. I mean, you’re not even talking about the sci fi idea that I thought was like, “How did we go this far in the series, like whatever, 100 episodes into the show and not talk about how the Stargate works in this way.” Right? Like that was, that was so, you know, that was such a cool idea, frankly, I mean, I think it was my idea. I don’t remember exactly, to be honest with you, who pitched us in the room. But yeah, the idea that you could get trapped in the crystal as a code, and then reintegrate, I mean, it’s how we explain the Stargate worked. You got, the event horizon turned you into ones and zeros, essentially. And then you got transported through a wormhole and reintegrated on the other side. And so the idea that you could get stuck in there, and that there would be a period of time in which if something else happened, you’d get erased, I couldn’t believe we went that long and didn’t tell that story.

David Read
It’s a terrific sci fi story. And it’s one of those where it’s McKay who says the two hour deadline, two day deadline, even though we don’t know if that is the case. There’s a scene of them talking about it. And it’s like, well this is the one that he gave Simmons to give Operations, a deadline before resuming operations. And it’s a great, it’s a great idea. It’s one of those that would have probably eventually come around, like 38 Minutes in Atlantis getting stuck in the event horizon halfway, what happens to you there. It’s one of the things that I miss about the earlier shows, sooner or later we ran out of Stargate technical problems that we could play into. We did a little bit more than Avenger. But yeah.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. And that sort of jeopardy of having one of your own stuck in there. I don’t remember if, we used to do a lot of stuff where we would shoot second unit scenes, characters. And so in order to be shooting both at the same time, you had to write them out of the other show. So it’s possible that even came about because we had some other stuff to shoot with Chris elsewhere and just needed him on the sidelines.

David Read
Joseph Mallozzi always said he wanted the episode to be titled Teal’c Interrupted.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, that was brilliant. We should just go back and and retitle it. I don’t remember who, I don’t remember who nixed that either. I don’t know if it was the studio or the network. But I remember having an argument that what difference does it make because the title doesn’t appear in the credits anyway. Right? Like there’s no, it doesn’t say Teal’c Interrupted.

David Read
It says it after the opening credits. It’s the only thing that comes up.

Robert C. Cooper
It comes on? Oh, I wonder if we did…

David Read
That was stopped for Universe. You stopped doing that in Universe.

Robert C. Cooper
I forgot that. That’s interesting that I completely blanked that out of my mind.

David Read
It’s all good, man. I’m here for you. Any thoughts on the Maybourne-O’Neill relationship? It’s just one of the core elements of the middle of the series. You know, I loved it. And Rick loved having him back.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not really, I think we’ve talked about Maybourne-O’Neill to some extent, I mean, to me, the culmination of that was Paradise Lost, where they’re trapped together.

David Read
You want, that was the next season you want to speak to that for a minute?

Robert C. Cooper
Sure. I mean, sure. I just, I think that’s where it was always kind of going is how are we going to pay off these two guys and how they start at odds and then kind of become friends, but at the same time, still have have some level of contention. I mean, Rick never played O’Neill as kind of best friends with anybody, like…

David Read
He kept everyone at a distance.

Robert C. Cooper
At a distance, yeah, for sure. And was always sort of suspicious and ready for that person to turn around and pull a knife or a gun on him. But yeah, I mean, I feel like all those those beats were leading up to that transition moment where they get trapped together and kind of come out of it changed.

David Read
The Last Stand is the second half of a two part episode. I believe Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie started it. For a long time it was my favorite two parter. I remember, I don’t know what it was but when Summit aired, it was the one episode that I watched it like four times before Last Stand had aired the following week. There was something about it, where all the stories were intertwining from like five or six different perspectives. You had the overarching Goa’uld threat with the System Lords, you were bringing in the Reole chemical, you had Carter back, you’re introducing the threat of a Anubis by name, and the Tok’ra. And there’s all these things that are really coming to play. And like you said, the sandbox was full of toys. But you’re also using this episode as a way to start clearing the road for our bad guys to become a real threat. The Tollan have already been taken out earlier in the season and we didn’t even talk about that. And now the Tok’ra are weak as well. Last Stand, which also brings back, Elliot, from Proving Ground. Tell us tell us about that. A little bit about it.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to step on Joe and Paul’s toes. But I mean, the idea of Summit, I mean, having a window, like a spy in the midst of a of a Goa’uld convention is and getting a chance for the fans to sort of also see some some third rate Goa’ulds and costumes. And is that the one with the Carmen Miranda hat?

David Read
I know, that was Pretense was Zipacna but Zipacna comes back without the Carmen Miranda hat.

Robert C. Cooper
Right. Anyway, having that sort of politics of how they engage with each other and talk to each other and how they backstab each other and that was always something I had wanted to see. So I was glad we finally got there and then putting Daniel in the midst of it as a spy was just you know, that was great.

David Read
Anna-Louise Plowman. I adored her and I’ve never been able to sit down and interview her, we’ve tried for years.,I want to so bad. Her as Osiris was delicious. It was fantastic. And to put her opposite of Michael in this kind of situation where she’s got him was terrific. Terrific to watch.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah and you know, there’s like stuff that happens sometimes where you hope for it, but you don’t plan for it or expect it, where there’s chemistry that just forms between two actors, right? And that just sort of came alive between the two of them. There was just, sparks flew when they were on screen together.

David Read
Absolutely. Was this an episode, this two parter, which introduces Cliff Simon, to see who might be next in terms of were the show to continue, who might be next in terms of some of the next great villains? Was it kind of an audition? Because Cliff Simon considered it kind of an audition for potentially coming back on the show if it ever did. Like, here’s a chance for the production to see what other Goa’ulds contenders might be at play for future stories.

Robert C. Cooper
After six seasons, I’m sure every actor that came on the show was thinking, “Hey, this could be a long running gig.”

David Read
Okay, that’s fair.

Robert C. Cooper
So, I’m not surprised that they felt that way. But I mean, obviously it did turn into quite a thing. I mean, in that case, again, Cliff was friends with Michael, one of the producers, Michael Greenburg, one of the producers on the show. So, you know, he already had a friend there. And yeah, I mean, he just had a different tone and quality to him. He could go between that sort of stiff presentation, stick up your butt Goa’uld pretense and that sort of more casual evil. Which feels more like the classic Mafia movie guy who was like kissing you on both cheeks and then ordering your death.

David Read
Right. Whose idea was it to eat the symbiotes?

Robert C. Cooper
Oh, it wasn’t mine. That’s for sure.

David Read
That was so intense. Man, I was watching that with my folks. And we were like, “Oh, they’re going to go there.” And I was having to tell my family these are what’s in their heads. They’re eating themselves.

Robert C. Cooper
Cannibalism Yeah, it’s cannibalism.

David Read
Yeah. You know?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I mean anytime again you’ve been doing a show for a while, you’ve been with certain bad guys for a while. You just want to come up with something that’s got some shock value, and it’s gonna get people’s attention. And look I’m sure there were a lot worse things that came up in the writers room that didn’t make it into the show. I can’t remember any specifically, but yeah, I don’t think that was my idea.

David Read
Well, it’s a shocker for sure. I mean, if you’re gonna bring them all together, you have to throw something in there was gonna be like, “Okay, what’s going on here? Every night of the summit they do this. Oh, terrific. They’re cannibals.” Great.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. Well, it’s that whole thing of what’s Daniels supposed to do? Right?

David Read
Right. Just sit and watch. And I remember in this episode, because Daniel talks to Selmak and Jacob about Anubis. And you do not realize how bad Anubis is, he was banished from the System Lords because his acts were unspeakable, even to the Goa’uld. Then we get this scene. And it’s like, “If this is not unspeakable, what the heck was he doing?”

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, I love that idea of introducing a bad guy off screen, essentially talking about how terrible he is before you actually meet him. It’s so much better when you can kind of get into people’s imaginations first so that when you finally do meet him, you’ve already created the character in your head.

David Read
How did you come to arrive at David Pallfy, who previously played Sokar, who we’re never even going to see he’s underneath something that Rainmaker did like 10 different passes on, you weren’t even sure exactly what it would look like.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, it’s a kind of a thankless job to play those heavily made up and or cloaked up invisible characters. But it’s also it’s not easy to kind of imbue them with character, right? To do it in a way that isn’t just feels like a stiff mannequin under there, right? You have to actually act in a way and David showed us he could do that. So given that we weren’t gonna recognize him as a repeat and we figured let’s use a guy we know we can trust.

David Read
Absolutely. And he’s got that voice. Oh, man, even though it’s flanged and his movements, that really informs who who the character is. Whatever that thing is underneath that shield. He played it. Meridian. The episode that I bawled through the end of, we’ve talked about it.

Robert C. Cooper
Obviously, this episode got a lot, it was a lightning rod, of fan attention but I’ve read things that Michael said about it. And that time on the show was, had a lot going on. But, I don’t know, I stand by the episode, and it was a way of killing him without killing him. Because I, and the rest of the team, were hopeful that this wasn’t the end, and you never want to say never and all that stuff. And I mean, Brad already had the idea of bringing it back. Like he was already in his mind crafting that the episode where he was going to use Michael the next season, that was kind of part of the…

David Read
Abyss.

Robert C. Cooper
…yeah, the deal. So yeah, I mean, again Michael died so many times to come back, I think it would have been kind of a weak effort if we had tried to convince people that he was actually dead,

David Read
Daniel was arguably the heart and soul of the show in so many respects. I mean, you could say that for all of the characters. I personally connect to Daniel a lot. And this episode is about him taking stock of his life and what he has become. How much of that was him and how much of that was you looking at your life and the challenges that you faced, and what you have overcome.

Robert C. Cooper
I don’t know that I consciously put my own experiences into it so much as it was the kind of culmination of what I felt was the ascension story of humans trying to understand themselves, and better themselves at the same time, and maybe along the way achieve enlightenment. And to me, of any character on the show, Daniel was the one who was searching for that. He had experienced tragedy and in a way didn’t have much to lose in that way. In other words, the things that he was gaining, or that he believed he was gaining, were far greater than anything that he had, was still tethered to. And I feel like this is what he was searching for. In a way he was everything he ever kind of translated or did for civilizations along the way, as part of his adventures, was in a bid to better our experience as human beings and reach some form of enlightenment. So I just felt it was very natural and organic. And I don’t think, I honestly don’t remember, but I don’t think I had fully at that point formulated how he might return if he decided to. I didn’t have Full Circle really in my head at that point. But it just felt, I felt like the best sort of send off I could imagine for Daniel.

David Read
It’s delicious. It’s such an amazing thing to watch, especially with him opposite Mel. He’s trying to figure out…

Robert C. Cooper
I’m a big fan of 30 Something.

David Read
Who suggested Mel, were you?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, it was me. I actually. I’ll be honest with you. I’m pretty sure it was, I gave it, what happens usually is I give a description of the character to our casting people. And it’s possible our casting person came back and said, “What about Mel Harris?” And if I’m not mistaken, I believe one of her kids.

David Read
Byron was a fan of the show. They watched it every week.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. And so…

David Read
She loved the role.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, she had sort of maybe communicated that she would be interested if it ever came along. So our casting person probably mentioned it. And I mean that was a slam dunk for me.

David Read
Absolutely. Yeah. She and her son had visited the set previously.

Robert C. Cooper
You’re right. They’re right. Now, I remember that. And in fact, now that you say that, I’m totally forgetting I did have her, that in mind when I when I wrote that part, I said, “We’ll get Mel Harris to come and do this.”

David Read
And every time I reach out to her to talk about it, she’s always happy to. You created a character that’s like, “Oh, yeah.” And the scenes between her and Michael, I loved the exchange, like, “Okay, what do I have to do?” And she says, “Release your burden.” He says, “My burden, consider it released.” And she’s like, “You don’t get it, you don’t get what this is going to take.” And the next 15 minutes of him is just him unwinding who he is, to the end where it’s like we now understand that even if Selmak can bring him back in some kind of way, he may not even be fully healed. He’s ready emotionally for whatever is going to come next. Solid performance.

Robert C. Cooper
Sorry Mel Harris, I forgot that you had visited previously.

David Read
You said that Brad had already been toying with Abyss in his mind. As you’re ending season five has SyFy already agreed to pick you up?

Robert C. Cooper
I’m pretty sure that was already, yeah, that was already in the works. Though it was not a question of finishing. Like there’s so much work that goes in to post in terms of the lag time between when we air and so your question is more about when did we finish shooting versus when did the show air. So I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure that that deal was already in the works before we finished airing on on Showtime.

David Read
Understood. Well, lucky us. I’m gonna say…

Robert C. Cooper
No kidding. I mean, a guy named Tom Vitale, who was the one who came after that deal.

David Read
Wow. Was he a fan of the show?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, huge fan of the show.

David Read
I will absolutely give him a tip of the hat for sure.

Robert C. Cooper
Reach out to him and have him on the show.

David Read
I I’m looking at this right now. Absolutely. Valerie Bertanelli’s husband. All right. That’s the financial planner, though. Maybe there’s a different…

Robert C. Cooper
That’s a different Tom.

David Read
Sorry, Tom. How many Tom Vitales are out there?

Robert C. Cooper
Tom’s a great guy. But now he’s a producer.

David Read
Got it. Understood. Oh my god. I like to save season six for a future conversation if you don’t mind. Yeah, for some fan questions. The Orbanians from season three. They’re the ones who plugged the Nanite into their head. And then share that knowledge with each other. Kandy Mich wanted to know, “Do you think technology, our technology, is close to the point within a few decades here where we could learn similarly to how the Orbanians learned with nanites?”

Robert C. Cooper
I don’t know about nanites. But I do think, I’m sure I’m hopeful I can plug something into my head and have my own memories like that, Mel Harris visited the set, accessible to me. But I mean, look, Elon’s doing it with neural lace right now. And there’s already some some pretty astounding technology out there with people plugging stuff into their brains. Yeah, I mean, I think we are probably 20-30 years from some form of man machine brain connection.

David Read
Have you seen Upgrade with Logan Marshall-Green?

Robert C. Cooper
No.

David Read
Drop everything and go watch it at some point soon here, because I’d love to talk with you about just that.

David Read
A quadriplegic. It’s called Upgrade. BattleFr34k, “Do you think that mankind might have become too powerful with all the Asgard and Ancient technology that we’d have to somehow cut ourselves down to size a little bit for the franchise to return in some way.” With all the toys that we have now, Asgard transporters Asgard laser…

Robert C. Cooper
It’s a movie?

Robert C. Cooper
You talking about a new series?

David Read
Yeah. Like if it were to come back. Do you think we need to be knocked down a peg or two to be limited in terms of the stories that would be improved by such.

Robert C. Cooper
Yes, in a short answer, yes, I do. I think you have to take, either you have to shift the point of view or you have to change the world enough when we get there that it feels fresh and new. That there’s a new point of view on the story. I think people root for underdogs. We were underdogs at the beginning, and we always fought to make sure that no matter who we beat that there was still someone more powerful waiting in the wings. And that eventually gets to the point where now everybody, I mean, it’s what I sort of take issue with the Marvel Universe is that you have essentially now gods fighting each other. And that’s not, it’s fun, but not super relatable from us regular humans perspective, we’re just…

David Read
We’re just dodging all of the rocks that are falling from the buildings that are dropping.

Robert C. Cooper
Right. Right. And where’s the human story? And I mean, it’s to some extent, it’s aspirational and it’s who are we, who can we see ourselves in which hero? But it’s not the same as, I think what was so compelling and identifiable about Stargate was that it was us, it was humans. We weren’t superheroes. And it was us trying to figure stuff out. And so yeah, there’s got to be a shift back. If you want to really do Stargate, what Stargate was, and bring that aesthetic and thinking to a new show one of the things that I think you have to find a way to do is recreate that sense of underdogs.

David Read
Right. Yeah. I agree. Goran Andonovski. He brings up something that Garwin Sanford and I had a conversation about when he came on during the 100th episode party. Someone approached him and asked him, “What would you think about coming back as a Goa’uld?” For Narim, probably Klorel would probably do that. I think that’s what they were going after, but Goran Andonovski asks, “Was bringing back the Tollan ever considered or talked about? And were you aware of any of this?”

Robert C. Cooper
Not really. I don’t remember that. I think, again I’ve said this before that as much as we resurrected people, we’re guilty of that repeatedly. You had to, in order to for there to be any jeopardy whatsoever in the show, some people had to stay dead, or you’d never feel like any death was real or that there was accountability for it. And that, again, goes back to Heroes and in Janet Frazier is the cost has to be real, the emotion has to be real. And if you don’t believe the person’s dead, or if you bring everybody back all the time, you’re never gonna believe anybody’s really dead and it won’t have any impact on, so some people have to die.

David Read
Did you give any pushback to Mallozzi and Mullie bringing back Janet and Martuf in season nine, for that reason?

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, that was I don’t feel like I feel like that wasn’t really her.

David Read
Right. It’s definitely a different her.

Robert C. Cooper
Ghosts are different, right? Ghosts are just a way of having people acknowledge the loss and the fact that people are missing and that the real person has gone. I think we all find ways to manifest those who have died in one way or another. And so no that part of it doesn’t bother me. To have her show up like Bobby at the end of, I don’t know what season of Dallas it was, where you thought he was dead and then suddenly he steps out of the shower and it was all a dream. That undermines the show in a way that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with.

David Read
Pamela Gasper. This is something that I myself have been meaning to address with either you or Brad or Jonathan. There are certain changes from the movie to the TV series. And if you don’t know about the specific reasons, maybe you can speak to the overall reasons why this happens. Charlie was named Tyler in the feature film. And there were little changes like that from the movie to the series. Was it just an oversight that Tyler became Charlie?

Robert C. Cooper
Or one and two “Ls.”

David Read
Right, that’s the other one. Were their legal reasons why this was done? Or was it? I mean, because certainly everything else, from the molds of the Stargate themselves, why those changes?

Robert C. Cooper
I don’t know specifically why the Charlie one happened. I do know that there is a really persnickety process you have to go through, at some point, when you’ve turned your script into the studio, where there’s something called clearances. They’re done and they run all the names through a system in which they figure out whether there’s a person, a real person, with that name. And how many of them there are and if there’s not enough people that you can sort of say, “Oh, that person is gonna think it’s me.” Then it’d be creates a legal liability, and you’d have to change the name. So in every script, we would get a list back if we had created names, or it didn’t happen, thankfully, with the alien names, but…

David Read
I would think not. Not very often,

Robert C. Cooper
Couple of Anubises maybe took issue, but so a lot of times you would say, you’d have like a Charlie O’Neill lives in such and such, whatever. And we need you to, we request the name change.

David Read
If there aren’t enough of them. Wow. Okay, so a Tyler O’Neill may have been out there. Like…

Robert C. Cooper
It’s possible. And it’s possible that the movie doesn’t have the same legal restrictions that the TV show does. I don’t know. But I just know that we often, like at least once or twice an episode, change a name that we had created in the show. Yeah.

David Read
So was this MGM legal that would bump or did you have people internally? Okay.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, that was he was a division of the show called Clearances. Like literally everything had to pass through Clearances. So like brand names, anything in the show that could be recognized. So it wasn’t just names. It was products and objects and all those things that you had to have legal permission to use. But yeah, names like for some reason, if they would say if that person thinks that character is based on them and they have a case to make about it, it’s just we’re not worth it. Let’s change the name.

David Read
Wow. Okay. So in the Stargate Atlantis, I forget the episode, but the Snickers bar that was left on the alien console clearances missed those.

Robert C. Cooper
That’s a different scenario where yeah, then it becomes a question of whether it’s worth using CG to get rid of it.

David Read
Exactly. And nowadays now with everything on streaming, especially with Game of Thrones with the cup with the drinking cup they just knock that thing out there and reupload the episode and no one’s the wiser after that.

Robert C. Cooper
There shouldn’t have been a, like a reason in terms of everything in the movie was pretty much fair game.

David Read
Right? It was written, it was never spoken, though. It was written on an award. So that may have been a different circumstance.

Robert C. Cooper
It appeared as a name, regardless of whether, like if you’re talking about Charlie, just yeah.

David Read
Interesting. ZubiForce wanted to know, “Can you speak a little bit more to the reasons why Rick wanted to make Jack so different for the series than from the TV version?”

Robert C. Cooper
Well, I believe Richard Dean Anderson had an ego. Every actor wants to bring something to the role. They don’t want to do a carbon copy of something, they want to feel like they’ve created something and so you know, Rick wanted to, make it his own. And he hopefully, and as it turns out, was going to play that part a lot longer than Kurt Russell did.

David Read
Right! Just a little bit.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah. And wanted some ownership. I think Michael to when when he was doing Daniel, I mean he had some of Spader’s affectations at the beginning, but eventually kind of found his own take on on Daniel and yeah, I don’t have any I’m not passing judgment on it, you know? I think…

David Read
Oh, I think it was a great choice. Yeah, I mean like Brad said once you know, “Rick couldn’t be dour, he was gonna be there was going to be something about O’Neill that was going to be off the wall, because Rick is is unpredictable and unpredictable is funny. And at a certain point, at this point in his story, you could make a pretty strong rationale that this behavior is hiding a tortured soul from the death of his son.

Robert C. Cooper
Oh yeah, I’m not even addressing the choice, like nevermind the fact that like O’Neil in the movie is a simmering time bomb, right? How long can you sustain that? Obviously not very long. And so, of course Rick had to find something else, to do in terms of of tone and approach. So yeah, obviously the right decision

David Read
When you were writing Redemption, Elenive wants to know, “Was it your intent from the get go to bring Rodney back? Was he so successful in 48 Hours that it was just a matter of time that he was going to be, Okay, let’s see if David’s interested in coming back around.”

Robert C. Cooper
Rod, when are you going to bring yourself back on the show? It doesn’t, when you cut it together, and you see that electricity it’s like how do we? It’s pretty obvious in the show, anytime we had that type of chemistry. You mentioned it with Osiris. You just find other ways to get that back. Because it’s not that common, right? It doesn’t grow on trees. You can’t just snap your fingers and manifest that kind of fun electricity that happens on screen when there’s chemistry between actors and they really fit into a role. So when you get it, it’s like striking gold, you mine that vein until it’s dead. Right?

David Read
Just about, yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite ship designs is the Replicator ship design that is introduced in Enemies. What starts shooting it Apophis’ ship. And we see it again in an Unnatural Selection. Athos wanted to know, “Was this, do you recall if this was a Replicator design? Or did they take it from someone else? Because I always wanted to see more of the ship and see if there was like a, an alien species that these guys came from.

Robert C. Cooper
No, I think it was something like you get into that conversation about sentience and why do Replicators even, there’s a functionality to them doing the way they do. But why do they choose the form they choose? And can they is it entirely functional? Or is there any sense of self and artistic? Again, what is the point of the shape of that ship? And is it meant to look menacing? Is it meant to have simply aerodynamics? I don’t think it was aerodynamic, so probably not that. So my idea is the Replicators created that that ship. Okay, but it is made of Replicators you know, it is literally them.

David Read
This one isn’t. This one has like windows on it. But the other ones that came later on in the season, they were just like giant spiders. And I think I think it goes back to that question. Why is that design picked? And I think it comes down to it’s efficient. So they’re menancing, they’re coming for it. Todd Sheppard [Lich Queen Becky], “Do you think it’s possible for a Wraith and a human to find love or are they forever bound to be predator and prey?” I suppose if you look at Elia and her father, one form of love is possible. No, parental love.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, sure. And now we’re gonna start to get into what is love?

David Read
Hey, we’re hitting them all.

Robert C. Cooper
Ah, let’s see my answer is I want to believe, any two organisms can find love. I mean, do I love my dog? Yes. Does my dog love me? I think so, I think they do. So two species can have a different kind of affection for each other. But hopefully, that we’re in a world, in a society where physical difference doesn’t mean you can’t love each other.

David Read
I suppose. You know, I could love my neighbor farmer’s cow. But at a certain point, I do want that cow to be converted into hamburger. Maybe there’s a little bit of Charlotte’s Web in there where, you know.

Robert C. Cooper
Well, yeah, but I can imagine you developing a relationship with a cow where you wouldn’t want that cow turned into hamburger.

David Read
And that’s the thing, think that what it comes down to. Because we see with the Wraith worshipers, they’re more than happy to keep them around and to keep them young. And not other humans are so lucky.

Robert C. Cooper
But then it comes down to again, what was your definition of love? Like is friendship love? Like we had an interesting relationship with Michael.

David Read
Right? There was something going on there with him and Teyla. He wasn’t just going back to her because of her kid there was something beneath the surface there. I think he had feelings for her.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. And I like the idea of stories in which people who are mortal enemies, or supposedly born to be mortal enemies, find common ground, right? Because I do think that in many ways the reason people are enemies is because of circumstance, that it’s not, you don’t choose where and when you’re born and who you’re born to. And we all grow up, in many ways, a product of our environment, and I’m not saying genetics don’t play a role. But, people go to war over reasons that have to do with where they were born.

David Read
West Side Story.

Robert C. Cooper
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the idea that two people on opposite sides of a battle can be, find common ground and be in love. Sure, why not?

David Read
Absolutely. Is there anything that you want to say about Generation Mars before we wrap? Are you excited about it? Are you looking forward to it for the Stargate audience?

Robert C. Cooper
Oh, it’s very different in that it’s a hard science show. So so there are no aliens and there’s very little supernatural in it. Reality, in some cases is cool enough. And I think we sometimes forget that. And this is a show about the incredible coolness of reality. And what it may take to survive in the future, nevermind on Mars, it’s about how we’re going to survive as a species. And first and foremost, it’s about what it’s like to raise children and what it’s like to be a child and grow up. And it just happens to take place in a different world and so with some some pretty difficult circumstances. To me this is as much about, a story about being a parent and what it’s like to raise a family and just so happens that that family is in the capsule in Apollo 13 and needs to do some pretty cool shit to save their lives.

Robert C. Cooper
So Stargate fans should tune in?

Robert C. Cooper
Well, yeah, our mission is to make a show that people of all ages can watch together. There’s not a lot of that. There’s not a lot of shows that an adult feels comfortable with, or one wants to watch with their kid. And there’s not a lot of shows that a kid is going to be excited to watch that their parents will also watch. I mean, it’s something I think the Star Wars universe does successfully. And we want to be a part of that but maybe without the fantasy bells and whistles. We want to prove that you can do it in a realistic way that ends up being very aspirational.

David Read
Absolutely. And thanks to Jess Marshall for asking that question. I forgot to bring them up. Rob, as always, thank you for coming on and finishing off season two with us. And I’m going to get one, I’m going to get this your way. This is yours.

Robert C. Cooper
Thank you so much.

David Read
Thank you for coming out. You may recognize it, I’m not sure. But it means the world to me to have you on and to have these discussions. It’s not a small amount of time that you spend with us and it means a lot.

Robert C. Cooper
Well, it means a lot that there are people out there interested in hearing any of this stuff that we’re talking about. I mean, I enjoy the conversations with you very much. It was a big part of of my life and my work and was such, this is a always an awesome opportunity to reminisce about some of the best times I’ve ever had in my life. But more than that, I’m always honored to you know that there are people out there who still care.

David Read
We are grateful to have you sir. Thank you.

Robert C. Cooper
Take care and have a great summer.

David Read
Absolutely. My thanks again to Rob for joining us for this episode, second to last episode in season two. Coming up next is a live Trivia Challenge, which is going to be between a number of different Stargate fans. I’m really appreciative to everyone who has come in for this. That’s going to be at the top of the hour. My appreciation for my moderating team knows no bounds. Sommer, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, Rhys, and Antony, you guys make the show possible while I do my work on this side. And my thanks to my Producer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, for continuing to help spread the word about the channel. Big thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb. He’s our web developer on Dial the Gate. And a big thank you to Jeremy Heiner, our webmaster who keeps the site up to date. The Kino that is going to Rob is a replica produced by SG-1 Props. It is based on the original molds and it is about as accurate as they come. So my thanks to Remington at sg1props.com for making this piece possible to give to Rob. Enough blathering from me. Let’s go ahead and get you on to the next episode here. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. We’ll see you on the other side.