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September 08, 2006

Stop the inanities!

I’m not going to tell you about the stuff you don’t want to know… writer’s nicknames, what we had for lunch, who picked who in the dark horse NFL football pool (Paul picked Oakland!)… Because you guys just want to hear about the shows. So I’m just going to talk about the shows.

Memento Mori was written by Joe and Paul. Okay, here is a very behind the scenes little tidbit. The show involves a Deli named Sol’s Diner, but when you watch the show you’ll notice that the character who plays the deli’s owner is called Sal. And he explains it by saying that he bought the place from a guy named Sol. Weird and hilarious, to be sure, but also necessary to fix a problem. You see we had already cleared and made signs up for Sol’s Deli, but the best actor from the auditions looked a lot more Italian than Jewish. So they named him Sal and Joe added that explanatory line. And, ironically, we later found out he's actually Jewish.

I spoke with Joe about the episode… he said that when he originally pitched the episode he pitched Vala working in a shoe store, not a deli. Personally, I think the shoe store would have been great, but the deli works too.

Also in Memento Mori, there were some hilarious outtakes of when Mitchell is discovered handcuffed to a bed in a hotel room. Of course those didn’t make the cut… but I can tell you the cast had a great time adlibbing their reactions to finding Mitchell in such a compromising position.

The show is also stunt-heavy, featuring a car crash/roll-over, a motorcycle chase, and a high fall in a warehouse. Apparently Ben Browder was all set to actually ride the motorcycle for the chase, but the insurance company wouldn’t have it, so he had to step aside for the stunt driver. By the way, the stunts will be the subject of one of Ivon Bartok’s behind the scenes featurettes on the DVD’s when they come out next year.

McKay & Mrs. Miller is one of my all time favourite Stargate shows. I just spoke with Martin Gero and he told me how the story evolved. Last year, Martin actually saw David Hewlett’s sister Kate perform in a play that was directed by Martin’s friend, Brendan Gall. Martin thought Kate did a great job and that got him thinking about doing an episode with McKay and his sister. So once the episode was written, naturally Kate was hired to play the character of Jeanie Miller (McKay’s sister). And the chemistry is obvious on screen. AND… Brendan Gall was cast as Jeanie’s husband, Kaleb, as sort of a finder’s fee.

Here’s another little aside. In Hot Zone, an Atlantis show from Season 1, Martin Gero wrote a monologue for McKay in which he says to contact his brother if they are unable to get out of a certain life or death situation. Well David asked Martin if he could change the reference to his sister, and Martin agreed, thinking there was no way they were ever going to do a show about McKay’s sister…. But it was a good thing they changed it, because here we are with an episode about McKay’s sister, so it all fits together.

By the way, the tee shirts that Brendan wears on screen are Indie rock tee’s supplied by an independent Canadian record company – Arts & Crafts. They were very generous and we are grateful to them for their help.

ATL

Posted by Alex Levine at September 8, 2006 09:41 PM