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May 11, 2007
Chained to my desk...
I went to go talk to Rob Cooper about tomorrow night’s Stargate SG-1 episode “Bounty”, but he’s on his last day of directing “The Ark of Truth” and they’re out at the Norco set in the Hall of Fire. The Norco set is a bit of a drive from the Studio, and I’m chained to my desk, so I couldn’t really chase down Rob. But I can tell you that, among the exciting plot points to be shot today on “The Ark of Truth” (as detailed on the call sheet), are “Daniel yanked across room” and “Coverage against green screen.” Actually, there were some much more interesting descriptions but they were spoilers so I steered wide clear. Now, I don’t know how many of you saw “Sateda,” but I’ve seen the dailies of “The Ark of Truth”, and it’s going to be another action-packed Rob Cooper extravaganza.
So all I can tell you about Bounty is what I know. First of all, it’s a fun episode that shares some elements with that John Cusack movie Grosse Point Blank. In this one, Mitchell goes to his high school reunion just as a hit is put out on SG-1 by the Lucian Alliance. One interesting thing is that Mitchell’s old high-school crush is played by none other than Anne Marie DeLuise – yup, Director Peter DeLuise’s wife. Anyways, like I said, fun episode. Vala gets to wear all sorts of country costumes (Mitchell is from Kansas) and ham it up. And we get to see more of Mitchell’s backstory to add to what we learned in “Collateral Damage”.
Meanwhile, the Atlantis guys are all in a read-through – except Carl Binder, so I sat Carl down in my office and forced him to wax poetic about “The Game.” And you know what, Carl must have not enjoyed the fatty duck we had for our Chinese lunch buffet today, because he was irascible, to put it mildly. He insulted my Cambodian guardian statuette that I brought back from Angkor Wat and told me I was poisoning the entire building with my evil idolatry. But over the years I’ve learned that Carl actually only means about 1/8th of what comes out of his mouth, so I let it slide.
The story for “The Game” was pitched by freelance co-writers Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson. The story is about a SIMS style computer game found on Atlantis; in fact, the show was actually called “SIMS” for a long time. But the story changed considerably from what was originally pitched due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the original outline was prohibitively expensive (we’re talking the cost of a mid-sized motion picture). Also, the initial pitch focused on McKay and there had already been a number of McKay-focused episodes in Season 3. So it was decided that Sheppard and McKay should find the game together and compete against each other. These guys have good chemistry, so this episode keys on their competitive rivalry and their characters’ differences, and it worked out great.
Lastly, Carl explained the reason why he was drawn to the story. He said it was because it felt so topical. Carl sees similarities in “The Game” to how modern warfare is waged – by people hiding behind computer screens who’ve never actually been on a real battlefield and who don’t actually have to deal with the results of their actions…
That Carl Binder sure is one upbeat fellow.
Cheers and enjoy the episodes.
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at May 11, 2007 12:41 AM
