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June 08, 2007
Working titles and the battle of the blogs...
There’s a white board in the writer’s room that the writers use to break stories, and on one side of it is the list of this season’s episodes. It’s always fun to take a look at the working titles on there, which, in my opinion, are often better (well, definitely funnier) than the real titles. Right now there’s such notables as “My Deepspace Friend”, “Rise of the Googlions”, and “Send in the Clones.” Who wouldn’t want to watch those awesome episodes?
Also notable is that 19 of 20 episode slots are now filled in… We’re actually shooting episode 11 now (Spoils of War) and prepping episode 12 (Miller’s Crossing). That leaves just one story to come up with to complete Season 4. As some of you may know, I came up with a story last year that became SG-1’s “Dominion” (I’ll talk about that more next week) and although the writing staff has been kind enough to let me pitch some new ideas this year, unfortunately none of them have stuck; a couple were non-starters, one was too expensive, and another was too similar to a previous episode…
Meanwhile, I discovered that Joe Mallozzi is winning the eyeball war in the battle of the blogs. It seems that at least 1900 more of you are reading Joe’s blog than mine! I mean, I know he has pictures and that “producer’s inside knowledge”. I know he teases you with fun riddles and stuff… but I give you… some of that stuff too. Don’t I? I guess not the pictures. Okay, whatever… read us both!!!
This week you’ll see “Submersion” on Stargate Atlantis and “Family Ties” on SG-1.
I spoke with Joe Mallozzi about “Family Ties.” I remember the many discussions we had about casting for the role of Vala’s father. It was finally decided to put an offer out to Fred Willard – notably of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries. And the gang was thrilled to get him. Joe knew Fred Willard was going to play the part before he actually wrote the script so he was able to write Jacek’s dialogue with Fred’s voice in mind. Of course there are also many scenes in which Fred improvises (most notably the goodbyes after the Bingo game – that stuff is hilarious). Joe also said the final scene of the show – a brilliant comic riff on a well-known feminist play – was initially just a gag for the writing staff. But as the production progressed, everybody liked it and a grassroots campaign began to keep that scene in. I’m really glad they did, because I was a fan from day one and it is hilarious.
I remember that Brad Wright’s initial idea for “Submersion” was in reference to “The Exorcist.” But now that I think of it there are also a lot of “Abyss” elements in this episode as well. And that’s because most of the show takes place in an underwater drilling station at the bottom of the Lantian ocean. I spoke with James Robbins, our Production Designer, about the sets. He said they had to build twelve foot pool where our villain makes her first appearance, very similar to the diving pool in “Abyss.” They also built their version of a Lantian underwater control room for the drilling station. Finally, they rented these amazing deep water “Newt Suits” – sort of like space suits but for deep underwater diving. The arms sockets on these things are ridiculous, but the look is very cool. This is a visually stunning episode.
Enjoy!
ATL
Posted by Alex Levine at June 8, 2007 07:04 PM
