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January 18, 2008

Bottle Shows and Character Moments

I just talked to Carl Binder on the phone about this week's episode, Quarantine. Lucky for me, he had just spoken to Sharon Gosling about the episode so he didn't require any prompting or irritating questions from me about the episode - he already knew what he wanted to talk about. See, normally when I pester Carl for blog-fodder, he gets this look on face that suggests he is bored, irritated and in pain. But after a couple of years, I discovered that this look is actually just the look he gets on his face when he's concentrating! I guess it hurts Carl to concentrate. Me too. But this time he was prepared.

Carl said Quarantine was a group effort that sprang out of the necessity to make a less expensive episode. Why less expensive, you ask? Well, you see, we had just blown our budget making the amazing VFX sequences for Be All My Sins, and we had to pare back or we would have gone way over budget for the season. So they had to come up with what we call a "bottle episode" - existing sets only, no guest stars. But, as is usually the case, these types of episodes end up relying on wonderful character moments, and Quarantine is no exception.

So the writers sat around, and someone (some say it was Joe Mallozzi, others say it was Martin Gero) came up with the idea that the city locks down and everybody is quarantined in various rooms. Perfect bottle episode. Once that was decided, all that was left was to figure out which characters are trapped with which characters, and what the story line for each "pairing" would be.

I won't let the cat out of the bag too much, but I will tell you that Carl's favourite pairing was McKay and Katie Brown, because McKay could be vocal about his nihilistic view of life, which mirrors Carl's own world view. That reminds me of a study I learned about in college: psychologists have actually proven that pessimists have a more realistic view of the world than optimists... Turns out it's the positive, happy people that are deluded.

Lastly, I should mention the amazing VFX sequence of the tower climb. When Carl envisioned the script, he knew most of it would take place in interiors, so, even though this was a bottle show, it was going to need a breathtaking sequence to open up the episode. So you get to see your hero, Sheppard, in a death defying climb up the Atlantis tower. Carl called it a "visual showpiece", which is exactly what it is.

That's what you're in for tomorrow night. I hope you enjoy the show. In other news, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear that our Golden Tee golf game has been repaired. Now if I could just get some free time to play 9 holes. Until next week.

ATL

Posted by Alex Levine at January 18, 2008 12:52 AM