Stargate: The Last Man and The Last Blog (for a while)

March 07, 2008

The Last Man and The Last Blog (for a while)

So... end of the broadcast season. Whew! There goes another one. Another great one. I have to say, Season 4 was definitely my favoritest Atlantis season so far, but season 5 is showing promise. And hey, with our improved ratings, I can't help thinking about a possible season 6! Granted, some believe our ratings got a boost because the WGC strike resulted in less original dramatic programming in our timeslot, but Robert Cooper and I believe that eyeballs are eyeballs -- who can say whether these viewers that joined us because their regular programming was suspended won't just stay with us into Season 5.

During my blog hiatus, I pledge to accumulate tons of fun and interesting anecdotes so when we come back, there will be a veritable deluge of exciting behind the scenes stories for you. All about the office staff and what color paper is my favorite. How Tanja rearranged the office furniture up front, and who the recent inductees are into IATSI 891 (the film union). It'll be great!

Meanwhile, the scripts are flying fast and furious. Brad Wright turned in his first draft of a fun if atypical McKay driven story. And Joe Mallozzi turned in what may be my favorite "scary" Stargate of all time, "Whispers". Joe is a big horror fan and has used his knowledge of the genre to create a suspenseful and exciting creature feature which I'm certain everyone will enjoy.

But tonight, you'll see "The Last Man", written by Paul Mullie. I just sat down with Paul and Joe and chatted about the show. Paul explained the idea for the show "just came to him." Ahhh, that guy really knows how to make these behind the scenes blogs interesting. So I pressed: "Just came to you? How does that work?" And the dam broke. It turns out it all started with an image. He envisioned Sheppard returning to Atlantis through the gate and finding the city completely empty and the planet in the midst of an ice age. Pretty cool visual. Those key visuals are often the door in to a great story. Brad Wright is famous for building episodes off of images in this way. It's not at all uncommon -- film and tv is, after all, a visual medium.

So, after realizing that Brad was using the snow-covered landscape of Antartica for his movie Continuum, they decided to change the setting to a desert, as if the planet was going through a massive dry spell. Now, I don't want to spoil the story - after all, Joe is about to read this and give me what for if there are any spoilers, but I will tell you it's a time travel story that involves a very old McKay.

Joe said that during pre-production he looked up from his desk and there was some old guy standing at the door. His first thought - "Oh, rats. Somebody's annoying father or some fan made it into the building and now I'm going to have to talk to this guy for an hour instead of working on my script". But it was just Hewlett! The make up is that good.

Lastly, look out for some extraordinary visual effects sequences in this one and a masterful score by Joel Goldsmith. Paul explained that he had a number of conversations with Joel because there were three sound elements competing in many of the sequences: voice over, explosions, and music. For the biggest such event (the Carter battle sequence), they decided together to keep the explosions in the background (much quieter), and let the music ring out. It really makes the sequence powerful and dramatic. I have to say this story actually made me a little emotional, and I'm no softy.

So enjoy! See you all in the Summer.

ATL

Posted by Alex Levine at March 7, 2008 05:45 PM