Feature: Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis

With new seasons of Stargate series SG-1 and Atlantis on the horizon, we bring you the latest word from the cast and crew

It’s Tuesday, 2nd May 2006, just another ordinary day at the Accent Inns in Burnaby, British Columbia. Or is it? There are film production trailers parked around the back of the motel, and a camera crew is waiting outside the open door of a first floor room, where one man is caught in a somewhat compromising situation. This can only mean one thing; Stargate SG-1 is on location. Members of the show’s cast and crew have ventured across the street from Bridge Studios to film scenes for an upcoming tenth season episode called Memento Mori. Although he cannot reveal specifics, star Ben Browder offers up a little tidbit about what’s being shot this morning, and the situation in which his character Colonel Mitchell finds himself.

“Mitchell is handcuffed to a bed with Vala standing over him. That’s pretty much all you need to know,” chuckles the actor. “Watch for the scene.”

Viewers can expect to see the unexpected when SG-1 and its sister series Stargate Atlantis return to the Sci-Fi Channel with all-new episodes in the summer. While work on SG-1’s Memento Mori carries on this particular morning at the Accent Inns, filming of the Atlantis story McKay and Mrs Miller continues back at Bridge Studios. Meanwhile, in the Stargate production offices, the show’s producers, writers and directors, including SG-1 writer turned executive producer Joe Mallozzi, are developing or in prep for upcoming stories. “Right now I’m working on an outline for the sequel to one of this year’s Atlantis episodes, Irresistible,” says Mallozzi. “I can’t say a whole lot yet about this story simply because I haven’t written much on it. I’m just spinning ideas at the moment. Richard Kind, Spin City’s Paul Lassiter, came up to do Irresistible and he was so good in the role and eager to come back.” It was too good a chance for Mallozzi and fellow executive producer Brad Wright to miss. “Brad gave him a call to ask if he was interested in doing a sequel to the episode and Richard agreed in a heartbeat. So I’m trying to think of possible plots for that.

“One of the things I like most about working on this show is that we’re able to tell a variety of stories. I mean, there’s Morpheus, which is the first episode that Paul Mullie and I wrote for SG-1 this season. It’s an off-world, weird, kind of quiet mystery juxtaposed with this comedic B-story involving the Vala character. I’m so happy with how it turned out.” The episode was an opportunity to use the chemistry that Ben Browder and co-star Claudia Black, now making her SG-1 character of Vala into a full regular, demonstrated on their old series, Farscape.

“I watched Farscape and loved Claudia Black and Ben Browder in it. Claudia is such a gifted actress, but I’d never really seen her do comedy”, explains Mallozzi. “Her character always tended to be serious in Farscape, and when she guest-starred on Stargate in Prometheus Unbound, as well as in the ninth season episodes last year, it was much the same. However, in Morpheus she has excellent comedic timing. Claudia has the rhythm down and is wonderful opposite a psychiatrist played by Ben Ratner, who also does a great job in the episode. The back and forth banter between them is quite funny.”

by Steven Eramo

Read the full feature in
TV Zone #203

Image © Visual Imagination Ltd, Stargate © Sci-Fi Channel
Feature © Visual Imagination 2006. Not for reproduction

Taken from

TV Zone #203
July 2006
ships from May 24 2006
News-stand Price
UK £3.99 / US $7.99

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