June 9, 2011: Oatmeal Snowman! Trevor screws up my page count! Stargate: SG-1 season 9! News of note!

Akemi's latest breakfast bento creation: oatmeal snowman!

This morning, we checked out a new place, a cozy little apartment in the ritzy Yorkville district.  Pros: Upscale neighborhood, better oven, located close to gourmet shop Pusateri, and the woman who showed us the suite was gorgeous – but, in all fairness, I failed to inquire if she came with the place.  Cons: Longer drive to work, longer walk to the dog park, more traffic outside, father away from St. Lawrence Market, downtown restaurants, vet, doggy daycare, and Martin Gero.  Tough call but I have a feeling we're staying put.  Akemi doesn't like the cutlery in the new place.

In the words of little Ralphie from A Christmas Story: "Oooh fuuuudge!  Only I didn't say 'fudge"."  After I incorporated all of the notes for the last draft of episode 3 of Transporter: The Series, the script came in at a weighty and wholly uproducable 60+ pages.  Sadly, since I'm prohibited from redirecting funds earmarked for frivolous expenditures (ie. my fellow Exec. Producers' salaries, first aid supplies, etc.) toward overages, I had to make some trims to get the page count down. Following days of careful consideration and judicious cuts, I succeeded in bringing the script down to a much more manageable 52 pages.  Pleased, my work on episode #3 presumably complete for the time being, I redirected focus to my rewrite of episode #6.

Until Trevor, our assistant, noted a problem with my script format – specifically, the fact that my default format settings were incorrect.  Trevor corrected them. And in so doing, my 52 page script (formerly 60+ pages long) ballooned to 57 pages (formerly a hell of a lot longer).  Sigh!  So my first attempt to fix the problem – a.k.a. firing Trevor – while personally satisfying, did little to help address the page count.  In the end, I spent another two hours making the proper trims that brought the script down to 53 glorious pages.

On to production!

And a new assistant!

Thank you to those who pointed out my error in mistaking SG-1 season 9′s Beach Head for season 10′s The Pegasus Project.  I will rectify this oversight in the following weeks by switching it around and mistaking The Pegasus Project for Beach Head.

PROTOTYPE (909)

Alan McCullough scripts his first Stargate episode and, based on his efforts here, is invited to join the writing staff.  He'll spend two seasons on SG-1 and four on Atlantis, working his way up to Supervising Producer, displaying not only good story sense but a real affinity for the editing room as well.  A great guy and much-appreciated member of the raucous writing room of Carl Binder, Marty G., Paul, and myself that produced Atlantis's final two seasons.

This episode also marked the first appearance of actor Neil Jackson who would turn in an equally brilliant performance as the undercover wraith in Stargate: Atlantis's fifth season episode, Vegas.

THE FOURTH HORSEMAN I (910)

When we broke this mid-season two-parter, we fully expected to have actor Sean Patrick Flannery reprise the role of Orlin.  Unfortunately, it turned out he was unavailable for both episodes.  As a result, we were forced to rethink his character's role in the story.  In retrospect, it was different but "good" different, offering up some terrific opportunities for both the Orlin character and Samantha Carter.  The part ended up being played by Cameron Bright who has gone on to play the role of Alec in the Twilight Saga.

It was great to have Don S. Davis back as General George Hammond.  I appreciated the fact that, even though he'd shifted focus to his art and enjoying his retirement, Don still found time to revisit with us.  Like most of my friends, we wound up connecting over our mutual appreciation for food and spent many an evening out on the town, bonding over everything from ribs to foie gras.

THE FOURTH HORSEMAN II (911)

In this episode, Earth officials attempt to contain an alien virus that spreads from Stargate Command to the United States, then North America and, eventually, the rest of the world.  And reporting on the breaking news are – well, news anchors and reporters.  And who better to play news and anchors and reporters then actual anchors and reporters.  Surprisingly, it happens all the time in film and television.  We auditioned a bunch of them and, quite frankly, they were all great, but ended up going with local television personalities Dawn Chubai and Dagmar Midcap.

The part of the Jaffa Aron is played by Chris Judge's brother, Jeff, who I was a long-time regular at Chris's notorious poker nights.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE (912)

I loved this episode and, as much as I'd like to lay some claim to it, this was all Paul, my writing partner (I was busy working on the next episode, Ripple Effect). One of the things I loved about working on Stargate was the freedom it gave us as writers.  We could tell a variety of stories – standalone, arc-driven, Earth-based, set off-world, SF, fantasy, horror, comedic, or dark.  In the case of Collateral Damage – standalone, off-world, SF, and dark, and it does all four incredibly well.

In the original pitch, it's Teal'c who ends up imprisoned on an alien world, charged with a crime he didn't commit despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Given Teal'c's existing arc that season, we elected to make it a Mitchell story as it allowed us the opportunity explore his past.

The part of the doomed victim in this episode, Dr. Reya Varrick, is played by the lovely Anna Galvin who is one of a handful of actors who have appeared in all three Stargate series – as the mysterious Vanessa Conrad in one of my fave Atlantis episodes, Remnants, and then as Chloe Armstrong's mother in Stargate: Universe.

How did I miss this?!  Past Book of the Month Club guest author Daryl Gregory is writing a new Planet of the Apes series for BOOM! Studios, one of my favorite new comic book publishers: http://www.darylgregory.com/comics/apes.aspx

Hey, fellow foodies, check it out!  Interview with my friend and fave chef Robert Belcham of Fuel/Refuel fame here: http://vancouverfoodster.com/2011/06/08/chef-robert-belcham/ - in which he makes mention of the unbelievable 30 course dinner he prepared for me before I left Vancouver (March 18, 2011: The Meal To End All Meals!).

Via Io9 – A site that uses facial recognition software to pair you up with the dog of your dreams.  My perfect match is apparently a beagle mix named Olly: http://www.doggelganger.co.nz/

Tagged: Boom Studios, Daryl Gregory, Planet of the Apes, ReFuel, Robert Belcham, SG-1, Stargate, Stargate: SG-1, Transporter: The Series