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Lynne McNamara, "Stargate SG-1 Celebrates 200th Episode", Vancouver Sun, 26 April 2006, C3.
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Last week, at The Bridge Studios, over a huge, moist slab cake, a gaggle of journalists hooked up with Stargate SG-1's longtime cast -- Richard Dean Anderson (who is now semi-retired from the show and back living in L.A.), Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks and newcomers Ben Browder, Claudia Black and Beau Bridges to celebrate the show's 200th episode.
Stargate SG-1, produced by Double Secret Productions, in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Sony Pictures Television, is now shooting its 10th season, earning the show the notable distinction of being the longest-running drama series ever produced for cable television and the longest-running science fiction series on television in North America, surpassing even the long runs of The X-Files and every configuration of Star Trek.
During a brief break from shooting number 200, Canadian executive producers/showrunners Brad Wright (also co-creator) and Robert Cooper expressed their glee.
"When we were in season five we thought -- 100 episodes -- come on, that's enough," admits Wright. That's as far as the show's going to go. Well, another season would be great. Finally, in season nine, Robert essentially recreated SG-1 in such a way that it could have legs to go for years."
Adds Cooper: "We just got sick of writing endings. We closed so many storylines that we needed to start opening new ones in order to write more episodes."
Wright: "We killed the old villains and created new ones. That's how you do it."
Anderson's decision to leave the show a couple of years ago to spend more time with his young daughter in L.A., could have spelled disaster.
But, no. It's the lemons/lemonade theory.
"We tried to look at Richard leaving the show as an opportunity. So, we embraced the changes and fortunately, our fans did too," says Cooper.
And those same fans have been nagging for an SG-1 movie for years.
"We obviously have a lot of ideas for movies and other Stargate series, but it's really not up to us. We would have made a movie a long time ago, if it were up to us," says Cooper.
Wright: "On the other hand, MGM, they're aware this is a franchise now. A movie will get made, whether we make it or not. They will come to us first, I'm sure, and we're going to write a script, I know that. But we kind of got killed by our own success. Every time we tried to make a movie, the series came back. And there was just no way with the business plan that we approached the movie with, that we could do both."
Cooper: "And I don't subscribe to the fact that somehow a movie is the pinnacle -- I actually think television is better than the movies. TV is cool. TV is where good stories are being told, where the best performances are. There's just this incredible pressure on movies because of the amount of money that's being spent on them. You so rarely see a good one. And yet, turn on your TV and I bet you're going to be entertained for an hour, more often than not."
One of the reasons the shows are so good is the decade of history between the characters to draw on for emotion.
"When something happens to one of our characters, you've lived with that person for 10 years, not for two hours, so when something happens to them, it matters," says Cooper.
"Having said that, we'd love to make a movie," adds Wright. "Or there's mini series, there's two-hour TV movies: this franchise is going to keep going."
Wright and Cooper would also like to write a pilot for a new show and to that end, have been grooming a writing staff who could take over SG-1.
[snip - see the link below for the full story, including more with Richard Dean Anderson]
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