Avalon pt. 1 commentary
Part 1
AM: Hi there, I’m Andy Mikita.
RC: And I’m Rob Cooper.
And this is episode one of season one of Stargate Command –
Oh, right. Slip of the tongue.
It’s season nine of Stargate SG-1.
There’s a little inside joke at the end of tease here in which… Gary’s character, technician, as I refer to him…
AM: Right.
RC: …even though he’s got a name, says: “Welcome to Stargate Command.”
This was supposed to be the pilot for a new show. And quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter.
AM: Yeah, it’s still a wonderful thing.
RC: An opportunity to reinvent the show.
We spent a lot of energy creating Stargate Atlantis… and in the process of that realized that we were really tired of trying to end SG-1. If no one else was gonna notice that we had ended it three years in the row and we were gonna stop doing that. And so we decided with what felt like the end of the chapter with, you know… Richard Dean Anderson essentially leaving the show… it was an opportunity to reinvent the series. The Goa’uld had been defeated, the Replicators had been defeated. So we needed to start fresh.
AM: Right.
RC: I sat down to write these first two – what was supposed to be two episodes – and I got about, you know… a third of the way into the story and I was already on page, you know, 55… which is longer than – we normally have one script in. I called Brad and I said: “I got a three parter here.” And you know what? It became a discussion about whether or not it was important to get across the plot because we thought we could do that in the span of two episodes. Or to spend the time we felt we wanted to spend introducing these characters. And this episode is really not about the introduction of the Ori which was a risk because you really wanted to set up your new villains and get people going and excited about the story. But it’s also important to get them excited about the people they’re gonna get into the roller-coaster car with and go on the ride.
AM: Exactly.
RC: Absolutely.
AM: And that’s what this is.
RC: This episode is about, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell… and his, you know, mission to get the band back together.
AM: Right, exactly. And, I mean, the anticipation from the fan base… it was generated more towards the introduction of the characters –
Yeah, and what we really wanted to do was create –
RC: You know, I felt and I said right away: “Hey, you know, we’ve seen the character who comes in…and people are suspicious of him and they slowly come around.” I wanted it to be something we hadn’t really seen before, which is a guy who’s a superfan, you know. He’s the guy who the fans have sort of, you know, been complaining for years. Let’s get the team back together. Let’s do team episodes.
AM: Right.
RC: Let’s go out on missions together. And here’s a guy who is essentially that voice.
Wanted to champion that cause.
Wants to do that.
And you’ll bear witness to the fact that that Ben, of course, coming in… in a nerve-racking situation starts a successful show and has a well-seasoned cast… big shoes to fill… was very nervous about playing someone so enthusiastic. Actors love to play dark, brooding and cool.
AM: Right.
RC: And essentially this character was… An excited kid.
Kind of a geek, you know. He was kind of a Stargate geek. He loved the show, loved the char-,
“Loved the show”.
Loved the world and loved the characters. And really just wanted everybody to be back together again. And so it was a challenge to convince him that that level of enthusiasm would make his character very appealing to the fans and to people who watch the show. When we first see his character in this scene with General Landry he’s very stoic and guarded and so he’s in fact the opposite of that. And it’s funny because when I talked to Ben about that scene and his decisions and his performance, it was all very calculated. He felt as though he was gonna get there. He was gonna get to that enthusiasm… but he didn’t want it to be the first beep out of his mouth.
AM: Yeah, well, he plotted his course very carefully to his credit, for sure.
RC: And you know, this was probably a tough scene.
We shot it very early in the schedule. And here he is with Beau Bridges, you know, a guy who pretty much can, you know, blow anybody off the screen if you’re not careful. And you know, he… You’ll notice his performance in this scene is very much centered around his hat and he talked about that. He thought very carefully about that.
When Ben first got the role he agreed to come on the show. He said: “Well, I want to watch every episode.” And I said: “Well, actually the truth is that there’s a lot of episodes I’d really rather you didn’t see.” And he goes: “No, no, no. I want to see the successes and the failures and, you know, everything, works and all.” And he sat down and watched all 180-odd episodes at the time. I thought that - That frightened me a little.
AM: It scared a hell out of me, for sure.
RC: But it became a bit of a running gag in the show. All of the references to him having read the files in a way translated to him having seen the show. So, “That was a good file. I remembered that one.” It was all, you know, could have been, “I remember that show”. And I’ll tell you that the, I think, nervousness and the pressure he felt, I think, was felt by all of us. Here we were in the ninth season of an incredibly successful show. Kind of at a point where if it had all, you know, failed and, you know, been – you know, gone away it really wouldn’t hurt anybody.
AM: That’s right.
RC: I mean it would’ve been considered a sort of a valiant attempt to keep a successful show going. But so what? Nine seasons is nothing to sneeze at.
AM: Exactly.
RC: And yet, I think we all felt that there was this incredible opportunity to revitalize this show and stop the talk of “Is this the last year?” And kind of make it something that was the beginning of something that could go on for years. So I mean, when I was writing it I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to make this work, make it fresh, make it new, make people love these characters, make it different from everything we had done before, so there weren’t direct comparisons. But at the same time keep the core of what Stargate has been over the years. And I don’t know, I mean, did you feel that pressure as the director?
AM: Well, I definitely felt that pressure, I mean, even coming from you, when you would –
The early days when you would talk about this – Think about this as the pilot for a new show even though it’s not. Think in those terms. And you know, so yeah, absolutely. There was certainly that pressure. And the pressure of introducing the new characters and so forth…but from the point when we read – I think everybody felt this way when we read the scripts for the first time. It was so exciting because we saw all that great potential with all the new characters and the new directions and – It reeked of potential.
RC: I was saying this to Jim, we did the commentary for “Origin”. We did it first which is a little weird having done episode three before we do episode one and two. But I was saying that I think it was probably a good thing to have Atlantis being produced kind of parallel to SG-1, because everybody who was on SG-1 got a little jealous. It was a little competitive, you know, motivation going on there, where they all saw, “Hey, they’re getting to shoot all these new sets and spend all these money and they’re dealing with new stories and new characters. Isn’t that exciting and fresh?” And I think that that sense of invigoration translated over into season nine of SG-1. Everybody who just saw it and got a breath of a fresh air and said: “Wow, this is not just the same old, same old. We’re really trying to do something new and different here.”
AM: It translated through everybody. It wasn’t just the crew. The cast, you know… the recurring casts that we were used to for the past nine – Eight years – felt exactly the same way. Everybody felt that sort of newfound energy and enthusiasm on, you know. In the trenches in some level.
RC: And trying to marry this… This scene, in particular of these flashbacks to Mitchell’s crash.It was all, I think… that the continuity that we’ve seen over the years behind the camera. You know, not just in the writers, but in the directors and everybody involved has helped make the show feel like one, you know, big epic story. It’s got a fabric that holds together.
AM: Yeah.
RC: And even though we were doing all this new stuff, new villains, new characters, all this, we still wanted to try and incorporate that – Those people back into the story. And I thought that for me it really clicked as an idea, specifically the Mitchell character, when I came up with the fact that he was someone who had been on the periphery of the show that you just didn’t see that. That he was actually a pilot in…
AM: That’s right, he was…
RC: We were going back to one of the most incredible sequences we’ve ever done on the show. And we’re gonna show it from a different angle, his point of view.
AM: Which is really clever. It was such a clever approach to the introduction.
RC: What it did was it made you feel as though the world of Stargate was bigger than what you’ve been seeing. And that even though you feel like: “Well, maybe I’ve seen it all in eight seasons.” No, there’s always more to what’s going on than just what we’re showing you at this particular moment. The Stargate universe is essentially, you know… It’s endless.
AM: It’s infinite.
RC: And it also, essentially, saved us from having to create what could have been a contrived or phoney situation in which Mitchell comes in in the first episode and does something incredibly heroic that makes you think: “Oh, isn’t he a great hero?” Well, he’s already done that thing. That’s why he’s here. We’re just gonna flashback to it and show you the natural progression that led to this moment, which is, everybody knows, Colonel Mitchell is – He did something special. The mystery in this episode is what was that special thing that he did. And that goes to unfold over the course of these flashbacks. The time we take with that is really what made that original, what was supposed to be that two-parter expand out into the three-parter. And these are all just moments like this with him being kind of funny and flip (on Dakara asking people to join SG-1 and show him the way to Stargate).
AM: Yeah. We just get to know who he is.
RC: We never ever would have had time to let these moments breathe.
Part 1
AM: Hi there, I’m Andy Mikita.
RC: And I’m Rob Cooper.
And this is episode one of season one of Stargate Command –
Oh, right. Slip of the tongue.
It’s season nine of Stargate SG-1.
There’s a little inside joke at the end of tease here in which… Gary’s character, technician, as I refer to him…
AM: Right.
RC: …even though he’s got a name, says: “Welcome to Stargate Command.”
This was supposed to be the pilot for a new show. And quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter.
AM: Yeah, it’s still a wonderful thing.
RC: An opportunity to reinvent the show.
We spent a lot of energy creating Stargate Atlantis… and in the process of that realized that we were really tired of trying to end SG-1. If no one else was gonna notice that we had ended it three years in the row and we were gonna stop doing that. And so we decided with what felt like the end of the chapter with, you know… Richard Dean Anderson essentially leaving the show… it was an opportunity to reinvent the series. The Goa’uld had been defeated, the Replicators had been defeated. So we needed to start fresh.
AM: Right.
RC: I sat down to write these first two – what was supposed to be two episodes – and I got about, you know… a third of the way into the story and I was already on page, you know, 55… which is longer than – we normally have one script in. I called Brad and I said: “I got a three parter here.” And you know what? It became a discussion about whether or not it was important to get across the plot because we thought we could do that in the span of two episodes. Or to spend the time we felt we wanted to spend introducing these characters. And this episode is really not about the introduction of the Ori which was a risk because you really wanted to set up your new villains and get people going and excited about the story. But it’s also important to get them excited about the people they’re gonna get into the roller-coaster car with and go on the ride.
AM: Exactly.
RC: Absolutely.
AM: And that’s what this is.
RC: This episode is about, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell… and his, you know, mission to get the band back together.
AM: Right, exactly. And, I mean, the anticipation from the fan base… it was generated more towards the introduction of the characters –
Yeah, and what we really wanted to do was create –
RC: You know, I felt and I said right away: “Hey, you know, we’ve seen the character who comes in…and people are suspicious of him and they slowly come around.” I wanted it to be something we hadn’t really seen before, which is a guy who’s a superfan, you know. He’s the guy who the fans have sort of, you know, been complaining for years. Let’s get the team back together. Let’s do team episodes.
AM: Right.
RC: Let’s go out on missions together. And here’s a guy who is essentially that voice.
Wanted to champion that cause.
Wants to do that.
And you’ll bear witness to the fact that that Ben, of course, coming in… in a nerve-racking situation starts a successful show and has a well-seasoned cast… big shoes to fill… was very nervous about playing someone so enthusiastic. Actors love to play dark, brooding and cool.
AM: Right.
RC: And essentially this character was… An excited kid.
Kind of a geek, you know. He was kind of a Stargate geek. He loved the show, loved the char-,
“Loved the show”.
Loved the world and loved the characters. And really just wanted everybody to be back together again. And so it was a challenge to convince him that that level of enthusiasm would make his character very appealing to the fans and to people who watch the show. When we first see his character in this scene with General Landry he’s very stoic and guarded and so he’s in fact the opposite of that. And it’s funny because when I talked to Ben about that scene and his decisions and his performance, it was all very calculated. He felt as though he was gonna get there. He was gonna get to that enthusiasm… but he didn’t want it to be the first beep out of his mouth.
AM: Yeah, well, he plotted his course very carefully to his credit, for sure.
RC: And you know, this was probably a tough scene.
We shot it very early in the schedule. And here he is with Beau Bridges, you know, a guy who pretty much can, you know, blow anybody off the screen if you’re not careful. And you know, he… You’ll notice his performance in this scene is very much centered around his hat and he talked about that. He thought very carefully about that.
When Ben first got the role he agreed to come on the show. He said: “Well, I want to watch every episode.” And I said: “Well, actually the truth is that there’s a lot of episodes I’d really rather you didn’t see.” And he goes: “No, no, no. I want to see the successes and the failures and, you know, everything, works and all.” And he sat down and watched all 180-odd episodes at the time. I thought that - That frightened me a little.
AM: It scared a hell out of me, for sure.
RC: But it became a bit of a running gag in the show. All of the references to him having read the files in a way translated to him having seen the show. So, “That was a good file. I remembered that one.” It was all, you know, could have been, “I remember that show”. And I’ll tell you that the, I think, nervousness and the pressure he felt, I think, was felt by all of us. Here we were in the ninth season of an incredibly successful show. Kind of at a point where if it had all, you know, failed and, you know, been – you know, gone away it really wouldn’t hurt anybody.
AM: That’s right.
RC: I mean it would’ve been considered a sort of a valiant attempt to keep a successful show going. But so what? Nine seasons is nothing to sneeze at.
AM: Exactly.
RC: And yet, I think we all felt that there was this incredible opportunity to revitalize this show and stop the talk of “Is this the last year?” And kind of make it something that was the beginning of something that could go on for years. So I mean, when I was writing it I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to make this work, make it fresh, make it new, make people love these characters, make it different from everything we had done before, so there weren’t direct comparisons. But at the same time keep the core of what Stargate has been over the years. And I don’t know, I mean, did you feel that pressure as the director?
AM: Well, I definitely felt that pressure, I mean, even coming from you, when you would –
The early days when you would talk about this – Think about this as the pilot for a new show even though it’s not. Think in those terms. And you know, so yeah, absolutely. There was certainly that pressure. And the pressure of introducing the new characters and so forth…but from the point when we read – I think everybody felt this way when we read the scripts for the first time. It was so exciting because we saw all that great potential with all the new characters and the new directions and – It reeked of potential.
RC: I was saying this to Jim, we did the commentary for “Origin”. We did it first which is a little weird having done episode three before we do episode one and two. But I was saying that I think it was probably a good thing to have Atlantis being produced kind of parallel to SG-1, because everybody who was on SG-1 got a little jealous. It was a little competitive, you know, motivation going on there, where they all saw, “Hey, they’re getting to shoot all these new sets and spend all these money and they’re dealing with new stories and new characters. Isn’t that exciting and fresh?” And I think that that sense of invigoration translated over into season nine of SG-1. Everybody who just saw it and got a breath of a fresh air and said: “Wow, this is not just the same old, same old. We’re really trying to do something new and different here.”
AM: It translated through everybody. It wasn’t just the crew. The cast, you know… the recurring casts that we were used to for the past nine – Eight years – felt exactly the same way. Everybody felt that sort of newfound energy and enthusiasm on, you know. In the trenches in some level.
RC: And trying to marry this… This scene, in particular of these flashbacks to Mitchell’s crash.It was all, I think… that the continuity that we’ve seen over the years behind the camera. You know, not just in the writers, but in the directors and everybody involved has helped make the show feel like one, you know, big epic story. It’s got a fabric that holds together.
AM: Yeah.
RC: And even though we were doing all this new stuff, new villains, new characters, all this, we still wanted to try and incorporate that – Those people back into the story. And I thought that for me it really clicked as an idea, specifically the Mitchell character, when I came up with the fact that he was someone who had been on the periphery of the show that you just didn’t see that. That he was actually a pilot in…
AM: That’s right, he was…
RC: We were going back to one of the most incredible sequences we’ve ever done on the show. And we’re gonna show it from a different angle, his point of view.
AM: Which is really clever. It was such a clever approach to the introduction.
RC: What it did was it made you feel as though the world of Stargate was bigger than what you’ve been seeing. And that even though you feel like: “Well, maybe I’ve seen it all in eight seasons.” No, there’s always more to what’s going on than just what we’re showing you at this particular moment. The Stargate universe is essentially, you know… It’s endless.
AM: It’s infinite.
RC: And it also, essentially, saved us from having to create what could have been a contrived or phoney situation in which Mitchell comes in in the first episode and does something incredibly heroic that makes you think: “Oh, isn’t he a great hero?” Well, he’s already done that thing. That’s why he’s here. We’re just gonna flashback to it and show you the natural progression that led to this moment, which is, everybody knows, Colonel Mitchell is – He did something special. The mystery in this episode is what was that special thing that he did. And that goes to unfold over the course of these flashbacks. The time we take with that is really what made that original, what was supposed to be that two-parter expand out into the three-parter. And these are all just moments like this with him being kind of funny and flip (on Dakara asking people to join SG-1 and show him the way to Stargate).
AM: Yeah. We just get to know who he is.
RC: We never ever would have had time to let these moments breathe.
Red jello for you! 
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