The situation is looking none too good for Colonel Everett Young (Louis Ferreira) and the crew of Destiny in Stargate Universe's season two opener "Intervention." Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
It seems like only yesterday, but it was, in fact, way back in 1997 that Brad Wright along with fellow Stargate SG-1 co-creator/executive producer/writer Jonathan Glassner sent the SG-1 team on its first mission through the Stargate. An expedition to the Pegasus Galaxy eventually followed, when Wright and Robert C. Cooper co-created and executive produced Stargate Atlantis.
In 2009, the two joined forces again to bring Stargate Universe to the small screen. Unlike the previous two Stargate incarnations, this series follows a group of military personnel, scientists and civilians who become the unwilling crew of the Ancients starship Destiny. While Colonel Everett Young fights to get everyone home safely, scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush would like nothing more than for them to continue on their outer space odyssey. At the end of the show’s first season, the Lucian Alliance elbowed its way onto Destiny, resulting in gunfire, bloodshed and general mayhem. Luckily for our heroes, Wright and the rest of the show’s writers had the situation under control going into season two.
“Well, we certainly knew what we had to resolve from last season when we came back this year,” says Wright with a smile. “We had painted each of our characters into a horrible corner and somehow we needed to have them escape. Seriously, we had an idea of what the outcome would be when we came up with the overall storyline. We also had a number of other interesting arcs planed for this year, one of which was, in addition to the individual character arcs, getting back to the very interesting Rush (Robert Carlyle)/Young (Louis Ferreira) dynamic.
“We wanted those two characters to continue in opposition with one another to a certain point, but we also realized that we had to unify them in a common goal. That goal, which had been planned since the beginning of season two, is to identify more clearly what Destiny’s mission is. The ship’s original mission is a pretty grand one, and also epic insofar as its scope. So we needed to find a way for the two-headed monster that is Rush and Young to come together and find out what that mission is. That’s been the biggest challenge so far in season two, and the most fun, too, because those two guys don’t always see eye-to-eye and I just find that an interesting dynamic.”
Young (Louis Ferreira) and Rush (Robert Carlyle) must agree to disagree in Stargate Universe's second season. Photo by Art Streiber and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
Having the first season of Universe under their belts, has it been easier this year writing-wise for Wright and the rest of the show’s writing team? “Honestly, for Robert Cooper and I, especially, we had no problems ‘hearing’ the actors’ voices in the characters that they play, and that’s because of the performers that we have on this series,” notes the executive producer.
“I think their characters have been pretty consistent when it comes to their voices. Last year every script went through me or Robert at some point, but now this season Paul Mullie and Joe Mallozzi are more directly involved. They were consulting producers last year, and this season they’re executive producers, but the scripts they wrote still went through Robert’s or my computer. And [executive producer] Carl Binder’s sense of the characters’ voices is now bang-on. It’s just a question of expanding on what we have and pushing the boundaries a little bit.
“What we learned last season is that these actors are good. There isn’t much we can give them – and I’m talking right across the call sheet – that they can’t handle. So you look for opportunities to give the characters each a moment to shine. For example, in the script we’re prepping right now [Visitation] there are some really strong scenes for Jamil Walker Smith [Sergeant Ronald Greer]. Because he’s such a good actor, we want to showcase his talents. Again, that goes for everybody. The first episode I wrote this season is called Cloverdale and it’s a great showcase for Brian Smith [Lt. Matthew Scott]. He’s just terrific in it.
L-R: Sergeant Greer (Jamil Walker Smith), Volker (Patrick Gilmore), Rush (Robert Carlyle) and Lt. Johansen (Alaina Huffman) fight to save Lt. Scott's (Brian J. Smith, center) life in "Cloverdale." Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“So, again, with a season now under our belts in terms of knowing not only who our characters are but also what the actors can deliver for us, we then look for opportunities to showcase all that talent.”
Looking at individual character development, there is plenty in store for everyone onboard Destiny. “In last year’s mid-season two-parter we discovered that Rush had been tampered with because of the tracking device that had been placed near his heart by the blue-skinned aliens,” recalls Wright. “Near the end of season one, there’s evidence of, and it becomes obvious at the start of season two and going forward that Chloe [Elyse Levesque] has been altered with as well.
“Eli [David Blue] is going to find his first girlfriend and try to hide or bury his feelings for Chloe. TJ [Alaina Huffman] obviously has a very interesting situation starting out the season that involves her baby, and that’s going to have an impact, again, all the way to the mid-year two-parter and beyond in terms of her emotional state. Lou Diamond Phillips’ character of Colonel Telford fairly heroically saves Destiny [in the episode Awakening], and that character is going to be a strong recurring one throughout this season because he’s Lou Diamond Phillips and we want to take advantage of that.
“Camille Wray [Ming-Na] is going to take some of the burden off TJ when it comes to the crew’s psychological well-being, and not just because she did Human Resources for the IOA [International Oversight Authority]. We’re going to become aware of the fact that Wray has had, perhaps, a little bit more training than she ever led us to believe. Skills are going to be revealed in her that were already hinted at in [season one’s] Divided when she was negotiating. Wray is a stronger, more powerful force than we ever imagined at the beginning, which is why she felt last year that perhaps she should be in-charge onboard Destiny. There are one or two credentials behind that moxie of hers.”
Wright promises that viewers can also expect to see more of such Destiny crewmembers as Dale Volker (Patrick Gilmore), Adam Brody (Peter Kelamis) and Lisa Park (Jennifer Spence). “Halfway through last season we made a deal to keep these guys around because they’re go great,” he says. “The Brody/Volker dynamic is really becoming fun. Those two guys are really funny, and they’re also very necessary. After all, Eli and Rush can’t be the only ones who know how to work this ship.
Camille Wray (Ming-Na) and Colonel Young (Louis Ferreira) discuss yet another life-and-death dilemma unfolding onboard Destiny. Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
With Volker, Brody and Park you’ve got an engineer as well as scientists with multiple skills. Maybe they weren’t The A Team, maybe they were never going to be members of an SG team, but they’re finding their own way. It’s like I wrote in [season one’s] Darkness where Volker says, ‘I think I’m a pretty fine astrophysicist,’ and he is, he’s just not necessarily up to Rush’s caliber.
“So all these guys are well and truly back and they’re as strong as ever. I don’t even like calling them secondary characters. They’re members of our crew, and we enjoy giving them their moments to shine, too. I mean, there are a couple of scenes in Aftermath where Jen Spence’s performance is riveting, and she doesn’t have a single line of dialogue. She’s just there and in the moment so much, and we cut to her and found this moving performance. All she’s doing is responding to the breath and depth of the situation, but because Jen is so good, it’s not just the reaction of one of the people onboard the ship, but rather, oh, my God, this is really hurting her [character] and impacting everyone around her.
“I would say that applies right across the board about all these actors. We’re giving these guys storylines that I never thought we’d be doing, but our ensemble is so rich, and although this is a big cast, we can put them together in almost any combination and terrific things come out of that.”
After Colonel Young and his crew retook the ship from the Lucian Alliance, the baddies were locked away. Some of them were later sent through the Destiny’s Stargate and to live on a habitable planet, while a handful of Lucian Alliance members were allowed to stay onboard. These fortunate few include Mike Dopud’s character of Varro, first seen in last season’s Subversion, and two new characters introduced this year, Ginn, played by Julie McNiven, and Simeon, played by Robert Knepper.
Tne not-so-nice Simeon (Robert Knepper). Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“The Lucian Alliance had attacked our people at the beginning of our story and we wanted to book-end last season by bringing them back as villains,” explains Wright. “We like them as the bad guys because they’re human and yet have their own agenda. The Lucian Alliance is kind of like a gang of thugs, and they present themselves as sort of a down and dirty adversary that our characters can fight. We also recognized the fact that we’d be able to bring new blood onto the show in season two by introducing more of the Lucian Alliance. That new blood reveals itself in the characters that Robert Knepper and Julie McNiven play. One is a lovely, positive influence, and the other is a very dark and evil influence.
“When it came to casting these roles, I think it was Robert Cooper who was on the phone with Paul Weber, our casting director in Los Angeles, and Paul asked him, ‘So what are we looking for?’ Robert said ‘’What we’re really looking for is a Robert Knepper-type,’ and Paul said, ‘How about Robert Knepper?’ and Robert said, ‘Hmm, that might work.’ And with Ginn, we looked at a lot of people for that character. She was that difficult combination of someone who looks like they could shoot a gun but also sound like a scientist at the same time. That whole double-edged sword was best portrayed by Amanda Tapping as Sam Carter [in SG-1 and Atlantis]. There are very few people who can do both those things, and Julie is wonderful at it.”
“Unlike the other Stargate series, we’re introducing storylines on Universe that don’t necessarily go away. So we’re doing mini-arcs that involve, for instance, the aliens from last year, which the fans have nicknamed, ‘The Blues.’ They don’t go away. The come back this season. We’re also introducing another alien race early on this year [in the episode Awakening], and another race of ‘beings’ in the latter part of the season. As we move forward, some of them may come and go and others might stick around for a little longer than you expect, but we’re going to keep introducing new aliens. After all, we’re flying through the universe, so we’re not going to have one overriding villain as in previous shows. However, that isn’t to say that we’re not going to run into villains, because we’ve run into quite a few of them already this season.”
When Universe’s second season began production earlier this year, the first episode to go in front of the cameras was Pathogen. It marked Robert Caryle’s directorial debut on the show, something that Wright was more than happy to encourage.
Julie McNiven as the far more likeable Ginn. Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“Last summer, Robert and I were sitting on-set in-between set ups and I asked him, ‘Would you like to direct?’ says the executive producer. “He said, ‘Oh, I’d love to, and for this show, in fact.’ I didn’t really mention it again until the end of the season. I asked Robert, ‘Were you serious about directing?’ and he told me, ‘Yes, I’d love to.’ My feeling was that if Robert really wanted to do something like that, then we should give him the opportunity. Frankly, anything that invests him more in our show and puts his stamp on our show in a bigger way is good for the show.”
“Robert directed the first episode this year because it was the only way he could prep for it, otherwise we’d have been taking him out of the prior episode because it’s a lot of work prepping to direct. You can’t just show up and say, ‘Action,’ otherwise anyone could direct,” jokes Wright. “Robert asked all the right questions and did all his homework, which I knew he would. The script was mainly chosen for him to direct because it was a character-driven piece about emotional as well as personal stories, and that’s why he did such a good job with it. Robert captured all the performances very well and it’s a strong episode for that reason.
“He had the best time doing it, too. That’s the other thing, I swear to God he looked like a kid in a candy shop when he was directing, and that’s not true of everybody. Not everybody responds to it in a fun sort of way. Sometimes people are either like a deer in headlights, or it’s overwhelming or it’s too tiring. Yes, it is really tiring, especially when you’re acting in the episode as well, but Robert did it and, again, he did a terrific job.”
As the executive producer already mentioned, the first season two Universe episode he penned was Cloverdale, in which Lt. Matthew Scott is caught in a life-and-death predicament. “I’d wanted to do a story that essentially put one of our peoples’ lives in jeopardy because of an alien organism that has infected him,” he says. “As I was spinning that story in my mind, I thought, ‘What if the pain is so severe that he’s hallucinating and in an unconscious state.
Sergeant Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) and Colonel Young (Louis Ferreira). Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“So in the episode we’re cutting back and forth between the very real near death experience that Scott is having on a planet where these alien creatures are encroaching on him and the others, who are trying to keep him alive at the Stargate, and a fantasy world unfolding in his mind. In that fantasy, Scott has gone home to Middle America to see his father, who in this case is Colonel Young, to be with his buddy, Greer, to marry Chloe, etc.
“In some ways it’s similar to an Outer Limits episode I did probably over 10 years ago now. I love playing with the idea of which one of these realities is real and which isn’t. There’s very little awareness for Scott of what’s really going on, until he gets drunk at his stag party. But honestly this episode is kind of Our Town meets Alien,” says Wright with a chuckle. “It’s also fairly ambitious in terms of the alien creatures that our people encounter on this planet. It’s something we’ve never seen before; they’re neither plant nor animal, but they are aggressive. It’s the first time, too, in 340-something hours of Stargate that we actually used flame throwers in order to defend the gate against an alien attack, so that was neat.”
Being careful not to reveal any major spoilers, Wright very kindly goes on to talk about some of the other episodes that Universe fans can look forward to seeing this season. “We just finished shooting an episode called Twin Destinies,” he says. “I don’t want to give too much away, but this story explores an interesting time travel dynamic that will also include a huge new layer to the series in the back half of the season, basically opening up a whole bunch of different types of stories.
“The trick with a show like this, and one that’s hopefully in for a bit of a long run, or at least longer than two seasons, is continually opening new doors so that your mythology expands and there’s a critical mass of material that you keep building on. If you don’t do that, then you’re just telling one story that has to resolve itself. And unlike the other two Stargate series, Universe has an arc. It has a beginning and an end. We don’t know when the ending will be, necessarily. It can’t be this season, though, because we have way too many stories left to tell, but we do know where we’re headed story-wise.
Robert Carlyle (as Rush) in "Malice." Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“Certainly one of the more challenging episodes we’ve done so far this year is Malice, which was written and directed by Robert Cooper and shot partly in New Mexico. This episode was inspired by a [1956] John Ford movie called The Searchers, and we shot on-location in a wonderful environment down in New Mexico called Bisti Badlands. It’s a postage stamp on this planet that looks like an alien world. The geography is bizarre and like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s the most alien looking landscape that we’ve ever shot without using CGI [computer-generated imaging] or other techniques.
“This is really a Robert Carlyle story at heart and, boy, did they hit it out of the ballpark. The script is wonderful and Bobby’s performance is just amazing. And we were able to stick to our desire not to run about in the forests of Vancouver all the time when shooting. I’m not saying that we won’t, but at least a few times coming up this season you’ll see a setting that is truly alien in its environment, much like we did last year with Air, Part 3, a big portion of which was shot in New Mexico as well. That was also a huge challenge. Whenever you pack up the Stargate and go to another country and shoot with a different crew, it’s a big deal, but it has pad off handsomely both times.”
This past summer, Robert Cooper decided to step down from his active role as executive producer/writer/director on Universe in order to spend more time with his family as well as pursue other projects. How does Wright feel about no longer having his good friend and longtime creative partner around on a daily basis?
“Rob and I worked together for such a long time, but we’ve also worked separately,” he says. “I make my shows and he makes his, but what I will miss the most is his voice in the writers’ room, because I’ve always been very good at coming up with ideas, and Rob has always been very good at focusing them, like throwing out a thought, and we did it for each other. If either one of us hit a stumbling block at any point, we would just walk across the hall and say, ‘I have this issue, what do you think?’ and within a few minutes, one of us would say, ‘How about this?’ and the other person would say, ‘Thank you,’ and we’d move on.
TJ (Alaina Huffman) and Dr. Caine (Tygh Runyan) in season two's "Visitation." Photo by Carole Segal and copyright of The Syfy Channel.
“Fortunately, we’re in a position now where I have people like Paul and Joe and Carl Binder to bounce ideas off of, all of whom are immensely talented show runners in their own right. This is a group of show runners, which is another reason Rob was able to move on, and the reason I’ll move on at some point, too. The difference is that I will likely not move on as much as Rob may. If there is a fourth or fifth season of Universe, I’m sure he’ll come back and play, but I also understand his desire to sink his teeth into something else.
“I feel the same way; I’m just hanging in there a little bit longer because that’s kind of how it worked out. My kids are older and his kids are at an age where he wants to spend more time with them. I did that in season seven of SG-1; that’s how Robert got the opportunity to run SG-1 in the first place. But I never stepped aside completely and probably never will. I will run the day-to-day as much as I do now.
“My favorite analogy to that is the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. This is my Building and Loan and I’m George Bailey. I can’t leave. I’ll be holding the train ticket, but Uncle Billy will call and I’ll have to come back. The thing is, though, I think that’s really is an apt analogy because this is a wonderful life. I love this place and I do love and care about the people here. I’ve been here so long and there are people who have worked for this franchise for a very long time. If I can help make sure that they have a job next year, then I should do what I can to do for that to happen. So as much as I want to do other things, I’ll probably always keep at least a toe inside this building so that I can step back in.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, all photos by Carole Segal or Art Streiber, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
SGU is really what i wanted to see after the story line saga of sg-1 had developed the fact that the race we call Ancient's
had built the Stargate network not the Gou'ld .
if we look closely at the new story line and the ship
Destiny then you will see a brilliant creation of what the Ancients had done to build the Stargate network .
Destiny is the most awesome spaccraft to have ever been built in the science fiction world in my humble opinion !
the only time that we have seen the Ancients in there early time line was in the movie "The Ark of Truth " , of course we did see Oma in the Sg-1 series but she was a assended
ancient not a living one .
so to Brad Wright and Robert Cooper all i can say now about SGU is "well done indeed" !!! Visitation was probably the best episode in the entire Stargate saga ! well done indeed
again and I hope that if syfy won't continue the series mgm will bring it back to Showtime or offer it to HBO !!
the stargate saga is alive and well and now going in the right direction with the new crew and especially Destiny as
there new home .
maybe in later episodes we will see dr.jackson and dr. mckay on Destiny via the stones and maybe col.carter ?
that would really be something would it not ????????????
respectfully
w.a. duke
Posted by: willard duke | 11/26/2010 at 06:12 PM
All I can say is
LONG LIVE STARGATE!
SGU is amazing, and if it dosn't work out with SyFy then i'm sure Space will always give you a chance :P
(then I as a canadian can actually contribute to the views!)
Posted by: jam | 12/03/2010 at 02:14 AM
I’m trying to find a contact email address or postal address for any of the writers/producers of StarGate SGI or Atlantis: Brad Wright, Robert C Cooper, Joseph Mallozi and Jonathan Glassner. If you can help – PLEASE let me know! Thanks – I really appreciate it!! (Australia)
Posted by: Tammy | 06/29/2012 at 10:18 PM
Hi Tammy, You can contact Joe Mallozzi via his blog at the following link:
http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/
Posted by: SciFiAndTvTalk | 07/02/2012 at 07:25 PM