May 28, 2011: Food, food, food, t-shirts, oh, and Stargate: SG-1's eight season! - Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

Nooooooooooooo!  Yesterday, I was crushed to learn M:brgr had closed its doors only months after opening them.  Apparently, Torontonians don’t have an appetite for high-end burgers.  Great.  Now where the hell am I going to get a kobe beef patty with brie, caramelized onions, porcini mushrooms, black truffle carpaccio and fig jam on a white bun with a side order of sweet potato fries served with truffle mayo?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  And the truly sad part is it’s not the burger I’ll miss most of all.  It’ll be this –

The chocolate chip cookie skillet a la mode, hitherto my favorite dessert in Toronto.  The dish was perfection: the cookie served, partway between cooked and cookie dough, with not one but TWO scoops of vanilla ice cream!

Well, at the very least there’s this place –

Will have to get the name from Rob Cooper, who recommended it, but here’s hoping this restaurant sticks around.  Sadly, no chocolate chip cookie skillet a la mode here, but there is THIS –

The schnitzel platter that bested us on our last visit.  But I’m calling for best two out of three.

On the home front, the eating is good.  Not cooking as much as I’d like but I suspect that’ll change once I finally get settled in – probably around September the way things are going.  Akemi has assumed most of the meal preparation duties, including the occasional bento breakfast…

The guys at work are sooooooo jealous.www.

So, I was out and about today and happened by this Customize Your Own T-Shirt shop on Yonge Street.  I wanted to get some shirts for the writers in advance of the big broadcaster summit coming up later this week (Mine’s going to say: “Thank you for continuing to challenge me”).  Anyway, when I mentioned I was working on Transporter: The Series, the guys behind the counter were intrigued – then all sorts of delighted to hear I’d just come off eleven years on Stargate.  We chatted about the SGU season finale, fate of the franchise, and the big anime convention (Anime North) running through this weekend.  Anyway, I promised them a blog shout-out as part of today’s entry, so here it is –

Pascal and Andrew handle all your t-shirtly needs.

Casting my mind back to the start of SG-1’s eighth season, I remember going into that year fairly convinced that it would be the show’s last (yet again).  And, in many ways, it was because SG-1’s ninth and tenth season were a notable departure from those first eight.  This was Richard Dean Anderson’s last season as a regular, the final season in which the show’s long established villains – the goa’uld – would threaten Stargate Command and, in sum, the end of “classic Stargate” (although there are those who have long held this designation should only applly to the show’s first three seasons).  This was the year we wrapped up the big loose ends and we did so with a mind to ending the series and launching a new SGC-centered spin-off tentatively titled Stargate Command.  Needless to say, things didn’t exactly go as planned. Not exactly.  But, for the most part, they did and we ended up concluding the original team run in immensely satisfying fashion.

This also marked the first year we transitioned from a 22 to a 20 episode season.  It meant two less episodes – but only as far as SG-1 was concerned because this was also the year we launched Stargate: Atlantis.  In all, we produce 40 episodes of television that year!

NEW ORDER I (801)

Finally, after years of behind the scenes begging and badgering, actor Chris Judge got his wish – and Teal’c got hair.  Brad had long-resisted Chris’s requests but finally broke down since it seemed this was going to be it, the show’s final season.  I didn’t think it was such a big deal, especially considering Teal’c had undergone other notable changes over the course of the series run. Remember that gold tinge his skin possessed, making him look like he was a professional dancer working an all-night rave?  Given the fact that certain scenes from this show’s first four episodes were shot out of sequence, Teal’c’s hair is somewhat inconsistent – but I’m sure Chris will tell you it was a small price to pay for not having to shave his head every morning.

With Brad and Robert looking ahead to Stargate: Atlantis, a late change was made to the script’s first draft.  Initially, Richard Woolsey was supposed to take over at Stargate Command but the decision was made to have Elizabeth Weir step into the role instead.

NEW ORDER II (802)

The part of the human form replicator that comes out of stasis aboard the Daniel Jackson was played by SGA stunt coordinator James “Bam Bam” Bamford.

The episode’s final reveal, that Fifth had created a replicator version of Carter, wasn’t part of the story we broke and was included at the draft stage when Robert Cooper was struck by his usual insidiously evil inspiration.

LOCKDOWN (803)

The role of Colonel Alexi Vaselov was played by actor Gavin Hood who went on to win an Academy Award (no, not for his appearance on Stargate) in the Best Foreign Language Film category for Tsotsi, then later directed Rendition and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

One of my favorite scenes in this episode comes when Carter visits Daniel in the infirmary.  With the ailing and near-death Vaselov lying in his bed only feet away, Carter draws the privacy curtain and proceeds to deliver a dire diagnosis on the suffering Russian.  Whenever we watched the scene, one of the writers would invariably pipe up (as Vaselov): “I can hear you!  I’m lying right here!”  Then, as Carter to Vaselov: “Don’t worry!  Hang in there!  You’re going to pull through this!”  Then, as Carter to Daniel: “Not really.  He’s as good as dead.”  Then, as Carter back to Vaselov: “Think positive!  You’re going to be fine!”

ZERO HOUR (804)

aka – A Day in the Life of General O’Neill.  It was sad to bid farewell to General Hammond, especially considering I considered the actor who played him, Don S. Davis, a good friend – but having O’Neill take over command at the SGC opened up a host of welcome new story possibilities.  In this episode, we see the long-time wise-cracking rebel in uniform really step up and take charge in a big way, maintaining his cool – and trademark humor – as everything seems to be coming apart around him.  The SGC being overrun by alien plant life was an idea Brad had long wanted to incorporate into a story and, finally, got the opportunity to see it done here.  Chalk Siler’s wimpy flamethrower up to fire and safety regulations that prohibited us from using the real thing on set (when used in later episodes of the franchise like Cloverdale, the flames were enhanced by our visual effects department).