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'Stargates' Keep Running at Sci FiLOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) The Sci Fi Channel plans to keep its successful Friday-night lineup humming for the foreseeable future, picking up both editions of "Stargate" for another season.The cable network has picked up 20 new episodes of both "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis," with production set to begin on the two shows early next year. The new seasons will debut in the summer of 2006."SG-1" will enter its 10th season (the first five aired on Showtime) next summer, making it, Sci Fi says, the longest-running science-fiction drama in the history of American television. Previous record holder "The X-Files" lasted nine seasons on FOX; three "Star Trek" series -- "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" -- ran for seven seasons. "Atlantis," meanwhile, will get its third season. Both it and its predecessor averaged better than 2 million viewers per week for their most recent run of new episodes over the summer, and along with "Battlestar Galactica," have made Sci Fi the top cable network on Fridays for the young-adult viewers that are the lifeblood of the business.All three Friday shows are scheduled to continue their current seasons in January.

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Sci Fi Orders Third Round of 'Battlestar'

 

Though it will come as a surprise to no one, Sci Fi Channel is

readying a third season of its grim space opera "Battlestar

Galactica." The series fell off somewhat during its second

season-dropping from an average of 1.7 million 18- to 49-year-old

viewers last year to 1.5 million. But the program still helped lead

Sci Fi to consistent Friday night victories over all of basic cable,

besting runners-up TNT, USA Network and Spike. Sci Fi had no comment

as the renewal deal was still being finalized. Last week the network

announced fellow Friday night dramas "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate

Atlantis" were renewed for 20 episodes each and noted that the

10th-season renewal of "SG-1" makes it the longest-running science

fiction television program of all time, outlasting "The X-Files,"

"Twilight Zone" and every iteration of "Star Trek." -JAMES HIBBERD

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Good riddance!

 

Braga: I'm Done With Trek

 

Longtime Star Trek producer Brannon Braga told SCI FI Wire that he's done with the franchise, at least for now and for the foreseeable future. "At the moment, yeah," Braga said in an interview. "There will be a lot of fans cheering about that," he added wryly, referring to the often caustic fan criticism directed at him during his 15 years as a writer and producer on Trek series and movies.

 

Since the end of Star Trek: Enterprise earlier this year after four seasons on the air, there have been no plans announced for either a new Trek film or a TV series for the first time in 18 years. But Braga said that, even if there were, he would likely turn down any chance to be part of it. "At this point, most likely not," Braga said. "Just having come off so many years on the show and having done something different, I just don't think I would be ready now. Nor do I think they would necessarily ask me. But if they came to me today, I would have to be very flattered, but politely decline."

 

Braga served as co-creator and executive producer of Star Trek: Enterprise. Braga began his tenure with the Trek franchise in 1990 as a writer/producer on The Next Generation. In 1995, he was appointed executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager. Braga wrote more than 150 Trek episodes, including the Next Generation series finale "All Good Things ... ," which earned him the Hugo Award for excellence in science fiction writing. Braga also co-wrote the movies Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, which became the highest-grossing of the nine Star Trek films. Braga worked closely with the other longtime executive producer of Trek, Rick Berman.

 

Braga is now an executive producer on CBS' new SF drama Threshold and has left Trek behind. "You know how it is," he said. "You did something for a long time. Star Trek was very good to me. And I certainly did my best to contribute to Star Trek. But there just comes a point where I'm not sure what else I would have to give. I certainly could see the financial value in it, but at this point, creatively, I would not want to be involved in something that I couldn't give to."

 

Threshold moves to a new timeslot, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Nov. 22.

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Good riddance!

 

Braga: I'm Done With Trek

Unfortunatelly for ST, he haven't done it in time.

Say 10 years ago would be OK, but now when it's ruined what is the point of this?

Sounds like showing the finger again.

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(Zap2it.com)'Galactica' Battles on at Sci FiThe Cylon war won't be ending anytime soon.The Sci Fi Channel has picked up its acclaimed series "Battlestar Galactica" for a third season, making official what has been suspected for some time. The cable network has ordered 20 episodes of the show, which will begin production early next year."Galactica's" pickup comes a few weeks after the renewal of the channel's two "Stargate" series, ensuring that the network's strong Friday-night lineup will remain intact for at least the next year. All three shows will resume their current seasons in early January.The entire principal cast of "Battlestar Galactica," including Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, is set to return for season three. Executive producers David Eick and Ronald D. Moore, who developed the show from the late-1970s ABC series, will also remain with the show."Battlestar Galactica" has been both a critical and ratings success for Sci Fi. Original episodes consistently draw close to 3 million viewers, and along with the "Stargate" shows helps Sci Fi lead all of cable on Friday nights in the all-important adults 18-49 demographic.

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(Zap2it.com)Braga Stands on the 'Threshold'By Kate O'HareOn Friday, Nov. 11, at 9 p.m. ET, CBS' freshman legal drama "Close to Home" aired for the first time in its new time slot after moving there from Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, delivering its most watched episode so far and giving the network its best performance in the time period since May.In particular, according to a CBS press release, "Close to Home" was up 50 percent in households, 36 percent in adults 25-54, 28 percent in adults 18-49 and 44 percent in adults 18-34, as compared to the science-fiction drama "Threshold" the previous week.Combined with strong ratings for "Close to Home's" lead-in, the freshman supernatural drama "Ghost Whisperer," and the sophomore crime drama "Numb3rs," which airs at 10 p.m. ET, the revised lineup has so far proved a successful gamble for CBS.As for "Threshold," it moves into the vacated Tuesday slot on Nov. 22, and for executive producer Brannon Braga, who spent most of his career working in "Star Trek" series and movies, it's make or break time for his first post-"Trek" project."I'm optimistic," he says, "very excited. Look, it's a really big opportunity for us to increase our ratings, but it's a risky thing to move a show to a different night. But I'd much rather take a gamble on moving to Tuesdays than staying where we were. We're really hoping that people know it airs this coming Tuesday."We're hoping that the people who have been consistently watching are going to move with us, but that we'll also get some new eyeballs. If that happens, we'll be all right. But look, I can't make any excuses. 'Ghost Whisperer,' 'Numb3rs,' now 'Close to Home,' they're doing just fine on Friday.""Threshold" stars Carla Gugino as Dr. Molly Caffrey, a government contingency analyst whose plan for alien invasion kicked into gear after a mysterious alien signal distorted the DNA of the crew of a ship that encountered a multidimensional craft.Now the surviving infected crewmembers are infiltrating society, seeking to spread the gene-altering signal throughout mankind. At the same time, Molly and two of her team, engineer Lucas Pegg (Rob Benedict) and soldier Cavennaugh (Brian Van Holt), saw a videotape of the transmission and have also been affected, just less severely -- so far.In the Nov. 22 episode, "Progeny," Elizabeth Berkley stars as one of a trio of affluent women that starts exhibiting bizarre behavior."A lot's happened in the seven episodes since the pilot," Braga says. "The situation, particularly starting with episode nine, which airs Tuesday, and onward, escalates rapidly out of control. There are going to be major events, major outbreak of infectees, major weird stuff."One of our characters is going to become unglued, start to tune into an alien. It's one of the three who was infected from the videotape in the pilot -- Lucas, Molly, Cavennaugh. One of those three is going to go down."According to Braga, that's only the beginning. "The situation Molly's facing just keeps escalating, and so do the tensions among the characters. It's going to become more emotionally charged and more terrifying, because even the best-laid plans, like Molly's 'Threshold' plan, can't quite predict the things that are going to happen."By the end of the season, if there is one, you'll be shocked at what's happened."This past fall, following the success of ABC's "Lost," six science fiction and horror pilots came on the air. ABC's "Night Stalker" has been canceled, but "Ghost Whisperer," NBC's "Surface," ABC's "Invasion," and The WB's "Supernatural" have all gotten full-season orders."I'm hoping 'Threshold' joins the ranks of those that got picked up," Braga says. "I'm feeling a little bit like the orphan that nobody's adopted yet."After all, Braga wants to hold his head up in front of his sci-fi colleagues and fans at the annual Comic-Con International convention in San Diego next summer."Hey," he says, "if we get canceled, I won't be going anywhere near Comic-Con. I'll be too ashamed."Braga has already told CBS his plans for the "back nine" episodes that would fill out his initial order of 13 to the full season of 22. "I'm like, 'Here's what I have planned,'" he says. "They were like, 'Cool.'"For "JAG" fans, one thing to look forward to is a guest appearance, currently scheduled on Dec. 16, by Catherine Bell, who played Marine lawyer Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie on the long-running military drama."I'm doing a three-episode arc," Bell says, "assuming they get picked up, which I really hope happens for them. They're a great bunch of people. I play a cool scientist who's made a fortune on all of these patients. They bring me in because I'm a genetically-modified-food expert, and that's what the aliens are doing.""She's terrific," Braga says. "She's a recurring character, but only if we get picked up. Everybody who works on this show is just in love with it. I'm having the time of my life, so I'm really hoping it happens."

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Watch with Kristin

 

It's official. My sources confirm to me that Threshold is done.

 

 

Especially sad given the plans they had to bring on Catherine Bell of JAG.

 

Happy F-ing Thanksgiving, eh?

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CBS Pulls 'Threshold' from Schedule

 

Friday, November 25, 2005

09:58 AM PT

 

The first Tuesday broadcast of CBS' sci-fi show "Threshold" might also have been its last.

The rookie series has been pulled from the network's schedule for at least the next few weeks, following a lackluster ratings performance in a new time period Tuesday (Nov. 22). With midseason shows looming, that could be it for the show, although a CBS spokesperson couldn't be reached Friday to confirm that.

 

If "Threshold," which stars Carla Gugino as the head of a government team trying to head off an alien infiltration, is being put to bed, then it would be the only one of the three new alien-invasion shows not to make it to the new year. ABC's "Invasion" and NBC's "Surface" have both been picked up for full seasons.

 

 

Earlier this month, CBS decided to swap time periods for "Threshold" and another first-year drama, "Close to Home," in November in an effort to boost ratings for both shows.

It worked for "Close to Home," which has drawn about 11.8 million viewers each week since moving to 9 p.m. ET Fridays. That's about 2 million more viewers than it was averaging at 10 p.m. Tuesdays, and 4 million better than the 7.8 million "Threshold" averaged on Fridays. CBS rewarded "Home" with a full-season pickup earlier this week and a permanent spot in the Friday schedule.

 

In its move to Tuesday, though, "Threshold" fell below both "Close to Home's" Tuesday benchmark and its own season average.

 

An episode of "Criminal Minds" will take "Threshold's" place on Tuesday, Nov. 29. Plans beyond that haven't been finalized.

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Triangle Cast Faced Real Chills

 

The cast of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle told SCI FI Wire that shooting the show for three months in South Africa offered thrills and some literal chills. "Shooting on that continent was rather extraordinary," said Eric Stoltz, who plays skeptical reporter Howard Thomas. "We would be ... sitting in our room, and baboons would come and invade the camp. Seriously. Yeah. Things like that would happen. Or we'd be out in the water, and I saw a great white fin. I mean, things happen."

 

Bruce Davison, who plays psychic Stan Lathem, expressed surprise at news of the sharks. "You didn’t tell me about that," he said.

 

"No, I didn't share that with everybody," Stoltz said. "We were shooting in a place called Shark Alley, ... and a woman had just been killed there the month before."

 

The Triangle centers on a team of experts hired to get to the bottom of the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle, a region of the Atlantic Ocean that has been the site of hundreds of supposed mysterious disappearances of planes and ships over the decades. The miniseries required the cast to spend many days in the water off the coast of South Africa and in a special tank on the coast.

 

"There were three shark attacks and deaths while we were there," said Catherine Bell, who plays deep-ocean resource engineer Emily Patterson, referring to incidents unrelated to the production. "We had to go in the water at one point, but it was a tidal pool, so it was kind of protected. And it was also freezing."

 

Though the cast was never in real danger of a shark attack, they found themselves frequently chilled by the cold water during the filming, which often took place at night during South Africa's winter. To keep warm they wore wetsuits under their clothing and even employed hot-water bottles between takes.

 

"There's a shot of all of us standing there like this, holding tea and, like, hot-water bottles on our heads," Bell said. "It’s really glamorous. ... [but] it was freezing."

 

Added Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays family man and environmentalist Meeno Paloma: "In the last installment of the miniseries, we are all drenched for two hours of screen time, which is a good month's worth of drenching. We're either in the Indian Ocean—I don't even want to fathom, so to speak, how cold that might have been—but if we're not [in the water], we're having to go into the rainstorm. Or you're running into the building, but you're drenched. ... When you're shooting something for 12 hours, you are soaked to the bone all day long, and it's just not glamorous."

 

To keep warm, Phillips said, "literally, we tried everything. We were trying wetsuits. We were trying wetsuits with dry suits on top. We were trying dry suits without the wetsuits with long johns. I mean, every possible combination to retain your body heat. ... At a certain point, you give up your dignity and go, 'You know what? I just want to be comfortable. I just want to be warm, so I don't care what I look like.'" The Triangle premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 5.

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(Zap2it.com)Sci Fi Breathes Life into 'Night Stalker'"Night Stalker," which lasted but seven weeks on ABC this fall, will get some new life next year thanks to the Sci Fi Channel.The cable network has acquired rights to the entire series, which includes three episodes that never made it onto the air. Sci Fi will air all 10 episodes sometime next summer."Night Stalker" joins a roster of genre shows on Sci Fi that have been discarded by broadcast networks. The channel enjoyed success with "Firefly" repeats earlier this year and has also served as a second home for shows like "Now & Again" and "Roar" in the past.The pickup of "Night Stalker" means that Sci Fi will now own both versions of the show. The network also airs episodes of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," the 1970s cult favorite on which the new show was based.The new "Night Stalker," which starred Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak, a reporter with a nose for the supernatural, and Gabrielle Union, had a rough go this fall airing opposite the No. 1 show on TV, CBS' "CSI." It averaged a scant 5.26 million viewers in its time on the air.

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Cool - thanks for posting that Bobby about Night Stalker. I just wanted to see the second episode of the two parter, so I guess I'll have to wait until the summer. By then I will have forgotten what it was all about :)

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No prob, Cy...I guess you are still following the program...I gave up on it(so did the network)! :D And IMDB has reported this...Now you can get it on IPOD. 'Night Stalker' To Stalk Sci-Fi ChannelABC's recently canceled Night Stalker will make a switch to the Sci-Fi Channel, owned by NBC Universal. The cable network acquired the seven shows that had already aired on ABC plus three others that did not. The series was produced by Touchstone TV and was one of three shows that ABC had agreed to make available for on-demand viewing on Apple's iPod Music Store for $1.99 per download. (The other two were hits Desperate Housewives and Lost.)

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Just a reminder for any sci fi fans out there, that Sci Fi Friday is all new on the Sci Fi channel starting tomorrow.This means the second part of the season for SG1, SG Atlantis and BSG (one of the best shows on tv right now).

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Lawless Joins Galactica Cast

 

SCI FI Channel announced that Lucy Lawless joins the cast of its original series Battlestar Galactica in the upcoming third season. Lawless will become a recurring cast member, reprising her role as D'Anna Biers in a 10-episode arc. The third season begins production in Vancouver, Canada, in April.

 

Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess) first appeared on Galactica in the second-season episode "Final Cut," playing investigative journalist Biers, who arrived on the Galactica to do an expose on alleged crew misconduct that resulted in the death of four civilians. Eventually, the audience learns that Biers is actually one of the human-looking Cylon agents, who was sent to Galactica on a covert reconnaissance mission.

 

Lawless' second guest appearance will air on Feb. 24 in the episode "Downloaded," which gives viewers their first real glimpse into the Cylon world. (The second half of season two of Galactica premiered Jan. 6.)

 

Lawless joins a Galactica cast that includes Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. The series is executive-produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, who was instrumental in originally casting Lawless in the role of Xena. Battlestar Galactica, from NBC Universal Television Studio, airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

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TV Guide.com

 

SCI FI SAYS "EUREKA!": Sci Fi Channel, having already received a two-hour pilot for Eureka, an original series about a small Pacific Northwest town populated by scientists doing top-secret government research, has gone ahead and ordered 11 one-hour episodes, to premiere this summer.

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NY Daily News

Scotty to join cosmic dust

 

 

CAPE CANAVERAL - Scotty will be blasted into space - not beamed up - and Gordo is returning for his third flight.

A private company is planning to launch a rocket sometime in March carrying the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery Scott on "Star Trek," Mercury and Gemini program astronaut Gordon Cooper and 185 others whose families paid $995 to $5,300 for the flight.

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SG-1 Adding A New Girl

 

Brad Wright, executive producer of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming 10th season will take the current storyline to the next level with the addition of an important new character. Speaking in an interview on the show's Vancouver, Canada, set, where the 10th season is now shooting, Wright offered these spoilers: "The other big change ... is the introduction of a new character, who is basically the leader of the Ori in our galaxy. And her name is Adria."

 

The character, who has not yet been cast, will show up in the 10th season's premiere episode, "Flesh and Blood," which airs in July. Wright said that she first appears "as a young girl, or various stages of a young girl, if that's not telling too much. And then, of course, we'll see her as a full-grown ... woman later on."

 

In the ninth-season finale, which just aired on SCI FI, the villainous Ori had sent immense starships into our galaxy to fight the forces of Earth and its allies.

 

Next season will also see the permanent addition of Claudia Black (Vala) as a regular cast member, joining Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge and Beau Bridges. —

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Torchwood Ignites In May

 

Russell T. Davies, writer-producer of the current Doctor Who revival airing on SCI FI Channel, told SCI FI Wire that the much-anticipated spinoff entitled Torchwood will begin production soon. "We start filming in May, and we should be on in this country [England] in October," Davies said in an interview. "So we'll have two shows running simultaneously, which will be fun."

 

Davies, who will oversee Torchwood while maintaining his Doctor Who responsibilities during the filming of that show's second season, described Torchwood as a 13-part science fiction series for adults. (Torchwood is an anagram for Doctor Who.) "Doctor Who airs in this country at 7 o'clock at night, so it gets the whole family watching," Davies said. "Torchwood is Earth-based. It takes one of the actors who was very popular from the first [season] of Doctor Who, who is called Captain Jack Harkness [John Barrowman]. He was in five episodes and was hugely successful as a companion to the Doctor [Christopher Eccleston]."

 

Davies added: "He's a bisexual con man. Hooray! We need more bisexual con men on our television screens, I think, don't you think? Bisexual con men from the 53rd century, what could be better? He was so enormously successful that we've created a spinoff for him." —Ian Spelling

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4400 Offers New Answers

 

VANCOUVER, Canada—Scott Peters, co-creator of USA Network's SF series The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming third season will begin to answer some of the show's burning questions, including why the title characters were abducted and returned to Earth. "We're still going to see new 4400 members," Peters said in an interview on the show's set here. "We're still going to have things for Tom [Joel Gretsch] and Diana [Jacqueline McKenzie] to investigate, but I think what's also really fascinating—something untapped that we're trying to go for here—is the bigger mythology. The bigger questions of 'Who did this?' We kind of know who did this, but who specifically did this. And why did they do this? We kind of know why, but why specifically did they do this? And now that they've taken this step, what are the ramifications? And what has changed that maybe they couldn't have predicted?"

 

The 4400 centers on Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris, agents for the National Threat Assessment Command, or NTAC, who are investigating the mysterious re-appearance of 4,400 people who had vanished over the decades but are now back with unusual powers. In the third year, the show will focus more on Baldwin, Skouris and the other main characters, including Baldwin's girlfriend, Alana (played by new series regular Karina Lombard); Skouris' adopted daughter, Maia (Conchita Campbell); and a newly grown-up Isabelle, played by new cast member Megalyn Echikunwoke.

 

Speaking during a break in filming of a two-part episode, "Gone," at Lions Gate Studios here, Peters hinted that there may even develop a romance between Isabelle, who has powerful telekinetic abilities, and Shawn Farrell (Patrick Flueger), who has the power to heal. "There's plenty of romance with her and Shawn, yeah," Peters said. "I mean, clearly, ... over the first three episodes they become very attracted to each other. Which is a little bit of a dangerous thing, because it's all great when she's happy, but man, you don't want to break up with her."

 

The show will answer the question of what happened to Jordan Collier (Billy Campbell), the leader of the 4400, who seemed to have been assassinated last season, but appeared alive briefly at the end of the season. But don't expect an answer soon, Peters said. "Yes, we certainly will [tease you]," he said. "But, you know, he's a really strong character. We're using that to our advantage. ... We pepper the shows with him, but when he's being used, he's going to be used in a very big, strong way. So stay tuned." The 4400 returns with new episodes this summer in its regular 9 p.m. ET/PT Sunday timeslot. USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

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McKenzie Had Nightmare In Oz

 

VANCOUVER, Canada—Jacqueline McKenzie, who co-stars with William H. Macy in a segment of TNT's upcoming limited anthology series Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, told SCI FI Wire that she shot the show in her native Australia in the hiatus from her regular series, The 4400. (McKenzie is best known for playing U.S. federal agent Diana Skouris in the USA Network show The 4400.)

 

"I was lucky enough to be cast in Nightmares & Dreamscapes, a television miniseries from an anthology of Stephen King short stories," McKenzie said in an interview. "It plays on TNT later in the year. Being an anthology, each story was completely autonomous. Mine was one called 'Umney's Last Case.'"

 

Nightmares is based on King's 1993 anthology of 20 short stories. McKenzie's episode "is about a writer of detective novels, Landry (played by William H. Macy), and his wife, Linda (me), coming to terms with the death of their young son, ... trying to forgive each other, trying to forgive themselves, seeing if it's possible to find joy in life again after such a tragedy," McKenzie said. "Stephen King is such a genius. The way he tells a story is so unique. ... His story was adapted by April Smith, and between them both, our story crosses two realities: the here and now and the fictional world of film-noir crime drama, [about] which Landry writes."

 

McKenzie added that the role was a departure from her regular work on The 4400, which recently began production on its upcoming third season. "From the look and style of the piece to the age [and] place my character was/is at in her life," McKenzie said. "They do share one thing: the enormous love they have for their child. We got to shoot in Australia. (Quite ironic, as I'm from there, and yet I was playing an American!)"

 

Rob Bowman (Reign of Fire, Elektra) directed McKenzie's episode. "I'd love [him] to come and direct us on The 4400!" McKenzie said. "He knows how to work fast without losing the intensity of the scenes. ... He's super prepared and also great fun. I also got to work with one of my idols, William H. Macy. Seriously, if there is acting royalty, then he is surely it! No suprises as to how extraordinary he was to work with as an actor. His talent is boundless, but ... a joy for me to discover is how generous he is as a performer. Incredibly humble, ensemble-driven, all about realizing the story, and one of the nicest guys you'd meet. Hilarious. And plays a mean ukelele!"

 

McKenzie is now back at work on The 4400, which returns to USA in the summer. Nightmares & Dreamscapes premieres on TNT in July.

 

USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

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TV guide.com

 

SciFi.com Launches En-sci-clopedia

 

This week SciFi.com is debuting its own free Wikipedia resource tool devoted to science-fiction facts, definitions and terminology. The Scifipedia, as it is dubbed, will offer 1,000 entries at first, each begging to be expounded upon, added to and at times called into question through overenthusiastic recitations of canon by the site's visitors and experts.

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4400's Gretsch Under Pressure

 

VANCOUVER, Canada—Joel Gretsch, who plays federal agent Tom Baldwin on USA Network's SF series The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that his character gets pushed to the limits in the upcoming third season. "There's extremes," Gretsch (Taken) said in an interview during a break in filming on the show's set her last week. "I think Tom's getting pushed to his limit. There's only so far you can push somebody, and when you do get emotionally involved with the people you care about, you will go to extreme levels to make sure that they're safe and that they're OK. I think Tom is getting pushed to that level. To his breaking point. Like, 'OK, f--k you all. I'm going to take this into my own hands. You can only push me so far.' And ... what ties us all as humans, when we love somebody, you will do extraordinary things."

 

Gretsch was referring to the upcoming two-part third-season episode "Gone," in which Baldwin and his partner, Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie), deal with what appears to be the disappearance of her adopted daughter, Maia (Conchita Campbell), one of the 4,400 people returned from the future with mysterious powers. Gretsch was shooting the episode when SCI FI Wire caught up with him at Lions Gate Studios.

 

"There's never boredom as an actor on this show, that's for sure," Gretsch said. "They give you so much to do. ... The original thing about Tom, he's been given this burden to find out what's going to happen in the future, and what we're going to do about it and ... how [the 4,400 are] involved in that. So that continues. He's still dealing with his personal life with his son [Kyle, played by Chad Faust]. Last season, [Kyle] gets put in jail for committing the crime [the assassination of 4400 leader Jordan Collier, played by Billy Campbell], so [Tom's] dealing with that dilemma, and the relationship that he has with Alana [Karina Lombard]. So there's a lot of stuff happening. He gets up in the morning and has a busy day."

 

Does Gretsch know what the big secrets of the show are? (Producers have hinted that some answers will be forthcoming this season.) "No, no, I haven't been told anything," he said with a smile. "Which is great, because, look, I play an investigator, so it's easy. I'm investigating. I just go, 'Oh!' I read the next script. 'I didn't know that's where we're going.' So that's nice, as an actor, to not fully know. I mean, there's good and bad about that. ... But I think the writers, [executive producer] Ira [steven Behr] and everybody, are very in tune, especially [in the] third season. They know us as actors. They know us. We understand more of the characters now after three seasons. They understand us and the characters more in the third season. So that's quite beneficial." The 4400 returns with new episodes this summer in its Sunday timeslot. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

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SG-1's Anderson Like Old Times

 

Brad Wright—executive producer of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis—told SCI FI Wire that it's been like old times having Richard Dean Anderson back on set for several guest appearances on both shows, reprising his role as Gen. Jack O'Neill. Anderson's first appearance will be in "200," SG-1's 200th episode, which will air Aug. 18 as part of the series' upcoming 10th season. "It's been a lot of fun to see him again," Wright said in an interview. "He's doing two episodes of SG-1 and three episodes of Atlantis."

 

Anderson left the Stargate fold after season eight of SG-1 in order to spend more time with his young daughter. But both he and the show's producers left the door open for return engagements.

 

Wright said that SG-1 could not toast its 200th episode without its original leading man. "He was so much the face of SG-1 for so many years," Wright said. "We did go on without him and made some fine television, but for the 200th episode there was just no way we could even consider doing it without bringing him back. And, of course, when we called him to ask him to do that, he said, 'Just one?' So it was nice to know that he wanted to come back. And it's actually kind of a testament to the environment we have here. People miss it when they're gone. It's just a fun place to work, and it's a fun show to work on. That's why everybody still works their butt off and why we're still on the air, I guess, because it shows on the screen."

 

SG-1's 200th episode is a send-up that picks up the story of the show's 100th episode, "Wormhole X-Treme!" and brings back guest star Willie Garson as abductee-turned-Hollywood producer Martin Lloyd. The episode "is based on a great idea [executive producer] Robert [C. Cooper] had, and we've all written bits and put them all together, and Robert went through it, and then I went through it," Wright said. "It's essentially a 'Wormhole X-Treme!' revisited, in a sense, because Marty comes back, but this time he needs our help to work on the Wormhole X-Treme! feature [film]. Because even though the series was canceled after three episodes, it did well on DVD. A little nod to Serenity, I suppose. And the Air Force loves it, because they love the notion of a television series out there that is ostensibly ... [the] real events in SG-1, in Stargate Command. So, plausible deniability. ... So it's a series of, I guess you could call them, vignettes or flashes. ... 'Wormhole X-treme!' was pushing it. This is pushing it twice as far. But, you know, it's the 200th episode."

 

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, which comes back for a third season, will both return with new episodes beginning on July 14. —Ian Spelling

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Scifi.com

 

Wright: Expect More Stargate

 

Brad Wright—co-executive producer of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis—told SCI FI Wire he's confident that the longstanding franchise could spin off more series and even a feature film. Projects in the works include a third TV series, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and a movie, he said in an interview.

 

"What we've built is now bigger than all of us," Wright said. "Even if I were to not do the movie, I know somebody is going to do a Stargate movie. It's the second largest franchise for MGM next to Bond. So it's got significant brand potential, and by two series doing as well as they are and a game coming out, that could really, really, really brand the show in a big way. That's what they like in this business: a larger franchise with so many legs to it that it could go into the future for years to come."

 

The franchise began with the 1994 feature film Stargate, followed by SG-1 on Showtime in 1996. That series moved to SCI FI in 2002 and will begin its unprecedented 10th season on July 14, becoming the longest-running SF show in American television history. Atlantis spun off of SG-1 in 2004 and kicks off its third season also on July 14.

 

"I know there will be a movie made," Wright said. "I know there will likely be another series made, whether I make it or not. It's just too good a vehicle for storytelling. This is exactly what Jonathan [Glassner] and I recognized 10 years ago, when we created the series. The Stargate is dramatically, and in terms of storytelling, a perfect vehicle from which to launch characters and tell stories. That's why it will go for years to come." —Ian Spelling

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