Stargate SG-1 (season 8)

The regular cast members of season eight are Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel/Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, Amanda Tapping as Major/Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, Christopher Judge as the Jaffa Teal'c, and Michael Shanks as civilian Dr. Daniel Jackson. After O'Neill's promotion to commander of Stargate Command, Carter assumes command of SG-1. Despite being one of the main characters, Anderson's time on set was further reduced from previous seasons, and he only worked 3.5 out of 5 working days per week.[1] After seven years of shaving his head for his role, Judge was granted his wish to have hair in season 8.[2]

The first season of Stargate Atlantis was filmed in parallel to the eighth season of SG-1, and aired in the time slot immediately following SG-1. Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks appeared in the pilot episode of Stargate Atlantis. Beginning with "New Order" and continuing into the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis, Torri Higginson replaced Jessica Steen as Dr. Elizabeth Weir. Ellie Harvie, who first appeared in "Prometheus Unbound" as Lindsey Novak, later became a recurring character on Stargate Atlantis.

Among the notable guest stars in season eight were Steve Bacic, who Robert C. Cooper already had in mind for the part of Camulus in three of the first four episodes of season 8.[3] Bacic is known for playing Gaheris Rhade and Telemachus Rhade on Andromeda, and previously played SG Team leader Major Coburn in "Maternal Instinct" and "The First Ones". "New Order" also marks the first appearance of Colonel Lionel Pendergast (Barclay Hope). "Prometheus Unbound" guest starred Claudia Black, of Farscape fame, as Vala Mal Doran. Black had originally been considered for the role of Krista in "Affinity", but her schedule did not allow it. Krista was then played by Erica Durance, who played Lois Lane in Smallville [4] and Black would later join the cast of Stargate as a regular, playing Vala in seasons 9 and 10. Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson on The Simpsons, guest starred as Joe Spencer in the episode "Citizen Joe". Charles Shaughnessy, known from his role in The Nanny as Maxwell Sheffield, appeared as Colson in "Covenant". Tony Amendola appears again as Bra'tac, and Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter/Selmak. Another recurring actor is Mel Harris as Oma Desala in "Threads".

With the defeat of the Goa'uld in "Reckoning"/"Threads", several actors make their final appearance in season eight. Yu, the longest-running Goa'uld recurring character, dies. Season eight also sees the final defeat of main villain Anubis. After David Palffy played Anubis from seasons five through seven, the entity that made up Anubis was portrayed by Michael Shanks, Gavin Hood, Holly Ferguson, Amanda Tapping and Richard Dean Anderson in "Lockdown", by Dean Aylesworth and Rik Kiviaho in "Reckoning", and finally by George Dzundza in "Threads". As with the two preceding seasons' finales, "Moebius" was intended to be the Stargate SG-1 series finale, and as such many actors reprised their roles from past episodes: Don S. Davis as George Hammond, Peter Williams as Apophis, Colin Cunningham as Major Davis, and Jay Acovone as Charles Kawalsky. "Moebius" was the last episode to feature Richard Dean Anderson as a main cast member.

The main technician (played by Gary Jones), who sported the name "Norman Davis" on his uniform for seven years, was officially renamed "Walter Harriman". In the episode "2010", O'Neill referred to him as "Walter". Simply renaming the character to "Walter Davis" did not clear, so he was renamed to "Walter Harriman" after Hammond had called him "Airman", which sounds similar to "Harriman", in the pilot episode.[5] Joseph Mallozzi explained the resulting incongruity by positing that Harriman is Walter's married name.[6]

One scene in "Zero Hour" featured Pierre Bernard as a technician. Bernard is a graphics designer for the NBC show Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and was offered the cameo on SG-1 after a rant on Late Night in which he said the show was better without Daniel Jackson. The show's writers named his character "O'Brien" as a tongue-in-cheek reference.[1][6][7] The Stargate producers later invited Bernard back to the set for a scene in the 200th episode of SG-1.[8]

After production wrapped on season seven, the writers came together and pitched ideas for Stargate's eighth and presumably final season.[3] Seasons five through seven had previously been expected to be the last, but the show was renewed each year.[9] The team ultimately agreed on about ten initial episodes, two of which would comprise a two-hour premiere intended to address issues remaining from the season seven finale.[3]

In the first draft of "New Order, Part 1," Richard Woolsey assumed command of the SGC, but in the end the writers decided that the character of Dr. Weir suited the story better because of her background in diplomacy. She also offered a link to the Atlantis spin-off and was seen as a better candidate to offer O'Neill his promotion.[3] The end of "New Order" with Fifth creating Replicator Carter was also not in the original outline. Robert C. Cooper came up with the twist while he was writing the script.[3] Originally, Anubis was planned to end up on a fiery planet at the end of "Lockdown", but Joseph Mallozzi opted for the frozen world instead.[3]

The idea for "Icon" came from Damian Kindler pitching a story in season seven "in which Carter is stranded off-world, struggling to survive, while the rest of the team mounts a desperate bid to rescue her". In November 2003, in preparation of season eight, the writers felt that they already had enough Carter stories and attempted to redress the balance by making it a Daniel story with the working title "English Patient Daniel".[10] "Affinity" was originally intended to air after "Covenant". Airing "Affinity" first creates the minor continuity error of Daniel already knowing the name, disclosed in "Covenant", of the newly formed Trust.[4]

The writers always wanted to do a "fish out of water" story wholly dedicated to Teal'c and his attempts to fit into Earth society, but later felt that the only opportunity would have been in season one.[4] The script of "Full Alert" called for a large military build-up and a potential worldwide confrontation, but the show's budget was limited. As such, screens were erected to sell the point of an impending military conflict on a global scale. Furthermore, stock shots of jets landing on aircraft carriers and missile silos opening were used to accommodate financial concerns.[11]

The eighth season begins with the SG-1 team trying to revive Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) after the events of the seventh season. At the end of the two-episode season opener, Colonel O'Neill is promoted to General and assumes command of Stargate Command (SGC), while Major Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) is promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and assumes command of SG-1. The season arc centers on the growing threat and seemingly final defeat of the Goa'uld and the Replicators, races who were introduced in the first and third season of the show, respectively.

The eighth season of Stargate SG-1 was filmed over an eight-month period, with twelve-hour days five times each week. Filming started at 7.00 AM, broke for a half-hour lunch break in the afternoon, and ended at 7.30 PM.[12] The directors usually received scripts around two weeks before shooting started.[13] Early seasons had 7.5 days to shoot an episode but with careful planning, season eight reduced this time to six days.[13] Richard Dean Anderson only worked 3.5 days out of 5 working days a week during season eight. Owing to his limited availability some episodes, such as "Zero Hour", were shot over longer periods of weeks.[1] "Zero Hour" was shot as the seventh out of the 20 episodes of season eight.[1] The producers do not treat two-part episodes as a different episode but as one longer episode, though the episodes are still legally broken up into two with the actors, for example, being paid twice.[14]

Stargate SG-1 has several regular directors. Andy Mikita is known to shoot much coverage because he likes having the choices during cut-and-edit. Peter DeLuise, however, lets the cameras roll, which makes things more difficult for the script supervisor and the editors later.[11] The video tapes are not reusable and are archived in a library.[11] "Lockdown" was the first SG-1 episode to be shot in high definition (HD) instead of on 35 mm film.[13] Since no one was used to filming in HD, they had to get a new HD crew and lost about an hour per day.[13] The HD video tapes cost around 50 dollars, and previously 7000 feet of film were shot each day, costing possibly a million dollars a year in film.[11]

Episodes such as "Zero Hour" and "Prometheus Unbound" reduced costs by being shot mainly on the standing sets Stargate Command and the Prometheus.[1] At other times the actors' time was split between different episodes: "Gemini" concentrated on Amanda Tapping as Carter and her alter ego RepliCarter, and Michael Shanks (Daniel) did not appear. Meanwhile, Shanks filmed "Promethues Unbound" in the absence of the Carter character. The money was then spent on time-consuming techniques such as motion control in "Gemini". The motion control enabled two people in the same shot to be seamlessly filmed on different passes. Split screens with locked-off cameras and different shots with stand-in actors were used whenever possible, but still cost much time for wardrobe changes and blocking.[9]

The first episode filmed after the hiatus was "Lockdown", which aired third. The writers thought it would be fun to test O'Neill in his new position as general of the SGC early on and to have him prove his worth.[3] The episode "Avatar" served as an introduction for a Stargate game that was produced at the time, and much of the story was filmed from a first-person perspective.[2] "Zero Hour" is the last episode to have CRT monitors in the briefing room and the control room.[1] Amanda Tapping originally hoped to direct another episode after her debut in season seven's "Resurrection",[15] but she became pregnant late in the season.

Sets from previous seasons were reused: The Goa'uld transport ship, a standing set in the NorCo Studios, was originally built for a particular episode in season one but has since been reused in "New Order". Despite its cool looks, it is hard to shoot in.[12] The Stargate franchise acquired the set of Blade: Trinity and used it as Thor's ship in "New Order".[12] They were able to make the set taller, and installed big arches and silver tilework. They also created a special command post for Thor and raised it off the ground so that the actors' eye lines with Thor was a little higher.[16] The Blade 3 effects stage was also used for the F-302 scene in "Covenant".[17]

Art director James Robbins designed the set for Fifth's space ship,[16] which was only about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide.[12] For the scene where Carter is embedded in Replicator tiles, the model shop used cut-out vacuform pieces and slabs that had been made to fit Amanda Tapping.[16] The Prometheus set, the producers' answer to the Goa'uld ship design, was used in several season eight episodes. Instead of big empty rooms, the Prometheus set had seats, screens, buttons and switches.[11] "Endgame" required the interior of a Goa'uld ship to hold a Stargate, an effect which has not been used since season one.[18] The Puddle Jumper space ship, usually part of Stargate Atlantis stories, also had its first appearances in SG-1; it appeared in "It's Good to be King" and "Moebius". "Threads" used the diner set from Dead Like Me.[19]

Although "Lockdown" was filmed mainly on the existing Stargate Command set, the story made it necessary to have the SGC broken into segregated zones. The set decorators changed the graphics and lighting to make the set show some of the 28 different levels of the SGC. In the same episode O'Neill's new office was slightly redesigned to mirror the history of the character.[20] The carpet in the Briefing Room was replaced every second year early in the show, but when the renewal of the show changed from a two-year basis to a yearly basis, the carpet was never renewed again.[12] When SG-1 was renewed for an eighth season, the carpet was finally replaced, and the floor in the halls was repainted."[13]

The idea for the plants in "Zero Hour" came from Brad Wright, who in season four had the notion of the SG being overrun with plant life and the gate being literally buried under foliage.[6] For "Icon", one of the locations used was a house built in the early 1900s.[21] Like "Birthright" one year before, exterior scenes for "Sacrifices" were filmed at High Point Properties in Langley, British Columbia. The Goa'uld ceremonial tent in the episode was designed to be re-usable, with the concept loosely based on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.[22] "Reckoning", in which Carter attempts to open the Ancient Wall, was filmed at a sound stage at NorCo Studios, a former bicycle factory. The ventilation is questionable, and when the director decided to add smoke for the light to catch to give a dramatic dusty air feeling, the oxygen supply decreased, which made acting harder.[14] Daniel's class room in "Moebius" were shot in the conference room of the Outer Limits production at Bridge Studios near the set of SG-1. SG-1 crew members had originally scouted a real school but lost that location. Carter's office room in the same episode was right down the hall from the conference room.[23]

Stargate SG-1 was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As Vancouver is still developing, Tynehead Park is one of the few locations where the SG-1 team can still film alien locations. Other Vancouver locations include a set of roads at a Vancouver airport for the episode "Full Alert". The roads were closed to regular traffic so that the filming could take place without police escorts and other difficulties that come from blocking traffic.[11] Desert locations were shot at the Richmond Sand Dunes, a cement factory that is slowly using up all the sand. What is seen in the "Moebius" desert is all that is left of the dune. The horse shoe form of the dune had been established by another television project called Legend of Earthsea.[23] O'Neill's house, which was first seen in season one, was used in two episodes in season eight, "Full Alert" and "Citizen Joe". Since the house is inhabited in real life, the producers have looked for alternatives, but so far have been unsuccessful.[11] For "Zero Hour", the SGC set was decorated with various plants and vines. Some plants were plastic, but for the torching scenes, real plants were used so as to minimize the risk of a fire. All objects on set were sprayed with flame-retardant chemicals.[1][24]

Before the season began, director Martin Wood spent a weekend at Cheyenne Mountain Complex (where the fictional Stargate Command takes place) and filmed new angles at night time, daytime, and emergency situations. The producers had previously re-used stock footage from season one for the last seven seasons.[19]

To save money, props and footage were re-used from previous seasons. The chairs used in "Avatar" are the same used in the season two episode "The Gamekeeper", but since they had been cut up and changed around completely for a previous SG-1 episode, and re-adjusting them would have cost as much money as building new ones, they were used like they were.[25] Catherine's amulet that was shown in "Moebius" is the same used in the movie.[23] In "Reckoning", some shots of the replicators in the SGC are re-uses of footage from the episode "Menace".[14] At other times, whole scenes were cut. The original scripted teaser for "Lockdown" would have cost US$100,000 for visual effects, with Anubis in the space ship.[13] The falling Replicator chips and the resulting mess on the ground in "Reckoning", however, was animated in VisFX because it would have been more expensive to have the mess be tracked.[14] Image Engine created the bug effects in "New Order". One scene involved hundreds of Replicator bugs running in a forest, for which they went from singly hand-animated bugs to replicated effects.[11]

Season eight was the first year that used a rear screen with an LCD projector projecting the puddle for the Stargate wormhole effect. Before that time, this was too expensive and not bright enough.[9] The outside of the Puddle Jumper space ship in "Moebius" also used a rear screen projection, for which a dune at a real location was filmed and then projected on a screen behind the Puddle Jumper windows. This allowed to move the camera around and not be locked off. The on-set Puddle Jumper is only about 2/3 the size of that of the actual space ship.[23] For dramatic effect, the episode "Zero Hour" had longer scenes filmed in green.[1] "Gemini" had scenes filmed in infrared.[9]

In "Zero Hour" Dr. Lee says, "Thankfully [the plant] hasn't eaten anyone yet." O'Neill answers, "Well, thank you Seymour." This is a reference to the comedy-musical Little Shop of Horrors about a man-eating plant from space. In "Avatar", Teal'c says "I play Def Jam Vendetta". This was a late addition by actor Chris Judge who provided the voice for D-Mob in the video game of the same name.[31] Several members of production crew made cameo appearances. Digital effects supervisor Bruce Woloshyn appears as the garage sale homeowner who sells Joe Spencer the Ancient stone device in "Citizen Joe". In the episode "Prometheus Unbound", Daniel introduces himself to two aliens as Hans Olo, a wordplay on the Star Wars character Han Solo.[32]

In the episode "It's Good to be King", when arriving on the planet of which Harry Maybourne has become ruler, Carter mentions that the Tok'ra have said the planet's inhabitants are fairly primitive. In response Daniel says "No phones, no lights, no motorcars...", a reference to the TV show Gilligan's Island.

O'Neill's last line in "Moebius", "close enough", is an homage to The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror V" that involves Homer Simpson time traveling and unintentionally making numerous changes to history; upon returning to a timeline where his family has snake tongues but everything else is otherwise normal, he says, "eh, close enough". In the same SG-1 episode, the name of O'Neill's boat is "Homer".[12] There are also cross-references to events in SG-1's sister show Stargate Atlantis. In the episode "Threads", Daniel reads a paper with a headline "Wraith on the way to Atlantis". This piece is followed by a screenshot of the Atlantis Deep Space Scanner display from the Atlantis episode "The Brotherhood", showing the trio of hive ships that assaulted the city in the Atlantis episode "The Siege". In "Covenant" Alec Colson, played by actor Charles Shaughnessy, is introduced to "Captain Sheffield" upon entering the Alpha Site. This is in reference to Maxwell Sheffield, Shaughnessy's character from the sitcom The Nanny.