Well, we used to write for animation. I guess that's where we got started.
We wrote, did some producing,
and developing shows for animation, and story-edited, as well.
In fact, we met in a creative writing class.
- (Paul) Not a screenwriting class, though. - Short stories.
It's not all that interesting, I'll be honest with you.
That story was going to be really interesting.
We wrote a feature together, then Paul was going to do his PhD in Toronto.
(Paul) That's not true.
That's what you were gonna do if you weren't gonna be a writer.
Cut. Start again.
(Joseph) You were going to. Isn't that what you planned to do?
(Paul) I was gonna do a PhD, but it wasn't in Toronto.
- (Joseph) You mentioned Toronto. - There was nothing definite.
I studied history, and I was going to do a PhD.
Joe was going to become...
- An astronaut. That was top of my list. ...a high-school teacher.
He was well on his way to becoming a teacher
when we had an idea for a script.
A kind of science-fiction action comedy.
Pizzaman, 2017. If he's not there in 30 minutes, he's dead.
- That was the pitch. - That was the log line.
No one has ever made that script, and never will.
- But it got us... - It opened a lot of doors for us.
That's what got us our first job on a show called Student Bodies,
which I'm sure many of the fans are familiar with.
We were producers, and ended up writing a third of the episodes produced.
(Paul) And the same script got us,
through our agent, connected to Robert Cooper.
He and Brad, at the end of season three of "Stargate", were looking for writers.
They read our spec script, and liked it enough to get us to pitch for the show.
This is too weird.
OK. Get it all out of our system.
We've written approximately 35 episodes for Stargate to date.
- Really? 35? - Yeah.
(Joseph) We wrote...
For the first three years we worked on the show we wrote scripts together,
but this year, just because we've been so pressed for time,
and we've had to, essentially, produce 40 hours of television,
for the first time we've been writing scripts separately.
First draft separately, and then doing passes on one another's drafts.
Before, we used to...
It was good creatively, because we would bounce ideas off each other.
Just kind of run dialogue with each other, and things like that.
That was good. This year, we've been splitting the workload,
because the workload has been so heavy.
Favourite episodes?
There are some good episodes in season eight. "It's Good to Be King"
finds Harry Maybourne on the planet that the Tok'ra dropped him off at.
It's kind of a fun scenario. I've always liked those more humorous "Stargates".
Usually, any one that involves Maybourne is a pretty good episode.
(Paul) I liked "Point of No Return" a lot. Was that our first season?
Season four or five?
For some reason, that one just turned out almost exactly the way I imagined it,
which almost, well, in fact, never happens.
Not to say that's a bad thing. A lot of times, things turn out a lot better.
But that one, right down to the tone of the dialogue,
to the delivery, to the guest cast,
everything just fell together so perfectly that it just stands out in my mind
as a rare example of our vision really just coming out
exactly the way we thought about it when we were writing it.
Writing for sci-fi in general, I think, is difficult
because, as open-ended as science fiction is,
there are certain areas of science fiction that are standard.
I don't want to say they're clichés, I don't want to diss it,
but there are things like time travel, and clonings and robots and things like that
that are just standard vocabulary, if you will, for science fiction.
They're used by all the different science fiction shows that are out there.
There are a lot of shows out there, and science fiction fans watch all the shows.
They know there's a big weight of stories
that have been told since TV started, cos science fiction has always been around.
What we do is make it particular to our Stargate universe or our characters.
"Window Of Opportunity" was our first episode.
We pitched it out as a time loop. I remember Brad saying:
"We can't do this episode. This is like that episode of "Star Trek",
"where they're in the time loop."
So we had to make it particular to the "Stargate" universe.
We had O'Neill and Teal'c caught in the loop. It's actually these two guys who...
Usually, Daniel's the one who's translating the text,
or Carter's figuring out the scientific angle,
but since they're not in the loop, it falls on O'Neill and Teal'c,
as the unlikely go-to guys in this event who have to figure out the translation,
or figure out the scientific explanation and explain it to Carter.
Excuse me. George.
Colonel, what are you doing out of uniform?
- Handing you my resignation. - Resigning? What for?
So I can do this.
You have to be careful not to just toss off clichés and treat them like clichés.
You have to play with them a little bit, and make them fun and interesting and new.
That is always a challenge.
Essentially, what happens in this story is the Tok'ra come to us.
The Goa'uld's about to win the war against the System Lords.
The System Lords are gonna be wiped out.
As a means to seek sanctuary, they check out all the old abandoned planets.
One of these planets is the planet where the Tok'ra left Maybourne.
So SG-1 goes to meet the natives, who don't want to talk.
They say, "You come meet the king." So SG-1 goes to the king's chambers.
We reveal the king, who is none other than Maybourne. End of tease.
First act, we find out how Maybourne has set himself up as king,
he takes us to these ruins.
It turns out the ruins are written in Ancient,
and one of the tablets is a repository of the history of this planet -
past, present and future.
Essentially, what Maybourne has done is he's predicted things like a flood,
and made various prophesies. He's won over the people.
He saved the village. They made him king. He lives the good life.
SG-1 says, "We gotta get out of here. We're not staying to fight these Goa'uld."
Of course, Daniel being Daniel, he wants to stay and check things out.
Carter says, "Check out the ruins, we'll come back for you."
Daniel translates the ruins, finds out what this is.
It's the ground station for an Ancient time-travel device.
Hidden beneath the brush is the Puddle Jumper, an Ancient time-travel device.
O'Neill arrives on the scene cos we need an Ancient to operate the Puddle Jumper.
He takes it out for a spin and ends up crashing it.
He says, "Abandon it for now, we've got to go. The Goa'uld are on their way."
They end up surrounded by natives who don't want their king to leave.
Picking up in act three, SG-1 is in a cell.
Maybourne feels bad, but he doesn't want to leave his people, his rule.
His wives. So O'Neill says, "There's no guarantee you'll survive this attack."
Maybourne gives in. He gives a big speech to his people and says goodbye.
He and SG-1 head to the Stargate.
By the time they get to the Stargate, the Goa'uld are stepping through.
They're too late. Top of act four, the Goa'uld come, they meet Maybourne.
They make demands of him. O'Neill and Teal'c are disguised as commoners.
Cut to the forest where Carter and Daniel are working on the Puddle Jumper.
O'Neill and Maybourne decide at the big feast tonight,
Maybourne's gonna plan to sort of knock out the Goa'uld by poisoning their drink.
Happy ending. Back in the forest, the Goa'uld discover the ruins.
Daniel sees this. Carter has fixed it. She says, "We gotta test it."
They contact O'Neill. Cut to Maybourne with Teal'c,
and the Goa'uld arrive on the scene. They found out about the plot.
They discover Teal'c in disguise, and they decide to kill Maybourne and Teal'c.
So this is where you, the fans, come in. This is the make-up-the-fifth-act contest.
Unless you have a really good idea.
We oversee all aspects of an episode's production.
We get the script, we'll do a pass,
we oversee the concept meeting where all the department heads get together.
The art department, Props, Visual Effects, et cetera.
We go through the script, scene by scene, and decide what we want to do.
And then we take meetings with the various individual departments.
We'll cast the episode, and then we'll have the final production meeting -
the meeting right before we actually shoot.
We'll look at dailies, and once the director's done his cut,
we'll go in and do our pass, and do our producers' cut.
So it's basically all prep and post.
We don't really do anything during the actual shooting of the episode.
Usually by that time we're writing an episode down the line.
We do all the prep. We have a week of prep, officially,
although we'll start earlier for a bigger episode,
get the art department going on sets, and things like that.
As he said, we run all the meetings with all the different department heads,
then they shoot for a week, and we do nothing except watch the dailies.
Once they've got all the film in the can,
we go into the editing room and start working again.
Cut the show. This is all a collaborative process with Brad and Robert.
We get notes from Michael Greenburg.
I don't want to make it sound like we're making all these decisions.
We run these meetings, and do the cut, but with the contribution of other people.
It's a very collaborative process.
Once we cut it, it goes off to various postproduction things,
like visual effects, sound, music.
Then we get mixes back. We watch those.
Give notes on any possible problems with the sound and the music.
We see the visual effects through their various stages.
They do temp visual effects. They show them to us.
We'll tweak them here and there, make suggestions for changes.
They'll keep bringing us more versions that are closer to the final product,
and then, eventually, you've got an episode.
They have a lot of leeway, especially Richard Dean Anderson.
I mean... Consider the script a blueprint, really.
We've heard stories from actors or writers who have come to work on Stargate,
and told us that they're amazed at what the actors will get away with.
Cos on network shows, and things...
I mean, Chris used to work for ABC on a show,
and he's told us if they wanted to change a single word it was a big deal.
You have to call down to the producers, and they would discuss the change.
We're a little bit more open-minded here.
It's occasionally a pleasant surprise to watch dailies and see:
"Hey, that wasn't the line we wrote."
We love it when they do that.
They always bring some fresh new angle to it that we never expected or never saw.
We're always pleasantly surprised. We think, "I wish I'd written that."
- (Paul) Good question. - (Joseph) Those loveable Furlings.
Boy, so many times we've tossed around ideas for the Furlings.
It never gets much past the idea of little bears, dancing in the woods.
- That's his impersonation of a Furling. - They're dead, though, sadly.
We have no idea what the Furlings look like. We imagined little bears.
They could be eight-foot tall, very gaunt, skeletal figures.
- It doesn't sound like it from the name. - We were going to touch on the Furlings
in an episode called "Paradise Lost".
Maybourne and O'Neill are stranded offworld.
They discover the remnants of a people, who...
In the first draft, I think it was suggested they were the Furlings.
- What happened? I don't remember. - It didn't survive. So...
I guess... Think of the Furlings like the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
It will always remain a mystery.
Those Care Bears of outer space are out there somewhere.
Who knows? Maybe season nine.
I remember mentioning this once, and I was raked over the coals on line.
They were like, "Of course it exists."
I don't know what they said it stood for, but Brad and Robert made it up.
Originally, the acronym was NRD - "Not a Real Department",
and the changed it to NID, because they felt it sounded better.
So...
NID - the National Intelligence Directorate.
He's lying. It is a real department,
we're just not at liberty to tell you what it stands for.
I'm not sure what you mean, Raeshele. "Hook up 'in that way"'?
Well, they kissed.
There were many time loops that we didn't see all the details of.
Lots of stuff could have gone on, I don't know. What do you think?
I really don't have an opinion, one way or another.
- That's a question for Amanda. - If it did happen,
he made sure to retire from the air force first.
Because otherwise, that would have been breaking regulations.
To be honest, even if ideas are dismissed,
they're really shelved, and they are usually...
Every idea we've ever had has found its way into one episode or another.
Just because we've been here for so long, we've done so many episodes,
that everything that we pitch out... I can't think of a pitch that we...
The musical I've been pitching hasn't really been picked on.
Season nine. Don't blame us if the musical doesn't happen.
We'll do the musical episode the same season
that we do the telepathic dog episode that I've been pitching out.
Thanks. Thanks for watching season eight.
Thanks for picking up this box set and keeping us employed.
We need jobs after this. Please, if you have any recommendations.
I mean, I've done a bunch of stuff. I might be going to cooking school afterwards.
I haven't decided yet. I'm just thinking about it.
Get in touch with me on line, whatever. Willing to travel.
The fans love this kind of stuff. The thing fans requested most is producer outtakes.
Hi, and welcome to Outlining 101.
You have to have an actual outline of story,
which in this case is problematic.
So we won't go there. We need a black marker.
Green, reds, can do the trick, but they're not really as good. I would avoid yellow.
This is when you come in. You're fresh in the morning, you start writing.
It's around the middle of the second act when you realise it isn't working,
and you've done this for nothing, but you just forge ahead and make stuff up.
"Oh, my God. None of this is gonna work. I have to write bigger."
We just came back from the Saturn Awards in LA.
We won for best cable-syndicated series and-or spoken-word album.
It's covered in Saturn.
- Best... - Where do you want these?
Shall we just put it...? That was wrong.
Is something wrong with this water?
- Sorry. I'm ready. - He's trying to ask some questions.
ENHOH