 
We like to have fun here on the show. None of us really want this to be a rough time. We want to enjoy coming in to work and we try not to do business with jerks and prima donnas. He's a guy that we knew is not only good but is really affable and easy to work with, and we're very respectful of the work he does. He's very respectful of the work we do. It was just a no-brainer for us.
Plus I think originally the idea was that Weir was going to be the bureaucrat and Sheppard was going to be the loose cannon military guy. Just the way the Weir character very quickly developed, she was much more understanding. She wasn't a company man from the beginning. So of course she was going to go more with her gut than by the I.O.A. rulebook.
But Woolsey is not that. Woolsey is a bureaucrat true and true. And also, like McKay, bringing a character that was essentially an antagonist in the series, and then making him the lead -- you have to create some sort of mechanism where he's not an ***hole all the time. Because now we have to embrace him as one of the characters that we have around.
Paul [Mullie], I think, very cleverly in "The Seed," wrote an episode that does not diffuse the tension that we wanted to bring over with Woolsey, but shows a softness to him. The thing is, by-the-book works on paper [and] is easy to judge when you're sitting on Earth. But when you're in the Pegasus Galaxy and people are turning to you, it's all of a sudden life and death, sometimes the rule book just doesn't make a lot of sense and you have to rely on yourself and the people around you.
I think we've so far been able to keep that dance of having him still be ... he's not an easy boss to work, for but I think the team is slowly growing to respect him. And hopefully our viewers will, too.
GW: Yeah, you don't want the viewers to not like the guy.
MG: No, McKay was the character everyone loved to hate but when you bring him over to be one of the leads on your show you have to open him up in a way where people are like, "Oh, you know what, I know why he's like that. He had a tough childhood. He means well, he's just bad socially." You have to do stuff like that with Woolsey.
GW: Where do you hope to bring this character by the end of the season? He's always been very against the programs, the Stargate programs themselves, but at some point he's probably going to have to root for them.
MG: I don't know that that's the case over the past year or so. I think even in the end of Season Three, and the stuff in Season Four, it's not so much that he's against the Stargate program ... he feels that it's an unfocused program, I think.
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Carter hands off her role as Atlantis administrator to Richard Woolsey in Season Five. |
Even in "The Last Man" -- which is, given, an alternate reality -- he's basically saying, "Listen, we came here to learn about ancient technology. We didn't come here to be the police of the Pegasus Galaxy. Let's focus up and get on task," basically.
I don't think he was ever against the Stargate program. I just felt he thought it was not being handled right. But now he's in a position where they basically were like "Alright, put your money where your mouth is." It's tough. There's a great episode called "Inquisition" which is coming up later in the year where he has to basically defend the program. And I think he does it very well.
GW: What are your thoughts on Jewel as a full-time cast member?
MG: Look man, I'm a big Jewel Staite fan. I was one of the people that suggested her in the first place to come in and be the doctor. It was something that we realized very quickly that we needed to do in "First Strike." Obviously ["Adrift"] and "Lifeline" were going to be lost in space so it would feel weird to introduce a doctor in those. It was a type of thing where I was like, "Listen, we've got to do this quick and here's who I think it should be."
We'd been trying to find a place for Jewel ever since "Instinct." The only reason we really used her in "Instinct" was because we knew we could use her again. The cast fell in love with her. She lives here in Vancouver so she actually developed a friendship with a lot of people on the show, outside of the show. Sadly, she's probably closest to Paul McGillion ["Carson Beckett"]. That's uncomfortable.
She's fantastic. I know she definitely has her detractors still, because of the whole Carson thing. If that had never existed I think she would be a universally admired character. She really allows a perspective that I really find fun. She's incredibly competent and wide-eyed at the same time, and is also not the coolest kid in the world, and is really thriving working with the A-Team, so to speak. I think that character was a very fertile character for stories.
The trick with the show is that you have to bring these characters in to give your older characters something new to react and interact with. If we just did five seasons of Sheppard and McKay banter all the time it would start to feel old. But if you can work in these newer characters to the show, I really think it brings the show another life. I really love what Jewel's done and we look forward to moving forward with that character.
GW: From your stories last year, which are you most proud of? Which do you think were the most successful? Which do you think didn't work out as well as you wanted?
MG: I think "Be All My Sins Remember'd" was probably one of the best shows Atlantis has done. It's funny because a lot of people were like, "You should do shows like that all the time!" And you're like, "Well, aside form the fact it's probably the single most expensive visual effects episode we've ever done," I think what people react to is what Joe and Paul did last year -- they sat down and went, "OK, this is going to be a 20-part story, and "Be All My Sins Remembered" is all pay-off.
It's ten episodes of set-up, essentially, for "Be All My Sins Remember'd." It's scene after scene of fulfilling payoff, because you're like, "Oh my God, they're talking about the baby!" "Oh my god, Larrin's back." "Oh my God, we're going to kill the Replicators." "Todd's back!" It literally is all lead-up to that episode.
"Be All My Sins Remember'd" became the visual effects extravaganza fans had been waiting for. | |
It was so fun to write. Andy [Mikita, director] did such a great job. And cast did their best. And Mark Savela deserves an Emmy for his work on that show. Aside from the space battles, you go to the guy and say, "Listen, I want a giant silver blob to eat up a city" and he's like, "I have no idea to do that." "Well, that's what we pay you the big bucks for, Mark!"
He really did a phenomenal job. So "Be All My Sins" is definitely, I think, my favorite. I have a soft spot for "Miller's Crossing." I like all those guys. My friend Brendan Gall plays Kate [Hewlett]'s husband. Having Katie come up and play for a little bit. Those are all people I just really like a lot.
That's just an excuse for me to hang out with my friends those episodes. I think it was a really great story. And then for me, "Trio," one of the things to look forward to on the Season Four boxed set -- Ivon Bartok did a great piece. "Trio" was the most logistically complicated episode both Martin Wood and I had ever been involved in, and it's just this little episode that takes place in a room. People don't understand how phenomenally complex that episode was to pull off.
It was supposed to be this episode that saved us all this money and turned into A) one of the most expensive episodes we did last year, and B) one of the most complex. I won't go into the whole thing. This piece will do it much better justice than I will.
So that was just fulfilling from a "No one thought we could do it and we pulled it off" [standpoint].
GW: I have a couple of Replicator questions while you're talking about "Be All My Sins Remember'd."
MG: Absolutely.
GW: The first is when the Replicators in the Pegasus Galaxy were first introduced, Brad [Wright, executive producer] has described them as what he wanted all along for Atlantis -- maybe as the primary antagonists. Why were they killed off so quickly? It's a little over a year and now they are, with one exception, gone.
MG: Yeah. Well, I think it was a great story is why, to be honest. The tough thing about these shows is it's hard to get a victory. A real big victory. And we felt like we had this great 12-episode idea, where we think we're trying to neutralize them, it backfires horribly. We turn the attack code on, it starts devastating human populations, and at the end of the day we ally together with basically everyone in the galaxy and take them down.
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" ... It's hard to get a victory. A real big victory."
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It just felt really fulfilling. The though thing about a show like this is if you have a main bad guy -- Battlestar can't destroy the Cylons. That's got to be the last episode. And for us that's who the Wraith are, I think. We can't deal that finishing blow to the Wraith and not feel like, "Well, the story's over." But those are phenomenally satisfying stories to be able to tell.
So for us, again, just arcing the year out we knew the latter half was going to focus predominantly on Michael and the front half of the year was going to deal with the Replicators.
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