 
GW: The Wraith stories, and Teyla's story in particular, are growing this year. What directions are you most excited about for these characters?
AM: Falling on some stuff we culled from Michael's research, we make a proposition to Todd later in the year. The episode I'm just finishing right now, it's called "The Queen. We set up the episode. We go to Todd with a gene therapy we've managed to develop using Michael's research, which we believe will make the Wraith able to process food and thus not have to feed on humans anymore.
GW: Like Michael did.
AM: Like Michael did! Exactly. So this is something that obviously would be very valuable to us and we're trying to pitch Todd on it to help us develop it further and test it. Of course, Todd, who's always got his own agenda, asks us to do something in return, which is what then the episode becomes about.
" I had some concerns at the beginning that we were going to get into a sophomore slump. But the cuts we've seen so far are fantastic."
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It becomes a very Teyla-focused story. Essentially what Todd requires is he's joined an alliance of other hives, but the only way you can be -- he's had to fake his way in and lie and say that he had a queen on board.
GW: [Laughter] Oh no ...
AM: I don't want to say more. Perhaps I've already said too much. But it goes in an interesting direction after that.
GW: What a twist! That's awesome.
AM: It's a combination of a story that I pitched and a story that Alex Levine, our story coordinator, pitched last year. He pitched a story where there was a Wraith summit and we tried to infiltrate it. We were trying to infiltrate a Wraith summit and we needed to go in undercover. Using that pitch, as well as some story elements that I pitched this year, we built the story.
GW: Teyla's already a little bit Wraith.
AM: Exactly. It helps that she has some Wraith DNA already. So yeah, as far as major arcs of the season go, we're always developing the characters in some ways. There isn't a major season-long arc this year the way there was last year with Teyla and the missing Athosians, and her pregnancy, going missing at the end of the year. But there are changes happening in the galaxy.
It's the aftermath of the Wraith/Replicator war. The Wraith have been beaten back. Some of the societies in the galaxy are getting a little stronger, rising up, getting a little more confidence, they're seeing an opportunity that they didn't see when the Wraith were ever-present.
There's subtle arc things happening in Season Five. And who knows? Maybe we'll come up with something in the back half of Season Five that tears it wide open. You never know when that happens. Someone will come in and pitch an idea and it'll, all of a sudden, spin things off in a completely different direction.
GW: Which of your stories from last year are you most proud of? Which did you not think didn't work out as well as you wanted?
AM: To be honest I had a pretty good year last year. I think the stories that I wrote, on the screen the way they turned out was great. I was particularly proud of "Tabula Rasa." I can't take credit for the way it was shot.
It was a difficult script to write. Two different timelines progressing at the same time, and making sure you weren't creating an illogical chronological problem. But then when it went into production Martin Wood came up with the idea to shoot them and have the different looks -- one for the past and one for the present.
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Manyu primary characters took on a secondary role in "Tabula Rasa." |
I loved the way that turned out. I think it looked amazing. It's something we don't get to do that often. That was a very successful episode. Plus it's just classic sci-fi. The tease where McKay's lost his memory and he's tied to a chair. There's a cryptic message from Teyla, whom he's supposed to recognize but doesn't.
It's just a classic conundrum. I loved the way that played out in the episode. And the chance to see some of our lead characters not in leading roles, at least at first. We go into the cafeteria where they're keeping everybody, and Carter is there but she's in the distant background. People are stepping forward and saying "Well, I think we should do this." And no one knows who you're supposed to be listening to. I just love that anarchy we tried to play with a little bit.
So I was proud of that one, but that's not to say the others ... I really liked how "Spoils of War" turned out. We knew we were bringing Beckett back at the end of the year, and we knew we were going to do it by cloning him -- that he was a clone. But we'd never said the Wraith had any kind of cloning technology. So it made sense to us that we had to somehow seed the existence of cloning technology among the Wraith far in advance of Beckett's return.
So I came up with a story where A, we accomplish that. We seeded the fact that they have cloning technology. But also it was cool, I thought, [the] way that they managed to defeat the ancients ten thousand years ago. I personally love bringing in storylines that illuminate aspects of the past.
GW: It's pay-off!
AM: Yeah! Exactly It rewards loyalty for the fans. I just love to play with things. Maybe it's not all about the past, but at least you're taking a little bit about how a certain character ended up this way, or how a certain society developed, or how the Ancients developed certain technologies. I loved doing that story.
GW: One of the things I was really interested about "Spoils of War" in particular was you guys have enjoyed using the same actors for the different Wraith parts. This gives an explanation as to why.
AM: Right! Yeah, exactly. That decision was made far in advance of introducing cloning technology. It's nice how it all works. Now "Oh, I see. They may have only five, or 25, different Wraith templates, and they reuse them."
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