Heroes, Part 1

| Production | Transcript | Review

A film crew arrives to document the work of the S.G.C. for eventual disclosure to the public, but finds that the base's personnel are less than eager to participate.

RATINGS SCORECARD
OUR RATING -
FAN RATING - 7.55 
NIELSEN - 1.8 
EPISODE #717
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 02.13.2004
SYNDICATION AIR DATE: 02.21.2005
DVD DISC: Season 7, Disc 4
WRITTEN BY: Robert C. Cooper
DIRECTED BY: Andy Mikita
GUEST STARS: Saul Rubinek (Emmett Bregman), Mitchell Kosterman (Colonel Tom Rundell), Gary Jones (Technician), David Lewis (Cameron Balinsky), Tobias Slezak (Dale James), Christopher Redman (Shep Wickenhouse), Adam Baldwin (Colonel Dave Dixon), Ronny Cox (Senator Kinsey), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Janet Fraiser), Julius Chapple (Simon Wells), Christopher Pearce (Bosworth), Bill Dow (Dr. Lee), Dan Shea (Sgt. Siler), Ryan W. Smith (SF)
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PRODUCTION NOTES

  • "We're doing a bit of a weird departure where the president of the U.S. hires a producer/journalist who comes to the S.G.C. to do a documentary on what happens there. Ostensibly, they are there to film the 1,000th trip through the Stargate, but in fact it's part of this political ploy whereby the president is on his way out. He's finished his second term and basically realises the Stargate programme is going to go public at some point and wants to have some say in the manner in which it is portrayed. At the same time he wants his view to be presented as an impartial document and hires this hard-hitting journalist whom he thinks will be able to do the job." (Executive producer Michael Greenburg, in an interview with Cult Times magazine [special issue #26])
  • "This guy is sort of intense, intelligent and a hard-nosed journalist and we're not sure how he is going to portray our heroes. It's all told from the point of view of the camera crew, who are, in fact, not allowed to film any of the ongoing current activities and just end up doing interviews. There is one scene where our journalist really grills Carter about her relationship with Colonel O'Neill. Whether she answers the question or not, just to see Carter squirm in that situation will be a lot of fun." (Executive producer Robert C. Cooper, in an interview with Cult Times magazine [special issue #26])
  • "Firefly's Adam Baldwin guested on the show, appearing in the late season two part 'Heroes.' Sitting in the room watching the dailies, we were blown away by his performance (while Adam was almost literally blown away by the plethora of explosives director Andy Mikita set up for one unbelievable sequence). Word from the set was that Adam loved doing the show. Without a doubt, we'd love to have him back." (Writer / producer producer Joseph Mallozzi, in his GateWorld blog)
  • "This one was [not] planned as a two-parter but, after going through all the footage and assembling his first producer edit, Robert Cooper decided he would need more time to tell the story. And so, additional scenes were written and additional footage shot. No padding here, however, but some fantastic action sequences on the planet's surface. Many guest stars of note in this episode: Adam Baldwin as Colonel Dave Dixon, Saul Rubinek as Bregman, and, of course, Robert Picardo as the pencil-pushing Richard Woolsey who makes his first Stargate appearance in this episode. What a run for Bob who goes from pain-in-the-ass bureaucrat in 'Heroes I' to the lovable commander of the Atlantis expedition in SGA's fifth season.

    "And speaking of SGA and its cast connections to this episode, Adam Baldwin was another actor who so impressed that his name was at the top of our list for possible lead role on Atlantis. Sadly, we couldn't make it work but Adam has (to no one's surprise) kept busy and successful, most recently in the role of Chuck's John Casey." (Writer / producer Joseph Mallozzi, in a post at his blog)
  • "I think for me I still very much look back at 'Heroes' as one of my favorite episodes. I know everybody who worked on it really enjoyed that episode… for a few reasons beyond even the script and the way it turned out. The fact that it was a bit of a departure for the series. It was also how it was produced. We actually shot an episode that ended up being about 15 minutes too long and I didn't want to cut it down. We edited the show and it was basically finished shooting and I said, 'We're going to hold off on putting it where it was supposed to be in the schedule.' I ended up writing a whole bunch of new scenes and an entire new subplot that went in-between the scenes that existed.

    "We took a hiatus in the summertime and made a couple of other episodes in the interim and went back and shot these new scenes and then recut the episode to turn it into two-parts. There's a sequence you probably notice, there's probably a million of these types of fun mistakes in there, but I remember coming back after hiatus and going to shoot some scenes and Richard Dean Anderson walked on the set having gotten this rather extreme haircut. I was like, 'What are you doing?' He was like, 'What do you mean? I felt like getting a shorter haircut.' I'm like, 'Yeah, but we're shooting scenes from 'Heroes' today and you're supposed to look like you did two months ago.' He was like, 'Oh, well.'

    "There's a point at which O'Neill's hair gets quite a bit shorter during the episode. I guess he just stopped in the middle of this crisis to get a haircut." (Writer / executive producer Robert C. Cooper, in an interview with Syfy Wire)