GateWorld: Looking back on Season Three, from where you are now, what stands out? What were some of the show’s strongest episodes, strongest moments, last year?
Carl Binder: The series as a whole, for me, my favorite episode was “McKay and Mrs. Miller.” Just from a personal standpoint, I love it when a show has heart. Here you had a really clever sci-fi episode that had some really strong character beats and ended very touching. And any time you can succeed in that, I’m thrilled.
So when I saw that episode I thought everything came together. The performance, script, directing, music. It was one of those where you go, “OK! It all came together on that. That one was successful in every phase of the process.” So that was my favorite, overall.
As far as the scripts I got to work on, I was allowed to do a real broad range of episodes, which I like, instead of just doing the same kinds of episodes all the time. A lot of fans didn’t like “Irresistible,” but it’s still one of my favorite episodes. I liked doing the lighter, fun episodes. Because I had just done “The Real World,” which was darker and kind of moody and weird. So I was able to something that was really strange like that, and then “Irresistible,” which was a lot of fun.
And I got to do a monster movie. I got to do aliens with “Vengeance.” So I got to have a lot of fun.
And “Phantoms” was probably the episode of mine that I did that came out the best as far as a piece. We were talking about “McKay and Mrs. Miller” where everything came together. I felt that with “Phantoms” it was a very difficult episode to write and produce, and Martin [Wood] did a great job directing it. And that one really came together nicely.
GW: Inevitably, I imagine there’s an episode or two every year that doesn’t quite come together like …
CB: You mean like “The Game?” [Laughter]
GW: Is that the one that you would choose?
CB: Yeah, I think so. It’s interesting because “Echoes” was another one that I was very happy with how it came out. I just loved the story. It was Brad’s story. I just thought it was really clever, the incorporation of the whales and the solar flare, and the ghosts from the past. That was a fun episode — a lot of twists and turns in it. But that one, when we were in the middle of shooting it and cutting it, I was like, “Oh, this is not working at all.” And then it came together.
And “The Game” was a good idea, but it just relied too much on the playback of this game piece. Of people standing around a game piece watching. I don’t know. Of the ones I did last year, it would probably be the one that I had higher hopes for it. Across the board. It just was an idea that someone had pitched, and we bought the idea and we all loved the idea and tried to make it work. [Laughter]
GW: It really fits into what Stargate likes to do, which is, “We really screwed these people up.”
CB: We really screwed these people up. Originally, it was pitched as McKay just playing this game and manipulating this society which turns out to be this real society. And then he’s sent there to correct everything, and they end up turning on him, and sending him up to the gallows to hang him.
We had done a lot of McKay episodes last year. And then Brad came in one day and said, “Why don’t we make it a two-player game, like Risk?” And I just loved that, and I also loved the whole topical analogy of the war and sending people off to play this video game that in fact is not a video game. There’s actually people dying there. And these old men have no problem playing with other people’s lives.
So I thought, “OK, here’s a chance to make a statement about that.” Ultimately, when it was shot and cut together, just the construction of the story, it did end up with a bunch of people standing around a table watching this battle unfold. It came out OK, I just wished it would have come out better.
GW: One last question. What do you hope that Season Four of Stargate Atlantis accomplishes for the show and for the mythology you’re building?
CB: What do I hope it accomplishes? Aside from the obvious, I hope it’s incredibly entertaining and the fans really enjoy it. Last year, we introduced a lot of things that were making life easier for us in Atlantis. And what I hope for Season Four is to introduce a lot of things that make life more difficult for us. Because I think that that provides for better drama — when it’s more difficult. When we have a higher mountain to climb.
I hope by the end of Season Four our team is as strong as ever, but that our city is in even more trouble than ever. [Laughter] Which I think is the way you keep a series going. Because if everything is too comfortable, then it’s not as interesting. It’s us against them. It’s that tiny outpost in another galaxy. I really hope we can reinvigorate that concept.