GateWorld: SGU and Caprica both were cancelled within a few weeks of each other, and at the time they were really the serious sci-fi that Syfy as a network was showing. What you’ve got on there now for the most part are things like Eureka, Warehouse 13, Alphas. Granted there’s drama there, but there’s little light touches also. Do you think serious genre programs, serious sci-fi, is there really a place for it right now? Or are things in real life like the economy and all the current world events that are happening that are depressing … are people looking for something that’s just more light-hearted and more digestible?
Brian J. Smith: Well, that’s interesting. I was thinking about that the other day. I actually think what’s missing on Syfy right now is something that is pure genre, pure sci-fi. I see what you mean, especially regards to Sanctuary, it’s very fun and very light-hearted and you never buy a second of it, but you’re kind of not supposed to. That’s sort of what makes it what it is. I think it’s very difficult to do very high quality sci-fi, it’s very, very expensive. I mean you see shows like Terra Nova, they’re able to pull off a lot of what they can pull off simply because they have the money to.
GW: The flipside of that though is too it’s a shorter season, also because of how expensive it is.
BJS: Exactly, exactly. I tell you, it was one of our hopes for Red Faction when we shot that. I still don’t think Red Faction is dead, actually I think that there is some sort of future because I think what’s missing on Syfy right now is some kind of either space-based or more fantasy-based serialized but dramatic sci-fi. That’s what’s missing right now. I mean, Alphas is pretty serious, but it’s set on Earth, it’s set here on this planet. The situations require a big flight of the imagination, but I think a lot of people miss turning on Syfy and seeing something flying through space or seeing something on a spaceship or being an [alien] planet.
GW: It’s almost becoming like a branding issue for the network, they’re losing their identity? Not purposely, but if you throw things at it like the wrestling that’s on there one night a week, or the shows that they do have like Eureka — I won’t get into that, but coming from that cancellation where it had nothing to do with ratings whatsoever and it was mainly just the fact of the profit margins with the show because it’s been on for five years already. Sanctuary‘s going to get to that point also.
BJS: They’re cheap shows to make, they don’t require too much as far as VFX investment. You look at what Mark Savela did on Stargate Universe, well Universe I would say specifically but especially the last couple of years of Atlantis and some stuff in SG-1. Those are some of the highest quality [VFX]. I would say that those rival the graphics that were being done on Battlestar Galactica. And that ain’t cheap. It is not cheap to have un-cheap special effects and that’s a problem.
How does a boutique cable network like Syfy that caters to a very specific niche of people have high quality, high quality looking type shows that are set in these really fantastical realms when they’re so, so, so expensive and so hard to pull off? I don’t know. Hey, I hope that something happens with Red Faction and they take a look at it and see that there’s something there on the slate, because I think that’s just what’s missing on Syfy right now, if you ask me. But all that being said, I’m actually quite a big fan of Alphas. It’s an amazing set of actors, really interesting concepts and I think it’s really, really well done.
GW: Yeah, it’s definitely got some legs. And absolutely I love, too, Ira Steven Behr who also spearheaded and show-ran Deep Space Nine for so many years. He was the driving force behind the first season [of Alphas]. I’ve heard maybe he’s out for the second one, I don’t know, I haven’t actually caught all of it. But that’s a big reason I immediately, with the tone of the show, I latched onto it, just because of my devotion to him as a writer and a director and show-runner.
BJS: Are you a fan of Falling Skies?
GW: You know, because of my schedule and the different jobs that I have, like real life jobs, it was just really, really hard for me to catch it. Colin Cunningham from SG-1 is a huge character on there and I try to catch it when I can, I catch an episode here and an episode there. But honestly, until it shows up on something like Netflix or something where I can just kind of sit down and get to it at my own speed. I’ll definitely get to it, but it’s one of those things. Until I can devote the time to it, it’s hard.
BJS: Yeah, it’s a great show. In my opinion, it’s the best sci-fi out there right now on television. I mean, I don’t think Terra Nova comes close to what they’re doing on Falling Skies. It’s smart, scary, beautifully done, amazing actors, great stories. It’s got a really interesting feel to it that I really, really love. I’m really digging [it] and hoping that they can continue it with a second season.
GW: Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other things that you’ve been involved with, both before SGU ended and then also absolutely since. Murder on the Orient Express, talk a little bit about that and how that experience was.
BJS: Oh, that was amazing. I mean, it was six weeks or something like that, in London, shooting with David Suchet and Eileen Atkins and Hugh Bonneville and David Morrissey and Jessica Chastain who is from The Tree of Life and she played the young Helen Mirren in this other film [The Debt]. She’s everywhere, you cannot watch a movie these days — she was in The Help, she’s everywhere.
And she shot pretty much all those films before we started working on Murder on the Orient Express. I remember we were having lunch one day, she’s like, “Yeah, I’ve got these five films coming out. They’re probably going to be pretty big and we have no idea when they’re coming out and it’s probably going to be a life-changer,” and they certainly were. It just happened all at once.
But that was great. We wanted to take a pretty well-known Agatha Christie story and give it a pretty straight-forward treatment. I remember seeing the Murder on the Orient Express movie with Sean Connery, it’s a classic film, but it’s so campy. It’s like a glass of champagne, it’s frothy and funny and very, very light.
When you actually read the book, it’s a very dark story and very twisted and rooted in a lot of deep, dark psychological subterranean stuff. The whole objective was to not avoid it but to actually lean into it and to make it as dark and gritty as we possibly could and not to apologize for it. I think they did a great job.
It’s one of the things I’ve done I’m most proud of. I thought it was such a classy project, it looked beautiful, it was beautifully shot, David Suchet was ridiculously amazing to watch work. A masterclass.
GW: To be honest with you, some of the best programming that I’ve watched in the last year has come out of PBS, has come out of the BBC.
BJS: Downton Abbey.
GW: In general, British television right now is just phenomenal.
BJS: Oh, it really is. I completely agree. There’s a level of sophistication and I don’t think that they’re ever appealing to the lowest common denominator in their programming. They don’t do that. I mean, yeah, they do, they’ve got their soap operas and they’ve got their version of Gossip Girl over there, I’m sure. But maybe it’s just the really great stuff that fumbles its way over here and we go, “Oh, British television is amazing!”
GW: But even if you just look back over the years, how many different dramas and sitcoms that started in Britain and they’ve tried to get it launched here. The Office, Coupling, even Torchwood, that was brought overseas this year and is co-produced by Starz.
BJS: Oh, that’s right. Wasn’t Being Human originally…
GW: Yeah! I completely spaced on Being Human.
BJS: Being Human, Skins. We sure screwed up Skins on this side of the pond.
GW: I’m just hoping there’s never an American Doctor Who because that’s just going to be bad. [laughter]
You spent some time actually earlier this year on stage off Broadway with Little Black Dress.
BJS: Yeah, I did. One of the coolest things about that was there were so many Stargate fans that showed up and my cast members that were in the show had no idea what was going on because in the lobby after the show there’d be a Stargate fan there with a big poster and they would see me signing it and they’d be like, “What the hell’s going on?! Who the hell do you think you are?” It was pretty wild.
But that was purely something for me. Most of the theater you do in New York is stuff that you feel an urge to do that has nothing to do with your career, nothing to do with money, nothing to do with what you’ve done before. It was a character I really wanted to play. I spent two years bawling my eyes out and running from death weekly on Stargate and I wanted to play a happy-go-lucky, horny, opportunistic guy who’s really essentially pretty likeable. And I got to do that on stage.
NEXT: Red Faction, Gossip Girl, and looking ahead to the future
good interview! I think he hit it on the head, one of the things missing in SGU was the wonder. Which given the story, struggling on a ship in space, it wasn’t always about the wonder, but about them getting through life. Again, beaten to death, but maybe that’s part of what it was.
p.s. I was at the inner space thing! I was the guy from Ohio! haha, they acted like it was such a long drive. But I live 3 hours from my family and I drive that a lot, so 5 hours to Toronto was nothing. Plus I’d never been, and the whole experience was amazing! I have his autograph!
I liked red planet, I think Syfy would be stupid if they didn’t pick the series up. But it is the Syfy channel we’re talking about.
I watched every SGU episode from day 1, and I miss the show, and I agree with what BJS was saying. Too many “stargate” fans didn’t watch SGU and jumped ship when the show got cancelled. Anyway good luck.
p.s I hope Syfy pick red faction up fingers crossed.
Great interview! :) I too was at the SGU Innerspace special in fact I think I was right behind you in the line for the autographs as I remember people commenting on it. I would however disagree in regard to the wonder in SGU, to me SGU was more about the wonder then either of the previous shows as it was the core of the show, What is the Destiny, what is it’s purpose, why did the Ancients build it, Why didn’t they ever go to it? All of these to me at least are all about wonder.
Never was a fan of SGU but good luck to Brian in his future.
Sadly, I think Red Faction is dead. After the game was released to a ho-hum reception and if I remember right, that TV-movie didn’t get all that great of ratings. THQ pretty much killed it as a franchise. Which is pretty sad as a fan of RF:Gurella and the older games. Armageddon was a big misstep.
@DustoMan
You’re right in saying the last re faction game was a little bit lame.