The year was 2002. Stargate SG-1 was in its fifth season, about to wrap up an impressive run as one of the first original scripted series on Showtime.
The series would live on by moving over to the SCI FI Channel, but the writers wanted to give Showtime’s viewers a clean ending (instead of a cliffhanger). They also faced a major creative challenge: writing out one of the show’s main characters, a pillar of SG-1’s storytelling who was loved by fans (both the character and the actor who played him). And they had to do it all while setting up the team to continue their adventures with a new season on a new network.
Late in Season Five Stargate SG-1 co-star Michael Shanks let the producers know that he would not be returning as Dr. Daniel Jackson — at least not as a full-time member of the cast.
The result was a truly powerful episode of television: “Meridian,” which saw Dr. Jackson not only killed off but subsequently ascend to a higher plane of existence. Daniel’s journey would continue, in a radically different way, though his friends — and the fans — knew they may never see him again.
Writing this episode fell to executive producer Robert C. Cooper, while William Waring took on director duties. But Cooper wanted to keep the door cracked for bringing the actor back in some way, shape, or form. Following a series of guest appearances in Season Six, a year later it would be Cooper who reached out to Shanks and invited him to come back to the show full-time.
“Yeah, it was a way of killing him without killing him — because I and the rest of the team were hopeful that this wasn’t the end,” Cooper told “Dial the Gate” host David Read.
“It was the culmination of what I felt was the ascension story, of humans trying to understand themselves and better themselves at the same time, and maybe along the way achieve enlightenment. And to me, of any character on the show, Daniel was the one who was searching for that.”
In the full, 80-minute conversation all about Season Five Cooper also talks about casting Mel Harris as Oma Desala, introducing David Hewlett as Dr. McKay in “48 Hours,” SCI FI’s rescuing Stargate SG-1 from cancellation, and much more.
“Meridian” certainly wasn’t universally loved by fans when it aired in 2002, with Shanks’ most ardent fans criticizing the show for losing the actor and the character. But it is an emotionally powerful and brilliantly acted hour … and having Shanks return to the show has certainly tempered the controversy in the 20 years since.
“The episode was a lightning rod of fan attention,” Cooper admitted. “But I stand by the episode. … It was the best send-off I could imagine for Daniel.”
Head to “Dial the Gate” on YouTube to watch the whole conversation! And check out GateWorld on YouTube while you’re there for more videos every week.
What did you think of the way that Daniel was written off the show? Were you as excited as we were to see Michael Shanks return full-time in Season Seven? Post your thoughts on this bit of Stargate history in the comments below.
It was gutting and riveting at the same time, with a small bit of hope left afterwards which eventually paid off. It was so good! What an amazing series!
Agreed!
I was surprised and disappointed at first when ‘Daniel’ died and ascended but once I got used to ‘Jonas’, I really didn’t miss him. I really liked ‘Jonas’ and didn’t like that he was written out of the show, so for me, though it was interesting to see ‘Daniel’return, I would rather they had kept ‘Jonas’.
I never warmed to the somewhat more shallow character of Jonas… there was something a bit underdeveloped in his character that gave a different feel to him than, I tried to allow for “alien culture” a personality formed in a different environment, but, he mastered everything too quickly and brilliantly, everything about him seemed too easy and, interesting when I really don’t like the emotional play of character excessive trauma often overused with the main characters to increase intensity and contrary to their personalities. The writers managed with Mitchell, who began with some of the same shallowness they wrote for… Read more »
I wish they would bring back SG1 and SGA. I still Binge the entire shows every year.
You and me both Misty, it’s my way of grounding myself to the late 90s/early 2000s when life was amazing!
I discovered them recently, looking for fantasy adventure shows to keep me on the treadmill WOW! started with Atlantis then to SG-1, great stories, clever, witty, exciting… I’m at series season 9 now, finding the ori a bit tedious, I hope there won’t be hours of fanatics being fanatics, kind of a “temple of doom” torture I can imagine I will watch all the seasons again… my target was a 40 minute walk, I often walk through two the only down side, the poor audio quality of some earlier seasons when soft voices are sometimes lost in background noise and,… Read more »
Actually, I was more impressed with the lead up. With this episode in mind, the writers wrote a whole series of morality plays with Daniel as the conscience of the team. Best episodes of the series imho.
What pisses me off is when we finally got Daniel back in season 7 they had to ruin the show 17 episodes later, Janet needs to come back too and I’m still waiting!
This was the best write-off any show could hope for. It was so pivotal to the storyline as the foreshadowing in S1 talked about the mysterious gate-builders and this gave us some insight into what life is like for the ancients; and, had Daniel not had this write-off, chances are, the writers wouldn’t had focused so much on the ancient storyline. So this is what true genius is like, aside from The Expanse, I don’t see us having another good sci-fi series of this magnitude for another generation.
I have to agree, this was brilliant… the creativity and the character personalities are so far beyond most television series and even superior to most books where the greater development of character and story line is usually superior… The range of character and story from blowing up a sun to the most subtle plot and character humor, friendship… so well written and so well performed… I’ve arrived late in the SG “universe” and haven’t had as much fun with an entertainment since… what, the first POTC, first Starwars except, here I have hours and hours to watch (purchased the seasons… Read more »
Just a great episode of television period, let alone Stargate. Especially with Oppenheimer having just come out the debate between Jack and Jonas is riveting. Then the reveal that Daniel physically stopped a WMD from going off, sacrificing himself in the process. Just wow.