I feared this day was coming when they first officially announced they were discussing a new series (Stargate Universe). But it still came as a shock to hear today that season 5 will be the last for Stargate Atlantis. They intend to finish the series with a 2 hour TV/DVD movie and have plans for other possible movies in the future.
If you have a problem with this - contact Sci-Fi and MGM and express your thoughts. My recommendation is that it’s wise to be polite and while you may be angry, swearing and throwing threats at them won’t help.
MGM Television
10250 Constellation Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90067
USA
Phn: 310-449-3000
Fax: 310-449-8750 comments@mgm.com
Sci-Fi 30 Rockefeller Center
21st Floor
New York, NY 10112
USA
Phn: 212-664-4444
Fax: 212-703-8533 feedback@scifi.com
I’ve been meaning to write this story up for ages…. and finally, here it is…
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Two weeks before heading off on my 6 week USA trip I had the opportunity to go to an event in Melbourne where Alan Tudyk was a last minute guest. This was my first “con” type experience so I jumped at the chance to go.
After some major problems getting to the venue, my brother and I decided to head straight over to the area where Alan’s Q&A would be and hopefully be early enough to get good seats – we underestimated the situation however and there was already a very long line! After a long wait we managed to get seats near the back but others had to be turned away at the door – I don’t think anyone had expected such a turnout but it was great to see so much support for Alan.
The Q&A was awesome and Alan was the best. He started off his session by sharing with us something very special. A home video that he and Nathan had recorded during the filming of Jaynestown which they had recorded to introduce Alan’s family to this new show they were doing. Alan told us while he didn’t mind us filming him, that he wouldn’t allow anyone to record the video and proceeded to tell us that we may be the only people to ever get to see it, and while he hoped that some day Joss would be able to use it on something, there was a lot of red tape they’d have to go through to get permission from people on camera and they didn’t even know who half of the people were so it may just never happen – it felt pretty good to be part of the group who got to see it – and it was hi-larious!
Lots of questions from the audience followed, some of the usual including the “what kind of practical jokes did Nathan play”. Alan told a story of how Nathan is “sadistic”, how he’d hand him a lighter which would “shock the hell out of me” and then “he did it again… I fell for it twice… different lighter!” While Nathan was shooting Slither, Alan was taking care of his house and his cat. When Nathan was due home Alan decided to leave him a note. On the coffee table was a pad of paper and pen, so Alan picks up the pen to write the note and ZAP!! Alan said, “It was a good joke, I laughed so hard, and there was no-one else in the house”. He said he still hasn’t got him back for that and someone yelled out “give out his phone number” which Alan thought was an hilarious suggestion and said “oh wow… boy would I … that would come back to me 50-fold, no way… I like where your head is though”.
I stood in line for well over a hour, waiting….waiting…waiting to get an autograph from Alan. Because I was going to the convention in LA I decided not to worry about getting mine at the expo because I could get it in a couple of weeks time, I had however promised to get one for a friend (a friend in the US ironically) so here I was…waiting. Eventually it was my turn and I asked Alan to sign the CD cover for my friend and while he was signing I told him how I’d bought one of the pens that zaps you like the one Nathan tricked him with, and that my friend (whose birthday I bought it for, she collects pens) wasn’t impressed but that I found it funny and had thought at the time how funny it would be to hand Nathan a pen like that in the autograph line but that I would never do it because I didn’t think that kind of thing coming from a fan would go down well. Alan thought it was a great idea and said that I should definitely do it, that I had to be really, really careful not to tip him off before hand, but that it was ok to mention his name afterwards. He assured me that it would be ok when I expressed my concern that Nathan wouldn’t appreciate it so I planned to get another pen and take with me to the convention in Burbank. As I was about to leave the autograph line I said to Alan “see you in two weeks” to which he looked confused and I clarified that I was going to be at the Creation convention. He said, “oh…the one in Burbank? I won’t be there! I forgot to tell them. I won’t be able to make it, I’ll be in New York”. I told him I was sorry I wouldn’t see him there and he gave me a smile as I left. It wasn’t until after I left the autograph line that I realised I wasn’t going to be able to get an autograph or a photo op but thankfully he was going to be there again the following day so I made plans to go show up again so I wouldn’t miss out.
At the end of the day, Alan was really generous and though nobody had asked him to, he did a second Q&A session that he wasn’t scheduled to do and he was clearly worn out by then after spending all day signing autographs. He was aware that some people had had to be turned away at the first session and didn’t want anyone to miss out. What a BDH! During this Q&A he mentioned the Burbank convention that he’d been reminded of and that he wasn’t going to be able to make it.
Next day I went back to get an auto & photo op but I missed out on getting a photo because of some problems with volunteers giving me the wrong information and had to wait in line for more than two hours for an autograph! I was really disappointed at missing what was probably going to be my only chance ever of having a photo taken with Alan but was pleased to have had the chance to meet him and say hello.
I checked the Creation con website for a few days to see if Alan was removed but when nothing happened I sent them an email to suggest they might want to get in touch with Alan because he’d said in Australia that he wasn’t going to be able to go. I never heard anything back.
Fast forward two weeks, after three days with only a couple of hours sleep and a 17 hour plane ride (after somehow managing to get put on another flight when mine was cancelled) I arrived in LA, headed to Burbank, threw on some fresh clothes and headed over to the convention center. Morena was just finishing up when I arrived and I managed to find a couple of friends I was meeting there and someone told me Alan was actually there and doing photos so I went and asked if I was too late to buy a photo op and was told they thought I was but they’d give me one and would give me a refund if I’d missed out. I just squeezed in and was the last person in. I walked up to Alan and said “now … you told me you weren’t going to be here!” after a brief blank look he figured out who I was and said, “Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to be, I’m supposed to be in New York”. I told Alan that I’d brought the pen with me and I’d try to capture something on film if I was allowed, he said that’d be great. As I was leaving, one of the convention people who’d obviously overheard our conversation said “So YOU’RE the one! Thank you so much”. So, it seems that if it wasn’t for me, Alan would not have been at the convention (you can all pay me later ).
Roll on to the autograph session with Nathan the next day and I’m standing in line thinking to myself, am I really brave enough to do this? So my turn comes and I hand Nathan my White Noise 2 poster and tell him I think it was a great movie and hand him the pen. Nathan goes to write and pushes the button on the top of the pen and ZAP!! He threw the pen and started to yell and then in an instant he suddenly yells out ALAN!! I of course laughed and Alan wasn’t even there. Nathan then gave the pen to his helper and asked him to write something and of course was zapped but that wasn’t enough for Nathan so he took the pen over to Sean Maher and gave him a piece of paper and said, “here, sign this for a fan”… and of course, poor Sean got zapped too and Nathan thought it was hilarious. Meanwhile I’m standing around stunned that I actually managed to successfully pull off a practical joke on Nathan Fillion of all people. I then handed Nathan a real pen to sign my poster with and my Firefly DVD box set and that was that.
Knowing that Nathan and Alan are friends I expected that Nathan would say something to Alan about it at some point, which was good because I didn’t think I was going to have the opportunity to tell Alan about it myself but to my surprise Alan showed up at the ME Strike day and I actually had a chance to say hi and ask him if he’d heard what happened with the pen. Alan got excited and said “No! tell me about it”, so I relayed the story to him and Alan thought it was a great laugh and went off to find Nathan right away to tell him about it. I was not expecting to see Alan at all that day, or ever again for that matter, so it was a really special experience for me to be able to bring it full circle and tell Alan about it myself on the second to last day of my trip.
Oh…and my photo op with Alan turned out great! So now I know that all I need to do to get a good photo of myself is spend three days and 17 hours on a plane without sleep and stand next to Alan Tudyk LOL. I’ve been meaning to mail my photo to Alan’s manager to ask him to autograph it for me, I really need to bump that up on my to-do list.
I reported a couple of months ago about the new Stargate series that’s in the works called Stargate Universe. It seems that more news is on the horizon with the network expected to make an announcement soon.
With the second SG1 movie Continuum due to be released next month there’s talk of more movies in Stargate’s future.
Unfortunately producing two television shows and an SG-1 movie all at the same time seems out of the question so either something will have to wait, or Universe won’t get started until Atlantis ends and this is aparently what’s holding up the decision by MGM and SCI FI.
I think the permise of the new series is an intriguing one but I don’t want it rushed in at the expense of Atlantis, if they can find a way to do both AND the movies - now THAT would be something!
There have been murmurs for some time now that the Stargate franchise was about to take the next step. A third series. Some information was leaked to the internet but official Stargate channels were keeping the lid on everything. Today it has been officially announced that there will be a new series.
Chances are that it won’t begin until the current series Atlantis has completed its run. This has me concerned that they’re going to just dump Atlantis at the end of the 5th season just so they can start working on the new one, that really would be a shame. I figure if Star Trek could run two series simultaneously, why not Stargate, but apparently the crew aren’t willing to work the very long hours it would require to run the two side by side, which - from the perspective of someone who’s at times tried to worked way too many hours in a week - I can understand.
The new series, “Stargate Universe”, will be focused around a gate-seed ship that was launched by the Ancients long long ago - an automated ship that was designed to install stargates in distant space, followed by an exploration ship. The 9th chevron will allow the team to reach the exploration ship.
The Ancients never finished th project, but “we” will.
The new series’ creators intend to produce a show that will not only maintain current viewers but also draw new people into the franchise.
Also - watch for the new Stargate movie Stargate: Continuum coming to DVD July 29th - Richard Dean Anderson - Yay!
Joss Whedon Announced today that Nathan Fillion will play the hero in a special Internet Musical.
Whedon reports that during the WGA strike he started writing the musical which will be a limited internet series. Each of the three episodes will be approximately ten minute each.
Co-writers for the internet feature are Joss’ brothers Zack and Jed and Jed’s Fiance Maurissa . The writing has been completed and shooting commenced today.
“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.” Says Whedon.
“Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will star Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, Felicia Day as Penny and a cast of dozens.
An Australian event organiser mentioned today that they had to cancel an event they were planning but are still trying for a later date because they’re in negotiations with “the best guest from sci-fi we could possibly have” saying if we were to guess, half of us would be correct. So that got me thinking, who ARE the best in sci-fi?
So - here are my favourite Sci-Fi actors (based on their sci-fi roles)
Nathan Fillion - best known as Captain Mal Renolds (Firefly/Serenity) I just can’t say enough good things about Firefly/Serenity but Nathan Fillion - as an actor in general - is pretty awesome in my book. He plays funny well, everyone knows that, but he also plays romance and drama and scary stuff really well too, tiny changes in facial expression can totally hook you into believing what the character is going through. Totally underrated & underused by the industry!
Richard Dean Anderson - best known as Jack O’niell (Stargate SG1) Only recently become a fan and confess to having never seen an episode of MacGyver - but Jack O’neill is just the best, such a complex character - there’s a lot beneath the surface, like Nathan Fillion, it’s the subtleties in his acting that are convincing. Looking forward to Stargate Continuum.
David Hewlett - best known as Dr McKay (Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG1) It’s really sad, but apart from the fact I’m not super brilliant, I identify a lot with Rodney. Again. beneath the surface, a complex character and David plays him so well.
Summer Glau - best known as Summer (Firefly/Serenity) & Cameron (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles) Summer is really only just getting started in her career and she’s moving along in leaps and bounds, I think she’s capable of more than we’ve seen from her so far and I’m looking foward to it.
Jewel Staite - best known as Kaylee (Firefly/Serenity) & Dr Keller (Stargate Atlantis) No doubt I loved Jewel as Kaylee - who couldn’t, but I think she’s showing some awesomeness in her role as Dr Keller in Atlantis - can’t wait to see more.
David Tennant - best known as The Doctor (Doctor Who) Funny, cute, cool
Harrison Ford - best known as Han Solo (Star Wars) Ok, Harrison Ford is only so far down the list because I didn’t like Star Wars a whole lot (don’t shoot me) but as an actor, he’s most definitely one of the best by far.
Connor Trinneer - best known as “Trip” Tucker (Enterprise) & Michael (Stargate Atlantis) I didn’t really feel Enterprise did the whole character development so well in the first two seaons and have only seen a few eps of the rest so never really got to know “Trip” that well, but I thnk that Connor does an excellent job at the complicated character of Michael in Atlantis.
Patrick Stewart - best known as Captain Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation) I like Patrick in Star Trek Next Gen but I’ve liked him in pretty much everything I’ve seen him in, sci-fi or not.
William Shatner - best known as Captain Kirk (Star Trek)
Hey, no list would be complete without Bill
I think this list may say as much about about the Sci-Fi shows I enjoy as the actors themselves!
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