Commentary for Family Ties
Oct. 15th, 2007 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaCommentary for Family Ties by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.
I have to say I've dreaded this because it was my least favorite ep in Season Ten.
JM did the first draft, Paul did the polish. There are sly mentions that the show was canceled throughout this ep because they had just been notified. The first scene is of Carter and Vala returning from a girl's night out. JM mentions that some online fans comment negatively about the civilian clothes the girls wear. He states when they wear such things, the actresses get to choose so if you don't like their choices, you can criticize them about it at their next convention. Paul says you don't really mean that, and JM says he does.
JM says sometimes when you write a character, the actor comes in and they aren't as good as you remember them but he thinks Fred Willard did a fantastic job. Paul says that they kept most of his ad libs, when usually they just get mad and cut them out. "How dare they challenge the written word!" They talk about Fred and how he was great in his films. When JM pitched the idea, Rob suggested FW for the part and JM envisioned him in the role when he wrote the ep. He wondered if he'd be "high maintenance" but he was fine. His agent mentioned that he liked peanut butter cookies so they made sure to have them about the set.
When Vala and the SGC made video contact with her father, it bothers JM that Vala never looks at the screen. JM points out that they explain the accent differences between father and daughter; Paul asks couldn't they find any funny British actors? In the next scene, it's an off world forest. Paul asks why was the planet so misty? JM says all the exteriors were shot in the same place, so they added mist, or changed the camera angle to make it look a little different. They comment about the colorfulness of FW's costume. JM says now that he's showrunner, he could get that outfit (or one of Ba'al's) and wear it to meetings.
In the briefing room scene, they mentioned something that refers back to Talion. Paul asks what Talion means and JM says, "it beats me. Maybe some fan will look it up."
Next scene has Silar getting medical care for injuries when he walked into a door. JM wanted very much to cut that scene out but couldn't manage it. He felt it wasn't funny and was too silly. Dr. Lam is back in this ep. She was out for a while because Lexa was pregnant. They knew she'd be coming back so they just kept the character alive by saying things like "Dr. Lam said..." or "you just missed her."
Originally this show was to focus on Vala's relationship with her father but they also used it to parallel the story of Landry's relationship with his wife.
They wonder why all the commanders of the Daedalus, Prometheus, etc...all have balding heads. When they see the bomb goes off on the planet, JM states he loves their special effects dept.
About the scene where Landry comes to Vala's room to talk with her. JM said costuming came and said Claudia wanted to wear curlers but JM said no, he doesn't like to see that type of thing. When the daily's showed up, he was "less than pleased." They compliment Beau and how any scene he's in he brings believability to it. JM says, "speaking of Beau and this whole hair curler debacle..." he said when they heard they were canceled, he went to Beau and thanked him for always coming to the writers if he ever wanted to change something, no matter how small. Paul says are you trying to say that other people didn't do that? JM whines out an answer that some did on big issues but some didn't on small issues or that some offered alternate takes for them to choose from which is alright as long as the original take was done, too, but sometimes it wasn't. There is someone whose responsibility it is is to see that the actors say what's scripted. And during the editing, JM will ask for the script and find that the original words have been whited out with the new lines written in. Paul says once again, this shows how much power we really have on this show.
JM laughs at the bingo scene and says it's a lot of fun. They keep chuckling about how great it and Fred was. They love his ad libs. JM wanted the apt to be garish looking. On the day of shooting, N. John Smith told him Jasec's apt was maybe over the top so JM rushed down and had to ask for about a third of the more over the top things to be removed. The stuff that is left is the more conservative items.
One of the hardest part of this ep was in casting Landry's ex-wife. Asian, older, and attractive, someone that looked believable as Lexa's mother, and who could act and was available in Vancouver. In the end, it was an extra they chose and they complimented her on the job she did. They compliment PDL on the good job he did directing the ep.
Jasec's apt was in Norco Studio. It has the Wraith set and the Dakara set before they blew it up. JM says FW is his favorite guest star they've had on the show. They had to squeeze him in because he was only available for certain days as he had a previous commitment to be a guest co-host of At The Movies. They compliment him on how well he did since he had a lot of scenes. They say they've had other actors come in in a similar situation and not be able to deliver.
They compliment both actors on bringing some serious emotions to this sometimes funny scene. They praise Claudia for making people care for her character.
Jasec's TV commercial, the hokey graphics were done on an editing machine to show what they were looking for but they were so perfect they just had sfx duplicate them. JM recalls that one of the notes that Paul gave him on the episode was that realistically, no one would buy stardust for $49.95; $19.95 was a better price. The diet reference was a poke at people in the office that follow strange diets, like N. John Smith following the Blood Type Diet.
They talk about the Virginia Dialogues and the permutations they tried, like Angina Dialogue. They giggle over the word vagina and wonder if they can say it on the commentary.
About the Daniel & Vala scene, they say he's the type of guy that has to give her a little shake and show her she's being hypocritical. They mention the wonderful chemistry these two characters have. JM says it's interesting to chart their development from when they first met and were antagonistic. In S9 it was a lot of fun and he began to warm to her and in S10, they developed a friendship but there still is that sexual chemistry there. Paul thought it was kinda cool that because he had vouched for her to the rest of the team and she took advantage of that to give him a hard time when ever she felt like it. Paul thinks that dynamic really worked for the two characters. JM says he likes the romantic possibility between them. He confesses to being a shipper; Jack and Sam, Vala and Daniel, Landry and Mitchell.
They point out the new Cheyenne Mountain establishing shot, but Paul says it was in S9 that Martin Wood went down there to shoot more footage. They mention how the scene where Daniel shoots the Jaffa was shot in the same location as the off-world scene near the beginning of the show but now it's without mist and is sunny. Originally, they had the Jaffa just miss Daniel with the zat but it looked better to have the shot hit the tree so it made the Jaffa a worse shot than he was.
The compliment the props department. A lady shaver for a device. In the Quest part one, Carter negotiates a temporal field with a PSP. The briefing room scene is where all is explained so everybody will be clear on the plot. JM says the briefing room table is old and chipped and only has a couple decent angles anymore.
JM compliments Dr. Lee (Bill Dow) as a lot of fun. The Carter/Jasec conversation is a subtle commentary about the show being can canceled after ten years. Dr. Lee shouting out Eureka was a dig at the SciFi show Eureka. There was resistance to having Lam and Landry talk on the phone but hey, every room in the base has a phone so of course they would use them instead of always walking over to see each other. JM asks about that sword on Landry's desk; has it always been there? Paul isn't sure. JM wants to know why it's there, was he in the calvary? Paul wants to know what the big red button on the wall is for as the base is full of them. He says he always hits one of them with his elbow when he's on set and wonders what would happen in the Stargate world when it's activated. They seem to think those red buttons have never to activated on the show.
JM says that Don S. Davis gave him a call that day just to say hi. They say Beau is good at throwing withering glances at Gary Jones. JM says he never did much with Gary until last year's Comic Con, and maybe he should have run some of those questions by them before the actual Q&A but that it went okay anyway and he's a very nice guy.
Naquada deals are like drug deals and they never go right. JM questions why alien bounty hunters wear leather when it doesn't breathe well since they do all that running and fighting. Paul says nothing says 'alien bounty hunter' like a leather trench coat. When the Jaffa that is supposed to be Teal'c is zatted from behind, JM says it didn't work because that guy was a half foot shorter and his hair was five inches longer. Paul says he didn't notice. JM says "I think you did."
Once a rogue, always a rogue. JM sums up the ep by saying it was a show where there was the cross, the double cross and the triple cross here. The realization at the end where they didn't trust him or they were on to him all along, Vala used him to secure the real cargo ship.
The restaurant where Landry meets his family is actually a snack shop near the wooded area where they shot their exteriors. He thinks it's called "The Bistro Fine" (Fine, Vib, Five?)
JM wonders how many times the actor had to eat a packing peanut. Paul felt they weren't real packing peanuts as there are probably union rules to prevent actors from having to eat toxic things. They accidentally set someone on fire in Line of Duty and had to upgrade him. They've always wanted to cut to an outside shot while people are doing an extended laugh (classic 1960s or classic Flintstones) and they finally did it on their last SG1 episode.
The last scene between Carter and Vala, this is a girl's night in. Carter did not have many scenes with Vala. JM says needless to say, that was a non-alcoholic wine since Carter was off duty but still in uniform.
The last scene of Teal'c at the play, JM wrote as a gag to see if he could get away with it. JM gigles and thinks that will go down in sci fi history as the alien at the Vagina Monologues.
I have to say I've dreaded this because it was my least favorite ep in Season Ten.
JM did the first draft, Paul did the polish. There are sly mentions that the show was canceled throughout this ep because they had just been notified. The first scene is of Carter and Vala returning from a girl's night out. JM mentions that some online fans comment negatively about the civilian clothes the girls wear. He states when they wear such things, the actresses get to choose so if you don't like their choices, you can criticize them about it at their next convention. Paul says you don't really mean that, and JM says he does.
JM says sometimes when you write a character, the actor comes in and they aren't as good as you remember them but he thinks Fred Willard did a fantastic job. Paul says that they kept most of his ad libs, when usually they just get mad and cut them out. "How dare they challenge the written word!" They talk about Fred and how he was great in his films. When JM pitched the idea, Rob suggested FW for the part and JM envisioned him in the role when he wrote the ep. He wondered if he'd be "high maintenance" but he was fine. His agent mentioned that he liked peanut butter cookies so they made sure to have them about the set.
When Vala and the SGC made video contact with her father, it bothers JM that Vala never looks at the screen. JM points out that they explain the accent differences between father and daughter; Paul asks couldn't they find any funny British actors? In the next scene, it's an off world forest. Paul asks why was the planet so misty? JM says all the exteriors were shot in the same place, so they added mist, or changed the camera angle to make it look a little different. They comment about the colorfulness of FW's costume. JM says now that he's showrunner, he could get that outfit (or one of Ba'al's) and wear it to meetings.
In the briefing room scene, they mentioned something that refers back to Talion. Paul asks what Talion means and JM says, "it beats me. Maybe some fan will look it up."
Next scene has Silar getting medical care for injuries when he walked into a door. JM wanted very much to cut that scene out but couldn't manage it. He felt it wasn't funny and was too silly. Dr. Lam is back in this ep. She was out for a while because Lexa was pregnant. They knew she'd be coming back so they just kept the character alive by saying things like "Dr. Lam said..." or "you just missed her."
Originally this show was to focus on Vala's relationship with her father but they also used it to parallel the story of Landry's relationship with his wife.
They wonder why all the commanders of the Daedalus, Prometheus, etc...all have balding heads. When they see the bomb goes off on the planet, JM states he loves their special effects dept.
About the scene where Landry comes to Vala's room to talk with her. JM said costuming came and said Claudia wanted to wear curlers but JM said no, he doesn't like to see that type of thing. When the daily's showed up, he was "less than pleased." They compliment Beau and how any scene he's in he brings believability to it. JM says, "speaking of Beau and this whole hair curler debacle..." he said when they heard they were canceled, he went to Beau and thanked him for always coming to the writers if he ever wanted to change something, no matter how small. Paul says are you trying to say that other people didn't do that? JM whines out an answer that some did on big issues but some didn't on small issues or that some offered alternate takes for them to choose from which is alright as long as the original take was done, too, but sometimes it wasn't. There is someone whose responsibility it is is to see that the actors say what's scripted. And during the editing, JM will ask for the script and find that the original words have been whited out with the new lines written in. Paul says once again, this shows how much power we really have on this show.
JM laughs at the bingo scene and says it's a lot of fun. They keep chuckling about how great it and Fred was. They love his ad libs. JM wanted the apt to be garish looking. On the day of shooting, N. John Smith told him Jasec's apt was maybe over the top so JM rushed down and had to ask for about a third of the more over the top things to be removed. The stuff that is left is the more conservative items.
One of the hardest part of this ep was in casting Landry's ex-wife. Asian, older, and attractive, someone that looked believable as Lexa's mother, and who could act and was available in Vancouver. In the end, it was an extra they chose and they complimented her on the job she did. They compliment PDL on the good job he did directing the ep.
Jasec's apt was in Norco Studio. It has the Wraith set and the Dakara set before they blew it up. JM says FW is his favorite guest star they've had on the show. They had to squeeze him in because he was only available for certain days as he had a previous commitment to be a guest co-host of At The Movies. They compliment him on how well he did since he had a lot of scenes. They say they've had other actors come in in a similar situation and not be able to deliver.
They compliment both actors on bringing some serious emotions to this sometimes funny scene. They praise Claudia for making people care for her character.
Jasec's TV commercial, the hokey graphics were done on an editing machine to show what they were looking for but they were so perfect they just had sfx duplicate them. JM recalls that one of the notes that Paul gave him on the episode was that realistically, no one would buy stardust for $49.95; $19.95 was a better price. The diet reference was a poke at people in the office that follow strange diets, like N. John Smith following the Blood Type Diet.
They talk about the Virginia Dialogues and the permutations they tried, like Angina Dialogue. They giggle over the word vagina and wonder if they can say it on the commentary.
About the Daniel & Vala scene, they say he's the type of guy that has to give her a little shake and show her she's being hypocritical. They mention the wonderful chemistry these two characters have. JM says it's interesting to chart their development from when they first met and were antagonistic. In S9 it was a lot of fun and he began to warm to her and in S10, they developed a friendship but there still is that sexual chemistry there. Paul thought it was kinda cool that because he had vouched for her to the rest of the team and she took advantage of that to give him a hard time when ever she felt like it. Paul thinks that dynamic really worked for the two characters. JM says he likes the romantic possibility between them. He confesses to being a shipper; Jack and Sam, Vala and Daniel, Landry and Mitchell.
They point out the new Cheyenne Mountain establishing shot, but Paul says it was in S9 that Martin Wood went down there to shoot more footage. They mention how the scene where Daniel shoots the Jaffa was shot in the same location as the off-world scene near the beginning of the show but now it's without mist and is sunny. Originally, they had the Jaffa just miss Daniel with the zat but it looked better to have the shot hit the tree so it made the Jaffa a worse shot than he was.
The compliment the props department. A lady shaver for a device. In the Quest part one, Carter negotiates a temporal field with a PSP. The briefing room scene is where all is explained so everybody will be clear on the plot. JM says the briefing room table is old and chipped and only has a couple decent angles anymore.
JM compliments Dr. Lee (Bill Dow) as a lot of fun. The Carter/Jasec conversation is a subtle commentary about the show being can canceled after ten years. Dr. Lee shouting out Eureka was a dig at the SciFi show Eureka. There was resistance to having Lam and Landry talk on the phone but hey, every room in the base has a phone so of course they would use them instead of always walking over to see each other. JM asks about that sword on Landry's desk; has it always been there? Paul isn't sure. JM wants to know why it's there, was he in the calvary? Paul wants to know what the big red button on the wall is for as the base is full of them. He says he always hits one of them with his elbow when he's on set and wonders what would happen in the Stargate world when it's activated. They seem to think those red buttons have never to activated on the show.
JM says that Don S. Davis gave him a call that day just to say hi. They say Beau is good at throwing withering glances at Gary Jones. JM says he never did much with Gary until last year's Comic Con, and maybe he should have run some of those questions by them before the actual Q&A but that it went okay anyway and he's a very nice guy.
Naquada deals are like drug deals and they never go right. JM questions why alien bounty hunters wear leather when it doesn't breathe well since they do all that running and fighting. Paul says nothing says 'alien bounty hunter' like a leather trench coat. When the Jaffa that is supposed to be Teal'c is zatted from behind, JM says it didn't work because that guy was a half foot shorter and his hair was five inches longer. Paul says he didn't notice. JM says "I think you did."
Once a rogue, always a rogue. JM sums up the ep by saying it was a show where there was the cross, the double cross and the triple cross here. The realization at the end where they didn't trust him or they were on to him all along, Vala used him to secure the real cargo ship.
The restaurant where Landry meets his family is actually a snack shop near the wooded area where they shot their exteriors. He thinks it's called "The Bistro Fine" (Fine, Vib, Five?)
JM wonders how many times the actor had to eat a packing peanut. Paul felt they weren't real packing peanuts as there are probably union rules to prevent actors from having to eat toxic things. They accidentally set someone on fire in Line of Duty and had to upgrade him. They've always wanted to cut to an outside shot while people are doing an extended laugh (classic 1960s or classic Flintstones) and they finally did it on their last SG1 episode.
The last scene between Carter and Vala, this is a girl's night in. Carter did not have many scenes with Vala. JM says needless to say, that was a non-alcoholic wine since Carter was off duty but still in uniform.
The last scene of Teal'c at the play, JM wrote as a gag to see if he could get away with it. JM gigles and thinks that will go down in sci fi history as the alien at the Vagina Monologues.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 05:23 am (UTC)In Vancouver?! West coast Canada is loaded with Asian-Canadians. Grrrr.
And don't even start me on their reaction to The Vagina Monologues.
*sigh* Yes, dreaded for good reason. Thanks for reporting so I don't have to listen. Or watch the ep ever again ...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 07:34 am (UTC)Paul Mullie must think Claudia has a British accent. And Mallozzi ships *Landry* and Mitchell? He also said something about how meticulously he researches stuff and that's obviously a line of pure bullshit.
I'm so glad that one is behind me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 06:07 am (UTC)Family Ties...aside from the fact it shares the same title as a dreaded sitcom from the eighties (which is enough to keep me away), this makes me glad I didn't watch these episodes.
I thought this part was particularly apropo: They praise Claudia for making people care for her character. Yes, especially since they wrote her character so badly, what else could CB do? Flub the lines? And did she really end up wearing hair curlers? God, so glad I didn't see that. What a horrible decision. What is it with the women actors on Stargate wanting to soften their characters and make them stupid or acting stupidly and stereotypically?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 07:49 am (UTC)He is such an ass.
I know Tapping wanted to go fem, but since she'd been doing the show for years, maybe she just wanted something different even though it was a bad choice for the character. I guess Claudia has made a lot of girlie choices. I hadn't really consider it from that perspective. Huh.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 09:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-17 12:13 am (UTC)Yeah, that one gem carrot keeps me going. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-16 05:13 pm (UTC)THANK YOU!
I really didn't like this ep at all, for a lot of reasons, but enough about me.
Thanks so much for the insightful summaries.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-17 12:17 am (UTC)I guess people either hate it or love it. Humor frequently works that way. Except for writers/producers/crew I've yet to hear anyone who really liked this one, but I know they're out there.
And you're welcome. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-20 05:39 am (UTC)