DVD Comm: Evolution, Part II
Jul. 12th, 2007 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smg01With Evolution Part I out of the way, it only seems right to go directly to Evolution Part II.
Peter DeLuise (Director/Writer) and Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter) [Yay!] introduce themselves. AT tends to have a very cheerful and breezy style to her commentaries. I quite enjoy her style.
PDL tells us that he had a lot of trouble coming up with the title for this episode. “I was going to call it something really cool, but I thought Evolution Part II is pretty much what it is so I just went with that.”
We’re watching the previouslies and AT compliments the look of the water flowing into the temple. PDL tells us that they’re seeing some of the things in the episode for the first time. “So we may register shock and surprise.
The episode itself begins with Hammond and O’Neill conferring. PDL says that he likes to start with DSD’s naked head if possible. More seriously he says that Don is a real sweetheart. And then goes on to talk about the scene itself, saying that it’s a way to catch the audience up with what’s happening with Daniel “down in Sweaty Land.”
We’re now with Daniel in Sweaty Land. AT offers admiration. “Look at him. Aiee!”
PDL: Like the pipes?
AT: Like the pipes, baby.
PDL jokes about MS delaying filming while he did pushups. Then he goes on to remark on the difference between season 1 MS and season 7. AT concedes that it has nothing to do with the episode, “but he looks good.” PDL says he does.
AT: Sure. If you’re going to have a guy in a cut off t-shirt...
PDL: He has the body I wish I had. He has the body I thought I had...
AT: You do have. If people could see you now Peter, you have that body.
[That so has nothing to do with the episode either, but I thought it was kinda sweet.]
[And now Rafael uncovers the Telchak box.] PDL talks about fun stuff of torture and the deliberations of “what do I do.” PDL and AT throw out various possibilities. Then PDL says he came up later with something that he thought was unbelievably painful, though we don’t actually see it.
AT: I’m intrigued.
PDL: Because you’re in the other storyline.
PDL talks a little about the GVRD and the Russian helicopter. AT is impressed that they took a Pacific Northwest forest and made it look like South America. PDL agrees that some of the jungle stuff with the vines and ferns and banana leaves is pretty impressive. He laughs because the word banana leaf makes AT laugh. She says she thinks banana is a funny word.
PDL: Like broccoli. Broccoli and banana.
AT: Cauliflower is funnier than broccoli.
PDL: You think?
AT: Although B. There’s something funny about Bs.
PDL: Bs and Ks. That’s why broccoli.
PDL talks about Frank Roman’s put on accent and his bug fear.
Now the torture device of a battery and wires is revealed. Speculation runs rampant about the unfortunate areas of the body to which the wires might be applied. [Ouch!]
PDL asks AT what she thinks about the opening credit sequence. “I’m just looking at it now,” she tells him. He leads her on to a comparison between the “cross-eyed pharoah” and this. She liked the old, but likes this too. Reference from PDL to the “who farted?” looks for each of the actors’ title cards. Because (after a lot of lead up) PDL tells us, “what’s my most prevalent direction? Who farted?”
The credits end and the “who farted?” style of acting and direction discussion continues. [O’Neill and Hammond are talking.] AT says DSD has the “thank God I got all my lines out” look. PDL tells AT that she, Don and Teryl have an enormous amount of dialog that they have to memorize and know what they’re saying.
[O’Neill and Carter are talking.] PDL says that the original scene was written more “obtusely” meaning it had fewer words. AT agrees that it didn’t really need much, because you can get it from the way they look. Then as it ends with a close up on her: “I don’t think we should shoot me this close up ever again Peter. It’s a little scary.”
PDL: Is that vanity?
AT: It is vanity.
PDL: I needed to see the emotion on your face.
AT: I know.
In Nicaragua Daniel is dragged to his cell and dropped on the floor. AT wonders what they attached the electrode things to. PDL says at least they’re not attached anymore.
AT notes PDL’s producer, director, and writing credits. PDL talks about Michael Landon and how he always thought that being in a position to create, write, and direct (and act) would be the quintessential position to be in. [He’s not trying to compare himself to Landon, he’s just bringing him up as an example of someone who did that.] He talks about how when you’re just an actor you have zero control over the final product, and “feeling like a tiny pawn in a big game of chess.”
AT: And now you can effect more change than you ever imagined possible.
PDL: Within the parameters set by....
There’s some more joking around about PDL’s name appearing so many times in the credits.
AT notes that Tony Amendola and Carmen Argenziano are in a scene together. PDL adds that you don’t see it very often.
The scene shifts to “South America” (or the GVRD). AT talks about wanting to be in that part of the story.
[Scene between O’Neill and Burke] PDL: This is Enrico. He is so cool. Rico to his friends. He never let me call him that. [they both laugh]...he is so good at what he does. I hope one day we’re able to have him back on the show because he just nailed the crap out the character... When I was writing his character there was nothing about him being eccentric or out there, it was just that he was bitter towards O’Neill. And I thought, I wonder if he has this biting, cutting, crazy sense of humor that makes him even more sympathetic... humor that is a lot like my own humor, he would “speak” and I would write it on the paper... And then Rico’s so good that he just nails it. You never catch Rico acting, he just is.
AT: It’s an interesting dynamic between these two too.
PDL: ‘Cause O’Neill’s so dry and he’s got a chip on his shoulder because of their history.
AT: Even on the page it read well.
PDL: Thanks. [laughs a little]
He goes on to say about the scene that they were lucky to have direct sunlight that day, which made it look even hotter. And that the cinematography can be done in such a way to create the feeling of heat too.
PDL brings up RDA’s limited availability and that it meant that the shows overlapped each other filming-wise. An actor might be working on one show in the morning and shooting a completely different show in the afternoon.
AT: Or highly likely in this case since you’re shooting with just Richard that Christopher, Michael, and I were off shooting a completely different episode with a different director.
AT sees Bill Dow on screen and refers to him as a “good guy.” PDL says that despite his appearance he’s quite the athlete/physically capable. And then for some reason feels compelled say that he waxes his body. Except the parts above his neckline and below his sleeves. [Yeah, I don’t know either.]
[The Telchak device begins glowing.] PDL: That doesn’t look half bad. That’s the first time I’ve seen that.
[Syler is fastening Jacob into the drone suit.] PDL acknowledges that there is an issue that Carmen is much shorter than Dan Payne as the drone soldier. He says they took a little liberty with that. When “Jacob” is walking up the ramp to the stargate, it’s not Carmen in the suit, it’s Dan Payne. [There’s a shot of the Anubis planet that PDL is seeing for the first time and likes.] “Jacob” has come through the gate, still played by Dan Payne. PDL tells us that it’s his job to essentially pretend to be Carmen.
AT: Oh so this is Dan.
PDL: This is Dan, pretending to be Carmen, pretending to be Dan. [hee!]
AT: So as far as the audience is concerned the character is Carmen in the suit.
PDL: The problem with this is that really what you want to be doing is cutting to Carmen’s face going “oh God, I hope they don’t know who I am.” [both laugh] But you can’t because his face is completely covered. You get the odd shot of him and you have to imagine that he’s kinda shaking in his boots.
PDL identifies Ian Marsh as the one playing Thoth [goa’uld working for Anubis]. PDL says he got a lot crap for naming him Thoth. AT tells him it’s the worst character name in the history... PDL says he’s a goa’uld scientist nerd so he needed a...Thoth is the crane of the Egyptian mythological characters and “even though Paul Mullie gave me a bunch of guff about naming him Thoth, I said hey, the good news is he’s a nerd. And he gets killed.”
AT: So we never have to worry about Thoth.
PDL identifies David Palffy as Anubis and mentions that he also played Sokar. He refers to it as an utterly thankless job because he’s wearing a hood the whole time and will never be recognized. AT agrees. Then she makes fun of the name Thoth a little more.
Back in South America, PDL gives a little bit of plot exposition. He notes the “cool, giant bullets” on Burke’s chest. AT asks what they are. PDL says they’re for grenade launchers. AT tells PDL that she was just testing him. [hee!] PDL says that the “bullets” are made of rubber so they’re not as heavy as the real ones. He goes on to say that he was going for a look from T2, but they just did three because it would have taken over the whole outfit otherwise.
PDL gives us a rundown of all the Spanish he knows. Which consists of about four phrases. [He brings it up because they’re in Honduras.] So they had other people to check the Spanish in the show. PDL goes on to say that’s it’s been his observation that in countries that were originally inhabited by Spain, “everybody gets a nickname. So I tried to use as much slang as possible.”
[Rafael is questioning Daniel again about the device] PDL: This is fun because Michael got whacked.
AT: For real?
PDL: Ummmmmm
AT: Or does it just like it?
PDL: It just looks-- Michael is a good stunt fighter and he can take a good punch to the face. So,
AT: Important criteria.
PDL: Right. Especially if you’re a regular. Can you take a punch in the face?
AT: I can do that.
PDL gives some exposition about the device and the way that it’s affecting the rebels. When Rafael shoots two of his men, PDL talks about how it’s unusual for the show to have violence without any real lead up. The sudden violence is another indication of the effects of the device. AT reacts with an “Oooo” to the shooting. PDL: “I guess with the lead up you still didn’t realize they were about to get shot.” They both laugh. PDL: “Well that’s good because we didn’t telegraph it.”
They’re back to the Anubis fortress part of the story. AT says sympathetically that Carmen hated the drone suit. PDL agrees and adds “so we just put him in the under layer.” He also says that they had him keep the cool wrist weapon. He leads into that with a complaint about horror movies and virgin girls dropping guns and running away. He didn’t want that to happen with Carmen, hence the wrist weapon remaining with him. [It’s actually pretty funny.]
Back in South America. PDL says that they really like Rogelio the guide. Rogelio is named for an electronics guy that Damien and he both bought televisions from “and we were so mad that we didn’t get a good price that we killed him in effigy.” [He’s completely kidding about the last part.] He goes on to say that RCC liked “Zak’s interpretation of Rogelio so much that even though he was left for dead in the first episode--and this is the other consideration, even if you see another dead character from another episode, you’ve still got pay him his daily rate, so he might as well talk. So Robert just said ‘well he’s alive, they’re still evil because they left him for dead, and he’s been shot before so it’s no big deal’ [laughter] and that’s actually in the dialog.”
AT: So because of the performance that Zak gave he--
PDL: Because Zak is so funny and so cool. You wouldn’t know it to look at him but he’s actually a professional boxer.
[They leave Rogelio with some gum] PDL: See he’s okay. He’s just got one bullet in him. He’s got his American gum
AT: He’s going to be okay. [I don’t know how reproduce the happy go lucky tone she uses.]
PDL: He’s fine!
[both of them laugh]
[Back to the Anubis set.] PDL tells us that the white lights in the background are stretched fabric with light inside them. And that because they didn’t know what to call them, the nickname became condom lights.
AT: Condom lights. Family friendly.
PDL: Yeah.
Back in South America, PDL lists off all of the animals that were in the episode. AT remembers that the spider was a tarantula. PDL confirms that it was and that everybody had to have their picture taken with it. And that RDA was the bravest of all because he had the spider right on top of his face. PDL: “And we all went ‘that’s amazing that he could do that.’ And then I realized that he went through the 70s and 80s as a sex star [I believe he means in the sex symbol sense not porn star sense] and I thought that’s equally as scary so it doesn’t matter.” [hee!]
[Daniel is working on an escape.] There’s some exposition that I’m not up to recreating. [And now we see one of the dead guys.]
PDL: Now this character has been dead. There’s a little blood on the ground. Can’t be too bloody because the kids are going to be watching.
AT: Right. I got in trouble when I directed my episode.
PDL: Not too much blood. Then you had to go to the how come room?
AT: No, I changed it on the day.
[dead guy begins to turn his head]
PDL and AT react to reanimated guy.
AT asks if PDL deliberately had different colors for the different stories. (Anubis stuff in blue and black, Nicaragua in oranges.) PDL: “Like in Traffic? Yes. I ripped off that movie too.”.... “It’s also the nature of the beast. You’re [Carter et.al] in space--
AT: On a ship--
PDL: In a fortress, rather
AT: Were we in a fortress?
PDL: Yes
AT: [laughing] I knew we were in a fortress and not on a ship.
PDL: You know why you said that. Because these hallways always double for ships, so it’s always confusing from show to show--[he becomes distracted by the symbiote queen]--Look at her she’s got horrible flatulence [*sigh*]. [He continues that theme for a few sentences.]
Then getting back to to the episode he comments that the tank was there but not the occupant. AT explains that there was piece of paper taped to the side of the tank with a drawing of the symbiote.
In Nicaragua, Burke has a line that uses the term clicks. PDL explains that “clicks” are kilometers. Then PDL gives some exposition of Burke’s confession of what really happened. It was RCC’s idea to give Burke and O’Neill some history and have Burke’s trustworthiness in question. PDL says again that he’d love to have Enrico Colantoni back. Just Shoot Me had just been cancelled at the time of the commentary. PDL wonders if Colantoni would have them back.
PDL: He’s American though.
AT: It’s okay. They’re not all bad.
PDL: Well, Americans tend to be much more pricey.
[Rebels are gunning each other down.] AT: Oh my goodness. More senseless violence.
PDL: More death. Well he’s got white eyes. And he’s walking in slow motion. That can only lead to bad--
AT: Look at that.
PDL: He’s very upset about something.
[Daniel and Lee are making their escape.]
AT: And because you’ve already established suddenly guns turning and people getting shot you sit there panicking that he’ll turn and see them and shoot.
PDL: Well you know from your experience--
AT: Even though I know that Daniel was in the next episode and Bill Dow was in the episode I directed at the end of the season, I was still worried.
PDL: Really?
AT: Seriously.
PDL: See, I never get worried. I always know that everyone’s going to live. Unless they say it’s a very special episode. Right? Like on ER. Tonight is a very special episode. One of our regulars held out for too much money and they’ll be killed.
AT: They will die.
PDL says that if we speak Spanish [I don’t] we’d be amused at some of what they say. They don’t always say what we think they’re saying like “let’s go get them.” Rather “bring your hairy butts and follow me.”
Back at the fortress, PDL tells AT that they were very clever in eluding Thoth. AT says “it’s what we do.”
PDL asks if AT wants to talk about her new weapon. She says that they call it the Carter Special. It’s three weapons put together. It’s part M16 with the snub nose, and two other weapons that neither remember at the time of the conversation. Because of the war in Iraq, there weren’t enough P90 shells in real life so the military and even the Secret Service tried to buy their stash of shells. They fire blanks, but those still use casings and they were hard to get. They had a limited supply of P90 shells, Rick got the P90 shells and they gave Carter another gun.
PDL adds that they had to conserve O’Neill’s ammunition, so every time that character fires they had to consider how much firing he’d be doing and what amount they’d allow per episode. He’d have to use it as efficiently as possible and film exactly what they were going to use. They might have two or three cameras on Rick when he’s firing so they’d have two or three angles.
AT: Because Rick likes to fire his weapon.
PDL: Oh boy. He’s so good at it. He hardly ever misses.
[laughter]
[Daniel runs into a tree and is run to ground by the rebels.] AT: I wasn’t expecting that either!
PDL: You like that?
AT: Yeah.
[Back to the fortress] AT: Now your transition from those guys running into Michael up against the tree and suddenly you’ve got “like a tree” in the foreground here, that was on purpose right? Sort of a neat filmic transmission [laughs] transition--
PDL: You’re giving me way too much credit. Sheer accident.
[We’re looking down at a room full of drone warriors.] AT was looking at green screen to film it. This is the first time she’s seen what it looks like and thinks it looks great. PDL asks if he gave her the right information for shooting the scene. She talks about looking at green screen and being told there would be lots of soldiers but “you don’t get the sense of the military precision and all of the that.” PDL points out the “triple push” on all three (Carter, Teal’c, Jacob) faces. It’s more common to do a single push, but the multiple push emphasizes the seriousness of it.
[Rafael waves a knife at Daniel] As it would for anyone [well, if you’re PDL] this leads to references to Rafael being a mohel and talk of circumcision.
PDL refers to Daniel holding the big rock. Daniel has a look of “what was I going to do with this?” But they needed a reason for him to turn and they didn’t want him to just close his eyes, so they had him turning away and picking up the rock.
At the fortress, the three intruders kill Thoth. Carter has the final kill shot. AT: “It’s what I do.”
The hallways are the same as if they were on a goa’uld ship. With some extra set dressing to make them a slightly different look.
[Back to Nicaragua. There’s one final bad guy on the loose.] PDL jokes that he started out named Chalo. Then he died once and became reanimated Chalo. Then he died again and now he’s rereanimated Chalo.
Burke arrives to blow Chalo away. PDL tells us to “watch the bubble[gum].” AT asks if that was his [Colantoni’s] choice. PDL confirms that it was. He also loves his line about “you guys are into some crazy crap, man.”
Back at the fortress, PDL has a slightly off color joke. If you want to hear it, tune your dvd to approximately the 38 minute mark.
Carter, Teal’c, and Jacob are running for the cargo ship. It was filmed on the backlot of the Bridge Studios with a green screen for the background.
AT did her own stunt of being clocked by the drone. AT says that the nervousness of doing that was that she’d been firing her weapon and the end gets really hot. The armorer and stunt coordinator were a little worried that that part of the gun would hit and burn her when she fell over.
The drone being ringed out into space idea came from RCC. AT: “Oh, wow! I’ve gotta watch this show. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never seen that.”
PDL: Well that’s the first time I’ve that too.
[Scene between Carter and Jacob with close ups of both.] PDL: You remember this scene? Where you can see right up Carmen’s nose? ‘Can you see up my nose?’ ‘No.’ ‘Cause it’s all about your nose.
AT: It is really. This is the worst part about being an actor.
PDL: I kept saying, I swear to God, there’s nothing up your nose.
AT: The worst part about being an actor are shots like this. They’re so cruel.
PDL: But there’s no other way to shoot it.
AT: I know. It’s just...
Back in Nicaragua at the rebel camp PDL points out the helicopter and says they took all their meals there. Because it was the only shady area. There were also real chickens there. AT tells him that they lucked out with the weather. PDL agrees.
AT says that she thought in the original script Burke asked to be posted to a nicer place. The fine looking women who put out like a broken candy machine line was stolen from PDL’s brother. PDL gets back to AT’s question and says that it was always O’Neill who made the offer.
Burke gives his “that’s crazy!” line. PDL: Rico, if you’re listening--
AT: Please come back!
PDL: Please come back. We love you! [then he steps all over that with some crudeness. Oh Peter...]
AT: I wouldn’t. But I’d listen to him read the phone book.
PDL: Yes, that’s what I meant to say. “Read the phone book” is a lot cleaner.
[Everybody meets up again.] O’Neill has the line “you all are still alive.” Teal’c responds with “as are you and Daniel Jackson.” In the original script O’Neill turns to Daniel and says “You’re right, we didn’t even die this time.” They decided that that was a little too self aware and cut it early.
PDL says he always loves it when Hammond says “we’ll debrief,” ‘cause it always feels like they’re going to take their pants off.
PDL and AT joke about Sam and Jack pining for each other but that nothing can happen.
PDL thanks AT for doing the commentary. And tells her that next time it’s okay if she does it fully clothed. She jokes that she was told she had to come naked and that she won’t do it again. And with that, we've reached the end.
Peter DeLuise (Director/Writer) and Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter) [Yay!] introduce themselves. AT tends to have a very cheerful and breezy style to her commentaries. I quite enjoy her style.
PDL tells us that he had a lot of trouble coming up with the title for this episode. “I was going to call it something really cool, but I thought Evolution Part II is pretty much what it is so I just went with that.”
We’re watching the previouslies and AT compliments the look of the water flowing into the temple. PDL tells us that they’re seeing some of the things in the episode for the first time. “So we may register shock and surprise.
The episode itself begins with Hammond and O’Neill conferring. PDL says that he likes to start with DSD’s naked head if possible. More seriously he says that Don is a real sweetheart. And then goes on to talk about the scene itself, saying that it’s a way to catch the audience up with what’s happening with Daniel “down in Sweaty Land.”
We’re now with Daniel in Sweaty Land. AT offers admiration. “Look at him. Aiee!”
PDL: Like the pipes?
AT: Like the pipes, baby.
PDL jokes about MS delaying filming while he did pushups. Then he goes on to remark on the difference between season 1 MS and season 7. AT concedes that it has nothing to do with the episode, “but he looks good.” PDL says he does.
AT: Sure. If you’re going to have a guy in a cut off t-shirt...
PDL: He has the body I wish I had. He has the body I thought I had...
AT: You do have. If people could see you now Peter, you have that body.
[That so has nothing to do with the episode either, but I thought it was kinda sweet.]
[And now Rafael uncovers the Telchak box.] PDL talks about fun stuff of torture and the deliberations of “what do I do.” PDL and AT throw out various possibilities. Then PDL says he came up later with something that he thought was unbelievably painful, though we don’t actually see it.
AT: I’m intrigued.
PDL: Because you’re in the other storyline.
PDL talks a little about the GVRD and the Russian helicopter. AT is impressed that they took a Pacific Northwest forest and made it look like South America. PDL agrees that some of the jungle stuff with the vines and ferns and banana leaves is pretty impressive. He laughs because the word banana leaf makes AT laugh. She says she thinks banana is a funny word.
PDL: Like broccoli. Broccoli and banana.
AT: Cauliflower is funnier than broccoli.
PDL: You think?
AT: Although B. There’s something funny about Bs.
PDL: Bs and Ks. That’s why broccoli.
PDL talks about Frank Roman’s put on accent and his bug fear.
Now the torture device of a battery and wires is revealed. Speculation runs rampant about the unfortunate areas of the body to which the wires might be applied. [Ouch!]
PDL asks AT what she thinks about the opening credit sequence. “I’m just looking at it now,” she tells him. He leads her on to a comparison between the “cross-eyed pharoah” and this. She liked the old, but likes this too. Reference from PDL to the “who farted?” looks for each of the actors’ title cards. Because (after a lot of lead up) PDL tells us, “what’s my most prevalent direction? Who farted?”
The credits end and the “who farted?” style of acting and direction discussion continues. [O’Neill and Hammond are talking.] AT says DSD has the “thank God I got all my lines out” look. PDL tells AT that she, Don and Teryl have an enormous amount of dialog that they have to memorize and know what they’re saying.
[O’Neill and Carter are talking.] PDL says that the original scene was written more “obtusely” meaning it had fewer words. AT agrees that it didn’t really need much, because you can get it from the way they look. Then as it ends with a close up on her: “I don’t think we should shoot me this close up ever again Peter. It’s a little scary.”
PDL: Is that vanity?
AT: It is vanity.
PDL: I needed to see the emotion on your face.
AT: I know.
In Nicaragua Daniel is dragged to his cell and dropped on the floor. AT wonders what they attached the electrode things to. PDL says at least they’re not attached anymore.
AT notes PDL’s producer, director, and writing credits. PDL talks about Michael Landon and how he always thought that being in a position to create, write, and direct (and act) would be the quintessential position to be in. [He’s not trying to compare himself to Landon, he’s just bringing him up as an example of someone who did that.] He talks about how when you’re just an actor you have zero control over the final product, and “feeling like a tiny pawn in a big game of chess.”
AT: And now you can effect more change than you ever imagined possible.
PDL: Within the parameters set by....
There’s some more joking around about PDL’s name appearing so many times in the credits.
AT notes that Tony Amendola and Carmen Argenziano are in a scene together. PDL adds that you don’t see it very often.
The scene shifts to “South America” (or the GVRD). AT talks about wanting to be in that part of the story.
[Scene between O’Neill and Burke] PDL: This is Enrico. He is so cool. Rico to his friends. He never let me call him that. [they both laugh]...he is so good at what he does. I hope one day we’re able to have him back on the show because he just nailed the crap out the character... When I was writing his character there was nothing about him being eccentric or out there, it was just that he was bitter towards O’Neill. And I thought, I wonder if he has this biting, cutting, crazy sense of humor that makes him even more sympathetic... humor that is a lot like my own humor, he would “speak” and I would write it on the paper... And then Rico’s so good that he just nails it. You never catch Rico acting, he just is.
AT: It’s an interesting dynamic between these two too.
PDL: ‘Cause O’Neill’s so dry and he’s got a chip on his shoulder because of their history.
AT: Even on the page it read well.
PDL: Thanks. [laughs a little]
He goes on to say about the scene that they were lucky to have direct sunlight that day, which made it look even hotter. And that the cinematography can be done in such a way to create the feeling of heat too.
PDL brings up RDA’s limited availability and that it meant that the shows overlapped each other filming-wise. An actor might be working on one show in the morning and shooting a completely different show in the afternoon.
AT: Or highly likely in this case since you’re shooting with just Richard that Christopher, Michael, and I were off shooting a completely different episode with a different director.
AT sees Bill Dow on screen and refers to him as a “good guy.” PDL says that despite his appearance he’s quite the athlete/physically capable. And then for some reason feels compelled say that he waxes his body. Except the parts above his neckline and below his sleeves. [Yeah, I don’t know either.]
[The Telchak device begins glowing.] PDL: That doesn’t look half bad. That’s the first time I’ve seen that.
[Syler is fastening Jacob into the drone suit.] PDL acknowledges that there is an issue that Carmen is much shorter than Dan Payne as the drone soldier. He says they took a little liberty with that. When “Jacob” is walking up the ramp to the stargate, it’s not Carmen in the suit, it’s Dan Payne. [There’s a shot of the Anubis planet that PDL is seeing for the first time and likes.] “Jacob” has come through the gate, still played by Dan Payne. PDL tells us that it’s his job to essentially pretend to be Carmen.
AT: Oh so this is Dan.
PDL: This is Dan, pretending to be Carmen, pretending to be Dan. [hee!]
AT: So as far as the audience is concerned the character is Carmen in the suit.
PDL: The problem with this is that really what you want to be doing is cutting to Carmen’s face going “oh God, I hope they don’t know who I am.” [both laugh] But you can’t because his face is completely covered. You get the odd shot of him and you have to imagine that he’s kinda shaking in his boots.
PDL identifies Ian Marsh as the one playing Thoth [goa’uld working for Anubis]. PDL says he got a lot crap for naming him Thoth. AT tells him it’s the worst character name in the history... PDL says he’s a goa’uld scientist nerd so he needed a...Thoth is the crane of the Egyptian mythological characters and “even though Paul Mullie gave me a bunch of guff about naming him Thoth, I said hey, the good news is he’s a nerd. And he gets killed.”
AT: So we never have to worry about Thoth.
PDL identifies David Palffy as Anubis and mentions that he also played Sokar. He refers to it as an utterly thankless job because he’s wearing a hood the whole time and will never be recognized. AT agrees. Then she makes fun of the name Thoth a little more.
Back in South America, PDL gives a little bit of plot exposition. He notes the “cool, giant bullets” on Burke’s chest. AT asks what they are. PDL says they’re for grenade launchers. AT tells PDL that she was just testing him. [hee!] PDL says that the “bullets” are made of rubber so they’re not as heavy as the real ones. He goes on to say that he was going for a look from T2, but they just did three because it would have taken over the whole outfit otherwise.
PDL gives us a rundown of all the Spanish he knows. Which consists of about four phrases. [He brings it up because they’re in Honduras.] So they had other people to check the Spanish in the show. PDL goes on to say that’s it’s been his observation that in countries that were originally inhabited by Spain, “everybody gets a nickname. So I tried to use as much slang as possible.”
[Rafael is questioning Daniel again about the device] PDL: This is fun because Michael got whacked.
AT: For real?
PDL: Ummmmmm
AT: Or does it just like it?
PDL: It just looks-- Michael is a good stunt fighter and he can take a good punch to the face. So,
AT: Important criteria.
PDL: Right. Especially if you’re a regular. Can you take a punch in the face?
AT: I can do that.
PDL gives some exposition about the device and the way that it’s affecting the rebels. When Rafael shoots two of his men, PDL talks about how it’s unusual for the show to have violence without any real lead up. The sudden violence is another indication of the effects of the device. AT reacts with an “Oooo” to the shooting. PDL: “I guess with the lead up you still didn’t realize they were about to get shot.” They both laugh. PDL: “Well that’s good because we didn’t telegraph it.”
They’re back to the Anubis fortress part of the story. AT says sympathetically that Carmen hated the drone suit. PDL agrees and adds “so we just put him in the under layer.” He also says that they had him keep the cool wrist weapon. He leads into that with a complaint about horror movies and virgin girls dropping guns and running away. He didn’t want that to happen with Carmen, hence the wrist weapon remaining with him. [It’s actually pretty funny.]
Back in South America. PDL says that they really like Rogelio the guide. Rogelio is named for an electronics guy that Damien and he both bought televisions from “and we were so mad that we didn’t get a good price that we killed him in effigy.” [He’s completely kidding about the last part.] He goes on to say that RCC liked “Zak’s interpretation of Rogelio so much that even though he was left for dead in the first episode--and this is the other consideration, even if you see another dead character from another episode, you’ve still got pay him his daily rate, so he might as well talk. So Robert just said ‘well he’s alive, they’re still evil because they left him for dead, and he’s been shot before so it’s no big deal’ [laughter] and that’s actually in the dialog.”
AT: So because of the performance that Zak gave he--
PDL: Because Zak is so funny and so cool. You wouldn’t know it to look at him but he’s actually a professional boxer.
[They leave Rogelio with some gum] PDL: See he’s okay. He’s just got one bullet in him. He’s got his American gum
AT: He’s going to be okay. [I don’t know how reproduce the happy go lucky tone she uses.]
PDL: He’s fine!
[both of them laugh]
[Back to the Anubis set.] PDL tells us that the white lights in the background are stretched fabric with light inside them. And that because they didn’t know what to call them, the nickname became condom lights.
AT: Condom lights. Family friendly.
PDL: Yeah.
Back in South America, PDL lists off all of the animals that were in the episode. AT remembers that the spider was a tarantula. PDL confirms that it was and that everybody had to have their picture taken with it. And that RDA was the bravest of all because he had the spider right on top of his face. PDL: “And we all went ‘that’s amazing that he could do that.’ And then I realized that he went through the 70s and 80s as a sex star [I believe he means in the sex symbol sense not porn star sense] and I thought that’s equally as scary so it doesn’t matter.” [hee!]
[Daniel is working on an escape.] There’s some exposition that I’m not up to recreating. [And now we see one of the dead guys.]
PDL: Now this character has been dead. There’s a little blood on the ground. Can’t be too bloody because the kids are going to be watching.
AT: Right. I got in trouble when I directed my episode.
PDL: Not too much blood. Then you had to go to the how come room?
AT: No, I changed it on the day.
[dead guy begins to turn his head]
PDL and AT react to reanimated guy.
AT asks if PDL deliberately had different colors for the different stories. (Anubis stuff in blue and black, Nicaragua in oranges.) PDL: “Like in Traffic? Yes. I ripped off that movie too.”.... “It’s also the nature of the beast. You’re [Carter et.al] in space--
AT: On a ship--
PDL: In a fortress, rather
AT: Were we in a fortress?
PDL: Yes
AT: [laughing] I knew we were in a fortress and not on a ship.
PDL: You know why you said that. Because these hallways always double for ships, so it’s always confusing from show to show--[he becomes distracted by the symbiote queen]--Look at her she’s got horrible flatulence [*sigh*]. [He continues that theme for a few sentences.]
Then getting back to to the episode he comments that the tank was there but not the occupant. AT explains that there was piece of paper taped to the side of the tank with a drawing of the symbiote.
In Nicaragua, Burke has a line that uses the term clicks. PDL explains that “clicks” are kilometers. Then PDL gives some exposition of Burke’s confession of what really happened. It was RCC’s idea to give Burke and O’Neill some history and have Burke’s trustworthiness in question. PDL says again that he’d love to have Enrico Colantoni back. Just Shoot Me had just been cancelled at the time of the commentary. PDL wonders if Colantoni would have them back.
PDL: He’s American though.
AT: It’s okay. They’re not all bad.
PDL: Well, Americans tend to be much more pricey.
[Rebels are gunning each other down.] AT: Oh my goodness. More senseless violence.
PDL: More death. Well he’s got white eyes. And he’s walking in slow motion. That can only lead to bad--
AT: Look at that.
PDL: He’s very upset about something.
[Daniel and Lee are making their escape.]
AT: And because you’ve already established suddenly guns turning and people getting shot you sit there panicking that he’ll turn and see them and shoot.
PDL: Well you know from your experience--
AT: Even though I know that Daniel was in the next episode and Bill Dow was in the episode I directed at the end of the season, I was still worried.
PDL: Really?
AT: Seriously.
PDL: See, I never get worried. I always know that everyone’s going to live. Unless they say it’s a very special episode. Right? Like on ER. Tonight is a very special episode. One of our regulars held out for too much money and they’ll be killed.
AT: They will die.
PDL says that if we speak Spanish [I don’t] we’d be amused at some of what they say. They don’t always say what we think they’re saying like “let’s go get them.” Rather “bring your hairy butts and follow me.”
Back at the fortress, PDL tells AT that they were very clever in eluding Thoth. AT says “it’s what we do.”
PDL asks if AT wants to talk about her new weapon. She says that they call it the Carter Special. It’s three weapons put together. It’s part M16 with the snub nose, and two other weapons that neither remember at the time of the conversation. Because of the war in Iraq, there weren’t enough P90 shells in real life so the military and even the Secret Service tried to buy their stash of shells. They fire blanks, but those still use casings and they were hard to get. They had a limited supply of P90 shells, Rick got the P90 shells and they gave Carter another gun.
PDL adds that they had to conserve O’Neill’s ammunition, so every time that character fires they had to consider how much firing he’d be doing and what amount they’d allow per episode. He’d have to use it as efficiently as possible and film exactly what they were going to use. They might have two or three cameras on Rick when he’s firing so they’d have two or three angles.
AT: Because Rick likes to fire his weapon.
PDL: Oh boy. He’s so good at it. He hardly ever misses.
[laughter]
[Daniel runs into a tree and is run to ground by the rebels.] AT: I wasn’t expecting that either!
PDL: You like that?
AT: Yeah.
[Back to the fortress] AT: Now your transition from those guys running into Michael up against the tree and suddenly you’ve got “like a tree” in the foreground here, that was on purpose right? Sort of a neat filmic transmission [laughs] transition--
PDL: You’re giving me way too much credit. Sheer accident.
[We’re looking down at a room full of drone warriors.] AT was looking at green screen to film it. This is the first time she’s seen what it looks like and thinks it looks great. PDL asks if he gave her the right information for shooting the scene. She talks about looking at green screen and being told there would be lots of soldiers but “you don’t get the sense of the military precision and all of the that.” PDL points out the “triple push” on all three (Carter, Teal’c, Jacob) faces. It’s more common to do a single push, but the multiple push emphasizes the seriousness of it.
[Rafael waves a knife at Daniel] As it would for anyone [well, if you’re PDL] this leads to references to Rafael being a mohel and talk of circumcision.
PDL refers to Daniel holding the big rock. Daniel has a look of “what was I going to do with this?” But they needed a reason for him to turn and they didn’t want him to just close his eyes, so they had him turning away and picking up the rock.
At the fortress, the three intruders kill Thoth. Carter has the final kill shot. AT: “It’s what I do.”
The hallways are the same as if they were on a goa’uld ship. With some extra set dressing to make them a slightly different look.
[Back to Nicaragua. There’s one final bad guy on the loose.] PDL jokes that he started out named Chalo. Then he died once and became reanimated Chalo. Then he died again and now he’s rereanimated Chalo.
Burke arrives to blow Chalo away. PDL tells us to “watch the bubble[gum].” AT asks if that was his [Colantoni’s] choice. PDL confirms that it was. He also loves his line about “you guys are into some crazy crap, man.”
Back at the fortress, PDL has a slightly off color joke. If you want to hear it, tune your dvd to approximately the 38 minute mark.
Carter, Teal’c, and Jacob are running for the cargo ship. It was filmed on the backlot of the Bridge Studios with a green screen for the background.
AT did her own stunt of being clocked by the drone. AT says that the nervousness of doing that was that she’d been firing her weapon and the end gets really hot. The armorer and stunt coordinator were a little worried that that part of the gun would hit and burn her when she fell over.
The drone being ringed out into space idea came from RCC. AT: “Oh, wow! I’ve gotta watch this show. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never seen that.”
PDL: Well that’s the first time I’ve that too.
[Scene between Carter and Jacob with close ups of both.] PDL: You remember this scene? Where you can see right up Carmen’s nose? ‘Can you see up my nose?’ ‘No.’ ‘Cause it’s all about your nose.
AT: It is really. This is the worst part about being an actor.
PDL: I kept saying, I swear to God, there’s nothing up your nose.
AT: The worst part about being an actor are shots like this. They’re so cruel.
PDL: But there’s no other way to shoot it.
AT: I know. It’s just...
Back in Nicaragua at the rebel camp PDL points out the helicopter and says they took all their meals there. Because it was the only shady area. There were also real chickens there. AT tells him that they lucked out with the weather. PDL agrees.
AT says that she thought in the original script Burke asked to be posted to a nicer place. The fine looking women who put out like a broken candy machine line was stolen from PDL’s brother. PDL gets back to AT’s question and says that it was always O’Neill who made the offer.
Burke gives his “that’s crazy!” line. PDL: Rico, if you’re listening--
AT: Please come back!
PDL: Please come back. We love you! [then he steps all over that with some crudeness. Oh Peter...]
AT: I wouldn’t. But I’d listen to him read the phone book.
PDL: Yes, that’s what I meant to say. “Read the phone book” is a lot cleaner.
[Everybody meets up again.] O’Neill has the line “you all are still alive.” Teal’c responds with “as are you and Daniel Jackson.” In the original script O’Neill turns to Daniel and says “You’re right, we didn’t even die this time.” They decided that that was a little too self aware and cut it early.
PDL says he always loves it when Hammond says “we’ll debrief,” ‘cause it always feels like they’re going to take their pants off.
PDL and AT joke about Sam and Jack pining for each other but that nothing can happen.
PDL thanks AT for doing the commentary. And tells her that next time it’s okay if she does it fully clothed. She jokes that she was told she had to come naked and that she won’t do it again. And with that, we've reached the end.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 12:51 pm (UTC)I screwed up. This was supposed to go to the Solutions community, If you liked this and want to see others, you can go here: http://community.livejournal.com/sg1_solutions/
no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 06:50 pm (UTC)He's a real goofball in the Stargate commentaries, but I have a genuine soft spot for him.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 07:14 pm (UTC)I felt like such a dope. I was wondering why it wasn't cross posting on the Solutions site, then I woke up the next morning thinking "I think I accidentally posted to my own journal."
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 09:49 pm (UTC)