November 3, 2007

To be honest, I was kind of half-hoping the doctor would have prescribed me a black eye patch to along with the eye drops and antibiotics. Damn. It would’ve gone perfectly with my new morning coat and that silver cobra head walking stick with the concealed poisoned rapier I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Oh well. Looks like I’m stuck walking around like just some other guy with a fiberglass-induced eye infection.

Hey, it’s nice to see so much positive buzz about last night’s episode, Tabula Rasa. Like I said in an earlier blog entry, it was one of my favorites of the first half. Alan McCullough is in Tokyo at the moment otherwise I’m sure he’d be dropping by to do his own Q&A. But since he’s not here, allow me to say a few things about how this one came about. It started, of course, with Alan who came up with the idea to do an episode in which Atlantis is infected by spores, the combination result of its trip through space and its new environment. We went back and forth on how the infection would manifest itself and I suggested amnesia. Alan went away to think about it and, when he came back, pitched out a fantastic tease: McKay awakens, cuffed to his chair, and finds a message awaiting him - a recording in which he instructs himself to find Teyla - or else. We loved it. The writers sat down and, working off the template Alan had put together, broke the story into scenes, choosing to tell this particular story in a non-linear way. Alan wrote the first couple of drafts, Paul did his pass (adding, among other things, his take on the Ronon-Sheppard confrontation), and then it went into prep. That was when director Martin Wood suggested the two distinct looks to help the audience differentiate between past and present. Although it was done to help clarify the episode’s atypical narrative, it also went along way toward establishing a somewhat bizarre tone for the whole - which was Martin’s aim as well. At one point, we considered adding chyrons (ie. “14 HOUR EARLIER”, “12 HOURS LATER“) but, ultimately, decided the episode didn’t need them. And from comments I’ve read to this point, it looks like we made the right call. So, what did you all think? Were you confused at any point during the episode?

This was also the episode of the zillion walk-ons, all radio personalities from all over the U.S., almost all of them featured in the cafeteria scene where McKay and Carter rally the troops. This episode was also notable for another special guest star, one Zach Selwyn, the host of Attack of the Show, who impressed in his role as Scientist #2.

Well, Halloween has come and gone but the memories remain - specifically, I refer to the whack of pictures my sister sent me documenting her Halloween haunt. Scarecrows and skeletons and undead and dismembered limbs. It seems like a lot of work to go through for the pleasure of scaring the beejeebers out of a bunch of kids. I save myself the time and effort by simply waiting until the trick-or-treaters approach the door and then suddenly whip around the corner, loosening a torrent of expletives and waving a broken bottle of Jack Daniels. It’s a move guaranteed to frighten the crap out of even the most jaded teenagers. And their parents!