Stargate: SG-1 Memories - Lockdown, Zero Hour, Icon

LOCKDOWN (803)

The role of Colonel Alexi Vaselov was played by actor Gavin Hood who went on to win an Academy Award (no, not for his appearance on Stargate) in the Best Foreign Language Film category for Tsotsi, then later directed Rendition and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

One of my favorite scenes in this episode comes when Carter visits Daniel in the infirmary. With the ailing and near-death Vaselov lying in his bed only feet away, Carter draws the privacy curtain and proceeds to deliver a dire diagnosis on the suffering Russian. Whenever we watched the scene, one of the writers would invariably pipe up (as Vaselov): “I can hear you! I’m lying right here!” Then, as Carter to Vaselov: “Don’t worry! Hang in there! You’re going to pull through this!” Then, as Carter to Daniel: “Not really. He’s as good as dead.” Then, as Carter back to Vaselov: “Think positive! You’re going to be fine!”

ZERO HOUR (804)

aka – A Day in the Life of General O’Neill. It was sad to bid farewell to General Hammond, especially considering I considered the actor who played him, Don S. Davis, a good friend – but having O’Neill take over command at the SGC opened up a host of welcome new story possibilities. In this episode, we see the long-time wise-cracking rebel in uniform really step up and take charge in a big way, maintaining his cool – and trademark humor – as everything seems to be coming apart around him. The SGC being overrun by alien plant life was an idea Brad had long wanted to incorporate into a story and, finally, got the opportunity to see it done here. Chalk up Siler’s wimpy flamethrower up to fire and safety regulations that prohibited us from using the real thing on set (when used in later episodes of the franchise like Cloverdale, the flames were enhanced by our visual effects department).

ICON (805)

One of the last things we, as writers, do (and, often not very well) is come up with titles for our damn episodes. Up to the point where the episode gets an official title everybody can be equally unhappy about, it works its way through the notes and rewrite process with a placeholder title. On very rare occasions, usually when everyone is looking the other way, one of those placeholder titles may actually become the official title (see: Watergate and Enemy Mine). If that had happened on this episode, instead of Icon, your t.v. listings would have read English Patient Daniel.

Two things I remember about this episode (beside the fact that I thought it was one of Damian Kindler’s best). During the dailies, we would argue at length about the fact that a bicycle appeared in one of the scenes on this alien world. Some argued that it was “too Earthy” and took us out of the scene, while others (Paul chiefest among them) argued that, if aliens were to build a bicycle (or a hammer or a glass or a fork), it would probably look a lot like the ones we had on Earth. Amid all the back and forth on bikes, we completely failed to notice the smoke detector in one of the interior scenes (or, as I later called it, “the alien humidifier”).

A lot of debate on that final scene in which bad guy Soren steps out of the room and is shot dead. In the script, he comes out of the bunker, raises his gun – and Carter (I believe) shoots him. The other regulars in the scene argued that they would act just as swiftly and be in on the kill. Then there was a debate over whether or not Soren should raise his weapon and whether our heroes would essentially execute a man who was surrendering. In the end, we solved the problem by having one of the guest stars shoot the villain in cold blood. And, of course, get admonished for it.