ᐰndrew 'AC' 吉村 (Yoshimura)

Remembering Don S. Davis - Hammond of Texas My earliest memory of Don S. Davis is of a charming, bigger-than-life individual who greeted me with a hardy handshake and a boisterous “Hellooo, Jooooe! Welcome to Stargate!” on one of my very first days on set. This was back in season four, sometime between our second script (Window of Opportunity) and our third (Point of No Return). In those early years, Paul and I spent most of our days in our respective offices, writing, spinning or, in one inspired afternoon, creating the lyrics to the Stargate SG-1 theme. We were busy and, most important of all, we wanted to look busy. The last thing we needed was to be seen hanging around set, gawking at the actors when there were scripts to be written, brilliant ideas to be spun. But several weeks in, it became apparent to me that sitting alone in my office (or, occasionally, Paul’s office for a little variety) would inevitably drive me nuts – and the loss of my sanity would no doubt be reflected in the quality of my work. So I decided to start taking little walks. Pitch document or outline in hand, I would pace – up and down the corridors, in and around the building, and through the empty sets. Except for one afternoon when I inadvertently strolled onto an active set where they were setting up for the next shot. Realizing my error, I immediately turned on my heels, prepared to march right back out when Brad Wright spotted me and called me over. “Joe,”he said, “I’d like you to meet Don Davis. Don, Joe is one of our new writers.” Don, who’d been standing by, waiting for that next shot, threw me his trademark ear to ear grin, gave me a firm handshake and bellowed “Hellooo, Jooooe! Welcome to Stargate!” “Hellooo, Jooooe!” It was a greeting I’d come to associate with the man, a good-natured, self-deprecating southern gent who always had a story to tell but, more than anything, always wanted to hear how YOU were doing. “Hellooo, Jooooe! How’s that script coming along?”. “Hellooo Jooooe! How was lunch?” “Hellooo, Jooooe! How was your weekend?” Meeting actors for the first time can be a little daunting, especially for a newbie writer on his first big show, but Don’s down-home warmth and cordiality put me instantly at ease. And it was no different when he met the fans. I’ve seen convention-goers approach him with trepidation, perhaps fearful of overstepping their bounds and imposing upon him. But Don was never the type to be stand-offish or put himself on display. When you met Don, you weren’t meeting a t.v. star – you were meeting a regular guy. A regular, modest, kind-hearted guy who genuinely cared for his fans and the people he worked with. And, inevitably, those convention-goers who had, moments before, cautiously approached the man they knew as General Hammond would, moments later, be sitting, chatting and laughing, in conversation with good old Don. If there’s one thing I’ll always remember about the man, it was his willingness to put others before him. Back when Rick was reducing his workload to spend more time with his young daughter, and the writing department was scrambling to come up with in-story reasons for O’Neill’s off-world absences, Don came up to the offices and offered a solution. “Have Hammond step aside and let O’Neill be General,”he suggested. I was floored. Here was a guy, perfectly willing to walk away from a plum role as a regular on a hit series, just to (in his mind) make it easier on everyone else. Of course we thanked him for his kind offer, but we weren’t willing to let George Hammond go just yet. Ultimately, the decision was made for us when health issues curtailed Don’s involvement in the show. But even so, he continued to maintain a presence in the Stargate universe, popping up in occasional episodes and then in his final appearance in Stargate: Continuum. And every time he was on set, he would always make it a point to drop by the office to say hello. As the years wore on, I saw less and less of Don. Still, I’d run into him now and then and whenever I’d inquire about him, he was always upbeat. There was never a trace of bitterness or remorse that he was no longer a regular presence on the show. “I have no regrets,”he’d told me on more than one occasion. And, always: “I’m the luckiest man in the world.” It was a wild, fun-filled ride and, finally, it was time for the southern gent to settle back and enjoy his retirement. The last time I spoke to Don was when he called me up out of the blue after being tipped off that I’d mentioned him in a blog entry. In answering a fan who wanted to know why I didn’t keep in touch with Richard Dean Anderson, I responded: “We don’t talk a lot for the simple reason that he no longer works on the show. I don’t really talk to Don Davis that much and I love the guy. It’s nothing personal.” Less than twenty-four hours later, I got the call. “Ah luuv yoou tooo,“came that familiar low, Southern drawl. He‘d been tipped off to what I’d written and wanted to touch base. “It’s always great hearing from my fellow gourmand,”I’d written. “Apparently, 2007 was a busy year for him (which is great to hear), and he’s now enjoying some much-needed downtime." I'd expressed the hope that we would soon be able to get together for another culinary excursion. Sadly, that day would never come. In my many years at Stargate, I’ve worked with actors whose company I have greatly enjoyed, but only a few would I actually be bold enough to call my friends. And among those few was the magnanimous southern gent who used to greet me with that familiar “Hellooo, Joooe!”, the always affable Don S. Davis. He is truly missed. (One of my favorite pictures of Don I snapped of him, happily eating chocolate in my office.)

Stargate: Universe - Beyond Season 2! #SaveStargate The ending to the SGU series finale that aired was different from the one series co-creator Brad Wright originally conceived. Before the script was written, hell, even before the writers sat down to spin the actual story, Brad's original pitch had Young and Rush as the last two men standing. With one, lone serviceable pod remaining, they argue, then make the decision to let fate decide. They flip a coin. Winner makes the sacrifice and stays out; loser goes into stasis. The coin flip is made and, as it descends, we FADE OUT, not knowing the results. One of the possibilities this particular ending set up was a season 3 opener which finds Rush, three years later, a little loopy from his time alone. As he goes through his daily maintenance of the ship’s systems, he converses with members of the crew who, it turns out, are hallucinations. Suddenly, the gate activates. A bewildered Rush hurries to the gate room in time to see Telford lead a rescue op through. Turns out, after several years, Earth finally acquired a means to dialing Destiny. Of course, the rescue turns out to be shortlived as it ends up being a hallucination when, in the episode’s final turn, we discover Rush in stasis (he was the one who lost the coin toss), evidently dreaming, while Young maintains the solitary existence as Destiny’s caretaker. Classic Brad Wright twist. After some discussion, however, the decision was made to have Eli be the one who stays awake at episode's end. After all, who better than Eli, the embodiment of our fans and viewers, to make the sacrifice and leave us with that final sense of wonder? So, that’s the way we wrote it. And now, I’m sure, you’re wondering how we planned to write our way out of it. Does Eli fix the pod or does he somehow manage to access enough power to ensure his survival for the length of the jump? How long does the journey to the next galaxy end up taking? And what was in store for our crew after the jump? Alas, unlike that imagined season 6 of Atlantis that never came to fruition (all the glorious details here: teapawt.net/BaronDestructo/status/…), there were no inklings spun, no stories established, no ideas from the previous season that could be moved into the next. What we had, instead, were a few potential scenarios, vague notions of where we could go... Eli fixes a pod This was one scenario. Somehow, someway, Eli manages to fix one of the damaged pods and joins the others in stasis. He awakens with the rest of the crew anywhere from three to one thousand years later. Eli taps some hitherto unexploited power reserve which allows him to extend life support for three years Another potential scenario with no firm solution. Again, it would need to be something a little more clever than Eli awakening Rush three years later and informing him: “Yeah, I managed to reroute enough power to life support. How? Oh, I’ll tell you later.”. In my mind, the solution rested with the lone remaining shuttle. Given its independent system, Eli could reroute all of Destiny’s power reserves to maintaining life support within the closed confines of the shuttle and, perhaps, the sealed-off antechamber to the ship where he could store enough food to last him three years. Eli fails to fix the pods or extend life support, so he survives by sitting in the chair and uploading his consciousness to Destiny Since this way-out solution would have Eli relinquishing his physical form, it was an option reserved for a potential movie as we couldn’t imagine having our hero exist in this form for an entire season. It would allow him to reunite with Ginn and allow the crew full control of the ship with Eli – who better? – as their eyes to all of Destiny’s systems. Rescue comes in the form of some outside force Another way to go but, potentially, not as satisfying as it takes the solution out of our hero’s hands. Maybe – Over the course of three (+?) years, Earth finally finds a way to dial Destiny and launches a rescue op. The power source used could be something the combined brilliance of both Samantha Carter and Rodney McKay engineer (if the SGU movie had happened, they would have surely guested, boarding Destiny as part of the retrieval team) or, perhaps former leader Jonas Quinn comes out of early retirement and – again with Carter and McKay’s help – finds a safe way to dial Destiny from his planet. As for what other familiar faces from SG-1 and Atlantis would make an appearance – well, aside from the obvious (Daniel Jackson who certainly wouldn’t miss this opportunity), it was up in the air. When Destiny comes up short and drops out of FTL hundreds of years from the next galaxy, rescue comes in the form of a branch of our descendants, an advanced military society that has mastered space flight and is now in possession of a massive armada. They save us but their motives turn out to be less than honorable as, it turns out, they have designs on Destiny. This was probably my favorite scenario as I loved the idea of a plausible human military force becoming our third season Big Bad. Rescue comes in the form of some alien race, maybe remnants of the Ursini or, perhaps, the blueberry aliens who – now armed with the information they mined from Chloe in Deliverance – finally seize the opportunity to take Destiny, something they’ve been trying to do for some time. There was also talk of salvation coming in the form of a completely new alien species (Brad’s uber-cool idea), possibly an energy-based race we unwittingly picked up during a refueling stop at a star. Eli starts glimpsing these entities and assumes, after three years by his lonesome, he is going nuts and hallucinating. Eventually, the aliens reach out to him and, being energy based, are able to provide the power needed to ensure Destiny complete its journey. And how long does the journey take? Oh, anywhere from three to roughly one thousand years. Smart money was on the minimal three year journey which would have allowed our crew to touch base with a fairly unchanged Earth. A ten year journey would have been more interesting in that it would offer up some great story possibilities as our crew inevitably try to reconnect with loved ones following a decades-long absence. Are they still alive? How have they moved on? What has changed in their lives? There was even talk of returning to an Earth in the midst of a multi-year war with the Lucian Alliance. For my part, I preferred the idea that our characters don’t know how long they’ve been in stasis and, when they contact Earth, are horrified to discover it’s been 100+ years. Their loved ones are long-gone, the lives they led distant memories, and they must adjust to a world very different from the one they left behind. And what was in store for our crew once the jump had been completed? Again, a number of potential developments were floated. Initially, when we were thinking in terms of a third season, I very much liked the idea of Colonel Telford leading a resupply mission through the gate. Earth had finally secured a power source that would allow them to dial Destiny. Maybe it was a one-way trip because Destiny would still be hamstrung by the inability to dial Earth without explosive consequences or, on the other hand, Telford and co. bring the portable power source with them and allow some of the civilians to leave, establishing a stronger military presence on board. Later, when it became clear that a third season wasn’t in the cards, Brad floated the idea of two movies: The first would focus on a rescue op that would see several familiar faces (Carter, McKay, Daniel Jackson among the first few mentioned) coming aboard Destiny and, ultimately, helping our crew fend off the advances of the previously mentioned human military race. The second would have been a solo adventure that would have seen our crew finally completing Destiny’s mission (And Brad had a plan for that as well). We probably would have found a cure for T.J.’s condition – but only eventually. I liked the idea of one of our main characters having to face her mortality, perhaps even exhibiting early signs of physical deterioration that forces their friends and loved ones to face the sad prospect as well. If we were going to cure her (and, again, that was the most likely scenario) I would have lobbied to play out T.J.’s battle with the disease over the course of a season at least. In similar fashion, I would have preferred to keep Park blind for an extended stretch as well. It’s something you rarely see on television and something I really wanted to emphasize in Gauntlet (when she comes up with the idea of using the shuttle as a decoy), that despite the loss of her sight, she can continue to be a strong and productive member of the crew. So who would T.J. have ended up with? Young or Varro? I don’t know. I honestly don’t think this would have ever been resolved. If it was up to me, she would have ended up with Varro. If it was up to Carl and most everyone else, she and Young would have lived happily ever after. In retrospect, it might have been better for the character if, in the end, she elected to say no to both and embrace her independence. What about Ginn and Perry? Was Hope the last we’d ever see of them? Certainly not. At episode’s end, they were quarantined, not deleted from the database. At some point, Eli would have no doubt found a way to address any potential threat and re-upload them to Destiny. That was one possibility. Another deliciously diabolical idea Brad came up with would have been a huge game-changer. In this scenario, Eli goes to awaken the crew from stasis and discovers Chloe’s pod has been damaged. She is almost brain dead and fading fast. In a desperate, last ditch effort to save her, Eli downloads Ginn’s consciousness into her body. Would he tell the others what he has done or would Eli attempt to maintain the subterfuge? What effect would this have on the rest of the crew, especially Scott? How would he react to the sight of the body of his former love, now permanently occupied by Ginn, re-establishing a relationship with Eli? This would have been huge and, I think, an awesome opportunity for the immensely talented Elyse Levesque to switch gears and play a completely different character. It would have also allowed us to bring back the amazing Julie McNiven. The great thing about SGU's ending is that it permits us to pick up the story at any point in time (Who knows how long the journey took?) and explain away any aging on the part of our characters or the failure of some to emerge from stasis with a convenient in-story explanation (Those unpredictable pods!). In the end, it’s more than likely these ideas won’t see life beyond this post and our collective imaginations. Still, it's always fun to consider the possibilities...

Stargate: Extinction Late in Atlantis’s fifth year, when we were working on the final few scripts of the season, we had no way of knowing what the future held. A sixth season? A wrap-up movie? Robert Cooper suggested we hedge our bets by preparing for both. His idea was to add an extra month to the production schedule during which we would shoot the sixth season opening two-parter that, in the event the show wasn’t picked up, could become a direct-to-dvd feature. It was a brilliant plan which I, in turn, proposed it to the decision-makers. Given the green light, we could roll right into production on the heels of Enemy at the Gate. We just needed the go-ahead sooner than later in order to make sure we had all the actors on board. Sadly, we never got the go-ahead and, although we did end up eventually writing the script for the Atlantis movie (Stargate: Extinction), in hindsight, that window of opportunity at the end of the show’s sixth season was our last, best shot at seeing it made. The bottom fell out of the dvd market, the script was shelved and, well, here we are today. The movie would have opened on a shot that revealed Atlantis’s new home on the lunar surface. We learn that the gate has been offline since its return to Earth but, under pressure from the IOA, the decision is made to bring it back online, have it supersede the Earth gate, and make it a permanent lunar base. The decision isn’t embraced by everyone. Woolsey and McKay, for instance, point out that they still have a responsibility to the people of the Pegasus galaxy. Of course the IOA are hardly moved. Unfortunately, when the gate is finally brought back online, Zelenka reports a build up of energy in the capacitors. Too late they realize that the Ancients put a failsafe in place in the event Atlantis was moved. McKay realizes – the city will self-destruct unless it returns to the Pegasus galaxy. Woolsey gets the band back together, transporting John and Ronon up from the hospital emergency room where they are getting fixed up following a bar room brawl (an opportunity to write in the scar actor Jason Momoa had received at the time). John, in turn, pays a visit to Area 51 and, again under the heavy protests of the IOA, springs his buddy, Todd. The plan is to use the wormhole drive to execute a series of jumps to Pegasus – however, the drive burns out partway through their journey, stranding them in the Triangulum Galaxy, some 300 000 light years from home. They manage to muster up enough power for one, final short range jump, putting them within range of a subspace anomaly they detected. What follows is a high-flying adventure involving a mysterious civilization tapping the limitless potential of the accretion streams between two stars, time travel, and a race against time to avert not only the destruction of Atlantis but the extinction of an entire race. Some of the standout sequences that come to mind include one in which Sheppard ends up trapped on an enemy mothership, falling back to a room holding some of the tech the enemy has stolen from Atlantis. Enemy soldiers surround the locked chamber, preparing to storm it when – the door shakes, buckles, and blows outward to reveal Sheppard in one of the Asgard exo-suits. Cue kickass Iron Man sequence. Another involves Todd risking all to ambush a future version of himself aboard the bridge of the enemy mothership, saving Atlantis from a final, devastating attack. The two battle. “So young and impetuous,”remarks Future Todd. “So old and foolish,”counters ours. Eventually, Future Todd gets the upper hand and pins his opponent. He raises his dagger for the finishing blow – only to have someone reach in and grab his wrist. Rodney McKay to the rescue. Allowing our Todd seizes the opportunity to turn the tables. John and Todd make the most unlikeliest of odd couples in this one, forced to work together for the greater good. “If I had to pick one thing I like best about you,”says Sheppard during one hair-raising moment, “I’d have to say it’s your sense of humor.” A stone-faced Todd informs him: “Yes, back on the hive, I was known as “the funny one”.” Enemy fighters are scrambled, Beckett takes the chair, the mother ship faces off against Atlantis, the city takes significant damage, Teyla suffers a terrible loss, some wonderful heroic moments for Ronon, McKay, and Teyla as well. Atlantis ultimately returns to the Pegasus galaxy where Todd is granted his freedom. “You did save the city after all,”explains Woolsey. “Of course I did,”says Todd. “How else would I have gotten home?”. And, in a moment that demonstrates how far things have come, John gives his former enemy a parting handshake. Woolsey hopes that, some day, their paths will cross under better circumstances. Todd agrees. “It would be wonderful to have you for dinner sometime,”he says before heading through the gate. Atlantis re-establishes itself, Beckett gets his turtles back from Rodney and assumes a permanent position as Atlantis’s new head of medical R&D, and John comforts a grieving Teyla now aware – via the revelations of time travel – that they are destined to be together. And we fade out on a night shot of Atlantis, a jewel on the water…

Sadly, it's true. Amazon has elected not to move forward with the new Stargate series. There's not much I can add beyond confirming what's happened. But I will say this... Creator Martin Gero developed a new Stargate series over two years, ultimately crafting a show that offered a fresh jumping-on point for new viewers while deeply respecting existing canon. It was a series that avoided the pitfalls of several modern remakes and reboots by fully embracing the core of its predecessors: action, adventure, exploration, wonder, heart, humor, and found family. And based on that creative vision, the new Stargate series was greenlit in November of 2025. As of today, officially, that original vision is no more. We'll never get the opportunity to introduce you to that world and those characters - or reintroduce you to, and check in with, some familiar faces from the past. My heart breaks. For the incredibly talented writers who worked tirelessly to bring this show to life. For Martin who maintained an unwavering positive outlook throughout despite the challenges, and who always strove to make a show that would honor the fans while welcoming a new audiences. And for the long-suffering Stargate fandom who waited so long and came so close to getting a show they truly would have loved.