SCI FI PI

Joseph Mallozzi has been working on Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis and now Stargate Universe for just on a decade.

Having written dozens of episodes, the writer/producer is one of the key voices that sing in concert with the two Stargate stalwarts, Brad Wright and Robert Cooper.

He has written the upcoming Stargate: Extinction, the movie length addition to the Stargate Atlantis story, as well as (among many others) the classic SG1 episodes ‘Moebius’, ‘Lockdown’, ‘Descent’ and ‘Homecoming’. And 'Wormhole X-Treme'. On SGA, his writing credits include ‘Home’, 'Travelers', 'This Mortal Coil' and the final episode, ‘Enemy at the Gate’.

As executive producer, consulting producer and just plain producer, he has had a hand in hundreds of Stargate episodes.

If you wanted to talk to someone (besides Brad and Robert) about all things Stargate, HE is your man.

So we did. Here's what he had to say:

”ONCE YOU GET INTO THE SECOND HALF, YOU’RE GOING TO GET MORE SPACE BATTLES, MORE ALIENS, THERE’S AN EPISODE CALLED ‘DIVIDED’ THAT PITS THE CIVILIANS AGAINST THE MILITARY.”

Joe's pic from Scifiwire.com, announcing his then new blog. It's since become a mecca for SGU fans eager for the skinny and a scoop.


SGU’s new style has been quite confronting for many Stargate fans, and especially for the more impatient Stargate fans. When you are writing SGU do you find the style more constricting or less constricting than say on SG1 or SGA

It’s a completely different animal. In some ways it’s more restrictive, in others it’s less restrictive. One of the things that always appealed to me in SG1 and Atlantis that I felt we didn’t do enough was delve into the characters. When I was writing SG1 I always liked to include those little scene. Say for example, I forget which one exactly, perhaps ‘Lockdown’ when Teal’c and the rest of the team are discussing Teal’c getting his own apartment and what gift they’ll bring for the housewarming. Little instances that suggest that after all the action is said and done, these characters are friends. It added a depth of humanity to characters who are, in some respects, more heroic than the average hero.

In much the same way, when we went over to Atlantis, I always enjoyed the episodes where we could explore the characters. I remember ‘Broken Ties’ was one episode where we got to explore Ronon’s backstory. Showed that vulnerability that made him the warrior that he was, at the same time juxtaposing the introduction of Woolsey, who up to that point had just been the officious jerk IOA character, and through humour, which Bob Picardo was so good at, be able to humanize the character.



From Stargate Universe, Episode 4, 'Darkness'.


Now of course, moving to SGU which is a character-driven show, there are so many characters which you want to service. The fact that we have so many characters and we’re coming at it from a different approach, the fans that are used to more action-driven stories are getting impatient. For them – I say, hold off, at least until the mid-season break.

The first seven episodes set the tone. I think once we hit Episode 8 we hit our stride, which is basically a bit more of a traditional Stargate episode, which is an off-world situation where all hell breaks loose.

For me, more than any other story, in ‘Life’, the Sharon, Ming Na story where she returned to Earth, has been the most rewarding with script, direction and performances just wonderful.



Good friend, chilli-sauce taste-tester and fellow Stargate Writer, Carl Binder in a pic from Joseph Mallozzi’s Blog. You may recognise the nasty critter from ‘Time’.


In ‘Justice’ you’re really dealing with an ethical dilemma, what do you do when you have to deal with someone who’s committed a crime when your millions of light years from home. Do you put them on trial? Do you lock them up? How long can you lock them up for?

Once you get into the second half, you’re going to get more space battles, more aliens, there’s an episode called ‘Divided’ that pits the civilians against the military. There’s an episode called ‘Faith’ that touches on the desire to believe in a higher power in this Sci Fi environment.

There’s a lot of good stuff to look forward to.


The show’s beginning was essentially ‘elemental’ – what are the building blocks for basic human life? There is also a rainbow of characters. When you create them, are they devised as sections of the human psyche, fractured along a spectrum or as real people fully formed?

Well, that’s more of a question for Brand and Robert, who wrote the introductory Air three parter and ‘Light’.


Didn’t they break it down with everyone in the room?

No we actually took our lead from that script, taking potential back story and storylines from that. Fashioning these characters from the initial stages in the writers room is one thing, but I cannot stress how much the actors contribute to the character. You have a sense of how the character is going to be on paper, but when you see the lines performed, it takes on a whole new level. A character like Greer, we don’t really know much about him. We discussed a bit of his backstory to begin with, but Jameel did such a great job with the character.

When we saw the rough cut of Air Part 3, there was such great back and forth between Rush and Greer, we turned to our wives and asked what character resonates with you, and both said ‘Greer’. If the actor isn’t up to it to deliver, then the character will fall flat. On the other hand, the actors step up, the actors take the beginnings of these characters and give them that much more depth.

Say for example, Alaina is great at unleashing flashes of her military side, which means we’re keen to do more along those lines in future episodes.


You’re breaking down Season 2 at the moment, and taking on board the feedback from the actors. The Lucian Alliance’s impending appearance in the second half of Season One perhaps points to a return to stories familiar to fans of SG1.

There will definitely be more complications in Season 2. When Paul (Mullie) and I first came on in Season 4 of SG1 and wrote seven episodes, he came in and said ‘I don’t know how we’re going to come up with more stories for next year’ and yet we’ve gone on now and been with the franchise for ten years. The reason that we’ve been able to do that is because we’ve established characters and storylines that become a base, a well that we can return to. Given that there are so many more characters in SGU, we have Robert Carlyle and Louis Ferrara driving a lot of the action, but we also have a lot of the smaller characters like James and Park and Volker who we are going to be exploring in Season 2 as well.

We’re going to be developing throughlines and arcs big and small.



From Stargate Universe, Episode 3, 'Air, Part 3'.


Normally a season equals around a year in Stargate time, but the first episodes are literally one day after the other. Will the first season stretch out more?
Time will elapse between episodes, as we go along so that the first season will probably be about six months.


The second half of the season features Rhona Mitra and what seems to be some action heavy plotting. But obviously you can’t tell us anything at all about that. Can you?

I’ll leave that to Brad and Robert!


You’ve been dealing with fans on and off for ten years, and more recently more directly with your blog. Have you ever seen a change over that time in the way that fans react? Do you see the recent reaction to SGU as a result of say, a general increase decrease in patience brought about by the instantaneous nature of the internet, or just a reaction to the show itself, frustrated by the lack of action?

I think it’s a bit of both. A slow change over time, not just with fans, but everyone involved, in the industry as well. People are a little more impatient and don’t want to allow more time for shows to develop. One can joke about the MTV generation, but it’s true that what sells are big blockbusters with more emphasis on action and not the story.

There will be action and terrific special effects, which is what we’ve always done in the past. But in Stargate Universe, the challenge for us was to get things started, establish the premise, establish the characters.

We’ll be encountering space aliens, there’ll be big ship battles. Fans won’t have to wait long. It is a bit disappointing that you can’t do more a slow burn and allow the characters more time to grow before you hit full throttle.



The Mallozzi Pugs, awaiting their auditions for Men In Black III.


Now, on your blog, you do display a remarkable fondness for a) fine food and b) canines, and not necessarily in that order. How many times have Robert and Brad knocked back one of your story ideas that end with ‘and then the pug saves the day!’ ?

(Laughs.) Brad will always pitch that. I personally want to do the alien dog. The telepathic alien dog. It’s perfect - if you just do the voice over, you don’t have to worry about lip synch! I’ve been told that we’ll be able to do that the same time they okay the musical episode. Which I have a feeling is more of a Season Six show.


Episode 100. The crew of the Destiny visit the Pug Planet. As a gourmand, it must break your heart to see the crew of the Destiny eat nothing but protein powder.

It does! To be honest, though, I do the protein powder in the morning, but I do get mix with something. ‘Recipes, Becker, for God’s sake, recipes!’ But in time – they’ll go to a planet and find food.



Stargate Universe screens on SCI FI, Channel 125, on Fridays at 8.30pm.


If you’d like to get an in-depth perspective on SGU, read Joseph Mallozzi’s Weblog.