Last week...

When thinking of last week, one of the first things that comes to mind is naturally the devastating events that occurred in London on July 7th. Naturally I was shocked by that when I heard about it, and it is sad to see that these kind of things are happening. A lot of our regular readers (not to mention half of the current four member writing staff) are from England, and I was glad to see that so far everyone seems to have been alright. However, my heart goes out to all the people who are affected by these kind of tragic events.




Well, on the more positive side last week as well as this week so far has been really seeing some great developments of the episodes we are currently working on. I'm just finishing giving some final notes on Eric's outline for "Providence". After everything is cleared, he will be starting to write the script. I believe I've stated previously that I'm really excited about this episode; it's a great story, and has a classic Stargate feel to it. It's also an episode in which we will get to see more of Christine, and we get a sense for how her character has developed since the early days of the show. In fact, she pretty much turns out to be the main hero throughout the episode, and she gets to save the day. I think it's a great episode for her character.

Over the weekend I've had some ideas for "Troika", and Sam is currently in the process of completing the outline. There have been some speculations about this episode in our forums, and all I can say is...interesting.

The only episode we still have to work out some major things on is "Disconnected". What Joe has gotten down of the outline so far looks great; now we'll have to figure out how to make the ending work. That's something we should have done by the end of the week.

I've been working some more on "A Time To Rise", and there have indeed been some length problems coming up. Briefly we considered changing the whole thing into a three-parter, but that wouldn't necessarily be the best solution. The problem was really that the second part seemed a bit too rushed; there was too much going on in the second half of the second part. So what we ended up doing is move up the cliffhanger of part one, and by doing so...you guessed it, we will end up having a special length 90 minute season premiere episode. Fortunately Sci-Fi, Fox, and MGM were kind enough to let us do that...uh, no wait...we didn't even ask them. We just...well, we just did it. But that's okay for us to do...really, it is...Well, anyway, as I was saying the season will indeed kick off with a special length premiere event, and even though I thought "A Time To Rise" was looking good as a regular one hour episode, changing it into a 90 minute version has even made it better (it really has the length of about one and a half regular episodes). I think it's a great way to kick off the new season, and, boy, what a cliffhanger.

Considering that "A Time To Rise" will be known as a 90 minute episode, I realized that it might be appropriate to change the title of part two, and give it a whole new name instead. I think that might work better; that makes " A Time To Rise" solely the second 90 minute Stargate episode after SG-1's "Threads" (I know we're a virtual series, but still). So it's possible that part two will end up having a new name. Currently I've called it "Condition One", but for now it's a working title, and might still change. What is condition one you might ask? Well, that refers to this major development inside Vorian space. Suffice it to say the whole sector is affected by this.

That's the latest on the Horizon front. The screenplay story I'm working on looks good up until the end of the first act, but after that it gets a bit more complex. Well, eventually I'll figure those parts out, too. There are a lot of things going on in terms of plot arcs as well as character arcs, and it all has to be juggled somehow. I know exactly what will happen in the end; it's just a matter of getting there. Writing scripts is in some ways very much like composing a musical score. You have to be able to look at all the elements as individuals. In screenplays or teleplays it's the various plot or character arcs, the important plot points, and combining it all into a perfect structure; with composing it's the various instruments on their own, getting the overall music to capture the spirit of the project, and in the end combining it all into an orchestral score.

I've had some nice ideas for the television concept as well. In time I can tell you more about that. Today I'll be spending the rest of the day working on some Horizon related things; I'll be turning in my final notes on "Providence", and I'll be working on the new outline for "Condition One". The great thing with that episode is that since we've moved up the ending of "A Time To Rise", I'll be able to really play out all the beats in this second part. Basically what used to happen in half of an episode, can now be expanded over an entire episode. Oh, and I should mention that because of these changes our Serakkin guest character will now make his first appearance toward the end of the first part, in the 90 minute version of "A Time To Rise".

I've completed re-watching Season Three of 24, and I've moved straight into re-watching Season Four. Unfortunately I had to switch to video tapes, because Season Four won't be out on DVD before December. But I think having it on tape will make it possible to wait all the way until December, and of course January when Season Five premieres. It'll still be a long wait, but...well, I guess if you don't have another choice you can make it. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I think it's a great show. Even though I know exactly what will happen, I'm loving it. Well, the bottom line is, I'm a 24 addict, and I don't hide it. That's just the truth.

That's it for now. I haven't had lunch yet, so I'll be doing that very soon, too.