Another blog?!! In the same week?!! Something's very wrong here!

Can you believe it? Two blogs in one week?!

Well, I promised to update this blog some more, and here I am. Basically I figured I'd keep you updated on how work on the season finale is going - without giving anything away, of course. I'm pleased to say that I've finished the first draft of "Preemptive Strike" yesterday, and it's looking quite good, leaving off at a point that should make the wait for "Revolution" one filled with various questions and, hopefully, some speculations.

It's interesting that very often when we break stories, and then get to the outline and script afterward, things tend to play out longer as we had initially anticipated. By that I mean that we might be breaking the story, and say something like that by the end of act one, character a will have learned some kind of startling secret from character b. And by the end of act two, character c will show up and let character a know that character b is in fact a liar. I'm not basing this on any specific episode, by the way. But anyway, then we might get to the outline, and realize it's actually taking us up until the end of act two until we get character a to learn some kind of startling secret from character b. So, we're an act behind from our initial planning.

Something like that happened with "Preemptive Strike" actually. Earlier we had agreed that we'd end the episode at a certain point, which is now turning out to be the first act out in "Revolution". That's not a bad thing, of course. It does make matters challenging, however, if you have quite a lot of story points to fit into a particular episode.

So right now I'm working on the outline of "Revolution", which is a tough one to figure out. The reason is there's just so much to juggle in this episode. Compared to last season's finale, the story is a lot more complex. And in addition, it's getting difficult fitting it all into this particular episode. I don't want to say anything with absolute certainty just yet, but it's getting so much that the term "90 minute season finale" has been mentioned once or twice. We'll have to see how it plays out. But one thing's for sure, we'll be doing what's best for making the episode as good and as memorable as possible. Most of you probably know by now that we've moved back the release dates for the final three episodes of the season. And let me just say, we definitely needed the additional time. I'm hopeful that once the season finale airs on June 29th, you'll agree that it was definitely worth the additional wait.

This week's episode "Catch 22" gets things rolling actually, as it kicks off the final four episode arc. "Catch 22", "In Times of Despair", "Preemptive Strike" and "Revolution" are all very closely connected with each other. "Catch 22" will bring the return of a character a lot of us have been looking forward to seeing again. We are very fond of this character ourselves, because he/she is just a great character and pretty complex actually, as this week's episode will reveal. So there's a good chance we'll be seeing more of him/her in the future. The episode also brings an interesting development for Lenori, we meet some familiar Tok'ra characters as well as a new Tok'ra character, and the ending will come with a surprise.

Well. In my last blog I promised I'd be giving some comments on last night's two hour season finale of 24. And what else can I say other than it was great!!! This season has been amazing. In every aspect of writing, acting, directing and production, this show is just fantastic. I'm always careful with choosing my favorite seasons/episodes, just because I like all of them for different reasons. So I'll just settle with saying this season is pretty high up there, and for those of you who haven't seen this show, and who'd like to see some unique and quite simply brilliant television... you know what to do. And what a powerful ending. Should make the wait for Season Six in January quite a difficult one, but I have a feeling I'll just have to go back and rewatch previous seasons in order to make it until January. In fact, I'm thinking about starting with that tonight.

Recently I've also started working on a story for a screenplay that I'm planning to write in the near future. Once the work on Season Two wraps, I should be making some progress, before getting started on Season Three. I don't want to give too much away, but I believe this movie should turn out to be quite an interesting one. I dare say it's a very unique concept, and I've even decided that it works much better as the first part of a trilogy. I do plan to bring this to the screen one day, actually. Just give me ten or fifteen years, and perhaps you'll get to see it. I'll say it's something that could be described as a philosophical sci-fi thriller. I've started reading Plato's Republic. A great book (written almost 2400 years ago) that's actually quite inspiring for this film. I've been wanting to read it (and others) for some time.

Anyway. That's the latest. I do plan on updating this blog more frequently from now on, so the next blog could be nearer than we all think.

For now I'll say goodnight. And until next time.

Alex

It's that time again...

Time to update the blog.

First off, lots of things have evolved recently. Believe it or not, while in my last blog I was complaining about riding the bus, I can now announce that I shall no longer do so. Finally, Alex has got a car. It all happened pretty quickly, and quite conveniently actually. Here's the whole story in short: my grandparents used to have two cars; however, they decided to now have only one. So they gave one of their cars to my aunt, who in turn gave her car to me. And voila. That's about it. So we've kinda just been trading cars within the family, which of course is a nice thing to do. So, from this point forward, I won't be complaining about riding the bus anymore. From now on I'll just complain about the enormously high gas prices.

With a car I'm saving quite some time. As you might remember it used to take me pretty long to get to work and back. Now it takes about 25 minutes. Half an hour when there's a lot of traffic. So things have greatly improved in that area.

On Horizon we're working on the final few episodes of the season. Mike finished his first draft of "In Times of Despair", which is looking great. That will be kind of this season's calm-before-the-storm episode. We'll be having some nice character moments in a more quiet (but quite interesting) episode right before the big finale. "In Times of Despair" will see the return of some familiar faces, and we'll be picking up on a relationship that could have seemed almost forgotten. We'll be taking an in depth look at how two characters have/might/perhaps will again some day feel about each other.

Then, we'll be having the two part season finale. I'm about to finish the first draft of "Preemptive Strike", which is looking great so far. Lots of things will be going on, and we'll be seeing our team going on a joint mission with some familiar faces. I must say that the scale of this year's finale will be quite enormous. There's a lot going on, so much that it will be a challenge fitting it all into two episodes. I'll be starting the outline for "Revolution" tomorrow, and... I really can't say anything about it. It would be a shame to spoil all of those surprises.

I'm also quite pleased with the progress we're making in our visuals department. Here's an example of how our incredibly talented art department works. Today I was working on "Preemptive Strike" while a lot of us were on msn, which kind of makes it seem like we're all in the same "virtual office" with the doors open, as we can talk to each other whenever needed.

So I'm working on this episode, and I get to this particular scene. I pause, take a moment to think about something. Then I head over to the guys and gals, and I say something like: "So what do you think an Enoly space station should look like?" Then we talk about it for a few moments, and I outline the rough idea I've had in mind for the design. We talk some more, and I head back to write this scene. About thirty minutes later, one of our new designers, Michael, shows us all this wonderful sketch that he's put together. And let's just say it's an amazing looking design. Very alien, very Enoly. And there it was, an Enoly space station.

We all loved the design. And Nick, our CG artist who's designs for Horizon are just looking amazing already, has assured us that he's confident he'll be able to create a CG render of the design hopefully on time for the episode's release. So, keep an eye out for that.

I know so far we haven't had too much to show when it comes to visuals, but things are about to change. We have people working on Horizon, others are working on designs based on one or two specific episodes, and a very talented artist named Travis is working on some nice looking costume designs. In addition, we've just hired an additional concept artist by the name of Beth, who'll be focusing on creating alien designs, starting with the Draque and the Enoly. At the very latest when Season Three rolls around, we should have made a lot of progress. It only took us two seasons, but dare I say it, it should turn out to have been worth the wait.

We've also gotten in touch with another enormously talented individual. But I don't want to give any more away just yet, since it would spoil the surprise. I'll just say we're all very excited about the fact that this person is interested in joining our team.

Well. I'm about to call it a night. Tomorrow night we'll be having the great 24 two hour season finale. I can't wait to see how this will end. Season Five has been great! Really great! In my next blog I'll give you my overall view of the season finale - completely without spoilers of course.

I'll be back soon with another update. I promise not to wait too long this time.

Until next time,
Alex