January 23, 2007

Who's the guy on the pictures, may be the first question that comes to mind. Is he a new actor we've cast to play the part of that new hansom, and charming recurring character we're introducing in the back half of this season? Is he just some random guy, of whom I thought it could be fun if I kicked off my first blog in over a month with a couple of pictures of him? Or are there not really any pictures and it's all just a figment of your imagination? Or... could it really be? Is it possible that? Could it have happened that you've finally learned what one of the guys behind the scenes on Stargate: Horizon actually looks like? AFTER OVER TWO YEARS!!!

I won't give away the answer to that question, but am eagerly awaiting your suggestions. Well then, with that said, shall we move on to business?

I have to say I had realized that it's been a while since my last blog, but I wasn't really aware that it's been THAT long. December 12th. Go figure. But anyway, I've been wanting to get back to blogging for a while now, and here I am - once more. And Happy New Year to all of you!

This week I'm on vacation from my other job. Other as in not the job that is writing and producing Stargate: Horizon, which involves all sorts of things aside from writing actually. You have story meetings, you need to make sure everyone's up to date on what's going on, you work on recruiting concept artists, occasionally you'll give notes on scrips or even work on rewrites. And sometimes I even get quite caught up in actually writing an episode. But I'm sure you're aware of all of this anyway, so I won't go on boring you with the details.

But anyway, where were we? Ah, yes. Vacation. Not that I don't absolutely love this other job of mine. Okay, who am I fooling? I don't love this other job of mine. In fact, I love it so little that part of my vacation will be dedicated to sending out various applications in an effort to try and get a new job in the near future. Most likely something in an office, and most definitely something that will pay better, and contribute to getting good ol' Alex finally to where he needs to be -- to good ol' Los Angeles, or shall we say Hollywood?

Aside from that, the week will be dedicated mainly to what I consider my REAL job, which would be the one where I work on Horizon. And there's lots of things to do, as we're already gearing up towards the end of the season. I realize that you've actually only got to see the first nine episodes so far, but rest assured that we here beyond the Horizon are hard at work on episodes all the way up to episode twenty, for which I'm currently working on the outline. I can't really say much about it, other than that it starts with a surprise and VERY familiar face stepping through the Stargate with some pretty crazy news. Then, as the story builds up, we head off to this planet, where go into this crazy building. And then those bad guys show up, and all sorts of... uh, crazy things will happen. In short: it's crazy. In a good way. Just need to get the outline done, which in my case is often the most difficult part when working on an episode. Once you've got those beats worked out, it's all about translating this elaborate beat sheet/outline into a script.

Mike turned in his first draft of "Mediation" yesterday, and let me just tell you: this will be one of our best two parters yet. And I'm not trying to hype things, I'm just speaking as a fan of the show, because I am definitely a fan as well. We've got some great stuff coming up. I believe we're all pretty excited about how this season will unfold over the course of its second half. I turned in my first draft for "Adrift" the other day. An episode I'm pretty happy with. In particular the Sivea/Christine moments turned out quite powerful. In many ways the episode is similar in style to SG-1's "Tangent," in that a failed test of a certain new technological achievement places the lives of some of our characters in serious jeopardy. So even though someone on the boards suggested that perhaps this episode could be a "Grace group therapy episode," I actually like to think of it as a "Tangent for five" episode.

We haven't talked much about "The Inner Voice," have we? And actually we should probably keep it that way, at least until we get a little closer to the release date. All I can really say, or much rather confirm is that Arina will be in that episode. And it's an episode that will shed a lot of light into Chase's backstory. I think it's a fun episode. No comedy episode, but a couple of entertaining exchanges between Chase and Arina. And it starts off with a situation which could be described as bizarre.

Well, what else is new? Except for the new year, of course. Yup. You've guessed it: a new season of 24 has started airing last week. I can't really say too much without either giving away spoilers or just repeating what I say all the time (that it's a great show!); so I'll just say... uh... it's a GREAT show! For those one or two of you who haven't seen it, seems you have some catching up to do.

With that said, let the day begin! Just finishing breakfast actually. Forgot to buy coffee the other day, but my Red Bull drink is making up for it. You have to keep that energy and concentration going if you're going to be writing like crazy today.

I'll be blogging a little more in the near future. For now I'm off to finish the first draft of "Together We Stand." Oh, and expect the podcast for "Resurfacing" to appear soon. I might squeeze recording that into today's schedule as well.

Alex