I like how I'm "rewarding" you for writing one fic by "letting" you write another :)
*has faith in your angst abilities*

Yay Good Omens! Have fun this weekend!
(also, now I want Indian food and there isn't any good Indian anywhere near me *pouts*)

*takes blame*

cause I've always had a bad habit of doing like Jack does, and breaking up a 'moment' with a joke

But, see, that will be perfect for writing Jack then, right? Right?

I have faith in your angst abilities, too.

Also...what, exactly, is "Good Omens?"

That quote in your icon makes me want to know.

:-)

"That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl."

She's brilliant! I like her already.

Angels *would* be in the second-hand book business. They probably hate book-burning as much as I do. (I *hate* book-burning scenes in movies, just...just...because. Even when I know they're blank--and that almost makes it worse, because they're *always* in those beautiful bindings, with those pages just waiting to be filled...)

*cries*

Heh Firehouse... I think my reaction to the whole film (and I use that term loosely) was WTF... it was just weird. But then I guess that's what happens if you desperately try to make something out of the footage you have. (and I hate to say it, but I'm almost glad he died, at least there won't be any more of it...).

I did watch the whole thing once, way back, but ever since I've only watched the Rick scenes every once in a while.
It's so awful it's not even funny. ;) And wtf is with the singing/music?
I agree it may have possibly worked better as a series, but I don't think it would've been very successful.
Maybe Rick knew what was good for him and didn't want to return. ;) Can't say I blame him.

Now you're making me want to look up the timing of it, to see whether they were getting Firehouse prepped to be released as a movie right around the time that RDA would have started shooting SG-1, or not... man, at this point, I just can't remember! (I do remember that "Pandora's Clock" is, like, right before he started with SG-1 -- which makes it just criminal that they dyed his hair that awful brown, when in PC it was clearly starting to go so charmingly silver at the temples.)

Of course, just think -- if, despite its crappiness, "Firehouse" had gotten picked up as a series... then it is entirely likely that RDA would not have been available to take the role of Jack. I wonder if that would have meant they'd've gotten someone else to do it? Or if they would not have launched SG-1 at that time, at all? (Since IIRC, it was them bringing him on board that was part of getting SG-1 rolling.)

Cosmically speaking, I will trade off Michael, WTF-inducing lack of death scene and all, for the body of work that is Jack. ;-)

(am using my icon that I have listed as "Jack - oy". Every once in a while I have toyed with actually putting "oy" on it, and then I figure, nah, the expression says it all.)

A scary what-if, isn't it? :) I honestly do wonder if it would have killed or postponed SG-1 (bearing in mind that sometimes, if a proposed series gets postponed, it might never happen, because the people who would have done it wind up doing other things), or just resulted in them casting someone else as Jack and moving on.

(I forget now whether I've ever read how vital RDA coming on board was to getting SG-1 off the ground. I know he was the first-approached, and then they cast everyone else in try-outs *with* him. They clearly considered him their "name". But I wonder how important that name was to MGM or Showtime, or whether they could have found a second choice. It also seems significant that he came on not just as the star but as a producer as well. How vital were he and Greenberg to the show's early days? ... Huh! Another thought. Because they *did* cast the other three by trying them out with RDA, their choices of MS, AT and CJ must have depended somewhat on how they seemed in relation to RDA, chemistry and all that. So if SG-1 had gone forward with a different Jack... I wonder if they might have selected different actors for the rest of the roles as well?)

Anyway, yes, whew!

The thing that struck me about Firehouse when I first saw it, too, was that it kind of wanted to be what "Rescue Me!" ended up being -- but Firehouse *felt* like an 80s show. It's hard to explain what made it feel that way to me, but... like, MacGyver's an 80s show. 80s shows just have... I dunno... different pacing, structure, writing, editing, music. In comparison, I find due South (for example) to be a genuinely 90s show (with some leftover 80s elements). But Rescue Me is a purely 00s show. I guess you could say that I feel like 80s or 90s shows are "dated" (well, of course) and that Rescue Me feels "contemporary" (very gritty, different lighting and camera work and editing, music, plus scripts). I'm sure in 10 more years that style of show will seem dated too, though it's hard to anticipate how.

Anyway, for a show being made as late as 1996 or so, I think that Firehouse striking me as having an 80s feel to it was a problem. I think it doesn't feel as "updated" as dueSouth does, which was being made around the same time period. I wonder if that was a factor in it not being picked up? Firehouse seemed to want to be gritty... but in fact, it just looks a bit cheesy when compared to the grittiness of Rescue Me.

You know, I don't know if RDA knew Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner at all, beforehand... I can't find any evidence that their paths had crossed (in the sense of working on the same projects, anyway.) Wright's big work prior to SG-1 was "The Outer Limits" (and some "Highlander"); Glassner's was other stuff, including "21 Jump St." (which explains the DeLuise connection.) Michael Greenburg was a production-partner of RDA's going way back into the MacGyver era, so the two of them (as Gekko) came as a set, as it were.

The way I always heard the story was that Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner had the idea to turn the "Stargate" movie concept into a TV series independently, and pitched it to MGM independently, were put in touch with each other, and teamed up to do it. But if I ever heard what exactly made them decide to approach RDA about being the star... I've forgotten it. I just knew that they did, as their next step, they got him on board and then cast around him.

(I also don't recall if they approached him to also become an exec. producer on it... or whether when they approached him to star, he turned around and made that a stipulation, and they said "sure". RDA + Greenburg had become producers on MacGyver late in its run. Greenburg + RDA were ALSO exec producers on Firehouse! ;-) Just as with SG-1, Gekko is a secondary production company listed for that show. Gekko was the *primary* production co. for "Legend". So what I'm saying is -- by the time Wright and Glassner would have approached RDA about SG-1, RDA had several years under his belt in the role of a producer as well as an actor, although I think you could say that Gekko didn't exactly have a 'proven track record', considering that Legend didn't last, and Firehouse didn't even get picked up. It makes it understandable, though, that he came onboard SG-1 wanting to be both star and a producer... but doesn't tell me whether Wright/Glassner approached him in both capacities or what.)

But I agree with you that I bet they would have approached somebody else, if he hadn't come on board at that time. God knows who!

It would have been totally different with someone else playing Jack, because Stargate has Rick's personality all through it. And yeah, then they might not have had Amanda, Chris, and Michael. Weird idea. Although I tend to think those three would have stood a good chance - having that chemistry with one another... and with Michael's similarity to James Spader, he'd surely have been in the running, at least.

I agree with the latter, although -- well, we just don't know who else auditioned! :) So you never know what other actors might have been bringing good Spader-as-Daniel impersonations to the table, or whatever. (And... I thought I remembered hearing that MS, AT, and CJ encountered each other at auditions, and hit it off really well, and thus were thrilled when they ended up cast; but all I recall hearing is that they and others were tested individually with RDA, not together.)

And I *really* agree that I often wonder what SG-1 would have been like without RDA's personality infusing it. I've heard many times the story that his big stipulation for taking on the role of Jack was to bring his humor to it. Sure, he wasn't a writer -- but he clearly had lots of input early-on (and throughout the show) on the portrayal of the character and his dialogue, and I think that what he established for Jack, the attitude, just infused the show to a great degree. (Plus, he *was* a producer; though I have heard that mainly what he did was editing work -- but that's it's own tangent with interesting implications for the way some things were portrayed/established, based on comments he later made after he stepped away from that role.)

Hee! Well, part of it is just fairly good memory-retention for stuff I've heard here and there over the years (I've been in the fandom since 2001) -- and then nowadays, when I'm writing meta about it, I tend to try to go and look up what I can to verify it before I post it (because my memory for broad things is pretty good, but I don't trust it for details). And then I find out interesting new stuff (like that Glassner worked on 21 Jump St, which made me go "ahh!" about the DeLuises).

I'm going to have to go back and find which one of the documentaries on the DVDs talks about the putting-together of Stargate, 'cause now I'm curious. I don't remember exactly what they said.

Yeah -- and another problem is that the "origins of SG-1" story has been told and retold a number of times in a lot of different venues, on tv specials and in interviews and stuff. It becomes *really* hard to remember where you heard which piece...

I think - but I'm biased - that SG-1 wouldn't have been as interesting without RDA.

*nods* Of course, like you, I'm wary of concluding too much about this. As you point out, not *all* of the funny stuff was only RDA's contribution -- the writers did a lot of it! (But... well, how much did having him and his influence inspire them or make them feel like they *could* be that casual/funny? So hard to tell!)

I'm *almost positively* willing to conclude, though, that for me, I would not have become as fallen-in-love *fannish* about SG-1, if not for RDA. Which I didn't expect at all. (I had never seen him in anything before I started watching SG-1 during its S5.) I watch a lot of genre shows that I like very much, or sometimes love, and follow faithfully, without making the leap to reading fanfic or participating in the fandom. SG-1 is a big exception for me, and the lightning-strike that caused it was definitely RDA's Jack. I might have watched it, liked it a lot, and so on, but...

(Even then, I hesitate to claim this 100%, because just as I didn't expect RDA to hit me like that, I can't therefore predict who else might have. *shrug*)

For me, though (I went into this in more detail recently in moonshayde's "Jack appreciation thread for Finale Week") -- it's not just Jack's funny lines. It's the way RDA delivers a lot of them. (Which *is* all down to him, not the writers.) He can deliver even normal lines in a way that can still make me stop and think, wow, that's not the standard Steely-Jawed Hero delivery. And there are many other choices made for the character that I honestly do have to ascribe to him -- a willingness to let the character show pain, or surprise, or being squicked, or startled, or freaking-out over bugs, that for me makes Jack into this really amazingly offbeat "leading man". (I'm not even including the wonderfully warm "good with kids" stuff, because I think that that's a more obvious facet to give to an Action Hero Lead.)

But you're right -- the writers deserve a lot of love for creating Jack, too. (I am still most fond of Brad Wright's input, I think.) And the directors! They can't be overlooked, because you also get the feeling (when you watch enough behind the scenes stuff) that while Rick can be serious about his craft, and he does make conscious, serious decisions, he also has a self-confessed problem focusing sometimes, and I think that's where a good director comes in.

ut editing... wow. I'd love to know what aspects he chose to play up and play down. I know there's rumours about his influence over the Sam/Daniel and Sam/Jack relationships. Hm!

Hmm! I hadn't heard any speculation about influence he had over S/D. Of course I've heard over the years speculation about his influence on S/J. (While I'm mostly a J/D slash reader now, when I started in the fandom I read everything, and for a while belonged to some S/J lists.)

I *believe* (again, memory for *where* just gets more faulty over time!) that I read an interview with him where he talked about liking to get in there and do some editing work; that's where I picked that up from, and at the time, I was as surprised as you about it.

And I'd also heard (or seen it speculated?) that after the birth of his daughter, but esp. after his daughter and her mother moved back to LA in, um, S5 or S6?, after he went on his "reduced time" schedule where he was commuting from LA to Van, that he cut back on doing that technical stuff. (Well, his time was reduced, and it makes sense that one of the first things to go was that behind-the-scenes work.)

And I read a verrrrry interesting quote recently, about the Jack-Daniel friendship/relationship -- how, you know, people talk about how after a certain point in the show, there's less touching between Jack and Daniel, less of the talking-in-unison thing, and so on (all the "old married" stuff). God... I need to go find the article again! It's becoming fuzzy already. But what I recall was some other production staff (director? or someone) suggesting to RDA (during the shooting of an ep in a fairly recent season) that they do some kind of intimate moment like that... (or was it... someone like a director asking if they could do it, or why didn't he think about doing... something), and anyway, he responded, "Why? It'll just get cut."

And I was putting that together with other comments I've read/heard, such as that Robert Cooper really dislikes anything that suggests intimacy between men -- he really dislikes touching between men, for example. (It was in the context, I believe, of him complaining about that EXQUISITE moment in "Lost City" where Teal'c comes to Jack in the tel'tac, and Jack stops what Teal'c is trying to say by reaching out and cupping Teal'c's face. Can you believe that? RCC *didn't like that*.) And if you watch enough RDA work (in other shows as well as SG-1), you come to realize that the touching thing is *all RDA*, he does it with everyone.

So I read that and something clicked for me, and I thought... huh! We had all that Jack-touching, esp. towards Daniel, in early seasons... when RDA was doing a lot of post-prod. editing work. And fans have complained for years how that kind of thing fell off and then disappeared, leading to a perceived "coldness" between Jack and Daniel. And you have RDA reducing his time, and stopping doing editing. And then you have him snarking to someone about how *they* will cut that kind of thing.

It was just... it's a lot of speculation, but I just found it a fascinating idea. Because for a long time, fans had tended to assume that it was the actors who stopped doing those things (speculation was: because they'd found out about slash and were uncomfortable with it). But, *of course* -- a lot more gets done in the course of shooting an ep than we *see*. (I also recall reading early on comments from AT about stuff she put in that they never included in final cuts.)

I know it's all guesswork, but I do find it interesting (as you can tell!) to think about all the little things that go into making the show what we see. :)

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAH!! *glomps icon* XD

Yes I know Cheesy Marmite twists. They're called Cheesy VEGEMITE Twists doncha know ;)

Actually, which do you like better? Vegemite or Marmite...if you've tried Vegemite of course lol. I can't stand Marmite and I can't live without Vegemite. So good to eat on toast when your hungover...mmmmmm thiamine