Richard Dean Anderson returns for Stargate SG-1’s 200th episode…and more
ADVANCED TELEMETRY — The latest Stargate SG-1/Atlantis news brought to you by GateWorld.net!
As seen in The Official Magazine Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, Stargate #11, Sept/Oct 2006
Richard Dean Anderson needs no introduction to Stargate SG-1 audiences: He led the SG-1 team and served as an executive producer for eight years on the hit series, helping to make it the record-breaking franchise that it is today. Many fans feared that the show could not go on when he retired in 2004.
Now, the ‘Jack O’Neill’ actor is officially on board for return appearances in the show’s 10th season.
Anderson will appear first in the episode titled 200, which not coincidentally will air this summer as the show’s 200th episode. 200 will allow the cast and crew to break outside the mold of the traditional Stargate SG-1 episode while revisiting a comical storyline from the past — precisely 100 episodes ago, in fact.
The show’s former leading man will also guest star on Stargate: Atlantis in season three, and will appear in additional episodes of Stargate SG-1’s 10th year. Anderson told his official web site that he will appear in a total of five episodes this year. He was asked to appear in the 200th episode, and during negotiations offered to do a few more if the writers wanted to use his character to tie up any loose ends.
Beware of spoilers for 200 below!
“We’ll see Willie Garson [Martin Lloyd],” executive producer Brad Wright said. “He’s coming back. It’s sort of a full circle thing.”
Wormhole X-Treme! premiered in the U.S. on September 8, 2001, as the 100th episode of Stargate SG-1. In the episode, Martin Lloyd (a human from another world who was hiding out on Earth after deserting a war, but didn’t remember it) started a TV series based on his subconscious knowledge of the Stargate program, to which he was introduced in season four (Point of No Return).
200 is co-written by nearly the enter Stargate SG-1 writing staff, with each ‘vignette’ segment being woven together within the framework of SG-1’s suggestions for the Wormhole X-Treme! movie, as they serve as Air Force consultants on the project.
“It’s out there…in a good way!” Wright said. “It’s fun. Hopefully it’s funny. Hopefully it’s very funny — if not, it’s at least fun.”
Wright also said that while Anderson’s decision to leave the show wasn’t up to the producers (the actor had steadily reduced his time commitments to the show over three years, in order to spend more time with his young daughter at home in California), bringing him back was.
“We’ve asked him, and he’s going to come back. Certainly not for the whole time, but he’s going to come and play with us again,” he said. “That door was left open, and he’s going to come back and step through it.”
The show’s producers also said that Anderson’s appearance in the episode will be substantial, and not a brief cameo as he did in season nine’s Avalon, Pt 1 and Origin.
200 will air in late August on The SCI FI Channel.
