The Sci Fi Digital Press Tour report, part two

Something I really enjoyed about Sci Fi putting this event on for us was getting to put faces to people involved with other online outlets. SyFy Portal, Gateworld, The TV Addict, DVD Verdict, Monsters and Critics, UGO, and TVaholic, among others (sorry if I missed mentioning you and you're reading this – I'm still recovering.) These were real fans of television, and they were as excited as anyone to be there. What pissed me off, though, was overhearing a few people in attendance say "I never watch TV," yet here they were, covering TV shows. What were they doing there? Lame. That should piss off any fan of these shows, because this was more than an event to be reported on my the media, it was put on for the fans. OK, I'm done my rant.

A tour of the sets of Stargate Atlantis

Once we got our feet wet with the tour of Eureka, people loosened up a bit more by the time we reached the Atlantis gate room set at Bridge Studios. Unlike the Eureka tour, we had our panel first (which you can see video of here). As you saw in the video, David Hewlett made mention of using Twitter, and since I was using Twitter myself all day to update readers on my whereabouts, I approached him after the panel to tell him what I was doing. Very cool guy, very much into the technology of blogging and twittering and whatnot. As far as I know he's subscribed to the TV Squad feed now, which I thought was very cool of him to do. I just hope I don't update too often and bug the shit out of him.


The first thing that struck me was how it didn't quite fit with what I expected it to look. The Stargate seemed too small, for one. Where the Stargate fit into the floor, it seemed too clear that it was set inside a wooden floor. In fact, the entire set itself felt smaller than I thought it would be, and that's likely due to what we had just witnessed with the huge Global Dynamics rotunda set earlier that day.

We were brought out of the gate room for the time being and brought outside to get to another stage. As you saw in the video of the panel, David Hewlett had his dog Mars with him. Our tour guide told us of how he has Mars on set with him most of the time, and other cast and crew members have followed suit. I noticed there was even a dog poop station, complete with a special waste can and a kiddie pool for them to swim in. I was half expecting to see a grooming station nearby (hell, maybe there was one and I missed it.)

By the way, we were told that the Wraith sets were off at another location, so we weren't able to see those due to time constraints for the rest of the tour.


Next stop was to a large and dark stage that housed the Puddle Jumper set. Nearly all portions of the Puddle Jumper are removable, including the nosecone, the windshield and the rear. We all got a chance to walk around the ship, sit in the seats and push some buttons. Some buttons would light up, but for the most part everything was just for show. The swiveling seats were made of wood (but comfy!) and moved around very easily. In fact when I got up from one of the chairs, it sort of spun around a little and slammed into the side of the console with a loud wooden thud; from what I could tell, that happens a lot.

Outside the back of the Puddle Jumper, which was completely open, someone sloppily duct taped spongey cushion to some exposed wooden corners where clearly one too many heads had previously smacked into while exiting. From the outside, everything but the nose cone just looked like two-by-fours and plywood.


The Daedalus set was next, consisting of a bunch of corridors with various bits of technology along its walls. Upon closer inspection you can see that most of this sort of thing is just old computer motherboards screwed in or stuck to the walls with glue. Here and there were boards with actual lights on them (!) to make them look maybe a bit more purposeful.

In some portions of the walls there were ladders which ran from the ceiling to the floor (there was a ceiling in this set), though these ladders only led to the ceiling and floor, with mirrors at the bottom and top to give the appearance that they lead beyond. They really need to keep those mirrors CLEAN. Of course many sets on all of these shows had ladders or stairs either leading to mirrors or to a wooden platform off-camera.


We next entered one of the largest effects stage (an acre in size!) in North America, where we were able to see half of it constructed to look entirely like a ruined Myan-like (Atlantean?) village, with tumbled down walls and piles of rubble. Without touching the walls here, you'd have no idea that this is all made of foam core. The lighting above (WAY above) has the ability to light the entire area to look like the middle of the day, dusk, stormy, dawn, or starlit night. I only wished they demonstrated that to us, but I'm guessing based on the size of the lights that it takes a while to warm them up.


One of the main sets for Atlantis was given to the show by the old production folks for the movie Blade 3. I still haven't seen that movie so nothing really rang a bell to me while looking around. One of the rooms off the main area was, of course, the chair room where drones would be launched. Although we see the chair sometimes reclined on the show, it apparently takes some extra work to move it to a reclined position. The back was lit in the familiar glue glow, while the armrests had a sort of rubber padding on it with a shimmering blue light underneath – a little cheesy looking, but that's just me. We were invited to sit in the chair and see if we had the gene necessary to get it to work. Lots of geeky fun.

The holding cell (or jail) was next, which has bars that definitely look metal but, upon touching them, you see they're made of wood or more foam core material. The bars can come out easily in order to get cameras into proper positions. Since the show was on hiatus at the time, several of these sets definitely had a feel of being unattended to and left sort of in a bit of disarray. Not overly so, though.


Val Halverson, a costume designer for Atlantis was our next stop. We were introduced to various new costumes of the new season, including new Wraith outfits, the Wraith queen outfit and and outfit for Teyla among others. Again, we could touch the outfits and check them out closely. This department had a very fun vibe to it, with a radio playing in the corner, different headwear and other outfits lining the walls from floor to ceiling and bolts of material lined up here and there.

A side note: Someone tried to get Val to reveal who the father of Teyla's baby would be, but she was not so easily fooled into revealing that spoilery little nugget.

Val also described the new uniform for the team that she'd been working on, which she describes as sleeker and more tailored with simpler color contrasts, though they are based on the old uniforms due to how many they already have made. She also described the new off-world clothing they'd be wearing where, with the exception of Sheppard who would wear something more militaristic, would consist mostly of black leather.

When we broke for lunch, Dave Hewlett sat in and had lunch with us all, which I thought was very cool of him and also very cool of everyone there not to bother him.


By far the best part of the Atlantis set visit was when we returned to the gate room, where we were more or less allowed to walk about the set and adjoining rooms while people got pictures taken in front of the Stargate. Again we could push buttons that lit up, some comically pretending to be opening up the Stargate at the control panel. Several of us sat up in Weir's office, sitting on the chairs and couches just talking about what we thought of the tour and panels so far. One of the bigger fans of Atlantis couldn't believe that, here we were, sitting in the office shooting the breeze and hanging out. Who gets to do that stuff?

Check back soon for part three of my report as I explore the set of Battlestar Galactica. Oh yeah!

[Photo credit for all photos: Eike Schroter/SCI FI Channel]