Cast and characters The regular cast members of season eight are
Richard Dean Anderson as Colonel/Brigadier General
Jack O'Neill,
Amanda Tapping as Major/Lieutenant Colonel
Samantha Carter,
Christopher Judge as the
Jaffa Teal'c, and
Michael Shanks as civilian Dr.
Daniel Jackson. After O'Neill's promotion to commander of
Stargate Command, Carter assumes command of
SG-1. Despite being one of the main characters, Anderson's time on set was further reduced from previous seasons, and he only worked 3.5 out of 5 working days per week. The first season of
Stargate Atlantis was filmed in parallel to the eighth season of
SG-1, and aired in the time slot immediately following
SG-1. Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks appeared in the pilot episode of
Stargate Atlantis. Beginning with "New Order" and continuing into the spinoff series
Stargate Atlantis,
Torri Higginson replaced
Jessica Steen as Dr.
Elizabeth Weir.
Ellie Harvie, who first appeared in "Prometheus Unbound" as
Lindsey Novak, later became a recurring character on
Stargate Atlantis. Among the notable guest stars in season eight were
Steve Bacic, who
Robert C. Cooper already had in mind for the part of Camulus in three of the first four episodes of season 8. and Black would later join the cast of Stargate as a regular, playing Vala in seasons 9 and 10.
Dan Castellaneta, the voice of
Homer Simpson on
The Simpsons, guest starred as Joe Spencer in the episode "Citizen Joe".
Charles Shaughnessy, known from his role in
The Nanny as Maxwell Sheffield, appeared as Colson in "Covenant".
Tony Amendola appears again as
Bra'tac, and
Carmen Argenziano as
Jacob Carter/Selmak. Another recurring actor is
Mel Harris as
Oma Desala in "Threads". With the defeat of the
Goa'uld in "Reckoning"/"Threads", several actors make their final appearance in season eight.
Yu, the longest-running Goa'uld recurring character, dies. Season eight also sees the final defeat of main villain
Anubis. After
David Palffy played Anubis from seasons five through seven, the entity that made up Anubis was portrayed by
Michael Shanks,
Gavin Hood, Holly Ferguson,
Amanda Tapping and
Richard Dean Anderson in "Lockdown", by Dean Aylesworth and Rik Kiviaho in "Reckoning", and finally by
George Dzundza in "Threads". As with the two preceding seasons' finales, "Moebius" was intended to be the
Stargate SG-1 series finale, and as such many actors reprised their roles from past episodes:
Don S. Davis as
George Hammond,
Peter Williams as
Apophis,
Colin Cunningham as
Major Davis, and Jay Acovone as
Charles Kawalsky. "Moebius" was the last episode to feature
Richard Dean Anderson as a main cast member. The main technician (played by
Gary Jones), who sported the name "Norman Davis" on his uniform for seven years, was officially renamed "Walter Harriman". In the episode "2010", O'Neill referred to him as "Walter". Simply renaming the character to "Walter Davis" did not clear, so he was renamed to "Walter Harriman" after Hammond had called him "Airman", which sounds similar to "Harriman", in the pilot episode.
Joseph Mallozzi explained the resulting incongruity by positing that Harriman is Walter's married name. One scene in "Zero Hour" featured
Pierre Bernard as a technician. Bernard is a graphics designer for the
NBC show ''
Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and was offered the cameo on SG-1
after a rant on Late Night'' in which he said the show was better without Daniel Jackson. The show's writers named his character "O'Brien" as a
tongue-in-cheek reference. The
Stargate producers later invited Bernard back to the set for a scene in the
200th episode of SG-1.
Writing After production wrapped on season seven, the writers came together and pitched ideas for
Stargate eighth and presumably final season. The end of "New Order" with Fifth creating Replicator Carter was also not in the original outline. Robert C. Cooper came up with the twist while he was writing the script. "Affinity" was originally intended to air after "Covenant". Airing "Affinity" first creates the minor continuity error of Daniel already knowing the name, disclosed in "Covenant", of the newly formed Trust. The producers do not treat two-part episodes as a different episode but as one longer episode, though the episodes are still legally broken up into two with the actors, for example, being paid twice.
Stargate SG-1 has several regular directors.
Andy Mikita is known to shoot much coverage because he likes having the choices during cut-and-edit.
Peter DeLuise, however, lets the cameras roll, which makes things more difficult for the script supervisor and the editors later. Episodes such as "Zero Hour" and "Prometheus Unbound" reduced costs by being shot mainly on the standing sets
Stargate Command and the
Prometheus. The first episode filmed after the hiatus was "Lockdown", which aired third. The writers thought it would be fun to test O'Neill in his new position as general of the SGC early on and to have him prove his worth. but she became pregnant late in the season.
Sets and locations Sets from previous seasons were reused: The Goa'uld transport ship, a standing set in the NorCo Studios, was originally built for a particular episode in season one but has since been reused in "New Order". Despite its cool looks, it is hard to shoot in. The
Stargate franchise acquired the set of
Blade: Trinity and used it as
Thor's ship in "New Order". The Blade 3 effects stage was also used for the
F-302 scene in "Covenant". Art director James Robbins designed the set for Fifth's space ship, The Puddle Jumper space ship, usually part of
Stargate Atlantis stories, also had its first appearances in
SG-1; it appeared in "It's Good to be King" and "Moebius". "Threads" used the diner set from
Dead Like Me. The carpet in the Briefing Room was replaced every second year early in the show, but when the renewal of the show changed from a two-year basis to a yearly basis, the carpet was never renewed again. Like "Birthright" one year before, exterior scenes for "Sacrifices" were filmed at High Point Properties in
Langley, British Columbia. The Goa'uld ceremonial tent in the episode was designed to be re-usable, with the concept loosely based on the
Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul. "Reckoning", in which Carter attempts to open the Ancient Wall, was filmed at a sound stage at NorCo Studios, a former bicycle factory. The ventilation is questionable, and when the director decided to add smoke for the light to catch to give a dramatic dusty air feeling, the oxygen supply decreased, which made acting harder.
Design, props and special effects Before the season began, director
Martin Wood spent a weekend at
Cheyenne Mountain Complex (where the fictional
Stargate Command takes place) and filmed new angles at night time, daytime, and emergency situations. The producers had previously re-used stock footage from season one for the last seven seasons. To save money, props and footage were re-used from previous seasons. The chairs used in "Avatar" are the same used in the season two episode "The Gamekeeper", but since they had been cut up and changed around completely for a previous
SG-1 episode, and re-adjusting them would have cost as much money as building new ones, they were used like they were. Catherine's amulet that was shown in "Moebius" is the same used in the movie. In "Reckoning", some shots of the replicators in the SGC are re-uses of footage from the episode "Menace". The falling Replicator chips and the resulting mess on the ground in "Reckoning", however, was animated in VisFX because it would have been more expensive to have the mess be tracked.
Image Engine created the bug effects in "New Order". One scene involved hundreds of Replicator bugs running in a forest, for which they went from singly hand-animated bugs to replicated effects. Season eight was the first year that used a rear screen with an LCD projector projecting the puddle for the Stargate wormhole effect. Before that time, this was too expensive and not bright enough. The outside of the Puddle Jumper space ship in "Moebius" also used a rear screen projection, for which a dune at a real location was filmed and then projected on a screen behind the Puddle Jumper windows. This allowed to move the camera around and not be locked off. The on-set Puddle Jumper is only about 2/3 the size of that of the actual space ship. For dramatic effect, the episode "Zero Hour" had longer scenes filmed in green. "Gemini" had scenes filmed in infrared. == Release and reception ==