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"Lifeboat" is the 6th episode from the seventh season of military science fiction adventure television show Stargate SG-1 and is the 138th overall. It was first broadcast on July 18, 2003, on the Sci-Fi Channel. The episode was written by the shows co-creator Brad Wright, and was directed by Peter DeLuise.

In the episode, SG-1 discover a crashed alien spaceship carrying hundreds of people who have are frozen in stasis pods. Whilst exploring, the team are knocked unconscious and upon awakening discover that several of the ships passengers have somehow been downloaded into Daniel Jackson's (Michael Shanks) body.

Due to his father passing away, Richard Dean Anderson was not present during the original filming of the episode, with all of his scenes being filmed separately after filming the episode had otherwise been completed. Michael Shanks, who portrays Dr. Daniel Jackson, won a Leo Award in the category "Dramatic Series: Best Lead Performance - Male" for his performance in the episode, whilst Teryl Rothery was nominated for a Leo Award in the category "Dramatic Series: Best Supporting Performance - Female" for her performance as Dr. Janet Fraiser in the episode.

Plot

While exploring an alien planet, SG-1 finds a crashed alien space ship and onboard they discover hundreds of people frozen in stasis pods. Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) orders a headcount and the team split up. Soon Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) discovers a pod that has failed, when suddenly a bright burst of energy courses throughout the ship knocking SG-1 unconscious. Teal'c (Christopher Judge) recovers first and then soon locates O'Neill and Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) who are both fine, however they soon locate Jackson who is hysterical upon seeing his teammates. The team bring Jackson back to Stargate Command, where he becomes enraged and claims that he is the Sovereign of Talthus, and that his name is in fact Martice. Dr. Janet Fraiser (Teryl Rothery) conducts an EEG of Jackson which suggests he is in a coma whilst a number of personalities now appear to inhabit his body.

Through the different personalities, Dr. Fraiser learns that the people they found are passengers of a ship called Stromos, which was bound for a world called Ardena. One of the personalities belonging to a young and fearful boy named Keenin explains that they boarded the ship to escape the destruction of their homeworld. Another personality, Tryan, who is one of the ships engineers tells them that the passengers are stored in a cyrosleep and that each persons consciousness has been uploaded to a memory module to avoid deteriorating during the long voyage. He also informs Dr. Fraiser that there is no way to separate the cryosleeper from its consciousness or send it to any other than its corresponding body — unless that person dies. Believing that someone may have awoken from cyrosleep and caused this, Carter and Teal'c head back to the crashed Stromos to search for the guilty party.

On board the Stromos, Teal'c captures Pharrin (James Parks), who tells Teal'c and Carter that he was awoken from cyrosleep after the ship crashed. With the ship, including its cyrosleep pods and memory module are all losing power Pharrin decided to bypass its safety failsafes and confesses to using Daniel as a lifeboat to host some of the souls once stored in the ships memory. He also reveals that he too is hosting a number of other passengers in order to keep them alive. Carter offers Pharrin help in powering their ship and saving their race in exchange for restoring Daniel, but Pharrin informs them that his own son, Keenin is now being kept alive in Daniel Jackson.

Back at Stargate Command, Pharrin has agreed to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save his people, restoring Daniel Jackson and permanently removing the other souls from inside of him. However, the Sovereign Martice comes to the forefront of Daniel's body and orders Pharrin not to make any sacrifice. The personalities controlling Daniel shift again, and Pharrin's son Keenin emerges and the two are able to share a final goodbye. Daniel is taken to the Stromos and Pharrin restores him, with Pharrin taking the souls into his own mind. The ship restored, they can continue their journey to a new world.

Production

Development and writing

Series co-creator and former executive producer Brad Wright made the decision during the shows sixth season that should the show be picked up for a seventh, he would take a "sabbatical" in order to continue developing a potential spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis, making Robert C. Cooper as executive producer. After SG-1 was renewed, Wright sat in on early meetings for the seventh season, but soon left his office at The Bridge Studios, limiting his involvement to just phoning Cooper "almost daily - or at least a few times each week" which Wright described as "almost a courtesy call to let me know what was going on, as much as it was for the occasional piece of advise". Wright did however want to pen "a few episodes", which would ultimately end up being "Lifeboat" and the season finale "Lost City", which he co-wrote with Cooper. Originally referred to as "Voices", Wright had first outlined the idea for the episode in 2002 during the writing of the shows sixth season, however the absence of Michael Shanks, who had left the shows main cast, meant that the episode was shelved. Co-producer and writer Joseph Mallozzi explained "because of the type of story it was, it only worked with the Daniel character, which was why when Daniel came back, Brad dusted off the pitch and wrote the script", with it eventually being retitled to "Lifeboat".

In the episode, twelve different personalities are downloaded into Daniel Jackson's (Michael Shanks) body, three of which are concentrated on: Tryan, who is a loyal engineer on board the Stromos, Martice - the Sovereign leader, and Keenin - who is a young boy. Shanks wanted to make sure all of the different characters he would portray were "clearly defined" as "structurally, they all had to be certain extremities", however the schedule constraints of the show meant Shanks did not have much time in order to flesh the characters out. In order to make the different characters stand out, Shanks used a number of different methods in constructing his performances, looking to "attach a recognisable quirk or trait to each of them" as well as borrowing "from other different shows that I had watched". Shanks initial idea for playing Martice was based around Ralph Fiennes depiction of Amon Göth in the 1993 film Schindler's List, with Shanks giving the character a thick German accent. This was eventually changed more towards what Shanks described as a faux-British accent, inspired somewhat by Patrick Stewart. Tryan, the ships engineer was inspired by Jack Lemmon's character Jack Godell from the 1979 film The China Syndrome. For the character of Keenin, Shanks decided to base his performance on that of actor Ryan Drescher's, who would be portraying the character in flashback sequences. Shanks felt Drescher "had given such an interesting read" and studied his audition tapes, attempting to copy certain mannerisms that he was able to find in his performance and apply them to his own depiction of the character.

Teryl Rothery returns as Dr. Janet Fraiser. James Parks portrays the character of Pharrin and Ryan Drescher plays Keenin, who is Pharrin's son, both who are passengers on board the Stromos. Frequent background actor Dean Redman had originally been cast to portray Tryan, but had to pull out due to another job. According to director of the episode Peter DeLuise, this would have been Redman's first speaking role and that Redman was "mortified" that he could not do it, but DeLuise instead gave him a speaking role in the episode "Enemy Mine". DeLuise instead auditioned background actors on the day, reportedly by going from table to table during a lunch break, asking the extras to recite the line 'Compartment is secure, sir' in a Boston accent and eventually arriving at actor Travis Webster who DeLuise awarded the part to. Gary Jones and Dan Shea reprise their roles as technician and Siler. Kimberly Unger, Rob Hayter, Colin Corrigan and Fraser Aitcheson all portray Stargate Command personnel. Peter DeLuise cameos as a man in a status pod.

Design and filming

For the interior of the crashed alien spaceship Stromos, production designer Bridget McGuire explained "After doing a very stark Sci-Fi type of set in "Revisions", I wanted to go completely in the other direction and create a space that was more traditional and warm, almost Jules Verne-like". Originally, the Stromos interior was expected to feature far less, with only four pages of the script taking place there and only calling for a set wall that would be covered in suspended animation pods. After rewrites, around twelve pages of the script would take place on board the Stromos set, and therefore far more of the ship would need to be seen. In order to not have to build a far larger set, Rodrigo Segovia designed the pods on wheels, constructing around 20 pods total which could be easily moved into different configurations, to give the impression of different rooms and corridors on board the ship. Parts of the interior were then extended using matte paintings. Once background actors were put inside the pods DeLuise recalled that one extra had a panic attack from the enclosed space, whilst another fell asleep.

Whilst not usually the case, in order to help with Shanks' portrayal of multiple personalities DeLuise tried where possible to shoot the episode in chronological order. Richard Dean Anderson was not available for the majority of the episode due to his father passing away. In order to still feature Jack O'Neill, Anderson's stand-in Bill Nykolite was used where possible, whilst DeLuise limited his use of wider group shots. Filming had been otherwise completed by the time Anderson returned to work, with the rest of the cast moving on to other episodes, therefore DeLuise filmed all of Anderson's scenes separately so he could be inserted into the episode. Where possible, DeLuise had cast members return to read with Anderson, however most of Anderson's scenes were filmed either alone or with stand-ins. As so much of the episode would take place in a single observation room on the Stargate Command set at The Bridge Studio and feature just the characters of Daniel Jackson and Janet Fraiser, DeLuise considered it a difficult episode to shoot. In order to "make it interesting for the viewer" DeLuise, who would normally spend much more time blocking but instead allowed Shanks and Rothery to move around the set much more freely, with DeLuise keeping the camera locked on them. DeLuise and Director of Photography Peter Woeste also opted to light just the actors in the observation room scene, giving the impression of a dark, black room. DeLuise had Teryl Rothery play some of her scenes with Michael Shanks in different ways. In one take, Rothery described having "Janet blow her stack, which is quite rare because she is usually very contained and in control", whilst in other takes were not as heated. For some of the shots of characters watching Daniel Jackson and Janet Fraiser from the observation rooms gallery, DeLuise took influence from the film The Rock, panning from a live video feed of Jackson and Fraiser on a monitor, to the characters in the room itself. For some of the most abrupt, rapid personality changes between that Michael Shanks was portraying, DeLuise took inspiration for his filming and editing from the way Gollum/Sméagol was sometimes shown in The Lord of the Rings film series, making quick, close-up cuts between camera angles.

Release

Broadcast and ratings

The episode was first broadcast on July 18, 2003, on the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States, earning a Nielson rating of 1.7 and remained the networks highest-rated program. The episode was first syndicated on US television on January 3, 2005, where it earned a 2.0 household rating, attracting approximately 2.2 million viewers. In the United Kingdom the episode was first shown on Sky One on November 3, 2003, attracting 670,000 viewers and was the channels seventh most popular program that week. The episode was first syndicated to Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2004, attracting 1.975 million viewers. In Canada, the episode was first shown on Space on October 14, 2004.

Reception

Reviewing for About.com, Julia Houston called the episode "certainly enjoyable, if a little forgettable", applauding what she felt was a return to a more "classic" style SG-1 episode of "visiting planets and having adventures". Houston praised the episode for centering "nicely on Daniel Jackson in a role that lets Michael Shanks show off his impressive range", but felt it was similar to the season two episode "Holiday", as well as the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Masks". Jan Vincent-Rudzki for TV Zone praised Michael Shanks acting performance in the episode, but was critical of the lack of urgency displayed "despite the fact that there seems to be a time limit on how long these 'souls' can stay in Daniel". Vincent-Rudzki awarded the episode 6 out of 10.

Chris Allcock of Den of Geek hailed Michael Shanks performance in the episode, calling it a "tour de force for the actor to showcase his dramatic range", going on to also praise Teryl Rothery who he believed "more than rises to the challenge of matching Shanks's performance". Allcock placed the episode 18th on his list of the 25 Best Episodes of Stargate SG-1, writing "this episode stands tall on the strength of its talent, rather than its script or ideas". WhatCulture noted "Lifeboat" as one of the "stand-out episodes" of the season. Writing for Tor.com, Keith R.A. DeCandido negatively received the episode, writing "like “Legacy” in season 3, spends too much time as an acting exercise for Michael Shanks and not enough as an interesting story". Writing for Starburst, although David Richardson noted the premise was a "sci-fi cliché" he enjoyed the episode, proclaiming that it "boasts superb work from Shanks".

Writing for Stargate fansite Gateworld, Ali Snow acknowledged that whilst using possession as a storytelling device was something the show had frequently explored, he felt this episode was "far more poignant" than previous stories. Snow praised the "superbly handled" performances of Michael Shanks and Teryl Rothery, although did feel that some of the split personality scenes were "a bit overdone".

Actor Michael Shanks, who portrays Dr. Daniel Jackson won the Leo Award for "Dramatic Series: Best Lead Performance - Male" for his performance in the episode. Other nominees for the category included Matthew Bennett for his performance in Cold Squad, as well as Nicolas Campbell, Ian Tracey and Donnelly Rhodes for their performances in Da Vinci's Inquest. Teryl Rothery was also nominated for "Best Supporting Performance by a Female" in the 2004 Leo Awards for her performance as Dr. Janet Fraiser in the episode, with Carly Pope winning the award for her performance on The Collector.

Home media

"Lifeboat", along with the episodes "Revisions", "Enemy Mine" and "Space Race" were first released on Region 2 DVD on March 8, 2004, as part of the "Volume 33" standalone disc, before being released as part of the Season 7 boxset on October 19, 2004. The episodes audio commentary is provided by director Peter DeLuise and director of photography Peter Woeste.

The episodes along with the rest of season 7 were first made available digitally in January 2008 through iTunes and Amazon Unbox. The episode, along with every other episode of the series, were made available to stream for the first time through Netflix in the USA on August 15, 2010. The episode, along with the rest of the series has been upscaled for releases on various streaming platforms and the 2020 Blu-ray release.

Further reading

• Mind uploading in fiction
• Human possession in science fiction
• Suspended animation in fiction

References

1. "SG-1 considering seventh season". Gateworld. 19 July 2002. Archived from the original on 21 October 2002.
2. Wright, Brad (2002). "Ask the Producers". Gateworld. Archived from the original on 16 October 2002.
3. Wright, Brad (November 2003). "Lucky Seven". SFX (Interview). No. 110. Interviewed by Paul Simpson. p. 75. ISSN 1749-6969. The shows co-creator and executive producer, Brad Wright has been away from the lot on a regular basis this season, his role on a day-to-day basis taken by Robert C. Cooper.
4. Wright, Brad (November 2003). "Lucky Seven". SFX (Interview). No. 110. Interviewed by Paul Simpson. p. 76. ISSN 1749-6969. I wanted to make sure that I did keep that promise, so I helped in making the first batch of episodes in the sense that I sat in on the early staff meetings. But then, they were so under control, it was just a simple matter of me saying that if I came in too often, I'd be stepping on people's toes.
5. Wright, Brad (November 2003). "Lucky Seven". SFX (Interview). No. 110. Interviewed by Paul Simpson. pp. 75–76. ISSN 1749-6969. I've stayed involved, and I've stayed in touch," he explains. "Robert and I talked almost daily - or at least a few times each week - so I could find out what was going on. He's so capable of taking care of things that it was almost a courtesy call to let me know what was going on, as much as it was for the occasional piece of advise.
6. Wright, Brad (November 2003). "Lucky Seven". SFX (Interview). No. 110. Interviewed by Paul Simpson. p. 76. ISSN 1749-6969. Agreeing that maintaining the correct distances has been "a bit of a dance", Wright adds, "I made sure I wrote a few episodes." In fact when SFX visited Stargate at the start of the year, Wright was gleefully discussing his upcoming episode "Lifeboat" with the cast down on the studio floor. "I wrote that, and Robert and I co-wrote the two-parter that finishes the season."
7. Mallozzi, Joseph (7 December 2002). "Chat Transcript". Gateworld. Archived from the original on 8 February 2003.
8. Mullie, Paul; Mallozzi, Joseph (May 2003). "Write and Centre". Dreamwatch. No. 104. Interviewed by Sharon Gosling. Titan Magazines. pp. 24–25. ISSN 1356-482X. After episode six there will be an episode called Voices, written by Brad Wright. Even though he's not with us, he's with us in spirit - and hopefully in script as well soon! That's another stand-alone, where the team goes off-world and discovers a dormant civilisation in 'cyro-sleep'. In trying to wake them we create a situation, and the character of Daniel Jackson will be front and centre of that episode.
9. Cooper, Robert C.; Smith, John; Mullie, Paul; Kindler, Damian; Mallozzi, Joseph (June 2003). "Seventh Heaven". TV Zone. No. Special 52. Interviewed by Steven Eramo. Visual Imagination. pp. 12–13. ISSN 0960-8230. Last season, Brad Wright had an idea for a story that was going to be a vehicle for the Daniel Jackson character. Because Daniel wasn't around, the story was shelved. However, with Michael Shanks back this year, it was dusted off and Wright penned the script for Lifeboat. "SG-1 come across a crashed ship during an off-world mission," says Joe Mallozzi. "Inside the ship they find a number of stasis chambers containing the entire crew and its passengers. A few of the chambers have been dam:1ged and the people are dead. The rest, however, are still alive and in suspended animation. Suddenly, the team is knocked unconscious. Teal'c recovers first, followed by Major Carter and O'Neill. When Daniel wakes up he freaks out and starts screaming to be brought back to the SGC. Once back there, Dr Fraiser discovers that 12 different personalities now reside in Daniel's brain. There's no way they can be removed without destroying them, so it's a big dilemma for our heroes. Michael Shanks really got to stretch himself as an actor by playing all these different personalities and he did a terrific job.
10. Mallozzi, Joseph (20 May 2011). "May 20, 2011: Transporter: The Series Casting News! V1 Jets President Andrew Zarrow Comes Through! Stargate: SG-1 Season 7 Memories!". josephmallozzi.com.
11. Mallozzi, Joseph (2003). "SEASON SEVEN PREVIEW". Stargate SG-1 Explorer Unit (Mailing list). Interviewed by Kate Ritter. Archived from the original on 3 August 2004. Lifeboat was a story that Brad wanted to tell last year, but because of the type of story it was, it only worked with the Daniel character, which was why when Daniel came back, Brad dusted off the pitch and wrote the script. This is another fun stand-alone, and sort of a tour de force for the Daniel character. In particular, Michael Shanks gets to show off his acting range. The team goes off-world and they discover a crashed ship, and within the crashed ship are just hundreds and hundreds of people in stasis. As they're checking out the ship, they're knocked unconscious. Teal'c wakes up and discovers that O'Neill and Carter have been moved, and discovers Daniel lying at the foot of one of the stasis chambers. He wakes up, screaming he doesn't know who the heck Teal'c is. They bring him back to the SGC, and it turns out that he has maybe a dozen personalities that have been downloaded into his body, and the Daniel consciousness has been basically buried beneath all these other personalities that are vying for control of his body. It's an interesting episode. It reminds me a little bit of Unnatural Selection. It's one thing I've always said about the Brad Wright scripts, when he pitches them out I think, my God, it's just such a talky script, how is he going to make that an interesting hour of television? And Unnatural Selection was one of my favorites of last year. Even though it was talky, it was a smart script, and it was always entertaining. And Lifeboat is the same way.
12. DeLuise, Peter (August 2003). "Gate Keepers". CFQ. Vol. 35, no. 4. Interviewed by Miwa Hirai. Mark Gottwald. p. 45. ISSN 0145-6032. Director-writer Peter DeLuise worked on the episode "Lifeboat." "We find this crowded ship with a genetic chamber full of bodies in it," he describes. "A bunch of personalities get downloaded into Daniel's head and he becomes kind of frantic. His life is in jeopardy and they're very afraid of losing him. Daniel's in a big, black room with Dr. Fraiser, who tries counselling him. Twelve different identities are in Daniel's head, but we are concentrating on four: a little boy, a very sophisticated leader, a crewman and a slightly Nordic passenger and Daniel himself." DeLuise says "Lifeboat" was equally challenging visually, but for distinctly different reasons. "We didn't have a bunch of spaceships or explosions," he says "It's just a character study. It's completely, totally dependent on Michael's ability to portray the characters, that have been downloaded into Daniel's head. It just speaks to how much trust we have in Michael's acting ability, and he did a wonderful job.
13. Shanks, Michael (June 2003). "Fall from Grace". TV Zone (Interview). No. Special 52. Interviewed by Steven Eramo. Visual Imagination. pp. 37–38. ISSN 0960-8230. Michael Shanks gets to flex his acting muscles with the episode Lifeboat in which Daniel Jackson is suffering from a severe case of multiple personalities. "Brad Wright , bless his heart, knew l really wanted something to sink my teeth into," says the actor. "So he gave me pretty much the most challenging episode I could've ever imagined doing, next to Holiday back in the second season. In Lifeboat, a number of personalities - all of whom are experiencing physical and psychological stress - are suddenly transferred into Daniel's brain. I then had to play scenes in which one or more of these personalities interact with each other at the same time. "Talk about a complete mindbender," jokes Shanks. "It was certainly something to wrap one's head around, and it was a big challenge given the time constraints of TY. We had to make sure certain things were done in order for all the characters to be clearly defined. It was tough going but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whether or not I pulled it off is another matter. I'll have to decide that when l actually watch the episode. Regardless, it's always nice to be given the chance to do something you've never tried to do before. Believe me, I learnt a lot."
14. Shanks, Michael (2005). "Dr. Daniel Jackson". "Stargate SG-1: The Illustrated Companion: Seasons 7 and 8" (Interview). Interviewed by Thomasina Gibson. London: Titan Publishing Group. p. 105. ISBN 1840239344. I really enjoyed, as an actor, working on 'Lifeboat'. In hindsight, I would say that being on a television schedule I wasn't happy with most of what I did. In the editing room, once it was all done I just sort of rolled my eyes and went 'Oy! Boy Oh Boy!', but I certainly enjoyed the opportunity, and that Brad Wright had the confidence in me to write that script. I enjoyed the play of it but I wish I had, oh I don't know, maybe another six months to develop the characters and flesh them out and bring them to life.
15. Shanks, Michael (August 2003). "Back to the Gate". CFQ. Vol. 35, no. 4. Interviewed by Miwa Hirai. Mark Gottwald. p. 45. ISSN 0145-6032. Shanks cities writer Brad Wright's script for 'Life Boat' as a particularly challenging story to play. "I think five different personalities get downloaded from a computer into Daniel's head and get trapped inside his body," the actor says. "It required a lot of preparation. How I played that was to take different archetypes, personalities that I saw on the page, and attach a recognisable quirk or trait to each of them. You try to make the character your own, find a trigger to it.
16. Michael, Shanks (12 January 2004). "Interview with Michael Shanks". Sci Fi Overdrive. Business Talk Radio. Michael Shanks: Sci Fi Overdrive Transcript on Stargate Solutions. So I was very flattered that Brad Wright trusted me enough to sort of throw this in my direction and that was, you know, that's very flattering and it's very humbling as well and you really wanna step up to the plate. Of course then there's that notion of most of the times when we get the finished scripts about four or five days before it actually goes to camera, So, needless to say when you're busy working and you're about to start that next episode and you're reading through the script and you're going 'How the hell am I going to do this?' And what I usually do is, especially with characters like that is, I just start grasping at a few extremes, try to figure out what the writer wants and what kind of caricatures if you will, will suit the roles best and then try and get specific with those caricatures and then as you go along you keep trying to make it more and more specific and more and more unique as you go and sometimes what always ends up happening, especially with me, I always end up looking at the end result and going, yeah it could have been better, it could have been better. But it's still so much fun to do and it's a great challenge and it's very unique. But once you've done it, I guarantee you, I remember saying the day I finished that episode, going, ok I'm very happy now. Let's go back and do my exposition and talk about mythology and play with my pencils at the briefing room table. That's it, I'm happy to do that all over again.
17. ^ Shanks, Michael (29 April 2004). "A Dynamic Journey". rdanderson.com. Interviewed by Kate Ritter.
18. Shanks, Michael (21 August 2009). Chicago 2009: Michael Shanks - New Stories, No Socks. The Official Stargate SG-1 Atlantis Convention 2009. O'Hare International Airport, Chicago.
19. Shanks, Michael (2005). "Lifeboat". "Stargate SG-1: The Illustrated Companion: Seasons 7 and 8" (Interview). Interviewed by Thomasina Gibson. London: Titan Publishing Group. p. 24. ISBN 1840239344. Those transitions were hard, but it's so much fun when you finally see it on the screen. We shot the script in sequence, which is very rare in any production. But it meant that as I was building the characters, the arc of the characters was being built organically. That was a really positive thing. There are two actors whom we get to see in flashback. For the little boy, I took a tape of him home and studied. He's got the biggest brownest eyes in the whole world, and sort of this 'thing' he does with his body - so I took those mannerisms, and what you see is my interpretation of an actual young actor. Then the other actor we see has one line, which was filmed after I had started to create his character. I was doing kind of a tranatlantic accent, which wasn't quite North-American and wasn't English. Bless Peter DeLuise, he said, 'OK, I'll get this actor to do a little bit of an accent to connect the dots with yours.' That's just one example of how everyone was very supportive of me, and let me have enough independence of creation. I was excited about it, and that level of freedom really benefited the whole acting process."
20. DeLuise, Peter (August 2003). "The Primed Director". TV Zone. No. 166. Visual Imagination. p. 53. ISSN 0957-3844. We had this child actor who played one of the personalities that is downloaded into Daniel's brain in Lifeboat. I asked our casting people to find someone with gigantic eyes and they hired the cutest little kid. We watched this child's audition and he had these long slow blinks and kind of nodded his head in a very innocent way. He also had these eyebrows that were all the way up to his hairline because he was so, wide-eyed. In the episode ·we did a big close-up of this child when his character was being asked a question. Like most young children he didn't just say. 'Yes,' but also nodded his head up and down from north to south. He was terrific,' smiles Deluise." So Michael Shanks had to personify this little kid and copy his various idiosyncrasies for his performance. It was a huge help to the viewers in figuring out which personality they were dealing with in a particular scene. Once again, this episode was a tour de force acting extravaganza for Michael.
21. ^ "Lifeboat". scifi.com. Archived from the original on 15 April 2004.
22. ^ DeLuise, Peter; Peter, Woeste (2 February 2004). Stargate SG-1 "Lifeboat" (DVD commentary). Vol. 33. MGM Home Entertainment.
23. ^ DeLuise, Peter (2005). "Lifeboat". "Stargate SG-1: The Illustrated Companion: Seasons 7 and 8" (Interview). Interviewed by Thomasina Gibson. London: Titan Publishing Group. pp. 24–25. ISBN 1840239344. The Process of getting an actor to complement Shank's accent was less than straightforward, though it was highly amusing and ended up rewarding all concerned. Peter DeLuise explains: "An actor called Dean Redman was supposed to be in 'Lifeboat', as one of the officers on the sleeper ship. He was supposed to say, "Compartment is secure, sir," with a Boston accent, which was kind of the accent was doing for the character. Dean called me, mortified and horrified that he had a speaking role, finally, but wasn't going to be able to show up because he had this other job. He was like 'Oh man! Is there anything we can do?' I said, 'Don't worry about it. I'll replace you with one of the guys here.'" Laughing at the memory he swears, "This is the first tine I've ever done this... I went from table to table at lunch auditioning guys who were already in the outfit. I'd walk up and I'd go, 'Say 'Compartment is secure, sir' and they'd go 'What?' and they wipe off their mouths and ask, 'Why do you want me to say that?' and I'd go 'Just say it'. So the poor guys are wiping their mouths and saying 'Compartment is secure, sir.' And I'm going, 'No! That not it...' Finally, one guy was able to say it the way we wanted, and it actually worked out great, because he needed one more credit to get his union card. He was thrilled to get the job, and so were we, because Michael Shank's character and his officer had the same accent." But what about Dean Redman? "Well, he ended up getting this much bigger part as Lieutenant Woest in 'Enemy Mine'." A success all around then.
24. ^ McGuire, Bridget; Robbins, James; Bodnarus, Peter (June 2003). "The Art Department". TV Zone Stargate SG-1 Season 7 Special. No. Special 52. Visual Imagination. pp. 67–68. ISSN 0960-8230. Next was an episode called Lifeboat," she continues. "In it, we have a spaceship full of people in suspended animation. After doing a very stark Sci-Fi type of set in Revisions, I wanted to go completely in the other direction and create a space that was more traditional and warm, almost Jules Verne-like. This was one of those stories where originally we were just going to need a wall. That became a corridor and then more and more. The suspended animation pods were built in banks and then put on wheels so that they could be easily moved around the set. There was a centre core area that all the pods fit nearly together in but then they could also be lined up to create the feeling of a corridor. Rodrigo did a beautiful job designing the pods. The set itself wasn't that big but I think by using the pieces the way they did it's going to look substantial on the screen.
25. ^ Segovia, Rodrigo (2005). "Production Design". "Stargate SG-1: The Illustrated Companion: Seasons 7 and 8" (Interview). Interviewed by Thomasina Gibson. London: Titan Publishing Group. p. 135. ISBN 1840239344. Segovia also designed the pods on 'Lifeboat': "That was another example of where we as a team ended up with something bigger and (hopefully) better than originally sought. Bridget's idea was to create a Jules Verne-type ambiance, especially with the suspended animation pods. Originally all the script called for was a wall, then that became a corridor and eventually we put a bank of pods on some wheels, so they could be moved to fit wherever the camera needed. So sometimes they fit neatly together in a central core area, but they could also be stretched out to create the illusion of a corridor.
26. DeLuise, Peter (August 2003). "The Primed Director". TV Zone. No. 166. Visual Imagination. p. 51. ISSN 0957-3844. Stargate SG-1 co-creator and former executive producer Brad Wright wrote Lifeboat, the next episode directed by Deluise. In it, the personalities of 12 very different people are downloaded into Daniel's brain. "There's a Sybil-type of thing going on with Daniel in this story," says the actor/director. "It's a big testament to Brad's faith in Michael Shanks's ability as an actor. As a director, it was a difficult episode for me to shoot because there were a number of scenes with just two people in a room. To make it interesting for the viewer I decided to keep the camera locked on the actors and then let them move around however they wanted. Usually I'm much more rigorous when blocking a scene but in this case I had to change my tactics. I was very pleased with how it turned out. Luckily, Michael is a trained stage actor so he's used to performing quite a lot of material in one go.
27. Rothery, Teryl (June 2003). "Strong Medicine". TV Zone (Interview). No. Special 52. Interviewed by Steven Eramo. Visual Imagination. pp. 55–57. ISSN 0960-8230. There's a wonderful episode this season called Lifeboat that was written by Brad Wright. In it, you literally see Janet blow her stack. We shot the scene a couple of different ways. One take wasn't so heated but there was one where she really does lose it. That's never happened before and if they keep it in we'll get to see another side of my character.
28. Rothery, Teryl (2005). "Dr. Janet Fraiser". "Stargate SG-1: The Illustrated Companion: Seasons 7 and 8" (Interview). Interviewed by Thomasina Gibson. London: Titan Publishing Group. p. 123. ISBN 1840239344. You get to see the many facets of Janet at one go in 'Lifeboat'. She's grounded, yet driven, passionate and compassionate. You see Janet blow her stack, which is quite rare because she is usually very contained and in control. But given what was at stake - Daniel - she was totally determined to fight for 'her man', as it were.
29. "RATINGS: 'Lifeboat'". Gateworld. 11 August 2003. Archived from the original on 16 April 2004.
30. "Ratings: 'Lifeboat' in syndication". Gateworld. 28 January 2005. Archived from the original on 15 February 2005.
31. "STARGATE SG-1 RATINGS: SEASON SEVEN". Stargate SG-1 Solutions. 24 April 2004.
32. "Channel 4 (SD+HD) w/e 3 Oct 2004". Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. 17 October 2004.
33. "TV Focus". TV Zone. No. 182. Visual Imagination. October 2004. p. 95. ISSN 0957-3844.
34. "Listings for Thursday, October 14, 2004". Spacecast. 14 October 2004. Archived from the original on 10 December 2004.
35. Houston, Julia (22 July 2003). "Stargate's "Lifeboat" Neither Sinks nor Swims". About.com. Archived from the original on 30 June 2004.
36. Vincent-Rudzki, Jan (August 2003). "Reviews: Stargate SG-1 - Season 7 "G6 Lifeboat"". TV Zone. No. 167. Visual Imagination. p. 70. ISSN 0957-3844. First off, Michael Shanks does well portraying diverse characters. Each is 'brought alive' by a combination of voice changes and mannerisms. Somehow, though, despite the fact that there seems to be a time limit on how long these 'souls' can stay in Daniel there seems little urgency in the episode. Perhaps most surprising is that Sam, Teal'c and O'Neill seem quite ready to condemn the people inside Daniel to death to get him back. Yet they don't blink an eye when those same people are prepared to sacrifice themselves to return Daniel and so enable the rest of their people to use the Stargate to travel to a new world. Surely this is the point at which Daniel would be seething with moral outrage? The fact that it turns out OK in the end doesn't excuse their reaction. The best line, though, has to be when Daniel has been acting very oddly, and Teal'c solemnly declares, "This is not Daniel Jackson!" Brilliant! 6
37. Allcock, Chris (31 October 2018). "25 Best Stargate SG-1 Episodes". Den of Geek.
38. Greenwell, Alastair (3 December 2020). "Stargate: Every Series And Movie Ranked Worst To Best". WhatCulture.
39. DeCandido, Keith R.A. (15 May 2015). "The Stargate Rewatch: SG-1 Season Seven". Tor.com. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
40. Richardson, David (March 2004). "Reviews: DVDs - Stargate SG-1 Volume 33". Starburst. No. 308. p. 84. ISSN 0955-114X. In Lifeboat SG-1 stumble across a crashed ship, and before you can say sci-fi cliché they uncover a crew in suspended animation. But it's uphill from there, as multiple personalities are downloaded into Daniels brain, and he goes a bit Gollum; the episode boasts superb work from Shanks.
41. Alli Snow; Lex (2003). "Lifeboat Review". Gateworld.
42. ^ "LEO AWARDS 2004 Nominees - Dramatic Series". LEO Awards. 2004. Archived from the original on 20 August 2004.
43. ^ "LEO AWARDS 2004 Winners". LEO Awards. 2004. Archived from the original on 17 August 2004.
44. ^ McCusker, Eamonn (8 June 2004). "Stargate SG-1: Volume 33 Review". The Digital Fix. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
45. "Season Seven gates to DVD!". Gateworld. 19 October 2004. Archived from the original on 4 February 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
46. "Stargate expands iTunes, Amazon presence". Gateworld. 11 January 2008. Archived from the original on 15 January 2008. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
47. "Entire Stargate television library now streaming on Netflix". Gateworld. 16 August 2010. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
48. "Stargate's HD Blu-ray Picture: Better Than The DVDs?". GateWorld. 1 March 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021.

External links

• "Lifeboat" at IMDb
• "Lifeboat" at the official MGM Stargate site.
• "Lifeboat" at scifi.com
• "Lifeboat" screenplay (PDF)
• "Lifeboat" at the fansite Gateworld.net

• Stargate SG-1 episodes
• 2003 American television episodes