The Torri Higginson Question

[bionicbob]

Question one:

Why was Jessica Steen replaced by Torri Higginson?

Question two:

Why was Torri Higginson written out of Atlantis? And why did she not return for further guest appearances after "Let All My Sins Be Remembered"? It seemed pretty clear the writers had a larger story arc planned for her.

 

[Captain Shaw]

I have heard 2 rumors about Jessica Steen
1.she just did not want to do it.
2.She was going to have a child and could not do it.

Why was Torri Higginson written out of Atlantis? And why did she not return for further guest appearances after "Let All My Sins Be Remembered"? It seemed pretty clear the writers had a larger story arc planned for her.

Don't know the whole story here but i think the writers wanted Tapping so someone had to go.
And the reason she did not come back was because that big arc was i think just one episode she did not like so she chose not to do it.

 

[Kpnuts]

I actually think the writers and producers treated her like dirt (there's a surprise), similar to how they treated McGillion. Cluless fuckwits. But bigdaddy knows far more so he'll tell you.

With regards to Steen not playing Weir after Lost City. I'm not sure why she didnt, but I still think it was a BIG shame she didn't. Soooooo much more charisma, screen presence, and all round acting ability than Higginson, who was fine as Weir, but a bit meh. You believed Steen Weir was an international ambassador/diplomat who could speak a dozen languages... I never believed that about Higginson Weir.

 

[bigdaddy]

From what I remember Sheen didn't want a big part in a big show that would go on for years and years. Turns out the writers would have killed her off anyways. There were also rumours over money, but I'm pretty sure Sheen said the talks didn't even get to the money.

Torri Higginson was fired, no question about it. She had a 6 year deal, she moved from the USA to Canada just to do the show thinking she would be on it for the long run. However the writers desided to pull this shit out of there ass and she was shocked. She agreed to do a very more episodes, but then when the writers wanted a longer story arc (For season 5???) she pretty much went "Fuck you!" and wanted to move on with her life. If they were smart they would have used her in season 4 for the story arc they wanted to do instead of wastign half of that season on nothing.

 

[Broccoli]

Snippets from Higgison's first "after departure" interview at GateWorld:

I can tell you nothing. [Laughter] I wasn't a part of the decision, so I can tell you nothing about what their process was. I can hypothesize. To be honest, to be frank -- and I don't judge them for it -- I believe that there is a loyalty to the [SG-1] people and when they knew that show was ending they tried to find a way to keep the people they'd been loyal to for ten years alive, and I absolutely admire that. There is a lot of loyalty to this business. I think that's very great, and very gracious of them.

I think that my character -- we never found a place for her. I think everybody can take a bit of responsibility for that, obviously myself included. So yeah, I imagine that was it. They thought "here's this woman character that we're not really able to explore to her full right."

So many of the episodes I was just there in the background, which wasn't challenging for me. And I think they're going "Why are we paying this chick when she's only in for a couple of scenes?" You know what I mean? It made a lot of sense, I thought. That's how I hypothesize it. It makes a lot of sense for me.

---

Yeah. Atlantis is very challenging because they have a lot of regular characters. [SG-1] was really four main characters, and we had so many characters, and it was very challenging. Not only are they writing for two different shows now, and doing 40 shows a year, but one of these shows has eight regular characters. How do you honor all those stories? I think it did prove a little bit too much to chew off.

For me, I miss it. Obviously I miss it. It was such a wonderful place to work, and a wonderful environment, and beautiful actors. The crew was extraordinary. And the fan stuff, I'm still blown away by the amount of support.

For me, it's a good move because I would rather be somewhere and be working than dipping my toes in every once in a while. That's what I meant by it. It all worked out for the best. I think out of all the other characters as well it might've been a bit harder for them. Everybody understood that that would be the least painful.

And then GateWorld later ran this article that talks about here non-return in season 5:

"The very last day of filming Season Three, as I finished filming the last scene on the last day, I was called up to the office and was told that my character was going to become recurring if I chose to be," Higginson recently said in an interview with DTRN's "SciFi Guys" Internet radio program. "So, I thought that was not a very dignified way to deal with it, and I was a bit surprised. So my reaction was -- I was a little bit surprised. I was a little bit upset by how it was dealt with."

The producers, for their part, believed they were being gracious to Higginson. "Do you know how many actors find out their role on a show has been diminished or done away with?" Mallozzi wrote on his blog, in response to a fan question about Higginson's comments. "The season wraps, the actor leaves for hiatus, and then his or her contract isn't picked up. Their agent does the math for them. To many producers, this a much easier and less confrontational way of handling the situation which, obviously, lacks the professional courtesy and respect of a face-to-face meeting."

That should really go over the whole Higginson issue from the mouths of various individuals involved with the situation.

I disagree greatly with bigdaddy and Kpnuts on the idea that she was "treated like dirt". Yeah, it sucked that she was fired (and seemed to be a very last minute decision), but the producers handled it in a much more professional way than most others would in the business that is televison.

 

[Danny99]

The whole "we did it better than the rest" speech from Malozzi is pathetic and I really wish TPTB could see this.

Higginson was shafted because they wanted to bring Tapping in for an unnecessary swan song. Don't get me wrong, Tapping is very important to the Stargate franchise, but she had ten year run and her character had run its arc.

If the writers had given a rats ass about the character of Weir like they did about the Carter character, perhaps it would have been a better character.

 

[Jax]

Jessica didn't want to do it and am fine with Torri so don't care but I was annoyed by the writers/Producers on how they dumped Torri out of the show. I liked how the story went with Weir in season 4 & 5 but it was unfair on Torri so they should of come up with a better way of keeping her on show as a major recuring character during season 4 at least. Sam Carter should only have been recuring too and Woosley should of been introduced earlier he was good in season 5.

 

[bigdaddy]

Jessica didn't want to do it and am fine with Torri so don't care but I was annoyed by the writers/Producers on how they dumped Torri out of the show. I liked how the story went with Weir in season 4 & 5 but it was unfair on Torri so they should of come up with a better way of keeping her on show as a major recuring character during season 4 at least. Sam Carter should only have been recuring too and Woosley should of been introduced earlier he was good in season 5.

That's exactly how I feel. Even with killing her off the storyline they recreated was at least something for the character and they should have used that in season 4 a lot more than they did.

 

[Kpnuts]

The whole "we did it better than the rest" speech from Malozzi is pathetic and I really wish TPTB could see this.

Sorry but what is this speech you mention? When did he say it, and what was it about?

 

[Harvey]

It's quoted just a few post up in this thread, by Broccoli.

 

[Kpnuts]

D'oh, didn't read it correctly.

The whole "we did it better than the rest" speech from Malozzi is pathetic

The words pathetic and Mallozi go very well together.

I still find it amazing how he finds the time to write 20,000 words about food every single day in his blog... and be a full time script writer and producer of Stargate at the same time.

 

[Broccoli]

I still find it amazing how he finds the time to write 20,000 words about food every single day in his blog... and be a full time script writer and producer of Stargate at the same time.

Probably the same way full time working people some how find time to post and browse here on a daily basis for hours and/or blog as well.

 

[Barbados Slim]

In the hindsight department. Yes, Steen would've been a great Weir. Yes, Higginson was underutilized and an asset to the character dynamic of the show. Yes, getting rid of her was something from which the show never recovered. Yes, Carter was a bad fit for Atlantis. Yes, Woolsey was a good asset for Atlantis. And finally, yes Woolsey promptly got the Weir treatment by appearing in very few episodes and never getting his own episode (he got a B-plot once).

Higginson's excuse of 8 characters to service never holds up. Superior shows have far more to work with. BSG and DS9 had like 30 characters between main and recurring cast and the tertiary characters got attention. You learned enough about characters like Dualla and Athena and Helo and Tom Zarek on BSG or Damar and Garek and Martok and Keiko O'Brien on DS9. It's because they had small contributions to minor plot points and that's how you handle character development.

The problem was the breakdown of the stories. When you have so many characters you have to utilize B-plots. B-plots were rare on Atlantis. If Shep and Co. got lost on a planet, the entire episode was about that. That works on SG-1 when there's 4 people, but Atlantis needed to split episode time between characters when also serves to enrich the universe that they're creating.

This is not a new problem, it's the same thing that happened on Star Treks Voyager and Enterprise and why some characters like Chakotay and Hoshi got the shaft.

 

[Admiral_Young]

One of my problems with Atlantis is that the writers didn't seem to have a plan for the series. Just season to season with stand alone episodes built around a larger loose arc if you will. The first major casting change I guess would have been what happened to Rainbow Sun Franks and brining in Ronon who got developed better and used more. Was it ever explained why that change was made? The transition of command went from Weir to Carter to Woosley in two seasons....

 

[cylkoth]

The prevailing theory is that there was a 'make it more like SG1' directive, so a Teal'c clone had to be added, which meant subtracting the character they never bothered doing much with.