We also petitioned members of the TITAN FORUM to submit questions we could ask Gary because he was tired of the ones we had. Here is the transcript of that interview...

TITAN NEWS:   Would you like to dive right into the Forum questions, or shall we work up to that?

But I felt we had to explore and establish a lot of characters, agendas and conflict before getting to the meat of this story. The FINN of it, if you will. You don't initiate a full-scale Peace Keeping mission because one kid faces off against a family of homesteaders. But if this were an episode of Television we'd have to do that, and then come back from commercial just implying the rest.

The problem with too many of the shows that attempt season wide story arcs is that they forget to provide for the infrequent viewer, the person who might not arrive until episode three, or who misses episode four and five for whatever reason. If they aren't made comfortable that they can pick up the story line without having missed too much then they give up on the show and you've lost someone you could've retained.

And since most shows are interupted by month long breaks at least twice a season that's a very dangerous thing to do. People have too many demands on their time and brain-power to retain all the subtlies in a multi-episode story arc on a TV show.

It wasn't because so many people were watching, because at first that wasn't true. And even when it was the numbers continued to increase. No matter how good the talk at work was we're talking a game where each week there are fewer players, huge bits of the "story" is done, never to be repeated. So how is it people were able to come in, even in week ten, and start watching?

Well, they couldn't unless each episode had it's own story arc, it's own beginning, middle and end. And it does. That's the brilliance of Mark Burnett (Survivor creator), you could start with any SURVIVOR, even the final episode, the two hour finale and still get not only what's happened but follow what's coming up. They have one of the best recap formulas on television, but even without that they re-introduce excellently, and most importantly each show has its own arc.

Survivor, The Amazing Race, any good "reality show" is inherantly episodic. It drives me crazy that some reality shows can do episodic television better than most narrative series do!

Every story, with the exception of one or two "two-parters", is completely episodic. They stand alone. To ensure this we arbitrarily move the sequence around in the year just to make sure. The final three episodes of each season build to a conclusion, a climax. Not a cliffhanger but a resolution. That way each season stands as its own "book".

When we adapt Season One to novel form it will be called TALES OF THE ASTRAL CORPS, season two will be called TALES OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, and so on.

And I love it when characters are forced to try their normalcy in a place or circumstance where it won't fit right, at least not at first. It's why the good Kirk to the Mirror Universe is such an great story.

But our stories are like dressing up for the weather, the style adapts to the needs of the story just as you dress differently for rain than you do snow. I think TOBC demonstrates that very well. AZIMUTH, BUREAUCRACY and CALGARY were one type of story. They fit well together, but DAM and EQUUS have a different tempo and tone. They're definitely part of the same over-all arc, but they're different. You see?

Personally, I don't think it matters. The performances in SHUTTLEDOWN make it worthwhile regardless, but for some people knowing certain outcomes, one way or the other, make the story less enjoyable. Each reader will have to decide for themselves what their tolerances are. I guarantee though, if you've read FINESE and GUILT you'll have information that would help you figure out the twist in the SHUTTLEDOWN story.

So we're meeting with people. We're meeting with broadcasters and we're meeting with production companies. We've been able to pitch to some pretty big players in the past year. Some are too heavily invested in other projects to go ahead with something this size, others are scared of the budget, but those are people who think you have to have ground breaking visuals to make sci-fi.

But any effects are going to look odd in five years because the bar is always shifting and worse still, certain companies are defining a 'look' that isn't necessarily better, or more realistic, but because its so prelevant any other look seems out of place.

Fact is real sci-fi isn't about the effects; its about the story and the characters, its about the ideas. All an effect is suppose to do is short hand the audience visually so they know what is going on. I haven't seen a single movie in the last three years that didn't have cheesy effects, even STAR WARS blew it with cartoony long shots of Jedi fighting or blurry moments that just blow the illusion. But then my eye is trained for that. Maybe other people look at these shows and think they're flawless, either way I guarantee you that in five years even the best of them is going to look pretty cheesy by comparison to what's out there at the time.

One of the episodes in the recent Dr. Who series made a simple mistake. They had these aliens who were somewhat goofily menacing when the actors were in costume. I bought the premise, forgave the bobbling heads, I was fine with it. Premise sold.

Then during a chase they cut to a CGI version of these same aliens chasing our heroes, only this time they're moving with the fluid grace of a Velocaraptor from Jurassic Park. It destroyed the illusion for me. Why? Because it wasn't consistent with the rest of the show.

As long as all the effects match then the viewer will accept it, even if they're low budget, and that's the key. The audience will buy the conceit, so long as its consistent.

Which would benefit the Sci-Fi Channel more, ten original hours with a story that'll be watchable decades later, or one hour of kick-ass effects that'll look cheesy in a few years?

So some companies have passed on FSQ because they think the budget would be too high to even consider moving forward with and a few other companies just don't get the premise. But this is an industry of a thousand NO's, and one YES. All we need is the one YES. So we're just moving along to the next group, and then the group after that, and so on, and so on.

But the second thing is that we recently received a request from the holy grail of broadcasters to submit a copy of SHUTTLEDOWN for preview. We want to give them a chance to respond before releasing the copy. If they see the same potential we do, and initial responses are quite favourable, then we could see a lot of things happen very quickly. Fortunately we're ready.

Let's see if I can exlain. Each year hundreds of production companies submit proposals for thousands of series ideas. Each year all but a few get shot down.

We've also got the other talent needed to make these things happen without outside involvement. Our goal is always to deliver beyond expectations. But first and foremost we're idea people. Unlike most other companies we don't hide our ideas, we post them and TITANRAINBOW.COM is the place we post them.

And because we can, each year we develop many of these ideas to first draft of script. We do that for as many series as we can afford to while we're out there beating the bushes looking for deals to go further. Sometimes we sell the premise or plot of the story for another show, sometimes we don't, but we get meetings because the people we're pitching to know we've got an endless supply of ideas. And if we really like the idea we'll find ways to produce it ourselves.

Trust me, the sooner we release the DVD for SHUTTLEDOWN the sooner we're going to make our way up that second step.

Yes, starting with the second season on there will be many faster than light experiments in FSQ, there will also be Teleporter experiments and all sorts of other wonderful things. FINNEGAN'S SQUAD will become an elite force, assigned to protect the most sensitive of missions, and from time to time those will include experiements and research labs.

Are any of these experiments going to be successful? You'll have to wait and see.

It's all about the peril and each person's way of handling it. And most importantly we've got a real set of shockers for the final episode. One of our writers said it had a "24" (a FOX TV action series staring Keifer Sutherland) feeling to it. I tend to think it's got more of a "LOST" (an ABC TV drama) feeling to it. The best part is that production techniques developed for SHUTTLEDOWN will ensure we stay under budget.

So as we're working through stories we're seeing where something would be more dramtic if it was different. In the case of the ranks there was a sub-plot in TOBC that we wanted to explore and it was thought it would be more dramatic if a certain circumstance occurred, but that circumstance wouldn't make sense until the rank of GENERAL was at the same level as ADMIRAL.

Now, originally I wanted GENERALs equal to COMMANDERs and both reporting to ADMIRALs, because of the Fleet bias in the Network, but that meant you couldn't ever have a GENERAL of any variety telling an ADMIRAL what to do. Someone came up with a way to satisfy what I wanted and what the story needed so I gave the approval to change it.

Looking back we had to change it because of a line in SHUTTLEDOWN, which, because we have shot SHUTTLEDOWN is now cannon.

We went with Brigadier because I insisted the rank below FLAG OFFICER (ie ADMIRAL) on the Ground Ops side couldn't be a GENERAL but had to be higher than LEFTENANT COLONEL. After a lot of research we found the stand alone rank of BRIGADIER in a "know your Allies" booklet from World War II. It was visibly less than General even though commonly considered the most junior of General ranks now a days. I was satisfied we were following at least one historical precendent and so approved the change.

As for the cardboard cut-out of Malcolm, hold out for the real thing Sirona!