Jack Is Back!

Fans of the long-running science-fiction series, Stargate SG-1, will have two reasons to rejoice this summer: Richard Dean Anderson will reprise his role as Jack O’Neill, and Michael Shanks will be taking time off! Early reports indicate that the upcoming season could be its best in a long time!

On Tuesday, Anderson celebrated his return to Vancouver and the Stargate Universe for the taping of SG-1's 200th episode. Fans will know that Anderson led the SG-1 team and served as an executive producer for eight years on the series, helping to make it the record-breaking franchise that it is today. They will also know that, except for a couple of pithy cameos, he was absent from last season. As the beloved Jack O’Neill, Anderson was invaluable for his witty and deadpan ad-libs and as a foil for the increasingly smug presence of Michael Shanks.

Producers for the show explained that Anderson had steadily reduced his time commitments to the show over three years, in order to spend more time with his young daughter at home in California. He was asked to appear in the 200th episode and, during negotiations, Anderson offered to do a few more if the writers wanted to use his character to finish any unresolved storylines. In March, Anderson told his official Web site that he will appear in a total of five episodes for the franchise in the coming year. The show's former leading man will appear in additional episodes of SG-1's tenth year and will also guest star on the spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis, during its third season.

It is still unknown precisely how Anderson’s time will be divided between the two shows, but he makes his first appearance of the year in the SG-1’s 200th episode (appropriately titled “200"), which will air in August as the show’s sixth episode of the season. "200" will allow the cast and crew to work outside the traditional conventions of a Stargate episode while revisiting a comical storyline from the past—exactly 100 episodes ago. Thankfully, the show's producers report that Anderson's appearance in the episode will be more substantial than the brief appearances he made in season nine's "Avalon, Part 1" and "Origin."

Anderson’s co-star, Michael Shanks ("Daniel Jackson"), thrilled Stargate fans in January when he disclosed on his site that he will only appear in 16 of season ten's 20 episodes. Shanks will take off a couple of weeks in late March when his third child is born—a joyful occasion that will undoubtedly take his wife Lexa Doig ("Carolyn Lam") away from Stargate as well. Shanks also intends to take off a couple of weeks in the summer to spend time with his family. He speculated that with this schedule, he’ll probably miss the fourth and fifth episodes and two others in the season’s second half.