Season eight sees Tapping's Stargate alter ego, Samantha Carter, assuming the leadership of the legendary SG-1 team, following the appointment of Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) as the head of Stargate Command. Carter and O'Neill's new functions represent a radical change for Stargate SG-1, and were prompted by Richard Dean Anderson's reduced involvement in the long-running sci-fi series. After deciding to place Anderson's character, Jack O'Neill, in charge of the SGC as a way of dealing with his reduced availability, the show's producers elected to appoint his former right-hand woman, Sam Carter, as the leader of SG-1, which becomes a three-person team in O'Neill's absence.
How do you feel about Sam's new position?
Carter gets promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. She gets to go out and lead missions. I think it's played right. I wanted to see Carter take a leadership role where she didn't mess up, but where she handled the responsibility well and it wasn't about her being a woman. It was just about Carter being ready for this role.
How does Carter's relationship change with Dr Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) and Teal'c (Christopher Judge)?
The way I'm choosing to play it is that Carter may be in charge of SG-1 and of the other units that come out with them, but she still very much defers to the expertise of the people around her. She's still very much aware that Daniel's got this expertise and Teal'c's got that expertise, so she's not bossing the guys around! We never go out alone, we always take another SG unit with us, so she does get to do the Lieutenant Colonel bit. But she's just planning the missions and saying, 'OK, you guys go here, you guys go there and the three of us are off here.'
We you worried about the viewers response to seeing SH-1 without Jack O'Neill at the helm?
Logistically, it made more sense to have Rick become General O'Neill. I think in terms of ease of filming around Rick's schedule, it works better. O'Neill is still capable of coming out on missions with us if he so chooses, so he's still very much a part of the show. When the four of us are together it feels exactly the same. It just means that Chris, Michael and I are getting a bit more screen time, and that we're going out on missions without O'Neill. Fans got very freaked out that perhaps O'Neill wasn't going to be as big a part of the show, but O'Neill is still very much a part of Stargate SG-1.
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