Richard Dean Anderson returns in ’200’

Richard Dean Anderson needs no introduction to Stargate SG-1 audiences: He led the SG-1 team and served as an executive producer for eight years on the hit series, helping to make it the record-breaking franchise that it is today. Now, the "Jack O’Neill" actor is officially on board for a return appearance in the show’s tenth season.

Anderson will appear in the episode currently titled "200," which not coincidentally will air at the show’s 200th episode, this summer. "200" will allow the cast and crew to break outside the mold of the traditional Stargate episode while revisiting a comical storyline from the past — precisely 100 episodes ago, in fact.

The show’s former leading man will also guest star on Stargate Atlantis in Season Three, and will appear in additional episodes of SG-1’s tenth year.

Beware of minor spoilers below!

"We’ll see Willie Garson," executive producer Brad Wright told GateWorld exclusively. "He’s coming back. It’s sort of a full circle thing. The story, in short strokes, is Martin Lloyd has come to the S.G.C. because even though "Wormhole X-Treme!" was cancelled after three episodes, it did so well on DVD they’re making a feature. A little kiss to "Serenity" and Firefly, which was possibly one of the best cancelled series in history. And we’re the Air Force consultants on the script."

"Wormhole X-Treme!" premiered on September 8, 2001, as the 100th episode of SG-1. In the episode, Martin Lloyd (a human from another world who was hiding out on Earth after deserting a war ... but didn’t remember it) started a TV series based on his subconscious knowledge of the Stargate program, to which he was introduced in "Point of No Return."

"200" is co-written by nearly the entire Stargate writing staff, with each "vignette" segment being woven together within the framework of SG-1’s suggestions for the "Wormhole X-Treme!" movie.

’Wormhole X-Treme! Jack O’Neill (Anderson) visits the set of "Wormhole X-Treme!," based on the real Stargate program, with Martin Lloyd (Garson) in the Season Five episode. "So it starts with a read-through," Wright said. "But the vignettes spring from suggestions by our characters, and material in Martin’s script which is kind of outrageous, too. And we jump all over the place — I mean, we are going all over the place in this story. It’s out there ... in a good way! It’s fun. Hopefully it’s funny. Hopefully it’s very funny — if not, it’s at least fun."

Wright also said that while Anderson’s decision to leave the show wasn’t up to the producers (the actor 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), bringing him back was.

"We’ve asked him, and he’s going to come back. Certainly not for the whole time, but he’s going to come and play with us again. That door was left open, and he’s going to come back and step through it."

The show’s producers also told GateWorld that Anderson’s appearance in the episode will be substantial, and not a brief cameo as he did in Season Nine’s "Avalon, Part 1" and "Origin."

"The essence of his idea is that we’ll all write it," Wright told GateWorld. "And that’s a lot of fun. And we each took sections — and my section is possibly the most outrageous. Fans are either going to love it, or they’re going to hate it. But I thought it was fun. And I figure every hundred episodes you should be allowed to go outside the box a little bit.

"It’s very much the [Simpsons] "Treehouse of Horror" structure. ... Let’s just say that we’re doing a sequence that is reminiscient of SG-1 meets ’Team America.’ We’re gettin’ puppets. We’re doing marionettes."

"200" will go before cameras in Vancouver on April 5, and will air in late August on The SCI FI Channel in the U.S. Stay tuned to GateWorld for more details!