Episode Details

Until this week, Mandy Kaplan did not know the word "Stargate" existed. Not the 1994 movie, not the ten seasons of television that followed, not the conventions full of people who can spell Goa'uld on the first try. (She has also never seen an Avengers movie, and she would like that noted as a point of pride.) Fortunately, Jonny Lee Jr. was nine when the film came out, bought it on VHS and then again on DVD, and owns the complete box set of the series, which makes him about the most qualified tour guide you could ask for on a trip through an ancient Egyptian wormhole.Mandy, being Mandy, arrives with theories. Stargate, she argues, is The Wizard of Oz with better pyramids, and she has a He-Man episode to back it up. She also spots a Sesame Street icon wandering the dunes and takes the film's biggest emotional line to task for ending in a preposition. Jonny, meanwhile, has the job of explaining parasitic worm-gods to a woman whose only professed interest in worms is the tape variety. (He handles it with grace.) Somewhere between the Snuffleupagus sighting and the high school teacher who sued over his screenplay, he makes a real case for why Stargate is the gateway for people who swear they don't like sci-fi: it was never really about the technology. Press play.Guest SpotlightJonny Lee Jr. is an actor and singer, a performer in Mandy's long-running Los Angeles cabaret Miscast: Right Singer, Wrong Song, and one of Make Me a Nerd's original guests. He has already walked Mandy through Zelda, Sailor Moon, and Anne Rice's vampires. This time he brings his number-one sci-fi movie, the one he found as an elementary schooler obsessed with Egyptian and Greek mythology and couldn't believe someone had made. He's seen it six or seven times and watched the TV series through three times over.

• Instagram: @jonnyleejr
• On TruStory FM: All of Jonny's episodes
• See him live: Jonny joins Mandy for the 49th Miscast: Right Singer, Wrong Song on Sunday, November 8, at 7:30 PM at The Pico in Los Angeles.

Reference LinksThe Movie

• Stargate (1994) — Letterboxd
• Stargate (film) — Wikipedia. Production history, the lawsuit, and the box office run.
• The Stargate score by David Arnold — YouTube Music. The opening credits music Mandy couldn't stop talking about.

The Franchise

• Stargate SG-1 — Wikipedia. Ten seasons, starting on Showtime in 1997.
• Stargate Atlantis — Wikipedia
• Stargate Universe — Wikipedia
• Mythology of Stargate — Wikipedia. Where to read up on the Goa'uld, the parasitic worm-gods Jonny explains.

The Movie's Cast and Crew

• Kurt Russell — Colonel Jack O'Neil
• James Spader — Dr. D