George Hammond (Stargate) - Conceptual History

Conceptual History

Don S. Davis was a stand-in and stunt-double for Dana Elcar in MacGyver, a 1985–1992 television series that starred Richard Dean Anderson (Stargate SG-1's lead character Jack O'Neill). At the time, Davis had suffered burnout from teaching acting classes at the University of British Columbia for ten years, and later considered the work on MacGyver "a new lease on life". When the producers cast Stargate SG-1 in 1996, they asked Davis to read for the role of George Hammond and contracted him for multiple years. Davis considered General Hammond in the initial character breakdown as a two-dimensional by-the-book character and a mere foil for O'Neill, and was dissatisfied with the view of the pilot episode's director, Mario Azzopardi, who in particular wanted Hammond to be a military stereotype. Davis, who had served as an army Captain in Korea in the 1960s, felt that the character breakdown did not mirror the reality of military service, and he was reluctant to portray and betray such a role for several years. The producers eventually allowed Davis to humanize the character during the run of the show.

The producers wrote season 4's "Chain Reaction" as "a bit of a Hammond episode" after they had not devoted an episode to Hammond during the first three seasons. The episode ended up "very different" from writer Joseph Mallozzi's original pitch, which he had envisioned as "a Hammond story in which the general faces a court martial after being implicated in the death of an off-world SG team leader". When no more Hammond episodes were written in the following seasons, Davis cited Stargate SG-1's focus on the off-world adventures of the SG team, the military framework and the general's knowledge for why Hammond "can be nothing more than peripheral to that action."

After playing General Hammond for nearly 150 episodes in seven seasons, Don S. Davis decided to leave Stargate SG-1 in late 2003. He had suffered from prolonged health problems and was grateful that the Stargate SG-1 producers had previously continued his employment and had scheduled episodes around his surgeries. Davis turned towards painting and sculpting, but continued to work in the film and television industry including the Stargate franchise, continuing to appear in every season of Stargate SG-1. Davis died from a heart attack at the age of 65 on June 29, 2008, shortly before the release of Stargate: Continuum, his last on-screen appearance as General Hammond. The Stargate producers closed the final Stargate Atlantis episode, "Enemy at the Gate", with a dedication card to Don S. Davis; the episode also mentions the off-screen passing of General Hammond, with Earth's newest ship being named in his honour.