What is apparent is that Ms. Rothery's skill and dedication to her profession brought its own rewards when the executive producers of the series came to choose the right woman for the job. Having chalked up appearances in no less than 16 television movies, umpteen television guest appearances and several movie credits, including the award-winning Warriors of Virtue, the actress was much in demand, but modestly puts her good fortune in obtaining the Stargate SG-1 role down to fate. "I just thank my lucky stars that I became involved because actually I was living in LA but had auditioned for a TV movie which was shooting in Vancouver. Whilst I was in Canada, my agent got a call and said they wanted to offer me a part on Stargate SG-1 and I thought 'Terrific'. I had worked with Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright (co-executive producers and writers) on a couple of episodes of The Outer Limits so they knew my work and when Mike Greenburg [the third man] saw me it all worked out. I can't tell you how pleased I am to be here."

Although she originally auditioned alongside Amanda Tapping for the part of Captain Samantha Carter, Rothery was more than happy to accept the role as the top-flight doctor assigned to the highly classified Stargate Command. "My agent said the character 'may recur'," she laughs. Three years down the line, Dr. Fraiser's position is such that she consistently finds herself in major life and death situations from investigating virus cures to plagues that could kill the entire human race to finding ways of dealing with recalcitrant SG-1 team members. Rothery's portrayal of the character is so convincing that it's hard to go along with her assertion that, "it's all down to how it was written." According to the actress, Fraiser's whole psyche is based on an intial episode called The Broca Divide. "That episode showed not only Fraiser's strength of character but it also showed she had tremendous compassion... One of my favorite scenes is still the one with O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) where he asks her to experiment on him to find a cure for an horrific disease. The character has evolved as the show has, because all of a sudden you'll get flashes of Fraiser's sense of humor or her dryness or a bit about her background and it's just been this on-going development. I really like Janet." She smiles. "She is the most wonderful person to play."

Rothery also has great affection for the other lead female in the fight to save the world against marauding invaders. "Amanda [Tapping] and I have formed a tremendous bond of friendship as people and within the context of our characters." Expressing her gratitude to the writers that they haven't followed the usual formula, which dictates that with two women in the show one has to be seriously over-the-top strong and everyone else is peripheral, Rothery maintains that Dr. Fraiser and Major Carter are allowed to show equal strength and femininity in their respective ways. "On occasion when we've been trying to stress a point we stand up for each other too. For example, we had one scene where Janet needs to go and get penicillin for a patient who is going to die, but O'Neill is opposed to the idea and Samantha steps in to help sell the point. Both of us knew it just wasn't going to happen but it's at times like that where I find there is not only a really good friendship developing between the women, but also the fact that they are scientists and see things the same way means they very much support each other."

Asked if she can foresee a time when there is likely to be any major bone of contention between the two characters, Rothery is decidedly sceptical. "Well, you never know what the writers are going to come up with but if you were to ask me, I can't see that happening. I really can't. Sam and Janet have a very sound relationship. They are not only colleagues in work and really good friends but they are essentially raising a child together." Speaking of a young girl rescued from certain death by the SG-1 team, Rothery explains that, "Cassandra has an amazing bond with Sam but because she is always going off-planet it made more sense for Janet to take the youngster in. But it's a very communal type of raising. We're joint surrogate moms." All this child rearing has come in very handy in recent months as a couple of new babies have appeared on the Stargate SG-1 scene, one belonging to Ms. Rothery herself. "Yes, I have a wee one," beams the proud 'parent'. "And I swear to you she'd melt your little heart." Mind you - we're not talking about the nappy wetting two-legged kind. The newest arrival at Stargate Command has four legs, a waggly tail and a pair of very long ears.

Launching into an hilariousThelma and Louise-type accent, the actress drawls, "Her name is Bodie - actually it's Beaudeen - and how it starts is Amanda and I are always doing funny things each time we come together and we've got a little thing going where we have these alter egos. Her name is Minnie, my name is Pearleen and Pearleen is going to Beauty School and right about now I'm learning to put curls in. Anyway, Minnie got herself a dawg, I can have a dawg. So I went out and got me one and she said, 'Pearleen, this is so cute. What are you gonna call your dawg?' and I said I'd call her Beaudeen and so her name is Beaudeen and..." If she wasn't stopped she could ramble on for hours, just ask anybody who tried to get a word in edgeways when they met with her during a recent fan convention in London, Rothery admits that she can "blab for Canada" especially when she is in new and exciting situations. Fellow actor Bruce Boxleitner was driven to stand up and jokingly yell along the autograph queue - "Who's that holding up the line?" As if he didn't know. As well as chattering non-stop, Ms. Rothery had confounded all attempts at restraint by the 'liaison lady' and was up taking photos with the fans.

"I loved my time in the UK this summer. I had no idea what to expect when I was invited to attend the convention but it was such a good experience for me. I knew the show had a huge Internet following but the fans just... embraced me. I don't even know how to put how wonderful that felt into words. By the end of the weekend I kept trying to tell everyone how grateful and touched I was by their support. I feel quite sad when I hear of some people treating fans of a particular show or genre with disrespect because when you get right down to it, there would be no show without them. It's a mutual relationship."

Her own relaxed attitude towards fan attention may well come from Rothery's not-to-secret passion for Sci-Fi shows in general and one Sci-Fi classic in particular. "My thing was the original Star Trek," she confesses. "When I was a very wee one I liked Lost in Space, but really I used to make up wonderful stories about being in Star Trek and , of course, I always ended up marrying Jim Kirk." On a more recent track the actress has a special fondness for the revamped Outer Limits series having appeared in two "very scary" episodes (Regeneration and Trial by Fire) and for The X-Files. Rothery guest-starred as Nurse Michelle Charters in the episode entitled Excelsius Dei and claims, "What was most interesting for me was when the character was being attacked. She was being raped by this invisible entity, so I had nothing to work with. I had no one to throw me aroun and just had to raise the momentum by myself. In some respects that was even more terrifying because our own imaginations are so magnificent. It got to the point where when we finished the scene, I was scared and shaking like a leaf but all the other women in the cast were shaking too. Some of them had tears in their eyes."

Rothery's escapades with the infamous FBI agents wasn't traumatic all the time. There were one or two light-hearted moments to dispel the gloom. "David Duchovny and I had some scenes where we were almost underwater so they built a huge tank and filled it with very warm water. When the time came for breaks in between shots, the assistant director would ask 'Do you guys want to come out?' and we would be like, 'No!' because it was too cold to come out and we would just hang out fully-clothed inside this pool." Ms. Rothery is looking forward to a more usual form of rest and recreation in the coming months. Stargate SG-1 has just finished filming Season Three and the actress plans to "Take a break, chill out and enjoy playing with my dawg!" There's a bit of a medical emergency for Dr. Fraiser to deal with at the beginning of Season Four, but we'll just have to wait until next year for the details.