Podcast:Resistance
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Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica, here with episode four, "Resistance". My apologies to those of you who were waiting in vain for the podcast on episode three, "Fragged". I was not in town last week, having taken a much needed vacation with my family up to Big Sur for a little camping expedition, because, at the moment we are in a production hiatus. We have suspended shooting for about a month in order to catch up on scripts and give everybody a break. Because, as most of you know, this season we're doing a twenty episode order and we're broadcasting it in two groups of ten, which gives an opportunity to take a little bit of time off and I took advantage of it. So there you go. Hopefully I'll be able to get back and give you commentary on "Fragged" at some point.
So I'm in the recap of last week's episode. Crashdown's just died and "Resistance" is one of the episodes that, of course, I think I mentioned this before but, essentially the first six or so episodes of season two were pitched and structured at the very beginning of the season in that we knew that we had a storyline that was gonna take several episodes to unfold. Stories dealing with the aftermath of the shooting of Adama and the various other cliffhangers and so "Resistance" was developed in that context. I went back and looked at some of the early things on "Resistance". What they did not have, in early story outlines, was this sequence. Was the idea of Tyrol being under suspicion of being a Cylon and this subplot that happens throughout the show of Tyrol under suspicion, his incarceration, his somewhat rapprochement with Sharon, and then ultimately Sharon's untimely death at the end. That was a somewhat more later developing subplot. This story was always conceived as- we kept calling it the "Kent State" episode, where Tigh's repressive leadership would essentially result in the deaths of civilians. There would be an explosion of outrage in the Fleet, and this would prompt the prison break of Laura Roslin and the start of a counter-coup, or counter-revolutionary movement, within the Fleet, and at the end of the episode would culminate with the return of Commander Adama to the Galactica. And that was always the concept of this show.
There was a Sharon-Baltar storyline early on in this episode, that dealt with Baltar being back aboard Galactica now and getting his hands on Sharon. He was supposed to be interrogating Sharon, developing a psychological- an interest in her psychologically. Trying to get inside her brain so you know, here's a Cylon, who is now at my mercy, more or less. She would be incarcerated. She was going to be held in very difficult circumstances and Baltar was gonna be sent in to figure out who she is, what she is, how we can counter beings like her in the future. And there were a couple of drafts of story and, I think, even structure that explored that idea, but ultimately it wasn't that satisfying and what we started to come around to was the fact that Sharon had returned to- or, I'm sorry, that Tyrol had returned to Galactica, it felt like, well, here's the guy that was in love with Boomer. Here's the guy that protected Boomer. Here's the guy that everybody on the ship knew was involved with Boomer. So wouldn't he be under some kind of suspicion? And that's- as soon as we landed on that, I don't recall off the top of my head who came up with that notion, but once we angled the story that direction it became much more intriguing. It's like, ok, let's open with Tyrol sitting in the room with Tigh. Let's start the episode there. Here's the guy that just went through this horrific ep- encounter down on Kobol and he comes back and suddenly he's in jail.
And here we begin the resistance storyline on Caprica. This sequence, initially, as you might imagine in several drafts and even of the script was more traditionally plotted where we would have started with Helo and Kara out in the woods trying to plan their escape or plan their way to find a Cylon air base and then you cut out to these guys out in the woods watching them and that the guys in the woods are saying, "I think that they're Cylons." And it was fine, but it felt very pedestrian and there was something vaguely unsatisfying about it all the way along and so there came a point where I believe it was the director, but I could be wrong, Allan Kroeker, who directed this episode, I believe it was his suggestion that we start with the resistance and begin with their point of view, and I immediately thought that was a great idea because it just- it's a more intriguing way to start this little sequence, which really isn't very much. This is a very traditional plot move. It's like, ok, good guys are about to be shot by other good guys. Ooh, scary. But, by beginning it on the other foot, by starting with these people that you don't know and haven't seen before, wondering where- you're lost for a moment and trying to catch up and like, "Ok. Wait a minute. What's going on? Who are these guys? Who are they seeing out there? Ok. They seem to be- they're humans. I guess they're fighting Cylons. And..." It's just enough to hide the moment that it's actually Kara and Helo. I'm sure sharp-minded viewers can jump ahead, but basically if you're watching the episode it's a nice effective way to just hold off the reveal.
And I'll come back here after the tease.