Editing Podcast:Six of One

Act one. It's nice to get back to the [[Cylon (RDM)|Cylon]] [[Basestar (RDM)|baseship]] and this dissolving with piano music motif that we'd [[Torn|established]] in [[Season 3|the last season]]. I like this idea that here's [[Sharon Valerii|Boomer]] performing these nude [[w:Tai chi chuan|Tai Chi]] things for [[Cavil]], and that there's something going on between the two of them that's overlaying this whole thing with the [[hybrid]]. This is actually, literally, us, or me, in the editing room, compiling a few different scenes together that were shot as literal scenes. There was an entire scene there of [[Natalie]], 'cause we start to refer to that particular [[Number Six|Six]] that you saw as Natalie, she's Natalie-Six in our nomenclature, and that Sharon, there was a whole scene of them listening to the hybrid. Of the hybrid giving all the jar- the gibberish and talking about mystical things and that the [[Raider (RDM)|Raiders]] wouldn't attack [[Final Five|their own]]. And then there was a separate scene and Cavil and with the Tai Chi moment that was then interrupted by all these other Cylons coming in to talk to Cavil. And as we were putting them all together, the feeling was that- I mean, the episode was way too long, as usual, and this was a nice way of cutting to the chase of getting all the information out and also getting a sense of how the story had developed into this direction.

I was always interested in this notion that here these machines have been programmed not to think about the Final Five in any way, and yet, they do. They find themselves talking about the Final Five, despite themselves. That they all, for various reasons, come to this notion that there is- something greater that they all need to think about, to talk about, and they can't help themselves. As they mature, and as they grow, as sentient, thinking beings. It naturally pushes them, like it did [[D'Anna]]. The D'Anna models were all pushed toward trying to figure out what lies between life and death, and the rest of them, too. It doesn't take too much to get them to start to think outside their program, to start moving in directions that they were explicitly designed not to think about. That the [[Leoben]]s, and it felt like this- these- this particular lineup of models, would take you there. The Leobens who are inherently more spiritual than the other ones that we established. The Sixes, which were manipulative and seductive, but more free thinkers of their own- less likely to go along with the crowd. Always angling for their own agendas. And then the [[Number Eight|Sharons]]. The Sharons are the ones that tend to be a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more naive. A little bit more prone to pressure and to change their minds about things. So it felt right that these three, that these three models would be the ones combining to challenge the notion of the Final Five and would also take great umbrage at the idea that they would go in- that Cavil would be going in and lobotomizing the Raiders. One of the notions that sometimes gets lost in the show is that the Raiders, themselves, are alive, in a sense. They are as alive as the other Cylons are. They are simply- exist on a different level of sentience than the rest of the Cylons, but in their world view, the Cylons- er- the Raiders have as much right to life, as it were, are as worthy of existence as the rest of them are, and the notion of cutting out part of their brains was abhorrent to them. I kinda like that. It was an interesting universe that was established over there.

You'll start to notice here in these scenes with the final four Cylons back on ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' that divisions are starting to form within their ranks, as well, and their personalities are starting to pull them in different directions, despite [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]], who is trying to keep them all together and try- who is trying to lay down the law, and who is trying to tell them what they will do and what they won't do. You can tell right away that [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] is already in a different place. Tyrol's already- he's giving far less- what's the word I'm looking for? He's paying far less attention to the rank and protocols of it all. He's already starting to separate himself from the authority figures and- he's starting to push away from the others. And then this conversation sends her to [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]]. I think in early drafts of this, [[Tory Foster|Tory]] was going to end up in- after this scene, she was gonna just end up in Baltar's lair and just like go down there and start listening to him, and then we decided that she should be sent down there to go find out things about Baltar because of this conversation. In the early drafts, again, I think it was- certainly at the story level, it was more a case that she went down there out of curiosity, 'cause he was preaching about the one true God, and souls, and he had this connection with the Cylons, and she was curious, and then she got pulled in by the message. And then as the story developed, we started to feel like she should be sent down there, and it w- should be more of a mission. That she was sent on a mission by these guys to go get close to him, 'cause he knew— presumably knew something about D'Anna.

In the first draft of the episode, [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] is initially not taken to her own cell. She's actually put in a cell with [[Caprica-Six]]. It was something like, "Put her in with the other Cylons." And once she got in with the other Cylons, she got right in Caprica-Six's face and was like, "Am I a Cylon? Tell me! What am I? If I'm a Cylon, I wanna know!" And she started like hitting her. And then Caprica-Six hit her back, and Caprica-Six, of course, it was a reprise of the [[Season 2|season two]]?- When was that? [[Season 1 (2004-05)|Season one]]? Season one [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II|fight between Kara and Six]] back on Cylon-occupied [[Caprica (RDM)|Caprica]], where the two really went at it, and I think everyone was jazzed by the idea of seeing another fight between the two in the jail cell. But as I read it, I had to, in all honesty, I had to feel like we were just doing it in order to do it, 'cause we all just wanted to see them beat the crap out of each other because they'd done it before. And then, essentially, she was dragged out of that cell, having somewhat worse for the wear, and then she has a similar scene with [[William Adama|Adama]] where Adama hits her, and it just felt repetitive. And I couldn't quite discern the reason why we were putting her in the cell to begin with. It was a little shaky, in terms of the underlying logic. So we dropped that scene and went straight for this scene of Adama coming in with Kara. This scene- I think there's about a page that I lifted out of this scene in the editing room. There's a point there where it doesn't quite match, if you go through the scene again on these over-shots, if you're looking for the coverage over Kara's shoulder onto Adama and then over Adama's shoulder onto Kara, you'll see there's a change of expression on her face that doesn't quite match the tenor of her voice, and that's usually a good indication that— you can tell that something's been lifted pretty seriously if you can't quite match them. 'Cause you're struggling to match different emotional states, and the cheat is usually to play the- that's another great scream of [[Katee Sackhoff|Katee]]'s at the end- usually as a cheat you're trying to cover over a problem and you can't match the performance, is what I was trying to say.