Podcast:Deadlock: Difference between revisions

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It was interesting to get back into Dogville. We hadn't been in Dogville for a while in the show, with the people, the civilians, down on the lower decks, which we had taken aboard quite some time ago. And I think that's why this scene is placed here as opposed to where it was in the original draft, which was Caprica-Six walking down just the hallways of Galactica and set upon by thugs from the Sons of Ares in that context, and I think we moved it back over here during the production process to sort of- it's a more visually interesting scene. It's also sort of reminding you of the- that we do have all these civilians on board and sort of setting up this two-tier situation aboard Galactica. We have the military operations and the military personnel and we've also got the refugees and survivors of all the various holocausts down below.
It was interesting to get back into Dogville. We hadn't been in Dogville for a while in the show, with the people, the civilians, down on the lower decks, which we had taken aboard quite some time ago. And I think that's why this scene is placed here as opposed to where it was in the original draft, which was Caprica-Six walking down just the hallways of Galactica and set upon by thugs from the Sons of Ares in that context, and I think we moved it back over here during the production process to sort of- it's a more visually interesting scene. It's also sort of reminding you of the- that we do have all these civilians on board and sort of setting up this two-tier situation aboard Galactica. We have the military operations and the military personnel and we've also got the refugees and survivors of all the various holocausts down below.
This is, obviously, a very heavy Caprica-Six/Tigh/Ellen episode. We talked early on in the season about bringing this to- this culmination eventually. I think after Caprica-Six was impregnated by Tigh, we weren't quite sure where we wanted to go with that. I think we sort of- I kinda remember the discussion in the room when the writers first pitched it to me and they said, "And Tigh- or Cottle tells Adama that Tigh's pregnant," and the writers all looked at me and I just kinda laughed and said, "God, I fuckin' love that." And they laughed too. And we- and I said, "Where does that go?" And they kinda shrugged and said, "Well we don't know." And I said, "Well, I love it." Let's do it. So we just decided let's do it and it was gonna be an exploration of love and love from- hot Cylon on Cylon sex, and all that kind of stuff. And it was also just an opportunity to add a different layer of complexity into the series because obviously the series is not complex enough.
This sequence up here is interesting in that it shows the Galactica Vipers are actually joined in the CAP, the combat air patrol, by the Cylon Raiders and that they're now flying joint CAP missions, which I thought was really interesting. A lot of the story here in the second half of the last season has been about the gr- they way the Cylons and the humans- in the Colonial Fleet are inevitably moving closer and closer toward one another and being forced by circumstances to have to share certain duties and responsibilities and one of them, being the CAP, felt like it was one of the most visually interesting ways to do that and it would go a long ways for telling you that the cooperation had gone to a new level.
This arrival of Ellen Tigh back on Galactica is obviously very reminicent, and deliberately so, of the- of when- of the episode when Ellen came back aboard- came aboard Galactica for the first time way back in season one. The shot of the Raptor door opening on to Ellen's leg. I really like this little beat, that Tyrol can tell that it's Boomer, just like sight uns- just like at first sight. He can look at her and he can tell her- he can tell that.
We- Boomer was a character that for a while in the series we had almost lost track of. We knew that she had resurrected back with the Cylons and we kept like dropping her into little things here and there over the course of time during the New Caprica arc, and so on, but she didn't have a strong role to play for a while. We married her up, so to speak, not literally married her up, with the character of Cavil to play their relationship and play someone for Cavil to deal with. But it took a while to come up with something for Boomer and we never quite gave up on it. There were times, certainly, when it seemed like it was never gonna happen, but I think the writers in particular were determined that Boomer was a large thread that deserved to be tied up by the end of the series and I tended to agree in that she was one of the original characters in the miniseries, and I mean the miniseries itself actually ends on a shot of Boomer, of her saying, "By your command." And it felt right that in the final episodes we come back and we revisit her storyline and we give her an ending to her tale as well. So, Boomer's story does continue here. And that's the end of the tease.
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==Act 1==

Revision as of 02:25, 3 March 2009

Teaser[edit]

Hello, and welcome to the podcast, and this is Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica. I am here to welcome you to the podcast for episode 418, "Deadlocked". I'm doing this on the fly, sorta in between meetings, I'm running out of my house to get back to the office and the podcast is late anyway, so unfortunately, not only is the smoking lamp out, but the bar is closed as well.

OK. I will try to do the best I can in terms of giving you some inside information on this particular episode, but as I look through my notes and I went back and looked at the original story document and subsequent drafts, this is one of those episodes that didn't change a hell of a lot as it went from start to finish. Originally this was called "Drowning Woman", which was referring to Galactica herself and her difficulties and drowning and metaphorically probably also into Caprica-Six, as well. Somewhere along the line, I think Jane, decided to change the title to "Deadlocked" which is a perfectly good title.

Getting back to this particular set, I think I think I talked about in the previous podcast, this set is actually sandwiched in between our normal CI- I think this is C- no, no. It's not the CIC. It's- no, I'm sorry. It is the CIC. The CIC set and the back of the stage wall. This set of the superstructure- or the interior structure of Galactica is sorta sandwiched in between there, and we're actually using the actual fire escape as sort of a bit of set decoration.

It was interesting to get back into Dogville. We hadn't been in Dogville for a while in the show, with the people, the civilians, down on the lower decks, which we had taken aboard quite some time ago. And I think that's why this scene is placed here as opposed to where it was in the original draft, which was Caprica-Six walking down just the hallways of Galactica and set upon by thugs from the Sons of Ares in that context, and I think we moved it back over here during the production process to sort of- it's a more visually interesting scene. It's also sort of reminding you of the- that we do have all these civilians on board and sort of setting up this two-tier situation aboard Galactica. We have the military operations and the military personnel and we've also got the refugees and survivors of all the various holocausts down below.

This is, obviously, a very heavy Caprica-Six/Tigh/Ellen episode. We talked early on in the season about bringing this to- this culmination eventually. I think after Caprica-Six was impregnated by Tigh, we weren't quite sure where we wanted to go with that. I think we sort of- I kinda remember the discussion in the room when the writers first pitched it to me and they said, "And Tigh- or Cottle tells Adama that Tigh's pregnant," and the writers all looked at me and I just kinda laughed and said, "God, I fuckin' love that." And they laughed too. And we- and I said, "Where does that go?" And they kinda shrugged and said, "Well we don't know." And I said, "Well, I love it." Let's do it. So we just decided let's do it and it was gonna be an exploration of love and love from- hot Cylon on Cylon sex, and all that kind of stuff. And it was also just an opportunity to add a different layer of complexity into the series because obviously the series is not complex enough.

This sequence up here is interesting in that it shows the Galactica Vipers are actually joined in the CAP, the combat air patrol, by the Cylon Raiders and that they're now flying joint CAP missions, which I thought was really interesting. A lot of the story here in the second half of the last season has been about the gr- they way the Cylons and the humans- in the Colonial Fleet are inevitably moving closer and closer toward one another and being forced by circumstances to have to share certain duties and responsibilities and one of them, being the CAP, felt like it was one of the most visually interesting ways to do that and it would go a long ways for telling you that the cooperation had gone to a new level.

This arrival of Ellen Tigh back on Galactica is obviously very reminicent, and deliberately so, of the- of when- of the episode when Ellen came back aboard- came aboard Galactica for the first time way back in season one. The shot of the Raptor door opening on to Ellen's leg. I really like this little beat, that Tyrol can tell that it's Boomer, just like sight uns- just like at first sight. He can look at her and he can tell her- he can tell that.

We- Boomer was a character that for a while in the series we had almost lost track of. We knew that she had resurrected back with the Cylons and we kept like dropping her into little things here and there over the course of time during the New Caprica arc, and so on, but she didn't have a strong role to play for a while. We married her up, so to speak, not literally married her up, with the character of Cavil to play their relationship and play someone for Cavil to deal with. But it took a while to come up with something for Boomer and we never quite gave up on it. There were times, certainly, when it seemed like it was never gonna happen, but I think the writers in particular were determined that Boomer was a large thread that deserved to be tied up by the end of the series and I tended to agree in that she was one of the original characters in the miniseries, and I mean the miniseries itself actually ends on a shot of Boomer, of her saying, "By your command." And it felt right that in the final episodes we come back and we revisit her storyline and we give her an ending to her tale as well. So, Boomer's story does continue here. And that's the end of the tease.

Act 1[edit]