Podcast:Frak Party Q and A

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Introduction

RDM: It's on.

OK, welcome to a very special podcast, this is not the official podcast, there'll be another one that'll narrate through the course of the episode. I'm doing this one in Berkeley, California with a group of friends at a frak party. Say hello, everybody.

Crowd: (cheers)

RDM: We're at the home of?

Terry: Madelyn and Scott

RDM: Madelyn and Scott, thank you very much for hosting this. And essentially we're gonna record Act 4 here, of the season finale, "Crossroads, Part II", and you'll hear their— the show, and the reactions live on this podcast, and immediately thereafter we'll just start talking about the episode.

Terry: It's the fans' voice.

RDM: It's the voice of the fans. So we'll pause right here...

Act 4 of "Crossroads, Part II"

RDM: OK, here we go.

Woman: ...occasionally Torrent it. You didn't you hear that.

Terry: That's OK, we know.

(The Dresden Files commercial plays)

(Episode starts playing)

(The piece is which Gaius Baltar is taken by a group of protectors is heard)

Woman: He's been kidnapped by women, this is, like, his wet dream. (laughs)

(Episode plays for a while)

(Opera House music plays, we hear another of Caprica-Six's dreams.)

Woman: So are those the five remaining Cylons?

Man: The Final Five.

(Episode plays for a while)

(Saul Tigh says: "Said the Joker to the thief")

Man: Whoa.

Another man: What?!

Woman: It's a reference to the song called earlier in the episode again.

Man: The what?

Woman: It's a song from Dylan.

(Episode plays for a while)

(Tory Foster says: "I can't get no relief")

Someone: What?

(One audience member screams, some others are laughing)

Woman: They did the whole song!

(Episode plays for a while)

Someone: It's on.

(Galen Tyrol says: "So that's it. After all this time, a switch goes off, just like that.")

(Tigh enters. Whoooah.)

(Audience erupts in laughter.)

Someone: Oh my God.

(Episode plays for a while)

(Tyrol: "It's true. We're Cylons. And we have been from the start.")

Man: Bet you'd wish you'd stood up for Boomer now.

(Laughter)

Woman: Seriously.

(Episode plays for a while)

(Adama: "It's good to see you, Colonel.")

(Tigh: "Good to be here, Admiral. You can count on me.")

Someone: Oh, no!

(Episode plays for a while)

(Episode ends)

(Audience applauds)

Someone: I knew she wasn't dead!

Woman: That was righteous.

Discussion

Reactions

RDM: And that's the show, boys and girls.

Woman: Awesome!

Man: I'm ready for the zombie season.

Other man: To be honest with you, I liked that a lot better than the end of Season Two.

RDM: Really?

Man: Yeah, I do.

RDM: Why?

Man: Because it shows hope, it shows Kara's final— her— y'know, what her destiny is, so it's like the two book ends, and like now you're saying on your podcast about Act 3, now, per se, so that's why I actually like this a lot better.

RDM: Why didn't you like the end of epis— the end of Season 2?

Man: No, I did, I liked the end of Season 2, but I'm saying I actually like this even just a lot better.

RDM: Really?

Man: Yeah, because also— I kinda— I mean I also liked what the guys did for all the graphics, they— 'cause it's the season finale, so I really appreciate all this— the flying part 'cause I'm a pilot myself, so I really like that part. I like how she just came in and just surprised them, and all that kind of stuff, it was a really good job.

Other man: Well the first two seasons also had been more and more bad news, basically— y'know, increasingly dire situations, and it was something that we liked— was the fact that on New Caprica, basically, seeing as the very last things— everything was worse than you could possibly imagine. I mean you could've done that again this time around, but now we basically have no clue of what's going of, except that there's a lot going on, and even we have our first (unintelligible) of how Earth plays into the series. So I think that's a reason to like it so much, and even better just because it's a completely different kind of cliffhanger—

RDM: Oh?

Man: —it's not just the usual tragedy.

Woman: I know that this wasn't entirely your choice, but at the end of Season 2, it felt as though we were kind of cheated, of that time, seeing them develop on New Caprica.

RDM: Yeah.

Woman: And this— there's nothing that we're cheated, we're just waiting for what's going to happen. We don't have to worry about what has already happened that we have to figure out.

RDM: OK.

Choosing the Final Five

Man: Last time you gambled with our perception of how character develop and- leave a big gap, but now, right now I think the biggest gap is how do you explain Tigh. He's been there for so long—

RDM: That's a good question, isn't it?

Man: —you're gambling with the plot.

RDM: I can only tell you that when we t— some of this will be repeated on the other podcast, so forgive the listeners at home, but— the idea for turning four of them into Cylons was something that I came up [with] in the room. We were talking about the season finale, and the trial of Gaius Baltar and how it was going to end, and we had various things about the ending, that— y'know, the surprises in the trial and so on, and I had this sense of dissatisfaction, I remember saying to the writers: "I just wish— y'know, I've had this recurring thought of four of our characters walking into a room on Galactica, just drawn— just cutting them walking into a room. And they all walk in, and they shut the doors, and they look at each other and they say: 'OK, we're Cylons.' And it would just click, it just suddenly happens. And we just re- four people that we've known." And as we started talking about who would those four be, and we narrowed the parameters down quickly. ^[15:57]It was apparent that we didn't want Eddie to be one, we didn't want Adama, that'd seem like it robbed something from the show, so did Mary. And so when you took those two off, then it became, OK Lee didn't— wasn't sure what Lee gave you, we talked about Tyrol, well, Tyrol seemed kind of natural. He had a certain affinity for the Cylons, he was in love with a Cylon, he had started— something was happening to him on the algae planet, where he was drawn towards the temple—

Terry: He's married to a human—

RDM: —he's married to a human. I mean, there were various things that made sense for Tyrol. Anders seemed interesting 'cause he was drawn to Kara, why had he survived in two resistances so far, if Kara had a special destiny, where did Anders fit into that pantheon. Tory was interesting because she was a wildcard, we didn't know anything about her, but she'd been in the show long enough to justify it. And then it became "Well, you know what, and the real one would be Tigh." If Tigh was a Cylon, that would be the scariest one of all because he's the most human character. And Tigh was the one, truthfully enough, that I wrestled with the most. And right up until the point we were shooting it, I was— I wasn't sure, and I just committed, and said "Let's just go for it." Because Tigh— you were losing something and gaining something. You were losing something in that he is the most human of all the characters other than Gaius Baltar, in my opinion, because he's the alcoholic. He's so deeply flawed, he had killed his wife, he had lost an eye, he had suffered so tremendously, and had such a human connection to Adama, that if you turn him into a Cylon, you lost part of that. But at the same time, you gain this enormous thing because it was those very things that made it an amazing revelation to feel the—

Terry: It is, in a weird way, the season two questions: "but what about?"—

RDM: —"but what about?"—

Terry: What ha— how has this happened all along?

RDM: And—

Woman: I like that there was a personal choice based on themselves, versus where Sharon, where her choice to conform, or to integrate, had to deal with her child, these are four people who had a look at each other and make a snap decision right then and there. Do we— what are we su— do we do what we're programmed to do, or do we do what we feel we should do, considering we just woke up from being sleepers.

RDM: And that's an important point, because it was also— it was very important in the show to say that these four don't know what this means. All they know at this moment is that, like Tyrol said, a switch goes off and they just have an innate knowledge that they are Cylons. And they don't know what it means, and they don't know what their agenda is, and they don't know what they're supposed to do, and they have that moment to figure out how they're gonna react to this knowledge that they just have, and what do they do. And Tigh's immediate reaction is "I don't care, I'm Saul Tigh, and I'll be that man until the day I die." And Tyrol's a little bit more lost, and Anders is just angry, and Tory isn't quite sure which way she's gonna jump. But to answer your question, we did talk, in the writers' room, at length about the backstories of everybody, and we do have a backstory that works for Saul Tigh, and how this all works, and in laying out everything that we did. And we s— we angsted long and hard about making sure that this all did make sense in the mythos of the show, and how it all makes a certain sense. ^[19:05]I can tell you only that they are different Cylons than the other Cylons. And we have built that over the course of the third season, that the Final Five were not like the ^[19:14]Significant Seven, as we call them in-house—

(Laughing)

Man: One kind of alien species versus another thing?

RDM: Not— well, I can't get— it's— this is a frustrating conversation in a certain way, because I have to preserve a lot of this for Season Three [Four], and we're working out those storylines, so I can only tell you that they are different, and the differences will be part of their journey of self-discovery. What does it mean to be a Cylon—?

Man: What's the last one, too—

RDM: Yeah, what is it all about.

Other man: There's been a constant lingering ambiguity on the relation and difference between humans and Cylons, and between recent and ancient history, so I'm glad to see that that is still— I felt like this played that out, and we're getting more from that.

All Along the Watchtower

Another man: I gotta ask: why "All Along the Watchtower"?—

(Laughing)

RDM: Yes, well, that's a long story. "All Along the Watchtower" has been a personal obsession of mine for a while. When I was working on a show called Roswell, I had an episode that I wanted to do entirely about "All Along the Watchtower", that all the aliens that were on Roswell had a significance to "All Along the Watchtower", and I wanted to bring in five or ten different people to come in and play different versions of "All Along the Watchtower" for a plotline— it was a plotline that took place entirely in a music studio, and there was meaning within the song, and blah blah blah, and at the end I wanted a cameo for Bob Dylan showing up and just saying "It doesn't mean anything, it's just song, man."

(Laughing)

Woman: Bob Dylan's the last Cylon.

RDM: Yeah, Bob Dylan's the last—

(Louder laughing)

RDM: And then that stuck with me, and I've— as early as Season One, I wanted to use "All Along the Watchtower" playing in a jukebox, in the background, not in the familiar Hendrix version, but just a Galactica version of "Watchtower", as a way of saying to the audience that there is a tie between this show and our reality. That, essentially— y'know, you've heard us say, over and over again throughout the series, that "all this has happened before, and all of it will happen again", and there's a sense of the cycle of time, that certain of these events are preordained, and that there's a cycle, there's truly a cycle. If you remember, in the episode "Flesh and Bone" in Season One, Leoben, the Cylon, is talking to Kara and he says that "there's a cycle of time. And maybe the next time through the cycle, I'll be the interrogator and you'll be the prisoner", and that the story is the same, but the players swap positions. And the idea that there was a song or verse that transcended that cycle, that certain things repeated themselves— I mean why do they wear ties, why do they speak English, why are there certain phrases— there are phrases from Shakespeare sprinkled throughout the series. And there's a certain idea that all these things repeat themselves in certain ways for certain reasons, and so I wanted to use "All Along the Watchtower", something that would grab the audience to go: "Wait a minute, how the fuck could that be?! How could they possibly know what that is? Does that mean the show takes place in the distant future? Does it take place in the distant past? And what are the connections of that?" So it is a clue towards the larger explanation of what Galactica says the cosmology is, and so—

Hybrid children

Woman: ^[22:25]Will the Chief's child run like a parallel frame that Sharon and Helo's child's gonna run? Because—

RDM: It is different than— Nicholas's story is different than Hera's, but closely related, yes. ^[22:41]But yes, Nicholas is also a half— Hybrid child.

Earth

Woman: Of course we're all dying to know, when they get to Earth, what they're gonna find. Are they gonna find our world, are they gonna—

RDM: That's an interesting question, now, isn't it?

(Laughter)

RDM: On to the next question.

Woman: I don't expect you—

RDM: I can't give that away—

Woman: Of course not, but—

RDM: —because that about— yes, ultimately, the show is about what they find when they get to Earth.

Man: A way to put that ques— as a question, actually, is: when— even, when did you start forming your idea, relative to the lifespan of the show, of what Earth would actually be in this.

RDM: A couple of years ago. When I started the series, I didn't really know what the end of the show was, but as the ser— over the course of Season One I started to develop this idea of the cycle of time, and ^[23:28]"all this has happened before, and all of it will happen again", which is the first line of the Disney version of Peter Pan (laughter), many may wonder. And Sebastion Cabot comes on and says "now, all of this has happened before, and all of this has happened again— will happen again, but this time it happened in London, and dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah."

(Laughter)

Woman: See I thought it was really interesting that we saw North America, and not Asia or Australia—

RDM: That's because this show is about America—

(Loud laughter)

RDM: —and if you— if I showed you Africa, you know how many members of the audience would not even recognize this planet?

(Laughs)

RDM: That is completely ethnocentric .

Woman: That's so sad—

RDM: That is sad, but that is what is- does to do American television, boys and girls.

Woman: I taught freshman history, I know exactly what you mean.

RDM: You know what I thought for a moment? For a while, I thought "You know what, when we go to Earth in that final shot, we should not just see the tip of Africa, but we should be upside down, in the orientation that we normally see." If you look at that, you have no idea what you're looking at. And I needed it to read immediately, 'cause it's less than two seconds on the screen, you needed to just know (snaps) that's Earth. And that's the quickest way to tell, our folks here in North America where we are.

Writing "Crossroads, Part II"

Man: You said that the four of the final five— they wake up and they don't know what their agenda is, they don't know what's going on. How much of that have you already broken?

RDM: At this moment as we speak, we've broken quite a bit of it. Because the writers have been in the writing— in the writers' room for a while, for several weeks, and we've talked at length about, OK, what is the course of the fourth season, where are we going ultimately, what's the series about, what's the end of the show? We've—

Man: How much did you break when you were writing this episode?

RDM: Well when we— this episode went through quite a transition, we— it was all about the trial of Gaius Baltar, then as I said, I was in the room, we were breaking the show, it became about the trial of Gaius Baltar and the revelation of the final four. When it got to draft teleplay, it was a lot like this, but there was a whole other story that had to do with the Sagittarons, and a long plotline that we'd developed over the course of the sec— the third season that had to do with the Sagittaron colony and their people. And actually, Baltar was involved in a massacre on New Caprica, involving the Sagittarons, and— a long, intricate thing. And it just wasn't working. And when I— in some episodes more than others, I take a pass at the final draft myself, and on this one, on the finale, I took a pass at it, and as I was writing it, I just said "You know what, the Sagittaron thing doesn't work." And I just tossed it, which meant we had to go back and reedit subseq— the earlier episodes and reshoot some things to edit all that out. And I just winnowed it down to— closer to what this was. The things that were added in my pass at the very end were things like Laura getting cancer, "Watchtower" was in it, but actually, I think in Michael Taylor's draft of the fir— of "Crossroads, Part I", in the teaser Michael was actually intercutting them at Woodstock—

(Laughter)

RDM: listening to "All Along the Watctower." Which I— which was not something that we broke. It was completely insane, and I loved it when I read it, because, as a showrunner I'm one of those guys that loves it when my writers come back and give me something that surprises me in the read. And as I was reading it, it was like cut to— close on Tigh, sitting in the grass, and pull back and he's at Woodstock. (Laughter) And I was just like: "Oh that's so fucking great, but I don't know what it means."

(Laughter)

RDM: It was just so— OK, I tossed it out because because it was unproducible, and I didn't know how to make sense of it. But there were various rifts along the way. The teaser of this episode was not the teaser originally. In— "Crossroads, Part I" actually ended at the point where Laura said "I have cancer", that was the out of part one. And everything that was in Act 4 of part one was actually the beginning of part two. But both episodes were really long, part two was 20 minutes over, part one was 10 minutes over, and we had a lot of footage to have to play around with and figure out, and I opted to just pull up more of "Crossroads, Part II" and play that more strongly into part one, to save more of the material for the episode.

Woman: Can you talk about some of the things that you had to cut from these last two hours?

RDM: Ah, there was more of Tory and Anders, and fleshing out them— they're eying each other and starting to get it on. There was more of Tigh going slowly mad. There was much more of the trial, the Gaeta thing went on a little bit longer, everybody had longer pieces on the stand. Gaeta's went on quite a bit more, so did Laura's, so did Tigh's. A lot of it was trimming with in-scenes, a lot of the scenes were just significantly longer than they are on camera. In terms of actual plots and scenes I can't remember too much else that was actually cut, that didn't survive in some form. The final walk with all four of them walking towards that room went on quite a bit longer, there was actually a lot more than the battle stations and getting ready to go. In early drafts there were scenes of Adama and the other judges on the tribunal—

Terry: There was more Gaius Baltar after the trial.

RDM: There was more— yeah, there was— hell, yeah, that's right, there was much more Gaius Baltar after the trial. He walks down the corridor, at one point he was chased, there were men who were at the trial, who sat in the audience, that were actually coming at him and hold out knives, and were going to try to kill him, and that's who he was running away from when he was actually saved by the woman, his small little (unintelligible) cult.

(grinning)

Woman: Did you cut any scenes where the four judges were deliberating?

RDM: Not that were shot. There were scenes that were written, but that were cut as we went through the pre-production process, that we dealt with the judges a bit more— a bit— ultimately, it felt like it was more dramatic to not know what the verdict was, or not know what any of their positions were, and just come in cold on the judges and the tribunal.

The Final Cylon

Other woman: Are you gonna reveal who the fifth— final—

RDM: We are gonna reveal who the fifth Cylon is—

Woman: Next season?

RDM: probably next season.

Woman: OK.

Man: (unintelligible) 22 episodes—

RDM: We have 22—

Woman: Can we start placing bets on it?

RDM: Yes, you can start a pool. You can start a pool on who is the fifth Cylon.

(laughter)

RDM: ^[29:54]I do, I do know, actually.

Woman: You do know?

RDM: I do know who the fifth Cylon is.

(laughter)

Woman: Last time I asked him, he said he didn't know.

RDM: I didn't know, but now I do.

Man: Someone we've seen or not seen?

RDM: I can't tell you.

(laughter)

Incorporating "All Along the Watchtower"

Other man: How did the actors respond— I'm sorry— to the Bob Dylan lyrics when they saw their—

RDM: They just wanted to know what it all meant.

(laughter)

RDM: (unintelligible) like: "OK, do I really have to sing this?" "Yeah, you have to at least say it or hum it to get to the (unintelligible)." It was interesting as I was— as we were going through the draft, the question was: "How soon would the audience pick up on all this? And what's the most recognizable lyric of all?" And actually, it's seeded in very early, there were lines about "There's too much confusion", "There must be some kind of way out of here", it's seeded pretty early in the show. And it takes a while for it to build up, when you start to get to: "Well, OK, how many of those lyrics add up to All Along the Watchtower, that you finally start—"

Woman: I caught it the first time, but I've actually performed (unintelligible), so—

RDM: Yeah, which— when did you (unintelligible)?

Woman: The first w— of "There must be some way out of here", the way he delivered the line.

RDM: Really? You said "All Along the Watchtower"?

Various people: Yeah.

Other woman: I almost (unintelligible), "Said the joker to the thief", and then I was like "No, no way!".

RDM: Really? Oh, did you?

People: Yeah

Man: There were murmurs around the room the first time—

RDM: Oh, that's interesting, there was a question: "OK, if we'd bury this, just buried in dialog, how long until the au— what's the most recognizable line?"

Woman: "The joker to the thief", obviously.

RDM: "The joker to the thief" he can't say, you just can't, so he never quite said that—

Man: —gives it away—

RDM: —that totally gives it away.

Other woman: I think it was the delivery that made it clear to me.

Another woman: The delivery— he said it in the exact same rhythm.

RDM: Really?

Woman: Yeah. (sings) "There must be some way outta here."

RDM: Yeah.

Man: And with the crazy.

(laughter)

Woman: Yes, the crazy always helps.

Other woman: And it isn't normal type of speech, that definitely (unintelligible).

Actors' reactions to the four revealed Cylons

Woman: So the actors who were Cylons, did they— I mean, what was their reaction to finding out they were Cylons?

RDM: Well, it— that's an interesting question. We called them all up individually, and said— and we went through great lengths to hide all of this. In fact, we published fake pages for the end of the show, which we had never done. We published a whole alternate ending to the show that didn't reveal them as Cylons, but that made sense. I think that the idea was, in the fake pages, that there really— The Music really was some kind of techno thing that was related to the power surge on Galactica, and they all were— y'know, they were some danger to the ship that had some very Star Trek techno sci-fi problem at the end. And we called those four individual actors separately and said: "Here's the plan, and this is what we're gonna do." And they were all a bit shocked, Aaron was the one that actually, ahead of time, was saying: "I just don't wanna be a Cylon."

(laughter, compassionate "Ooh"s)

RDM: Aaron was very— y'know, "As long as I'm not a Cylon, that's all I care about." And I was like: "OK, well, Aaron, guess what, you are a Cylon."

(laughter)

RDM: "And you'll just have to (unintelligible) it, that's where it is." And we talked to him— he was OK, Aaron was most concerned about whether we were gonna lose his individuality as a character in that— y'know, he is— the role of Tyrol was very much the common man, the blue collar guy, the guy down the hangar deck, and what's he gonna become? An arch villain? Is he gonna suddenly transform into a different person? And I said "Well, no, that's not really the idea, the idea is you don't even know what your agenda is, you just suddenly know you're a Cylon, that's all you know." And he was cool with that, once I said so.

RDM: And Tigh, Michael Hogan, was: (imitates Hogan's Canadian accent) "Whoa. (unintelligible). How's that gonna work?"

(loud laughter)

RDM: And Tory was just very happy, and Anders was very happy, and they all went for it.

Reactions to Starbuck's death and return

RDM: And the biggest stir was about Katee, about Kara's return to the show at the very end. That took a whole, long, difficult— because when Katee— we called Katee at— when we did— before we published "Maelstrom", episode 16, where she died. And we called her up and said: "OK. We're about to put out a script where you're dead. You're not really dead, and this is the plan. It means we're gonna take you out of the next four episodes, and we're gonna take you out of the main credit title, but we're gonna bring you back at the end, and this is how it's gonna work, and dadadada." And she was: "Oh, this is so cool, what do we do?" And I said: "Well, we're gonna try the whole business as close as we can, we're gonna try to be very tight with this information, so don't tell anybody, we're gonna pretend that you're really dead on the show, 'cause that's the only way that this is gonna work—"

Woman: Actors too, (unintelligible)?

RDM: Actors too. Well, that's what happened. Then the script was published, and the crew and the cast just flipped.

(laughter)

RDM: There were just very upset, they were—

Terry: Eddie was—

RDM: —Eddie was very up— emotional, they were almost in a state of mutiny, that we were killing off Starbuck. And it was very touching, and they were very connected. But it got so bad, that this— I got a call from the studio early one morning, and they said: "OK, we hear that the set is a real tumult out there, and that they're really upset about this, and you'd better do something." And David and I said: "Oh. Really? Oh shit!" And so we called up and heard: "Oh yeah, everyone's really pissed at you, you'd better not come up here for a while, 'cause they're really angry that you killed Starbuck." And I'm like: "Oh, God." So we called Eddie and Mary, and we explained ourselves and said: "OK, this is what we're doing, and this is why." And they were relieved— they were angry, then they were relieved, and then they were OK. And then they got off on it, they were like: "Oh, this is gonna be so cool." And Katee hadn't told them, and what Eddie told me was that they were all planning to take Katee out to a farewell dinner that night.

(laughing)

RDM: And he was gonna play it for all it was worth, and take her out to dinner, and be crying about her leaving the show, and than say: "AND WE KNOW THAT YOU'RE COMING BACK!" And just do some horrible practical joke on Katee, so—

Woman: I guess it's like one of your co-workers has been fired.

RDM: Yeah. And we—

Terry: And they're a family.

RDM: They're very much a family.

Terry: They are very much a family.

RDM: And so when we shot the scenes of the Cylons being revealed, and the scenes of Kara coming back, it was a close set, and it was after the wrap party, and it was completely after the show had wrapped. And we shot these scenes separately, with just our key people that we trusted, and said: "Here's what's really going on." And we brought them in. And we held the secret pretty well, until just a couple of weeks ago, when we sent out press screeners, 'cause we had to send out press screeners, to get— 'cause that's the balance you do, it's secrecy versus getting the favor of the press. As soon as we sent out the press screeners, somebody'd gotten hold of one, and put it— everything out on the internet, so blew all the secrets for some people, just a couple of weeks before the actual broadcast.

Man: I gotta say I did not believe for a moment that she was going (unintelligible).

People: Yeah

RDM: Well that was— y'know, I knew it'd be a tough thing, I mean we took her out of the main title credit, which I thought was pretty slick, then actually give people (unintelligible). But err, yeah, we knew that that was gonna be a tough sell—

Woman: Nobody (unintelligible).