Unfinished Business (Extended Version)

"Unfinished Business" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 3, Episode 9
Writer(s)	Michael Taylor
Story by
Director	Robert Young
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	309
Nielsen Rating	{{{rating}}}
US airdate	{{{US airdate}}}
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate	{{{UK airdate}}}
DVD release	25 March 2008 US
Population	41,422 survivors ( 1)
Additional Info	Extended DVD Episode
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Hero	Unfinished Business	The Passage
Related Information
Official Summary
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Listing of props for this episode
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Overview

The Season 3 DVD set released in North America includes a version of "Unfinished Business" that contains 25 minutes of new scenes. Moreover, Ron Moore recorded a new audio commentary for the episode.

Summary

Given the massive rearrangement of scenes compared to the aired version, this page summarizes the entire episode - not just the new scenes - but shortens the description of scenes identical or nearly identical to the aired version when appropriate.

• Admiral Adama is resting on New Caprica. He pushes his bare feet through the sand and lets sand run through his fingers. This is intercut with Kara Thrace and Samuel Anders having sex in a bunk and brief scenes of a boxing match.
• Anastasia Dualla gives a status report to Admiral Adama in his quarters. She notes many incidents showing a lack of discipline and standards across many departments, and suggests that they cancel the boxing tournament and call everyone back to duty. Adama rejects that, saying that it is important for everyone, her including. He quips that she should put in her tags too.
• Thrace and Anders finish having sex (intercut with more boxing and Thrace and Lee Adama having sex on New Caprica). Their conversation is longer. Anders wonders if sex is all he is good for these days; Thrace says that's all she can handle right now, and he states that he is aware of what she went through on New Caprica. When Anders wonders if maybe he is not who she wants after all, she replies that she won't try to change his mind if that is what he really feels, and leaves.
• Thrace goes to the hangar deck and watches Apollo and Helo fight. She goes to the ring and talks to the Agathons. Adama is eventually disqualified by Dr. Cottle and Tigh on medical grounds. Sharon Agathon enthusiastically congratulates her husband for the win.
• The verbal sparring between Thrace and Adama after the fight is longer and more intense. Adama picks up on her trouble with Anders. Thrace blames Adama for not having been able to assign them to the same ship; Adama can't believe that she would do so. Thrace only puts her dogtags in the can after Adama asks her how far she wants to push this.
• Admiral Adama briefly talks to Dualla, noting how good his son looks now that he has lost weight. Lee Adama congratulates Helo on the win, and Dualla asks how her husband is. She asks him if they should have a "private tussle" if he is done brawling, but he tells her that he has another fight. Seeing that it is with Thrace, she leaves without another word.
• Adama talks to Tigh about the event, and then the fight between Omar Fischer and an unnamed crewman begins. Roslin walks up to Adama and the two talk. The flashback with her finding him playing with the sand is also shown.
• When Adama notes "all the frustrations" he has, he flashes back to congratulating Chief Tyrol about the birth of his son. The chief requests to settle on New Caprica, which the admiral declines.
• After Fischer wins, Hot Dog is called into the ring and picks to fight Starbuck, who defeats him.
• During the fight, Dualla massages her husband's shoulders and tells him a story of her childhood. When some boy kept beating her up on the way home from school, her mother told her it wasn't because she pissed him off. Much later, she realized that the other side of hatred is love. She wonders what the fight between Adama and Thrace is really about.
• The flashback to Dualla and Lee Adama on New Caprica, where she tells him that her transfer to Pegasus has been approved. After they meet Thrace and Anders, and the women leave together for the bar, Anders offers Adama a drink from a bottle.
• Gaius Baltar officially lays ground for New Caprica City. As Felix Gaeta congratulates Baltar on the stage, and the crowd claps, Thrace tells Adama that his fly is open.
• After Anders tells his joke to Tigh at the bar, Thrace asks Ellen Tigh that their husbands "aren't going to be friends, are they?". Tigh replies that she always wanted to date a ballplayer and admires Anders's arms.
• When Chief Tyrol tells Cally that he thinks it will be better to have the baby on Galactica, she says that the weather on the planet usually sucks anyways.
• In the present day, Kat is fighting Racetrack. Outside the ring, Starbuck practices with Athena. Starbuck asks her why relationships have to be that complicated and laments that "they start thinking that they own you." She says that Lee has been making the same mistakes with her since the day he met her, starting with Zak.
• Dualla tells Adama that she doesn't want him to fight Thrace. Adama insists that it has nothing to do with them, but that he and Thrace have a score to settle.
• On New Caprica, Ellen Tigh notices that her husband gives her "weird looks". Tigh wants to "just enjoy his wife." The rest of the scene is as in the aired version.
• Anthony Figurski and Chief Tyrol talk about aircraft maintenance while watching the fight. Tyrol decides to give Figurski the day off to watch the fight. Admiral Adama asks if there is trouble. In the ring, Kat knocks out her opponent.
• On New Caprica, Felix Gaeta talks to Adama and Roslin. The opening is slightly longer and there are a few more shots of the two smoking.
• After some scenes showing the square dancing, Dualla tells Adama that she wants to leave, but he doesn't want her to. She says that they are catching more looks than she wants to, trying to keep their relationship under wraps. She leaves, but says he should stay and get drunk, since she has never seen him this happy.
• The scene of Adama and Roslin lying at the ground and gazing at the stars has a longer beginning. Roslin says that she was tired of staring at the stars on Colonial One, but can't get enough of them now. Adama sings a small song that he says he learned from a fellow pilot long ago. The part with Roslin telling him that everyone should seize the day and make the best of their maybe limited time on New Caprica is slightly longer. Adama's reply uses a different camera angle. The conversation continues with new material, mainly by Roslin.
• On Galactica, Adama climbs into the ring and challenges Chief Tyrol. Their fight begins with Adama knocking Tyrol down immediately after the bell rings. The fight is interrupted with the flashback of Lee Adama drinking with Thrace and seeing that Anders passed out. In the ring, Adama urges Tyrol to get up again and fight.
• On New Caprica, Adama and Thrace visit the place where she wants to build her future house. At one point Adama asks if he is standing in the kitchen, to which Thrace replies that it is the bedroom. Adama laughs and says that that is not a place he ever wants to go to or imagine. In this version Thrace replies to his question if she really wants to spend the rest of her life with Anders. She asks if he has someone in mind, and he wants her to tell him that she isn't afraid that he will come along to upset her new neat life. She says "Maybe I want it upset" and the two kiss and have sex. Later, when he dares her to declare her love for him, he taunts her a bit more to get up. After doing so, she asks him if she is what he really wants, which he affirms. He says that it's because of Zak "and a lot of things", and mostly because he was afraid to admit how much he needed her. They quietly repeat that they love each other.
• The fight between William Adama and Tyrol continues. Thrace taunts Lee Adama by saying that he doesn't know when to hold back. Dualla asks them why they are fighting and why they don't just get a room. Thrace says they have done that already. Dualla, realizing for the first time they actually slept together, leaves, telling her husband to settle his issues with Thrace tonight. In the ring, Tyrol gets the upper hand and beats Adama hard. In his corner, Adama gets advice from Roslin.
• On New Caprica, Cally finds her husband passed out on the next morning, trying to hand him some coffee. Adama comes along and tell them that he changed his mind about allowing them to leave Galactica.
• Back on Galactica Adama gets beaten up even worse, as everyone looks on dismayed, and is knocked out. When he gets up, he holds his speech to the crew and Tigh ends the event after Adama leaves. Starbuck insists that she and Apollo still have their fight.
• On New Caprica, Thrace finds her husband sleeping on the ground. Nearby, Tigh is drinking, with his wife sleeping in his lap. Thrace sits down next to him and takes a gulp from his bottle. Tigh notes that this is the first drink they shared together and that it must be a special occasion. She tells him that she slept with Lee and Tigh laughs heartily. First thinking that it isn't funny, Thrace eventually joins in. Becoming serious, Tigh asks her to tell him all about it, thus starting the beginning of a friendship shown later during the show.
• In the ring, Starbuck and Apollo fight.
• In another flashback, Admiral Adama tells his son that Thrace and Anders got married, who reacts shocked.
• The fight goes on with some additional verbal jabs between the two. Adama accuses her of never letting anybody get close and that she ran away from him. Thrace tells him that she made her choice. He repeats Thrace's earlier taunt that "the truth stings."
• Flashback: In a Raptor approaching Pegasus, Adama is proposing to Dualla. When Dualla wonders what brought this on, he says that seeing Thrace and Anders get married, made him think about the life he wants to lead now. He says that his time with Dualla has been the happiest ever for him. She tells him that she knows that he loves Thrace, but he denies it. Dualla realizes that Adama may leave her one day, but agrees to marry him, because she wants to take all happiness she can get before the Cylons show up or Thrace returns into Adama's life.
• The fight is approaching its end, with the blows falling more slowly. Instead of the flashes to different appearances of Thrace as in the aired episode, there are some additional lines. At the end the two can't stand anymore and fall to the floor.

Notes

Information from the audio commentary

• Ron Moore calls the episode an "editor's cut". In some ways it was the starting point for cutting down the episode to the standard length of 42 minutes. That is, while it offers a lot more details on the characters, it is a rough cut (unlike the "Pegasus" extended cut). He considers some scenes better and some worse than in the final cut, sometimes preferring story points only being told by implication and not spelled out. He thinks some scenes may be too long, with the ideal cut maybe somewhere between the two.
• Moore likes that it focuses more on the other characters besides Starbuck and Apollo, giving more context to their relatively small scenes that were aired. Moreover, he particularly loves the extended scenes with Adama and Roslin. At the same time, he is glad that they didn't lose much if anything of the actual story in cutting the episode, because it is entirely about the characters.
• The flashbacks are not indicated literally with bright flashes. Moore notes that the network often insists on these visual cues to help viewers. He hates how such elements underestimate the viewers' comprehension and hold them by the hands, but admits that they helped to create a faster pace in the aired version.
• The scene of Adama and Roslin getting high is a bit longer and can thus emphasize the smoking and its effects more. Moore notes that he was very furious at the network for insisting on the cutting, screaming at them to frak themselves. He repeatedly comments how the two are stoned in all their scenes on the planet and how natural the actors are at it.
• Moore and the editor note that the network and some viewers were confused about why Admiral Adama picked on Tyrol so much. They repeatedly point out that he doesn't have a personal problem with Tyrol, but uses him as a symbol for both the unhealthy closeness of the crew and especially the breakup on New Caprica, which started with him and Cally. They think that the extended cut makes this clearer.
• As scripted, the final fight between Apollo and Starbuck was supposed to take place with them completely alone. As shot, there is a smaller, but considerable audience that only dwindles down at the very end.

Other

• A title card notes that the groundbreaking ceremony headed by Baltar on New Caprica takes place on "Founders' Day".
• The square dancing on New Caprica shows a lot more of the background civilians dancing, sometimes with the main characters.
• During the scene with Adama and Roslin lying down at night and looking at the stars, Adama breaks into a small song that he says he learned from a fellow pilot during the war: "Ever seen a little light before the dawn of of the light. Got a woman by a stream. Gonna show her all my dreams."
• That scene is interrupted by a scene on Galactica. The transition is a shot of the night sky - as seen by Adama and Roslin - with Galactica and a few other ships flying into the frame. The image of the sky is different from the aired version; instead of a star group it shows a faint part of the nebula around New Caprica.
• The episode deliberately concentrates more on the "dance" and its boxing matches. There is far less inter-cutting with the flashbacks, allowing more time to be spent on continuous scenes in both time frames. There are some intercut flashbacks to New Caprica throughout the episode, but much of the time on the planet is shown together in longer scenes.
• Small continuity hiccup: Lee Adama tells Dualla "let's get the hell out of here" and both board a Raptor. However, in his next flashback, Lee talks to his father on New Caprica; a scene that seemingly belongs before the first one, given that the flashbacks are in chronological order. His next one shows him and Dualla in the Raptor in space.
• Anders is noted as living on the Salpica, although the subtitles incorrectly refer to it as "the Caprica". Several other episodes make note of Anders using shuttles for visiting Kara Thrace on Galactica, but the ship he is living on is never mentioned.
• Bear McCreary scored the episode again, using less orchestra, resulting in a score somewhere between the original temp score and the television version. See #Official Statements.

Analysis

• Admiral Adama's speech to the crew after his fight omits the line "I gave some of you breaks, let some of you go, before the fight was really over." In the aired version, he says this while the camera points elsewhere or to his back. In the audio commentary Moore notes that it was looped in at the insistence of the network to explain his actions better. He goes on to say that he hates it, because it states the obvious, which is why he removed it.
• Lee Adama is more insistent to have his fight with Thrace, repeatedly saying that the wants to settle a score with her. The new lines during the fight between the two imply that he doesn't just want revenge for how she hurt him in the past, but that he isn't over her yet.
• Kara Thrace's hurtful behavior towards Lee Adama, by marrying Anders, may appear more mean. Although she apparently considered what happened a mistake the next morning, she did tell Adama that she loves him and he told her that he really wants and needs her. That is more intimate than the one-night stand and dared love confessions shown in the aired episode.
• The revelation that Anders is living on another ship and not on Galactica yet, and that Thrace - maybe irrationally - blames Lee Adama for that state, adds a new level to her quarrel with Adama. For her it is not just about the past.
• The extended scene between Adama and Roslin makes it clear that she is fully convinced that the Cylons will show up one day and that their time on New Caprica is limited. Although enjoying their time on the surface, she probably still considers the settlement a mistake.
• Dualla's role in the episode is a lot more prominent and less passive:
  • There is an additional scene with her that emphasizes how she doesn't doesn't want to advertise her relationship with Adama too much until she transfers to Pegasus.
  • In the proposal scene, it becomes clear that she fully realizes that Adama really loves Thrace, although not that they slept together. Nonetheless, she choses to marry him, citing a philosophy that echoes what Roslin said during the night: that times are good, and they should take what they can get before the Cylons show up. This makes her less ignorant of obvious things going on around her. In "Taking a Break From All Your Worries", she later repeats part of this by saying that she knew what might happen one day, but chose to marry him anyways.
  • Instead of just watching the fight and keeping her reaction largely to herself, she confronts her husband about what is going on between him and Thrace. She also finds out first-hand that they slept together, although the aired version makes it clear that she realizes it when watching the two.
  • The anecdote about her childhood - how she learned that love and hatred can be two sides of the same coin - gives some new dimension to her later exchange with Anders ("Looks like they're trying to kill each other." "That's o­ne perspective.") However, as with several other new scenes, this merely elaborates on what is already said or implied.

Official Statements

• Composer Bear McCreary on scoring the episode:

The extended "Unfinished Business" was an extremely odd experience. As I’m sure Ron mentioned in the commentary, this was one of the original cuts of the episode, that was eventually tweaked, revised and re-edited into the final version. The temp music in this first cut was very different from the temp music in the later cut, which emphasized my orchestral pieces. So, that’s why the final episode used a lot of orchestra. However, what you’re hearing in the extended DVD is not the original temp score, but a new score that I wrote specifically for the DVD release. This score is based on the ideas of the original temp score, but incorporates melodic and thematic threads from the television version’s score. So, the score for the DVD version is an example of “what might have been” if we had continued down the non-orchestral path. It was a very strange challenge for me, returning to such a pivotal episode and re-scoring it as if I’d never scored it in the first place.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Saul Tigh on alcohol:

"I'll tell you the secret to avoid hangovers. Don't stop drinking."

• During the extended conversation between Adama and Roslin:

Adama: I've got people that want to get off the ship, move down here.

Roslin: Can't say as I blame them. I mean, what are you gonna do? You gonna keep them up there like prisoners, running around in circles, all night, all day, waiting for the apocalypse.

Adama: Well, the apocalypse has happened once before.

Roslin: Yeah. And there was nothing you could do to stop it, Bill, not then, not now. I mean, let's get real. Let's get real. The Cylons come back, we're dead. Disease strikes, we're dead. Earthquake, volcano, hurricane, today, tomorrow, five years from now, and it's...and you know what I'd say? Life's a bitch and then you die.

Adama: (chuckles)

Roslin: You know...no, I'm serious. I mean, I think that...I think we should all look at every moment of every day from now on as borrowed time and people should live the lives that they want to live before it's over. Let's stop spending the little time we have left here worrying about when it's gonna end.

• Lee Adama and Kara Thrace have just confessed their love for each other:

Thrace: Are you sure I'm what you want?

Adama: Yeah you're what I want. And I just don't- I don't think I really knew it until I said it out loud just now.

Thrace: Why? Because of Zak?

Adama: Yeah, and a lot of things. Um, but mostly because I was afraid to admit how much I needed you. How much I needed anyone.

Thrace: Yeah.

Adama: I love you Kara Thrace.

Thrace: I love you too.

Guest Stars

• Michael Hogan as Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Chief Galen Tyrol
• Tahmoh Penikett as Captain Karl Agathon
• Nicki Clyne as Cally Tyrol
• Alessandro Juliani as Felix Gaeta
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla
• Michael Trucco as Samuel Anders
• Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
• Donnelly Rhodes as Doctor Cottle
• Luciana Carro as Capt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Bodie Olmos as Lt. Brendan "Hotdog" Costanza
• Christian Tessier as Tucker "Duck" Clellan
• Don Thompson as Anthony Figurski
• Dominic Zamprogna as James "Jammer" Lyman