Podcast:Sacrifice

This page is a transcript of one of Ronald D. Moore's freely available podcasts. All contents are believed to be copyright by Ronald D. Moore. Contents of this article may not be used under the Creative Commons license. This transcript is intended for nonprofit educational purposes. We believe that this falls under the scope of fair use. If the copyright holder objects to this use, please contact transcriber Steelviper or site administrator Joe Beaudoin Jr. To view all the podcasts the have been transcribed, view the podcast project page.

Teaser

Hello, and welcome to the podcast of episode sixteen, I believe, this is now ep- "Sacrifice". Season two. I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica series. This is also an episode I had certain issues with. It's not my favorite episode of the season. I don't openly dislike it, though, you may be relieved to know, like I did openly dislike "Black Market" a couple of weeks ago. My problem with "Black Market" was that I felt that it- ultimately fell short of what the show is about in terms of what type of story we were trying to tell and that ultimately it was just to conventional- for what we we're- what I think the show does best. This- this- this show, I think, works in parts. I think it has a lot of interesting ideas in it. I think there's specific places where I think we stumble and don't quite deliver on all- on all that the show can be, and I'll try to identify those as we go through. But o- overall I think this show works, and there's things about it that I think are quite nice. Maybe a word is- is worth mentioning here about just the nature of these podcasts. I was unaware about how widely these podcasts are listened to within the- the show itself. A lot of people that work on the show do listen to these podcasts, as well as executives, and so on, and it's worth reiterating that flaws and things that I try to point out in these episodes, things that I'm not satisfied with or are not happy with, ultimately re- redown to me. I'm the- I'm the showrunner. (Chuckles.) I'm the executive producer. A lot of these things are decisions I either made myself or decisions I was aware of and signed off on, so none of this is really meant as criticism to my- to my team, who I value immensely.

Okay. Here in the open. In the scripted version and in the original cut we opened this sequence with an open scene. That is, a scene that takes you someplace other than what the main characters and you're just starting in mid-story, and that was the sequence, this sequence, right here that you're watching with Sesha's husband. It opened with him working in that corridor, finishing up some repair duty, getting on the phone, telling his wife that he was going to be home very soon, and then suddenly the Cylon attack breaks out and he's- the ship, the freighter is damage and he's pulled out into space. It di- it wasn't that satisfying an opening, and I think it's always been a problematic aspect of this particular episode for, for again, what are script reasons. Here's a guy who we kill in the opening moments who we have no- no connection to and the only thing that really matters about him is that he's her husband, in that it drives her obsession and radicalization through the course of the episode. But, the- the pro- it doesn't quite work because it happens so quickly, you don't know who he is, you don't really care, then he's gone, and then we're- we're building a lot on your identi- identification with her emotional trauma, trying to make that the basis for what drives her into taking these extreme actions. And it doesn't quite work. We- we salvage it a little bit by concentrating more on Dana on those opening shots where you're really more with her and you realize that she has a backstory, that somebody mattered to her, that died, but you're really a little bit more with that character than you are with him. And that helps a little bit. It's still not a perfect- a perfect solution. We probably should have tried to work in a different- either a different motivation for her or really gotten a little bit more in depth to what that relationship was about, made us care a little bit more for- to what she lost.

'Course the biggest thing about this episode is the death of Billy, and the exit of Paul Campbell from our main cast. And, Paul's been there since the very beginning. Established in the miniseries. And he's been one of my favorite characters and he's certainly one of my favorite actors and one of the favorite cast members. Paul's very popular, very well liked. Was really an important part of the family. And the decision to "off" him was not made lightly. It really came more from a sense on our part that we- that Paul really is a good actor. Paul is getting a lot of opportunities. Paul was being offered lead roles on other shows and in features and we were trying to accomodate that and trying to make that work out as best we can to give him those opportunities, but yet, we were holding him on the show in a- in what is a supporting role, and doesn't work all the time, sometimes he doesn't work at all, sometimes the days are limited. And ultimately we- we got to a place where we felt that it was mutually benefecial to everybody to- to let Paul go. To let him go do- to let him pursue a career that he- he richly deserves, and it wasn't really fair to just keep him tethered to us. It came into a s- I dealt with a similar situation on "Roswell", a show that I worked on a few years ago. And one of the- one of the characters there was being offered, Colin Hanks, who was one of our characters on "Roswell", was getting of- he was being allowed to go do things like "Band of Brothers", and he had a movie that feature that he wanted to go do and we let him out. It was causing scheduling problems. We kept coming up with excuses for why the character would be gone for big stretches of time and it became so cumbersome that ultimately we- we made the same decision. We'll let him go and kill off the character. And he recurred, in flashbacks and as a ghost and that sort of thing in "Roswell." And something similar happened here. With Billy, because of the nature of the series, there was really no logical way for him to just stop being Laura's assistant. It didn't make sense for the character to suddenly leave her and say, take up residence on some other ship and pursue some other life that would have required a whole, pretty global shift in who the character was and what he was all about, and it just didn't feel right that he would just pack his bags and say, "I'm done, Ms- Madame President. I'm gonna go be a farmer on the farm ship." Or something like that. It just- it just wasn't plausible. It didn't ring true and it just felt better to go this route.

This is- this bar is not a location. This was actually constructed by our- our art department. It was- it's a nice big bar. It was a pretty expensive big set for us. Initially, we had talked about playing out this entire drama in a shuttle. A shuttle was going to be moving from Galactica to some- to Cloud 9 and along the way, in mid-journey, Sesha and her cohorts took over the shuttle and held everyone on there hostage. And we were going to play the whole show in that. It was much more claustrophobic environment. It was going to be a- more intense, that you were inside the shuttle for the whole time. And that just became awkward. It became awkward in terms of production because we don't have a shuttle sitting around, so you had to construct a shuttle from scratch. Believe it or not it's easier to make a big bar than it is a whole functional shuttle with all the control surfaces or c- control panels, etc. and technology and make it big enough that we would be able to put all the players in it and had had a couple of different rooms. You had to have a cockpit. You had to have a passenger area. You had to have places where people could believably be trying to assault and get in. And it was just far more compli- complex, and so we opted to put it in a bar on Cloud 9.

Act 1

Apologize for the noise of the "beep" that happens. I've- I've been seeing some stuff online that people are- don't like the beep at the end acts. I can't tell you what- can't tell you anything about that except that's what happens whenever I trigger the little recording device and tell it where the end- where the beginning of an act is. So, I don't know what to do about that.

I like this little- this little bit here with Ellen and- and Lee revisiting their established relationship that we set up back in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" in- in season one where she was coming on to him. I like the- the notion that Ellen goes off to Cloud 9 periodically. And she- she probably gets laid and she cats around. She does all these things. And Tigh knows about it. Tigh is aware that she goes off and does all these things and I-. There's a line that was in the show, at one point, and it might even still be in the show. Frankly, to be hon- completely honest I've kind of forgotten whether this particular line is still in the show or not, but there was a line from Tigh where he- it was clear that he was aware that she went over to Cloud 9. I think we did lose it ultimately, now I think about it. But it was essentially, he was in a conversation with Adama and he made some- some allusion to the fact that she's over there and it gives him a break. (Chuckles.) And he was aware- he knows who he married. He knows what she's about. They've achieved a certain equilibrium in their relationship that she gets to be who she is, he is who he is, and they've just learned to work it out. That that's part of the nature of the marriage.

This whole section, of course, deals with the triangle that we've been setting up bit by bit of Lee, Dualla, and Billy, and that eventually it was going to come to a head. There was a l- there were various drafts and outlines that had Lee and Dualla actually sleeping together before they went over to Cloud 9. That seemed to push it too far. It seemed like then they'd advanced the relationship to a point that we really didn't want them to. We shot some pieces that implied that there was a more intimate relationship before they got over to Cloud 9. Those were cut, as well, to make- in terms of just protecting Lee and Dualla and making them feel like, okay, this was a burgeoning relationship. Something's that beginning to happen but has not quite been consummated and gone to that point yet.

This is all created in the editing room. It's a- pieces of material that's telling you silent bits. This- this is the kind of stuff that is not quite playing as well as it should in- in big sections of the e- episode, which has to do with just how it was shot and where the eyelines are, and all that. We- we struggled quite a bit trying to make particular looks and moments play. Like, for instance, right there. There used to be a look back from Lee to Dualla where he kind of signaled her to look at the ba- look at the bad guys and as he went into the- as he went into the bathroom and then she looked around and was trying to figure out what was going on. The- the- the looks never quite matched and it wasn't clear that he was sending her a signal. So th- so that element didn't quite play for us.

See what's interesting to me in this episode is the implication that Sesha and people like her are out there in the fleet. That there are multiple points of view about the reality that they're all living in. That not everyone in the rag-tag fleet knows everything that you, the audience, do. They don't see the people on Galactica react week in, week out. They don't really understand the reasons why Adama and Laura make the decisions they do. They just hear whatever their version of the press tells them and there's also a fair amount of rumor and conspiracy theory that floats around the fleet and it was always an interesting idea that there were s- going to be people out there in the fleet who had come to their own conclusions about what was really going on. That they would talk amongst themselves. The civilians would talk amongst themselves, and come up with different theories of- of what really happened and- that- why Sharon would still be alive and what that meant. Clearly there are people now- the episode says that clearly there are- there are some people who believe that military's been completely hoodwinked by this, that they're being fooled, that they're being taken over. I think it's interesting that it comes up later that Sesha- Sesha tells Adama, "It's obvious that the Defense Ministry was infiltrated," and that there- there was a Cylon- that there was a Cylon- what's the word I'm looking for- there was a Cylon spy or colla- oh Cylon in- collaborator, sorry, bluh. There's a Cylon collaborator somewhere in the military's midst that allowed the original attack on the Colonies to take place. And, of course, she's right. That man's name is Gaius Baltar. Something that Adama is not aware of, and even Laura only has an impression that he was with a Cylon that she can't prove and she doesn't- even she can't quite connect all the dots to say that really, that was the chain of events that led to the destruction of their entire civilization. So it's interesting that that piece of insight was going to come from without Galactica. That it was going to come from people that were out there coming to their own conclusions, and that those people could be radicalized by certain events, and that one of those kinds of events is- would be the loss of yet another loved one during a Cylon attack would stoke the fire, would propel Sesha into a place where she desperately needed revenge or she desperately needed to strike back and- and the knowledge that there was probably another Cylon alive and well and aboard Galactica would be enough to send her and her cohorts over the edge, to put themselves out on the line, to take a dramatic step and bring this to a close. It's an interesting formulation. You're saying these people, these terrorists or hostage-takers, or whatever you want to term them, take this radical step, take this violent, dangerous step of taking people hostage, threatening to kill them unless they get the Cylon prisoner and execute the prisoner, so it's an- what is their motivation? And do we approve of their motivation? Do we the audience at least understand where they're coming from and can we sympathize with their point of view. I- I- I hope the answer's yes. I think you get a sense in the show that, while her method is clearly over the line, that she's operating from a place that's not- yeah, she says it right there, "We're not criminals." She's not coming from a place of "Give me my own ship," or "Give me power," or "Give me money," or anything like that or even, "Free a political prisoner," or something. She's essentially saying that, "You're all being fooled. You don't know that you're being fooled. It's dangerous. We're all going to die and I have to take this step because you're too stupid to take it." I- I was always intrigued by that as a motivation. I think it- it's in the show. I don't know that it quite punches through as strongly as it should and I think it's probably a factor of not quite getting inside Sesha's head enough, and maybe we never- we didn't quite spend enough time with her inside the- inside the- the bar and doing more ch- detailed character work with her. I think that we are saved in large measure by the fact that it's Dana Delany playing this role. Dana blur- brings an innate intelligence and a presence to the show that lifts the character and you start to believe ever- listen to everything she says much more closely, and she's not just- I don't want to say a bad actor- it's a- a lesser actor would just speak these words and you wouldn't feel any connection or really care. I think the fact that we have Dana delivering this kind of material helps the episode immeasurably and it was a real boon to us all to have her on the show. Beware the beep. It's coming.