Podcast:The Eye of Jupiter

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Tease

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. This is Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica, here to welcome you to the podcast for what we call episode ten, "Eye of Jupiter". I am coming to you this week from New York City, where I am in town for less than two days on non-Galactica related business. And I will be sending this shortly over to the offices at Scifi Channel, here in New York, which I have actually never set foot on. I think I have been banned from the New York offices. No, I'm just kidding.

"Eye of Jupiter" was originally called "Eye of Zeus" for a very long time in draft form and into script. We changed the name, ultimately, for not very deep reasons. Just that there was something about "Eye of Zeus" that seemed a bit too mystical and a little bit too over-the-top, even for us. And that's saying somethin'. But we didn't want to- the story still was what the story was, and we didn't really wanna lose that aspect of what the episode was and the slide to call it Jupiter instead of Zeus was an arbitrary one, except it, somehow, for subjective reasons that are hard to explain, it sounded a little less hokey. Some could argue it's more hokey, but it was also a nice way to broaden the pantheon, as it were, ha ha ha, of the gods and their references in the Galactica universe and the mythos, in that Zeus being the Greek name for the father of the gods, and Jupiter being the later Roman version of the same idea. And it was nice to have both names- both proper names present in the Galactica world. I believe we've used other Roman names, from time to time, as well, although of course right off the top of my head I can't remember which ones they were, but I think we have established that.

The algae planet storyline was something we talked a lot about in the writers' room and how it was gonna work into the plot. We had always wanted this to be the focal point that. That this was going to be the place where the two storylines ultimately collided. That the Galactica universe- I'm sorry, the Galactica storyline would collide with the Cylon baseship storyline that we'd been following throughout these opening episodes and this was the place that they both came for different reasons. In early versions of the outline were pretty to where we eventually ended up. Except for the process of discovering the Temple of the Five and then the- getting to the Eye of Jupiter were slightly different in that originally they were- the people that were working on the algae collection were down here on the planet and I think Cally was going to trip over or somehow find a human bone fragment in the dirt. That in turn led them to start doing radar ground imaging of what was beneath the surface of- beneath the surface and that led to the discover that there was a whole underground city that had been buried over time, and then they were gonna start looking more in earnest. And it was right about that point when the Cylons were gonna show up and Adama was going to still have a meeting with the Cylons where they told him what they were- they said, "Ok, we know you've got it, and we want it." And he basically faked his way through it and bluffed them into, "Fuck you, we're not giving it to you," and then it was like, "Ok, find this thing. What is it?" And then at that point Tyrol and Cally and company were roaming around and they were gonna literally fall through the roof on a structure that would end up in the temple.

A lot of things got shifted in the story. Not so much for story reasons but for production reasons. One of them was just- this was a very expensive show to do, as always. We're out on location a great deal and we couldn't afford to build a lot of ruins and falling through, and there was also something - somebody pointed out, legitimately so, that we had done the gag with finding a human skull in, way back, in- on Kobol, with Baltar. And that them finding it again just felt repetitve. So we went for something a little different. The Tyrol finding the artifact- finding the temple here in the tease is more akin to a Close Encounters moment, is what we kept calling it. He's feeling Devils Tower someplace, and he keeps looking around and he keeps- something draws Tyrol out into that area.

Here in the Starbuck-Apollo scene that we, of course, just jumped out of, the idea was, ok, after the events of "Unfinished Business" and their breakthrough on- in terms of their relationship and they both admitted that they still love each other and there's something profound in between them. Well, they're still married. They still have these oth- these two other spouses, and what do they do? And I- I liked this idea that they would still become trapped. That given who they were, that Lee would be the one who's willing to divorce. That wil- Lee is like, "Ok, you know what?" Just like in "Unfinished Business", to an extent, in the flashback scenario. When he's- heres the woman he wants to be with. Here's the woman he loves. It's time to break. It's time to make a clean break with the spouses and start over and have a divorce. But that Starbuck, who is religious, who prays frequently, and who believes in the gods, she's made a vow. She made a vow and she won't break it. And that that would place them in this conundrum where she won't- he won't cheat and she won't divorce. So now what the hell do they do? And I thought that was interesting. I though it- it also got me a little deeper into the skin of Starbuck and the contradictions of who that character is. That human beings can often rationalize the strangest moral behavior on their part, and that of those things for Starbuck was gonna be that she could somehow rationalize in her mind bending the rules. She could cheat, while married. She could sleep with other men. She could do these kinds of things. But, she couldn't actually divorce. Divorce was wrong, but cheating was ok. And that Lee was exactly the opposite. Lee somehow could divorce, could break the covenant, could leave the marriage, he's also a child of divorce, but the thought of cheating, the- of lying and sneaking around was anathema to him and that that placed them in this impossible box. And that's where we wanted to go.

A lot of difficult location work in this episode, primarily because the company had- we had kinda shot out almost all the locations that were easily accessible to us in Vancouver. We had s- you've seen a lot of the same forest. You've seen a lot of that one rock quarry where we built the New Caprica settlement, and we didn't have a lot of other choices, and we didn't wanna just go to- I mean it was antithetical to the idea of the algae planet, to go to a planet and harvest the algae, if you were in the deep dark forest. And it was just like, "Huh?" So Michael Rymer very early on advocated the idea that we were gonna to this place called Kamloops, which was a fair distance away. I think it was an hour and something away f- even by plane or s- from Vancouver. Actually I shouldn't say how far away it is, 'cause I don't know for certain. But it was essentially, we had to go out there and stay out there. You couldn't just like drive back and forth from the studio. There's this thing in television about being in the zone and outside of the zone, and it's- it has to do with union rules, etc., etc. But it's all measured by how long it takes you to drive from the studio out to the location, and there's a zone where you can drive this far, and if you go further- if you go outside the zone the costs escalate and then you have to start talking about putting crew up over night, etc., etc. And we had never done it, because it's a- it's almost prohibitive and it's a company policy on behalf of the studio not to do that. But in this case we made a very strong case and Michael is a big proponent of going out much further 'cause we wanted a different look. We needed a different look for the environment, and so we pushed it through. But that added in the costs. See, all this stuff here with Tyrol, this is all Kamloops. This is all very far away. The strange thing is that it looks like Southern California, which is the odd thing. I mean there's the scrub. This looks like Bronson Canyon. I mean- or up by Valencia you could almost go out to Vasquez Rocks and find Kirk battling the Gorn in this kind of terrain. But this is as close to barren as we could conceivably get. I mean, you can- the algae ocean, as a concept, should've been against barren rock and volcanic rock and that kind of environment, but we just couldn't do that. There was no way to plausibly do that sort of look. So this is as close as we could come. And it does feel barren and desolate. And out internal rationalization for it, well, there's plant life here on this planet, but that doesn't do them a lot of good. What they gonna do? They're gonna harvest all these bushes? That- in some way the processing ability that they have to make foodstuffs in the Fleet is actually better served by finding a great deal of raw pro- raw algae. The proteins, etc., of green gooey stuff would actually suit their purposes better and give them a longer term solution to the food problems in the Fleet.

Again this is all- this beat here with Tyrol was a late developing thing. I think it happened when I was taking my pass through this script and it's very like, something is pulling me, something where? Where am I going? I don't know why, but there's something over there, kind of a feeling to it. Aaron sells it quite well. It's like, he's clearly a man who's goin' somewhere, and you get the sense in the sequence that you- that he doesn't really know what the hell he's gonna find once he gets there. Although with this terrain I half-expect him to go through this crevice and go down it's the New York subway system and there's guys with masks on their face looking down at him and giving him the mental barriers. That's a reference to Beneath the Planet of the Apes for those of you who are not fans one of the greatest film franchises of all time.

This set, the- or this location, rather, where he goes in for the temple, we've actually used before. This is actually, what is this? This is a factory. This is a cane- this is a sugar factory, I believe. I might be wrong about that. This is an old factory set. And essentially this is the same place where we shot the end of the miniseries. If you recall, on Ragnar station, there was a large space with a central column in the middle of it that looked very different than this, and that's where they abandoned Doral, and that's where the final shot of the miniseries with all the Cylons coming in. This is a return to that location, which is a different location than Kamloops. This is something more accessible to us, which is a difficult place to shoot but it has the size, scope, and scale that- of what we needed t- for the episode so we went back in, had the art department redress it and tweaked it up with some visual effects work to give it a ceiling. That tilt-up to the ceiling is completely created in CGI. There's actually a column there in the center that- surrounded by a stand of lights to light the set and then it just goes off into nothing and CG- we- visual effects created the entire cathedral-like ceiling there in the Temple of the Five.

Now I'm just watching the titles along with you. Some of these- yeah, I'm seeing some final visual effects I hadn't seen in a while. And that's the end of the tease.

Act 1

Part of the rationale for doing this episode was to get us back on the l- service the larger story of the show. I think one of the strengths of the show, in my personal opinion, is the variety of stories that we do. That some are very intense, personal episodes like episode eight that are very involved with just the characters and their backstories and their interrelationships. Others are more action-oriented space shows like last week's show, "The Passage", that involved a lot of flying around and things exploding, etc., etc. Other episodes are very political. This kind of episode taps into the mythology of the show. The larger stories that we're telling. The search for Earth. These- this two-parter services a lot of masters. We had some discussions within the show and with various people within the show whether this was a correct move. I think Mike Rymer had some reservations about going in this direction when we first pitched the story to him and started talking about, in earnest, about the storyline. Whether we should stick with more political type shows and more personal, character-oriented type shows. And I felt, well, yes. That's great. Those are the shows that I personally love the most in a lot of ways are the ones that have no action whatsoever and that it's really just all character, all the time. But I think the show is about many things. And I think this is- the mythology of the show, the overarching story that we're telling, the search for Earth, the tale of the gods, Cylon one God, and how those things all tie in together, I think, is also a very important part of our series. And I think that one of things I enjoy about the show is the mix, is doing different kinds of show each week. In some ways I think it's cool that there is no such thing as a typical episode of Battlestar Galactica. What is the- what's the parody of the show? You can parody elements of the show and characters of the show, and you can parody dark and depressing storylines if you care to look at it that way, or that they're all gonna die. You can parody elements of it but there's not the, "Oh, it's another one of the- those Galactica episodes. 'Cause every week Galactica does the same show." And we don't do the same show every week. And I think that's one of the strengths of the show. I think it's also one of the dangers of the show. 'Cause I think you've also- there is an element to the- in the audience that very strongly wants to watch the same show every week. That's just television. You tune into a procedural show every week 'cause you wanna see a murder case every single week, and you want to always know who the murderer is by act four and you wanna sorta be surprised, and etc. And so I think when you're doing a series like this you are riding the line between challenging and surprising the show every week and also worrying about getting in the way of the audience's comfort and enjoyment of coming back for a familiar tale, a familiar meal, each week. And I tend to opt for doing something different every week. For doing something- to tell episodes from different points of view, to doing different styles, playing with different genres, and really looking at different aspects of what this universe is.

There were earlier versions of this sequence here, of Baltar coming in. Mike Rymer was always in love with the idea of when Baltar's first coming back on Galactica, and so was James Callis. I think I didn't quite see this as big a moment as they did, of him coming back on Galactica, and I kept fighting to excise- to make this a simpler section. There was a version that was almost shot where Gaeta was part of the team bringing Baltar aboard the ship here in the hallways, and that as they walked and talked Baltar bummed a cigarette off of Gaeta and had a conversation about how much he found himself missing the ship even though he never thought he would, and coming to realize that based on Gaeta's reaction that he could never really go home again. Elements of that idea were saved and later put into the following scene that's coming up where they're all in the wardroom and they're having the big talk between the Cylons and the humans. That sequence actually has a big chunk cut out of the middle of it that we'll talk about. A middle that did deal with some of the Gaeta issues.

I love this sort of walk, and the way Michael shot this walk. Especially that shot we just saw there of Lucy coming down the corridor. There's something about the way Lucy walks through that whole sequence that's really interesting. It's just the way she balances herself on shoe- on her heels, of all things, and the look in hea- her eyes and the way she carries herself when walking through the corridors. There's something powerful and evocative and provocative about the way that Lucy behaves in the whole episode.

Here, this little beat between the two Sharons, was a long time coming. We talked about various scenarios and different ways that the Sharon on Galactica would learn that her child was still alive and what the fallout from that was going to be. We opted for this version because it seemed the least melodramatic and the quitest. That they're both just standing out there with nothing to say to each other for a little while, and then finally the other Sharon gives it away and says what's going on.

K. Here we're in the wardroom. This is the scene I was talking about earlier. In the middle of this scene there was a section- Laura leaves this scene, in a little while. She just can't deal with listening to Baltar and she exits. At that point was when Cavil made the offer, say, "Hey! We'll throw in Baltar to sweeten the deal if you give us the Eye of Jupiter." And at that point what happened was Adama said, "Well, that's worth thinkin' about." And so did Tigh. And Adama and Tigh both left and went out and had a separate conversation in Adama's quarters with Laura where they actually discuss the idea of whether it might be worth it to give 'em whatever they wanted and get Baltar and get the hell outta here. And ultimately, of course, decide not to. But while that was going on, you cut back into this room and Baltar and Gaeta had a little interlude where Gaeta's off smoking and Baltar comes over, bums a cigarette, and casually mentio- or not casually, quietly mentions that they should take a look at the star in this system, and Gaetea goes, "Huh? What are you talking about? The star in this system?" Baltar says, "Yeah, just take- there's something-" He indicates in some way, I can't remember the dialogue, that there's something odd about the star in this system, and that he should- it's worth looking at. And at that point the- Adama and Tigh came back in and rejected the offer. In the editing room the episode was long, as always, and in the editing room I opted to excise that entire section and collapse this all down because it didn't seem like there was really a lot for Adama to go off and talk about and think about. It seemed when you're looking at it in picture that there was just no way they were gonna give 'em what they wanted. The audience knew they were never gonna get them what they wanted, even as- even with the- Look at Mary. Sorry. Mary's face here when Baltar begins to talk and she's just so- she just detests him so much at this point she physically cannot stay in the same room with him. She can't even look at him. And then she finally just has to leave. I felt that they woul- because you, the audience, know there's no way they're giving them the Eye of Jupiter for Baltar, it's kind of a jerkoff to go out and come back, and that really the only reason that it existed was for Baltar to give this information to Gaeta. And we just decided that, you know what, Gaeta can discover this on his own. Which is a- ironically the way it was in the original story outline. Gaeta was going to discover that information on his own and tell Galactica about it. And somewhere in the drafting we decided that- to give- we wanted to give Baltar something that made him be trying to be on the side of the angels, still. He still doesn't see himself as a villain. He still doesn't see himself as completely part of the Cylon agenda. He's trying to warn Galactica, help them, reach out, in some way convince them of his good intentions. He still wants to be thought of as a good guy. Despite everything that's happened. So he was going to clue us into the star to try to help and then we would be suspicious of his motives, etc., etc. It was right at that point, when Tigh says, "Worth thinking about," that they walked out. Yeah. "This is definitely worth thinking about." You can see he- Eddie starting to leave in that scene. You just- he moves his shoulders ever so slightly like he was gonna exit.

Now we go back out to Sharon on Sharon. (Laughs.) I was wish it was Sharon on Sharon. No. It's just Sharon and Sharon. We started playing with this idea that Boomer, who's here, here on the right, that Boomer had now and Sharon had kinda crossed completely. That Sharon in the uniform was now very much on our team and Boomer had returned to her people, which was interesting and ironic given where the positions where they started. And also that Boomer was having trouble with the baby. That Boom could not bond with Hera. And it was driving her a little nuts. It was driving them all a little nuts, and there was bitterness and resentment. And we actually, we stroked out various versions of her struggling to deal with baby Hera, and ultimately they just kept getting cut, and cut, and cut. And there's a lit- there's some hints of the difficulties between Boomer and Hera that you'll in the second part. There was a version of this scene where Sharon pressed some kind of chip- Boomer pressed some kind of chip into Sharon's hand in this sequence and that Sharon went off and it allowed her to project herself over to the Cylon ship, in the way that Cylons project, and she could see her child, and she could see the problems that they were having, and that's what made it real. Ag- it was utimately a little confusing and it was yet more complications in the story that we didn't need and we- you feel at some point, well the audience knows it's true. The audience knows Hera's over there. And the audience doesn't need to be convinced and neither should Sharon. So once Boomer tells her what's going on, tells her the truth, that would be enough and that Sharon would essentially take that information, react to that, and didn't need anything more.

Small bit of editing there that I thought was nice, that elevates it slightly, is when she says, "You're bluffing," there was a scripted line and a shot line where Eddie said, "Try me," and then he asked the guards. And by just taking out the, "Try me," which you kind of hear, it's one of those expected lines in some way that you hear a lot in TV and you know is coming, and it tends to rob the moment of its impact. And by just taking that out it lets the moment speak for itself and it's actually a stronger out for the scene.