Podcast:Maelstrom

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Act 2

RDM: And we're back. Really like this idea of Kara returning from the combat mission and then them finding no damage on the Viper. It's a really nice effective- there's this creep factor that moves into the show. Right here. Even more strongly, I think, than in the early- in the teaser one.

Terry: How many are we away from the finale? Two?

RDM: Three.

Terry: Three.

RDM: Three episodes to the finale.

Gun camera footage.

Now the way this particular show is struct-

Terry: -What is this?

RDM: This is them looking in the gun camera footage, trying to find the-

Terry: And why is she- 'cause she says it's not hers.

RDM: -the Raider.

Terry: 'Cause it's different from watch she saw?

RDM: Well, 'cause she's saying it's not what she saw. So she;s saying it must not be hers.

Terry: Oh.

RDM: A big difference between early drafts and the final show is that Starbuck made three trips into the nebula. There are really now only two trips left. There's the initial non-sighting of the Raider, as it were, then she spends the show dealing with that, and then she goes back at the end for the final. There was a third. There was a middle passage where she went into- went on a CAP patrol once more and was going by the nebula- or the clouds at the gas giant, and she saw the Raider, but instead of saying that she saw the Raider, in that version, she pretended like she had a hydraulic failure in her cockpit and ran away, and went back home, and faked having a problem. And this scene actually followed that. That she had- she was faking having a problem, and that's when Adama and Lee really started to say, "OK. What the hell are we gonna do about this?" Now in- during the pre-production process, I remember Nankin coming to me and saying, "I wanna cut- ," 'cause the scripts are always fuckin' long. And Nankin was saying, "I wanna cut the middle trip. I don't think you need it." And I was insistent. No, you have to have the middle trip. It's crucial. These things- I mean, there's this old saying in T- drama that things go in threes. You always try to make threesomes whenever possible, triangles. You're always having three beats to a story, etc., etc., etc. And so there's this thing about being three and I thought structurally you needed the third, the middle, beat to justify where we were going. And when all was said and done and he turned in his cut I had heard, through the grapevine, from editorial, that he had cut the middle- trip, and I told him, "Well, don't get fuckin' used to it, 'cause I'm gonna be puttin' that middle one back, because it works, and you need it." And then I saw the cut. And I was so blown away by the show-

Terry: We dedicate this-

RDM: -that I essentially said, "You don't need it." I sent Nankin an email and said, "You know what? You were right, and I was wrong, and you don't need the middle passage," and the show works just fine without it. And you're so emotionally invested in what we're doing and in the characters that there's plenty of action in the piece so you don't need to go into the center again.