Razor

For the relatively spoiler-free overview, see: Razor.

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"Razor" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Special Episode
Writer(s)	Michael Taylor
Story by
Director	Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	401/402
Nielsen Rating
US airdate	24 November 2007
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate	5 December 2007
DVD release	4 December 2007 US 26 December 2007 UK
Population	49,579 survivors
Additional Info	USA 12 November 2007 (theater screening in select U.S. cities)
Full Credits
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Battlestar Galactica: Razor Flashbacks	Razor	He That Believeth In Me
Related Information
IMDb entry
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: [ USA]

Overview

A tale centered around the new Pegasus officer Kendra Shaw, following her entire tenure on the battlestar from the Fall of the Twelve Colonies under Admiral Cain, to Lee Adama's command and a frightful rescue mission to save crew members who have been captured by the Cylons.

Summary

Notes

• Despite being credited, Alessandro Juliani (Felix Gaeta), Kandyse McClure (Anastasia Dualla) and Matthew Bennett (Number Five/Aaron Doral) do not appear in "Razor".
• Scenes involving a young Helena Cain and her father, as well as Kendra Shaw on Caprica were cut from the TV version, but will be in the extended cut on DVD .
• The Guardian basestar appears to be an evolutionary gap in between the older Cylon War-era basestar and the newer starfish type basestar.
• The flashback of a young William Adama finding a Cylon lab during the war is part of the fifth episode of the "Razor" web-episodes.
• According to Sharon Agathon, the Hybrids were created as a means to grow out of their mechanical roots and into biological ones. The Cylons considered the hybrids a failure and, after creating enough of them to control their baseships, the project was abandoned.
• At the end Thrace asks to be re-assigned to Galactica, currently holding the position of Pegasus's CAG, which she assumes in "The Captain's Hand".
• Despite being a major, Kendra Shaw wears a colonel's uniform with white/red trim. As shown on Doctor Cottle earlier, a major's uniform only has a white trim.
• Michael Taylor noted that the original opening for "Razor" was inspired by Apocalypse Now, but this was later cut.
• Scenes with Alastair Thorne torturing Gina were filmed but removed as "it played a little too much like an outtake from Spartacus."

Analysis

• Given the overall survivor count and the tally of 49,579 during the credits, "Razor" takes place between "The Captain's Hand" and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". Captions also place the flashback portions 10 months prior to the present events. However this timespan is closer to 9 months.
  • This is also the only time during Lee Adama's command of Pegasus that the episode can even fit, since Starbuck leaves for Caprica in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". See also Timeline - Season 2 (RDM)
  • Adama's selection of Shaw as his XO likely takes place very shortly after him taking command of Pegasus, but other parts of the episode might take place slightly later.
  • Sharon Agathon's appearance may indicate that this episode takes place before "Downloaded", however this cannot be confirmed by any visual evidence as her appearance is brief and all camera shots are seemingly aimed to avoid shooting her belly. However, it can be reasonably surmised that because she is still cooperating with the Colonials that Hera's birth and her subsequent faked death haven't occurred yet.
• According to Admiral Cain, a razor is someone who can set aside all fear, hesitation, revulsion and natural inhibition in battle (see noteworthy dialogue).
  • When Cain recruits Jack Fisk to assassinate Commander Adama, she tells him that he needs to pick Marines who are "Completely reliable. Completely loyal. Razors." (Resurrection Ship, Part I).
  • This bears a passing semblance to a poem by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: "I am still the sword/Of my Emperor/I will not be sheathed/Until I die." Admiral Yamamoto knew about America, Americans and their potential from his time as a student at Harvard and as a naval attaché in Washington, DC. Despite misgivings about declaring war on America, he served his Emperor and planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Peter Laird's reaction to the dead civilians heavyily implies that the woman killed by Shaw is his wife. Especially the shot at the end when he looks at the bodies and the camera pans from him to the woman.

Questions

• How does the Hybrid know Kendra Shaw?
• Is what the Hybrid says about Kara Thrace being the harbinger of death true?
• Who is Pegasus's CAG after Thrace steps down?

Official Statements

• Michael Taylor on the scene with the three Guardians in the Cylon War-era Raider:

Actually, early references to talking Centurions were cut from early versions of the script, only to be resurrected by one of our VFX guys, Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz, who ended up giving them very similar dialogue to what I once had. We all mulled the issue and then concluded: What the [heck]; how can we revisit that era and not hear one of the signature lines? And yes, we’re a serious show, but sometimes it’s also not so terrible to acknowledge that this is a show, with a debt to another show, no matter how thoroughly we’ve tried to re-imagine it.

• Taylor discusses the limited appearance of Alastair Thorne in "Razor":

There’s only so many characters and storylines that we could explore in a movie of even nearly two hours, and frankly this was Cain’s and Kendra’s story. As far as the character of the torturer, Lt. Thorne, goes, I think it was scary enough to introduce him and imagine what poor Gina had in store.

• Taylor discusses the narrative of the story:

The script itself is somewhat less flashbacky, telling the story in a more chronological, linear way. Ultimately, we found it more effective to ground the story by relating it through a more present-day frame in which our regular characters, including Lee and Kara, are more front-and-center. But whether intended in the same way or not, what I like about both "Unfinished Business" and "Razor" is the way they fracture time, and show how the past affects and informs the present. I suppose that’s probably one of the themes that interests me most as a writer.

• Taylor discusses the relationship between Gina and Helena Cain:

I think part of the point about Cain’s and Gina’s relationship is that the fact that they had a same-sex relationship was no big deal. I think we started from the idea of wanting to explore whether Cain’s anger and revulsion at Gina, so evident in her first appearance in Season Two’s “Pegasus,” had a personal component. And the idea that Cain had had an intimate relationship with Gina quickly came to mind. It made Gina’s betrayal that much more devastating for her.

That being said, we did not want to make much about the idea of Cain being “gay,” if indeed she is gay, or if indeed Colonial society makes much of the distinction between hetero- and homosexual preferences. I tend to think that in this respect, at least, they’re a bit more enlightened than we are. That being said, we honestly have not done much exploring of the sexual orientations of other characters so far in Season 4. If it were to serve a dramatic purpose—as it does in "Razor" —other than to underscore that homosexuality is as much a part of the Battlestar world as it is of ours, we may well. We still have a season of scripts to write, so who knows: Look out, “The L Word,” we’re coming for your Nielsen ratings.

• Taylor discusses how this story originated:

A number of ideas were tossed around, but they all centered on using the movie as an opportunity to revisit the series’ past. I believe an early notion of mine may even have touched on a Terminator-like time-travel scenario that put some of our characters back on Caprica before the attack, but with foreknowledge of what was about to happen. I remember pitching the idea that [William] Adama would have to convince Cain to trust him and then join forces to try to stop the attack.

All the writers were on a conference call with the show’s creators and executive producers, Ron Moore and David Eick, and I recall David in particular perking up at the mention of Cain and Pegasus. It quickly became clear that our story would center around Cain’s ship and its own, very different journey in the aftermath of the Cylon attacks, and with that idea firmly in place the time travel and other kooky stuff quickly fell by the wayside and we began constructing a much more realistic story where our characters’ choices in the face of calamity, rather than through time-travel-enabled hindsight, became the key. But then that’s what Battlestar has always been about: the pressure of making genuine choices in real, and often horrific situations.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Admiral Cain talks to Kendra Shaw about her conduct during the crisis:

Sometimes we have to do things that we thought we were never capable of, if only to show the enemy our will. Yesterday you showed me that you're capable of setting aside your fear, setting aside your hesitation - and even your revulsion, every natural inhibition that during battle can make the difference between life and death. (opens folding knife.) When you can be this, for as long as you have to be, then you're a razor. (closes knife.) This war is forcing us all to become razors. Because if we don't, we don't survive. And then we don't have the luxury of becoming simply human again. Do you understand me?

• Opening narration by Kendra Shaw:

You're born, you live and you die. There are no do-overs, no second chances to make things right if you frak 'em up the first time. Not in this life anyway.

• Gina about Helena Cain and their relationship:

She has needs, just like the rest of us. No one can survive entirely on their own. Trust me lieutenant, in the end, we're all just human.

• Admiral Cain gives a speech to her crew after the Cylon attack:

This is your admiral. I know there've been a lot of rumors going around...about the destruction that's been visited on our homeworlds by the Cylons. I would like to tell you that they're exaggerations, but in fact it can not even come close to convey the horror that's been unleashed upon us. The facts are...that our colonies have been destroyed, our cities have been nuked, and our fleet's gone too. So far there have been no indications of any other survivors. I imagine you're all asking yourselves the same question I am: What do we do now? Do we run? Do we hide? I think those are the easy choices. A philosopher once said "When faced with untenable alternatives you should consider your imperative." Look around you. Our imperative is right here, in our bulkheads, in our planes, in our guns and in ourselves. War is our imperative. And if right now victory seems like an impossibility, then we have something else to reach for: revenge, payback. So we will fight. Because in the end it's the only alternative our enemies have left us. I say let's make these murdering things understand that as long as this crew and this ship survive, that this war, that they started, will not be over. Thank you.

• William and Lee Adama discuss Cain's actions:

William Adama: I've been going through Cain's log and from a tactical perspective it's hard to find fault in anything she did. Or that Kendra Shaw did.

Lee Adama: They butchered innocent civilians, D. Come on. How can you ignore that?

William Adama: I know that I didn't have to face any of the situations that she did. I had the President in my face, arguing for the survival of the civilian fleet. I've Colonel Tigh keeping me honest, balancing my morality and my tactics. And I had you. Now...you don't have any children, so you might not understand this, but you see yourself reflected in their eyes. And there are some things that I've thought of doing with this fleet, but I've stopped myself, because I knew I'd have to face you the following day.

Guest Stars

• Alessandro Juliani as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla
• Michelle Forbes as Admiral Helena Cain
• Graham Beckel as Colonel Jack Fisk
• Stephanie Jacobsen as Lieutenant/Captain/Major Kendra Shaw
• Nico Cortez as Young William Adama
• Matthew Bennett as Number Five
• Steve Bacic as Colonel Jurgen Belzen
• Brad Dryborough as Lieutenant Hoshi
• Eileen Pedde as Sergeant Erin Mathias
• Fulvio Cecere as Lieutenant Alastair Thorne
• Vincent Gale as Peter Laird
• Campbell Lane as Hybrid
• Kyra Scott as Young Helena Cain
• Chandra Berg as Little Lucy Cain
• Peter Flemming as Helena's Father
• Shaker Paleja as Medic Hudson
• Andrew Dunbar as Marine Dasilva
• Jacob Blair as Squad Leader Banzai
• Peter Bryant as Frank Bruno
• Chris Bradford as Ops Officer
• Tyson Stanley as Young Marine
• Trevor Roberts as Scylla Protestor #1
• Cameron Macleod as Scylla Protestor #2
• Ingrid Tesch as Mother
• Joey Pierce as Marine Riggs
• Matt Drake as Son #1
• Dustin Eriksen as Son #2
• John Hainsworth as Man in Cage #1
• Victor Ayala as Man in Cage #2
• Deni Dolory as Woman in Cage
• Emily Hirst as Child in Cage
• Ben Cotton as Terrified Man
• Stefanie von Pfetten as Captain Marcia "Showboat" Case
• Alyssa Minniss as Flower Girl
• Uncredited as Gus

External Links

• Official SCIFI.com Site for "Razor"