Podcast:33

"33" Podcast
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Length of Podcast:	44:43
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Ronald D. Moore	Ronald D. Moore
	Terry Dresbach
David Eick	David Eick
Michael Rymer	Michael Rymer
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Ronald D. Moore, David Eick, and Michael Rymer discuss the creation of "33", the first episode of Season 1. They cover the episode's conceptual origin, the relentless tension of the 33-minute Cylon attacks, the decision to start the series in media res, and the use of a gritty, documentary-style aesthetic. The commentary explores character moments born from on-set collaboration, the technical challenges of the visual effects, and the creative debates surrounding the episode's dark and controversial climax with Olympic Carrier's destruction. Note: While not formally a podcast, as this is exclusive to the home video releases, it is in the style of Ron Moore's podcast commentaries

Introduction & The '33' Concept

Ron: Hi, I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer, Battlestar Galactica.

David: I'm David Eick, exec producer of Battlestar Galactica.

Michael: And I'm Michael Rymer, the director of the pilot and the first episode of the first season of Battlestar Galactica.

Ron: And this is the first episode of the first season. It's called "33 ," which refers to the amount of time that elapses in between all the Cylon attacks.

This episode, conceptually, began very early in the development of the first season. I'd wrote up a short list of potential storylines that we would play in the first year, and one of those log lines was, "The fleet jumps every 33 minutes because the Cylons are relentlessly pursuing them. The crew gets no sleep."

And that just sort of one-line description kind of caught everybody's attention. We all kind of sparked to it, and I think David and I decided at some early point that that was probably the best way to kick off the season. And there was never really a story document developed for this particular episode, actually. I wrote this episode over Christmas break before the series was actually officially picked up, and I just dived in and started writing it.

And as a result, it was one of the more fun projects that I wrote all the first season. There was something really interesting and freeing about just sitting down with the blank page and just starting without having the entire sort of roadmap worked out, which typically is the process.

David: And because we had thwarted the system, basically, I had taken a brief sabbatical to the studio that was making the show. And so I was able to say to Ron, "Uh, yeah, go ahead, good idea." And no one... no one really had any hoops to jump through. So Ron was able to dive in.

I think the best part about this is that it's a stand-alone concept. You don't really need to have seen the miniseries to get into this whole very unusual idea about the Cylons returning every 33 minutes, which by the way, we never explain.

Ron: No, and I love that.

Michael: That was pretty exciting when I got the script. It was the first time I'd ever done an episode of TV, and the first time I'd ever actually had to say yes to a job without ever reading the script. And I was excited, but I read this thing, and it was just... it was playing so far past what I had, as a writer, assumed would happen. It was very exciting. And then also Helo... finding Helo alive on Caprica, there was a real thrill for me.

Breaking the Sci-Fi Mold

Ron: I also just like the idea, conceptually, that we just would start the series off in the middle of a crisis without explanation.

That the miniseries ends in a very positive place on the Galactica where they've all escaped the Cylon attack, and Adama has promised they're gonna go find Earth, and he makes the deal with Laura, and you definitely end on this up-note. And then you go away for a very long time, and when you start the series, you kind of expect them to be cruising along, much like you left them, and then something bad happens. And I thought there was something much more intriguing and interesting to just say that, "Actually, while you the audience were away, really bad things have been happening, and now we're five days in, and it's really gotten even worse than it was before."

David: And it was also, I think, the silver bullet in getting the network to agree to pick up a series, because their biggest concern about whether or not Battlestar Galactica could work as an ongoing series was that we not fall victim to the same trappings of space opera as we'd seen it over and over again in the various Star Treks and Andromedas and Stargates and so forth...

that how will this look different? How will it feel different? And so there were two key concepts that really contributed to ensuring, not just the network, but ourselves, that we could do a so-called "space opera" that would have a visual aesthetic that would just break it apart from many of those. One being going inside of Baltar's mind into his house, the house that he lived in before the destruction of Caprica, and suddenly being swept away by these blue skies and this incredible beach vista and not the kind of imagery you're used to seeing on a space opera at all.

And then, as Michael was just saying, to be able to go back to Caprica—you know, nuclear rain-swept, ugly, horrible Caprica, but an exterior nonetheless—and see this lone man running for his life were really two key ideas that I think got the network to finally say, "Okay."

Ron: And to their credit, the network always sort of supported that. They never really pushed us to completely unwind this and make it coherent.

David: Yeah, and because I think they had this—Bonnie Hammer from the beginning always had, I think, the right kind of concern about this show, which was, again, "Gee, haven't we seen this kind of thing over and over again?"

And so, that was an area in which, I think, the three of us and the network, in a maybe an unusual way because you're always hearing about creator and network conflict, were kind of in lockstep from the get-go, which was to say, "How do we break this outside of the trappings of the genre?" And it helped when you had an idea like this because you knew you were contributing to their agenda as well.

Visual Storytelling: Editing and Cinematography

Ron: Our editor on this, Dany Cooper, is tremendously talented. Virtually none of this is as scripted. I mean, the script is a little bit more schematic in terms of, you know, you're cutting between these people and sort of... it's very impressionistic.

And then, you know, Michael takes it and directs it, but then the editor is really the one who's putting these pieces together. And in a tease like this, it's all about how you cut it. And Dany deserves an enormous amount of credit for this.

David: And Dany actually was brought to... Dany's another non-episodic talent in our midst because she actually was Michael's editor on his film Angel Baby and Queen of the Damned.

Michael: Everything I've ever done.

David: She really brings a cinematic perspective to this as well and goes for rhythms that are very unusual and just has a storytelling sense.

Ron: I remember her saying to me at one point, "This show is all about the backs of people and their hands."

That's what the show is. It's all this, you know, being outside the moment.

Michael: And she knows when to hold a beat longer, just to let a feeling seep through.

Ron: This business here is a good point to mention Stephen McNutt, our Director of Photography who did not shoot the miniseries... This is shot on high-def, basically, which is not film, it's basically a digital form of tape... And Steve has something of a black belt in the medium. And so, uh, really sort of brought us into this. And we were all terrified, and we did a thousand tests. And as you can see, the density and the texture of the look is every bit as rich as film, or certainly close enough for a television screen. And, uh, really gave us some new options, actually, that we didn't have with the film.

Character Moments and On-Set Improvisation

Ron: This little thing here where, you know, Tigh was eating his noodles and sitting on the [Commander Adama's] jacket—it's just, it gives you such a great sense of the texture to the world.

David: This business here became quite controversial, however, because we found ourselves trying to tell the story about this man who sees this woman in his head. And by the time we got into the fine cutting, you'd find yourself going, "Okay, well his eyes are open here, but he still sees her. But his eyes are closed later and he doesn't see her." So how do we...

Ron: Yeah, there was endless tedious discussions about trying to balance when he goes into his head to the house versus when he sees her in his present state.

David: And it was an interesting challenge.

Ron: And I think our instinct was always... the battle becomes us saying, "Look, the audience is smart. They're gonna pick this stuff up. They watch TV all the time. You know, they know that sometimes there's a convention where a character sees other characters that other people don't, and that that's not really new under the sun, and you don't really have to lead them by the hand during this."

David: And you're balancing that with sort of the network's desire to, you know, be inclusive and that you don't alienate new viewers and that they understand what's going on, because the biggest fear of any television network is the dreaded remote control—that the audience tunes in and goes, "Ah, what? Who's that? Okay, I don't get it. What's on... what's on the other channel?" and they just click you off without a chance.

Ron: This whole little walk across the hangar bay, it's a very small little moment, but it's the kind of thing that to me really defined what the show is. It's these little human moments in between all the drama and all the action that really makes the series work for me.

In the same way that Adama shaving is a key thing in this episode. And I think one of the early learning curves that we went through in season one was trying to figure out, A, how long the scripts should be, because the first cut of this was about 10 minutes long.

David: Yeah, and those beats are often...

Ron: And those are the first things you usually cut. And so, but we were really determined not to cut the humanity out of the show. So as a result, that simple walk across the hangar bay became this sort of like bright line, "We're not cutting the walk."

David: Yeah, it was a rallying cry because I mean, we were really having difficulty cutting story material and plot material, which is verboten in TV, to preserve stuff like noodles and jackets and aimless walking across hangar bays. And it was really... it's funny, I don't even remember us necessarily having a conversation about it. It was just this unanimous instinct, this reflex we were all kind of driven by.

Ron: This is another beat too where this actor playing Socinus...

David: My very good friend, Alonso.

Ron: Alonso, who we've now killed. Yes, we've now killed him. He gives her a great little look at the end of this. And again, when you're looking for seconds, fractions of seconds to get the thing down to time, you would cut a moment like this.

David: Where he looks up at him.

Ron: Yeah. And this too. I mean, we... this was gone forever. We kept thinking we're gonna have to cut this whole piece, and I was so in love with this particular piece of walking down the room of photographs.

Michael: Which Michael wouldn't shoot. This pickup I had to get it later.

David: With my boys there in the frame.

Ron: Yeah, David's children are there as people who are dead. So, you know, take from that what you will. And this too, I mean, we... we tailed this all the way out. I really wanted this to go all the way to Dualla getting all the way to the end and turning and looking around and just playing the moment. And as a result, there's scenes that were cut. I mean, there's a whole... an entire scene that was also really nice in the bathroom, in the head, where you see all the pilots are wrecked and exhausted, and there was some funny little exchange between Starbuck and Apollo.

David: And Laura getting the picture that they were all touching.

Ron: Laura getting the picture. And we make a deal of it that, you know, you see the pilots touching that photograph in the ready room, and Laura gets a copy of it, and it's explained what it is. And we just chose to completely lose that little bit of of plot and detail because we wanted this other tone.

David: This business here, I remember Michael and I on the set talking about Nicolas Roeg and this little moment here...

Michael: We were referring to a film called Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland, who cuts himself shaving, I believe.

David: Yeah, this is one of my favorite scenes.

Michael: Yeah, and his throat gets cut at the end of the show.

David: And it was nice...

Michael: It was a bit of a gauntlet being laid down in this episode in that it was really hard to follow and complex. And I don't know if it was a conscious decision or it just sort of evolved that you guys decided we were going to live with that difficulty, which I think paid off.

Ron: Yeah, we would just step in and say to the audience, "Okay, pick it up, follow along because we're not gonna really lead you by the hand during this."

Michael: We're gonna challenge you. We're gonna make you think and work.

David: And we're talking with Rod Hardy, one of your colleagues who directed "Act of Contrition" last season, about coming back to direct the episode in which we go into Laura's memory and see Caprica the day before the attack.

Michael: He can have that one.

David: That's hard. It takes a lot of effort and detail.

Ron: This whole storyline... I mean, the Helo thing that starts here and continued throughout the season, you know, was something we struggled with for quite a while to sort of find the rhythm of it, how many scenes you shoot on Caprica per episode, what was the nature of that story, how long would it take to play itself out.

David: I think in the end it became one of the more intriguing elements of season one. And it was so unusual to do this kind of a tale that... I mean, this B-story has zero relationship to whatever A-story is going on aboard Galactica all season long. And it's kind of a brave choice to really be able to do that.

Ron: This is one of your favorite scenes.

Michael: Yeah, this is one of my favorite scenes in the whole season, just 'cause it captures that reality. The spontaneity of what actually happens between them felt very real, and I think this is where the show lives. You guys allow the actors to find this stuff.

Ron: This whole moment, this beat right here coming up where, you know, the yelling and confrontation turns to laughter was not scripted at all.

I mean, this is something that came up on the stage between the director and the actors, and they kind of go for it. And I love that. It's one of the things I love about the show, is that the script is important, the script is a blueprint, you know, you can't really say the script doesn't matter, but you get down to the stage and it has to live, and the characters have to come alive. And it's really a tribute to the show how much the material is elevated down on the stage by the actors and the director.

Michael: It's all about keeping really high standards on the show. We're trying to make this as much like a feature as we can, which is difficult.

David: I think we're all about making the moments work, and sometimes that comes from script and sometimes it doesn't, and there isn't a lot of politics involved in that, which is rare in TV.

The Olympic Carrier Controversy

Ron: The end of this episode was probably one of the biggest creative battles that we had in season one...

I wanted it to be clear that they were making this decision in full awareness of the consequences of it. I didn't want to find an easy way out for them... I wanted them to look at this situation squarely and say, "That ship is a danger to us, and yes there are people on board, but we've got to do this terrible thing," and that that would be the end of the show. It became an enormous fight.

It became this whole thing about the episode being too dark and too bleak and so depressing that no one will ever watch the show again. "Maybe we won't broadcast this one first. Maybe we'll broadcast this out of order." So David and I at some point said, "Okay, we can't lose the war here. Let them win this battle." So we changed the end, and you'll see now at the end when Lee flies by the Olympic Carrier, there's nobody inside, or at least it's not clear.

David: Which I always argued was a darker way to go. And I feared that once people who were objecting to what we had saw it, they would realize that it was darker. And I still believe it is. I think we all know that there are innocent people on ships... We know too well that that's what happens when bad guys get in control of ships... And so when he flies by and sees those darkened windows, to me, I'm more reminded of that horrible truth than if I saw the people's faces in the windows, which may have tipped over into feeling maudlin or manipulative or somehow contrived.

And I just believe that it's a darker show without seeing those faces in the windows than when we had it.

Ron: Yeah, see, I still miss the faces. I just, I miss the brutality of it because it was a brutal moment.

Final Thoughts

Michael: That was shown in a space of panic screaming because we were losing the light.

Ron: We're losing the light!

David: The loop line that tortured Ron to madness that the network asked us to put in of Adama saying "son" so that we would understand that they were father and son.

Ron: So I started putting it in in every episode. He just walk into a scene and go, "Son."

David: Doesn't even have to be Adama. Sometimes Sharon says "son."

Ron: Yeah, good. That's good.

[On the final scene where Roslin learns a baby was born]

Ron: This whole beat here at the end is just sort of one of the few times that we ever see the cast and the characters just kinda relaxing and letting down their hair and having a celebratory moment.

It felt right. It's like, "Okay, we've been through this long trauma of the season, now they've had a political thing and nearly an assassination, let them enjoy themselves. It's Colonial Day... if they can't celebrate and try to relax on this one day, then they really never are."

David: And Mary really did... one of my favorite little Mary McDonnell moments of the season is right here.

Ron: Right here. Just as we fade. She does this little...

David: Yeah.

Ron: She just... goes down, and the relief of it all.

Michael: And the ending of the Helo story was so unplotted.

Ron: I was literally writing the teleplay... I had no idea what the scene was going to be... And at some point in the scene itself, I thought, "You know what would be cool is if Sharon showed up and rescued him, and oh my God, and he wouldn't realize that Sharon's a Cylon."

And she grabs him and says, "Come with me, come with me, run," and go off into the forest. And I thought, "That's great. I have no idea what that means."

David: That's how most of these things... It's like, why do the Cylons show up every 33 minutes? Sometimes having no idea what it means is a good thing.

Ron: Yeah, it sends you in these really interesting directions.

David: Well, everyone stay tuned for the R&D TV logo, done by my high school buddy, Jerry Hulsh, in his garage for 50 cents.

Ron: Goodbye everyone.