Podcast:A Day in the Life
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Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica, and we're here to talk about what we still refer to as episode fourteen, "A Day in the Life". The Scotch for today's session is Bruichladdich, with the "yellow submarine" label, which I've yet to figure out what that really means, in regards to Scotch. And no smoking today. The smoking lamp is out.
OK. Episode fourteen. This episode does not- did not turn out as well as, I think, we had all hoped that it would. I think there's a variety of reasons why and we will discuss them today, as we often have on the shows that didn't turn out quite as strong as we had initially hoped. What's interesting, to step back and give an overview of the show and the rhythms and currents of the series. This- there's a spate of standalone episodes, some of which are more successful than others, occurring here in the second half of season three. Shows like thirteen, fourteen, and a to an extent fifteen, although I think fifteen is, in some ways, the strongest of the three. In any case, there's a trio here of standalone episodes that didn't quite come together and aren't quite as strong as I think many of us had hoped. And that parallels certain things that happened in the second season where we also had a spate of standalonish episodes that didn't quite really come together as strongly and I think- we spent some time looking for systemic reasons or managerial reasons why we come to this place in the second half of the season and tend to have trouble. And I'm not sure that there is a reason other than just bad story decisions.
I think that conceptually I liked this idea of doing the "Day in the Life" episode and centering it around Adama. The "day in the life" is a staple of television storytelling and it's always there in the writers' room. It's something that I think writers are always drawn to, which is to break from format and do a character study and the "day in the life" is a structure that provides you with opportunity to detail out all the little minutiae, which is a bit of a redundancy redundancy, but all of the minutiae in a character's day and explicating the how's and why's of their job and their friendships and their pressures and stepping back from plot and narrative and giving you an opportunity to delve into character. I think it's also a very tricky structure that appears on its surface to be simpler than it really is. I've gone at these kinds of stories a couple of times and I'm always attracted to them. They inevitably always turn out to be much more complicated beasts than what you think they would at the outset. You know, the first thing that you run into in structuring a "day in the life" type episode is that, almost by definition, a "day in the life" is not supposed to have anything very dramatic happen in it. Conceptually you're doing a show that is just a typical day and TV episodes and films are all about atypical days. They're all about the unusual thing that happened that day. The dramatic thing that happened that day. The amazing thing that happened that day. The mysterious thing that happened that day. The funny thing that happened that day. Not the typical thing that happened that day. So you're already going into a counterintuitive place when you're approaching the story. And what tends to happen through the story proce- story development process is that in order to tell that story effectively in the television format you inevitably find some device, some plot thing that will happen on a typical day that illustrates the fact that they're- in a place like Galactica something dangerous is always lurking just around the corner. And I think that's justified by not only the conflict with the Cylons but in this case just the danger of the ship itself. I always liked the idea that the Galactica was- that Galactica gave you an opportunity to present the life of being aboard a warship, especially an aircraft carrier, which are incredibly dangerous ships. They're very dangerous places to work and they have accidents and fatalities in the best of times and that- so to do a day in the life episode aboard Galactica, it was easy to say, OK, that will be an accident that day. There would be an accident, and this is just one of many things that happens on Adama's "day in the life." I think that, unfortunately, what happens in this- in the structure of the piece is that you can see us leaning over and spending more time on that story, the Tyrol-Cally story, the story of them getting caught in a launch tube and spending too much time over there, really, on a story that was never designed to be a weight-bearing member. It supposed to be a small plot device that you're following throughout the show and ultimately explodes into jeopardy towards the end to intersect with the Adama story. But as you watch the episode as aired, we spend a lot of time setting up that story and it seems like it's a story of big weight and big moment and that something's gonna happen, and "Oh my God! What's gonna happen to Tyrol and Cally?" But it's not a very exciting story. It's a small story. It was designed to be a small story. But I think because of certain problems that we were having in the Adama side of things, you start leaning on the other story because it's an easier hook. It's an easier fix to say, "Well, give us more of the Tyrol-Cally stuff because that's a straight-up jeopardy."
The Adama section. I mean, this episode began life as a concept and it was pitched in the writers' room and it might have been my idea. I don't- really recall. I will just say it's my idea because it's not a perfectly executed idea so I will take responsibility for it, essentially. And as I always say on these podcasts, when I criticize an episode or where I'm talking about an episode that I don't think has worked as effectively as we had hoped, ultimately I'm the guy in charge. These are my decisions and so I'm the one who ultimately made the wrong calls in whatever the calls were in this episode. Essentially I was attracted to doing a "day in the life" episode. I love this idea that here's the wo- that we get to know the woman that Adama was married to. Who was this woman? Who was the woman that is Lee's mother, Adama divorced, and died back on Caprica, and here's a person that we've never really dealt with in the story, and I thought, "Well, she's an interesting figure," and, "Who is she?" And I fell in love with this idea that Adama allows himself to think about her exactly one day a year. On their wedding anniversary Adama permits himself to think about this woman and to fantasize about being with this woman and to allow himself that break. To allow himself to let her- thoughts of her into- back into his life. 'Cause he never talks about her. She's not somebody that- he doesn't keep pictures around of her. He wears the wedding ring. And he's always worn the wedding ring in the show. I've always thought that was an interesting subtle touch that said a lot about the divorce man who still is wearing the wedding ring, lo many years later. And so I was interested in this concept that, OK, on the one day, he takes her picture out and she's like a real person to him. He has her in his life for one day and at the end of the day he puts the picture away until next year. And there was something sweet and poetic about that that I responded to and really liked.
I think that some of the decisions that we made, in terms of what- well the first thing that came up was, "How do you portray her." In the initial story documents, and I think the initial script, the intention was for Carolanne, or Caroline in the early drafts, what Carolanne was going to appear with Adama on the ship and we would play her sort of akin to how we play "head Six" and "head Baltar". That they're imaginary people that only the character- that the point of view character can see. And so Adama would walk through the halls and Carolanne would be walking with him and commenting on the day and, essentially, it was going to be more about, as structured, the piece was about Ada- going through one day with Adama. And as he went through is day Caroline- Carolanne went with him and commented on the scenes as they happened. So right away the first thing that came up was, "Well, OK, how do you distinguish that from 'head Six' and 'head Baltar' for the audience." 'Cause we have a lot of imaginary people wandering around the ship at this point and here's a device that's meant to convey a character's subjective point of view and really be in his head in a true fantasy sense and not convey the sense of, "Who is this imaginary person who has suddenly- or not- Who is this person who is appearing to only this character? Is Carol-" You don't want the audience to watch it and go, "OK. Is Carolanne related to 'head Six'? Is Carolanne related to 'head Baltar'? Is she a Cylon?" You had to get away from all that quickly. At first we talked about a structure whereby whenever Carolanne appeared and she would have a scene with- like, she would appear in a scene and talk to Adama at length, they would interact and then you would go back to reality and you would realize that no time had passed and Adama- if Adama, for instance was standing in the middle of the room having a conversation with Carolanne and their conversation took them across the room or over to the door, where they had an argument, then the scene ends and you res- Adama is reset back to the middle of the room where he was at the beginning. No one else in the room is aware that anything else has happened. And that was the concept to convey that these conversations and these interaction were com- were taking place completely in Adama's head. That it wasn't the same device that we were using for "head Six" and "head Baltar" wherein Baltar actually reacts and talks to his imaginary blonde partner in real time and people see him react. And so we were trying to make that distinction, but it's a subtle distinction and I think what happened was as we got deeper into the draft and into prep on the episode both the director and Eddie, Eddie Olmos, both felt that that wasn't gonna work and they were worried about it being too much like Baltar and Six and that it- the distinction would be blurred.
Act 1
Act one. So from there came this notion of doing the house. Let's do a house. Adama goes to a place. Sorta like how Balt- again, you could say, "Well, it's like how Baltar goes to his place," but we're tr- at least visually you're setting it apart from what's happening on the Galactica. So we came up with this idea of the house, which Adama would go to, this is presumably the house he and Carolanne shared, and he permits himself to think of the house and to think of Carolanne in these moments, to go and be with her one more time. I think that in the drama itself it does break you out of the show. It does get outside of Galactica's walls, which is always nice, especially at this point in the season, in that a location to go to, but it does distance, I think, what's happening. Because when you get back to these shots of Adama in the corridor, we're working overtime to bring her pr- to make her more present in the show. She's- isolated in this other reality that he's clearly fantasizing about, but it doesn't have the immediacy of the initial idea. The immediacy of her walking side by side with Adama as he went down the corridors was gonna feel very different. Also, this scene here, with Adama and with Laura would've felt very different if Carolanne had been in the room with them. That's not to say that that would have saved things. That's not to say that that was the perfect solution, but I think it would've made these scenes have a little bit more dramatic impact because I think if you saw this visual triangle of Adama, Laura, and Carolanne, I think it just resonates in a different way than having Carolanne as the off-camera voice or going to the fantasy place in his head.
This storyline, Adama and Laura is- you can clearly see over the course of the past few episodes we're playing a little bit more on their relationship, a little tête-à-tête, that something might or might not happen between these two. This show was the most overt step in a certain direction of a relationship between the two characters. I think that what we're doing is we're playing it very slowly. I don't know that it ever will culminate in the two of them "getting together", but I think that there was always a sense that for Laura and for Adama, realistically speaking, there really weren't any choices for them in terms of a partner, in terms of somebody that they could be involved with in the Fleet 'cause of their positions. Adama is the admiral. She's the President. They are the only peers to one another. She relates to him, he relates to her, in a way that they don't relate to anyone else in the entire Fleet. And it's a- they're a man and woman and they're both attractive, and they're both smart, and they're both passionate and you feel the reasons for why they might be drawn towards one another. But there are so many other obstacles to that that I think that we never wanted to take it too far down the road. But it do- there is a logic to them thinking about it, to at least considering it. And for the- flirtations and the hints along the way and to feel that there really is a pull drove us into directions like this.
The storyline of Lee getting involved with Baltar's trial was one that we worked over at length in the writers' room. The multi-step process of setting up a legal system was something that we talked about quite a bit. I think that conceptually this works. I don't know that it works dramatically, to put Lee into- to have Lee become interested in the law or setup his interest in the law in this particular episode. I think that it's a little- there's a little bit- it's a little awkward how we introduct- introduce this idea of Lee's interest in law, that as a child and that Laura would think of him in that capacity. It's a- it's somewhat awkward but I think it's plausible. I think it works, so that's like the best you can do at this point.
Again, we're back here in the launch tube and we're milking this now. Now we're milking the drama here for all it's worth because- we're, I think, frankly I think we're afraid of the Adama story. It just wasn't playing as strongly as we had hoped. And part of it has to do- there's a lot of reasons why I don't think the Adama-Carolanne story is really hitting on all cylinders here. Part of it is a casting issue. It's nothing against the actress, who's a good actress, well recommended, good body of work, we really liked her. I think she's a good performer. But I don't think there's a lot of chemistry here. I think that there's chemistry is missing between Adama and her, and Carolanne, and I think that's a crucial component. And that's something that's hard to judge from the outside. It's hard, sometimes, to cast important roles in isolation. Ideally you, in a perfect world, you have the husband reading the lines to the potential wife in the casting sessions. But you don't usually get that luxury. Especially in television. And I think that for fifty million reasons why of being busy, of not paying attention, and thinking that everything is OK and telling yourself that you're on top of it, you make a casting decision that ultimately doesn't help you in the show. Again, I'm not criticizing the actress. I'm commenting on the fact that she and Adama are not clicking on a certain level. There's not a sense of rapport. There's not an easy communication between the two like you want in a married couple and there's just not the spark there. You want this woman, Carolanne, to really spark off of him and him to s- to be sparking off of her, and you're not quite seeing that interaction. I think- and I think that lack of chemistry, which, is not- you cannot lay at the feet of the actors, it's just one of those things that happens or doesn't happen, but that lack of fundamental chemistry, in some level, makes us pull away editorially, and on the stage, and ultimately in the show, away from the storyline, looking for other drama.
The story with Lee, and you're coming up here on the scene with Lee. I started to talk about this a minute ago, but Lee getting involved in the legal system. Throughout the season, I've talked about this before, we've struggled with the character of Lee in terms of exactly what we wanted him to do within the drama of the show. I think in many ways he has one of the most difficult roles in the show because he is- he's the hero. He's the most straight-up hero that we have in the series, and I think that's a hard role to play in this context. And I think sometimes it's hard to know what we want to do with that character within the show. We did really like the idea that Lee would get involved with this trial, and that there was something about the character and about the actor that lent itself towards the idea that he was intellectual, that had an interest in something beyond the cockpit and that he wasn't all about the military. That we were also building this family history, in terms of the Adama family, partially because we were developing Caprica, the prequel that may or may not get off the ground. But in the Caprica backstory we get more involved in the family Adama, and indeed, Adama's father, Lee's grandfather, who was an attorney. Who did a lot of legal work and had a contr- a charged relationship with his son, William Adama, and that Lee would in turn be informed by that. OK, so there was something with the grandfather who was a lawyer, and the son that then b- went into the military, and then there's the grandson. And that the grandson on some level was split between the two, or at least felt split at time. Who had an affinity towards looking towards the law or was fascinated by what his grandfather did, if for no other reason than the fact that his father did not like what his grandfather did, and that alone would be enough to spark the boy's interest. So that all built the building blocks of getting to the place where we thought, "Well, Lee could get involved with the trial." 'Cause we also wanted some of our key players involved with the trial of Baltar and this was like an- our entrée into it.