Podcast:The Woman King

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Teaser

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica, and this week we're here to discuss episode thirteen, "The Woman King." Coming to you from a small cabin in the Russian River. Terry and I are ensconced for a few days. But the podcast must be served, so here we are. There's no Scotch for this particular gathering. I'm having actual absinthe, from a secret location overseas. You can actually get this fine substance in the United States, despite rumors to the contrary. And so absinthe is the drink. (Takes a drink.) From my Carnivàle days, gave me a taste for it. And we won't discuss- be discussing the smokes this week.

Ok. Thirteen. "The Woman King." This episode came essentially out of our desire to do a couple of different things. One was to setup a long-running plot line that was supposed to last from until the end of the season that had to do with the Sagittarons. Ultimately that one did not pan out the way that we anticipated, initially, about what we were gonna do with the Sagittarons as a people. It was going to figure prominently in Baltar's trial, by the end of the season, and this episode was designed in part to get those storylines going. However, once we actually got into the meat of Baltar's trial, beyond even the first draft. I mean, we did a first draft that had the Saggitarions featured prominently, and what they were doing, and then dropped it in subsequent drafts. And I'll talk more about that as the show goes on.

So here we are in the tease. This sequence of Helo having trouble sleeping was shot much later. We didn't initially have this as the opening to the episode. Initially what we were gonna- what we had was this fly- the pilot banter and chatter of them flying out (phone rings) and of course it has to be a podcast because there's a phone ringing, but I can turn it off here, so, there we go. Anyway it was gonna have pilot stuff going on and people on a mission, chitchat back and forth, giving each other limericks, and so on. And then that didn't really seem like the most effective opening, 'cause it's- it really is a show about Helo. And so I wanted to- start with Helo and let's get into his mindset, right from the get-go. 'Cause one of the things that we wanted to do about the ep- about this show in designing it was to give ourselves a "Helo story." A full-blown story about Helo and his life, to an extent. In a large part this episode is a follow-up- (phone rings) Somebody just keeps calling. And look. It might be my wife so I will actually put this on pause here for a moment, something I never do. And I'm back. It was nothing important, just the network with the pickup call.