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Tease
RDM: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the podcast for episode eight of season three of-
Grace: Battlestar Galactica!
RDM: -Battlestar Galactica. This is "Unfinished Business". I'm Ronald D. Moore, developer and executive producer of the new Battlestar Galactica and I'd like to welcome you to an interesting podcast. We're up in Vancouver for change, at the- Terry and I's apartment, and we are joined by...
Grace: Grace Park
RDM: and...
Tahmoh: Tahmoh Penikett
RDM: as well as...
Terry: Mrs. Ron.
Grace: (Laughs.)
RDM: All here to tell you about this particular episode, which is actually one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, in all honesty.
Terry: Mine too.
RDM: This episode has a unique history within the show in how it was developed. It was really unusual and unlike any other episode we ever did.
Terry: (Unintelligible.)
RDM: This episode comes directly out of the finale from last season, in which we took the year leap forward. And then had the Cylons come and played out the occupation storyline. Well, there was always a knowledge that, "Ok, well what happened in the missing year?" That's the key question. You make this year ahead leap in chronology and the fun of it is not knowing what happened in the intervening year. Are you ever going to go back and talk about those events? And I really wanted to. But the problem was we were only gonna be on the New Caprica location for those first three episodes. That's all we were budgeted to do, and once we built that enormous fuckin' city and took it down, we weren't gonna put it up again just to shoot a couple of flashbacks in a later episode. So it was a now or never proposition. We were gonna have to do something with the show-
Grace: I love that you did that.
RDM: - and shoot it back in those sets.
Unidentified: Oooh, yeah.
RDM: This is the first of many boxing sequences within the show. And the first flashback to Lee from the end of the show. We played a lot with chronology in terms of flashback and what time you see which images and this episode has a- this is a lot of editing was done in this particular show to figure out how to put all these different pieces together. And the editors, Mike O'Halloran, Jacques Gravett, and Jeute (?) our new guy, spent a lot of time working on this show.
Grace: I like that black mouthguard you have. (unintelligible)
RDM: Black mouthguard...
Grace: Isn't that your own?
Tahmoh: No, no. Oh, yeah. It probably was, actually.
Grace: Yes, it's yours.
Tahmoh: I did bring in my own.
Grace: Yeah.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
Grace: And your own shoes.
RDM: Now, Tahmoh, have you boxed before.
Tahmoh: Yeah... yeah, I've boxed for years just for exercise. I've never really done it competitively. I spar a lot, but I've actually been more into kickboxing that boxing, but always been a huge fan of it. Of most fighting art forms and martial arts.
RDM: Mmhmm.
Tahmoh: Yeah. I've been kickboxing for years. But I love boxing. I love it.
RDM: I remember coming down to the set when Bob was shooting this. Bob Young, the director of this episode, yeah-
Grace: (Chuckles.)
RDM: -and walking to the hangar deck and really hoping that I was gonna feel like I'd walked into a boxing match.
Tahmoh: Mmhmm.
RDM: Because that's the whole thing. That you really had to sell the mood and the feeling of a boxing match. Not just down in the gymnasium or something. And when I walked in there it was just like- it was- it felt so perfect. And the way everybody was hanging out around the boxing set-
Grace: Yeah.
RDM: -felt authentic.
Grace: (Laughs.)
RDM: People were into the boxing of it all.
Tahmoh: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well, I mean, to be honest with you, when I heard about this episode and I knew we were gonna do it, you and I were discussing this before but- I mean, originally I was written, I was holding pads in one scene and I was so depressed.
Grace: (Laughs.)
Tahmoh: I think I talked to Brice, and I was like, "This horrible. This is just a travesty. This wrong."
Grace: I think you used to fight Starbuck.
Tahmoh: Ye- or something.
Grace: In the original one.
Tahmoh: Well, not even. I don't think I was fighting. I was holding pads.
Grace: Oh, yeah.
Tahmoh: And I was like, "This is just horrible. I can't- I've been studying for- training for years and I love- This is my passion and I've made this clear to the producers-"
RDM: And here you are holding the pads.
Tahmoh: And I'm holding pads.
Grace and RDM: (Laugh.)
Tahmoh: Like, let me get my ass kicked, at least. C'mon. Just get me in there.
RDM: You gotta start somewhere.
Tahmoh: I know.
RDM: You gotta earn the right.
Tahmoh: I gotta earn the right, yeah.
RDM: You gotta earn it.
Tahmoh: But when we had the rewrites and then I found out I was actually in there, man, I was so excited.
Grace: Yeah, you were (unintelligble)
Tahmoh: I was so excited.
RDM: Yeah, in the early drafts of this episode, the first fight of the boxing was not Lee and Helo, it was Lee and a nameless guest star who, literally, whose name I cannot recall. And essentially Lee just like, destroyed this guy. Just took him apart in some really ugly way. It was meant to establish his complete ferocity and anger in his life at that point and I think as we worked through the drafts it didn't feel interesting and I think we started talking about, well if he's boxing somebody we know, and then somehow it came up, "Yeah, Helo. Yeah, let's do Helo. Let's have him boxing Helo." But, it was still going to be Lee beating the crap out of Helo.
Tahmoh: (Laughs.)
RDM: Right?
Grace: Which is such bullshit. (Laughs.) (unintelligble)
RDM: And then I got word back that Tahmoh was like, "No, I'd take this guy apart. What are talking about?"
Tahmoh: (Laughs.)
Grace: Yeah. C'mon!
Tahmoh: What? What, are you kidding?
Grace: That quote on a (unintelligble)
Tahmoh: Have you seen me? I'm Helo.
Grace: Have you seen me?
Tahmoh: Anything other than a Centurion, I'm taking him out. C'mon now.
Grace: The only one that beats up on Helo is his wife.
RDM: We changed this a bit.
Tahmoh: That's right.
Grace: 'Cause she's a Cylon.
Tahmoh: Well we have- we bring that to the scene, too. You watch. If I ever get a little excited, Grace gives me this look in most that we have and I'm like, "Ok."
Grace: (Laughs.)
RDM: I think the interesting thing- the tough thing about this episode is both the thing that I love about it as well, is how bad you make Starbuck look. How much do you hate Starbuck by the end of the show, and yet feel this like intense compassion for her? That's the trick of the episode, in a real way, 'cause the cord, the central cord of this show is Starbuck and Apollo.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: Yeah, where they are, where they were. And it's easy on some level to really loathe her for what she does to him in the show, but I think there's definitely a part of the show that I think really validates her feelings as a really damaged and screwed up person, and yet you never quite hate her. In the same way I don't think you ever quite hate Baltar.
Tahmoh: Or you quite hate the Cylons.
RDM: Yeah.
Tahmoh: I think that's what you've- we've wonderfully done in this show. You guys have wonderfully done. I mean, it's a constant theme throughout is, that's just it.