| |||||
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. You're looking at these people and their actions and you're like, you can have so much animosity towards them, and you're just like, "Wow. How could- how and why would would- were you to do this?" By the end of it, though, once you realize the motivation behind their feelings, I mean, like you said, you start to understand. You have compassion for them, somewhat, and it can happen.
Terry: You should of that, in real life, how often we all do that.
Tahmoh: Well, that's just it.
Terry: How many friends do have that just- that one friend that just fucks up over, and over, and over, and...
RDM: -And you can never let them go, you never
Terry: You keep letting them get away with-
RDM: -You never lose-
Terry: -oh and then they've got an excuse and you understand, because you judge people, generally on their intent. And most people don't set out to do (unintellible)
RDM: See, look at Grace.
Grace: Yeow!
RDM: Sharon is, we were talking about this earlier, Sharon is at the happiest I've ever seen the character in this episode.
Grace: This is the most she's ever allowed to smile.
RDM: You've gotta watch her in the back. Now what was your choice on that? Was that written into the script or was that something you came up with on the set.
Grace: No...
RDM: Or that's just the way you felt?
Grace: I think it was partly that's how I felt and probably a lot of actually the energy of what was going on in that room. I remember stepping on the set like you and I was like- I mean, this is the hangar bay. We're there all the time.
RDM: Mhmm.
Grace: And it's not that big. And I was blown away. I was so excited. Because- just the ring alone, empty got me super excited. And also (unintelligble) we see it turn into (unintelligible whisper) I'm allowed to say that?
RDM: Yeah.
Grace: Joe's bar? Do we have that yet?
RDM: No. But go ahead. That's ok.
Grace: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, when I- I think because we get so used to seeing it one way. Yeah, absolutely got me really excited but it's funny because Michael Rymer told me that, when he watched, that he just thought I wasn't focusing. (Laughs.)
RDM: That's just Rymer slapping her around. He's just-
Grace: Which totally, of course, screwed me up for like a good five episodes.
RDM: He's just using you Grace.
Grace: (unintelligible)
Terry: (Whispering) We need to (unintelligible) that guy.
RDM: There was a lot- this whole little bit of dropping your dog tags into the ammo box was the subject of much and great debate-
Terry: Really?
RDM: -in editorial. As so many of these things are. But for some reason that point didn't seem to keep coming through. That they put their dog tags in the ammo box and that's how they choose them to-
Grace: Oh, and you pull one out.
RDM: -who's gonna box next. So we had to keep going in and doing ADR and inserts. Really, in some level, belaboring this whole point of the dog tags in the box, which drives me a little bonkers as I'm watching this particular episode. But-
Grace: Is it really important though, you think, to explain things like that?
RDM: I don't. Personally, I don't.
Grace: I love not explaining things.
RDM: I feel like a lot of things...
Tahmoh: Well there you go, it's just (unintelligible)
RDM: I think you just throw a lot of things out sometimes and they're interesting just for their own sake.
Grace: Exactly.
RDM: Whether or not they add up to something particular or if you'd- if you saw them dropping their dog tags in the box, and we didn't make such a deal out of it, and you later wondered, "How did they pick the people who went into box?"
Grace: Exactly.
RDM: "I wonder if it's that dog tag thing?" I mean, it's just like, that acceptable.
Grace: Or you get it the next day. "Oh. Oh, is that what that was." I love finding out stuff later.
RDM: Yeah. I don't think that you have to, in the moment, know every connective pi- bit of tissue through the show.
Grace: Absolutely.
RDM: I still love- there's Baltar's only scene coming up.
Grace: (Chuckles.)
RDM: This has no Baltar in it. This was the one. We also- I also knew when we were doing this that this was the kind of episode that I could not cut over to the Cylon baseship.
Act 1
RDM: Ok. Act one just started.
That you couldn't, at the same time, also be cutting over to this other Cylon world and telling a story over there. 'Cause you can never lose yourself in the rhythms of this flashback in this emotional narrative so we had to look at the Baltar story on the Cylon baseship and- separately, and realize that it was gonna take this gap in- at a certain point in that story and how do you structure those pieces around so that you can get- break away from that sh- from that story for one episode and then come back to it in nine. So this is a very comp- there was like a lot of moving pieces to construct this episode.
Tahmoh: When we were discussing this earlier you were saying that you felt there was- this episode was somewhat poetic. I think that's a good way to describe it, because it's, man, it's beautiful. I love the flashbacks. Love how they're done. I mean, for me personally at the end of the second season, I was really, really curious. Like, really curious. I'm like, "What's going on?"-
RDM: -Favorite shot of Mary. Look at this. Look- sorry.
Tahmoh: Oh, gorgeous. Yeah.
RDM: Mary in the red dress.
Grace: (Laughs.)
Tahmoh: Yeah. This is just a great scene between the these (unintelligble)-
RDM: -It's a great scene.
Tahmoh: But I was just really curious betw- what was going on? What was the conflict between Starbuck and Lee that-
RDM: -Yeah.-
Tahmoh: that Anders is sick-
RDM: -Oh yeah.-
Tahmoh: -and she can't even ask him for some antibiotics.
RDM: Oh. He's- well, he's actually considering letting this guy die.
Tahmoh: Yeah. (unintellible)
Grace: (Laughs.)
RDM: He's thinkin' abo- he's thinkin' it over.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: He's act- so it's like, "Whoah. What happened between those two?"
Tahmoh: What happened between them?
Grace: Well it's funny because when I see that I naturally think the question, "What happened in the past?" Obviously there's something, yet, when my sister watches she's like, "I don't get it. 'Cause last time I thought they were happy. Now they're upset at each other. So what's going on?" (Chuckles.) Not everybody likes-
RDM: Has she watched everything now?
Grace: She watched everything up to that point.
RDM: I love this story-
Grace: -I love this.-
RDM: -of Adama and Laura in the past.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: There's something so really satisfying about believing that for that one moment in that missing year they almost...
Grace: Mmhmm.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: They almost...
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: They were both open to the possibility.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: That-
Grace: That's (unitelligible).
RDM: That in a place where they had- they no longer both were shouldering these enormous burdens.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
Grace: Yeah.
RDM: Her in particular. And he's just flying around in circles all day.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: That in that moment they actually were very comfortable with each other and they weren't flirting, but they were very, like, intimate and they-
Tahmoh: -And very present.-
RDM: -and very present.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: And it really influences how you look at their scenes now, after this episode, I think. It fundamentally changes how you see-
Grace: (unintelligible)
Tahmoh: Absolutely.
RDM: -the two characters.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
Grace: That's funny 'cause I-
Tahmoh: [11:42] Now you've got five hundred pounds of muscle in the ring right here.
RDM: Yeah.
Tahmoh: One of my best friends Aleks Paunovic.
RDM: Yeah?
Tahmoh: He's the ex-Canadian super heavyweight boxing champion.
RDM: Which one? The one in the black?
Terry: That's who he is?
Tahmoh: The one in the black, yeah.
RDM: In the black?
Tahmoh: That's one of my best friends. This is a man who I've let punch me in the head a few times.
RDM: Yeah?
Grace: (Laughs.)
Tahmoh: A very humbling experience for me.
Grace: Suprise.
Tahmoh: This is Paul.
RDM: He is a very big guy.
Grace: And he's huge.
Tahmoh: Oh he's- Aleks is six-six.
Grace: Both of them are huge.
RDM: Six-six.
Tahmoh: Six-six, two-sixty, two-sixty five.
Grace: Did you see him? He just fell right on his face.
Tahmoh: Yeah, look at the size- look at his arms.
RDM: Oh, he's huge. He's monster!
Tahmoh: Look at his arms.
RDM: Wow.
Tahmoh: Look at the length of his arms.
RDM: Holy cow.
Tahmoh: He's got three inches, just his reach, the arm reach. He's got about three inches on Lennox Lewis. But Paul Lazenby is the stunt man who's boxing with him. And he's also a- he's a heavyweight MMA champion and Muay Thai fighter in Canada.
RDM: (Chuckles.)
Grace: Gosh.
Tahmoh: It's hilarious. You get five hundred pounds in there, rolling around.
RDM: I love that shot of Kara, right there.
Grace: Yeah.
RDM: And that shot of Helo.
Grace: Yeah, yeah.
Tahmoh: That's classic.
RDM: Those were in the first cut, and I was like, "Oh my God. That's great."
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: That's great.
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: That's such a great moment.
Tahmoh: Yeah, I remember telling Tim about that 'cause he wasn't catching it at first. I'm like, "Look-"
Grace: [To RDM] It's cute to hear you say that.
RDM: Oh, it's- I love all those (unintelligible)-
Tahmoh: 'Cause that's what boxing's about. Like, if you're a true fan of it- I'm the type of guy- I go to fights all the time.
RDM: Mmhmm.
Tahmoh: Whether it be kickboxing, boxing, what have you. But that's what it's about. It's a very primal sort of experience, but it's very exciting. And you watch people at boxing matches, man. It's a different experience. Really, if you've ever been to one, it's not like regular sports game in any way. It's very different.
RDM: Now there-
Grace: You do go to fights a lot.
RDM: There-
Tahmoh: Yeah.
RDM: [13:03]In this episode there was another fight that we were going to do. That we have Starbuck and Apollo, obviously is the main event. We have Adama and Tyrol. We had Lee and Helo. We had Kara and Hotdog. But we were going to do Gaeta versus Sharon.
Tahmoh: (Laughs.)
Grace: [In disbelief] Shut up!
RDM: We were!
Grace: Why?
RDM: We talked about it seriously in the writers' room for a while. We were r- I was really like- there was something about Gaeta who had been Baltar's chief of staff-
Grace: [deep voice] -And he's got some (uintelligble) now...-
RDM: -and had this, like, huge, like, enormous guilt that was laid on. He barely made it through "Collabor"- he was willing to die in "Collaborators".
Tahmoh: Yeah.
Grace: Oh, I know. He gave up so easy.
RDM: And yet he's still on the ship, and they're still dealing with him (unintelligble), and there was something about him wanting. The storyline that became Adama and Tyrol actually started with Sharon and Gaeta, because his motivation was to go in the ring and have Sharon just beat the living shit out of him until he's almost dead. That's all he wanted, was her to just really wollop him and so he was in there and they were boxing and he was gonna- you weren't really whaling on him and he was gonna start baiting you and fuckin' with you-
Grace: Oh, you would have to.
RDM: And then- oh, and well that was part of the problem. We were trying to figure, "Well what could you really say Sharon that's gonna?"
Grace: What could you really say that hasn't happened already?
RDM: How do you get under Sharon's skin?
Grace: Well, maybe bug her about her dead baby-