A brief news release from the Sci Fi Channel states that on January 16, 2009, at 10 p.m. [9C], “Battlestar Galactica will return with the remaining episodes of its 4^th and final season. Picking up from last June’s jarring cliffhanger – the Colonial fleet and their new Cylon allies led by Admiral Adama and the Galactica crew discover Earth to find it a barren nuclear wasteland – the finale season promises to be rife with drama, action and revelation.”

Finally, we will learn the fate of Earth; discover the identity of the Final Cylon Model and maybe even find out who wrote the Galacticaverse version of All Along the Watchtower - and what the infamous Last Supper, Galactica-style, means!

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Escape Velocity opens with Chief Tyrol given a poignant eulogy at Cally’s funeral and ends with Gaius Baltar in a [for him] most unusual position. In between, this is one of Galactica’s most intense episodes – even though there are no great Cylon battles or even much action at all.

During the funeral, President Roslin sits beside Admiral Adama, and it’s clear that he’s is keeping a concerned eye on her – that her disease has progressed is shown by her wearing a wig. When she tells him this is the kind of service she’d like, he says it’s not his style. She just wants him to know for when it’s time. Following the service they offer the chief their condolences. Then, after they move off, Tyrol grabs Tigh and Tory, who are more than a bit freaked out by that. “What the frak was that,” blurts Tigh.

Next we learn that Tigh has been visiting Six on a daily basis for awhile. When she asks why he visits her every day, he suddenly sees her with the face of his late wife, asking if there’s something he wants or needs from her.

Tigh and Tory visit Tyrol to find out what the frak is up with him. As they talk, Nicky cries in his bunk. Tory almost blithely says he blames himself for Cally’s “suicide.” Tyrol replies that she thought that he was having affair with Tory. What it comes down to is that he doesn’t know whether his entire life has been nothing more than a program. Tory’s response is that he need not feel guilt because, “we were made to be perfect – which earns a snort from Tigh, “Is that some of Baltar’s crap?” Tigh tells him he needs to be a man and movie on – which makes his earlier hallucination kind of ironic.

From the chief’s quarters, Tory returns to Baltar’s little enclave to provoke him with some sensual pain/pleasure stuff – plucking hairs from his head with one hand while her other hand moves south. This part of her belief that there is no evil or good and that, if you become one with God, then you can never do wrong. As her little sermon progresses, members of a group called the Sons of Aries break into the enclave and attempt to get Baltar’s location, but even though they beat the women, no one gives him up.

Meanwhile, on the flight deck, Chief Tyrol is more than a bit out of it and accidentally fails to switch out one component on Racetrack’s bird. The resultant crash doesn’t kill the bird’s crew but Tyrol loses it when nobody will bawl him out for frakking up.

Now it’s time for the return of the Six in Baltar’s head. She helps him figure out who attacked his followers and tells him that they [his followers] have not yet let go of their old gods. She goads him into following the attack on his followers by disrupting a service in the chapel – and he gets taken away to the brig.

In sick bay, Adama is with Roslin as she takes a blood test. He reads to her from a book he enjoyed so much that he never finished it [he never wanted it to end]. While Roslin likes that idea, she realizes that his philosophy in this matter is seriously not applicable to her. So he begins to read it for her – for her there is no later. That realization also prompts her decision to visit Baltar in the brig.

When Tigh returns to the brig to visit Six, he once again sees her as Ellen. She pleads with him to see her as she is – made of flesh and veins, just like him. “The tell me,” he asks, “How you can live with what you’ve done?” How can she live with knowing she’s responsible for the deaths of billions of people? “Are you asking for absolution? I can give you that,” she says.

Also in the brig, Roslin confronts Baltar and informs him that she’s dying – and is not going to indulge him anymore.

Adama tells Chief Tyrol that he’s willing to give him the time off to deal with Cally’s death, or give him extra shifts to take his mind off her – whatever it’ll take to help him get through this trying time. What Tyrol hears, though [in his imagination] is the Admiral saying “She probably couldn’t handle being married to a Cylon and that her son is a half-breed abomination.” Tyrol’s response is to, essentially, go nuts – raving about how Cally was no angel and he’d had to “settle” for Cally after it turned out that Boomer was a Cylon. He talks [or rather, shouts] himself into a demotion and a transfer off the Galactica.

At the next meeting of the Quorum, Lee questions Roslin about a limited assembly law she’d unilaterally passed after the last session ended. It was, she says, expressly to be used for Baltar’s “cult.” But it could be used against “legitimate” religious groups as well, he contends. He calls for a vote on it. Disgusted, Roslin leaves after warning them to be careful in making their decision.

Tigh meanwhile has returned to continue his conversation with Ellen/Six, while Baltar’s mental six has convinced him to return to his enclave – even though, by Roslin’s new decree, his group cannot have anymore members inside.

Tigh gets the answer to his question. Pain – both physical and emotional – enables her to focus, and that is how she deals with what she’s done. After he sends the guards away, she whales on his face to show him what she means – she’s not doing it out of hate or revenge, though, she’s doing it in a sincere effort to show him the way. When she realizes that won’t work, she’s tries another tack…

When Baltar tries to enter his enclave, the guard knocks him down. After he tries a couple more times, and gets thumped again, he decides he doesn’t want to do this anymore but Six has a different idea. As the guard watches, Baltar is lifted up and, marionette-like, is moved forward. When the guard moves to knock him down again, Lee’s voice tells him to stand down. The camera moves to him as he informs the guard that Roslin’s decree has been voted down and Baltar is legally able to go home.

As the episode closes, the beaten and bloody Baltar delivers a speech about how God loves them because they are all perfect, just as they are [kind of like a demagogue Mister Rogers...]. In the background, Lee leaves, with a very worried look on his face.

An epilogue/tag shows Sam Anders quietly [stealthily?] approaching the sleeping Kara on the Demetrius.

Escape Velocity marks a couple of production threes: it’s Edward James Olmos’s third time as director on the series, and Jane Espenson’s third BSG script to be produced.

Escape Velocity is an appropriate title in a number of ways. There are characters who are trying to escape themselves/their memories/their responsibilities; there are characters who have escaped themselves, so to speak, and there are events that are key in their succeeding or failing to escape.

The most obvious wannabe escapee is Chief Tyrol. He wants to escape from himself as he now perceives himself – a Cylon whose entire live might have been programmed. As a result, he blows up at his crew; behaves strangely among his fellow hidden Cylons and, finally goads the admiral into demoting and transferring his sorry butt off Galactica. If this actually happens, he will have succeeded in separating The Four even further – what with Sam Anders being on the Demetrius. Further, if he succeeds in getting off Galactica, he’ll be taking Nicky with him – which could adversely affect Tory’s mood.

Tigh is also looking to escape from himself, again, in terms of his being a Cylon. But he’s being haunted by his late wife Ellen, which means he’s also trying to escape from his memories. Since he is a Cylon, he’s also wondering just how much he contributed to the destruction of humanity – he seeks absolution for not just his wife’s death but for the holocaust created by the Cylons.

On the other hand, Tory has embraced the revelation that she’s a Cylon – designed to be perfect. Because of her belief, she finds Baltar’s philosophy appealing. She has escaped being the quiet, subservient president’s aid – at least, in her own mind. She is a new person, built on the ashes of the old – like a phoenix.

President Roslin would like to escape death, but she’s now resigned to it as it means [to her, at least] that she is the prophesized leader who will take the remains of humanity to Earth. The moment her acceptance of her fate may well be her realization that she couldn’t save the ending of Adama’s favorite book because she has no later. At the same time, she is attempting to escape her more decent side in order to do what she believes must be done to ensure humanity’s survival. She’s shown that she’s been moving in that direction since day one, but now she’s enacting laws without due process – that is the last of her inhibitions, as a leader, to go.

Lee has now successfully left the man-of-action/pilot/C.A.G. part of himself behind – in effect, he’s also escaped himself, or at least the part of himself that has always been conditioned to follow orders. The final move came when he stood up to Roslin about the limited assembly decree – though he has the good sense to see that it might have been an effective idea, just not the right one. Leading the successful, shall we call it a revolt, against Roslin’s subterfuge marks the completion of his transformation.

Baltar has tried to escape his destiny since the series began, but he remains one of the least successful in this regard. The marionette sequence suggests that there’s more going on with him than just a hallucinatory Six in his mind. It may be that he really is a pawn in a much larger game. At the same time, he has shown courage and cowardice in turns [both in this episode] and, until he commits to behaving in one way or the other, he will never escape his fate [he is so toasted!].

Of course, all of this is but a part of what’s going on in Escape Velocity. That’s good news, because it means that series is once again firing on all cylinders. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Final Grade: A-

After a rather ho-hum premiere, Battlestar Galactica seems to be moving back in the right direction. Where He That Believeth In Me tended to rehash the season three finale without adding much to the running story – except for the development of the Starbuck-Roslin situation – Six of One is almost chockfull o’ stuff.

Six of One finds Starbuck aiming a gun at President Roslin; the four who are living in hiding convening to see if they can figure out a way to identify the Final Cylon; Lee getting a fine send-off by the pilots and ground crew he worked with from the inception of the series; Lee and Kara kissed [big honkin’ powerful, life & death kiss]; The four sent Tory to see if Gaius knew anything about the last Cylon model; Starbuck gave Roslin her gun and told her that she thought Starbuck was a Cylon to shoot her – and Roslin fired [but, fortunately, she’s not gun person, and missed], and Tory had sex with Baltar. That’s the fleet side of the ep, and would be plenty for most shows.

On the Cylon side of things: Cavil ordered the Raiders to be repaired – read lobotomized – after their breaking off the battle with the Galactica; Six insisted that the Raiders had evolved and become sentient – and that they had recognized the presence of the presence of the four in the human fleet; three of the unboxed six models voted on whether to “repair” the Raiders – and one of the Sharon Valerii models voted against her model and for the “repairs”; Six and two Centurions confronted Cavil, Doral and Simon and she begged them to reconsider but they refused; she ordered the Centurions to kill them and they did – the three models who had voted against repairing the Raiders had removed an inhibiting device from all the Centurions so that they would become self-aware, told them about what had been ordered for their fellow mechanicals and let them make up their own minds about what to do to stop it.

Whew! Now that’s a lot of action – and we haven’t even talked about Admiral Adama’s going behind the President’s back to outfit Starbuck with a ship and crew to see if she can retrace her journey and return to Earth. A crew that includes the program’s moral center, Helo.

What can I say? Six of One is a pretty decent rebound from the ennui that was He That Believeth In Me. The dialogue is crisp; the direction is crisper. The main theme of the ep seems to be betrayal, what with Admiral Adama going behind Roslin’s back to set Starbuck on her way; the impending civil war between Cylon factions [precipitated by one of the Boomer model betraying the rest of her series], and Starbuck’s feeling betrayed by the people she loves [though that betrayal, at least, is assuaged by Adama’s turnabout].

Another theme is change. The Raiders have changed/evolved and pulled away from the Galactica because of their recognition of at least one of the four models on the Galactica [though this happened last week, the actual acknowledgement of that change is shown this week]; one part of a model series has disagreed with the rest of her model; the Centurions have been allowed their own self-awareness/sentience; the seemingly solid relationship that has been developed between Roslin and Adama is fracturing.

I’m not sure if Tory’s sleeping with Baltar will become another betrayal, but she was told to get close to him to gain information – but that she wasn’t expected to have sex with him. And what’s up with her tears? Is she telling the truth about them, or is she feeling a spot of bother over changing sides, or what?

One thing that hasn’t changed is Roslin’s commitment to her vision. Her insistence that she’s the dying leader who will lead the fleet to Earth is unwavering – and despite missing Starbuck with that pistol, she avers that she’d try again, given the opportunity.

Which leads us to one of the big changes of the series [ranking right behind the major Cylon revelations]: Admiral Adama’s crisis of ego/conscience. Besides loving Starbuck like a daughter and wanting to believe her, he goes behind the President’s back because “she’s always right – and I’m tired of losing!”

Lemme hear yuh say, “WHOAH!”

Michael Angeli script is filled to the brim with all kinds of good stuff and yet, it doesn’t feel bloated; Anthony Hemingway’s direction may have a pretty frenetic general pacing, but he does a nice job of picking which parts of which more intimate scenes to linger over. The effects are, as usual, brilliant both in and of themselves and in the manner in which they serve the story.

To balance out the major revelations and betrayals, Angeli’s handling of Lee’s departure from the military provided a much needed bit of levity and some lovely character moments that didn’t come from a place of anger, angst or any other form of negativity. Both the farewell party and the moment on the hangar deck were handled with just the right amount of emotion – and it was nice to see that Lee And his father aren’t still torn up about Lee’s decision to go civilian – not that they won’t be at loggerheads in the future, their relationship just seems to work that way.

Overall, then, Six of One is filled with enough action, emotion, revelations and betrayals to make it an extremely good effort. Even though, like He That Believeth In Me, it is setting some much bigger bangs somewhere in the future, it has enough Good Stuff – in and of itself – to be considered a worthy addition to the BSG canon. It’s not the show’s best ep, or anything, but it’s better than most of season three and the season four premiere – and it points the way to the hella ride we’ve been expecting.

Final Grade: B+

Battlestar Galactica may be the best SF series, start to finish, ever produced for television. Even so, after sleeping on it, I have to say that the final season opener left me cold. [SPOILERS beyond this point!]

He That Believeth in Me opens minutes after the season three finale, Crossroads, Part 2, left off – with Kara “Starbuck” Thrace [Katee Sackhoff] joining Lee “Apollo” Adama [Jamie Bamber] in the battle against the Cylon raiders. The battle turns when a Cylon raider has Sam Anders [Michael Trucco] in its sights, pauses for a closer examination of the newly revealed Cylon/Viper pilot, and turns tail and retreats.

In between bursts of the battle, we see members of Galactica command and President Roslin [Mary McDonnell] listening in disbelief as Starbuck joins the battle following her epochal announcement regarding Earth. Even the usually well-controlled Admiral Adama [Edward James Olmos] is visibly shaken by her return.

Meanwhile, Gaius Baltar [James Callis], newly cleared of charges of treason, has been whisked away to the one ship that will have him and begins his new life by praying for the life of a sick child. Following his prayers, he is accosted by a man whose son had been killed by a “police officer” on New Caprica, and only quick action by the woman who had cut his hair, saves him from certain death – but only after his plea to The One True God to take his life and spare the child so startles his would-be assassin that she has time to overpower the man holding her. Lo! The child is healthy on his return, with no trace of the virus that was killing him.

Starbuck is taken, under guard, to Doc Cottle [whom we don’t actually see], and declared to be 100% Kara Thrace. Even so, Roslin refuses to believe her story of finding Earth and returning. Even Adama isn’t convinced – though he clearly wants to be. Further clouding the issue is Starbuck’s Viper which has returned in fresh off the factory floor, brand spankin’ new condition. No dings, no enemy hits, nothing in its logs.

At about the same time, the four newly revealed Cylon models, Tory [Rekha Sharma], XO Tigh [Michael Hogan], Anders and Chief Tyrol [Aaron Douglas] have met to see what they can figure out about their new awareness. The best they come with is that [a] that bloody song isn’t playing in their heads anymore, and [b] until something changes, it’s going to have to be business as usual for all of them.

Finally, at episode’s end, Starbuck breaks free of her escort [she’d been looking at her memorial on the wall of memories] and confronts President Roslin at gunpoint. To be continued…

Alrighty then…

Although my esteemed colleague deemed He That Believeth in Me to be a good, if not great season opener, I have to say that it very nearly put me to sleep. Outside of the show’s usual brilliant effects, I felt that nearly every aspect of the ep left me cold.

In terms of the actual battle between the Cylons and the Galactica, there wasn’t any one thing that stood out until the Anders incident. In fact, it seemed like the most lifeless battle of the series to date. The unexpected retreat – unfairly attributed to the possibility that Starbuck might be a Cylon [and which only we, the audience, knew was because of something that one Raider saw in Anders] wasn’t particularly wondrous either, though the reaction aboard the Galactica was one of the few bright spots in the ep.

The Lee/Kara reunion in the bay was affecting, but the Sam/Kara reunion was curiously lifeless – even their later conversation about he’d still love her even if she was a Cylon seemed oddly out of place [and this with his knowledge that he was a Cylon!].

The Adama/Kara scenes were almost painful, and not because they were heart-rending. The contrast in the two’s demeanor was such that it really felt like I was watching two different people. Overall, the only scenes that struck me as completely honest were the scenes between Lee and Kara, and Kara and Roslin.

There weren’t even any truly memorable lines – and days after almost every preceding ep, there’d be at least one line that would still be making me chuckle. Here, there was nothing of the sort. Even Starbuck’s anguished, “We’re going the wrong way,” struck me as lame [though that might be because a much more impassioned version of it has been featured in almost every 30-second spot in advance of the show’s return, and now I’m tired of it already.

The whole Baltar, The Holy Man arc that’s being set up strikes me as kind of sad. This suddenly selfless, repentant Baltar is no fun at all. If he does wind up being selfless and giving for real, he will cease to be interesting. It’s combination of Baltar’s baser qualities and his [very] occasional doubts and attempts at redemption that make him such an intriguing character. Take away that intrigue and you might as well kill him off.

Even the direction of He That Believeth in Me seemed perfunctory. People hit their marks, said their lines and didn’t bump into the furniture, but that’s about it.

In the end, He That Believeth in Me was an unsuccessful attempt to expand on arcs that were set up in Crossroads, Part 2. Maybe now the show can pick up steam and kick some ass – ‘cause it certainly did neither here.

Final Grade: D+

Since I’ve been such a good little whore for all things Galactica this month, the folks at Universal gave me 1 hr, today, to come up with some questions to ask the great Ron Moore, creator/producer of BSG. So I shot these over to one of my contacts and he got Moore to answer, the interview went a little something like this. We talk about the Strike, Razor, Lesbianism and more! Be sure to check out our Razor DVD Giveaway! This is an EM Exclusive.

1) What was the genesis of the idea to do Razor?
It came from Universal Home Entertainment. They had an idea of releasing a video version of Galactica in the fall. It had done well on DVD in the release of its seasons. We weren’t going to broadcast season four until spring of ‘08, so it made sense to have a BSG release in the fall. They would broadcast it once on Sci Fi and release it within a week on DVD. It quickly came about. We ended the third season on a cliffhanger, so that didn’t make sense to tie that in – we had to go back in time and do a story before the cliffhanger. We decided to revisit some aspect of the Pegasus/Admiral Cain storyline and see the original attack on the colonies and from Pegasus’ point of view with the original Cylon attack. The writers kicked around story ideas and went through it at my house. We have 10-15 minutes more on the DVD, including young Adama and the first Cylon War. There is more footage with young Helena Cain as a child during the first Cylon War, plus extended version of other scenes. It doesn’t predate the series. It just happens to take place around the original Cylon war – it skips around chronologically.

2) How do you see Razor fitting into the overall BSG mythology?
It fleshes out events referred to previously. You see the first mission that Lee gets when he takes command of Pegasus. It’s a broadening of stories in the series.

3) There’s a pretty big spoiler about Kara at the end of Razor, can you talk a bit about it?
We were looking for information that we put in Razor that changes the audience’s expectation of that storyline. We darken that – could be a positive or dangerous element. We won’t know until season four.

4) How do you feel about the rumor that Sci-Fi is going to split the final season into two seasons?
It is under consideration. The writers’ strike is complicating everything. Even before the strike, we didn’t know. There will definitely be a break between the first half and the second half. The season was designed with a midseason cliffhanger.

5) It doesn’t feel like it’s real, more like a stunt to “artificially” stretch the show for another year and charge loyal fans for extra DVDs.
It is a network decision – the DVDs are the concern of the studio. It is not the same people making those decisions. The network doesn’t care about the DVD. The studio doesn’t have any say over the network schedule. The season is up to Sci Fi and how they are going to program their channel. Do they have other shows up and running? Do they want BSG to run into the summer? It’s all about scheduling issues with Sci Fi.

6) Blu-Ray or HD-DVD and why?
I am avoiding both – I am a skeptic until they settled on one format. It’s not worth my time or effort until then.

7) Since BSG isn’t scheduled to air until next April, how does the current strike affect what you are doing?
The shows that start in April are already in the can. We started shooting in June and have finished 10 weeks worth of shows.

8) What is your reaction to the fanboy reaction over the whole Razor Lesbian reference?
We knew it would cause a stir – let it stir. These were things that we had already established between the characters. This really influenced how they reacted to each other. The lesbian angle was fresh territory and an attractive component.

9) Last year I listened to your post show Podcasts. What made you decide to do it and will you continue them this year as well?
Depending on the strike, we will see where we are. I don’t do them until the week that they air. SciFi.Com approached me in the first season and asked me. I did it at home and sent them the disc. It became fun. For me it was the last act of producing the series. It’s usually the last time I see it – the final act of completion. I can look at it and see what we were trying to do.

10) How much leeway does Sci-Fi give you in terms of your schedule and the content of the show?
They give me quite a bit of leeway. They have opinions and notes. Most of the major battles were fought early on in the first season, but they let me do the show that I wanted to do. I cannot say that they did not let me do the show I wanted to do.

11) Do you have anything special planned for the upcoming DVD and high-def releases of BSG?
They have been putting together the box set for season three. There is a very long extended episode of “Unfinished Business” – 70 minutes long. The editor and I did a commentary track for it. That was the biggest editing challenge of the third season.

12) I checked out the BSG game on X-Box Live arcade last week and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very happy with it. How much involvement did you have in it?
They never even show them to me. I was appalled to see that it was lambasted in the reviews. I made my displeasure known, and the word got out. There should be a closer consultation in the future. Historically, merchandising, licensing and games were all spun off into different divisions. The companies are trying to integrate them more into the process, but typically, the divisions don’t talk to one another and go off and do their own thing. There is still a lot inertia.

13) I was at GDC a few years ago for your well received keynote about Games and Film. Rumors started going around that you were going to do something within the game industry, perhaps a BSG Next Gen Game, but those rumors quickly died. What are your current thoughts on the Video Game Industry?
I met a lot of people and had conversations, but nothing tangible came of it. They were more about new projects, and it still interests me, but I haven’t been able to focus on it.

14) I talked with Jason Behr a few months ago and apparently there have been some initial movement on a possible Roswell reunion do you know anything about it?
This is the first I’ve heard of it. I haven’t spoken to the Roswell cast. I saw Katherine Heigl after Gray’s Anatomy hit. Other than her, I haven’t seen any of them.

15) What do you think about web video and do you have any plans for the medium?
We did a webisode last year, but they have been tabled. That’s one of the key issues of the strike. We have said no because none of it has been covered by the Guild. At this point, once the strike is settled, I don’t know that there will be time or appetite to get web content running before the end of the series.

16) When NBC Universal makes a move like abandoning iTunes, do they consult with producers like you, whose show was a consistent top seller on that platform?
They did not, nor did they consult with me when they put it onto iTunes. To them, it’s a strange palace of secrets that they will not speak. Now you see why there’s a strike. This is a source of a great deal of argument. When I get a residuals check, it will say for DVD. Somewhere in that sum is buried what they are saying for iTunes. There is no record of how many units it reflects. It’s Hollywood creative accounting.

17) Do you think you’ll pull a Joss Whedon and continue BSG in Comic Book form?
I don’t have any plans to do that. The plan is to end the show definitively. I don’t know if there’s another story beyond that that I want to tell in comic book form.

18) What’s next for you after BSG?
I have a series in development at NBC. I am supervising another series at Fox Broadcasting. I have some features in development that I’m writing – the sequel to iRobot and a version of The Thing for Universal. It’s connected to the 1982 film.

19) What do you think of what you’ve accomplished with BSG for sci fi on TV?
Space opera sci fi is still a tough sell on TV. There aren’t many proven successes beyond Star Trek. You have to go to Babylon 5. Beyond that, it’s dicey. It’s a tough thing to sell. The form got caught up in clichés and bad storytelling. It started to undercut its own fanbase. We tried to reinvent the form and reinvigorate it. I hope that others can take advantage of what we tried to do.

20) How do you feel about the general state of the genre?
There is a big appetite for horror/fantasy/science fiction on the part of the public. There always has been and always will be. But you have to do it right. There is a cynicism that gets applied to this genre very easily.

Hey, hey, we have another fantastic contest for you. Because we’ve been such good whores for all things BSG, the folks at Universal Home Video have given us five copies to give away. The DVD hits the street on Dec. 4 and will be a two disk extravaganza. This contest will run for the next two weeks. On Wednesday, Dec 12 shoot me an email with your full mailing address and User ID. That’s it. Post a comment about BSG, or the SCI-Fi Network for a chance to win, it’s that simple.

In the meantime check out some of these exclusive SFX shots! These shots are not your typical approved artwork, this comes directly from the pipeline of production at Universal Studios. Our source had a chance to meet with the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA editors, and they pulled this actual step-by-step visual effects sequence from the show. Warning, these are nice huge pictures.

]]> http://eclipsemagazine.com/announcements/Contests/4755/feed/ http://eclipsemagazine.com/hollywood-insider/4741/ http://eclipsemagazine.com/hollywood-insider/4741/#comments Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:03:27 +0000 Sheldon A. Wiebe http://eclipsemagazine.com/?p=4741

The story of how Kendra Shaw goes from raw rookie to battle hardened razor is set against the story of how the Battlestar Pegasus survived – from the first Cylon attack to its rendezvousing with the Galactica. In preparation for the airing of the Sci Fi Channel event, Battlestar Galactica: Razor [Saturday, Nov. 24, 9 p.m.], I had the opportunity to take part in conference calls with Jamie [Lee Adama] Bamber [posted on November 14^th] and Stephanie Jacobsen, who plays the titular character, Kendra Shaw.

What are some of the things you liked about this character? And that includes traits that maybe you don’t like personally but you enjoyed playing?

Fundamentally, I would just say her complexity. I mean, what she was for me was I guess just almost sterile. And I think as an actor when parts of your journey is always actor things, playing emotion and revealing human emotion to sort of go against all of those instincts, pull them right back and cover them up was an enormous challenge for me and it was actually very, very fulfilling.

How familiar were you with the show before you were cast?

I’m from Sydney, Australia. We get Battlestar Galactica there. I don’t know how up to date it is. I was familiar with the concept, with the characters, all the very – all the foundations basically but in terms of storylines and things like that I wasn’t particularly up to date. I mean it was definitely something that I recognized as being a fantastic show and I was over the moon when I got the job.

I’m just wondering from your perspective how strange was it to come into a show that had been going on for so long and have this group embrace you? And was it kind of helpful in a way playing this kind of alienated character that you were kind of an outsider stepping into this new world?

Okay. I have to say that I didn’t feel like an outsider stepping in at all. Everyone was just wonderful. So I didn’t have that to draw from. I mean, everyone was helpful, accommodating, welcoming, very open, very generous with me in every (which) way. So I didn’t have that sort of (disdained) solitary experience working on Battlestar as my character did. But it was I guess coming in as someone who was completely new to the environment and new to everyone who was already established there was akin to the character. So I guess that there was that correlation.

It’s sometimes hard for a new character to be introduced into an established show just and hard challenge for an actor to do that.

Uh-huh.

Sort of because the idea of like dropping someone new in who we haven’t met before.

Yes. Right.

It can be daunting.

Yes.

You know, I mean it can sort of seem like wait a minute, why are we seeing you instead of an established character. So was that at all on your mind when you started portraying the role and how did you – how in your mind did you figure she factored into the show at large?

I think that the introduction of Kendra was – it was really I guess an act of boldness and an act of ingenuity because obviously to kind of throw someone into the mix who’s never even been alluded to, let alone seen, you know, so many years into an established series is a very, very courageous thing to do. But what I think it did was enabled this entirely new untainted alternative perspective of situations, people and events that were – that had already been told of. So I think that in a sense that sort of risk and that sort of oddness to it… was to a large extent the point of doing Razor. Do you see what I mean?

Yes.

That was what it was about.

Yes, I mean I actually thought it was pulled off very well and I’ll quickly – do you ever think that they could possibly be more for you? I mean, we didn’t see everything that goes on aboard Pegasus. I mean, is it possible we’ll see you again at some point?

Look, I mean – you know, stranger things have happened but as – I mean, nothing as yet.

I was going to say I really enjoyed your addition to the universe. I’d be sorry to see that was the last.

Well, look, I mean I – I’m definitely – you know, I would definitely love to keep exploring that type of character. So I mean, you know, finger crossed maybe I’ll get cast as another slightly disturbed marine.

The promo material and the show sort of shows your character as a protégé to Admiral Cain, so I was wondering what it was like working – what it was like the experience of working so closely with Michelle Forbes?

She’s almost like a force of nature in a way. She’s really – if she was just – just her focus and her intensity I have to say that working with her was one of the – she made this one of the easiest jobs I’ve ever done in a sense.Because responding to what she provides on set as a fellow actor is absolutely effortless. It’s like she does almost everything. You just have to listen to her and watch her. Yes, she’s incredible. I recommended working with her to anyone.

I wanted to ask you know your character obviously exists in these two different timelines throughout the whole thing. I know obviously they shoot out of sequence. Did you shoot a lot of the Pegasus – the early stuff with Cain at the same time or are you going back and forth and kind of filming these two timelines at the same time?

We were shooting whatever was on the schedule on the day. So it was back and forth – no, I mean, look they were very kind and gracious with that. I know that it – see it kind of – really I guess it was just about the clarity of the story in my head and in Felix Alcala’s head. And when – I guess because we had sort of a very firm, finite grip on that, the shooting sequence wasn’t too much of a drama.

I guess what I’m getting at is because your character, you know, she’s – is dark to begin with but some huge stuff happens that really changes her to the time she meets up with the Galactica crew. So did you kind of keep straight in your head, you know, what had happened? Or what hadn’t happened for her? While you were shooting those different sequences?

Right. So your question is what, I’m sorry?

Just that, you know, was it a little disjointed to think about, you know, your character, you know, sort of what happened, where she was emotionally before that huge sequence when they kind of board the other ship and where she is afterwards?

Sure, look, it was but the vast majority of stories will be shot at least slightly out of sequence so I mean as an actor that’s just something that you have to deal with.

There are scenes in this episode that are pretty dark even by Battlestar Galactica standards. So how did you approach playing some of those scenes? And probably scenes that will go down as being if not some of the most dark but the most dark in the series?

Okay, well I think that you just approach them without comment. I mean, I think that it’s more just about doing what is done in the scene and then maybe reflecting on or analyzing it later. That’s what I do anyways because otherwise I guess you do sort of risk falling into that trap of fretting over how people are going to perceive you vicariously through your character or what your character is doing. So I think that you just have to add – as an actor you just have to commit to whatever it is and get it done and then sort of worry about it afterwards.

And I mean I think that – you know, I don’t – I think that all of – I think that every scene that kind of happens in Razor amounts to a very clear and I guess quiet a profound philosophy in a sense. So, you know, I don’t have any qualms about it.

Did you have any problems after a particular difficult shooting scenes to shake it off and become a normal person again?

I had some problems after flying for 21 hours and rolling off a plane onto a set and then standing for 14 hours in those military boots. I had some problems with my joints but apart from that I was fine.

I wanted to find out and sort of get your take on how did you see your character’s relationship sort of develop in Razor with both the Cain and also Katee Sackhoff’s character of Starbuck?

Okay, now for me and this was just – this was just my take and this was just something that I induced Kendra with. Cain replaced her mother. So, yes that was that – I think that her – see – okay, her relationships with Cain and Kara from my perspective were very similar in the sense that she didn’t necessarily like either of them but she respected them both for some similar and some different reasons.

And I think that given Kendra’s nature or her lack of one maybe, I think that in her world or in her being respect was the closest thing to affection that she was capable of.

Hey, are you a tough girl? Like the character you play in this or are you more a girly girl just pretending to be a tough girl?

I’m definitely not a girly girl. I’m not Kendra. Don’t think that, but I’m definitely not a girly girl. No. I don’t know I mean I guess I’m – it’s kind of hard, isn’t it? To talk about yourself? Because I mean, how I am – like how you are or what you are I guess is different to each individual person who knows you. But I’m definitely not a girly girl. You definitely won’t see me running around in, you know, pink floral dresses and ribbons in my hair. No.

Have you ever had a mentor in your life, in your career in the manner that Admiral Cain mentors Major Shaw minus the killing of course?

I actually sadly have not. I sadly have not.

So where you’ve gotten in life and in career is pretty much largely your own doing?

Yes, basically just been a series of flukes. No. Well, see I think that with the career that I’ve chosen it can be a little bit self limiting to elect one role model so to speak because everybody travels a different path in this profession. So I think the most constructive thing to do is to just kind of go with your own instincts and make your own choices.

I won’t spoil the ending for viewers and readers before the show airs but death is rarely absolute in science fiction. That being the case do you think that Major Shaw is really, most sincerely dead?

Major Shaw – look, I really don’t know. I really could not even hope to answer that at this point. I have no idea. She’s definitely not dead to me.

Fair enough. It just occurs to me that, you know, characters die in all sorts of – and you see them die, you see them get buried and they come back in science fiction.

Well, I don’t know that – I don’t actually know what sort of happens to her. I mean, to me her outcome was ambiguous.

How did you come to be cast in the role? Did they find you in Australia?

Yes, they did actually. They – yes, they picked me out in Australia. What happened was I did a series of auditions during pilot season and when the role on Battlestar came up, I put an audition down on tape and sent it over. And I then I flew to Vancouver I think two or three days later.

And were you able, before you started filming, to watch the original Pegasus, Admiral Cain episodes? I actually wasn’t. I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to engage in such professional luxuries. I mean, I had sort of as I was saying to someone before – I had the gist of it. So I knew sort of who everyone was and I knew what had happened so I think that was kind of enough to start off with and then I obviously began to garner more information when I was there. So, yes, it all came together. I’m actually not sure – I’m not sure how far behind Battlestar is in Australia. We were trying to pinpoint it and we couldn’t. So, yes, that was another thing.

Someone touched upon the Kendra/Kara relationship. I was just curious how was it playing those scenes with Katee Sackhoff and playing the rivalry and tension between the two of you?

Katee Sackhoff is incredible. I think – I mean she – I’m – it’s going sound – okay, I said similar things about Michelle Forbes but they’re not similar at all, they’re completely different. Completely different actresses to work with but Katee Sackhoff is possibly the easiest person I’ve ever worked with. She’s completely no maintenance, nothing’s a problem. I think I threw like a needle in her eye in one scene and she didn’t even blink. Yes, she’s fantastic. She’s great.

When you shoot a series, the development of a character kind of becomes a symbiosis between the writer, director and the actor. But for a single event like Razor, there’s not a lot of time for that to happen. What did you learn about yourself during the process of playing Kendra and how did that inform your performance as the filming progressed?

What did I learn about myself? And how did that inform my performance as the filming progressed?

Right.

Okay, well I guess to answer that question indirectly, the character was – there was a lot of clarity in – just in the writing so as soon as I sort of got the script, who Kendra was and what she was about, where she had been and where she was going were all quite clear to me. So – and I guess because she was such a rich, unique person, it wasn’t (kind) – it wasn’t as if she was sort of, you know, an ambivalent person or, you know, a (dipident) person who could be interpreted in a dozen different ways.

So it wasn’t – I mean, for me, the choices about how to play her were pretty much were pretty obvious. And I think that despite the fact that it was – her story is encapsulated within this double episode, I think that because I guess we were spending so much time with her we were still able to sort of nurture a collaborative approach to her development.

I wanted to find out maybe if you could tell us a little bit about your first professional acting role in front of the camera? And what that was like for you?

Okay, my first sort of long term role was on a soap opera in Sydney. And it was hilarious actually because I showed up with zero awareness of a lot of things. I was basically a technical neophyte. I roughed up (on set) and I was (mocking) everybody and I was never on my mark and I was rarely on camera. So I did, you know, assumedly a little bit of good acting on the sidelines there. And what ended up developing was this dynamic by which my on screen love interest would loop his fingers through the belt hole of my pants and he’d sort of guide me around the set. And that went on for about three months. So yes that was me in front of a camera for the first time.

And then the other project I wanted to ask you about and I hope I have my information correctly, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your general experiences working on the Life on Mars pilot and what that was like for you?

I actually don’t know that I can talk about my general experiences about that at this point. I’m sorry.

Did you always want to be an actress while you were growing up or did you have other professions in mind?

I had a couple – I mean there were a couple of ideas that sort of occurred to me. When I was 10, I wanted to be a professional equestrian because I was very much into horse riding. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian because I wanted to be a doctor but I didn’t want to have to work for the really high marks.

But then what happened was I guess while I was at University, I kind of got involved a little bit with a theater group there and I ended up – I just ended up being an actor to be honest with you. It was just kind of interesting. It just – yes, it kind of – you know, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was an actor.

Some of the non-U. S. actors on the show have accents that they drop, like Jamie Bamber for example. Did the producers tell you from the start that they wanted you to keep your accent?

No, I auditioned in an American accent. The decision to have Kendra be, I guess, Australian sort of happened on my first day on set.

So it was just – first day on the set they said, you can do that, let’s go ahead and…

Well, they kind of went talk for us and I spoke to them. And they said, no that’s it. So that was what we went with.

Because it was a precedent really with the Lucy Lawless character who speaks the accent.

Right.

Did they give you any back story – like maybe they’re from the same colony or something?

No. I believe that Lucy Lawless is a New Zealander so there would be just a hint of difference to our accent to someone who was listening carefully.

What do you think of science fiction as a genre in general? Are you a fan?

Yes, huge – huge fan.

Well, what are some of your favorites?

Well, I will basically I’ll – I’ll basically give anything that’s sci fi a go. I think though that what – I think though that the challenge for science fiction is sort of treading that fine line between fantasy and reality with a certain amount of grace I guess and a certain amount of sophistication so that there aren’t any scenes and there isn’t any contact – any content that’s going to be insulting to anyone’s intelligence. I mean sometimes you see some sci fi and it’s just like, no… No, I don’t think so, no. But with a show like Battlestar Galactica, yes, it’s just something different. Like it is raw and it is real and it is believable and I think that that’s a large part of why the show has been such a huge success.

When you’re not working what are some of the things that you do to make yourself happy?

I basically just work.

Fair enough.

Well, I mean – I’ve just moved to Los Angeles so I’m still kind of – you know, I’m still kind of settling in here so I might jump in my car and go for a drive, you know, explore the hills or explore the coast just – there’s plenty to do. It’s a very big city.

So asking a little bit about your time in Australia… what is – what are some of the differences between doing television down there versus here? Are there some? And obviously maybe budget is one?

Yes.

But are their working schedules different, too?

I think – to be honest with you I think that all the dissimilarities stem from budget. Because I mean, when you think about it – when you’ve got a bigger budget, you have more time, you have more resources. People tend to – I guess people tend to be able to afford a little more confidence I think with certain ideas because there isn’t such a heavy earnest to get it done. So I think that – I mean obviously look there’s always going to be aspects that are the same, you know, with any set, you know. But I think that there’s just an overall feeling that is slightly different. And I think though maybe that because there is more money, more time, more blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I think that people who are involved creatively are sort of able to feel a little bit more proud, I guess, or a little bit more passionate or connected to what they’re doing, which for an actor is a great thing to be part of.

It’s also interesting I mean a lot of Australian actors come out of the shows like Home and Away like that and get a launching pad to then do American series and movies? I mean is there – what accounts for that? I mean do people – are people really watching Home and Away constantly in Hollywood to find people? Or how is the connection happening?

I really can’t answer from an extraneous perspective. I don’t know how those shows are perceived by people out here. But what I do know is that young actors who come off those shows are immune to doing very long hours. They’re sometimes seasoned professionals by the age of, you know, 18 or 19. And they have just basically a very comprehensive grasp of what it is to be a working actor, of the pressures that are involved, the work load that’s involved and they have a technical experience as well. And I would imagine that a part of it at least is the fact that all of those factors make them an asset on a set.

From your own experience, I know you’ve said you recently moved to L.A. Is there a – do – is there a reason why you did that aside from wanting different projects? Do you sort of feel like the TV industry in Australia is limited after a certain point?

I think that – okay, I don’t think there’s not more – obviously the industry in Australia is a much smaller industry. I think there’s amazing stuff there; has always been amazing stuff made in Australia – always, always, always. There’s just not a great deal of it. Unfortunately. And for me it was really just a matter A, wanting to be able to play a slightly more diverse range of characters, and B, just wanting to work more. I guess. I mean in – and I’m speaking for myself here personally, acting sort of – it felt like it was more of part-time thing in Australia. I kind of thought no, I want to be doing this more like, you know, nine or ten months a year as opposed to three.

I was just curious, you know, because you weren’t too familiar with the show when you did read the full script for Razor, did the – both the darkness of it and the depth of it surprise you?

No, okay, I was familiar with it per se. I knew what Battlestar Galactica was about. I knew what style of show it was and I had a fairly good idea of its parameters. So I wasn’t – I didn’t kind of read it and flip out. So no, it wasn’t anything like that at all. What I was not familiar with was what was currently happening in the show.

Obviously you were made XO and then have a leadership role for much of the story. Did you enjoy playing that dynamic and getting to, you know, bark orders in different scenes?

Sure, it was great fun. Who doesn’t enjoy that? No, it was good. It was nice playing both. It was nice being able to take a character through that process of – well, I mean just for me as well it was I got to do so much within the one job. I got to be a, you know – the green somewhat naïve rookie who was just taking orders to being, you know, the hard, hard edged commanding officer, who was as you say, barking orders. So it was – yes, I had a ball. I had an absolute ball with that character.

I’d like you to put yourself back in character for a moment and think about how Kendra would assess Admiral Cain, Lee Adama and Kara Thrace and what do you think she would – how do you think she would describe them?

How would Kendra have described Admiral Cain, Lee Adama and Kara Thrace? She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have verbally described. Like I’m – like she – she was – she is far too internal a person. She’s far too introverted.As I said to someone earlier, she respected both Cain and Kara. And I also said that from my perception of Kendra, respect was the closest thing that she knew to affection or liking someone. And she came to respect Lee as well eventually.

But internally – how would she assess them? Would that be at all…

She would have thought about – she would have just – I think that she saw – okay. I think that she saw Cain as being an objective. Cain’s way of being was her objective.

And she then saw – I think that – I think personally that what she saw in Kara was that same objective but mingled with a little bit of humanity, which I think ultimately had a very specific impact on Kendra.

You’ve mentioned the relationship the character had with Starbuck and Cain, but another dynamic that’s kind of important is how she trusted Gina in the episode and then she realizes her betrayal. I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit.

Sure. I think that this was – again this isn’t necessarily, you know, gospel or fact but from my perception I think that because she was sort of capable of that kind of a connection – I mean Kendra was kind of a little set apart to begin with. I think she was a little bit aloof. But I think that she quite – I think that she kind of liked Gina. I think that she respected – Gina’s the – the Gina character was – she had skills that, you know, Kendra didn’t possess and virtually no one else possessed. And so I think again she had a certain level of respect for her and she felt a kind of camaraderie with her I think. I mean I didn’t – Kendra was not a particularly emotional character. Not outwardly so anyway and I guess that in a sense her relationship with people by some standards could be deemed shallow. There wasn’t the intensity of admiration that she felt for Cain but I think that there was definitely a certain respect for what Gina did earlier on anyway.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor will air on Saturday, November 24th at 9 p.m. Watch for our new review on Wednesday.

While we’ll have to wait until next April to rejoin Battlestar Galactica’s ragtag fleet in Season Four, in a week-and-a-half [Saturday, November 24, 9 p.m.], the Sci Fi Channel will premiere the two-hour BSG special, Razor. Razor fills in the gaps regarding how the Battlestar Pegasus managed to avoid destruction during the Cylon attack that kicked off the series. Recently, I was part of a conference call with Jamie [Lee Adama] Bamber. Bamber is a genial, voluble fellow and extremely eloquent. He addressed Lee Adama’s role in Razor and teased the fourth season, while also making known where he felt some of the program’s few flaws lay. It was the best teleconference in which I’ve participated in several years… So, ladies and gentlemen… Jamie Bamber!

I just wanted to ask (revisiting) your character at an earlier point before a lot of big thingshad happened to him like his marriage and what not - was it interesting for you to go backand sort of rethink where he was at that point?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah just on a nostalgic personal level it’s interesting to reminisce, you know, a couple of years in actor time and a couple of, you know, whatever it is - years in character time as well.

So yeah, definitely - I, you know, harking back to where Lee was and where Jamie was a couple of seasons ago. It was a lot of fun.

Can you talk in the movie about, you know, basically what it’s like for him and for your –kind of picking up when he’s first getting command of the ship?

Sorry, could you rephrase that?

Could you talk a little bit about, you know, what the dynamic is like for him in Razor since he is just taking over Pegasus?

Yeah. I mean, I remember it being one of the sort of pivotal moments in playing Lee - was that moment where he sort of puts on his father’s work clothes and takes the helm of the Pegasus in a crisis, which is the episode “Captain’s Hand,” which we made back in Season Two — which was, you know - was one of those crazy moments where I really did feel like the character has that goosebumps all over sort of thing where he’s become his dad.

So there’s sort of this difficult figure in his life that he kind of envied, looked up to, admired, worshipped, and also had a great many problems with - a man who he felt distant from and didn’t really understand, and felt was disconnected with his own upbringing and his own life.

So, you know, to get the chance in Razor to sort of flesh out that process with him gradually assuming command was really fun and really interesting because it was - you know, it was a quick thing when we shot it as part of the season. So it was nice to take a bit of time to sort of really look at how Pegasus was different and, you know, what that meant for Lee - and trying to sort of get the crew on board.

And, you know, obviously in Razor there’s this very significant other character — new character – called Kendra Shaw who represents the old Pegasus that has to be won over, and that’s largely what the story is about for Lee - is sort of gaining the respect of a crew that’s had its own leaders fall and get questioned by this other Battlestar.

And we’ve seen it from Galactica’s POV and now it’s time to see it from Pegasus’s POV.

I remember before this Battlestar Galactica was even a series, when the movie or the miniseries - or pilot, or whatever you all call it — was announced and some of the die hard fans of the original were so skeptical, you know, about everything.

A woman Starbuck, human Cylons - of course nobody had seen anything yet. And I was wondering what it felt like to be involved in the show when there was that skepticism and negativity around? And how aware of it were you? And how cool and gratifying is it today that the viewers turned out to embrace it the way that they have?

Yeah. No I remember it well. I’ll be honest though, to me it was exciting to have so many different opinions flying around. You know, most of the time as actors when you start a new piece of work you’re dealing with complete lack of knowledge. You know, you just do it and then the press publicity machine gets cranking and people start to get curious.

With this there was this innate curiosity and this immediate frenzied debate — if you’re going to use a polite word — or sort of a shooting match, you know, straightaway, as soon as it was announce. And then when it was - started to be cast, it represented so much for quite a sort of hard core bunch of fans.

And I personally, you know, wasn’t too scared by it because I knew the project was good. I knew the script was good. I knew it was better than the original just right from the words on the page.

So, you have…

You had the advantage of having seen the script, of course.

Yeah. I mean, I had seen the script and so I knew what was there. But at the same time, even that early script I had no idea really the direction the show would go and how political and how social, and how, you know, almost allegorical it would become.

And I had no idea that the mainstream, and even sort of high brow press would really champion it as, you know, a groundbreaking and thought provoking television. That I did not know would happen.

I knew we’d make it, you know, a good show. But I had no idea that we would: A, win over the die hard fans. I thought that was probably impossible; and B, I had no idea it would really strike a nerve and, you know, be touted as the number one show on TV by the likes of Time Magazine.

That was all a revelation.

It really was, and very gratifying. And the whole ride has been desperately exciting since then. And Razor represents, in a way, a chance to go back to the miniseries and make another miniseries, which is basically how I view Razor - is sort of an alternative miniseries - a pilot.

Don’t you think it’s remarkable, by the way, that science fiction - a show like this can oftenbe more topical and more on top of what’s going on than a show set in contemporarytimes?

I think it’s really gratifying that science fiction can do that and I think this is the first science fiction show on TV that’s really tried to do that for quite awhile. But that’s really, I would say, where science fiction comes from.

Science fiction has always been about the world in which we live and looking at the logical conclusions for the directions we’re headed in. I mean, that’s what, you know, H.G. Wells and Isaac Asimov, and George Orwell — and, you know, and the likes of the great science fiction writers. It’s what they’ve always been interested in

But maybe we lost sight of that post Star Wars and we got a bit too caught up in the surface of science fiction, in the - you know, the weird ass aliens and planets, and all this slightly juvenile side of it.

And I’m very grateful that, you know, Ron — from the very word go — he started his script with a sort of mission statement about what this show is going to be and he really wanted to ground it in the world in which we live.

And, you know, he and his writers — to their credit — really pushed it beyond what I even thought they were intending to do. And I know he raised a few eyebrows at the network and even with us, you know.

We were sort of excited by how close we were able to get to episodes like Abu Ghraib, much closer, you know, than you can when you’re turning a story set in the White House or set in Iraq – or in America — because, you know, you tell those stories and they’re immediately forgettable because they are exactly a mirror on the present.

And they also have to be aware of nuances of party politics and impartiality and all sorts ofthings like that. They have to tread a very fine line.

And never forget that television is a big corporate world, you know. I’m employed by General Electric, fundamentally, and there are sort of, you know, responsibilities within that world, that if you start sailing too close to the wind you can be edited and censored and changed.

You know, we have the privilege of being set in space and so nobody really raises - you know, puts the microscope on us. And we’re able to tell these stories in ways that are general enough to be resonant for future generations as well - I hope, and not just to be reductively about a particular era in sort of American politics.

A science fiction show can do a story about, say, racism and it’s not even - offend anybodyas long as the cultures are, you know, Venusian and Martian, you know?

Yeah, it can. The danger with it is that nobody really sort of examines their own life and nobody really questions their own choices. And they get too comfortable with the idea that this is about Martians and Venusians, or whatever.

You know, when it’s done really well, it’s not only about, you know, another context. But it’s also - the characters are so identifiable that you can’t help but involve yourself in their dilemmas and in their decision making. And, you know, the aim I would say of Battlestar is to really make a stink about our own civilization and what we do to ourselves, you know, on this planet.

What are some of the things that you like most about Lee Adama — not just as a character and as a person, but even the things that you’ve enjoyed playing, the things you enjoyed fleshing out?

Yeah. I enjoy his roundedness. The fact that he’s as comfortable, you know, having a discussion on Colonial One about some political or legal issue as he is in a Viper, you know, desperately trying to stave off a Cylon attack - Cylon Raiders.

You know, he’s a man of action and yet he’s a man of words, and a man of thought. I like that sort of renaissance element to him, that he’s a fully rounded, engaged human being in every fact of his, you know, albeit somewhat bleak existence.

You know, he does explore every aspect of that existence. And over those four seasons, I think more than any character in the show, he has been sort of an aerosphere of this fleet and tried to make a difference.

And, you know, as an actor that’s great fun to play an action sequence one day and the next to, you know, have a forlorn monologue, you know, of quite some complexity in an argument that has to sway a whole fleet.

So it’s the balance of all the parts that make Lee, for me, great fun to play.

What did you make of the basic concept of Razor - a prequel kind of building to the newseason, to fill the hole between, you know, repeats and new episodes?

The basic concept I was really, really in love with - I thought it was very bold, different. You know, every one of us in the Galactica family has always nurtured a not so secret passion to try and make a movie out of the show because there are so many things that on a week-in, week-out one-hour drama that you have to compromise on budgetarily and in terms of storylines and how much you can fit into 44 minutes of a narrative.

It was great to, you know, tell a longer story and to have a bit more money to throw at it. And to tell a huge arc, you know, that - to go right back from before the miniseries, before the very first shot that we ever picked up on, on the show, and go right the way through to the back end of Season Two.

It was a huge script in its ambition and it tried to introduce a new character, which I thought was a great way to reintroduce a different angle from the Pegasus angle - to see it all from a pair of eyes that we haven’t actually met before, that will have to meet all the main characters all over again.

I thought that was a very worth endeavor and a good way to bring in new audience members to Battlestar, you know, before a third season or fourth season being aired.

You know, structurally it’s very ambitious - Razor. And I know we’ve had some problems, you know, editing it and making the story clear, and the story work. But when I read the script, I was really excited and it sort of invigorated me yet again to start another year of Battlestar. It was nice to start from the beginning again.

How sad are you to see the show go? And is there something to be said for going out on top or is it too early for your case?

No, I think it’s a good time. You know, the - we’ve been saying from the very first season that the most important thing is to be able to finish this story in a way that is up to the people that create the story, and not up to the audience or up to a network, or up to, you know, the sort of financial criteria of what it is to make a TV show.

It should be about ending the story because the story begs an ending. And that’s the first and foremost thing about having ended. I mean, I think it is sad. I think there’s always nostalgia.

It’s been an amazing learning process for me personally and this experience is, without doubt, the most interesting and rich one I’ve had as a professional working actor. And I’ve learned everything from everyone around me, so it’ll be very sad to sort of disband the team.

And every day that we’re up here in Vancouver, there is an element of nostalgia about moments passing and little scenes that will never be revisited, and sets maybe that disappear because, you know, they’re gone forever. So that’s all, you know, very sad.

But, you know, personally I also - I look to the future and we all do. And I’m very keen to do other work and to test myself in other ways. So it’s positive nostalgia about, you know, all good things are only - in their ripening do they become truly, you know, tasty and edible.

And I think once Galactica is finished and the story is finished, it will be more perfect than it would be had we, you know, been cut short. So it’s inevitable.

The Razor movie is mostly in flashbacks, but there also seems to be some hints of what’s tocome, can you talk a little bit about if you’ve seen elements from Razor in the episodes tocome that you’ve shot already?

You know, that was one of the other things that I thought was really clever about Razor, is that it did sort of lean forward and beg some questions about Season Four and the direction we were going.

I thought it was - it had a bit of everything in it. I will just comment that I haven’t actually watched Razor yet, so everything I am talking about…

It’s really good. You should take a look.

Well I’ve got it in my bag and I do mean to watch it, but I haven’t had time. So - and I know they had to make some pretty big changes with the editing, so I - everything that I say is based on what I shot and what I read in the script. So it may not be 100% accurate.

But yeah, I know they are, you know, very conscious of fulfilling the hybrid Starbuck element. And that - I think that was the main thing that they introduced, which was a new seed about the direction that we’re going.

And obviously Season Four opens up literally seconds after the strange reappearance of Starbuckthat happened at the very last couple of frames in Season Three. So it’s very much the first question served up to the audience, is, you know, what’s going on with Starbuck? And that sort of occupies a good chunk of the drama and the interpersonal relationships in at least the first half of Season Four.

So, you know, that’s not shrugged off. It’s definitely addressed.

You’ve talked very eloquently about what science fiction has been able to do to this series.Were you - did you have that same feeling before you took on this show? Were you a fan ofsci-fi or was it something you thought, you know, that may be so special effects heavy itwould not allow me to be an actor?

Yeah. I did have reservations about doing sci-fi. And when I first got the script, it definitely didn’t make me leap off the seat and grab it. I really did think - sci-fi, in my mind, had been reduced to sort of post Star Trek sort of kind of goofiness on TV. I would never, ever watch it – not in a million years.

So it was something that was definitely - was a leap for Stephen to pick up the script and to sort of think of it as something that I would want to do. But I really can’t stress enough, as soon as I did pick up the script, open the first page and read that mission statement that Ron had written at Dave Eick’s behest to try and sort of temper the bitter taste of reading a script called Battlestar Galactica.

I was enthralled by the ambition, by the - just the chutzpa really of what he was trying to do. And then as I read the story, it wasn’t about special effects. It was about - it could have been a US Marine aircraft carrier in any conflict of the 20^th Century. And it just gripped me, the idea of this ship lost at sea and all hope of landfall is gone - and the people on board desperately trying to make sense of the bigger picture.

So as soon as I read that, I - we really all kind of latched onto that element of truth in the story. And we’ve all, I think, forgotten that it’s space or we tried to.

I mean, I have to be honest, there are elements in this show that still sit uneasily with me becausethey smack too much, too readily of sci-fi and I think we could have been even more bold at times. But it’s also very important to bring in the core sci-fi audience who are an audience that I’ve now come to know and really appreciate.

They’re very inquisitive. They’ve got tremendously interested in our show and their opinions and arguments are fascinating, and educative. And, you know, they’re quite a bunch to sort of be involved in a dialogue with.

So the whole thing has been a revelation on that level for me. And I think sci-fi has got a lot to be said for it as a genre. I just - I sort of get a bit disappointed when people talk of it as a genre because it’s, you know, it’s a pretty heavy little niche in literature and filmmaking.

And at its best, it does - it’s not worthy of just being marginalized as a genre. It’s just good storytelling, good character writing and good situation plotting, and using situation as plot device.

And, you know, you think of Blade Runner and nobody really thinks of Blade Runner as a genre film. I certainly don’t and I think - hopefully our series has done that - dissolved the boundaries and the ring fence around sci-fi, and made it a bit more appealing to the mainstream.

And that’s certainly my little personal odyssey through this, is that I don’t, you know, I don’t marginalize sci-fi anymore. I just look at the story and see what’s there.

But you could - you said there were elements that you - that sit uneasily. Could you give me one example?

Yeah. I mean, you know, the whole - the Cylon world, every time we delve deeper and deeper into that it - to me, it just becomes a bit reductive and, you know, these many copies of the same preacher having conversations on these futuristic looking ships which are so different from the sort of moth-eaten and dinged up interior of the Battlestar, which just works for me.

There are elements like that. I’m not - I don’t particularly like the kind of - the mystical deus ex machina process. It seems to happen with the plotlines of the show - suddenly revelations are made and people seem to be seeing visions, and dancing to some kind of distant, preordained, you know, sort of almost mythical journey.

I think our show works best in the cut and thrust of sociopolitical drama, and the decisions that humans have to make rather than suddenly, you know, feeling like we’re all on some preordained odyssey through space and time to the founding of humanity as a dictator, some, you know, monotheistic creator that we haven’t yet met.

Those elements of the show are interesting as long as they are also inexplicable and open to being questioned, and doubted. And I think sometimes in the show, that sort of miraculous event has been somehow too miraculous to be readily deniable, you know.

There was an episode in Season Two where the skies - we were in a cave and then the skies opened up, and you can see the constellations, and it’s the map to Earth — and it’s all stuff like that. Those sort of moments to me - I don’t think are my favorites in the show. But I know some people love them.

Now one technical thing - how far along are you in shooting this last season? How many