Battlestar Galactica: Season 2-08: The Final Cut

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This episode is the first of a few standalone episodes that we're doing here in season two. This is the first episode after "Home, Part 2", where we wrapped up many different plotlines. Instead of launching into a brand new giant arc of longterm storytelling, we decided to tell some standalone episodes, some things that weren't so buried in mythos and do a different flavor of episodes now that we are into this part of the season. By and large, this is exactly the kind of episode that new audience members should feel comfortable watching the show for the first time.

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This is of course Lucy Lawless' first episode for us. Lucy was David Eick's idea. David had worked with Lucy on Xena: Warrior Princess, which of course is what she's most famously known for, back when he was working for Renaissance. We had talked about having her on the show before this [in the first season], and it didn't work out for whatever reason. As this role came up, David mentioned her for it, and it seemed like the right fit. And he checked with her and she was into it and decided to do it... The motto for this character was a Christina Amanpour type character. By that we meant, a very no nonsense going after the story type of reporter, not a muckraker, not a tabloid reporter, not somebody out for their own glory, but somebody who has a story and is going to bite into it, is going to keep it going no matter what.


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The genesis of this story began when we were talking in the first couple of episodes... Someone developed this story about doing an episode where we would cut down into that room where all the press was gathered and trapped [after "Resistance"] and follow one reporter as he or she figured out how to get a story, and tell the whole episode from that point of view. The reason we opted not to do that, was that we needed those early episodes to tell a great deal of other stories. We had the story of Kobol, we had the story of Caprica, we had important story to deal with Laura etc. on Galactica, and it just became to cumbersome to try to use that device and make it work. But, in any case, the idea of a reporter being on the ship, or doing an episode from the reporter's point of view was something that we never let go of. Eventually we decided, "Let's do the documentary episode, where we really shoot a documentary on the ship." Actually, for this episode, Robert Young, who directed this episode and also directed last year's episode, "Six Degrees of Separation" is a noted documentarian. He has done many feature films and made acutal documentaries in his day. It felt like a natural fit to have Robert do this. I felt that it was important to give the director, writer and actors as much space to improvise, and to really embroider on the characters and on the life on Galactica.

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It's worth mentioning this little device we're using. Every time we go to the documentary camera, you'll note that we clip the corners off, which is a nod towards the aesthetic that we've established in this world, that they tend to clip corners off things. That happens to be an aesthetic style that they like in this universe. They like books with the corners cut off, they like picture frames with the corners cut off. The idea of clipping the corners on the documentary is actually one of the very last things that we did. I kept struggling to try and make the documentary footage stand out and feel different from the objective camera... the challenge was how to distinguish the look between the two. I was looking at it in the editing bay and it occurred to me. I said to the editor, "What if we clip the corners off the documentary footage." It was such a very small tweak but it really works, it really sets those images apart instantly and visually.

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[The cameraman] is a real cameraman... It was much, much better to have an actual cameraman working the camera within the scene than relying on an actor who is essentially trying to act like a camerman, if you had any hope of using the footage... [However] we were constantly having to juggle this documentary footage in such a way that we weren't picking up members of the actual film crew which were filming the scene.

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In a couple of drafts, Tigh and Ellen were both going [to Cloud Nine], and at some point we decided to keep Ellen aboard Galactica.


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There were episodes last season where we had strike teams in the Raptors, and we had ground crew in the Raptors, and we simply didn't have the money to outfit all of them in a flight suit. Plus, they all look kind of goofy when you put that many flight suits together in a cockpit. We kind of limit the flight suits to the necessary personnel, the pilot and the ECO. And that allowed us to make this leap, that Tigh would not be wearing a flight suit.

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You might have noticed this is the first time that Gaeta got a first name. His first name is now Felix. I don't know why that makes me laugh, but it did. I was looking up ancient names on the Internet when it came time to do this episode, because I never named Gaeta or Dualla, even in the show bible. And there it was, Felix. That's him, it's Felix Gaeta... Also, Dualla's first name is Anastasia, which I thought was quite lovely. Kandyse is a quite lovely lady who deserved a pretty first name.

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A lot of the dialogue here between the LSO and the pilot was contributed I believe by David [Weddle] and Bradley [Thompson], who specialize in that verisimilitude in our military jargon, in planning with some consultation with our military consultant.

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You might have noticed that several of the little subtitles that show people's names and ranks and what have you in the show have a couple of acronyms after them. For those of you who obsess upon these sorts of things, and you know who you are: CF is Colonial Fleet, CFR is Colonial Fleet Reserve, CMC is Colonial Marine Corps, and then CMCR is Colonial Marine Corps Reserve. So you can write that down and add that to your book of tricks.

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This whole last bit of narration was something that I wrote in post as we were going through the footage. I just wanted to give the thesis of the show. These are deeply flawed people and they're human. And maybe that's saying the same thing. There's a nobility to these people, there's a heroism to these people who are flawed and screwed up and dysfunctional and deeply human. And they get up every day and they go out and they do their jobs and they hold off the Cylons, and they protect the fleet. And they keep doing it and they don't quit. Despite everything that you've seen in the series and despite all their flaws, and all their infighting and all their deeply human, sometimes deeply bad choices in their lives, that they are the protectors. They are the guardians of the fleet. They take that job very seriously and they do it every day. And they never try to shirk it. That is ultimately the thing that sets them apart, it makes them special.

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Oh, this is great, the use of the original Battlestar Galactica theme. He starts whistling it, the music comes in, and the crowd goes wild. And some will curse us for using it, "How sacreligious!" But I kind of like it. Something very sweet about it.

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I think this is my favorite ending so far. This is such a great reveal. When I'm watching the show, and I'm sitting and watching it for the umpteenth time, I forget about the end. I forget that she's a Cylon. It's so great. It's like you really are sucked into the show, you're really sucked into the story, and watching the images. And no matter how many times I've seen the show, I always get up this moment and forget that D'anna is a Cylon. It's such a great, unexpected twist. it just lays in there so nicely and so well. It's like you're watching this great, uplifting, and then there's one surprise coming... There's something great about not even suggesting to the audience that there's going to be a surprise. That you've seen the show and you feel very safe and comfortable with everything you've just watched, and then the zinger in the last minute.
 



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