Battlestar Galactica: Season 2-10: Pegasus

8/11/2005 -- I opted not to include Sheba aboard our Pegasus (and for those of you who aren't fans of the original series, Sheba was the daughter of Cain, who commanded the Pegasus in the episode "Living Legend"). I did think about it, however, and we discussed her character at length in the writers' room before deciding against it. Ultimately, as intrigued as I was by her inclusion, I just decided that it was too cute for Cain to also have a child commanding the air group in our version of Galactica. I acknowledge that Cain/Sheba is a key part of that mythology, but it just felt wrong for us and would've immediately been out of place in our show. It's hard to define all the reasons why, but in essence, what worked for it in the original series was the vague wink and a nod to the audience in having Apollo encounter a female version of him and then become interested in her, and in our show that very wink would break our conventions.

8/19/2005 -- With Cain I wanted to maintain that kind of superior warrior attitude of someone who wants to concentrate on the battle against the Cylons as opposed to the survival of the human race. There's a twist, through, in that we've made Cain an Admiral, and that throws a wrench into everything. Adama is no longer the senior military officer, and therefore not in command of the fleet any more. Suddenly, Roslin is no longer dealing with Adama, and this creates a new set of problems for her and everyone else. Here's this outsider who comes in and goes, "What the hell have you people been doing? Apollo is a mutineer, and this Starbuck is smacking people around. This isn't a pirate ship, it's the military." So Cain starts making changes, and that becomes great fodder for our storytelling... ["Pegasus" is] going to propel a whole series of storylines in the latter 10 episodes of this season. (source: Starburst)

9/23/2005 -- This is the one-hour version of Pegasus. We struggled mightily to get this show to time. And when the footage was complete, I believe the director's cut was a good fifteen minutes over, which is a bit of problem, because that's more than an act's worth of material. And as we tried in varying ways to get this down to the hour running length, I kept feeling like, the best version of the show was the longer version. So we actually explored for a while the possibility of showing a 90 minute version of Pegasus, and there was various discussions with the network back and forth. Ultimately, one of the problems was, we had an episode that was too long for an hour and too short for 90 minutes. We could never quite plump it out to the point where it could be a 90 minute show, and it was always very difficult to pare it down to an hour show. So we finally got it down to an hour, rather than pad it out, and just make it slow to get to 90 minutes. We compromised and decided to go with the fastest barnburner of an episode that we could in the one hour. And fortunately Universal home video has agreed to show the longer version of Pegasus in the season 2 DVD set. So there's something for all of you to look forward to...

You can tell that the pace of the show is just relentless. We're just being brutal with these scenes, we're moving from scene to scene, in trying to give you the juice of each one. In some ways you can argue it makes for a tighter, more compelling drama, but my feeling of the longer version was, it was a richer meal, you got more textures, more flavors, a greater sense of the complexity of some of the relationships. You saw more of the consequences or ramifications of the Pegasus showing up, how it affected more characters lives. And that's really why I was attached to the longer version. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- Sheba was a character that is not present in this version of the show. I felt that Sheba ultimately was too cute of a character concept, that you'd run into another Battlestar, and that Commander also would have a child as the commander of his air group. I just felt it was one step too far. It pushed the reality of the show across the line, where essentially the show is kind of winking at the audience and going, "They did it, so we're going to do it too." It's kind of cute, isn't it? It worked for the original series... it just didn't feel it would work very well in our episode. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- I had worked with Michelle Forbes on Star Trek: The Next Generation where she played Ensign Ro, and other people knew her from her film work. There was something really interesting about going with not an older woman, but a slightly younger woman, that she would personify this character... There was something I really liked about bringing in a younger fast-tracked admiral, who then comes in and takes command of the Galactica and the entire ragtag fleet. I should say that in the original "The Living Legend," Commander Cain did not outrank Adama. That story was similar only in so far as there is a Battlestar Pegasus, they do meet up with it unexpectedly, and that there's an Admiral Cain who is more of a hardass character than Commander Adama... I liked the kernel of that, that another battlestar comes on the scene, and the commander is a tougher one than ours is, and is a bit of a crazy person. On top of that, what I thought was even more interesting was then to say, what if that commander shows up they outrank Adama? What if that commander shows up and takes command of the fleet away from Adama, which would happen? And suddenly I realized, that was a more interesting tale. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- There's a lot of things that did not make it into the one hour version of "Pegasus." There's a whole leadup to this scene with Adama and Laura and Tigh walking through the hallway. And that's where they talk about who Admiral Cain is. They talk about the fact that Cain was a very young admiral, had been promoted over several people on the commanders list, was sort of an up and comer, and a bit of a tough one, and that she had taken command of Battlestar Group 75 only recently before the attack. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- We had varying storylines and drafts dealing with the interaction between Laura and Cain. In one of the drafts, Cain in this moment did not even address Laura as president, just that it's a pleasure. I kept playing a card where Cain never quite acknowledged Laura as the president. There was a scene at one point when Cain went over to talk to Laura because there was also a subplot where ships in the fleet holding back supplies and not delivering fuel etc. because they weren't getting spare parts, they weren't getting help when Pegasus is helping the Galactica after they arrive, and the civilian fleet's getting fed up and they go on strike. They're not going to deliver fuel supplies to Pegasus until they get some of their needs met, and Cain got very upset and goes to confront Laura. And in that scene, Laura goes, "Hey, what do you want? You're not helping these guys out." And Cain makes it very clear to Laura in that moment that she doesn't accept her as the president. This is a military operation and she'll take what she needs from these people if need be. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- I'm glad we waited until the middle of the second season, because at this point, the show had matured to the point where I think we can do this episode. We've had enough happen within the show to these people. These characters have gone through enough things, that there's material to mine in this kind of an episode... Mike Rymer, when he read the script, said he loved the fact that Admiral Cain comes over here and everything she says is right. She should take command and these people have been screwing up... Her agenda is quite simple. Hit the Cylons, hit them hard, keep hitting them, do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission. And looking at the way Galactica has been run up until this point, she goes, "What the hell is this? This is ridiculous. This is no way to run a fleet." ... She doesn't say anything here that's out of line. She doesn't say anything that's wrong. Everything she says is logical. It's all based on his logs, and how can he argue with it? But you kind of hate her for bringing it up, because it's all family business. And then somebody comes in from the outside and says, "You people are screwed up." And you kind of flinch back from that kind of a naked appraisal and wish that it weren't so, but it is, and you have to deal with it. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- What would happen, to put a story where Baltar comes across the tortured and gang-raped Six of his dreams, and be forced to deal with her? There was something so powerful about that idea, and it would speak to the heart of who the man is now, and what goes on his life, to then be confronted with another Six, and that this Six had gone through this horrific experience and wasn't the powerful, sexy woman that we've come to know and in this case had been reduced to this state, where she's lying virtually catatonic on the floor... I'm really fascinated with the idea of Baltar coming to look at the Cylons in a different way. To look at this particular Cylon in a very different way. That here's a real, flesh and blood woman, another version of the woman he knew on Caprica, and that he would have an enormous amount of sympathy for this version of Six. That this one had gone through an experience that made him want to reach out to her, which is something he had never wanted to do. He had always been the character who had held his emotions back, who never connected with a woman, who never gave himself to love or to care. Right from the beginning their relationship had been, he was a player and she was just another conquest that turned the tables on him. That as much as she wanted him to love her, he never could or would. There was something amazing about flipping that upside down, having him reach out emotionally, but only to the one who had been tortued and raped. And there was something twisted about that, and there was something true about that. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- This character does have a name, by the way. While Number Six is how she's referred to in the scripts, this character is called Gina. Gina comes out of the fact that there are certain people out there in the fan community -- and I know who you are -- that refer to the show as GINO, "Galactica in Name Only." And there was something so funny about that. And I always get a kick out of people who would refer to the show as GINO. They couldn't even bring themselves to just call it Galactica. They had to really make up this other name, and it was GINO. I just decided that, let's call the tortured Six, Gina. But it's never actually spoken in the show. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- There was some piece that talked about [U.N. ambassador] John Bolton's style or lack of style with his staff, and he mentions at some point, he made his staff come into his office and hold all the meetings standing up, because he wanted to get through the meetings rather quickly. And he found that if he made his staff stand during the entire meeteing, that they got through it much faster. That says so much about that man, and I thought it was a really interesting telling kind of bit of character, so I used it here, that Cain was that kind of person. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- There was an additional scene where Tyrol is relieved of his deck. That Chief Laird is assigned to take over the hangar deck as the deck chief, and Tyrol is relieved and has to play second fiddle to Laird. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- This whole sequence of Sharon being raped by Lieutenant Thorne was one of much controversy as you can imagine. On the page we wrote this the way it's essentially cut here in this version of the show where the rape is averted at the last minute. It was shot a different way, we shot the whole rape. We shot a very disturbing rape sequence of Thorne raping Sharon, and there was a version cut where the guys come in and it's happening as opposed to about to happen. And there was a lot of controversy back and forth, and ultimately we opted to go with this version, where they come in just as the rape is happening... This is a really dark scene, this is a dark storyline. Things happened on Pegasus that you don't want to know about, and suddenly they're happening on our ship. And I like the fact that Helo and Tyrol, in the episode that precedes this one, were literally at each other's throats for a moment, that they both come charging in when this horrific thing is happening with Sharon. And they get in there and they go at these guys, and then Thorne is killed. It wasn't intended to happen, none of them set out to do this, but it just happened in the moment, that he was killed accidentally. And that that would set off a chain of events. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- That little beat you just saw with Cally and the female deck crew sort of walking out on the conversation as it gets more about the joy these guys from the Pegasus had in going and raping their Cylon prisoner was something that Mike Rymer came up with. It wasn't in the script but it was realy nice touch and it was a very smart move. That Cally etc.. walk out on these guys, because if these are co-ed ships and the notion that the women all stand around listening to them make jokes about the fact that they went in on this twisted gang rape of Gina, it didn't seem right that they would just stand around. That's great, the yee-hah. That kills me. The yee-hah that actor gives just makes you want to reach through the camera lens and kill him. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- Adama launches the Vipers and says, "I'm getting my men back." And there's something really interesting about the fact that a man who's obeying the rules and doing the right thing, admiting his mistakes, there comes a point, right or wrong, he's not going to let her execute his men without a trial. He's just not going to do that. There are places where Adama will not go, and I love that in this moment she nails him on the tribunal thing. Last year during "Litmus" he dissolved a tribunal when he didn't like the answer and it hits him. It registers on the character in that moment. He knows that that too is true. And the fact that it's true doesn't mean that he doesn't feel the way he feels in this scene. And when he finds out a moment later that they've been sentenced to death, it felt right that Adama, a man who risked so many lives when Kara Thrace was down on that planet, that he would again do anything it took to save the men that were under his command, that his bond with them was that strong. And you could very logically argue that it's a profound mistake on his part, that it's a command flaw, but people have flaws and that's one of his blind spots. It's one of the places where Adama is not the ideal commander if you want to look at it that way. And in many other ways he's the most human commander of them all. (source: Pegasus podcast)

9/23/2005 -- I like the idea that Baltar [is] sitting and really exposing himself emotionally and talking in very frank terms about the experience that he has had with Six and with Six on Caprica and what she means to him in a very real and profound way. And he would do it in this context and that it was just a monologue. I felt really comfortable writing a monologue for James because I knew that James would embrace it and would really sink his teeth into it and really make it sing. (source: Pegasus podcast)