Post by larocque6689 on Mar 5, 2005 1:15:17 GMT -5
Here's some excerpts I wrote down.
[This episode] was originally called "Secrets and Lies, or Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down," by Jeff [Vlaming], but we just had to go with "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" because it was too good a title... "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" began life as a different episode than it turned out to be. It was originally going to be a riff on Crimson Tide... a very tense, taut thriller... We put Crimson Tide on the writers board as a possible episode 8 or 9. And we all got excited over the concept and liked the idea of doing a Crimson Tide-like episode where Adama and Tigh would each start to think the other one was possibly a Cylon. The paranoia in the fleet had seeped into the two men at the top... You would get to a place that by the end of the episode that Tigh and Adama were actually pointing guns at each other...
The honest truth is, we just could not make that story work... I didn't believe it got to the point where they were pointing guns at each other, I just didn't. As this show was being written and going into prep for production, we were also in the midst of a veritable firestorm of controversy over the preceding episode, "Flesh and Bone." That episode brought with a lot of controversy in-house with the studio and the network. The network was very concerned about it, we had a lot of spirited debate about it, all of it within the bounds of creative difference, and it was a very touchy subject matter... We had just got out of a very heavy, very dark, very disturbing episode, and the very next episode was supposed to be very disturbing, very dark, very unhappy episode where two of our lead characters start pointing guns at each other. So there came a point where I just decided, "well, let's punt." Let's not do the dark and brooding episode. Let's try a different tone. Let's see if the show can withstand something lighter.
The honest truth is, we just could not make that story work... I didn't believe it got to the point where they were pointing guns at each other, I just didn't. As this show was being written and going into prep for production, we were also in the midst of a veritable firestorm of controversy over the preceding episode, "Flesh and Bone." That episode brought with a lot of controversy in-house with the studio and the network. The network was very concerned about it, we had a lot of spirited debate about it, all of it within the bounds of creative difference, and it was a very touchy subject matter... We had just got out of a very heavy, very dark, very disturbing episode, and the very next episode was supposed to be very disturbing, very dark, very unhappy episode where two of our lead characters start pointing guns at each other. So there came a point where I just decided, "well, let's punt." Let's not do the dark and brooding episode. Let's try a different tone. Let's see if the show can withstand something lighter.
Saul Tigh [was] originally Paul Tigh, but we had to change it for whatever legal nonsense they came up with. His backstory says that in the first Cylon war, which occurred 40 years ago, he started as a deckhand, became a chief, and his cruiser was boarded by the mechanical Cylons, and he engaged in hand to hand combat in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. His ship was destroyed, he survived. He went on to another ship. That was destroyed as well... After he had a couple of ships shot out from under him as a chief, he was selected for officer candidate's school and was dragooned into being a pilot, because the fleet was running out of pilots, and he flew several combat missions. The war came to a close, and Tigh, along with many officers, was discharged at the conclusion of hostilities, and found himself suddenly without a career. He got work as a deckhand on an interplanetary freighter that flied a very boring route between a couple of the other Colonies. And it was on that freighter that he began to drink. And it was on that freighter that he met William Adama.
William Adama was a younger man than he was, had been a pilot in the first Cylon war, but only at the very end of the war, and hadn't seen as much combat as Tigh was. And that by the time Tigh had met Adama, he was already damaged. He was already a scarred man. He had already seen a great many ugly things and had survived them. And the war had left deep and damaging marks upon the man. But the friendship between the two of them lasted for many years... And when Adama finally did get back in the service, he reached out and pulled his old friend Tigh back with him, and they had a similar career path after that, and were very close and Adama kept him around, and he was a good officer as long as he kept his drinking under control.
William Adama was a younger man than he was, had been a pilot in the first Cylon war, but only at the very end of the war, and hadn't seen as much combat as Tigh was. And that by the time Tigh had met Adama, he was already damaged. He was already a scarred man. He had already seen a great many ugly things and had survived them. And the war had left deep and damaging marks upon the man. But the friendship between the two of them lasted for many years... And when Adama finally did get back in the service, he reached out and pulled his old friend Tigh back with him, and they had a similar career path after that, and were very close and Adama kept him around, and he was a good officer as long as he kept his drinking under control.
This may be one of the sexiest shots of Six we've ever done. It's just her legs coming off the table. You know it's really amazing, quite remarkable, what we can get away with in terms of its sexual content, and sensuality, which I'm very proud of, and I make no apologies for it. I think it's phenomenal and great that we do it. I think it's intersting that the show is allowed to be an adult mature show... This gag is one of my favorites. She walks in, and what is he doing exactly? ... It's just so twisted you know. Baltar's such an interesting, twisted character, and [Starbuck's] reaction to him is perfect.
In the pilot, he burns a picture of [David Eick's] wife, and we had to reshoot the photo when we cast the role with Kate Vernon.
I always saw [the dinner party] as the centerpiece... This was as close to a comedy of manners as we could get. Here comes this woman into our little family, and Ellen is nothing like the rest of them. She's brash, she's loud, she's funny, she's outwardly sexual. She doesn't mind drinking too much in front of people and saying things that nobody else wants to hear. I think that it's interesting that she doesn't seem to live in the same world that they do, and she didn't. Everyone in this scene with the exception of Laura lived in the military world, a very sort of controlled environment. Even Laura lived in a world of politics, a place where people were very careful in what they say or do. And Ellen just hangs it out there... Just the fact that she makes these people uncomfortable, the fact that all of these people wish that she was anywhere but in that room, to me makes her worth having.
If Sharon came out of the woods, and shot Six and grabbed him and took off, he would think that it was his Sharon, even though our Sharon is back on Galactica. And I had no idea where that led and what that was going to be, but I knew it was really interesting and I was in love with it, so I wrote it... It took me a couple of episodes, but very slowly an idea started to dawn on me that the Helo/Sharon storyline on Caprica was actually the key to the entire Cylon agenda. That what the Cylons were really about, what one of their big goals was, would be eliminated through that storyline.
Adama's entire emotional arch in this episode is about the fact that he was so worried about the return of Ellen into his friend's life that he started acting kind of strange, and got suspected of being a Cylon. And why does he care so much? He cares so much because Saul Tigh is a good man. He is a good officer. He's a very smart officer. And he has instincts that are very finely honed. And when the chips are down, Tigh can save you ass. And he just saved the ship's ass once again. And that's why I think the Cylon raider subplot was crucial to this episode... Tigh is not just a drunk. He's not just this guy that we get to make jokes about week in and week out. He does matter to Adama, he is an important officer to Adama for some reason. Adama is not perfect, he does not always instinctively know the right thing to do, he's not a perfect, archetypical sci-fi hero. He's a human being, he has flaws, he has blind spots and moments of inattention. There are moments when he's not making the right call. But he has this friend that he can rely on. And as long as that man is at his side, he knows that he is going to make it, one way, shape or form. And that's why we keep him around. Even though he drinks, even though he has this wife, even though he yells at Starbuck, even though he's a flawed man in many other ways, he's important.
Six is a much more complicated character and Tricia is a complicated actress, and she conveys a lot here. It's really just the look on her face, as [Doral] talks, that tells the story. There's really nothing else going on here, except her longing, her inability to feel as deeply as human beings feel. I think that's a lovely, lovely moment.