Sci-Fi Launch Podcast

[CylonGod]

Blade said:

Jesus mother of Mary's little baby monkeys, my new upgraded broadband connection downloaded it in 10seconds

Although I didn't time it. It took less the two hours from the time I started it until I got back for food shopping and it was done. In fact the first two came down really fast too. I wish all my downloads came down that fast. I am really loving the HD versions!

[Blade Runner]

The new PODCAST for 'Colonial day' is up at Skiffy

[larocque6689]

Here's this week's excerpts:

There's larger ideas in the show that we're starting to explore more and more. This notion of "all this has happened before and all this has happened again." And inherent in that idea is a sense of cycle. All the events that you're watching have played themselves out many times before in various guises with various players. And that things would start to be the same. Certain ideas, concepts, words, language would maybe not be the same in each iteration of the cycle, but might crop up again and again.

This relationship between Ellen and Tigh and what she wants out of him, and what she hopes to be and what he can be and what he wants to be, are things that we are exploring in the very first couple of episodes of the second season.

The West Wing episode was something we had talked about from the very earliest going. I'd always wanted to do something that was more political, that dealt with the practical realities of trying to govern and run the remnants of a society that had just been destroyed. Unlike the original series, I didn't want the political leadership of the rag-tag fleet to be strawmen for Adama to knock down over and over again... I didn't like the notion that what you really need is just a good smart, military man who can control and run everything. I liked playing the natural tension between the civilian and the military authority in this situation. I wanted to explore what it really meant to be a democracy in a republican form of government. And it says something interesting about the Colonial society, that they do value and treasure and place great emphasis on the fact that their government is still with them.

The entire Laura Roslin plotline throughout the series is really a tribute to the fact that how strongly these people believe in their system of government, how fundamental the notions of democracy and representation and the vote and equal rights -- the sort of things that in this country, the United States, are also built into our culture. We have the fundamental belief in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights... I wanted the rag-tag fleet to mirror our society in that way. But then I wanted an ability to test all those assumptions... That challenge to the fundamentals of the system is something I think we're going through right now. I think that the situation in this country -- the war on terrorism, the assertion of executive power in all circumstances, the long march toward extreme authoritarian governance -- has sort of begun, and the idea of how we fight back against that. What are the areas where we choose to fight back? What are the places where we choose not to fight back? ... Are we willing to give up freedoms in [some] areas in order to provide security? Those ideas are in the show because those ideas are in the culture right now.

The show initially wanted just to be the West Wing, to do a political show... There came a point where that grew unsatisfying... The feeling was we needed a little something else, a little more juice in the show. So there was this underlying plot, that may or may not be attached to Tom Zarek, as he seems to be manipulating and possibly getting ready to assassinate the president.

This whole bit of business with Zarek and will Laura Roslin shake Zarek's hand in public is inspired by Yassir Arafat [when he] came to the White House for the meeting with Yitzak Rabin to sign the Oslo accords. There was a lot of speculation whether Rabin would actually shake the hand of Arafat, and the symbolism of that and what it entailed, the sort of carefully choreographed maneuver where Clinton got the two men to shake in the famous photograph and video on the White House lawn. I always liked that. It was something interesting, just about the symbolism of a handshake.

Ellen, who is beginning to be a little bit more of a player and a little bit more cunning, decides to shake [Zarek's] hand and get her picture everywhere. It would make news and start to advance her agenda, which we start to learn is a separate agenda from everybody else. Ellen is her own person, her own player, Ellen is a survivor... Ellen is someone who is going to find a way, somehow, someway, to survive and keep moving up the ladder, and she sees him as a possible way up that ladder.

[Zarek] is bringing up a valid point. These people are all in some way living a fantasy. They are trying to maintain the veneer of the world that they once lost... I think their initial impulses and initial instincts would drive them towards continuing their old professions, continuing their old lives and trying to hang on to what they had, as best as possible.

Jamie threw that briefcase right across the room. That's completely his own doing. I just loved that, so we kept it in the show... There's a lot bottled up inside Lee Adama, which I think is fascinating, because on the surface, you don't think Lee is as violent person, or that Lee could really explode. In the moments when we let Jamie cut loose with the character, your head kind of snaps back a little bit, and you go "whoah."

Laura Roslin, who is the secretary of education, and seemingly very genteel and very quiet woman, who liked to stay behind the scenes and never wanted to run for office, had been around politics for quite a while... and knew how to throw elbows. And that Laura, when push comes to shove, will shove you. And that she shoves Gray out the door, is in keeping with the same character that put that Cylon out the airlock. I think Laura says a lot of good things, and believes a lot of things that she says about freedom and right and wrong. She's a very idealistic person. But she's very, very practical and pragmatic. She's a pragmatist first.

And this is the scene where her ability to cut people off and stab them in the back if necessary, really comes to the forefront. And it's kind of sad. She jettisons her friend. She jettisons someone that was valueable, and good to her, and helped her and the rest of her people immensely.

[Baltar's] not just a guy who deals with Number Six. He's also the guy who'd get Playa to come out of that bathroom stall, which I love. I love the fact that he is still on the make, even in this environment. That Six gives him permission, and that he's able to pursue other woman, and that he's able to pull it off. I love this show. [He's] coming back into the stall, it's just so perfect to me. I just think it's true to the character. That's still who Baltar is.

What's also happening in this show is the subplots of Baltar and his interest in women in general, and in Kara specifically. And this sort of budding "are they or aren't they" interest between Lee and Kara, which you kind of knew we were going to do eventually... But I always wanted to be careful how we went into that territory, if we went into that territory at all.

At this point Sharon has been on her own agenda and trying to help Helo get off the planet, because she has developed real feelings for him. And that was not part of the plan. It was never part of the plan, for Sharon to develop actual feelings for Helo.

[Daliden]

larocque6689 said:

Here's this week's batch of excerpts.

"Part of Starbuck's backstory is that she was a pyramid player..."

I'm almost 100% positive that Moore flubbed there. Pyramid is the card game, right? He probably misremembered what was called what (and Starbuck does play the Pyramid as well).

[ViperPilotMomma]

From what I remember, Pyramid was a card game in TOS.

[BaloksPuppet]

Daliden said:

I'm almost 100% positive that Moore flubbed there. Pyramid is the card game, right? He probably misremembered what was called what (and Starbuck does play the Pyramid as well).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he meant triad.

[larocque6689]

No, he definitely meant triad.
One of Tyrol's crewman (posibly Dominic Zamprogna) claimed that Cally was playing Pyramid in the "mess call court" in Litmus. In the pilot during the card scene, you could overhear TV broadcast of a Pyramid game in progress.

If this is a flub, this has been a flub that goes as far back as the miniseries. Which begs the question, can we now call the card game Triad ? ;-)

[ViperPilotMomma]

Hey, Laroque! Thanks for the reprint on the podcast, very helpful (makes for one "stop shopping"! ;D)

Wasn't Triad that ball game with 4 players, two on each side? I'm going to get confused again if they keep changing the meaning of concepts used in TOS; especially if they don't define what the new concepts mean! At least with the sex-changes they introduced the characters (Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Sharon "Boomer" Valerie) so you still could get a grasp on things. If you start calling Triad a card game when other people knew the card game as Pyramid (or some other name) then you're going to have a bunch of confused people walking around out there. I don't care what RDM wants to call it, he can even recycle old terms from TOS if he likes; I'm perfectly fine with that. I just need to know what he means so I can understand what's going on.

[bluegreenturtle]

OOOOOPPS I see now that there was a large thread on this subject in the past. Apparently a lot of people picked up on it.

larocque6689 said:

Here's some excerpts I wrote down.

Saul Tigh [was] originally Paul Tigh, but we had to change it for whatever legal nonsense they came up with.

This seems to me like a waste of a great chance for symbolism...namely one of the most famous name changes in history - Saul the Persecutor who became Paul the Servant - somebody who never gave up his faith and also had a huge reversal in that faith.

I thought this was a purposefully planned character name by Ron Moore et al and a bit of an inside message until I read this. Disappointing. I wonder how many other caught the coincidence.

[Daliden]

In the latest podcast Moore admits to mixing up the two games.

The original Triad is now Pyramid, and vice versa.

I.e., the card game is Triad and the sport is Pyramid.

Oh well.