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Excerpts from RDM's podcast for "Scattered"

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    Excerpts from RDM's podcast for "Scattered"

    The main title sequence has changed this year. We've lopped off the second part -- the upcoming scenes section with the drum beats and all that -- in favor of keeping the beginning and making it a little bit shorter. We also changed the main title theme back to the U.K. version, which was always the preference of the producers and everyone on the show... At the end of the day, everybody agreed that the theme we had in season one was not as evocative and interesting as the U.K. version.

    --

    The roots of this story, even before the cliffhanger, this idea that there would be a jump and the fleet would be scattered across a vast expanse, is actually something that predates season two. It was in one of the first loglines for the series way back when I was sending up a list of potential storylines to the network. This is slightly different, in that instead of all the ships of the fleet being scattered and lost, it's essentially that Galactica is really the one that's been lost. Galactica has jumped to a different location than the rest of the fleet.

    --

    "Scattered" in its initial draft was just much too big to sustain one episode, so we essentially divided it into two and created another action storyline for part two, which is "Valley of Darkness," which as you'll see at the end of this show, the Cylons are on the ship. The Cylons have boarded Galactica, and that's our cliffhanger ending for episode one. And that becomes the primary action storyline of part two. But all the other tales that happen in part two apart from the Cylon boarding were actually all supposed to be in "Scattered", and there was just no way that the show could really support that. It was too much to deal with, so we split them into two shows.

    --

    Adama and Tigh first met in a bar in between the wars. The backstory to the series is that the initial Cylon conflict was fought 40 years ago, and in that war, both Tigh and Adama were young men, who did not fight together. They fought in separate ways, in separate vessels, had separate experiences. And after the war was over, both men were discharged, along with many other service people, out into the civilian world, and they both happened to sign up aboard the same civilian tramp freighter that was supplying the trade routes among the Colonies.

    The episode in script form actually opened with a scene in a bar on Caprica 20 years ago... There was Colonel Tigh at the bar, a much younger Tigh with hair, and he was doodling a Viper weapons systems on a napkin, and some guys came in, and you realize they were crewman from another merchant freighter that he was on. They were taunting him in some way, and a fight broke out. The fight got pretty ugly and Colonel Tigh ultimately has a man down and is about to break his neck when another man rushes up behind him and is about to hit him with a bottle and possibly kill him, and you hear a "chick-chick" sound of a shotgun. And you pan off and there's Adama... [He] had come back in and kept him from killing another man, and alluded to the fact that Tigh drinks to much, and that they both want to get back into the fleet, and that was the driving force. Tigh had given up any hope of putting on a Colonial uniform again, and Adama never had. Adama was determined. He was going to get back into the fleet.

    --

    By the time we got to "Kobol's Last Gleaming," I really didn't know where this story was going. But I was fascinated with the idea that Crashdown would be in command of what has become an infantry unit, and that Tyrol would be his chief petty officer, who starts to lose faith in him. Crashdown is not really up to that task. As dedicated as he is as a character, and as much as he wants to lead those men, he finds that there are many shortcomings that he can't quite handle. It's a dark tale of what happens to those people on Kobol. And I just think it's wonderful.

    --

    This is an interesting dynamic. [Helo's] in love with the enemy now, and is trying to protect the enemy, but he's still a Colonial officer. [Kara's] just got here and she knows immediately that Sharon is not one of us, and knows that she has to die. It's operatic in many ways.

    --

    That's actually Jamie Bamber's wife who's playing the medic.

    --

    That's gotta hurt. I like this scene a lot. It's a dark scene. It's a dark show. This is what would really happen, in my opinion. This is how these characters would behave. Tigh does not take a lot of guff off anybody, much less Sharon Valerii who just shot the Old Man.

    --

    Tigh going off and getting Apollo's parole so Apollo can go fly the mission and be the CAG is actually an idea that dates back to, ironically enough, Hornblower. Jamie Bamber was in the A&E miniseries of Hornblower. Hornblower is one of my favorite books as a kid. It is still one of my favorite books of all time. There was this whole notion of parole. There was a point where Hornblower, who was a British naval officer, was captured by the French and was held prisoner. But as an officer and a gentleman of that time, he would give his parole, so that he could walk out and be free for a time. And parole essentially meant, his word, his promise, that while he was out, he promised he would not
    try to escape.

    --

    This is all you really need to sell this story, this emergence of some people starting to look to Laura Roslin as a prophet and a religious figure, and her reluctant embrace of that role.

    --
    Colonel Tigh did successfully guide them through this crisis, a salute to his character, and the fact that Adama did see something of value in him, that there was a reason why Adama brought this man back into the fleet, and kept him by his side for many years. And in light of subsequent episodes to this, when things are going to go from bad to worse under Tigh's leadership, it was really important to see that Tigh, in a combat situation, in a wartime scenario, is the guy you do want at command. He can get you through that, and he will guide them successfully through this episode, and "Valley of Darkness." Because when the Cylons are on the ship, Tigh knows what to do about that. It's only after the crisis passes, that Tigh is the man that you do not want in command of the fleet, because he's not very political, and he doesn't think like that, and he does drink a little bit too much.
    Visit "Documents on Ron Moore's Galactica" at
    http://members.tripod.com/john_laroc...s/archive.html

    #2
    Ah... found the Hornblower reference very interesting... a quirk of history perhaps?
    sigpic
    "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

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