Podcast:Crossroads, Part II

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Teaser

RDM: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. This is Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and developer of the new Battlestar Galactica. I'm joined here by the lovely and talented Mrs. Ron. Say hello, Mrs. Ron.

Terry: Hello, Mrs. Ron.

RDM: And we're here to do the much talked about and much delayed final podcast of season three for "Crossroads, Part II". The Scotch today is Highland Twenty-five, which was a gift from my lovely wife. The smokes are American Spirit, and the smoking lamp [lights cigarette] is lit.

Terry: See? I told you. I'd let him do it.

RDM: OK.

Terry: I have a gas mask on.

RDM: Yes.

OK. "Crossroads, II". As we talked about during the podcast of "Crossroads, I", a great deal of material that used to be in the second hour was pushed up into the first hour for editing reasons, most having to do with time. Mike Rymer, who directed both parts, his cut of the second hour was somewhere in the twenty minutes over range, which is pretty far over, when you think about it.

Terry: Just a tad.

RDM: Just a tad. So when the initial timings came in there was a great deal of panic around editorial and in the production offices about, "Oh my God. What are we going to do about this?" But when I sat down and watched the two parts together, first I was really amazed and just in love with it and thought we really- we had really managed to achieve something of this- with these- this two part finale. But also I realized that there was a way that we were going to get to time. I wasn't quite as worried as I was, say, when I asked for the ninety-minute version of "Pegasus" and last sea- the ninety minute version of last season and the extended version of "Pegasus" and all that. I just had a an instinct that I was going to get these down to time.

This sequence. The Adama shaving and Laura Roslin phone call was something that I added in my polish onto the script. I don't know why I love Adama shaving so much. There's something very mundane about it. Something very ordinary and every day that I think is-

Terry: Why is that whenever you watch any man shave, you're waiting for them to do exactly what he's going to do- ouch!

RDM: Yeah. I don't know. It was something that we established way back in "33" of him shaving, and it's a way in to scenes with him. And we've come back to it a couple of times ever since. And I just like it as a recurring motif in the show. And this phone call with Laura is actually one of my favorite things we did all season. It's just such a lovely little beat. This was originally a scene that was in part one. This scene was then going to lead to Laura going to the press conference that you saw in part one where she goes and she faces the press. And that's actually what she's referring to in the scene when she says, "I don't think I can face them." And him telling her to, "Don't let them see you sweat." And then she was gonna go and- oh and my-

Terry: What?

RDM: The tape froze up there for a second. I'm having trouble with the DVD for some reason. Uh...

Terry: Even more of a delay.

RDM: I've gotta pause here for a second.

OK. We'll try to keep going here, because the podcast has been delayed so long. My DVD copy from post is hiccuping, and stuttering, and giving me problems, so if the timings don't match out to the episode exactly, that's why.

Anyway, the Laura conversation was originally intended to essentially bridge scenes from her to c- saying that she had cancer to going to the press conference, and the reason why I liked it so much was in the nature of this conversation between Laura and Adama you really see that they're very intimate with- one one o- one another, in a platonic sense. There's a sense of these are friends. That she can call up Adama on the phone in the morning and say, "Yell at me to get out of bed." And he'll take the phone call while he's still in the bathroom and chat with her, and I think it's a lovely scene that says a lot about their relationship and how far they've come-

Terry: Yeah, I was gonna say how far they've grown.

RDM: How far they've grown since the miniseries and now that Laura's experiencing cancer again, it just- it seems like it speaks volumes about where he is and where she is in his life.

Then we have Tyrol being awakened-

Terry: Speaking of