Podcast:Maelstrom

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Act 2

RDM: And we're back. Really like this idea of Kara returning from the combat mission and then them finding no damage on the Viper. It's a really nice effective- there's this creep factor that moves into the show. Right here. Even more strongly, I think, than in the early- in the teaser one.

Terry: How many are we away from the finale? Two?

RDM: Three.

Terry: Three.

RDM: Three episodes to the finale.

Gun camera footage.

Now the way this particular show is struct-

Terry: -What is this?

RDM: This is them looking in the gun camera footage, trying to find the-

Terry: And why is she- 'cause she says it's not hers.

RDM: -the Raider.

Terry: 'Cause it's different from watch she saw?

RDM: Well, 'cause she's saying it's not what she saw. So she;s saying it must not be hers.

Terry: Oh.

RDM: A big difference between early drafts and the final show is that Starbuck made three trips into the nebula. There are really now only two trips left. There's the initial non-sighting of the Raider, as it were, then she spends the show dealing with that, and then she goes back at the end for the final. There was a third. There was a middle passage where she went into- went on a CAP patrol once more and was going by the nebula- or the clouds at the gas giant, and she saw the Raider, but instead of saying that she saw the Raider, in that version, she pretended like she had a hydraulic failure in her cockpit and ran away, and went back home, and faked having a problem. And this scene actually followed that. That she had- she was faking having a problem, and that's when Adama and Lee really started to say, "OK. What the hell are we gonna do about this?" Now in- during the pre-production process, I remember Nankin coming to me and saying, "I wanna cut- ," 'cause the scripts are always fuckin' long. And Nankin was saying, "I wanna cut the middle trip. I don't think you need it." And I was insistent. No, you have to have the middle trip. It's crucial. These things- I mean, there's this old saying in T- drama that things go in threes. You always try to make threesomes whenever possible, triangles. You're always having three beats to a story, etc., etc., etc. And so there's this thing about being three and I thought structurally you needed the third, the middle, beat to justify where we were going. And when all was said and done and he turned in his cut I had heard, through the grapevine, from editorial, that he had cut the middle- trip, and I told him, "Well, don't get fuckin' used to it, 'cause I'm gonna be puttin' that middle one back, because it works, and you need it." And then I saw the cut. And I was so blown away by the show-

Terry: We dedicate this-

RDM: -that I essentially said, "You don't need it." I sent Nankin an email and said, "You know what? You were right, and I was wrong, and you don't need the middle passage," and the show works just fine without it. And you're so emotionally invested in what we're doing and in the characters that there's plenty of action in the piece so you don't need to go into the center again.

Terry: I'm sorry. It just seemed appropriate at this moment to dedicate this show to Sarah.

RDM: Yes.

Terry: Sarah's a young woman who was- who posted regularly on the Scifi.com message board and she and her fiance were recently on vacation in Mexico and they were getting ready to be married, and they were in a car accident and were both killed. And a lot of people on the board are very saddened by that and- as are we. And we promised that we would put Sarah's picture up in this hall next season, in season four. So anyway, and we'd like to dedicate this to her.

RDM: This is for Sarah. We're very- we're very, very saddened to hear of that. Such a trag-

Terry: One of our own.

RDM: Yes, one of our own. It was a tragic loss, for everyone. And Sarah will be on that board next season.

I think this is a particularly effective that I'm really surprised we were able to pull off. This is one of those things that you talk about or write and you say that the wax drips and it forms the mandala on the floor, and then you're never able to pull it off. And this time, actually, they were able to pull it off, and it looks kinda cool.

Terry: Wow.

RDM: Another key difference in this version of the show, and the scripted version, that I also fought for a while and then relented, said, "No, you're right, and I'm wrong," was that Starbuck's last meeting with Adama was gonna be a very difficult one. There was originally a meeting with Laura, Adama, Starbuck, and I think Lee was there as well. And they were talking and there was some bit of interaction or body language between Adama and Laura that Starbuck was picking up on, and we were still talking at that point about playing out this, "Are they? Aren't they?" relationship between Laura and Adama. And maybe there was something going on. And what was happening? And Starbuck was-

Terry: Incoming. (?)

RDM: -figuring that out. And she said something in public, much to the shock of Adama. It was like, "Why don't you-" Oh yeah. The line was- she saw something between the two of them, and one of them had said something to the other, and Starbuck said, "Why don't you two get a room?" And Adama didn't say anything at the moment, and after the meeting was over he asked Starbuck to stay behind, and then he just laid into her. He just- I think he physically pushed her against the wall, and said, "What the fuck are doing? What, do you think this is? And you saying something like that-" And he was so angry at her. And he just went off on her and the idea was, that was the last thing that he had said to her. That it was gonna be after she was dead that the last words Adama had said to his surrogate daughter were these really awful angry things. And I think it was Nankin's note, I'm pretty sure it was Nankin who said, "You don't need that. It's ugly, and he doesn- I don't wanna play it." And they were all having troub- And eventually I relented and said, "OK. Fine. It doesn't have to be." And I realize that they were right. That you didn't- it wasn't- we didn't have to pile on. It was enough that Kara was gonna die. You didn't have to take the extra step and say, "Not only is she gonna die, and Adama's gonna feel that, but he's also gonna say something ugly to her as his last moment." That's a writer's device, in a way. It's not necessary that the last thing be truly ugly, as well.

Terry: And the actress playing Kara's mother, here's your trivia question. What-?

RDM: K. Wait. Oh, sorry, I thought we were at an act break.

Terry: -prime time television show was she a regular on?

RDM: What prime time television show was Kara's mother show once on?

Terry: Like in the seventies.

RDM: In the nineteen seventies.

Terry: Some of you weren't alive, so you're excused.

Act 3

RDM: And we're back. I didn't get the reference for a while either. It took me a while bef- I think- I don't think I ever did. I think you had to tell me who she- who she was.

Terry: I know who everybody is. And you never do.

RDM: So this- sequence here, again, of Lee going and talking to her, of her not being able to get back in the cockpit and finding excuses not to, this was all also colored by the fact that they had- she had gone into the nebula for a second time already. Or- I keep calling it the nebula. It's not a nebula. It's a gas giant. I'm sorry. It's a gas giant. It's really- I'm really fond of the fact that we've taken the Lee-Kara relationship to this point. That we had moved them through a relationship, with- they had been friends. They had been more than friends. Then they had been a lot less than friends. Now they're friends again, but is still fraided with a lot of meaning and a lot of subtext about what might have been and their- each of them having to deal with where they are, as opposed to where they wanted to be, but they're still-

Terry: You mean like real life?

RDM: Yeah! They're still friends. And it's still, like real life, you have complicated relationships with people that defy rational thought, and you would-

Terry: I've had a couple of those. Haven't you?

RDM: I know. All of my relationships have been very, very smart. I invent these kind of things. I imagine what it is to be in a fucked up relationship.

I like the fact, a lot, that Lee volunteers to be her wingman. Which is, if you know anything about fighters and fighter combat and- being the wingman is definitely the number two position, and for Lee to volunteer to Kara's wingman is- it's a fairly significant thing, and it's a nice- subtle point in the relationship and what she means to him. And, yeah. They're right back to where they started. He's the CAG and she's hotshot pilot, which is the definition of the show. In the original series, that was what the series was built around, and that's why I wanted to touch on this again, that in the original show-

Terry: And these are the what?

RDM: -In the original show, was about Lee- or it was about Apollo, the straight arrow-

Terry: Yeah.

RDM: And Starbuck, his hotshot, crazy friend. And I wanted, on some level, bring us back to touch on that, here at the end, just before Kara goes out.

And then they go back on this- pat- this last great patrol.

Terry: Copasetic?

RDM: Copasetic.

And then here we go. From here to the end, this is all just- This is virtuoso performance here, from- this is Nankin and the editors building this sequence. This is all about rhythm and pace, and when you cut to certain things. And this is where the director has to give you the pieces and the director knowing what he's shooting, which pieces is he gonna need to construct this kind of sequence. And you'll notice, just watch the rhythm of all of this, of how we're going in and out of the Vipers, when you're exterior, when you're interior. Look at the angles here. No we're on a- we're in a front view looking into the cockpit, now you're on the side, then you're close to the side. You're in this intense section. You're with Lee. He's lost in the clouds. He's trying to find her. You can't see anything out the- outside the cockpit. Then you're safe and you're in a place where you can see Kara clearly, see her point of view. I mean, it's just- even the kind of stuff you can't intellectually really map out, it's really something that you do instinctually, by feel, and how you- sense it, that- a sequence should go. Sound has a lot do with this as well. When you're hearing what. When you're outside it's quiet, when you're inside you're hearing the alarm.

Now we're back to the apartment. Love Kara's apartment. It's always been one of my favorite sets that we ever did. It was great to go here. Actually, this was not where were originally gonna go. We originally said that she was gonna wake up inside of a Cylon Raider, Heavy Raider, the bigger Raider. And then Leoben was gonna be there and then it was gonna be her- that's where her journey with Leoben started, was in the Cylon ship, so that when she woke up, initially, she believed that it was possible that she had ejected, and that she had been picked up from the Cylons and captured, and their conversation took place in that context, and that maybe it was all a big mindfuck. And that the audience would go there with you, too. The audience would wonder what was really happening. Was she really on the Cylon ship? Is she really back on the cockpit? Ultimately, for production reasons, building the Cylon- heavy Cylon Raider, just proves prohibitive. (Chuckles) It was an expensive episode and we couldn't afford it, and I didn't know that we could really go back to this location and make this work, but it turned out we could, and this was actually cheaper. And I'm glad. This is one of those cases where the production limitation forces you to think of something better. And this is a better choice. I'm much happier to go back to Kara's apartment than to- sit in the grey metal walls of the Heavy Raider, in retrospect.

The relationship between Leoben and Kara has become a fascinating one.

Terry: It really is.

RDM: I was watch- I watched "Flesh and Bone" again just a- two- day before yesterday when I was over at USC, and watched it with a class of students, and it was really interesting to watch where that story began and how they interacted, and then to think ahead of how they were in subsequent episodes, especially in the New Caprica se- arc.

Terry: Let's see more of him.

RDM: He's great.

Terry: He really is.

RDM: Callum Rennie. I think he's a really, really interesting player for us.

Terry: Yeah.

RDM: And he's- so oddly-

Terry: -Yeah.-

RDM: -inhuman, and yet very human.

There was a bit of resistance from the network, if there was any resistance, was to dealing with the mother's backstory, and the mother as abusive mother, and her breaking the fingers, and all that. There's just- I'm not sure exactly why, but there's always been a reluctance on the part of the network to portray or deal with the abusive mom and the child situation.

Terry: In order to explain her behavior-

RDM: I mean, you gotta go back and-

Terry: You don't just- you don't behave like that just-

RDM: Just 'cause.

Terry: -just 'cause.

RDM: Yeah, I was always interested in this backstory, right from the initial indications of it back in, I think in "the Farm", was when we first really started talkin' about Kara's mom.

Terry: Mmmhmm.

RDM: I kinda wanted to see her. See what it was all about. But it was in that- it was in the stor- in the show bible, not the abuse of it, but the fact that her mother was a Sergeant Major in the Marines, and had tramped her daughter around to various bases all through the childhood, and that dad was a pianist and was someone who dealt with the arts and eventually left, and Kara and mom were stuck together. Again, another case of me inverting gender roles for my own political gain.

This was always in the story. I'm trying to r- think of changes that we went through. This did not change a lot, this notion of Kara coming back and having the fight with her mother and learning that mom has terminal cancer, is gonna die, and Kara really going off on mom, and leaving and never coming back, and hoping that her mother died alone. And her mother did die alone. And that that was- the child's burden was knowing that she really did do it, that she really left her mother to die alone, even as- even though she hated her and had all this anger towards her, that Kara's guilt was that she'd actually done that. But that now, in this episode, you could see that there was really something behind it. That Kara really does have a destiny. That Kara really was fated for a particular end. And that mom was trying to prepare her for that. And prepare her for those roles, on some level, even if she couldn't quite articulate why and what she was doing to her daughter, that her mother believed and had seen oracles and had felt that Kara was special, and that out of her desire to toughen her daughter and make her daughter strong enough to take on the challenges that she was gonna face one day, she had really stepped over the line and had abused the daughter and had created this really toxic relationship between mother and child.

Terry: She played the sex kitten on the said show, that we're having the trivia question. I guess you'd call her a sex kitten.

RDM: The sex kitten?

Terry: Well in that particular series, if anybody was.

RDM: I guess- within the context of th- and she thought of herself as the sex kitten. That's true.

Terry: That's my point exactly. It's all in what you believe about yourself.

RDM: Of course you know that everyone can cheat- now 'cause they just go and they look up the actor's- actresses' credits.

Terry: (Laughs.) Oh, yeah. That's true. Oh... that's no fun.

RDM: See, that's- it's like. There's no fun. You can't do trivial pursuit on the internet, 'cause everyone cheats. They just go, "Oh, I'll look it up," and-

Terry: Yeah.

RDM: "Ha, ha, ha. I found out." Everyone lies and says, "I knew it anyway."

Terry: (Laughs.)

RDM: No you didn't.

I'm not sure what to say here. I'm just enjoying the show and this was all- I mean, this is just the show. The show is doing its own thing at this point. I mean, this is really- the production team put this all together. The writers polished the script themselves. The director knew what he wanted to do. I mean, this is what you hope that a series does when it matures, when you're in the third season, that you as the showrunner can step back a little bit and let these p- very talented, creative people really take the ball and run with it.

Terry: Well-

RDM: I think this was also the episode that- Sorry. What were you gonna say?

Terry: Well, I was just gonna say that just looking at the actors, if you go back to the miniseries and you watch it again, and then, like, immediately cut to an episode now.

RDM: Mmhmm.

Terry: And how much more mature they all seem.

Act 4

RDM: Act four. This was also the episode that really, in a profound sense, told me that we're moving the series into the third act. That we're moving the series strongly into the third act of its existence. In a larger sense. However long that passage may be, and I'm not trying to give a definitive answer for how many years or how many episodes we've got left, but I have a creative sense that the show is moving into its third act. That we are now approaching finales, resolutions, where things are going, and this is the marker that defines that. I think this is the page one of the third chapter, let's put it that way, is "Maelstrom".

I think it's really interesting and somewhat bold, I'll just use the word, and provocative idea that one of your leads in a series gets to a place, through a story, that decides to die, decides to kill herself, decides to embrace death. That she has gotten to a place emotionally and intellectually where she is- accepted the idea that what she is destined for, and that's of course really Katee Sackhoff in the photo, that what she is destined for is to die in a certain manner, and in a certain way, and at a certain time. And instead of rising above all that and embracing life, she opts to do the opposite and she opts to embrace the night, and she opts to go down. It's just something that you never do. You never play that. You never- it's always seen as weak, and it's always seen as cowardly, and it's always seen as something bad. And I don't know. There's- I think it's arguable. And I think that there's something interesting about telling this story honestly. And I felt that, honestly, this is what Kara would do, and this is- Kara had always had a certain death wish quality to her. And yet Kara had never really embraced that. She had always had a death wish about her, but they'd always found a way to skate out. She had always tempted death, cheated death, gotten right up to the edge. Somebody who said she didn't care or was fearless, in a very real sense, and brave and willing to look into the abyss, but always stepped back and always found a way back onto the- back into safety before death would overtake her. And that on a very real level, Kara Thrace's greatest fear, the thing that she had to one day face, was her mortality, was her death, was the end. And that she had avoided seeing her mother actually die. This is the scene that never happened. Sh- Kara wasn't there when her mother died. She'd had trouble all through the series dealing with peoples' deaths. She wasn't there when Kat died. She- Zack died in an airplane crash that she wasn't there for.