What happens when 'Battlestar Galactica' returns? Does a major character die? Ron Moore and David Eick address the rumors
Speculation about a major character death has been rampant in the “Battlestar Galactica” world of late. (
By the way, don't read further if you don't want to know more about upcoming "Battlestar" plots.")
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/Rumors abound that character will die in the second half of the Sci Fi drama’s third season, which kicks off Jan. 21. And much of the “who will it be” speculation centers on hotshot pilot Kara “Starbuck” Thrace.
In an exclusive interview, executive producers David Eick and Ron Moore say that a “profound” event involving Starbuck does occur a pivotal Season 3 episode called “Maelstrom” that is scheduled to air March 4. In fact, Moore says it “will be one of the most surprising things that’s happened in the history of the show so far.”
What happens to Thrace “will jump out and grab you,” Moore says.
The producers confirmed what the actress who plays Starbuck said in a recent interview -- that as of that March 4 episode, she had completed her work on the show’s third season, even though three more episodes air after “Maelstrom.”
So the actress finished her work on the season early and something major and surprising happens in the last episode that Sackhoff filmed. But Eick and Moore don’t want to use the word “death” when describing what happens to Starbuck in “Maelstrom.”
“I think people will have to watch that episode and judge for themselves what happens,” Moore says. “I can say that Galactica will suffer a shocking loss in that episode and Kara is a key member of the crew.”
Just to add fuel to the fire of “Galactica”
bloggers, Moore adds that after the March 4 episode airs, the name of a major cast member will disappear from the show’s opening credits. They won’t say whether Sackhoff’s name is the one that goes missing. But they do make clear that what happens to Starbuck points the way to a major shift in the show’s direction.
“It’s a fundamental and permanent change in the makeup of the show’s cast and of the show itself and how the show operates and what the show is about. It’s a very dramatic change of direction,” Moore says.
“What we’re doing with Kara Thrace is profound and is major, and yet it doesn’t necessarily translate as simply as you might think,” Eick says.
That makes sense when you consider that in the world of “Battlestar Galactica,” the Cylon characters, who are locked in an epic battle with the humans, are able to die and be reborn, or “downloaded,” into new bodies.
Of course, Moore and Eick won’t say whether Thrace is a Cylon and whether she gets downloaded. They also won’t say if Gaius Baltar, a canny survivor who’s spent time with both the Galactica crew and with the Cylons, is in fact a Cylon.
But they will say Baltar’s character undergoes a trial for his crimes against his fellow humans, and they add that a photo that surfaced online of Baltar in a Cylon resurrection tank is from a dream or fantasy sequence and not something to be taken literally.
“Some of the speculation [regarding Starbuck and others] sounds so cut and dried, ‘Oh, this is going to happen and that’s that,’" Moore says. “And it’s really not that simple. There are different layers we’re trying to protect and that we want to be able to deliver to the audience at the appropriate time.”
Eick and Moore also confirmed that they are in the midst of developing a 2-hour standalone “Battlestar Galactica” film, which may be released between Seasons 3 and 4. If there is no Season 4, then the film, which would probably be released on DVD and air on Sci Fi, would not go forward.
In any case, the DVD movie would not be a conclusion of the show’s third-season cliffhanger finale, which they say will once again take the show in a shocking new direction.
“If you think about the end of Season 1 and the end of Season 2, both of those cliffhangers -- they weren’t just of the ‘Who shot J.R.’ ilk. They actually turned the storytelling in a new direction.” Eick says. “So what we’re doing at the end of this year, which involves Kara Thrace and others, is [taking the storytelling] in a different and unique direction from what’s come before.”
“Whether the fans of the show like what we do at the end of this year or find themselves aghast at what we do, they can rest assured it’s not what they’re expecting,” Eick says. “Whatever they think is going happen, think again.”
What follows is a transcript of my Jan. 8 interview with Ron Moore and David Eick. Be warned: It contains information about future "Battlestar Galactica" episodes.
As you know, there’s a ton of speculation that a character dies in the second half of the season. [Moore also alluded to an upcoming character death in a December interview.] And right now a lot of the speculation centers on Kara Thrace. Can you address that?
Ron Moore: “Kara is one of the characters some fairly profound events happen to in the second half of the season. There are also other characters that are pretty fundamentally… have fairly earthshaking events happen toward the end [of the season]. But certainly [what happens to] Kara will be one of the most surprising things that’s happened in the history of the show so far. Kara’s one of the key players and I think it’ll really take people by surprise.”
People are speculating that her character dies. Do you not want to characterize it that way?
RM: “I don’t know that I want to say that directly. I think people will have to watch that episode and judge for themselves what happens. I can say that Galactica will suffer a shocking loss in that episode and Kara is a key member of the crew. Certainly if she were not there suddenly, that would shift the parameters of what the show is and what the show is about and who the key players are.”
David Eick: “I think that one thing the fans have come to expect from the show is, we’ve never really pulled punches when it comes to the question of having main characters becoming injured or changing profoundly or dying. What we’re doing with Kara Thrace is profound and is major, and yet it doesn’t necessarily translate as simply as you might think.
“You can go back to Season 1 and look at what happened to the character of Laura Roslin. The actress certainly first in line in remarking that she had no idea that that was the trajectory of her character. Our job is not just to tell the stories in a shocking way but in a truthful way and in an honest way and sometimes that leads us in directions that none of us anticipated.”
Just so we’re clear, do other people on Galactica think Kara Thrace is dead, whether or not she is in fact dead?
RM: “I don’t know that I want to address that directly either. I think this is a difficult arena for us to get into because we’re trying to preserve certain twists and turns. It makes it hard to discuss in direct ways.”
What I’m trying to get at is, the major thing that happens to a major character in “Maelstrom” – that character is Kara Thrace?
RM: “Yeah. I wouldn’t say she’s the only one that something is going to happen to, but Kara Thrace is the one that will jump up and grab you first. That’ll be the first major event that’ll have lasting reverberations throughout the year.”
DE: “The reverberations will be felt into the following season.”
RM: “It’s a fundamental and permanent change in the makeup of the show’s cast and of the show itself and how the show operates and what the show is about. It’s a very dramatic change of direction.”
When you say it shakes up the cast, is Katee Sackhoff still a member of the cast?
RM: “As of this moment, she is.”
DE: “Define ‘Katee Sackhoff.’”
Exactly. [laughs] Part of the speculation that’s out there is over whether Kara is a Cylon.
RM: “I think we wanted to discuss this because there is so much speculation on it, and it puts particularly Katee in a difficult position to deal with press. Obviously she knows what we’re doing and not doing and it’s hard for her to talk about it at all without giving anything away.
“We have some interesting twists and turns that is not as cut and dried as some of the speculation -- some of the speculation sounds so cut and dried, ‘Oh, this is going to happen and that’s that.’ And it’s really not that simple. There are different layers we’re trying to protect and that we want to be able to deliver to the audience at the appropriate time.
“I can tell you this: After ‘Maelstrom,’ if you watch the main titles of ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ a prominent name will suddenly be missing.”
DE: [Cackles conspiratorially]
RM: “The other thing is …”
Wait a minute – someone’s name will be off the opening credits? Whose name?
DE: “Is that somehow revelatory to you?”
A little bit. Does that mean Katee’s names are off the credits?
DE: “We said something big was happening to more than one character, so you have to factor that in to whatever the assumption is.”
You guys are really messing with my head now. [laughs]
RM: “We’re not trying to. We’re trying to help you here.”
So something else big happens with another character, is that in “Maelstrom” as well?
RM: “Not directly. It’s the culmination of plot threads we’ve been gathering for several episodes.”
I know you’re trying to put out some fires, in terms of speculation on the “major event” with Kara. But by putting that “someone’s name is off the opening credits” information out there, you’re going to cause a firestorm of speculation.
RM: “Some people have already figured it out. [Somewhere online there’s some listing of credits for TV episodes, and on one site] someone was pointing out that they had noticed that there was a name missing, and that in part was feeding some of the speculation.”
So the name that is missing from the credits after “Maelstrom,” that may not be Katee’s name, it could be someone else’s.
RM: “That’s correct.”
One thing that people are speculating about is that maybe she is downloaded, in some form of Cylon downloading, or something like that, and it’s not the last we see of her.
RM: “The best we can say is, those are possibilities. That sort of falls into the area of ‘neither confirm nor deny.’”
Katee said in at least one interview that she wrapped for the season at the end of shooting “Maelstrom.” Is that the case?
DE: “That’s correct.”
Do you envision a situation where Kara is in Season 4?
RM: “That’s hard to say. We don’t even have a Season 4.”
There’s also speculation about whether during “Maelstrom,” or some time around then, that Earth is found, or that there’s a major clue about where Earth is.
DE: “Well, if you think about the end of Season 1 and the end of Season 2, both of those conclusions, both of those cliffhangers – they weren’t just of the ‘Who shot J.R.’ ilk. They actually turned the storytelling in a new direction. Season 2 dealt with this new reality, that Sharon Valerii had been a Cylon in our midst all along. Season 3 dealt with a new reality, we’re now a year later and we’re an occupied people on a desolate planet. Those things were not inherent story elements to the prior seasons.
“So what we’re doing at the end of this year, which involves Kara Thrace and others, is [taking the storytelling] in a different and unique direction from what’s come before.”
So you’re setting up another radical reshift.
RM: “That’s correct.”
DE: “A reshift as radical as what we’ve done before.”
There’s a ton of speculation about who’s a Cylon, who could be a Cylon, whether there’s one among the Galactica crew, whether it’s Baltar or whoever. Can you address any of that?
RM: “With Baltar, for the rest of the season, he’s going to continue to wonder about his place in that, does he figure in the final five, who are the final five are. The question of those Cylons, who they are and how do they figure in to the overall myth of the show, is certainly something we deal with in the finale.”
There’s a picture floating around of Baltar in a Cylon resurrection tank. Is that real, does that happen in reality, or is it a dream/fantasy sequence?
RM: “We did shoot that. That does not really happen [in Baltar’s real life]. That is not a literal [moment that happens in reality].”
In “Maelstrom,” we’re learning more about Kara’s life and her background, right?
RM: Yes, you’re going to get to know quite a bit more about her history. We get to know her mother and see who she was and in part [we see] why her mother was the way she was toward Kara, being abusive and pushing her, what her general attitude was. We’ll deal with the end of her mother’s life and what that meant to Kara. Why she is the person she is in her personal and professional lives is illuminated in that episode.”
Does Lee Adama have a major role in that episode as well?
RM: “Yes. There’s nothing gigantic and revelatory with him, but he’s trying to reach out to Kara while she’s struggling and trying to help her understand what’s going on with her life. It’s a reaffirmation of their feelings toward each other, but it’s her story.”
DE: “Although one of the profound things that does happen to Lee involves him taking a different side from Adama and Laura and others with respect to Gaius Baltar and his crimes against them.”
There’s a trial of Baltar, right?
RM: “We do move toward a trial of Baltar, that sort of takes us through the [second half of the] season.”
One issue brought up by “The Farm” has not still been resolved, right, because the Cylons took her eggs, we’re led to believe. Could Kara be pregnant?
RM: “That’s a possibility, that’s not something we deal with directly.”
Are Lee and Kara, at the time of “Maelstrom,” still having an affair?
RM: “No. The ground rules of their relationship will have been sorted out by that point. It won’t be an active, illicit affair by that point.”
Are both of them with their spouses?
RM: “I think that the spouses are still around.”
Can you talk about where some other major story lines are going, aside from the major development with Kara?
DE: “As we talked about, Lee is going to take a position diametrically opposed to his family and his people [regarding Baltar].
“And a number of characters are going to find themselves in a profoundly different context than where they were at the beginning of the season. In the spirit of past [finales], I think there’s going to be an equal amount of shock about that.”
RM: “There are other epsidoes that are a little more standalone [about Adama’s late ex-wife and Chief Tyrol dealing with labor issues].”
Do we find out that someone we know is a Cylon?
RM: “That’s always been in our hip pocket. That’s been a possibility with the show from the beginning. And I don’t know that we’d want to say one way or another whether that’s going to happen. Part of the fun of the show is [wondering] ‘Is Adama a Cylon’ and what that would mean. “
DE: “Certainly it remains Baltar’s central fixation.”
There’s also been a ton of speculation about a “Battlestar Galactica” DVD movie. Is there going to be one?
DE: “There’s been a great deal of interest within the company [NBC Universal] about how to expand the ‘Battlestar’ universe. One of the things we’re preparing right now is a 2-hour movie that will be an adjunct to the fourth season.”
RM: “It’s really a bonus episode. It’s not really official. [NBCU] home video is very interested, the DVDs of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ do very well. At this point we’re talking about what the story would be, how the logistics of it would work [in terms of when it would be shot].
“It’s a lot of vague talk right now because we don’t have an order for a fourth season. Until there is a fourth season, the DVD release won’t be something concrete either.”
So, if it goes forward, it would be a direct-to-DVD movie that would also air on Sci Fi?
RM: “That’s the general gist of what we’re talking about. If we do it, it would not be a conclusion to the season’s cliffhanger.”
Would it be something based on the Caprica concept that has been floating around?
RM: “No, it would take place in Galactica world that we’ve seen. We would not tie it directly to our season cliffhanger. We’re looking for a way to sync it up with the show, almost like, ‘Here’s a back story to something that we might do later.’”
DE: “And also a story that may return a very popular character.”
Anything else you want to add?
DE: “I would just add whether the fans of the show like what we do at the end of this year or find themselves aghast at what we do, they can rest assured it’s not what they’re expecting. Whatever they think is going happen, think again.”