Galactica.com - It's one tough universe in 'Galactica'

By newsobserver.com, on 03-12-2006

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rmoore The critically lauded "Battlestar Galactica," Sci Fi Channel's remake of the fluffy 1978 television series, was politically minded from the outset. The 2003 miniseries began with the genocide of billions of people in a Sept. 11-like attack by the Cylons, a mysterious race of robots.
The show, now in its third season, has mostly been set in space, as the survivors on the Battlestar fleet have tried to evade the Cylons. In their struggles to rebuild a civilization, the characters on "Battlestar Galactica" have faced dilemmas about the legality of abortion, torture in military prisons, and the separation between religion and politics, all while asking, "Why do they hate us?"

Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the executive producers of "Battlestar Galactica," talk about the show's political allegories.

Q. Why is punishing the collaborators the first priority after the humans are rescued from the planet New Caprica?

MOORE: The first episode back, it felt like, no matter what it was, they had to deal with the aftermath of what they had just gone through. ...

EICK: What's interesting is what we didn't talk about. We never really got into the morality of whether or not our "heroes" would be embarking on this immoral or somehow judgmental journey to punish the collaborators.

Q. And the heroes are, in fact, the ones doing the punishing.

MOORE: The episode itself is all about breaking a lot of comfort zones in television. TV, generally, is really frightened about protecting your characters. Don't let the audience lose sympathy for them, they have to be heroic, they have to always do the right thing. We don't worry about protecting our characters to that extent.We think, "Well, what would they do in those circumstances?"

EICK: These decisions aren't made for shock value. Without this, the injustice that had taken place would metastasize and cripple the fleet.

Q. The human insurgency, which included suicide bombings, also led by main characters that viewers probably identify with and like. How much was that storyline meant to reflect current events?

EICK: We don't ... sit in the story room ... trying to do an adaptation of what's on the 11 o'clock news. It really is about just pulling the story out and being honest about who the characters are. Of course, what would an occupied people do if they found themselves under the heel of some horrible presence? They would start to rile up, and an insurgency would begin.

Q. How much has the show changed because of the evolution of the war in Iraq?

EICK: We talk a lot about World War II, we talk about Vietnam. The inspiration from contemporary events is very loose. I think we view it more as a treatise on war and on the nature of conflict and the severity of it.

MOORE: But it did happen in the context of Iraq, and it was informed by all of the things happening around us.

Q. The darkness of "Battlestar Galactica" is rare for TV. Does it ever get too dark, even for you?

MOORE: The premise of the show is a dark premise. On some level, we have to be true to the world the show created: These are the people who survived an apocalypse. They are running away from their enemies in the night forever. And it's just such a dark idea, that you can't get outside of that bubble too much, or it just doesn't feel real.