Galactica.com - Exclusive Interview: RONALD D. MOORE TEASES THE SECRETS OF THE FINAL FIVE

By SEAN ELLIOTT, on 11-07-2007

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Exclusive Interview: RONALD D. MOORE TEASES THE SECRETS OF THE FINAL SEASON OF 'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' - PART 1
Series creator also talks about Battlestar Pegasus returning in RAZOR

By SEAN ELLIOTT, Senior Editor
Published 7/10/2007

We’re months away from the start of the final season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA on the SCI FI Channel, and we’re also months away from the 2 part mini movie RAZOR, which is the epic story of the Battlestar Pegasus before she reached the fleet. However, there is no time like the present to pick the brain of series creator and executive producer Ronald D. Moore. iF Magazine has noticed that sometimes Moore likes to give hints as to what is coming up on the science fiction show, so with this being the final season we decided to try and get at least a few answers out of him well ahead of schedule.

iF MAGAZINE: At what point did you know, realize, decide that this was going to be the wrap-up season for GALACTICA?

RON MOORE: It took awhile. I started thinking seriously about how long the show was going to run during the second season and I would say in the third season where we got the mid-season break and they [the Colonial fleet] was on the algae planet and had found the temple, finding a big sign that Earth was that way. It felt like we were moving toward a climax and certainly by the time we got to the climax of season three and had revealed four of the Cylons and Kara (Starbuck) had been to Earth; that really felt like it was just setting the table for the finale. So by the time we got to the end of season three, I was pretty sure the next season would be the last year for the show. iF: So did you have the idea of ending the series in another season in mind when you revealed four of the final five Cylons?

MOORE: No. It was hovering in the back of my mind. While we were doing it and making it, I realized that we were laying down a lot of the last cards. We only had one Cylon left to reveal and this was moving us strongly into the third act of the series. At that point it was a question of how many episodes is that; is that two seasons more worth of material, is it one season more? It was kind of an open question. I was settling it in my mind that we were moving into the third act.

iF: Then the next question about Cylons, is whether or not we’re going to find out who the fifth and final Cylon is before the series ends?

MOORE: I think so. Yeah. I think so.

iF: So you’re not going to just leave the audience hanging and answer it somewhere down the road?

MOORE: No, not at the moment. I reserve the right to change my mind, but at the moment that’s not the plan.

iF: You’re shooting the final season right now, how is everything going?

MOORE: It’s going really well. I just saw a cut of RAZOR, the DVD movie that we’re doing for the Fall and I’ve watched an early cut of the first episode of the new season and everything looks really good.

iF: When did you decide to do RAZOR and where did the desire to tell the Pegasus’ back story come from?

MOORE: We were approached by home video at Universal; it was on the hiatus between the seasons. Home video basically came and had an idea to do a release where you shoot a couple of episodes, broadcast them on SCI FI network and release them on DVD the next day. It’s done pretty quickly and they can sell it internationally as well. Everyone thought that was a great idea, home video would foot the bill, and it wouldn’t come out of our regular season budget. It would be an atypical episode in a lot of ways. It became quickly apparent that wasn’t the proper way to resolve last season’s cliffhanger. Home video wanted something a little more stand-alone for their purposes and to sell internationally. Also, it seemed very wrong to try to resolve the cliffhanger of season three in that format and then have a big gap and then start the second episode of season four, four months later. We quickly started saying that if we couldn’t resolve the cliffhanger we had to do a story that took place in the past and do some other tale. Pegasus came up in the initial discussions of what we wanted to come back and revisit and it was so wonderful when we had Pegasus around. We never really got to do much with Admiral Cain [Michelle Forbes] because we had designed just that one story with her on board and then killed her, and every one thought she was so great. It was such a rich area that it was too bad we never got to see more of that ship and her crew. It snowballed into doing something with the Pegasus and go into the past and use it as a platform for some revelations in season four.

iF: So it’s all going to tie together?

MOORE: It’s not a HUGE connection, but there is a connection within RAZOR that does set up certain things in season four.

iF: I’m assuming we find out more about the Six model named Gina on board the Pegasus?

MOORE: Yes, we’ll see more of Gina and there will be more of that back-story as well.

iF: Was Michelle Forbes surprised when you called her back to do RAZOR?

MOORE: I think she was. She was happy and excited to come back, and we were happy to have her and it all worked out well.

iF: Did you know Michelle from working with her on STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION?

MOORE: Yeah, but I actually didn’t rely on any of that when we cast her as Cain. Her name came up on the list and I said she’d be great and we moved towards her without me having spoken to her until she turned up for the cast reading of ‘Pegasus’.

iF: When Starbuck was killed and brought back, you had always that Katee Sackhoff was going to come back and had you let Katee in on the way she was coming back?

MOORE: We always knew that we were killing her off to bring her back. The first thing we did was call her up and let her know that we were going to kill her, but that she shouldn’t panic. We talked about how she was coming back at the end of season and we even knew what the scene was going to be like when she came back and what she was going to say. So we pitched it to her very early on before we even started writing the script.

iF: Are we going to get answers to Starbuck’s reappearance right off the bat or are they going to be meted out over the season?

MOORE: It’ll be teased along the way.

ifmagazine.com