Upcoming Benefit for Mychal's Learning Place

On Saturday night June 18th, former Battlestar Galactica co-exec producer Michael Angeli and his wife Karen, are hosting a benefit event to support Mychal's Learning Place with a night of entertainment to acknowledge the necessity of Mychal’s Learning Place for our families, friends and community. For the evening the mistress of ceremonies is Mary McDonnell. There will be live music by Trainwreck!, featuring Edward James Olmos and guest singers Shaun Cassidy and Kerry Norton also, performances by Tom Arnold, Michael Mell, with Mychal’s Learning Places’ own Lexi Aaron and music by DJ Cameron/Music Savages.

Mychal’s Learning Place is a nonprofit organization dedicated to assist children and adults with developmental disabilities build self esteem and independence through social and recreational activities, emphasizing life skills training in a safe and loving environment.

The event is by invitation, but you can support the great cause by donating online here, or Mail your donation to:

Mychals Learning Place
4901 W. Rosecrans Ave
Hawthorne CA 90250

Law and Order SVU

Over the weekend, Saturday night, NBC reran a recent episode of Law and Order SVU, "Users" written by former BSG co-exec producer Michael Angeli (who now is a co-exec producer of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.) In case you missed the compelling episode, here's a two minute recap:



In the episode blogger iJustine portrayed the victim, and she posted several behind the scenes videos during filming on her YouTube channel (and her other one).

ETA, Mark Verheiden, another former co-exec producer of BSG, reports that he's co-written tonight's episode of Hereos.

Mr. Monk and the Battlestar

BSG fans should check out Monk Friday night on USA Network, as "Mr. Monk and The UFO" is written by Michael Angeli the writer of notable BSG eps such as The Son Also Rises, Six Degrees of Separation, Guess What's Coming to Dinner, Blood on The Scales, and the Emmy nominated Six of One.

Monk on USA Network – “Mr. Monk and The UFO” August ...
by USANetwork

In the episode, while driving back from a wedding outside of Reno, Nevada, Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) sees a UFO with his assistant Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) when her car breaks down in the desert foothills. UFO enthusiasts descend on the small desert town where Monk and his assistant are staying while the car is being repaired. The Ufologists rabidly search for the landing site and in doing so, find the body of a murder victim. Monk is co-opted by the sheriff (Daniel Stern) to help solve the murder. The Ufologists begin to suspect Monk is an alien, and that he came in the UFO -- from Cylonia. There are a few other BSG references in the episode written by former Battlestar Galactica co-exec producer Michael Angeli.

"Mr. Monk and The UFO" Friday, August 21 at 9/8C on USA Network. Be there!

Gaeta's Lament

Several YouTube artists have created their own versions of Gaeta's Lament:


By kittymakesmusic

rincewindx has two versions:

Blood. Scales. Reviews.

For Time James Poniewozik writes:

Who Felix Gaeta is, and what this two-part story showed him to be, speaks to some of the things that make BSG so great. The show could have made him Zarek's craven toady or a slimy power-grabber, but we see—even while sharing Adama's revulsion for him—that he's finally a principled man too.

He may be morally weak (as we saw on New Caprica as well), he may be misguided, and he may be out of hiss depth, but he carries out his coup out of a genuine feeling that the fleet has gone wrong. And unlike his co-conspirator, it's important to him to do it in (as he sees it) the right way, getting justice rather than just grabbing power. Thus he insists on a trial, and thus he recoils when he realizes what Zarek has done to the Quorum.

And yet, rather than take the expected easy way out—having Gaeta see the error of his ways and turn on Zarek, redeeming himself at last—he sticks to his guns. He would rather fail than do things Zarek's way (he would probably have succeeded if he had done things Zarek's way), but that doesn't mean he stops believing in his original goal. Instead, he goes down, faces the firing squad and—in a final moment worthy of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities—looks down at his leg and experiences one last second feeling whole and painless before he dies.

Richard Vine writing for The Guardian reviews The Oath and Blood on the Scales:

There's a definite sense that without the promise of Earth, there's little left to hold them together, that the same gnawing sense of the impossible bleakness and blankness of space that pushed Dualla over the edge has left them without anything but fear and hate to hold on to...

...Kelly's line about the Battlestar being "a helluva ship once" is beautifully affecting, suggesting that for many in the mutiny, it's simply that the journey has gone too far for them, that they can't understand who to back now that there's a Cylon ship bang in the middle of the colonial fleet.

Even minor characters like Kelly get to have convincing emotional journeys on BSG. He was third in command of the ship, tried to blow up Baltar and Romo Lampkin during Baltar's trial and here spends the episode wrestling with his conscience after the political bloodbath, eventually turning on the turncoats and backing up Lee and the gang.

Instead of a final meal, Gaeta gets a last smoke with Baltar. After all this time faking religious insight, he's now assumed, however inadvertently, some of the aura of a priest hearing a last confession – with Gaeta's "please, no religion" line only serving to drive home the irony, and how far these two have come together. Gaeta's reflections on his life is both proud and sad, the last words from a man who can see how far he came – and how far he didn't. "I discovered science and thought I was really, really good at it, until I met you …" The broken, half-smile on Zarek's face as he nods to Gaeta before Adama turns his firing squad on them is the perfect epitaph for their half-arsed coup, but for once, it's Baltar who offers the show's most moving line: "I know who you are Felix. I know who you are."

How does Edward James Olmos get his voice so low? It's like he speaks through a THX sub-woofer. When he throws down his Admiral's pins and growls at Gaeta, "Admiral? Admiral? You're the Admiral now, so you call up Roslin and make her laugh…" you can feel the whole ship rumble. He's just as terrifying when he doesn't speak, staring out the mutineers, daring them to maintain their ill-thought out position.

Alan Sepinwall:

There's a part of me that watches an episode like "Blood on the Scales" -- which managed to be even more moving and shocking and bad-ass than last week's "The Oath," which I didn't think was possible -- and recognizes that so much of what makes it brilliant is only possible because the show is coming to an end and the writers can throw caution to the wind. But there's a part of me that watches an episode like this and despairs at the thought of a TV universe without "Battlestar Galactica," because... well, you almost don't need me to tell you why this one was brilliant, do you?

But, really, I could pick out so many moments from this hour as illustrative of the show's greatness.

What about Baltar's confession to his latest Six conquest that he always runs away, and that maybe he's tired of it? I'm a little disappointed to get confirmation that Baltar was faking it the entire time with the cult, but James Callis sold me on Gaius' reversion to form, and then on his attempt to break his familiar pattern.

What about Tigh and Adama's bromantic moment after Lee and Saul saved Bill from the firing squad? Bill and Saul's exchange -- "They told me you were dead." "For a while, I was." -- is the sort of thing you might hear from reunited lovers at the end of some '50s melodrama, but Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan made it entirely about the respect, trust, and, yes, love that these two comrades-in-arms share.

What about the image of Adama leading an ever-gathering army of supporters through the decks of the ship, until they overran Gaeta's people in the CIC like a swarm? No speeches necessary at that point; the image of the crowd, and the resolve on Olmos' face, was all that was needed to generate still more goose bumps.

And what about virtually every Gaeta moment throughout the hour, but particularly his final coffee with Baltar? As others have said, Gaeta was the perfect man to lead this failed coup, because of where he'd been when the miniseries began, and all the betrayals that we'd seen him suffer, and Alessandro Juliani did a masterful job of making you understand, if not agree with, Felix's point of view, even as he freed Zarek, enabled the Pegasus goons to arrest and terrorize Helo's family, ordered the death of both Adama and Roslin, etc. And how frakking brilliant was he in that coffee scene? Michael Angeli, who wrote this episode, told Mo Ryan that he hoped that scene would briefly fool people into thinking that Felix would get a pass for it all. I was never fooled, and, in fact, the scene worked much better for how obvious Juliani made it that Felix knew he was going to die soon, and how at peace he was with it.

Tim Goodman for the San Francisco Chronicle:

With six episodes left, things are tight alright. But here's what I like about "Blood On the Scales." There was resolution. The deepening evil of Zarek (the craving for absolute power) pushed him to wanton murder and created even more friction with the treacherous Gaeta, whose mutiny-leading gets ever-more complicated as events fray. And they did fray, thanks in large part to Lee, Starbuck and - best of all - Tyrol. I know there's lots to ponder over when considering exactly how bad Gaeta is (was there good there? Is being conflicted in the face of being evil an admirable trait that changes the opinions of others? If you do what you believe in, does that make you worthy of reconsideration, a reduction in the harsh judgment, even if what you believed to be right was actually wrong?) but I think the Tyrol storyline was more nuanced. Here's a guy SERIOUSLY conflicted, who doesn't truly know who or what he is, where his motivation and loyalties rest. But he reacts in this episode based on the pre-Cylon knowledge. He acts to help friends. To save the ship. And I love his minor ode to the good times aboard the good ship Galactica that ultimately saves his ass and allows him to stop the jump, buying time to save Adama and Tigh and even Roslin. That's hard to undervalue.

Todd VanDerWerff The House Next Door:

...As this episode went on, it managed to accumulate a certain power and a certain horror all its own. Despite the predictability of the moment, Adama marching through the ship and gathering supporters at every turn, only to overwhelm the CIC with his new army was a surprisingly poignant moment, trading in all of the goodwill we have for the old man and the folks who stayed steadfast at his side, including Tigh (Michael Hogan) and his son, Lee (Jamie Bamber). The Adama/Lee relationship has often felt more strained that it probably should be, as if the producers have always felt that Olmos’ and Bamber’s easygoing chemistry needed some fairly rote father issues tossed into the mix, but seeing the two reunited in episodes like this one and “The Oath” still packs a somewhat primal power.


The best work of the episode, on both the part of the actor and the writers, goes to Gaeta, though, who is given a somewhat predictable arc of having regrets but manages to make it somehow eerily redemptive—a redemption arc for a character who didn’t really need one, arrived at through having the character carry out very grave sins. Juliani plays Gaeta’s growing guilty conscience mostly silent, framed in tight close-ups by Rose, who seems to trust the actor’s face (Juliani doesn’t let him down, for the most part). Gaeta’s been waiting for a redemption for quite some time now, and he’s been acting out in some very interesting ways to get there, from leaving secrets to the New Caprica resistance to stabbing Baltar in the neck to perjuring himself to make sure Baltar would be executed (didn’t work), and that most of his attempts to win that redemption have come through doing very bad things is one of the show’s more sly commentaries on the natures of sacrifice and heroism.

Gaeta’s attempt to win redemption through the mutiny are unfounded, he suddenly realizes, but he tries to keep up the pretenses, tossing together a sham trial for Adama and trying to spare more bloodshed before his actions finally catch up with him. The resigned look on Gaeta’s face as Adama returns to seize control of the ship says it all, even as he realizes it will mean his end. The final two scenes, featuring Gaeta discussing his long-ago dreams of being an architect (fond of restaurants shaped like food) and then facing down a firing squad, suddenly realizing that the pain in his missing leg has disappeared (a bit writerly as a psychological device, but it worked so well here that I’ll allow it), an instant before he dies, were both intensely moving, and that’s saying something for a character who was a little ill-defined in the build-up to this arc. The best kind of character development on TV is that which throws seemingly disconnected actions by a character in the past into a new kind of relief, and these moments clarified much of Gaeta’s arc in Seasons Three and Four.

Brad Trechak for TV Squad:

Despite knowing how Gaeta and Zarek's treachery was going to end, it was still interesting to see how it got there. You could see control slowly slipping through the fingers of the two men. Zarek was an ignorant, arrogant nutjob with only a tenuous grasp of reality, but Gaeta struck me more as a good officer who went through some bad times but at his core was still decent and honorable (and kudos to Alessandro Juliani for pulling that off convincingly. Another winner of my own personal Emmys). When Baltar met with him, it took me a moment to realize that it was for his last rites. I also liked how his itching stopped the moment before he and Zarek were executed, as if his conscience were cleared.

Jevon Phillips in the L.A. Times writes:

The insurgency, and Gaeta's misguided attempt at justice, was a great way to reignite the fires that were a bit dormant at the cores of a lot of the characters. Roslin's leadership, Adama's toughness, Baltar's instability, Tigh's loyalty, Zarek's shiftiness, Tyrol's resourcefulness and Lee's soldiering and devotion to his dad were all qualities that caused us to follow this show unflinchingly.

Other recaps and reviews from Kelly West for Cinema Blend, Adam B. Vary in Entertainment Weekly, Jim Connelly for Screen Junkies, 411Mania, Sam J. Miller's 25 Word Review, Zap2It, Science Fiction Stuff, a recap quiz from Geek Sugar, Mania.com, Hitfix, i09 and Buddy TV.

Blood Recap

Recap of Blood on the Scales:


From SevorTB.

Richard Hatch and Michael Angeli contributed to a discussion of Blood on the Scales on Maureen Ryan's The Watcher in the Chicago Tribune.

Battlestar is a Franchise For The Future

There is an Associated Press article that popped up yesterday, and is making its way around the media and the internet today, discussing the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA franchise and ratings.

The writer points out that the BSG film, and the prequel pilot film CAPRICA, have been produced despite lowered Nielsen ratings over the life of the series. Meanwhile, BSG actor Jamie Bamber and writer/producer Michael Angeli chime in about BSG fans, our viewing habits...and, no surprise for we fans, the meaninglessness of premiere night Nielsen ratings to BSG viewership.

Jamie Bamber...has a much better way to gauge ratings. Turns out, as the ratings plummet, the show's popularity continues to skyrocket as it reaches the end of its five-year run early in 2009.

"When the numbers were high I would get stopped in the street maybe once a week," Bamber said. "Now that the viewing figures are lower on the TV, everywhere I go someone will come up to me and say what a huge fan they are. That just tells me that people watch the show in a more modern way and that it has reached its sort of critical mass."

...Co-executive producer Michael Angeli thinks the [ratings] are irrelevant, however. He believes most "Galactica" fans have atypical viewing habits and take advantage of new technology to watch the show whenever they want.

"I think we were one of the first ones," Angeli said. "TiVo had just sort of taken off. This was four or five seasons ago, and because we were on Friday nights most people, most fans don't watch it (on first run). They TiVo it and watch it a zillion times."

Angeli comments a bit more on CAPRICA:

While the [BSG] movie is a lock to air, the fate of "Caprica" remains to be decided. The pilot has been shot and screened, and there's a trailer up on YouTube. Angeli is helping with early scripts in case the series is picked up and said the show is an almost complete departure from "Galactica."

"In fact, I don't think we ever go into space," he said.

...Like "Galactica," which took on war, terrorism, torture, religion and questions of morality, the storyline in "Caprica" will have many things to say about our society.

"It's really about big business, the machinations and the subterfuge that go on inside of it when you have something that is groundbreaking and could change the nature of life and the future," Angeli said. "In this case, they're developing artificial intelligence."

While other networks continue to make baby steps in regards to putting new TV shows online the same day as broadcast, there is no denying that (American) BSG fans got something pretty special this year with the same-day online broadcasts of new 4.0 episodes on Friday mornings. Let's hope they continue that trend for season 4.5...

ETA: The Media Loper posits further on this topic, declaring that BSG has a higher "Fan Quality" than most TV shows (or franchises), which allows NBCU to greenlight more stuff for us. So say we all.

Rehash: Guess What's Coming to Dinner

Guess What's Coming to Dinner - BSG - Fan Trailer from nnaylime


There have been varied of reaction to Guess What's Coming To Dinner. Maureen Ryan in The Watcher for the Chicago Tribune says:

I don’t typically have time to watch a particular episode of television more than once.

But I watched last Friday’s episode of “Battlestar Galactica” two times in a row.

...Director Wayne Rose did a very cool job of shooting inside the damaged Cylon base star. The intermittent lights that flashed all over the broken ship made for some beautiful screen pictures. And as Alan Sepinwall pointed out, the final sequence, in which Athena’s opera-house visions and present-day search for her daughter were intermingled, was a case study in terrific directing and editing.

Then there’s Gaeta’s song, which stole the show. It was beautifully sung by Alessandro Juliani, who plays the long-suffering Gaeta and, according to “Battlestar” composer Bear McCreary’s blog, has had opera training (should we ponder the possibility of “Battlestar Galactica: The Musical”?).

FlickFilosopher MaryAnn Johnson reacts to GWCTD with:

Wow. Just wow. This is the kind of episode that reminds you -- as if you needed a reminder -- why this is one of the best shows on TV, and why it’s must-viewing every week. How everyone is at crosspurposes and misunderstands everyone else even as they’re trying to find common ground: fantastic.

The Six [Natalie] talking to the Quorum has got to be one of the most thrilling scenes the show has ever come up with.

“We’ve changed but the humans haven’t,” Six [Natalie] says to the other rebels, but the rebel Cylons have changed to become more human. Does she really expect the humans to change to become more Cylon? Maybe she does...

And then who kills the Six? Athena. A Cylon. Wow.

...I love the score under this episode, toward the end, when Roslin and Baltar go to visit the hybrid on the base ship: it’s more plaintive and almost melancholy than the score usually is, the drums and the strings and the wordless vocalizing. Really beautiful.

James Poniewozik in Time's Tuned In Blog writes:

So that's what happens when you unplug one of those things and plug it back in. Hybrids, apparently, really are like computers; if you don't shut them down properly, you can't be surprised when they behave erratically on restart.

There were a lot of nicely done scenes and elements in this episode—I particularly like Roslin and Baltar together, which it now looks like we may get more of than they bargained for. And there are all manner of implications to the Cylon rebels' decision to become mortal. (Although really: making the entire resurrection process vulnerable in one central hub? Wouldn't robots understand the need for redundant systems better? Ah, well, dramatic convenience.) Not to mention the anxiety among the Four that they're about to get fingered by D'Anna.

Eric Goldman for IGN observes:

We're getting to the good stuff now. This episode of Battlestar really ramped things up, and for the first time this season, truly reminded us that the show was heading towards the end game.

Len Neighbors for Athens Exchange praises Battlestar Galactica's complex writing:

It's been compelling for the whole season, complicated and beautiful. I think what's going on is that people are unaccustomed to processing television, or media of any kind, that deals with religion on more than the bumpersticker level. We've gotten used to complicated relationships (see The Sopranos or Studio 60), complicated plots (see The Wire, and then watch it again), and complicated mysteries (see Lost, and then wonder if something is really a mystery if even the writers don't know how it ends), but television, and especially science fiction television, doesn't deal well with religion.

Sure, science fiction arcs often include religion. Usually, religion motivates a monster, or the crew encounters a strange religion, or a show deals with the conflict between science and faith. But what's happening on Battlestar Galactica is utterly different from these situations. The Colonial Fleet is in the middle of a honest-to-goodness culture war. Human civilization is teetering on the edge of oblivion, and they're arguing about polytheism.

The odd thing is that it works. It's some of the most compelling science fiction I have ever watched, and the fact that they constructed a world in which this is believable and sustainable over this many episodes floors me.... For the first time, we're stuck in the same place the characters are: picking a side to believe in as a matter of faith.

Todd VanDerWerff for The House Next Door writes:

After a string of relatively contemplative episodes, Battlestar Galactica’s seventh episode of its fourth season, “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?,” zips along with verve, finding little time for the character moments the last few episodes have been filled with, and concluding with one of the show's better cliffhangers. Written by Michael Angeli and directed by Wayne Rose, the episode must have been manna to fans who’ve been distressed by some of the more philosophical stones the show has overturned this season, especially one that made such excellent use of the entire cast. While there are a few points where the plot takes easy shortcuts instead of doing something more complex and interesting in the interest of time, the episode is another strong one for a season that is shaping up to be one of the show’s best.

Galactica Variants reflects on GWCTD:

How can it be expressed? All one could have hoped for and more. Guess What's Coming to Dinner blew the doors off! BSG is going exactly where I'd hoped and in strange and amazing ways ... and Gaeta's Lament - unexpected, bold, strangely beautiful (in that Bronze Age sort of way) ... and portentious.

Brittany of TheTwoCents writes in her recap and review:

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Okay, thank you. That was my reaction for a total of twelve hours after seeing the episode. I’m not usually one of those ‘let’s e-mail and instant message everyone on the internet’ kind of people after an episode of this show, but Friday night I was calling people I’m sure don’t even watch. It was that good.

The Battlestar Galactica Review Blog describes the events of Guess What's Coming To Dinner this way:

It’s very much like a chess game between the Humans and the Cylon Rebels, played out on several levels. And like a chess game, the true intrigue and fascination is not in the checkmate, but in the quiet and delicate movements long before the endgame. Because this season is more serialized than ever before, the nuances require careful attention.

Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly recaps the episode, as does TV Fodder, io9, along with Cinemablend, Den of Geek, and Buddy TV.

BSG co-exec producer and writer Mark Verheiden answered readers questions about the episode, Guess What's Coming To Dinner at ComicMix.

Mark's fellow co-exec producer and writer, Jane Espenson commented on her screen writing blog about Michael Angeli's script:

So did you see last night's new episode of Battlestar? This one, called Guess What's Coming to Dinner? was written by the amazing Michael Angeli, and I think it's one of the strongest episodes ever. Suspense, chills and singing!

In celebration, I'm going to use a line from his draft to demonstrate one of my favorite writing techniques. Check this out:

INT. GALACTICA - CORRIDOR
Athena, frantic, wild-horse eyes, bolts down another part of the corridor, no sign of...

ATHENA
HERA! HERA!


I've talked about this before, and this is a great example. And I'm not even talking about the stunning description of Athena's "wild-horse eyes".

See what he did structurally? By creating a sentence that bridges over the change in formatting ("...no sign of Hera"), he's making the inherently choppy structure of a script read more like prose, like a short story. This reader-friendly technique can be part of making your spec script feel enjoyable, not just as a description of a good potential filmed product, but in itself. Angeli's scripts are always literary objects in their own right and if the Battlestar scripts are ever published, I encourage you to devour them.

On her blog, Jane also details how she wrote the scene in Escape Velocity where Chief Tyrol becomes emotionally unhinged with Adama at Joe's bar.

She recently got back from Vancouver where they were filming an upcoming BSG episode she wrote, and has some other great tips and observations for screenwriters here.

Her Vancouver adventures also took an interesting turn... to find out how she ended up back in L.A. with a FedEx package of Ringo Starr's clothes, and how she dropped them off at his residence, you'll want to check this out.

The Song

Posted to YouTube by mmmdelishus via the Battlestar Blog.

Gaeta’s Lament

Bear McCreary has an in depth essay on his blog about the song "Gaeta's Lament" written for Guess What's Coming To Dinner:

This episode is a special one for me, because it represents the first time I’d been brought onboard at the script level. The scoring process is generally the last step in the journey of completing an episode. I’m accustomed to writing music for a finished story. Here, I had the unique opportunity to help shape the musical identity before production even began. Writer Michael Angeli, director Wayne Rose and actor Alessandro Juliani and I all worked closely together to bring this song to the screen.

...Michael [Angeli] sent me his lyrics and I set out shaping them into a song. The lyrics were poignant and melancholy, but with an odd sense of hope, setting an ambiguous emotional tone that suits our show’s music very well. To create the melody for the Lament, I started with a melody conceived for Gaeta in Season 1, an idea that ultimately never developed fully. However, in this context, it fit perfectly.

I shaped Angeli’s lyrics into a simple Verse / Pre-Chorus / Chorus structure. The line “To have her, please, just one day wake” really struck me. So, I set it as the Chorus, making it the most powerful and emotional moment in the song.

Read the entire post at Bear's blog for really informative quotes from Michael Angeli, and Alessandro Juliani about their collaboration.

Bear reports that he's currently in Vancouver on set:

Guess What’s Coming to Dinner was a wonderful experience for me, but it would not be the last time the writers asked me for music at the script stage. In fact, I’ve been working with writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle for two months on their final script for the series (the fourth to last episode of them all). This episode will integrate music directly into the story in incredibly daring ways.

And the timing of tonight’s episode is ironic. Guess What’s Coming to Dinner, the first episode to feature music recorded on the set, happens to premiere at the same time as I’m actually on the set myself, supervising new on-set Galactica music. I’m literally sitting on the hangar deck set in Vancouver right now, as I write this blog from my laptop!

I’m here for two weeks helping out with Weddle and Thompson’s new, unusually musical episode. I am observing on-set instrumental performances and even composing original music each night, churning out sheet music pages for the next day’s shoot. And they are allowing the show’s score to evolve in an unprecedented manner. Frak, this upcoming episode may perhaps redefine the role that music can play in narrative.

Something else to look forward to, probably in 2009...

Sine Qua Non

SevorTB posted the promo for Sine Qua Non airing in two weeks, written by Michael Taylor and directed by Rod Hardy:


Here's TV Squad's review of tonight's ep, "Guess What's Coming To Dinner" written by Michael Angeli and directed by Wayne Rose.

Angeli Also Rises

The Sitrep was lucky enough to conduct an email interview this week with Michael Angeli, Co-Executive Producer and Writer on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Before joining BSG, Angeli wrote for publications such as Movieline, Details, Esquire, and Playboy. Angeli went on to write for television, working as an Executive Story Editor on “Now and Again” and as Producer on “Cover Me,” and wrote for “Dark Angel.” He has also crafted scripts for “Monk,” “Touching Evil” and “Medium.” BSG scripts by Angeli include “Six Degrees of Separation,” “A Measure of Salvation,” “The Woman King,” and “The Son Also Rises.” This year he has penned “Six of One,” “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner,” and later this season, “Blood On The Scales.”

Angeli’s episode “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner” airs tomorrow night.



Logan Gawain: How did you come to write “Six Degrees of Separation” during the first season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA?

Michael Angeli: David Eick and I have known each other since we worked together on the show, “Cover Me,” for USA. Both of us loved Pro Football and the film, “Drugstore Cowboy.” I knew Ron through Rene Echeveria and Ira Behr, who’s a true Godfather to a bunch of us. In Malcom Gladwell-speak, Ira’s a connector. If you’re jake with Ira, you’re gonna get some mad respect.

LG: What led to you joining BSG in the 3rd season as a co-exec producer?

MA: Eick thinks big, he’s a terrific character and a long-suffering friend. Ron was this wildly talented, mysterioso figure I kept crossing paths with. While I was at “Touching Evil,” he wrote an episode for us. I remember when he came in. Most of the other writers were like, “Who the frak is this guy, with the Road Warrior hair and the James Dean vibe?” So I broke his story with him (which seemed ridiculous to me because from a professional standpoint, I knew who he was and he sure as hell didn’t need a lot of help). We spent about four hours on the outline. He went off and wrote a script that pretty much ended up being the shooting draft.

LG: What is like working in the BSG writers’ room, and collaborating on stories with such a large group of creative minds?

MA: I know you’ve heard this ad nauseam, but it’s an extraordinary room. No egos, no fears, no strict regimen. And no division of labor or area of expertise nonsense, either. It’s like a little renaissance in there – everyone knows something about everything. And it’s a rockin’ room. Taylor’s hysterical. Verheiden’s made a habit of pulling a great idea or a solution out of his ass five minutes before we we’re about to give up for the day. Weddle and Thompson couldn’t be more different from each other and yet, they’ve been together for like, 50 years. Jane’s a fantastic dancer. And when Ron starts pacing in the middle of a story arc, forget it, we have lift-off. It’s like John Belushi cranking out that rally speech in Animal House -- there’s no turning back.

The few times we’ve gotten mad at each other, in my opinion had more to do with not wanting to be mad at each other than the issue itself -- I mean, it sounds ridiculous but it’s true. We’ve been blessed with great chemistry and sadly, that doesn’t happen often in the land of the serial killers, where a series can be dead before it’s aired. I was on “Dark Angel” with Ira Behr, Rene Echeveria, Rob Doherty, Moira Kirland, Jose Molina, and Chip Johannesen. That was the last time I had nearly as much fun hanging with a group of writers.

LG: Once the group has worked out the outline of an episode, and it falls to you to write the script, how long does it normally take you? Do have a particular time of day where you focus on writing and do you listen to music while working?

MA: Time-wise, we’re all pretty much bound by the shooting schedule and production, which is like a Grizzly Bear with a tapeworm – it’s always hungry and needs to be fed scripts. Creatively, there’s no optimal time of day for me but I can’t write without music. Period. Gotta have it.

Gaius gets it from all sides/A MEASURE OF SALVATION
LG: In “A Measure of Salvation” was it fun to torture Gaius? Was there a lot of back and forth with the network over how the torture/beach sex fantasy scene would work?

MA: Well, it was fun to watch. And the concept of using some wonderful sexual daydream to not only nullify the sensation of excruciating pain but to convert your torturer seemed potentially rewarding to me. Tricia, James, and Lucy really sold it, too. And because the network understood the intent of the scene (it wasn’t gratuitous), they had no major issues.

LG: My favorite scene in “The Woman King” was when Helo punches Tigh, and Tigh does his insane laugh seeming to enjoy getting smacked around. What were the origins of that scene?

MA: Originally, the show was supposed to open in the teaser with Helo cold-cocking Tigh and we’re supposed to wonder what the frak caused Helo to snap so completely; what compelled him to act so out of character. That event occurs in the present. Then Act One begins two days earlier and by the half-hour break we’ve caught up to the present – that’s how the script was written. Ron was in favor of the time-trifling device but Michael Rymer wanted to play the story as it unfolded without the time switches.

Oozing with grief/THE SON ALSO RISES
ProgGrrl: “The Son Also Rises” is one of my favorite eps from last season - it is oozing with grief over Starbuck's death, which I can tell you fandom was most certainly experiencing that week. Romo Lampkin is introduced, and the groundwork is laid for Baltar's trial. All the actors were just incredible here, and this episode also has one of my absolute favorite scenes from last season: where Lampkin interrogates the Six, with Lee, Roslin, Adama and Tory watching (the "pen scene"). Did it all turn out the way you hoped? What were some of the challenges with that episode, and what were some of your favorite moments to script, or to see realized?

MA: I was thoroughly pleased with the episode. But it was a tough show to, er, shepherd through. Eddie Olmos absolutely HATED the cat, which immediately became a problem because a cat scene was scheduled for our 1st day of shooting. Eddie comes up to me and says, “Mikie, you wrote a beautiful script. Why fuck it up with a cat? Get rid of the damn cat.” Bob Young, the director and a very patient man is ready to drown the cat. But to me, the cat’s crucial so I ask Eddie to just let us do a couple of takes with Jerry (the cat’s real name) and if it doesn’t work, we’ll fire the cat. I go to the cat wrangler – who’s heard everything – and he’s like, “No worries. Jerry will hit his marks.” I look in Jerry’s kennel and he’s cowering in the back of it, like he’s heard everything. In the scene, the cat’s supposed to leap on Laura’s desk. First take, the cat jumps too far and sails off the desk. Eddie’s shaking his head. But on the second take, Jerry lands right in front of Laura – and the cat stays in the picture.

I loved the first scene with Romo and Baltar. The last scene with Romo and Lee kicked it. But my favorite was the Caprica Six/Romo scene. Some really gorgeous acting from Mark and Trish.


Six with Romo Lampkin, pen thief/THE SON ALSO RISES
LG: Ron has said that he always tells the writers to surprise him. When he got your script he said he was surprised by your making Romo a kleptomaniac, and that he loved the idea. How did that idea come about? It certainly reveals so much about Romo's character.

MA: Way back when we decided to put Baltar on trial and have him found innocent, I kept thinking to myself, whoa, how the hell are we going to swing that? Whoever represented him would have to frakking steal the verdict – and off it went…

Mark Sheppard as Romo/THE SON ALSO RISES
LG: What was your reaction to Mark Sheppard being cast as Romo? He's so perfect in the part. What has he been able to bring to the table?

MA: Not long after I finished the production draft of “The Son Also Rises,” David Eick called and told me about this actor and how great he was and did I see “In The Name of The Father?” Ron and David thought this guy, Mark Sheppard, would be great for Romo Lampkin. I didn’t remember him from “In The Name of The Father” but they sent me his picture and at least he looked right, so I was like, sure. I had no idea Mark would be as good as he was. At the table read, he knocked me into another time zone. He’s a great actor who should be working more. And, like Katee and Trish, he’s got the savant thing going with chunks of dialogue. I can’t remember who’s buried in Grant’s tomb – Sheppard does a page of dialogue on the first take. And he brings energy, too. It’s like having a great actor and The Stanford Band on the set. He pumps everyone up. And I hope we’ll be friends for a long time. He’s got a heart the size of a base ship.

Gaius squared/SIX OF ONE
PG: My first peek at Gaius/Head Gaius talking together, in some “Six of One” footage that leaked onto the internet before broadcast, was such a delight. You and James Callis must have had some fun with that. You've said you've been interested in exploring Gaius talking to Head Gaius for some time...was it a challenge to push for it in the show?

MA: Yeah, Gaius-squared was a tough sell. When I first brought it up it was like Dennis Hopper’s line in Apocalypse Now, “The heads, the heads, you’re just looking at the heads.” The consensus was that we already had too many “head” characters (apart from Ron, I think Jane was the only one who got really jazzed with the idea of Head Gaius) but Ron, um, put his on the chopping block and let Gaius-squared stay -- for a while, anyway.

LG: The most intense Roslin/Adama scene of the series, could be called the "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf" scene in Adama's quarters as he drinks and they argue bitterly about Starbuck, and all their emotions rise up as they tear each other down, ending with Adama telling Roslin that her death would be “as meaningless as everyone else's."

MA: Ron and I talked at length about this scene. The idea was to portray them as two people who at this point, have been through hell and back, who know each other extremely well – they’re frakking adults, right? -- and have enough trust in each other to dispense with the small talk and the long way around the truth. Ron asked me to really push the whole Adama-believes-in-miracles idea instead of being how Laura always knew him, as “Admiral Atheist” and it was such a great remark I ripped it off and put it in the script. It’s probably the best line in the show.

Mary and Eddie rehearsed at full-tilt. That’s how into it they seemed to be.

PG: So…the strip triad card game: your idea? I know several Racetrack fans who may hug you if they ever meet you.

MA: You probably know more fans who want to keelhaul me as a sexist ass face. But, yeah, that was my idea. As far as Bodie Olmos (Hot Dog) taking off his pants, that was purely his…

LG: Do you have any thoughts about the WGA strike and how those 100 days played out for you?

MA: The Strike pretty much blew chunks for all of us and if I may be so bold, it hurt us even more because we loved working on our show. Lots of things got fixed around my home. I built fences, replaced gutters, walked the dogs and folded a lot of clothes…

PG: TV producers and showrunners have all sorts of opinions about how the internet has further encouraged/empowered film and TV fans, and how much "TPTB" ought to engage with it. With BSG we have Mr. Moore, a self-professed Trek nerd turned TV writer turned showrunner, who regularly keeps his fandom fed and interacts often (as does his wife). On the other end of the spectrum is Mr. Eick, preferring to keep his distance (or so he claims). Where does the BSG writers room fall in this spectrum - are BSG blogs ever being read on a computer in your office? Are you guys ever reading the SciFi.com forum on Friday nights after the broadcast?

MA: Yeah, some of the writers are huge lurkers (is that the right word?). And of course, as you already know, both Jane Espenson and Mark Verheiden have their own blogs and network quite a bit through them, so it seems. But we don't read any blogs in the room; everyone slinks off to the privacy of their offices and evidently checks in on your site and Television without piety, er, pity, whatever. I know that Bradley Thompson probably learns about SciFi.com through osmosis, since his girlfriend is big in the BSG/BLOG/internet community. Also, for the sake of spoilers, accuracy, etc. I believe our writer's assistant, David Reed monitors the various websites regularly.

PG: Ron Moore has been incredibly outspoken about his enthusiasm for new media and online distribution of, well, just about anything having to do with BSG. How do you feel about working on a show that has a pretty tech-savvy, early-adopter type fan base? Does it make any difference from where you sit?

MA: From what I can see, it seems as though sites such as yours do serve as a kind of unofficial P.R. entity and to be able to mobilize our fan base for BSG-related events, i.e., Comic Con, Bear McCreary's concerts, and various charity events is an asset, as is the pure exposure generated for the show. But shows such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "30 Rock," and "The Sopranos" have/had considerable Internet-based followings consisting of, I'd venture to say, people who aren't tech-savvy. I think it all has more to do with the steady migration of fans to these various platforms -- which possess their own advantages, in terms of advertising, timely information, etc. Great TV shows have always had their fans. The difference now is they can be heard from almost instantaneously, they can communicate with each other much easier and faster, and the flow of information about their shows (i.e., stars, episodes, reviews, events, etc) is time-relevant and continuous.

LG: What can you tell us about your next episode up, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner"? In non-spoiler terms, what can we look forward to in this episode?

MA: A new, er, female pilot and a honker of a revelation somewhere around the end of Act One.

LG: Do you have more episodes of BSG to work on this season, and what can you hint at, without spoiling the fun?

MA: We finished shooting Ep. 16, “Blood on the Scales,” a few weeks ago. The show’s kind of incident-oriented, so I can’t really say much, sorry.

PG: You've had all sorts of experiences during your journey from celebrity journalism to scripted dramatic series TV…have you ever considered a Hunter S. Thompson-style autobiography?

MA: I've been asked a number of times and been offered sick money for it, but now's not the right time....

LG: Overall, what's been the best aspect of working on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, what will you miss from working on the series?

MA: Ron Moore and Ron Moore.

We profoundly thank Michael Angeli for taking the time to share with us and our readers so many great insights into his work and all the collaborative effort that goes into making BSG the best written show on television.