Thormir
09-07-2007, 11:46 AM
Two, actually, at this year's DragonCon. Guests were Aaron Douglas (Tyrol), Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek), Jamie Bamber (Lee "Apollo" Adama), and Kevin Grazier (science advisor to the show). I missed the panel that included Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin), though I talked to him elsewhere. Katie Sackoff was slated to appear but cancelled.
This will be a bit of a ramble, full of quotes, anecdotes, exchanges and spoiler-lite revelations. Stay tuned for the possible pisser at the end.
Aaron found out earlier than planned about being a Cyclon. Saw a slip of paper not meant for his eyes while at a producer's house and was sworn to silence. Eventually, he, Michael Hogan, and the others were brought into a room and given the info. He was pissed at first, but, "Shooting Season 4, I really liked being a Cylon." Tyrol, however, goes a little crazy. Douglas' hair was pretty short at the panel, and he said that was several weeks of growth since shooting his Tyrol-go-mad scenes.
Bamber was asked if Lee Adama would have a more civilian role in Season 4. "I can answer this without words," and he pointed out his beard and somewhat shaggier hair. No word on what he'll be up to, exactly.
Sheppard will return as Romo Lampkin, but he's also involved in the new Bionic Woman, and I think that's his main focus for now. Aaron Douglas is also appearing in Reaper, on CBS I think.
Jamie Bamber talked about flying with the Blue Angels, drawing from that experience an appreciation and attitude for his position in the show. Douglas was asked if he had similar experience. He hadn't, but Glazier and the writing team did enjoy a visit to the DDG-62 US Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer. In the episode "Flight of the Phoenix," reference is made to scrounged up "DDG-62 engines" in a nod to that ship and its welcoming crew.
Dirk Benedict, Starbuck in the original show, was in the Season 1 script. Grazier stated that he didn't want to draw any correlations, but Benedict evidently wrote a scathing piece about the new BSG -- particularly hating the now female Starbuck -- and his name was absent from the next version of the script.
Douglas originally auditioned for the role of Apollo, "but I'm glad Jamie got it, since he has to go to the gym." He mentioned that Tyrol was originally a very minor character, possibly slated to die early in the series. After the initial attacks on the colonies, Tyrol calls out to the deck something like, "You've trained for this, this is what you're here for, now go kick some Cylon ass!" One of many ad libs Douglas uses on the show. He says he'll try to throw in "felgercarb" (the original show's 'frak') and "clusterfrak" at some point.
Others ad lib a bit, too. Tigh's gravely "Ohhhhh" when he walks into the room with fellow Cyclons Tyrol, Tory, and Anders was spur of the moment.
There was question about the spelling of "frak," since a lot of BSG shirts have "frack" instead. Per Douglas, "Frak is a four letter word." He then blamed the frack shirts on the Chinese.
Gay jokes abounded.
Douglas: "Hatch is the only straight celibate on the show."
Bamber: "Straight now. Doesn't have to do that anymore now that he got the part."
Hatch: What happens at DragonCon stays at DragonCon. So say we all.
There was a lot of joking about Starbuck's "stinking, rotting corpse" (Bamber: "Starbuck's dead, and Adm. Adama's a necrophiliac."), but she is back for Season 4 in some capacity.
In discussing the end of the show, Hatch wants it open-ended enough to allow for additional possibilities. About half the crowd wanted to find earth (or "an" earth), and half wanted them to...who knows.
Bamber: The writers just ran off to Lake Tahoe to desperately find an ending. There will be lots of suicides."
Hatch: There is an ending, but 40 rounds of sake wouldn't get it out of Ron Moore.
Douglas: I want everyone to die...except Tyrol. And planet earth is only populated by women. Who make scotch. And want to repopulate the planet.
About the Final Five, Douglas said that they are, "totally different from the other seven. Each is unique. There's only one copy of each." Talking to Douglas about it, Ron Moore said, "We [the FF] are Cylons. We have been from the beginning." The key question, Douglas says, is "the beginning of what?"
They shat on Sci-Fi a lot. There were plans for 5 seasons, but Sci Fi dragged their heels and finally decided to let it go. Bamber: "Sci Fi doesn't know what to do with our show. They don't know what they've got." BSG is such a hit that Sci-Fi Channel doesn't know how to handle it.
How dumb is Sci-Fi? Here's the aforementioned pisser. Sci-Fi is looking into splitting Season 4 into two 10 episode blocks: Feb-Apr of 2008, and Feb-Apr of 2009. The panelists joke a lot, and this was initially received as a joke, but they reiterated quite seriously that this was the case. It didn't sound set in stone, but maybe Sci-Fi is looking at ABC's handling of Lost and thinking it's a good idea.
Bamber: We love Sci-Fi Channel.
Douglas: You're still drunk, aren't you.
This will be a bit of a ramble, full of quotes, anecdotes, exchanges and spoiler-lite revelations. Stay tuned for the possible pisser at the end.
Aaron found out earlier than planned about being a Cyclon. Saw a slip of paper not meant for his eyes while at a producer's house and was sworn to silence. Eventually, he, Michael Hogan, and the others were brought into a room and given the info. He was pissed at first, but, "Shooting Season 4, I really liked being a Cylon." Tyrol, however, goes a little crazy. Douglas' hair was pretty short at the panel, and he said that was several weeks of growth since shooting his Tyrol-go-mad scenes.
Bamber was asked if Lee Adama would have a more civilian role in Season 4. "I can answer this without words," and he pointed out his beard and somewhat shaggier hair. No word on what he'll be up to, exactly.
Sheppard will return as Romo Lampkin, but he's also involved in the new Bionic Woman, and I think that's his main focus for now. Aaron Douglas is also appearing in Reaper, on CBS I think.
Jamie Bamber talked about flying with the Blue Angels, drawing from that experience an appreciation and attitude for his position in the show. Douglas was asked if he had similar experience. He hadn't, but Glazier and the writing team did enjoy a visit to the DDG-62 US Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer. In the episode "Flight of the Phoenix," reference is made to scrounged up "DDG-62 engines" in a nod to that ship and its welcoming crew.
Dirk Benedict, Starbuck in the original show, was in the Season 1 script. Grazier stated that he didn't want to draw any correlations, but Benedict evidently wrote a scathing piece about the new BSG -- particularly hating the now female Starbuck -- and his name was absent from the next version of the script.
Douglas originally auditioned for the role of Apollo, "but I'm glad Jamie got it, since he has to go to the gym." He mentioned that Tyrol was originally a very minor character, possibly slated to die early in the series. After the initial attacks on the colonies, Tyrol calls out to the deck something like, "You've trained for this, this is what you're here for, now go kick some Cylon ass!" One of many ad libs Douglas uses on the show. He says he'll try to throw in "felgercarb" (the original show's 'frak') and "clusterfrak" at some point.
Others ad lib a bit, too. Tigh's gravely "Ohhhhh" when he walks into the room with fellow Cyclons Tyrol, Tory, and Anders was spur of the moment.
There was question about the spelling of "frak," since a lot of BSG shirts have "frack" instead. Per Douglas, "Frak is a four letter word." He then blamed the frack shirts on the Chinese.
Gay jokes abounded.
Douglas: "Hatch is the only straight celibate on the show."
Bamber: "Straight now. Doesn't have to do that anymore now that he got the part."
Hatch: What happens at DragonCon stays at DragonCon. So say we all.
There was a lot of joking about Starbuck's "stinking, rotting corpse" (Bamber: "Starbuck's dead, and Adm. Adama's a necrophiliac."), but she is back for Season 4 in some capacity.
In discussing the end of the show, Hatch wants it open-ended enough to allow for additional possibilities. About half the crowd wanted to find earth (or "an" earth), and half wanted them to...who knows.
Bamber: The writers just ran off to Lake Tahoe to desperately find an ending. There will be lots of suicides."
Hatch: There is an ending, but 40 rounds of sake wouldn't get it out of Ron Moore.
Douglas: I want everyone to die...except Tyrol. And planet earth is only populated by women. Who make scotch. And want to repopulate the planet.
About the Final Five, Douglas said that they are, "totally different from the other seven. Each is unique. There's only one copy of each." Talking to Douglas about it, Ron Moore said, "We [the FF] are Cylons. We have been from the beginning." The key question, Douglas says, is "the beginning of what?"
They shat on Sci-Fi a lot. There were plans for 5 seasons, but Sci Fi dragged their heels and finally decided to let it go. Bamber: "Sci Fi doesn't know what to do with our show. They don't know what they've got." BSG is such a hit that Sci-Fi Channel doesn't know how to handle it.
How dumb is Sci-Fi? Here's the aforementioned pisser. Sci-Fi is looking into splitting Season 4 into two 10 episode blocks: Feb-Apr of 2008, and Feb-Apr of 2009. The panelists joke a lot, and this was initially received as a joke, but they reiterated quite seriously that this was the case. It didn't sound set in stone, but maybe Sci-Fi is looking at ABC's handling of Lost and thinking it's a good idea.
Bamber: We love Sci-Fi Channel.
Douglas: You're still drunk, aren't you.