iF Magazine Interviews- Some Season 3 News

iF Magazine has posted up two interviews with Writer/Producer Bradley Thompson, where they they talk about parts of Season 2 and 3.

Here are some excerpts:

THERE ARE POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Part 1:

iF MAGAZINE: What is the genesis for story ideas?

THOMPSON: We hit our heads with big mallets and ideas come out. I’ve always been a big science fiction fan. I can remember reading Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Heinlein blew my head apart, and Asimov was like, ‘WOW.’ David Weddle, my writing partner, was more into literature and westerns. He’d be reading SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION while I read sci-fi.

iF: Do you have a bible for the show?

THOMPSON: Ron wrote a Bible back when he pitched the show, and every so often when we are looking for something in the back-story we refer to it. We all read it, and he had mapped out where all of these characters are coming from. Kara’s [Katee Sackhoff] back-story that she came from a mother who was a sergeant major in the fleet and her father was a musician. All of that was in the Bible. Right now, it’s more of a season-by-season mission statement of Ron saying where he wants people to go. Before we’ve rolled anything we’ve thought about and broken the shows for eight episodes. For example, eight stories already exist for season three. The network has kicked one of them back and we might do it again as part of the back ten. Then there’s another four-episode arc that we think we might be doing in the back ten as well. So this one is stroked out a lot more than the first two seasons. However, there is always a monkey wrench tossed into these things.

iF: How much of a plot will the Cylon baby be third season?

THOMPSON: The baby, ooh boy how much do I give away? Let’s say we’re not going to drop the baby all together, because we set it up and it means a lot to the Cylons. But the baby is only about a year and a half old when we get into season three, so it’s probably not going to be walking on water yet.

iF: Is season 3 picking up where season 2 left off?

THOMPSON: Part of what Ron wanted to do by jumping a year ahead, besides not wanting to do a western town like Joss Whedon did in FIREFLY, after all Joss had been there done that, was a chance to reconfigure characters and move them into different spots. We will move forward from those new spots. You will get the answers provided to most of the intriguing things that were set up. Why is Lee [Jamie Bamber] pissed at Kara? Why are Colonel Tigh [Michael Hogan] and Kara so happy to see one another? Why does Lee have jowls? This is one of those things that they teach you in playwriting. That is, sometimes good questions are much more interesting than good answers.

iF: Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) wants a Cylon lover for the next season…is this a possibility?

THOMPSON: [Laughs] Katee should be careful what she asks for! We don’t really predict when we are going to pull out a Cylon to show somebody. It just seems that they just show up. We don’t decide to unmask two Clyons a season or anything like that. Ron was writing “Lay Down Your Burdens Part 1” and all of a sudden Brother Cavil [Dean Stockwell] appeared to him and said it’s time!

Full Interview

Part 2

iF: Are you going to introduce other alien races as the fleet pushes across the universe?

THOMPSON: Eddie Olmos told us that he’d leave if any bumpy headed aliens showed up. I believe him. [Laughs]

iF: Do you have any set evolutionary process in mind for the Cylons as a race?

THOMPSON: It’s like evolution in the real world; we’ll just see what happens. We have talked about the Cylons having the ability to replace existing humans, but it has always been rejected. Of course, that’s true of several ideas that have made it into the series since they were rejected, so who knows?

iF: Is there anything exciting for next season you haven’t done?

THOMPSON: Right now [David Weddle and myself] are slotted for episode three of next season and we have to follow the events of Ron Moore’s scripts for episodes one and two. There’s lots of fun stuff, but it’s to the point of how are we going to pay all of this stuff off? Once you open these doors you never know what you may find on the other side.


iF: In season three is Roslin going to regain the presidency and are major characters going to die next season?

THOMPSON: There were discussions about certain major characters that will not survive season three and die around episode seven, but thankfully they are all with us still. We do discuss if we get into a situation -- Would people get killed? And if the answer is yes, then we ask if we can do it without a death, but of course then the situation would be meaningless. We do sweat it in any situation. We don’t kill people randomly.

Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) has a destiny, and the scriptures of Kobol predict it. But we don’t know if she’s the leader. All of these things will be answered fairly rapidly in the first three or four weeks in October.