Saturday, December 09, 2006

Podtastic!

Hopefully everyone is watching what is probably one of the best television dramas ever. Which is of course Battlestar Galactica. If not, I discard you!


Hopefully, as well as watching Battlestar Galactica you’re listening to the podcasts by the series re-inventor, Ron Moore, and various guests.

Rather than taking place in a sterile soundproof studio, the podcasts are recorded either in Moore’s office or his home, which means that at various times in the past helicopters, lawnmowers and anything else passing outside the windows gets in on the act. At the same time ice clinks in his glass and a zippo snaps open and shut as Moore drinks, smokes and swears his way through the commentaries.

Some may not like this down and dirty feel to the commentaries. Well, yaboo sucks! to them. The rough and readiness makes the podcasts sound more intimate than having just a disembodied voice appearing out of nowhere.

While Moore has been commenting on the episodes alone of late, he is, on occasions, aided and abetted by his wife – identified simply as Mrs. Ron, while actors Grace Park and Tahmoh Penikett chipped in for the recent episode Unfinished Business.

In the second year of the series, three eighty-minute recordings from the Writers Room as they break stories for the latter half of the series were uploaded onto the Sci Fi website. This year, just recently, the Battlestar Roundtable was made available.

Joining Ron and Mrs. Ron in their Vancouver apartment to discuss the show are actors Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Henry Wells (a school friend of Jamie Bamber’s from England who happened to be visiting), Tahmoh Penikett, and Mark Sheppard. Sheppard, who played Badger in Firefly, appears later in the third season in case you're wondering what the heck he's doing there.

Together they talk candidly about the third season while answering various questions sent their way. The odd spoiler pops up which means killing the volume or putting your fingers in your ears and singing loudly. But at just shy of three hours, it’s a hoot. And far better than the kind of DVD extras interviews that just tow the party line.

Listen. Learn. Enjoy.

2 Comments:

At 3:25 pm, Blogger wcdixon said...

That Writer's Room cast was great, I agree. Comforted by the amount they referenced other shows and movies as they discussed the story...this after my frustration experienced on my last gig where nobody had seemed to have ever watched anything, or at least in the past ten years...seriously.

Hit your deadline?

 
At 3:56 pm, Blogger Good Dog said...

Frankly, I'm always staggered by the amount of general ignorance about.

Then again, having had to do plenty of research on various projects in the past, I try to keep on top of everything coming out. (Hence the fact I have no real social life to speak of).

There have been instances where I've had to tell people they can't do something a certain way because it has already been done, which can be frustrating.

As for the deadline, yeah I took Saturday off to stretch my legs, get my head together and gorge on read meat, but was at the computer yesterday and a draft is going off in a couple of hours or so to be okayed. Hopefully.

 

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