Two New Interviews!

Finale tonight! I don't know about you, but I've got ants in my pants. Of course, with the time zone differences, I am not going to see the finale for another... over 24 hours. Which is killing me.

In the meantime, I've got two James interviews to report. Thanks to M for the links! (The interviews contain no major spoilers for those who haven't seen 4.5.)

USA Weekend's Who's News blog has posted a Q&A with James, and it's apparently done just last weekend. James talks about Baltar, and is very careful to not spoil anything in the finale - but there are two hints:

In the finale, Gaius becomes the man that he has wanted to be — or not known that he is for so long.

???!!!

I’ve realized that the most dangerous people are the weak ones. His life is a mess because he’s attached to so many things that mean nothing. Gaius is going to realize that all of those things are not important anymore, which is a big discovery.

???!!!

I hope that, in the end, Baltar will be important in the conclusion of the series. This is all I'm going to say until I actually see the finale. I've tried to have no big theories, no opinion on how things are going to unfold, because I'm really nervous about being disappointed and proven wrong. I just hope the finale will blow my socks off.

The other interview is a bit older, but still from this year. This seems to be about the episode Dreadlock, where Baltar comes back to this flock. There are six audio clips. When you click on part 1, it plays that one, and then automatically uploads all the others as well. But you can also go through individual links. Transcript by me below.

Part 1

"Why does Baltar come back to his people? Probably better to say why does Baltar come back to Galactica? Very simple: he's got simply nowhere else to go."

Well, he could have stayed on the baseship with Lida, but he chose to come back because of a sense of responsibility, right? I'm surprised James doesn't point that out. But it might be true that he has no real future on the baseship. His people are on Galactica.

Part 2

"I found the .. how I found Paulla and the other acolytes was very similar to... there was a similarity between that and when Butch Cassidy comes back into his group, having been away. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he's like... He says something like, 'I didn't figure when I was away, I didn't figure you'd find a new leader.' This big guy turns around and says, [macho voice] 'You figured wrong, Butch.' That was kind of what was going on with me and Paulla andthe acolytes. They felt abandoned and so they found, you know, a new leadership, as it were."

Nothing much to add to this. Except that James sounds cute when he's trying to sound macho.

Part 3

"I'm not sure what's changed. I think it's a form of uh... I think it's a form of growing up that he's doing. I think Baltar is maturing in some way or fashion. Um... And yeah, it's finding compassion and finding um... it's a reason to live, because on some level, Baltar can't really live for himself anymore."

It sounds like he either can't really say much, or doesn't know how to explain his thoughts. Has Baltar matured, or will that happen only in the final episodes? I'm not sure. In Daybreak, Part 1, when Lee asks him to name one selfless act, he can't think of anything. But he's done selfless things, more and more as the series goes on - is he only now realizing that his selfishness outweighs all that? Would the old Baltar have said, "Duh, cylon detector? Going through thousands of specimens per day? I was practically a slave for all of you!"

Part 4

The last temptation is the greatest treason,
to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
"I think that's T.S. Eliot from Murder in the Cathedral. But essentially there's a bit of that going on. You look, he looks very, like, heroic giving out food, but essentially you're showing off to this lady who you've just found impossibly attractive very suddenly. As is... the way that he is."

Professor James! I just love how he can just casually quote something like that. I thought that was the episode that brought funny back for Baltar and showed that he was still very much a selfish person who was doing things for his own reasons. I'm curious to see how he changes in the finale. I wish James had been asked about the little boy named Gaius - was he the father? I was wondering how much that played into his decision to give out the food.

Part 5

"Essentially it's, uh... So that the civilians of the fleet can finally look after themselves. They've obviously come down on Adama's side after the mutiny, and now it looks like there might be a revolution, as Baltar says, because the cylons are coming aboard in a way that the humans have never anticipated. And um... to quell any future stay? of rebellion or mutiny, Baltar advices Adama that, you know, the people who he can trust are, um, as it were.. Baltar's fringe group. Cos however lunatic they may be, and it's obvious that some of them definitely are, they have the best interest of the fleet and of people as a whole."

Once again, this scene should have been expanded on. It's a disgrace that we were just basically shown Baltar saying "I want guns" and then cut to Baltar having the guns. That made zero sense. We should have known what was behind Adama's decision to give them, and how Laura and Lee felt about it.

Part 6

"I think it's, again, it's a thing about protecting the people around him and protecting himself. That's as far as the plan goes. [laughs] And having been uh.. as it were... unseated? in Dogsville, by people who had bigger guns than he did, he's now trying to change that around. I think it's evidently part of Six's plan, and as you know, Gaius gets connected and caught up in her plan. Because all of those things I'm saying to Paulla in the end about the guns and everything, it's like I'm becoming the puppet to her words. I mean, in the scene Im saying strength comes from within, it's Number Six's head and from guns, it's obviously not Gaius' idea on some level.

I loved that scene, because Head Six has been MIA for most of season four, and now she's suddenly back and feeding him words. It's a very similar scene to the one in season one where Baltar ends up asking Adama for the nuclear warhead.

Six: "What I need..."
Baltar: "What I need..."
Six: "Is a nuclear... warhead..."
Baltar: [looks at her all freaked out] "Is a nuclear..warhead???"

Six: "And we need more guns."
Baltar [glances at her like 'wuh? Okay..'] "And we need more guns! Bigger guns!!"

It's a lot of fun when James and Tricia get to play scenes like this, and it kind of portrays Baltar as a cylon puppet.

But is he the cylon puppet? Or the mastermind behind it all? Or something else completely? I'm hoping we'll find out in the finale. I'm honestly really nervous.