Oldie But Goldie: The Sci Fi Guys w James Callis

I know this is an old thing, but I've never claimed that this blog is all about the latest news.

If you haven't heard the Sci Fi Guys interview with James Callis, it's a must-hear. You can stream it here. It begins around 40 minutes and goes on til about 1 hour, and after that they gush over him, calling him one of the most humble guests ever. Someone who will praise anyone but himself. So true. Nothing wrong with tooting your own horn a little, James. But it's totally sweet, of course. He also talks about how human beings are basically animals and in denial about it (I don't remember what the question was but it wasn't that deep :D), and discusses his first roles. I love how he mentions Soldier, Soldier and is like, "I made great friends from that". That's the only positive thing he has to say about it. Hee!

One thing I really love about this interview is how he talks about Tricia Helfer and Lucy Lawless. He gets the usual question of how gorgeous they are and how it is to work with them. He's like, yes they're gorgeous. BUT they are also so talented, and I'm so impressed with them, and I love Tricia as a person. This is one of those very proud fan moments. It's a very feminist thing to say, really. And just a very respectful thing, seeing her as a human being who has a beautiful face and body, but also a lot more. You can tell that the other stuff is more important to James.

I find Tricia to be amazing. I have a connection with that lady, we have a kind of chemistry we play off.. and that takes.. I can't explain,but I think it comes very naturally to her, she is a natural actress, and the things she has to do... if she couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. We are like twinned to the hip, somehow. She's a beautiful lady but she's beautiful in the inside as well. She's generous and kind and sweet, and working with someone like that, it's another gift. 

And he sounds SO warm talking about her, really. You can hear in his voice that he means it all and more.

Lately I've thought of Tricia more again. From the beginning, she was part of my fandom, but it's kind of become all about James. I do miss Tricia sometimes, though. She seems like a lovely, genuine person, much like James, and I imagine they're great friends. But I don't know if my heart can handle two equally powerful fangirlisms, so James it is.

Random Googlebits, Part Dis

Is it dix...? Heh heh, dix! OK, it must be dis. Either way, ten. I'll stop with the French numbers after this, if only because I can't count very far in French.

Of interest: There's a new project on James' imdb bio. It's not FlashForward. It's "The Scholarship - details only on imdb pro." I'm very curious about this. Anybody here have imdb pro? *M reports that this movie has something to do with Nick Cohen. Interesting. It's apparently not a James co-write/co-produce thing this time, though.

This site seems to have some protection issues but the cache version works. It's an appreciation thread from 2008 and there's some meeting James stuff when you scroll down.

As someone who dislikes his character, I was thinking that I probably won't like him, but James was awesome to talk to. He was friendly and funny.

I mentioned that we were from fanforum.com, etc and he was interested in it...but the idiot that I am, me and my gf were kind of caught in the moment of "talking to a famous person" that we forgot to write it down for him. He was like "I'd like to check that out, I told him what it was, the site in general, and that he's got his own appreciation thread.

...

James said he enjoys lurking on BSG forums, etc reading what the fans have to say.

...James, are you reading this? :D I'm not super-surprised, because he reads the Unofficial site and recognized Matt and Nat of GalactiCast, but it's nice to know he reads fan sites. It's amusing to think of him lurking in forums. While I'd love for him to post more online (say in his own personal blog), I think it's wise of him to lurk and not start defending Baltar in online conversations. That would be messy.

Hilariously, someone said he was like Baltar, and someone else asked for a clarification:

Some of the mannerisms are like him. I asked him how it was to work with Lucy Lawless and Tricia and he said that they were totally in love with him. That's what I thought was like Baltar. But he was very nice and great to talk to.

LOL! That's called being facetious. And it's not like Baltar at all. Baltar would have said that and meant it. It's amusing that some people apparently can't tell when James does this.

Triniroslin found some promotional pictures of The Hub. Drool! I know he's supposed to be injured and all, but he had a little tummy. What can I do but gush? Also, The Hub is probably my favorite Baltar/Laura episode evah and contains some stellar performances from both James and Mary Mc. Plus it has Lucy. So James+Mary+Lucy plus a bunch of people touching his belly. I mean, is this episode designed to please me or what?

In a similar vein, there's also this full image of a distraught Gaius on the destroyed Earth. And a few other pictures from the shooting. OK, this is old stuff, but it's still nice to see it.

A very cool video of BSG vs. Beastie Boys song Sabotage. The link also contains a very cool mention of James:

No lie... James Callis sang part of Sabotage to me at Megacon last year, when he saw that I was wearing a shirt from that video. :P

Awesome! Maybe he likes that song? (*goes and listens to Sabotage several times just because James knows it*) (seriously speaking, it's not my favorite music style but the video is really cool, what with the monikers and great sync of BSG scenes.)

Christina Schild, who played Playa Palacios on BSG, recounts working with James on the bathroom stall scene:

Oh, it was so much fun to work with him. I remember walking back into the bathroom stall -- when he goes in and I follow him in -- I remember we had to try and keep ourselves from giggling, because we were squished into that bathroom stall. Waiting for the director to yell cut. We had a really fun time.

Hee! Actually, it's too bad she wasn't really seen after that. It might have been fun. Or not. Um, we didn't really get a very good idea of who Playa was.

Some 2008 Starfury stuff.

James Callis is absolutely stunning, and I didn't expect him to be so down-to-earth and thoughtful towards the fans. He really made an effort to write a different dedication on every autograph.

....

Tahmoh, I don't know, he is nice and intelligent and everything, but he doesn't have that special presence on stage that captivates you, especially if you compare him to James Callis. James starts talking and you can not NOT listen to him.

....

James - Seemed laid back and funny. Also commented on the pronounciatino of my name...

Awww. People often seem touched at how much effort James makes, and it does a fan's heart good. And - he was interested in someone's name again? It really does seem like he loves names. (L)!!!

Another cute fan meeting:

- HUNG OUT WITH JAMES CALLIS (BALTAR!) AND TAHMOH PENIKETT (HELO!) AT THE MARRIOTT BAR!!! Both the dudes were really cool, and James told us to watch what happens in the second part of season 4 - he said it's pretty heavy. He also told Anna she was very beautiful and that she should find him when she's dressed as Six, lol!

Hee! I bet he enjoys hanging out with the girls dressed as Six. ;) (I'm not jealous of Anna. At all.) (Not AT ALL.) (Hmph.)

A lovely discussion of the Bear McCreary concert (2008).

Me: Um. This will be a bit spooky but I have in my possession a large picture of your head.

James Callis: Ah. Well. That's all right.

Me: Uh. My roommate gave it to me. It's been hanging awkwardly in my room since, advertising your show. But um. Please don't think I'm creepy. I'm not trying to be creepy. Honest!

Gaius Baltar: o_o

LOL!!! Yeah, I imagine being pretty much that awkward if I ever meet him. "I write a blog about you. It's all about you. I think about you a lot. But I'm not creepy, I swear!"

Seriously though, there is nothing creepy about having his poster on your wall. But I have a feeling that if the fan gets incredibly defensive about it, it might begin to seem creepy. There's really no point in constant "I'm not a stalker, seriously" apologies, but I realize I make those on here all the time. I should probably stop. If James thinks I'm a stalker, there's nothing I can do to convince him otherwise, but really why would he? (He wouldn't, right? Right?)

On the other hand, there's this:

Grace Park, who plays a collective of Cylon characters (Sharon/Boomer/Athena), said she recently got "a box big enough to fit a golden retriever in" that was packed with intricately assembled scrapbooks. "This fan had clearly spent hours and hours putting this together, and every page was about me, all the places where my name has popped up in a story or on the Internet. This story will be in the next one, I'm sure of it. It's very nice, but it's also a little . . . much."

Note to self: don't send James scrapbooks. Ahem, not that I have scrapbooks. Seriously though, even I think that's a little much. Assembling a blog for fans to find the links, okay. But sending a scrapbook to a star..? Hmmm. Reminds me of the fan who gave Tahmoh Penikett a casket of fake money at a con, "for all his services". That was a WTF moment for most other fans. But that's not on James, so I digress. Also in that article: Ron D Moore apparently very much enjoyed the black-screen ending of The Sopranos. I did too, but I'm kind of glad they didn't do quite that with BSG.

OK, back to James. A cute little encounter story:

I met James Callis (Dr. Baltar from the new Battlestar Galactica) @ the same con. He saw my friends and I in Red Sox gear and mentioned he had attended his first baseball game a few weeks ago. He said "I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I kept drinking and booing Barry Bonds".

Hee! :D That's hilarious! It's especially funny because of baseball commentator Jim Callis, who I suppose is also named James Callis, but never goes by that. I wonder if James is a fan of soccer like most British men seem to be - or if he's just not that into sports? I know Aaron Douglas talks about sports a lot. I was going to add him on twitter, but he seemed to talk about nothing but ice hockey. Nothing personal, Aaron.

This was also the second story where James found a discussion topic just by looking at someone's shirt. It's a nice way of breaking the ice and giving the fan a story to tell. Plus it gives us more trinkets about James' personality, which is always welcome.

San Diego Comic Con 2008: A pic where James "chats with Eureka creator Jaime Paglia". He looks kind of nervous, like it's a fan meeting for him. So cute!

Random stuff that comes up in these searches

I won't link to this because it's obvious spam, but once again, this type of thing amuses and baffles me.

James Callis, best Naruto complete series dvd box set known as Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica dvd box set, has been cast in a recurring mad men dvd box set role on FlashForward, TVGuide.com has confirmed.

You know, I just don't see how adding "naruto complete series dvd box set" OR "mad men dvd box set" into the text accomplishes... well, really, anything. Does it sell something? Does it put a virus in your computer if you open it? Is it designed to get as many hits as possible through any means? There's a LOT of this stuff on Google blogsearch now. Maybe I search for James too much and spammers have realized it's a common search term.

Another constant result in Google searches is Game of Thrones, which HBO has apparently greenlit. Pretty much everyone thinks James should play "Littlefinger". I don't know anything about Game of Thrones, so I don't really have an opinion. However, I'm not sure how anxious I am to see him play "little" anything - not that he isn't adorably little, but if the character is specifically meant to be short or British or scifi/fantasy or villainous or whatever, I worry that it's just typecasting. Lots of people online haven't seen James as anything but Baltar. Most every week, there are tweets like "Hey! Gaius Baltar is on Bridget Jones' Diary!" Yes, James had a life and career before Gaius. It's odd how everyone is thinking this stuff at the same time.

Gaius Baltar was great and probably his best role so far, but I worry that people will only want to see him as another version of Gaius Baltar from now on. He's so much more than that. But if you've never seen Going Wrong, or Sex and Chips, or even Beginner's Luck, you wouldn't know. I hope he's going to get roles that exhibit different sides of him as an actor.

I know James is careful about typecasting, so if Littlefinger is anything like Gaius Baltar, I suspect he's going to disappoint a bunch of fans and just not do it. Like he did with Dr Who. (Although I don't know if they actually offered Dr Who to him.)

James Callis Interview at Galactica.tv!

This is something I've been waiting for, because Galactica.tv does awesome interviews. Here's their article on James Callis, interviewed by Marcel Damen last month. I talked to Marcel about a year ago, and he worked hard to get this interview. I also see he snuck in his question about the glowing spine! Hee!

Firstly, some good news: he has a small part in an Edward James Olmos movie tentatively called America, and he's got many other things lined up for this year as well. He just can't talk about them right now. Whew!

There's quite a bit about James' background as an actor, which is not something that comes up in most interviews.

I left school, I went on a gap year and I actually went touring around Europe with an amateur theatrical company. The person who was directing that is now actually my best friend, but the play that we did was a disaster. It was really... A lot of people don't do this stuff anymore. It was like taking a play around Europe in one of those Volkswagen campervans. A lot of people didn't get on, we were young and we didn't have audiences. It was tough as all hell.

Aha, that must be the Beginner's Luck backstory! Maybe it's a remnant of older theatre tradition - theatre groups travelling Europe and such to put on plays, when cinemas and TV weren't around yet. It sounds like a pretty difficult way to engage an audience these days. I'm not sure if I'd try that out. It just sounds like the recipe of a disaster, a bunch of people you don't know traveling around doing something really emotional for no money. Beginner's Luck certainly didn't make it look like fun.

And apparently they took him into university because of that experience? Hee! He doesn't sound that excited about what he did at university, which feels like an odd sort of relief. I didn't do that well at university myself. (Well, I did get high grades, but I dropped out of some courses and my thesis was a disaster.) I'm also interested to hear he was working at a kibbutz for a while.

A bit about his family:

I think my mother had done some acting before and my grandmother was going to be an opera singer, but when my grandmother was younger it wasn't correct -- in my family -- for a young lady to be on stage. That was like a disaster. Things had changed a lot by the time I came around, so they were very supportive. I think they knew it would make me happy.

That's really interesting. It must be where his performing/singing talent comes from. It's also really sad - if his grandmother had lived now, she could have pursued the career she wanted. My grandmother was a great writer, but she couldn't afford an education and never pursued a writing career. Sometimes I think of her and how I can carry on that legacy. I can get my words out, she couldn't.

I tend to glamourize James, I think, but it sounds like he's seen a rougher side of life with the theatre group, and he's seen the ordinary life. Maybe his life is still pretty ordinary everyday life - kids, taking them to school, going to the supermarket, what have you. Considering that he's been through all that, maybe that's what makes him so humble. (Yes, even his ordinariness makes me put him on a pedestal, I am hopeless.)

About the threesome bed scenes:

Tricia is beautiful, Lucy Lawless is beautiful and I'm not! What I mean to say is that when we were there lying in bed, it's just a shot (snaps his fingers) and then it's: "Get up, get out."

Yes you are beautiful! Oh James, always so self-deprecating. It's interesting that he doesn't seem to find those scenes that sexy. As a viewer, like he says, you're always imagining more to it than they're showing. I know I've thought of it several times.

I'm trying to not quote the whole thing, but I found this really interesting:

Every other day you'd finish and there was this thing and I'm like: "Oh my God. I'm covered in blood and grime and shit and tears. I've got a headache, my head hurts from those cigarettes we had to smoke, which had some really strong tobacco -- they were nauseous things." So I was like: "Yeah, I'm on Battlestar Galactica."

It sounds like it was a really tough experience on all levels. The reality of it all really came through, I think, and he played it for real, so I'm not surprised it was hard to do it.

(Also, he mentions smoking, which I'm kind of obsessed with since I kinda took up smoking and am trying to quit. Mm, smoking. I wonder how strong the cigarettes were, doesn't he chain smoke anyway?)

It's always a surprise that they had so much fun on set, after all that. He mentions telling Lucy that her body double had a spot on her butt, which made her give up the body double. Hee!

Most importantly of all - why didn't Baltar notice Six's glowing spine when they had sex?

(laughing) I just don't know about that myself. I imagine on some level in the relationship that she was always on top. That's about all I'll say.

Hee! :D Yeah, on more than one level, probably. You know, I've seen a lot of interviews and this hasn't come up before, surprisingly.

("on some level" count: 6. He also says "at an early age" twice and "a really young age" once.)

Also - he doesn't plan on appearing in Law&Order UK. I'm a bit disappointed, it doesn't seem like a half bad show, and Jamie's on it. But I'm glad he feels like I do: that it's hard to find roles that... oh sod it, I'm quoting again.

Then you read other stuff and it doesn't come anywhere close to the moral complexity, ambiguity, tarnished nature of the human soul. So it's hard finding things that for me have the integrity that this show had. I think that will be a problem for everybody who was involved in Battlestar Galactica essentially.

It's like that for the viewers as well, I think. I hope he can find something that lives up to Gaius Baltar, but I might forever compare his every role to that. It's great he was involved in that, but it's also a disappointment to see him in a role that isn't as demanding or giving to the audience.

Random Googlebits, Part Sept

I was going to get this done when it was still SEPTember, hah hah, but now that joke is not only unfunny but also untrue... I'm still saying it though, because I think James would appreciate the pun.

Random James-related links is leading the poll, and I freaked out for a moment thinking I'd linked to everything I can find, but browsing through the previous random googlebits posts, I've spared some. Whew. There may be a time when I run out, but there's still plenty of material for this.

Some lovely James pictures, mostly from the 2006 Comic Con - we've got beard, cap (not the "evil" cap) and James and Aaron being very chummy once again! I thought for a moment he was wearing some kind of cape here, but then I realized it's a long-sleeved shirt thrown over a t-shirt. It must be the Jesus beard that led me to thinking he looks like a cult leader. :D

Beach Blanket Battlestar - apparently someone went to the beach while BSG were filming there, and they got to meet some of the actors, including James. Not that many details, but there's a cute little side picture where you can see James smiling.

An interview with James and Bear McCreary at the BSG concert in April 2008 here. James is very excited about the music on BSG - and the interviewer is very excited about James, so much so that he included a couple of audio clips.

I’ve been acting…professionally at least, for…twelve years, or something like that. I’ve never felt more proud about being involved with this show. It does so many things. It says so much. The caliber of performance, writing, production value, graphics, the music, it’s almost more than the sum of all of its parts. I’m also very proud to be part of something which is in popular culture but is also a cautionary tale. We are looking at a very similar society to our own who have already screwed it up for themselves. There are lessons you can learn from this. It’s quite didactic!

Nobody can take that away from us. We’ve been involved in this superb phenomenon.

Well, that's him praising BSG once again, not him praising the music, but read more in the link. I love hearing him say how much he loves BSG - it almost sounds like he's one of us fans marveling at the show.

A lovely review of said concert, including two mentions of James, here.

Towards the end, during the encore, we noticed him standing on this balcony and completely rocking out and clapping like a fangirl to the music. It was fantastic. And he SANG. He played this song he wrote on the keyboard (the band played as well) and sang this song called "Spooky". I'm pretty sure Michelle recorded it, so it'll be up at some point. James compared playing for Bear as the guy who invented Chopsticks playing for Beethoven. It was brilliant, I don't remember the last time I've laughed so hard.

We told him where we were all from (England, Texas, Louisiana, and Australia) an he just stares at us and says "Fuck." Hee! He was very sweet, took a picture with all of us. When the camera was about to go off he says "This is Baltar's dream come true!"

A TV Squad reporter met James at a party and James knew who they are:

I said, "oh, you've read us then?" and he replied with: "Yes yes. I own a ... what do you call it ... ah yes, a computer." To that I could only laugh and say, "Touché, sir. Touché."

And a picture from the same event here. I must admit I'm not a huge fan of the hair gel. Let your hair run wild and free, James!

Others mentioning James...

I haven't done a lot of this yet, so let's get in some other people's mentions of James. Firstly, from a recent Tricia and Katee interview, this was a lot of fun. You can listen to the audio here. It's also transcribed here by Elizabeth White, so I'm just going to quote conveniently.

Firstly, some James love from Katee. The question was what they envied about each other's characters:

I was always envious of that and I think that working with James — I never got to work with James but I think once or twice. And he’s just absolutely amazing so…and I never had you know, but maybe fifteen, twenty scenes with him like the whole entire series. Not a lot.

Awww! I must admit I envy Tricia for that reason too. It's nice to see this for a change, after reading umpteen times how lucky James was to work with Tricia. I mean, Tricia is beautiful and awesome, but James is pretty awesome himself, so let's admit that Tricia was lucky too, shall we?

Q: If you could choose just ONE former BSG castmate to be stranded on an island with, who would you choose and why?
- Cainsrazor

For giggles, they'd pick each other, but for procreation? "The young studs" - James is mentioned by Tricia, and Katee seems to agree, so thumbs up - but which one? Who could survive in the wild..?

Katee: Trucco and Tahmoh. Yeah.

Tricia: Yeah.

Katee: None of the English boys…[laughing]

Tricia: None of the English boys…[laughing]

Katee: They’d be like…[in an English accent] “You want me to do what?”

Tricia: [in an English accent] “What is that?”

Katee: [in an English accent] “You want me to build you a fire? I can’t build a fire. [laughing] Bring out that thing you call — what do you call that? Like a zippo.”

[both laughing]

Tricia: We’re making fun of James [Callis] and Jamie [Bamber]. We love them…

Katee: We do love them but I don’t think — I’ve seen Trucco actually like fix a motorcycle, so I think I’d pick him.

:D :D :D Heee! I can just see James not making it in the wild. (How long before he'd freak out over the lack of cigarettes? An hour or two?) But if you needed a professor to keep you civilized - or a class clown to keep you entertained - he might be your pick. (I always talk like I actually know him, so I feel compelled to mention that I don't.)

Here's something from 2007: a lovely Q&A with Tricia, where someone asks about James, and she praises him:

¨James is... I adore James. He's one of the most talented, funniest guys I've ever met. He's very self-deprecating, he's very... he's very well read. It's funny cos half the time I have to ask him "What's that, James? What does that word mean, James?" He has a vocabulary that is way beyond my scope of English. But um.. he's just lovely. He's a very good actor, and I've been fortunate to be able to work off of him. I'm sure he has brought out better work from myself than would maybe just acting on my own. He's a bit of a klutz. He's the kind of guy that will get out of the van, on the way his hat will fall off, and while picking his hat, his backpack will fall off and hit him on the head. He'll trip over anything and... but he's very passionate, very focused on his work and.. he's wonderful.

He's got two cute little boys. One, he knows me, Joshua. And when he sees me on screen, he'll be like, "Tisha! Tisha!" but he has yet, in four years, to smile at me when I meet him in person. He looks at me like this, he goes, [frown] I'm sure he doesn't watch all of it, but he knows enough and he knows something... "My dad's with you but my mom's there... You know what, I don't like you!" But James is lovely."

Joshua sounds just adorable! And so does James. If you want to see him be a klutz, see the third season gag reel with him trying to get into a plane and hitting his head on the door. He's wearing a helmet so nothing happens, but it's.. heee. :D

Tricia and Lucy Lawless discuss James/Baltar here. I have some trouble hearing what they're saying, but they describe him as a "good soul", kind and generous. (L)!

I do wonder, though, why every time Lucy mentions James, it turns into the "Lucy sees James' penis" story. Tricia actually brings it up here. If you haven't seen it yet, it's in the third season gag reel - the scene, not the penis - and I think it's noteworthy that Lucy chokes up at the words "how long". It's at about 7:50, but my favorite bit has to be at 7:40 where James is lying naked on the baseship sofa and talking to the people on set: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the show! Tonight on Baltar's Basestar, we've got some fascinating people joining us." I wish the gag reels had more James in them.

That's about it for now. I'll save more for later.

Movie Ideas For James...

Now that James is done with BSG, he's free to do just anything, and I have a few good ideas on how he can spend the rest of his career! These movies will surely make him the shiniest star in Hollywood or wherever. I have another idea which is a bit longer, so I'll make another post about it later.

Farmyard Follies - Depressed Dorset dairy farmer Willy Kunkel (James Callis) suffers from women troubles, money problems, cow ennui and unbearable ear itches*. He finds new meaning for his life when he expands his barn and gets sheep, pigs and geese as well as cows. The mysteriously sexy and likeable vet Emily Estrogen (Tricia Helfer) helps matters considerably. But just as things are turning around for Willy, his alcoholic uncle (Michael Hogan) and fussy aunt (Mary McDonnell) decide to come for a visit - that lasts the entire summer. How will the animals get their revenge..?

*= I love James' ears and this would allow for lots of dramatic and non-gratuitous ear closeups!

He's Having My Baby - Timmy Twat (James Callis) is an ordinary guy - except for one little detail: he is pregnant*. How will he explain this to his kind and incredibly sexy girlfriend Lucy (Lawless)? Before he can tell her the news, she has news of her own - she's pregnant too! How will they handle the pressure of twins and two simultaneous pregnancies?! Hilarities ensue as their doctor (Robin Williams) turns out to be a complete buffoon. From Russia*.

* = You can say what you want but this is NOT a rip-off, Junior attempted to explain away the male pregnancy in a scientific way but this time there'll be no explanation, he's just pregnant and no one questions how/why... Basically it'd be hilarious to have a fake belly on James, so this will work well.

*= You can say what you want but this is NOT a rip-off of Nine Months. You can have more than one Russian buffoon gynecologist, right?

The Chest Hair of Justice - the Honorable Conrad Conscience (James Callis) always knows how to rule - until his ample chest hair starts to behave in a very strange way indeed! Sometimes, when he acquits a criminal, the hair stands on end, piercing through the cape. And each time, the criminal ends up breaking the law again. When a mysteriously sexy and likeable young woman (Tricia Helfer) is tried for murder, Conrad really wants to acquit her - but his chest hair suddenly stands on end (as do some other, unmentionable body parts). Who will he listen to - his conscience, his chest hair, or some other body parts?

The Man With No Cheeks - Jimmy Jerkoff (James Callis) is a normal guy, except for one little detail: he has no identifiable cheeks. His chubbier-than-thou friends mock him, so he goes on a bet that he can gain half a cheek per week eating nothing but enormous burger meals.* Jimmy fails to gain weight and is depressed, but he's rescued by the owner of the burger place, a mysteriously sexy and kind woman (Mary McDonnell). As they get married, it turns out she's the richest woman in the world and thus Jimmy has something better than cheeks: money.

* = Say whatever you want, but this is not a rip-off of Super Size Me because it's not a documentary.

These are just some ideas - there's more where that came from! The best part is, I'm not greedy. I'd happily sell any of these ideas for only $ 5,000 - and write a full script for any of them for only $ 10,000! Anything to further James' career.

Thoughts on Season 2.5 Deleted Scenes

My DVDs - which are very random on the extras anyway - don't have any of the season 2 deleted scenes past Flight of the Phoenix. Tonight I saw the missing ones. I'm deeply touched by the Gaius/Gina scenes. I'm just crying over here.

It's amazing that James and Tricia really get to play four different couples on the show: Gaius-Caprica, Gaius-HeadSix, Gaius-Gina and Caprica-HeadBaltar. Each relationship is different and brings new nuances out of the characters and actors. They were good from the start, but as the seasons go on, their cooperation becomes impeccable. They react off each other in such a seamless way. I'm constantly in awe as I rewatch their scenes.

They absolutely should have kept the plot where Gaius and D'Anna conspire together to smuggle Hera out of Galactica. In the aired version of Downloaded, Gaius really does almost nothing - he feebly tells them to not airlock the baby, but is that really all? He should do more.



I love that they show D'Anna more, too. Any scene with Lucy Lawless is a good scene, and it makes sense for D'Anna to want to save Hera. The scene where she's told Hera died: awesome. Also: Gina interacting with another cylon and protesting to Hera's name - "Just call her thirteen" - also awesome. Gina looks much more comfortable with D'Anna than she ever does with Gaius, and D'Anna seems sisterly and completely natural towards her.




After seeing Razor, I almost wonder if there's something more than sisterly feelings going on here, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

The scene where Gaius and Gina discuss Hera is important, because it gives space for their reactions to each other and the difference between Gina and HeadSix. Gaius obviously thinks they're one and the same, even asking Gina if she didn't say that Hera has a destiny and they should protect her. Gina looks at him like he's nuts. (Which he might or might not be.)



Suddenly, HeadSix appears to tell him Gina's damaged beyond repair - obvious jealousy from her, once again. It's sort of confusing even for the viewer to see Gina and HeadSix in the same scene. It confuses me more than seeing HeadSix vs. some soulless Six copy, which is weird because I know these two are not the same at all. Maybe it's just that I see them through the eyes of Gaius?


Why did they cut all of this? I think they should have made Downloaded a two-parter, with just cylons and Gaius, Gaius and cylons. That would have been perfect.

I've always read the scene where Gaius cries over the Cloud Nine explosion as the ultimate moment of guilt. Maybe I misread it, because the deleted scenes have Gaius and Adama intercut with Gina putting clothes on a crying Gaius - their goodbye. Is his heart broken? Is he capable of feeling love? It makes him way more relatable and likeable, and it really makes me feel for him. In a way, it's just his selfishness that's hurt him, because he doesn't realize that Gina is way too broken to have a relationship at this point, and he doesn't even seem to consider that Gina might - gasp! - not love him. But he's Gaius and that's his way of thinking, and I'm always inclined to feel empathy for him, because he doesn't know of another way to be.



Like Head Six often does, Gina seems to act maternal with Baltar. He just sits there like a child, helplessly, as Gina buttons up his shirt. Later, she puts his tie on as he looks away in tears.



The way the scene is edited, cutting back to Gaius and Gina in little moments, his eyes full of tears both in the flashback and in the present, is beautiful. The music is beautiful. James' subtle acting is beautiful. I can't believe they cut it.


...Not to mention Tricia's subtle acting. I was so surprised to learn that she hadn't had many roles and was brought in as a newcomer, because she really delivers. When I watch the Miniseries now, I can see she's gotten a lot better though. You can see her development in the subtlety of her facial expressions. She can express more now with just a look. I love her.

Non-James-related note: WHY did they cut the scene where Laura tells Hera, "Thank you for saving my life"? I would have liked Laura a lot more in that episode if they'd aired that. She came off as heartless, taking the baby away from her parents and not even appreciating that her life had been saved by Hera's blood. It should be a crime to cut scenes like this, and it wasn't even long. It's like they've gone out of their way to make Laura less relatable and more tyrant-like, and I'm mad. She's a great character. Mary McDonnell is a great actor, and she should be given more emotion. Look at her in The Hub, that was really something.

Non-James-related-note2: I think Katee Sackhoff is brilliant and I hope to see some of her other stuff in the future. I don't always like Starbuck, and at first I thought Katee wasn't that good. But after seeing the heavier stuff as well as the drunken slurring and giggling - it's always spot on, spot on, spot on, whatever the scene requires. I'm eager to see where they're taking Starbuck's character, too.

Other scenes they should have kept:
-Cally and Chief talking after he's attacked her. Cally plays a prank on him to break the ice. It's a great, natural moment. It makes their marriage seem a little less out of the blue.

-Lee and Dee scenes - several of them. See above; their marriage really came as a surprise to me, and if they'd aired at least a couple of short scenes with them, I might have seen it as less of a sudden plot twist and more of a story they built up over time.

The screenshots are by me, with editing help from my girlfriend.