RONALD MOORE, Battlestar Galactica Executive Producer

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Okay, Ron, what was with including Bob Dylan's ''All Along The Watchtower'' in the finale?
RONALD MOORE: I had always had this idea of using that particular song in the show as a marker that there were other things going on here. There was this idea developed early in the series, that one of the Colonial scriptures says, ''All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again,'' that certain elements and situations and even people repeat in a cycle of destruction and rebirth and exodus and chase, etc. One of the ideas I wanted to play was, okay, if you found a song that we, the audience, recognize, you realize that you have a connection to this world too, and suddenly other pieces start to fit. Well, why do they wear suits and ties? Why do they look so much like us? What is the connection between them and us? It would put in stark relief the idea that there is a connection between the people on Galatica and our experience on Earth.

Are you curious about the fan reaction to who four of the final five Cylons are?
I'm sure it will be a shock. There will be strong feelings pro and con, much like there was at the end of the last season when we jumped ahead a year in the story line. When we did that, you thought the world might come to an end. People were freaking out, that it was a huge mistake and how could they possibly do this and the show's over! And other people thought it was this amazing thing. I'm sure this [finale's developments] will have the same effect. There will be precious few people in the middle who don't care.

When did you break it to the actors that they were going to be Cylons?
Pretty late in the game. Not literally when we shot it, but pretty late in the season.

I'm thinking especially of Michael Hogan, who plays Colonel Tigh — he was, for me, the most surprising choice, and certainly the most ironic.
Michael's very low-key. Michael went [nonchalantly] ''Wow. Okay. Very shocking. Shocking stuff.'' [Chuckles] He talked about it a little bit, wanted to understand it, but he liked it from the get-go and was very, very supportive of it. They all were pretty intrigued by it. I think Aaron [Douglas, who plays Chief Galen Tyrol] was the most hesitant. ''Are you sure? I want to make sure we're not losing something.'' I had to talk with Aaron a little bit longer than the others.

It's interesting that Aaron was the one who was the most hesitant, because his character has spent the most time on the series wrestling with the idea that he actually is a Cylon.
His chief objection — no pun intended — was that he's the common man in a lot of ways, the blue-collar guy, the salt-of-the-Earth character. And he was concerned that we would turn him into a master villain or something. I said, ''No, no, no, you are still going to be Tyrol.'' He doesn't even know why he's a Cylon, or what it means. It's a process of discovery for him, and trying to figure out what it means for him as a character. As it is for all four of them.

Well, they'll definitely have more time to figure that out now that the Sci Fi Channel has expanded your episode order from 13 to 22 hours. Were you planning on a 13-episode season?
I had sort of planned it in terms of 22, but the story-breaking process being what it is, we'd only broken up to episode 8, so we really hadn't had to face the reality of whether it was going to be 13 or 22 yet.

How do you feel having that many episodes worked for the third season? There was some fan grumbling that some of the more stand-alone episodes in the second half of the season weren't quite as up to Battlestar's high standards.
Yeah, I thought that was a valid criticism, and I think ultimately that provides the answer for the show about how much serialized [episodes we do] versus non-serialized. I don't know that it was a direct result of there being 20 episodes instead of 13, but certainly having a longer order, we said, okay, maybe there's a few here that are more stand-alone and are more accessible to people who aren't following the story as [closely]. There were a couple of good ones in those stand-alones, but by and large I'd say our serialized storytelling is more successful.

So is that what you're aiming for with your fourth season?
It will be a serialized show to an extent. I think what we talked about with the network — because their concern is the drop-off in viewers and giving too many hurdles for new viewers to overcome to watch the show — we're always going to try to provide at least an episodic quality to each show. Even though there are plotlines that are ongoing over the course of the whole season, we'll try to give you something in each episode that you can hold on to that starts and stops within that episode.

Within that Sci Fi Channel order is a two-hour Battlestar Pegasus movie, about the second Battlestar ship that survived the first Cylon attack and was destroyed at the beginning of season 3. I gather the movie is going to be about what happened to the ship before it found the Galactica. How are you going to approach that?
We'll try to reassemble most of the Pegasus cast. The whole notion of doing this came from [Universal's] home video [department] wanting to have a DVD release. We were intrigued by it, and then the [Sci Fi] Network was in favor of it because then they could put something of Galatica on the air in the fall even though the fourth season won't really kick off until January.

We started talking about something that would have taken place in Galactica's past, and certainly the Pegasus episodes were the most popular and some of our favorites internally. We realized there was an opportunity to not only satisfy the desire to do more with Pegasus and her crew, but also that we could set up certain things into the fourth season. You watch this episode that took place in the past, and then when you've gotten to the fourth season, you would realize that there actually was a payoff to some of those events.

So the Pegasus movie will air in the fall then?
Yeah. I don't think they've given a date, but sometime in the fall.

What's the status of that Caprica spin-off?
It's on the shelf over at Sci Fi. I don't think they're picking it up right now. They've talked about doing a similar back-door situation like they did with Galactica, where maybe they do a two-hour [movie] that's also a direct-to-DVD thing that serves as a backdoor pilot. But, personally, the longer they don't pick it up, I think the less are the odds that they will.

Finally, how much can you tell me about Starbuck? Is she alive? Is she just in Apollo's head?
I can tell you very little about that. I mean, I have an answer, but letting the audience wonder just what the hell she is, is one of the better things to leave hanging for next year.

At least this means Katee Sackhoff, who plays Starbuck, isn't leaving the show, right?
She's going to be back.

There's an implication, certainly, that if someone we thought dead has reappeared — and if Starbuck's supposed to have this grand destiny — that she would be the final Cylon.
There is certainly that implication. [Laughs]

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