Ronald D. Moore was one of the few things, in my opinion holding the Star Trek franchise back from the darkness of Berman and Braga. He might not appreciate the comment, since he never really publicly broke ranks with those gentlemen, but I still think it.

His credits, just on those shows, are deep. He wrote many of the landmark episodes of "The Next Generation", including "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the finale, "All Good Things ...". He had arguably even more to do with the darkest and most satisfying modern Trek, "Deep Space Nine". He bounced around with a lot of producer-like titles between shows in the franchise, as well as "co-" type jobs on other shows like "Roswell" and "G vs. E", but didn't strike truly out on his own until "Carnivale", and then later this show.

He is not to be confused with Ronald B. Moore, who has worked on both "Voyager" and "Enterprise" as visual effects supervisor.

I think Moore is a guy who has a real writer's regard for drama, and doesn't lean on cheese. A real rarity in the sci-fi TV genre. It may sound like a line from a porn movie, but he likes it dark, and he likes it deep. It seems to me that this show has his stamp pretty deeply on it, and there should be lots to discuss relative to him. We could also do a version of the "Dear Ron" thing here as well if we think two seperate topics would be too much.

Thought ON Mr. Moore or thoughts FOR him? Fire away.

Well, I'd say it's a fairly public break. There's a compilation of a few different interviews with Moore here; it's long and all about Trek-stuff, but people who are only interested in BG may find the very last paragraph interesting since he talks about what was wrong with Voyager, which obviously had a similar premise in some ways.

But two things: I will ask that we not do the "Dear Ron" thing, though, because even at its best, that format just hits a nerve for me. And please remember that the subject here is Galactica, so if you want to argue about Trek issues, that's gotta be keckler's problem to deal with. Heh.

Well I think it has to be remembered that without Voyager, BSG'03 wouldn't be as good as it is.

It's clear Moore's brooded on the notion of treating the Voyager concept (different factions trapped on a ship together while making a long, maybe endless, voyage with limited resources) seriously.

That's an old interview but the points he makes in the last paragraph are hammered home repeatedly in the first season. I mean look at the remark about Voyager shuttles with this exchange* from later in the season:

BALTAR: Hadn't you better launch the reserve?

TIGH: Reserve?

BALTAR: The reserve! The reserve squadrons!

TIGH: Everything's already in play, Doctor. That's all that's left.

*I've spoiler tagged it to be safe, but I don't think it really spoils anything without context to go with it.

It's actually pretty interesting reading.

I was one of the skeptics about the "re-imagining" of BSG, but it just totally rocks. And I think it's a lot of built up thought in Moore's head.

The Cylon's religion vs. Bajor's religion
BSG's limited resources vs. Voyager's episodic reset button
Both travelling through unknown space.
Gaius Baltar vs. Julian Bashir ;-)

Too bad Trek lost him. DS-9 and Voyager could have been much better. But all those pent-up desires have really come to fruition for us here at BSG.

Go Ron!

I too was skeptical about the new BSG, but liked it enough to buy the DVD of the pilot. There are some interviews with Ron Moore in the preview feature that aired before the miniseries, and was also included on the DVD. I like his take on the story.

And Benito I'm still chuckling over the thread title.

DS9 had his stamp all over it. That's why it was the best Trek show, in my opinion, by far. It wasn't afraid to be different from Roddenberry's cheeseball older ideas, and it wasn't (usually) formulaic stupidity, like most of what Berman & Co. insisted on otherwise.

I'm glad for Strega's clarification on Moore's position relative to the Trek franchise, because all I'd really known was that at the time he'd refused to say very much.

I hope Galactica is a huge success, so that Bermanga have some visible proof that Moore was always smarter than them. Carnivale, as excellent as it is, hasn't had major public exposure.

I will say this. If a "Trekian reset" button of ANY type ever appears near this show, it would be the day I turn on it. No time travel. No alternate universes. No subspace blah blah blah main deflector dish blah blah blah reverse polarity bullshit either.

I'm right there with you. I'll put up with that from shows of lesser quality (yes, I'm lookin' at you Star Trek), but not from this one.

Thing is, I don't think it's likely to happen anyway. There was this quote from Edward James Olmos that I read (or heard) somewhere in regards to his "creative control" over the Adama character. Paraphrased, it was something like: The first time we run into a three-eyed alien is the show where Adama dies. I'm in it for the quality.

Horrible paraphrase, but that's the gist.

Brat.

I've read an article by Moore where he says that there won't be time travel or doubles or any of the usual sci fi cliches. He said that this is a drama, just set against sci fi.

Which, when you think about it, is the way to go. Sci fi fans are usually pretty adept at seeing through bullshit. We think about the internal logic of a show and if something doesn't mesh up (see, Spike, soul) we call it as we see it.

If Moore can stick to his guns and not let NetExecs get their claws into the show, I think this has the potential to be one of the best sci fi series ever.

There's an interview in SFX with the two Brit Jamies (Apollo and Baltar) that -apart from being accompanied by a hilarious photo of one reading The Times while the other smirks at page three of The Sun - has them both reaffirm that they "absolutely" believe Olmos would walk if Reset Buttons, aliens, time travel gimmick eps and the like started to show up.

Heh. Yet we fans keep coming back for more of that kind of gimmick on a dozen different shows - again and again! Ah well. That's what makes us fans...

Wacky. I just learned that Moore not only does BG, he produced the first season of Carnivale, as well as writing one of the eps. That's crazy. He's clearly not doing that any more, but it's interesting to see similarities - the fully-fleshed out backstory of the world without overt explanation, the use of very specific detail on almost everything, the same kind of feeling that something is coming....

Sadly, not as many breasts, but oh well.

Mr. Moore, please protect us from those viruses or other contaminants that spur our heroes to act silly/evil/ultrasexxxay!/stupid/hallucinatory, or turn them into insects or cavemen!

And if our heroes must encounter aliens, please let them be wholly alien and not simply humanoid with funny foreheads and questionable dental hygiene!

I really liked a lot of Ron Moore's work over the past few years. However, it's not completely fair to say that Berman and Braga are total shite. After all, Braga was Moore's writing partner throughout Next Generation and the first two TNG movies.

At the same time, I preferred DS9 a lot more than whatever Braga did on Voyager. I think Moore caught on to the fact that sci-fi and TV drama was changing faster than Bermanaga did. We can now see Enterprise change tones and I think it's a better series for it.

I'm a ST:TNG and DS9 fan myself. My point is that the Trek universe has become very crowded over the years and has also stomped some plots and sundry devices and variations to death. In effect, the franchise has become so bloated that it's cannibalizing itself and I'd rather that trend not bleed over to a show that exhibits the promise of being new and different. When I speak harshly of Trek, it should be viewed in the light of someone who's life-long friend has chosen an unfortunate lifestyle. The fact that Mr. Moore had a hand in some of the best work seen in the Trek franchise gives me hope.

What also gives me some hope is what happened with his work with Pern. Basically, he'd been chasing the rights for years, got up to the point of doing a pilot for the WB, and held firm when the WB tried to change the tone by rewriting the show towards more of a Buffy/Xena thing. With only days to go the WB then cancelled production (Sci-Fi Wire, FilmForce interview). So he stands up and tries to be true to the material.

But that leads to the following, excerpted from a Cylon.org chat:

I think Mr. Moore has a particular taste for the use of symbolism and mythic imagery in the telling of a drama; but that symbolism and the like means very little unless the characters are really the driving force of the action. And I really do think that's what makes this show so deeply appealing -- we _really_ care about the characters, even the mixed-up nutty ones like Baltar. They are profoundly sympathetic. And then all of this strange mythic stuff happens to them and we can't wait to find out what happens next, all the time squeeing a little bit that our TV friends are having to bite people's ears off. And stuff. :)

Short: Moore rocks.

[carnivale]Plus he puts fetuses in jars and makes them open their eyes, so. Freaky.[/carnivale]

For me, Trek was a process of gradual ruination in steps, RobCat. TOS, which mostly ruled I saw in syndication. Then the movie came and kind of... lacked. Strike 1. The next few movies buoyed things back up and then... the boom got lowered with "The Next Generation"--which to me was a nightmarish horror in it's first season. Strike 2. However, it got gradually better (in part due to some pretty active participation by Moore), although on a parallel track the Theatrical movies got worse and worse. Strike 3--and yet they weren't yet "out". DS9 came on and gave me a heck of a lot of hope, and indeed got far better IMO than Next Gen did at even it's best point. But then... Voyager. Strike 4. And then Enterprise... Strike 5, in a row (with the Next Gen. movies largely only making things worse--although yes, Moore had a lot to do with those, so did people like Jonathan Frakes [ick]).

I think Battlestar Galactica is an acknowledgement of sorts by Moore that Science fiction neither started nor ends with Trek. Science Fiction, at best, is human drama, but it's not incestuous in that as Trek is (unless of course Richard Hatch is involved--please stop that!). Sci Fi isn't supposed to be a shorthand of cliches.

He also understand the fundamental thing that so many Trek writers seem to fail to: you can do some weird setting, with fantastical events and abilities, but in the end it comes down to compelling characters with interesting decisions. TOS wasn't good because it was set in the future; it was good (well, I didn't like it, but the parts that I liked...what a weird aside) because of primarily the interaction with the crew. TNG's best eps were largely about the interactions of the characters put into odd situations. Same goes, so far, for BG - by focusing on the characters first, and showing how they react to beyond-normal situations and events, the show is immediately compelling.

That isn't to say that the story hasn't been cool so far - it has, and it needs to get viewers hooked - but it's the characters that will keep people around and engaged. Somewhere along the line, the Trek people forgot this in favor of technobabble and lack of continuity of characters, and the show suffers for it.

Kalbear, I've had a certain debate with people for years, and very few take my side. My contention is that the original Trek show was so superior to most of TNG because it wasn't science fiction at all--it was allegory told through the funnel of a morality play. The episodes didn't have to be all that "realistic" because they were all symbolism, and it fit the times, just as a lot of what went on inside a Shakespeare play is all symbolism and not terribly realistic.

TNG stripped that away and tried to make Science Fiction out of that. But it added so much baggage--even in the first season--that it got heavy under its own weight. It tried to be BOTH things at once and failed. Instead of just rolling with the structure of an allegory--man half black and half white, man builds computer which winds up ruling him, man gets the power of a god and goes mad, etc., TNG tried SO hard to rationalize everything that it just wound up sounding like bullshit, and thus a whole new set of cliches was born. People sat around and talked stuff to death, saw too many shades of gray, and in general just babbled a whole lot.

Ron Moore's baby, DS9, was kind of a step forward and back at the same time (but back in a good sense). The set dressing and backstory were even MORE science fictiony that TNG, but the it became less about talking and more about showing again. Morality wasn't half white and half black, like on TOS, but it also wasn't the hand-wrangling million shades of indecisive gray of TNG.

I see BG as the next logical step for someone with Moore's interests, assuming that direction was intentional with his writing on DS9. BG is even MORE hard-core Sci-Fi, but is also simultaneously wastes less time on bullshit rationalizations. You either accept it or you don't. It's not a return to the simple allegorical style of Star Trek TOS, but it's also away on a different tangent from the over-rationalization of TNG.

TOS kind of showed people as Shakespearean characters. TNG showed them as futuristic talking heads. DS9 seemed to take the approach that the characters, as "personal" as we occasionally saw them, were part of some epic. BG mines that same ground, I think, completely by Moore's intent. The events are larger than life and the characters are windows into that.

Remember a few days ago, when I pointed out that there were other places to argue about Star Trek?

Heh. Um, sorry. :D

Another reason to praise RDM for BSG.

I really like his thoughtful discussions about the episodes, the show, and what he wants people to glean from it. I think RDM just turned me into a rabid fanboy.

Hey, just an incidental question: does anybody know if there are any other blogs on blog.scifi.com (BSG-related or not), and if so, where to access them? Just wondering if anybody else is making use of this over there....

Yeah, that's...badass. That is indeed one of the characteristics I really like about this show; his characters are, at their core, fundamentally and absolutely flawed. The day that Starbuck becomes a true Mary Sue is the day I walk.

Probably.

It's very odd. I really dig the amount of extra effort that Ron Moore et al are doing outside of the show to promote it and showcase it; it's like having the DVD extras in real time viewing. I like that he blogs about the show, and there is this podcast for the show, and all of it. What's odd about this is that I really don't like it for...a certain other show Strega happens to recap, and I'm not sure why. I suspect it has to do with these things truly being extra material; my knowing about RM's predilections towards torture is not particularly required for me to 'get' what the show is about, for example. Probably because I seem to be becoming a rabid fanboy as well, and I'll forgive more.

I think this is an appropriate place to put it too: while I think that moore is doing damn fine work, and without him the show would not really be all that cool, I think he's not the only reason that BSG is great. I suspect Eick is doing a good job here as well; he's the story person and a producer, he was responsible for the story arc of KLG, and he's kicking butt - as far as I can tell. I'm digging the directing of Rymer; he basically set the style in the miniseries and has continued to push that style, and I really love the news-footage type design of the shooting.

Anyway, great job guys.

Is there a TVTome or IMDB search or something that will show me which episodes of ST:TNG and DS9 Moore wrote?

ETA: Thanks, Arena. I sure wouldn't have guessed that Moore wrote most of DS9's best comedy episodes, but there it is. (Also many of the best dramatic episodes, but that's not as much of a surprise.) That bodes well for BSG.

IMDB lists everything he has written.

In the '30s, science fiction had pretty much come to a standstill in the pulps. (Bear with me, please, I have a point...) The basic varieties were 1) Slime Creatures from Outer Space, with an inexplicable hunger for scantily-clad Earth babes; 2) Talking Heads explaining how Professor Bighead's Time/Space Defibrillator would save the world from the approaching asteroid/invading aliens/evil dictator; or 3) Westerns, with six-guns turned into rayguns, and horses into rockets.

Then Mr. John D. Campbell became Editor-in-Chief of a little magazine called Astounding Stories (later to become Astounding Science Fiction, then Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact). He brought in a whole stable of new authors, guys nobody had ever heard of, with weird names like Robert Heinlein, Caleb Saunders (hee!), Isaac Asimov, and Arthur Clarke. These writers had a new sensibility - the idea that the characters in a story were at least as important as the futuristic gadgets they played with, and that maybe character interaction should drive the story more than Global Threats of Annihilation!

Still later came their intellectual offspring - guys like Harlan Ellison, Spider Robinson, and William Gibson, whose characters are the story (in Harlan's case, whose characters subsume all else in their particular universe, but we can't all write like Harlan, can we?). Robinson and Gibson, as well as folks like Niven, Varley, and Steele, maintain a background of plausible science, but the important part is still the people who move in their worlds.

The original Trek, the original Twilight Zone, the original Outer Limits - these were the equivalent of the old pulps. TNG had the Talking Heads and technobabble, while B5 and DS9 introduced the characters who outshone their technology.

Battlestar Galactica is the New Wave of TV sci-fi. Now, the tech, while still plausible, doesn't really matter - it's what happens to the people on board those little flippy ships that really grabs you.

Well said, Wolf! And excellent taste in Authors there, too.

Back during TNG days I started paying attention to who wrote and directed episodes. After awhile I became a fan who looked forward to episodes Moore wrote because they were typically top notch. When I learned he was moving to DS9 (which just came off an excellent second season IMO) I was thrilled. He and Rene Echevarria knew how to write characters while Braga was better at the sci fi space anomalies stuff. Also Moore was great at anything involving military and conflict amongst the chain of command. He was a perfect fit for DS9. During his run on the show (the last five years of DS9) I came to the conclusion that this guy was the best writer ever produced by a Trek series. His work on BSG has further cemented my belief.

Another great thing about Ronald D Moore was that he was so accessible. He and former DS9 producer/writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe (who was the driving force behind Andromeda for the first two seasons...when it didn't suck) would go online back in the mid 90s and do seperate Q&A's with the fans. Wolfe though stop participating in this after awhile but Moore kept answering the questions in his Q&A forum on a regular basis for about five years. [NOTE: the forum to aask questions could be accessed only if you had AOL but the answers were placed online for everyone to read]. It was his blog before there was even such a term and served as the precedent for what he does now for fans of BSG. What I respected was how much thought he put into his answers and how he kept coming back even when he got all the abuse from the Kira fans, Dukat groupies and those who were mad that Klingon women weren't given enough representation. For those of us who hung on his every word we simply lived for his responses and semi spoilers. You could not help being impressed with his love for Trek, his appreciation for sci fi and how he thought the franchise and the genre overall could improve. You could tell he enjoyed what he did. Much more than Braga it seemed. That's not surprising considering how fans were positive about Moore's work while generally being underwhelmed with Braga's writing on Voyager. But Moore endeared himself to the fans mostly by being available for criticism and responding maturely to even the most inane criticisms. This is in striking contrast to Braga who we on the AOL boards would later learn lurked regularly on the AOL Trek message boards and would come out of his hiding on rare occassions only to slam fans whose critiques he felt were misplaced.

There probably aren't many people who are happier for Moore's recent success than me. I used to go around on message boards calling myself the biggest Ronald Moore fan on the planet. Its a shame that Rick Berman did not listen to his advice about how to help fix the Trek franchise. When Moore joined VOY for a short time after DS9 went off the air, Berman sided with Braga and essentially stabbed Moore in the back (which led to Moore leaving the show after writing only one episode). This caused some damage in Moore and Braga's relationship that may have only recently been repaired. Regardess Moore is having the last laugh. And he'll be the first to tell you that working under Ira Steven Behr for DS9 was not only the best experience he had in his life, it also set an example for him in terms of running a show well. Behr was a great model for an executive producer in terms of how he interacted and dealt with the producers and writers. He was the anti-Berman. And Moore appears to be taking his cue for him. I wish him continue success with this show. You BSG fans are lucky to have him.

OK, so in next week's episode of Enterprise, Trip and T'Pol are supposedly the parents of the first Human/Vulcan hybrid baby (no, I don't understand how the baby is born so quickly unless the ep is set further in the future than the rest of the series). From the preview it seems the baby is the subject of some serious xenophobic angst among humans and possibly Vulcans too.

All I could think was "Bermanga is throwing the hybrid baby routine in Ron Moore's face." I know, it's hardly an original concept, quite the opposite, but the timing is at least ... amusing.

(For those of you who read the Enterprise forums, apologies for posting this in both.)

Don't know if y'all have seen it before or not, but here is a link to many of RDM's old postings from the DS9 days. If ya start at the bottom and read up, it's very interesting reading for fans of DS9 and RDM. You can see a lot of the things he tackles in these questions lay the groundwork for BSG.

Formatting is not exactly shiny, but the content is pretty good. (Though the ongoing "are we gonna see Tom Riker?" questions do get old).

Enjoy

RDM Old Posts

I remember reading Ron Moore's criticism of Voyager some time ago and every time I see an episode of Galactica, I can see where he is acting on that criticism.

What do you do when you are in this situation? President Roslin told everyone to start making babies. Capt. Janeway kept things going as a military operation -- and you know what? Adm. Cain is Capt. Janeway.

Wait, I thought Adm Cain was Ens Ro? Sorry, I'm a dork. :-)

I wasn't ever a Trekkie, but I did have a few fave eps of TNG ("Yesterday's Enterprise" being one) and really enjoyed DS9. I only found out after BSG hit the airwaves that RDM was the mastermind behind the parts of Trek that I really enjoyed. I know it's a matter of taste, but the darkness and grounded reality of DS9 was what drew me much stronger that the other series. From what I understand, Mrs Roddenberry was the force behind the Trek universe staying true to GR's "glossy" optimism, keeping her husband's vision alive, etc. Which I can respect, but it doesn't do much for a franchise if the creative minds can't take it in new directions occasionally. Even if they're wrong steps, at least they're moving. Trek's stagnation was evident for a long, long time before Enterprise finally ground to a halt.
In BSG I can definitely see a creator being let loose to run with his vision wherever it goes. Kudos to SFC for that.
Dark, dark, dark, dark. I love it.

I am in complete and excited agreement with the two above posts. You guys rock!

I have a request that you guys continue to talk about the stuff Fester's talking about here -- I mean I want you all to really weigh in, because what else is going on until January? -- since that stuff is why my "I hate science fiction" ass has seen almost every DS:9 episode, and is in fact why I'm recapping and modding for this section period, and I'd like to hear about more examples and storylines and what makes them so RDMeriffic. Specifically the RDM connections and comparisons, because I'll feel bad if I have to say "Get on topic!" after asking you guys to talk about this stuff.

Request two is that you also continue to talk about acsenray's awesome and dense point about Cain/Janeway, about whom I know little beyond a couple of 7 of 9 episodes I saw and liked because the "Hugh" episodes were the only TNG ones I ever really, truly loved, but that you talk about it over here in the Comparisons thread, because I am really, really interested in watching you guys talk about this more, and getting more input on this one. (Same disclaimer: specifically comparisons between captainships here, not delving too hardcore into off-topic minutia about the other shows to the point that your post has zero BSG content.)



And if you could do these things by starting each post with "By Your Command," I'd really appreciate it!

Where else do I have a group of people knowledgeable about not just BSG, but potentially these other shows, too, that are happy to talk about that stuff all day? Nowhere. I need more geek friends.

By your Command!