33 (Battlestar Galactica) - Production

Production

"33" was director Michael Rymer's first television episode. He accepted the job without reading the script, saying that based on his writing experience, "33" went well beyond his expectations and excited him. Bear McCreary originally composed the musical theme "Boomer Theme" for this episode; it was later expanded for use with the Athena character, before becoming the de facto "Hera Theme" for the character Hera Agathon in the fourth season episode, "Islanded in a Stream of Stars". Joel Ransom was the director of photography for the miniseries, but when Eick learned he was unavailable for the series, he turned to Stephen McNutt, with whom he had worked on American Gothic. In the interim, McNutt had moved on to shooting in high-definition video; this was fortuitous for the production team because, while Ransom had filmed the miniseries on 35 mm film, the production team was switching to high-definition video for the series.

Executive producer David Eick opined that "33" was the "silver bullet" that ultimately tipped the scales in their favor and convinced the Sci Fi Channel to pick up the series. The network's biggest concern in picking up the series was that Battlestar Galactica would fall victim to the same trappings of space opera as other television properties (Star Trek, Andromeda, Stargate). Two aspects that assuaged these concerns were specifically discussed in the episode's DVD commentary. First, "33" went into Gaius Baltar's (James Callis) mind and visited his house on Caprica (shot in Lions Bay, British Columbia); being swept away by the blue skies and beaches in his fantasy was not the sort of imagery expected of space opera-type shows. Second was going back to the devastated Caprica and following-up with Helo's (Tahmoh Penikett) story.

With sleep deprivation one of the major plot points of the episode, actor Edward James Olmos (William Adama) liaised with an expert on the subject and the crew to best depict the actual effects realistically. Following up, director Michael Rymer gave each main cast member a specific symptom to play up, so as to avoid repetition on screen. Olmos and several other cast members took their study a step further, to immerse themselves by restricting their sleep patterns to about three hours a night to emphasize what their expert was imparting.

In the episode's DVD commentary, Moore and Rymer related how there were endless discussion about the clocks to feature in this episode. Concerns over digital versus analog, size and shape, the ratio of digital to analog clocks, whether they should run forwards or backwards, and whether any labels should be stenciled or hand-drawn were all brought up. David Eick also noted that as of the commentary's recording, the clock at Felix Gaeta's (Juliani) station still had its "33" label affixed.