Original is here.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Battlestar Galactica's Katee "Starbuck" Sackhoff and Grace "Boomer/Sharon/Athena/Number Eight" Park when they were in Toronto doing press for tomorrow's premiere of the fourth and (sob) final season of Battlestar Galactica on sci-fi network Space.
Since this is a tech and video games blog, here's my contractual obligation fulfillment: Battlestar Galactica Season 3 is out now on Universal Home Entertainment DVD (and HD DVD, if you can find it, and if you'd actually want it on the now-obsolete format), and Sierra Online is offering a one-day, half-price sale on their kinda crappy Xbox Live Arcade Battlestar Galactica game this Saturday (a cost of 400 Microsoft points versus the usual 800, but only for a 24-hour period.)
Oh, and Sackhoff and Park have both done video game acting. Park played Lieut. Sandra Telfair in the live-action cinematics for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (along with BSG co-star and fellow Canuck Tricia Helfer), and Sackhoff provided the voice of one of the soldiers who fight alongside Master Chief in Halo 3: "They just wanted me to come in and have fun and start yelling like a marine," she says. So she did.
Mainly, though, I was just in Battlestar geek paradise for having a chance to meet the two of them. Especially since it was the end of a couple of long days of interviews and they were getting a little loopy, taking the piss out of each other at every opportunity. Although Sackhoff was doing most of the piss-taking.
Like when Park was making a point about Battlestar's real-world political parallels, using Starbuck and Apollo as examples of... something. Except her train of thought completely derailed in mid-sentence, causing her much distress.
"I felt it. It was a smart moment," said Sackhoff, unable to resist taking a poke. "I heard it come out of your mouth, even though it didn't, and I was like, 'Oh my God, that's the smartest person I've ever met.' " Park dissolved in laughter but still promised to come back to her point later.
She never did, but we did get off on a great tangent about Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, one of the few reality shows that is actually a) real, and b) doesn't make you want to poke out your eyes and perforate your eardrums with a sharpened chopstick. It's wickedly compelling TV.
Sackhoff, also a fan, gushed about the show: "How bad do you want to go to Alaska and just be on a boat for... a day. And be, like, life-flighted out by a helicopter."
Park: "Wait, they catch king crab? That's what the show is about?"
Sackhoff: "It's like Finding Nemo meets The Perfect Storm."
Me: "What? How do you get Finding Nemo out of that?"
Sackhoff: "I was trying to think of anything with crustaceans."
After the laughter over that gem subsided, we explained to Park that the show is called Deadliest Catch because the job itself is very dangerous, not because the crabs, you know, attack the fishermen and stuff. (Still, I'm with Penny Arcade in thinking the upcoming video game version of Deadliest Catch would be pretty cool if that's exactly what happened.)
Crabs can be aggressive little creatures though, at least according to Sackhoff. She recounted an incident in which an angry crab latched onto her brother's finger and wouldn't let go no matter how hard he shook it. His solution? Pull an Ozzy.
"My brother grabs the effin' crab and he bites its head. And it let go," she said. "True story, I shit you not. It was awesome."