Giving 'Battlestar Galactica' A Female Perspective

Having the threat of a bad guy showing up any minute can be a welcome distraction to life's problems. But when those threats are removed, even for a short time, it doesn't take long to remember that there are some aspects of life that really suck.

The absence of the Cylons from the mid-part of "Battlestar Galactica's" Season 3 did just that, allowing writers such as Jane Espenson and Anne Cofell Saunders to explore some of the internal issues churning among the people in the ragtag fleet. Class disenfrachisement was the topic of the day with the pair's most recent episode, "Dirty Hands," which featured Chief Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) trying to fight for the little guy.

"I wasn't in on the planning of Season 3 or the [episodes] preceding it for that matter, so I can't really comment on the timing of it other than to say that things like class struggles are typically set aside in the face of outside threats (like Cylons), so it makes perfect sense to me that something like that would lie dormant until a period of relative peace," Espenson recently told SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman. "When the outside threat goes away, everyone remembers that all those old resentments are still around."

"Dirty Hands" was the second episode Espenson -- a former co-executive producer with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- wrote for BSG following last year's popular "The Passage." Her work has impressed the powers to be on the show -- executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick -- so much that Espenson said she will be working on the show full time in the fourth season.

Saunders, who has served as story editor this season while penning two episodes, said "Dirty Hands" was a chance to feature Douglas, who doesn't always get a chance to showcase his talent.

"All of us were excited to do a Tyrol episode ... Aaron Douglas is an amazing actor," Saunders told SyFy Portal. "When the Cylons and humans are kicking the crap out of each other, nobody on deck -- or on the tylium ship -- has time to think about social justice. It's only during the lulls in the fighting where characters have time to count the costs."

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