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I just watched the final two hours of Battlestar Galactica. Thank you, everybody. What more can I say? Thank you. Also: all my predictions were awful.

Another one-minute actorless opening sequence in this week’s Breaking Bad. Good stuff. Eerie like last week. What is that car doing? I don’t know so far, but it’s awesome.

(An opening credit still says “Director of Photography MiChael Slovis.”)

Extended first scene with Hank, the only series regular we see for several minutes. It’s an episode written for Dean Norris, it seems.

Excellent non-speaking work by Mark Margolis (pictured). And every time you think it’s going to turn into MacGyver with chemistry, they mix it up on you. Oh, that’s what’s going on with the car. Okay … brutal … but good episode!

So, I happened to catch Battlestar Galactica: The Last Frakkin’ Special. You gotta love the name. Shows self-awareness — a sense of doing good work, but also a healthy sense of self-deprecation.

It’s one of those behind-the-scenes shows. This is good homework for the actor in me, but here are a few notes:

• It’s good to hear them talk about the influence on the show of 9/11 — not that you need to hear them say it — and grey hats versus black and white hats. (Will that reference to old westerns ever stop making sense, I can’t help but wonder.)
• Note to writers everywhere: They sold the show with making the president and also Starbuck women.
• Kudos to the SFX peeps. Those long decks … turns out they’re fake.
• Music: Bear McCreary is named Bear. That’s all you really need to know. There’s the long hair and the goatee. And all the synths. Note: Orchestral elements were forbidden initially.
• “That Saul Tigh would be one of the final five, I did not see coming. That was a total surprise,” says Michael Hogan, portrayer of Saul Tigh. “This is not a wise decision.”
• Nice to hear their cluelessness about the Fifth Cylon, how it morphed into what it became.
• “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” This is a line from Disney’s Peter Pan. Ha!
• Lucy Lawless doesn’t get BSG. She gets herself, however.
• Jamie Bamber should consider speaking in an American accent all the time. Really.

Oh. Yeah. I understand the finale has aired. I’ll get to that soon … including a summary of how wrong my predictions were.

Tonight I attended an event where students of the High School of the Recording Arts performed. Hip hop and R&B stuff. A couple of repeated themes were to get your hands in the air and swag. “Swag” — my new term of the day. Not sure I fully get it, but I think it means who you are and how you present yourself, more or less, with a predilection for your swaggering self, but just be you, man, no matter who you are. Don’t be me, be you.

It’s like blogging but with a beat: Check. Out. My. Swag.

The other story is that this is a charter school in St Paul that is getting HS degrees to kids that otherwise probably wouldn’t. Smart, capable kids. Pretty awesome, glad to have attended and to have put my hands in the air.

Right off the bat, a difference: we go from “previously on Battlestar Galactica” straight to the opening credits. I don’t recall this ever before. There’s always a cold open, usually with an intense moment leading into the opening titles. Then, the opening music normally transitions from choral to exciting percussion with flashing previews. That too is missing in “Daybreak, Part 1.” Eerie. (Eerie is a funny-looking word when it’s capitalized, ain’t it?)

We are then endowed, as it were, with knowledge of what came before. Not just going back to Caprica City before the atomic horror, but a glimpse of creation. All very religious. Then the dialog begins, and we see a very Earth-like existence. We see our life before the bomb that will come, is what the writers are saying. Business, limos, kissing, drinking, celebrating, families, cooking, swearing, dying, yelling, normal “Earth” stuff (with all the actors playing themselves five years ago) — except Laura Roslin walking into a city fountain as part of a reaction to horrible news. That’s not every-day. That’s symbolism. So back we go to the Battlestar, and its and Laura’s dismantling.

Not much else causes me to comment throughout the episode. Except when Admiral Adama says to Cara Thrace: “I know what you are. You’re my daughter, and don’t you forget it.” Wha?!?! So I looked it up: he considers her a type of surrogate daughter. Oh. Okay.

Next week, in our final episode, we plunge pell-mell into a black hole and all die. Great.

I’m reading a book that is heavily redacted. If you’re politically aware, you already have a guess as to which book it is. I know the author made the rounds on TV a couple of years ago, including The Daily Show — I remember that episode.

I’m reading this political biography because it’s being made into a movie, and I have a chance to audition for one of the roles. That’s pretty exciting (!!!), especially given the caliber of the talent and the importance of the story. So I am doing my homework.

Guess the book.

I was standing on the street this morning as the delivery guy stocked up one of those little newspaper containers ¹ on the sidewalk. I saw it was The Onion, so I grabbed a copy and found a funny thing I read therein that I just gotta share, what with me being from Boston and also familiar with Shakespeare.

There’s an article about Stephon Marbury being new to the Celtics and engaging in a “Shakespearean intrigue” with the big trio of Garnett, Pierce and Allen. Shakespearean in language more than plot. I think it’s hilarious to imagine these guys going at it in iambic pentameter. Check out the soliloquy:

“I shall of these three fools now make my purse,” Marbury was heard to say after the game, although he appeared to be addressing no one and perhaps spoke only to himself. “These stars are of a free and open nature, / And think men honest that but seem to be so, / And will as tenderly be led by the nose / As asses are.”

Just read the whole thing. Thanks again, Onion. You brighten my day frequently with your fake news. Plus, your crosswords are excellent.

I’m spending two days this week shooting. Two one-day projects, and both are projects I got without auditioning, offers from people that I auditioned for previously or that know my work from my reel. The same thing happened with one day of work in February that I failed to post here previously. Auditions lead to work, and work begets work. All bon stuff, n’est-çe pas?

Yeah, I didn’t post the previous project. I hope you know I can’t possibly put every good thing on here. You know that, don’t you?

A brief opening in B&W featuring a swimming pool … is this Sunset Boulevard? Nope. This is even more messed up than that. Season Two of Breaking Bad begins.

After this visual, “Seven Thirty-Seven” starts in earnest with a bloody scene in a junkyard that I know I’ve seen before. Why was that first part so familiar, where Tuco lays into the other guy and gets off on it? Did I see a sneak preview, or was that simply taken from the first season? Not sure, but wondering….

Now I gotta say something about the opening credits that take place during the part I’m writing about. Bryan Cranston plays a chemistry teacher, so the show’s titles are designed with element symbols. Breaking Bad Created by Vince Gilligan, for instance, uses bromine, barium and chromium. I used to love the periodic table, so it’s fun to see sodium, hydrogen and especially stuff like molybdenum and yttrium go by, squeezed into the names of actors and producers. Some elements get used more than once, with bromine showing up at least three times, but I think they should have used vanadium, too:

Q: We see a credit that says “Director of Photography MiChael Slovis.” What’s wrong with this?

A: There is no element with the symbol Ch. Vanadium — or sulfur, or iodine; any others? — would have worked for our DP, who surely deserves better! He’s not even an itinerant DP, but works on BB regularly. I’m keeping an eye on your future credits, Mr. Slovis.

I’m also keeping my eye out for Co-Producer Sam Catlin (calcium), Producer Melissa Bernstein (beryllium) and Consulting Producer John ShiBan (barium). These are three people in the biz that I hope to get to know.

The titles are not the thing, though. The thing is the story and its presentation. Thanks to Bialy / Thomas this is a well-cast show, and I liked this episode. Strong beginning to Season Two!

I have been commenting every week on this blog about episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Since it’s about to end, I’ve been thinking in the back of my mind that I should blog about some other show. Tonight it suddenly hit me: Breaking Bad is my next blog-worthy show. It stars Brian Cranston — who likes working with his pants off, according to behind-the-scenes commentary from last season. I admired Season One immensely and it’s about to start its second season on AMC tonight. (AMC is also home to Mad Men. Of course.)

If you need to, go catch up (via DVD or iTunes) on its strike-abbreviated first season, wherein a desperate high-school chemistry teacher makes high-quality crystal meth as a reaction to all the problems in his life. Immense problems ensue, of course, but I can’t wait to see what happens to these kooky characters from New Mexico. Stay tune for some Bad television. It’s sick and it rocks.