Jamie Bamber, what's your impression of season three so far?

I think the first two episodes in season three are probably the best we've ever done. You see a civilization trying to form itself on a hostile planet. And then the Cylons come back—and there are so many political overtones to the occupation.

Is this the year that Lee comes to terms with his destiny as a leader?

It's like any kind of royalty syndrome, say Prince Charles with the queen, to get to the job you're born to do. He resisted it with all his brains, and for many years he didn't want anything to do with the military. But fundamentally, it's what he is good at and what he was meant to do. It's a logical progression that he should command the fleet—but that's what his father is doing. Which is an awkward place for an ambitious, vigorous young lad. The problem for [the Colonials] on every level—but especially the young people—is, where do you go? Where's your ambition? There's not much of a life to live. The two men have gone from very much a dysfunctional father-son, an adolescent son at that, to being equals. He's become a commander; his dad is an admiral, but they are each commanding a battlestar. They respect and love each other, and they've got to come together; this is the closest they've ever been, but they still have their differences ... they don't communicate very well. It's been an interesting relationship to play.

How much interaction is there between yourself and the producers with respect to your character?

They are very open. We're quite a constructive team. Our producers listen to us when we have issues. It's really creative working environment. This last year, in particular, they've been very open to me having ideas and suggestions. I really credit them for that. I'll send them an e-mail with thoughts not just about my character, but about the way the script functions and the way the character functions within the story. The episode we're shooting right now is case in point: I had a specific thought about what the B story has to do with my character. I couldn't make sense of the original B story, and then they came up with something and they improved on [what we had]. [Lee's] been a character that we've all had problems with, because he is a moral touchstone within the show, and how do you make that moral touchstone a bit more problematic and interesting, without him being sanctimonious? We have struggled with that at times, and I've been a bit frustrated; but every time I've voiced my frustration, [the producers and I have] worked through it and come out with some pretty interesting ideas, and great scripts.

Do you have a sense of where Lee and Starbuck's relationship is headed?

It's always been screwed up; it's always been that way. There's a dead brother between them, so there's a sibling rivalry there, too. There's a professional rivalry in that they're both pilots, and they're both battling for the same pre-eminence in the fleet. And now, in the beginning of season three, they're both married to different people, and yet there's still this attraction between them. The difference this year is that they actually deal with it explicitly, rather than implicitly through all sorts of little games and tricks, punching each other and whatever they've done in the past. This year they have to engage, in terms of what they feel about one another, and that leaves them much more screwed up, complicated, dark and difficult. From my side of things, that's what's been interesting this year—Kara, that relationship, and the problems that causes within their marriages, and when they're trying to do their jobs. [The show is] a soap opera in the finest sense, in the sense that Hamlet's a soap opera as well; it's about relationships, about mothers and fathers and daughters and wives. It's not all conceptual, sci-fi techno-jargon.