More on the deception
About midway through the "Frak party Q&A" here:
http://media.scifi.com/battlestar/do...ty_podcast.mp3
1. RDM and David Eick called Katee before the Maelstrom script was released, telling her not to freak out when she reads the part where she dies. They explained their ultimate plan for Starbuck, that she'd return at the end of the finale. RDM explicitly says that she's not really dead (I take that to mean that she's *probably* not Head-Starbuck a la Six or an hallucination by Lee).
2. They told her to be completely tight lipped about it, and not even tell the cast. This probably lead to her completely fabricating her statements in the Cort & Fatboy interview.
3. The cast "flipped out" when they found out that Starbuck was apparently being killed. Particularly EJO and Mary McDonnel. RDM describes it as a "near mutiny".
4. The studio called RDM and told him that the cast was in an uproar. To calm things down, he called EJO and Mary and told them the secret.
6. A farewell dinner party had already been planned by the cast for Katee. After finding out, EJO decided to play it up and pretend to cry at her party.
7. A fake ending few pages were written to the Crossroads script, so the rest of the cast was kept in the dark with regards to Katee's return (as well as the identity of the Cylons)
8. Starbuck's return at the end of the episode was shot
after the Season 3 wrap party.
so there it is. The whole thing was a ruse.
