Reports Indicate Battlestar Galactica Series Greelinghted

[Darrin Drader]

This showed up on the scifi messageboards:

Date: 01/30/2004
From: koenigrules

Its a go. There will be a weekly series. Aaron just called me.
Apparently, Sci-Fi negotiated all the way to the deadline.
Apparently the actors' contracts only went till the 30th!
With 15 minutes to spare, Sci-Fi commited to Galactica.
Aaron's agent called him with the good news. All the actors are being contacted by their agents as we speak.
This is great news!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can wait for the Sci-Fi announcement. But I trust Aaron. Guys, this is more than a rumor. Its totally real & awesome & cool.
BSG will be there in 2004!!!
So Say We All!

This was the first new potential science fiction TV series I've been able to get behind in a long time, so hopefully the reports are true. If so, I'll be there for it as long as they can maintain a top quality production like the mini was.

 

[jdavis]

I wonder if they are doing a full season or if they are going to just do 6 episodes like the last rumor stated? I'm sure we will be getting official word shortly.

I just watched the "living legend" two parter from the Galactica DVD, it's a good as I remember it being, unfortuantly it was after this they started getting wierd. The new series wouldn't be hurt at all if they remade those two episodes. Might be a way to get some of the old fans into it too (get Dirk Benidict to play Commander Cain, Sheba/female Starbuck rivalry going on.......). Heck what am I saying they're more likely to copy old Days of Our Lives scripts than old Galactica storylines. Starbuck's twin sister could be possesed by satan and rescued by Bowjay Black who was brainwashed to think he was Roman Adama by Stephano Baltar.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Living Legend was the one with the Pegasus, right? If so, that is one the Ronald Moore has indicated an interest in reworking. He's also talked about the ones that featured Count Iblis as well, but he said that if he did it, he would probably strip it of the religious stuff and put a whole different spin on it. According to RJM, he's not interested in making it a planet of the week series like Star Trek or much of the original was. What that means is that there will be some actual drama, which I don't mind at all (too many scifi shows are lacking in this department), and there will be space battles. Overall I'm psyched, though I do hope they get the chance to get off the ship once or twice.

Anyway, the other thing that I heard was that they've committed to 13 episodes, not the 6 that were previously reported. If you count the 4 hour miniseries as part of season 1, then this will be a 17 episode season, which won't be that shabby.

 

[jdavis]

Living Legend was the one with the Pegasus, right? If so, that is one the Ronald Moore has indicated an interest in reworking. He's also talked about the ones that featured Count Iblis as well, but he said that if he did it, he would probably strip it of the religious stuff and put a whole different spin on it. According to RJM, he's not interested in making it a planet of the week series like Star Trek or much of the original was. What that means is that there will be some actual drama, which I don't mind at all (too many scifi shows are lacking in this department), and there will be space battles. Overall I'm psyched, though I do hope they get the chance to get off the ship once or twice.

Anyway, the other thing that I heard was that they've committed to 13 episodes, not the 6 that were previously reported. If you count the 4 hour miniseries as part of season 1, then this will be a 17 episode season, which won't be that shabby.

Yea Living Legend is one of the most popular episodes they made, it also was one of the most action packed. It would be the one that may garner some old school fan support if done right. I'd have to say it was the high point of the old series and it would lead to a reoccuring plot device(I'm sure it would of come up again if Galactica hadn't been cancelled, they left it open like that for a reason). I'm not as big a fan of the Count Iblis stuff but "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" would be a good one to remake too (they mentioned a prison ship in the miniseries, it would tie in good) maybe as a single episode without all the Swedish clones running around.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'm not as big a fan of the Count Iblis stuff but "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" would be a good one to remake too (they mentioned a prison ship in the miniseries, it would tie in good) maybe as a single episode without all the Swedish clones running around.

I feel the same way, but it doesn't sound like the Gun on Ice Planet Zero is in the cards right now, which is unfortunate, IMO. It really sounds like RDM doesn't want them going to planets very often at all. Besides, the Gun on Ice Planet Zero has some major problems. For one thing, I don't care how good a job the cylons were doing herding the Galactica, the chances of them forcing it close enough to a planet with a gigantic gun are pretty slim. I mean space is big - really, really big, and if the cylons were that close on their tail, they might as well have just gone and finished them off. Of course that doesn't take into account the fact that the planet also rotates, so at any given time there's a good chance that the Galactica wouldn't be in the correct position for them to get a shot off at it. The viper pilots had already gone in and determined where the gun was, so all they had to do was wait for the planet to rotate just right and pass through... or se their course to pass around the planet on the opposite side of the gun. Lets not even talk about how that episode was a direct rip-off of the Dirty Dozen and several other Hollywood flicks. Fun episode, one of my favorites actually, but I don't see it reappearing without such a major reworking as to make it unrecognizable.

 

[Darrin Drader]

More news. There's contradicting reports now about how many episodes have actually been ordered. Jami Bamber (Apollo) is reporting 6 while Aaron Douglas (Tyrol) is reporting 13. I'm hoping for 13 myself, but I suppose we'll have to wait for the official Scifi announcement. I suppose its always possible Bamber is going off the old rumors, I mean so far he's just had one phone call from his agent, so there's likley to be some miscommunication at some level.

 

[jdavis]

I feel the same way, but it doesn't sound like the Gun on Ice Planet Zero is in the cards right now, which is unfortunate, IMO. It really sounds like RDM doesn't want them going to planets very often at all.

He can't really have them going to planets, he doesn't have the budget to CGI cylons for them to fight. They backed themselves into a corner with the human looking cylons and their only being so many models of them. I think they are going to run into a problem if they don't do planet of the week stuff. They are going to have to get them off the Galactica set sometimes or this will get stale quick. Even shows like DS9 and B5 occasionally went to other places. You have a fleet moving through space looking for something, eventually they are going to have to start landing on planets, and they will be different planets every time, it's not like they will be staying anyplace. I think another place where they shot themselves in the foot is the original show there were many races in the Galaxy, the miniseries played out that there was only the humans and the cylons they created (this can be fixed in the series by introducing alien races, but once again that leads to planet of the week). Drama is great but they are going to have to have some action in it or young people will eventually just tune out, and I don't mean soap opera action like they had in the mini series. The space battles are the expensive parts (that's why Galactica spent a lot of time on planet of the week and reused shots).

 

[Kai Lord]

He can't really have them going to planets, he doesn't have the budget to CGI cylons for them to fight.

Or every planet they go to will feature the same footage of three cylons jumping out from behind a rock and shooting at them.

"Argh! Cylons! Draw weapons!"

"Nice shooting men. Oh look, here comes three more!"

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I actually don't se the CGI cyclons being any more difficult than the CG space battles, which supposedly will be rampant, so I do expect that we will see some. I do expect that they will take some shortcuts to save money though.

I also would assume that if the story leads them to a planet, they will go there. As you mention, they even get off the station occasionally in B5, just not until the 2nd or 3rd season. The Galactica is a bit more homogenous of an environment than B5 was, so they will have to get off the ship a little more often - they had just better be wearing space suits next time they wander around on an asteroid. What I think RDM means is that it won't be like Next Gen where they encounter a new planet every week. They are going to have to be careful when they do find new planets though, because they would run into the same mistake of the original. If you remember, the original pilot shows all of the human survivors from the colonies on the ships fly off under the galactica's protection. Then, just a couple episodes later, we learn that no, those really aren't all the humans. They're scattered throughout a bunch of asteroids (how there was breathable atmosphere's on asteroids is beyond me, see my earlier comment), and other planets. Remember the Eastern Block episodes? Sure, maybe the government on that planet was oppressive, but that doesn't change the fact that there were millions or billions more humans there. That made the plight of the Galactica a little less urgent, knowing that the species was not in danger of being wiped out by the cylons.

I think aliens should enter into the mix, but they should really be few and far between, and recurring. As a side note, I would be interested in knowing exactly how many humanoid species exist in Star Trek that appear the same as humans except for the fact that they have bumpy heads.

Ah well, I'm psyched.

By the way, JMS has said that there is new news on the B5 front and that money is being moved around. There hasn't been any new news for over a month on this though. I wonder what's up. I would love to see another good show set in the B5 universe.

 

[jdavis]

Or every planet they go to will feature the same footage of three cylons jumping out from behind a rock and shooting at them.

"Argh! Cylons! Draw weapons!"

"Nice shooting men. Oh look, here comes three more!"

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

You want three cylons.... and you want them to jump? What do you think this is? The old series they don't have that kind of budget. You get one cylon lifting his arm and he has to be shot off screen. You can have a sound effect of a explosion and maybe some smoke.