Battlestar Galactica: Caprica prequel, season four news recap

March 23, 2008

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Battlestar Galactica returns for its fourth and final season in less than two weeks and news and promo has been all over the web this last week. New videos emerged, the Caprica pilot was confirmed, the TV movie Razor was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) and the cast has made some TV appearances to promote the final season.

First thing’s first: series regular and fan friendly Cylon Michael Trucco (Anders) recently confirmed on his message board that the production on the last batch of episodes begins in the last week of March, which is to say any day now. (The production was halted at episode 11 as an effect of the writers’ strike.)

In the meantime, the Caprica two-hour backdoor pilot was greenlit last week and Ron Moore et co. have already begun the casting process. Originally described as the “first science fiction family saga” that will “weave together corporate intrigue, techno action and sexual politics,” Caprica will focus on two families - the Graystones and the Adamas - and deal with events that happened 50 years before the Cylons destroyed the Colonies.

Galactica executive producer David Eick said “If ‘Battlestar Galactica‘ is ‘Black Hawk Down,’ I would say that ‘Caprica‘ is ‘American Beauty,” adding that the show is “all about the inner lives of the people on a planet and how their personal relationships as well as their professional relationships inform what will become the creation of the Cylons. It’s a political story, a family story. It’s about the creation of the Cylons, and it’s about a company. It’s planet-based. It’s very character-oriented, very serialized and very much about the characters. It’s a whole different genre, and that’s what makes it exciting.”

Back to the present show, Cinema Blend has an extensive article about what we can expect in season four, from major character deaths, revelation of the final Cylon and connections between what happens to Starbuck and Baltar, to show creator Ron Moore sitting in the director’s chair.

Moore said recently that the pause during the writers’ strike has had some impact on the creative side of things as well: “The premise was that they were looking for Earth, and we had to pay that off. I had time to catch my breath and really think about some things. We’re still going to have an ending, not an ambiguous ending, but how we get there has been changed a little bit.” He also said that the Galactica story has a definite ending in season four and there are no plans to continue the show beyond that point, either with another season or with a movie.

Katee Sackhoff has also talked about closure for her character in the last season: “I think there will be closure for Starbuck. But I can’t see her happy, in love and with babies. She’s the happiest when she’s alone, feeling pain and stress. She’s tremendously flawed, but out of everyone she’s the most human.”

It’s been more than four years since Commander Adama set the show’s premise by stating that Earth does not exist and then leading the 50,000 surviving humans to believe that they will find a new home on the mythical planet just to keep their hope alive.

Last spring, Battlestar Galactica left us hanging by saying, in no uncertain terms, the Earth very much exists. (Take that for the twist of the year!) Several major characters were revealed to be Cylons. Starbuck came back from the dead and said she would lead the survivors to Earth. The first season four teaser, released last year, suggested that the Galactica crew will have some trouble taking her word for it. The story will begin to unravel on April 4.

A word to all those tuning in, in the wake of Jericho getting cancelled and some of the implications that this has brought to surface: if you are downloading Galactica via peer-to-peer networks or getting it through other unofficial channels, please consider watching the episodes on SciFi’s official site if you are not getting the channel in your area. The fate of the show may be set, but now that there is a prequel in the works, the show’s popularity may play a part in determining whether Caprica evolves into a series or stays in pilot stage. And as we all know, popularity is not measured in passion, but in numbers.

This is by no means a rant against P2P sharing, merely a reaction to one TV network’s reasoning that says that online viewers do not count in the larger scheme of things. In order for that attitude to change in step with the times we live in and to start reflecting the global nature of the audiences, it is important to show up in real numbers on official channels.

Finally, here are the Battlestar Galactica Revealed clips released by SciFi last week, via MovieWeb:

The season four schedule, as provided by IMDb.com:

4×01 He That Believeth in Me – April 4

4×02 Six of One – April 11

4×03 The Ties That Bind – April 18

4×04 Escape Velocity – April 25

4×05 The Road Less Travelled – May 2

4×06 Faith – May 9

4×07 Guess What’s Coming to Dinner – May 16

4×08 Sine Qua Non – May 23

4×09 The Hub – May 30

4×10 Revelations - June 6