Battlestar Galactica

Katee Sackhoff finally cleared up the rumors today, telling TV Guide that she has no intentions of leaving Bionic Woman:

"I have no plans to leave Bionic Woman, and Michelle Ryan" — who fills the title role — "is doing a great job. There’s not one ounce of bad blood between us."

News that Katee would be leaving the show have been all over the Internet for the past week, inspired by an unconfirmed post from a blogger who claimed Katee trashed the show at a recent Battlestar Galactica convention.  If you missed the excitement, the Roadrunner blog posted a damning critique of comments Katee supposedly made, stating she was unprofessional in her critiques of Michelle Ryan and her pans of the show and that she had stated she was definitely leaving Bionic Woman.  The story got picked up and flew all over the net, garnering attention from major entertainment outlets like E! and more blogs and forums than I can count. 

The only problem was, it wasn’t true.  Other fans who heard Katee’s comments at the convention quickly organized to combat the rumors, and one person even posted a transcript of Katee’s comments which apparently never mentioned Ryan at all.

"It’s sad," says Sackhoff, "because you want to connect with the fans, and then they throw it in your face in a negative light."

Hopefully Katee recognizes the all stemmed from one fan, and many other fans jumped to her defense … I have critiqued Katee’s off the cuff interview style in the past but would hate to see her so scarred by this experience that she no longer enjoys her time with the fans or her press interviews.

As for the fan who started it all, there have been several posts on her blog since she made the Katee post but she does not mention the error or apologize for all of the trouble.  Whether she posted someplace else I don’t know, but the closest thing to an apology on her blog is a comment about how she was at the convention without an assistant and was serving as blogger and photographer and only intended her comments to be "descriptive."  Too bad her "description" contained inaccurate statements masquerading as facts. 

If there was one prominent disappointment in Saturday’s Razor is that we did not see as much of Helena Cain’s descent into madness as we had promised.  Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen did an admirable job of holding our attention as new character Kendra Shaw, but it was Cain and her cruelty that was the primary draw and most fans left feeling unsatisfied with the amount of screen time devoted to Cain or the scenes containing the actress who played her (Michelle Forbes).

For example the IMDB credits for Razor would indicate that at least one childhood scene was intended for Cain’s character, but that was missing from Saturday nights’ festivities.  Perhaps it will be on the DVD, which is scheduled to be released next week?  While we saw some deliciously tortured moments with Helena Cain, we did not see the explanations or descent that many fans were looking for in Razor.

Something else we did not see in Razor was a lot of our regular Battlestar Galactica cast members.  Most of them had relatively small roles or appeared only by reference, such as Michael Hogan’s Saul Tigh, or by voice, such as James Callis’ Giaus Baltar.  Grace Park may or may not have appeared, depending on what your TiVo showed of the visions of the early Cylon experiments … whether Grace was one of the tortured humans in the lab is subject to debate.  

What about you?  Did Razor meet your expectations or did you notice something important that was skipped that may be a clue into what will happen in Season Four?

EDIT: Click here for a list of the Razor DVD extras … the list is not very specific but it is better than nothing! Thanks to loyal reader Pam for sending it in.

Michael Trucco has been out and about this month, first hitting a biker event with Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff and now going to the premiere of the SciFi Channel movie Tin Man in Los Angeles.  Michael hit the yellow brick carpet with actress Sandra Hess who is on Navy NCIS: Navy Criminal Investigative Service on USA.

Other stars on the yellow brick carpet included Tin Man star Zoey Deschenal who toted the pooch who played Toto in the new movie. Based on the large numbers of photos the dog stole the show that night, proving the old adage about not working with dogs and children to be true once again.

Tin Man premieres this Sunday and promises to be an even darker update on the classic Frank Oz tale … this tin man is forced to watch images of his wife and children being tortured, for example, and Alan Cumming’s version of the scarecrow is not simply stupid bad has suffered the horror of having half of his brain removed.

Katee Sackhoff news has been all over the Internet this week, and not just because of her great performance in Razor.  The actress was called "unprofessional" and other unflattering terms by a fan who attended a recent Battlestar Galactica convention, after the fan claimed that Katee badmouthed Bionic Woman and her BW costar Michelle Ryan.

Many sites repeated the story as gospel, reporting that Katee was off Bionic Woman due to bad blood and a other negative connotations.  That is in spite of several fans who attended the convention coming forward to defend Katee, saying she never mentioned Michelle Ryan or badmouthed the show and implying that the fan who wrote the blog that started the rumors is simply trying to spin her comments as negatively as possible.

Even though Bionic Woman has been a disappointment, it seems illogical that Katee would just up and leave a prime time show that has gotten her a ton of good press.  The reviews for Bionic Woman have been spotty at best, but Katee has gotten raves from fans and industry insiders who have praised her dark and dangerous portrayal of Sarah Corvus.  Even if she has had troubles with Michelle Ryan, which may or may not be true, she would also be a fool to piss off prolific producer David Eick who will probably cast her in another production once Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica are over.  Not to mention that talking bad about your coworkers to fans is just bad form.

While this controversy seems to be more about a fan who dislikes Katee saying something untrue and bloggers and news outlets jumping on it in an irresponsible manner, it is true that Katee’s candid style can get her in trouble with the press.  Long time Katee fans know that Katee’s spunk can sometimes translate badly in interviews.  She is known for her unpredictable interview style, which fans and journalists love but probably gives her publicist nightmares (for example, she made comments at a Battlestar Galactica panel this summer that made it pretty clear she is familiar with the after effects of smoking pot … it was funny at the time, but not exactly what most television shows what their actresses talking about in front of the media).   Let’s hope this story gets cleared up by all of the media outlets sooner rather than later, and Katee becomes even more polished in her public speaking going forward.

Starbuck’s husband is getting his own show.  Michael Trucco, who plays Samuel Anders on Battlestar Galactica, is slated to star in a sitcom entitled Man of Your Dreams which may be on television next fall if the writer’s strike is resolved relatively quickly.

Michael will put his good looks to good use playing a womanizer on the show, who uses his trashy ways with women to give other women advice about their love lives.  No word yet on who Michael’s female cast members will be or what kind of roles they will be playing.

The sitcom is being developed by executive producer Conan O’ Brien and many of the people who have worked on his show and the short-lived Andy Barker, P.I.  If all goes well it will be shown on NBC, which is part of the same Universal family that is home to the SciFi Channel and BSG.

Before joining the cast of BSG Michael was on the teen oriented soap One Tree Hill and had guest starring roles on shows such as Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.

Production is slated to being as soon as the writer’s strike ends, but right now the timing of that is anyone’s guess.  Man of Your Dreams is supposedly writer-intensive, so changes are not good that anything will happen before then.  That is good news for fans who are worried about this taking Michael away from BSG or ruining our chances to find out more about his newly revealed Cylon side, although since the two shows are run by the same studio everyone involved has promised to be considerate of Michael’s schedule.

I need to watch Razor again, because at the first viewing I found it very disappointing.  This was a mystery to me, because I had high expectations and before I watched it I knew everyone else seemed to have loved it.  But I found it to be unworthy of the hype on first viewing, and it took me a couple days to figure out why:  the spoilers. 

As a blogger I report spoilers, even though my personal preference is to avoid them.  And my viewing of Razor Saturday night is a great example of why spoilers are so appropriately named.  The fun and joy of Razor was not there for me, because I knew most of what was coming. 

I knew about Cain & Six, and I had already seen the horrible scene where Cain gives her torturer-in-chief permission to violate Gina in every way possible.  The scene was still disturbing, but since I had already seen it for the big event somehow I illogically expected more.

I had already seen the webisodes, so I had seen the shocking revelation that Adama saw the original Cylon experiments on humans that led to the creation of the human Cylon models.  Once again the scene was still disturbing, but since I had already seen it for the big event I illogically expected more. 

The list goes on and on, and as a result of seeking out spoilers I found myself disappointed and dissatisfied when the credits began to roll Saturday night.  Which is a shame, because Razor deserved better than that.

There were some great performances, particularly from Tricia Helfer who proved once again that she is more than just a pretty face.  Stephanie Chavez-Jacobson could have been annoying and distracting as Kendra Shaw, but instead her storyline blended well and provided a great device for switching time periods and switching perspectives.  Jamie Bamber was more grounded than ever playing the newly anointed Pegasus commander, and Michelle Forbes was a force of wrath as Admiral Cain.

Razor was not perfect, as the spotlight did not shine has brightly into the dark mind of Helena Cain as we expected.  That was the most common complaint from the group I watched Razor with, that we did not get to see enough of her evolution into madness.  But perhaps that is on the unrated and extended version that appears on the DVD, as there were roles cast for young Helenas and DVD extras have more time flexibility than a two hour movie with commercials.  The DVD will be released next week, on December 4th.

That’s Tricia Helfer, also known as Battlestar Galactica’s Number Six, planting a big smooch on Jay Leno in the photo above.  Tricia and Jay were at the kick off for the Love Ride, and annual motorcycle extravaganza that left from the Harley-Davidson dealership in Glendale, California a few weeks ago.  Jay was grand master of the event, which also featured entertainment provided by Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers as well as several related parties, concert performances, and charity auctions.

Other BSG stars in attendance included Katee Sackhoff, who plays Starbuck, and her her partner in crime and marriage on the show, Michael Trucco, who plays Samuel Anders.  The Love Ride raises money for muscular dystrophy research so it is very kind of Katee, Michael and Tricia to lend their star power to the cause.  Scifi bad guy Robert Patrick was also in the crowd, as was prime time soap legend Larry Hagman.

Jamie Bamber was one of the many Battlestar Galactica actors who attended the recent BSG convention in Burbank, and during the Q&A one brave fan asked him how Lee “Apollo” Adama would feel about having President Laura Roslin as a stepmother. The possibility that Laura could one day succumb to her longings for Admiral Adama, Lee’s father, has captivated many Battlestar Galactica fans and writer Ron Moore and Mary McDonnell have both acknowledged the possibility for a relationship is definitely there.

Jamie thoughtfully answers the question, reminding the audience of how much Lee and Laura’s relationship has changed since the miniseries when she was in many ways more of a parent to Lee than his own father. As Lee has grown closer to Admiral Adama and become less worshipful of Laura their relationship has become more strained, culminating in the trial that concluded Season Three of Battlestar Galactica. Thus Jamie’s comment at the end of the answer, that at this point Laura would be more of a “wicked stepmother.”

Lee Adama, Mary McDonnell, Ron Moore, Jamie Bamber, Battlestar Galactica, stepmother

For many Battlestar Galactica fans, the highlight of this week will not be tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast but Saturday night’s Razor premiere. That’s the night we finally get to meet Natalie, see what all of the fuss is about regarding Kendra Shaw, and last but not least learn more about the mystery of Starbuck. And of course see what made Admiral Cain so deliciously demented, which should be interesting to say the least.

Do you have big plans for watching Razor? Are you planning on watching it with friends or are you watching it at home alone so you can catch every word? Or are you among the lucky few who got to see it in theaters last week?

I am watching it with friends, but will probably watch it later on to see what I can catch when I watch it alone … after all, we have to make this last us until Season Four starts and that will not happen for quite some time.

Hopefully you are all having a good week and will forgive me for my absence. WatchingBSG.com will be back with more thoughts on Razor next week, but I have taken the week off from blogging. For loyal readers I appreciate your hanging with me during this vacation from blogging … between my birthday and the holiday, this seemed like a good time to focus on the rest of my passions for a few days so I can come back and analyze Razor rested and rejuvinated. Besides, buy not surfing the net for BSG news I am able to (hopefully) avoid too many more Razor spoilers between now and Saturday night.

See you on the other side of Admiral Cain’s wrath, until then be careful out there and watch out for Cylons.

Edward James Olmos was in Los Angeles last weekend to promote the New LATC and diversity in general.  He has also been invited to the 30th anniversary of WPFW Radio in Washington, D.C. on the 15th of December.

Before he went on strike with the Writer’s Guild of America, Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ron Moore was kind enough to stop by the SciFi.com message boards and answer some questions from fans.  Among the gems are spoilers for Season Four and a scene that could have been included in the episode "Unfinished Business" to explain why Starbuck would sleep with Lee Adama one night and then marry Anders the next morning.

Coyote Squirrel articulates the guilt that a lot of Battlestar Galactica fans are feeling this week, now that we know the network did not want to pay the Battlestar Galactica cast and crew for the webisodes.  We want to know what happens to poor young Adama, but in the current climate we feel a little dirty about that.

Lucy Lawless recently sold her L.A. home for $4.8 million, making a nice profit over what she had originally purchased the house for in 1998.

Aaron Douglas will be MC’ing an event on November 24 in Vancouver, so be sure to stop by if you are in the area.

Nicki Clyne makes a cute confession in her most recent blog post, that she was recently embarrassed by a fan who asked her if Aaron Douglas’ (Chief Tyrol) spine glows.

Variety posted an early review of Razor that was mostly positive, while Watch with Kristin reveals some essential things to know before watching the show.   Among Kristin’s tips?  Have patience with the first fifteen minutes, because it definitely gets better, and be prepared that you will only see a few of the regular Battlestar cast members.  But it is worth it, she swears … but unless you are lucky enough to attend one of the theatrical screenings this Monday night, you will just have to wait and find out with the rest of us on November 24th.

Even fans that are passionate about writers rights to be paid for their work worry about the fates of their favorite shows.  This is especially true for fans of Battlestar Galactica, who have already waited so long to find out the fate of the Galactica crew and their quest to find peace on earth.

BSG executive producer Ron Moore spoke about the fate of the show from the picket lines last week, and GalacticaSitRep was kind enough to post his assurances that the story will end, eventually, no matter what happens with the strike.  The cast and crew are committed to the concept and contracts are in place, so fans can support the strike without worrying that it means they will be left stranded and never learn the identity of the fifth Cylon.

"I know that the entire cast and crew and writing staff are eager to finish and it’s very, very important to us to finish, so whenever it’s resolved, we’ll all be ready to go back in and finish the show," Moore says. "We know what the stories are. We haven’t written the scripts, but we know what the stories are, leading up to the finale. "

Moore says that ten episodes will be filmed before the show shuts down production due to the strike, and coincidentally filming will end right after the mid-season cliffhanger.  Since the SciFi network was thinking of splitting the show in half anyway, holding the second half of the fourth season to 2009 to increase the network’s revenues from the show, this could actually be good news for Battlestar Galactica fans who like to avoid spoilers.  One of the concerns about having great shows on the shelf for that long was that the studio would leak some (or all) of the show information to keep interest high, spoiling the show for the fans before it airs.

Battlestar Galactica writer Mark Verheiden has posted an invitation to Battlestar Galactica fans to join him and the shows other writers on the picket lines this Friday, November 15, 2007.  The BSG writers have been fortunate to enjoy a lot of support from scifi fans, who delivered pizza to their picket area on the first day of the strike among other morale-boosting efforts.

Jane Espensen has also been blogging about the strike and including thank yous to friends and supporters who come out and march or bring food or simple good wishes.  She reports that Friday is officially "Battlestar Day" on the line, to coincide with the big Battlestar Galactica convention in L.A. this weekend.  So if you are heading out for the convention be sure to alter your travel plans so you can stop by and show some support.  No word if cast members will be on site that day, but Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff, Tahmoh Penikett, Bear McCreary, and Jason Palmer have all been confirmed for the convention and it is possible they will hit the picket lines to show their support as well.

Even if you can’t make it to L.A. then there are plenty of ways to support the writers and the idea that work for profit is work that should be compensated.  The web site United Hollywood gives several ideas for plans of action, and there are other pro-writer blogs out there providing inside scoops and up-to-date reports and requests for assistance.  At this point much of the issue seems to be awareness, as a lot of people know there is a strike but they don’t know what the issues are … so talk it up, educate folks, raise awareness, etc.  The "frakking pencils down" icons are one way to get a dialogue going … special thanks to Justine at Tahmoh Penikett’s blog for highlighting the originals.

Yesterday’s post explained why fans of good television should support the writers’ strike, and amazingly Battlestar Galactica provides one of the best illustrations of why fans should back the writer’s in their efforts. 

By now most BSG fans have seen the highly entertaining Razor flashbacks which show Admiral Adama as a young man on his eventful first flight and resulting encounter with the Cylons.  Many of you have also seen the Battlestar Galactica webisodes that were released last year in anticipation of Season Three, and which are still available for viewing on SciFi.com.  What most of us did not know is that the network originally did not want to pay the actors, writers, and producers for those webisodes claiming they were promos. 

"I had a situation last year on Battlestar Galactica where we were asked by Universal to do webisodes [Note: Moore is referring to The Resistance webisodes which ran before Season 3 premiered], which at that point were very new and ‘Oooh, webisodes! What does that mean?’ It was all very new stuff. And it was very eye opening, because the studio’s position was ‘Oh, we’re not going to pay anybody to do this. You have to do this, because you work on the show. And we’re not going to pay you to write it. We’re not going to pay the director, and we’re not going to pay the actors.’ At which point we said ‘No thanks, we won’t do it.’"

"We got in this long, protracted thing and eventually they agreed to pay everybody involved. But then, as we got deeper into it, they said ‘But we’re not going to put any credits on it. You’re not going to be credited for this work. And we can use it later, in any fashion that we want.’ At which point I said ‘Well, then we’re done and I’m not going to deliver the webisodes to you.’ And they came and they took them out of the editing room anyway — which they have every right to do. They own the material — But it was that experience that really showed me that that’s what this is all about. If there’s not an agreement with the studios about the internet, that specifically says ‘This is covered material, you have to pay us a formula - whatever that formula turns out to be - for use of the material and how it’s all done,’ the studios will simply rape and pillage."

Ron Moore explained this shocking story from the picket lines, and it’s a great example of what the fight is about in the writers’ strike.  Everybody knows that the future of entertainment lies on the Internet, and the days of "appointment television" will soon be a thing of the past.  Viewers want to watch their shows when they can, on computer-like devices such as TiVo or on computers themselves.  Studios and networks are already selling ads for these episodes, ads that are more valuable because they can’t be skipped but they can be customized to coincide with whatever demographic information the network has about you, the individual computer user.  It’s amazing stuff, it is the future of entertainment, and it is going to be worth billions of dollars.  But it can’t work without content … and yet the networks and studios want the writers, and everybody else on these shows, to provide that content without getting paid.

Please do not buy in to the misrepresentations of those who would have you believe that these writers are selfish elitists, marching for rich paydays at the expense of hardworking Americans who just want to come home after a long day of work and watch Lost.

In fact, the opposite is true. These are folks are simply trying to get paid for the work that they do. Period. And the studios are expecting them to work for free. It’s that simple.

Right now the writers are caught in a bizarre contractual loophole that states that everything that ends up on the internet is a mere “promo.” This means Writers Guild of America members are currently not being paid for anything that ends up on the Internet … even while ads are sold around those episodes (an advertisement in the middle of a “promo” - how strange), even while studios are building business models around the recognition that more and more people are watching television on the internet, even while everyone recognizes that it will be the portable internet and not the heavy and unportable television that delivers our entertainment in the decades to come.

As one writer put it, they are not marching for more rights … they are really just trying to maintain the status quo and the basic concept that an honest day’s work leads to an honest day’s pay. Don’t believe the hype that this is about greed, folks. We are talking about simple compensation for work well done, and companies trying to profit off of that work without paying for it.

To understand a bit more about the issues, take four minutes and watch the very well done You Tube video “Why We Fight” which explains the issues much better than I can. Or watch the very funny clip of the writers from The Office below, which explains the bizarre conundrum of studios labeling an entire episode of a show “a promo.”

Battlestar Galactica is grounded for a little longer, and fans are not happy.

Last week saw more dark news for Battlestar Galactica fans as news leaked out that we will be forced to wait until April 2008 for the next season. Obviously this is much later than the January premiere date, and thus quite disappointing for many folks. It also increases the probability that we will be watching the final episode sometime in 2009. It would be frustrating, but after a summer of bad Battlestar Galactica news it just seems … typical.

While Razor is on the horizon and sure to tide folks over a little bit, that still leaves four more months till we get answers about deep questions involving the Cylon mythology and the nature of the revived Starbuck. So how do you intend to pass the time?

Will you participate in the mass rewatch party over at Galactica Watercooler, or will you fill your time with lighter scifi entertainment such as the ever improving Bionic Woman or the quip-filled Chuck?

There is a third option, significantly less fun and yet much more realistic. We could simply stew in anger over yet another delay that seems to dilute the power of an extremely powerful series. A few months ago, Stephanie over at ClosetSciFiGeek.com blogged about how the best shows seem to be the shorter shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer being the exception). Perhaps the best example of this is Joss Whedon’s Firefly, a show that lasted barely half a season but still has a legion of rabid fans. Stephanie’s point was that ending Battlestar Galactica now was a good move as it preserved the integrity of the series, keeping it from jumping the shark so to speak. But if the network seems determined to drag BSG out as long as possible without paying for more material, will Battlestar Galactica really benefit from that effort? Or will fans become so fatigued that the final episode will disappoint them, no matter what happens? They say that anticipation is part of the fun, but this is getting ridiculous.