Battlestar Galactica

Lucy Lawless shook her groove thang last night at Los Angeles’ legendary Roxy, where her Xena: Warrior Princess costar Renee O’Connor joined her on stage for a duet of the Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty classic "Stop Draggin My Heart Around." 

Renee is often a surprise guest at Lucy’s stage shows, much to the delight of her fans, and the two women’s natural chemistry and great friendship definitely add even more fun to Lucy’s performances.  Saturday’s performance was their second show, as Lucy also rocked and rolled at the Roxy on Friday evening, and included another surprise guest in the form of Hairspray star Marissa Jaret Winokur.

The show was sponsored by Creation Entertainment, a company that usually focuses on fan conventions for shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Stargate, and Xena.  The show was in conjunction with a Xena convention the company was hosting in Burbank, California, and Creation offered a bus service for the $59 concert to convention attendees.

According to the reports from AfterEllen.com, MC Kat Crimmons warmed up the crowd before the show with a comedy set that included at least one Cylon joke and an acknowledgment of some fan fiction writers who have included her in their stories since she started appearing at Lucy’s shows: "In most of them I’m this young Amazon warrior, and Xena shows up in my village to help us battle the Cylons. We butt heads, then go on a scouting mission and end up by the campfire. Some of the things the writers have us do, I couldn’t imagine … Well, I have imagined them. In fact, I suggested them. So, keep up the good work."

Since Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, this is a good opportunity to start thinking about what you are going to do to surprise your beloved.  For inspiration, we offer this fun and flirty YouTube video from the photo shoot Grace Park did for the February 2007 cover of Thirteen Minutes magazine.

Grace looks amazing as always, even allowing her black locks to be teased into a huge mane of curly hair.  But the sexiest part of this video is the way Grace is such a good sport, particularly at the end when the interviewer keeps messing up the words Battlestar Galactica.

Thirteen Minutes is a bicultural Asian American magazine, and the magazine hit newsstands about three months before Grace hosted the 2007 AZN Asian Excellence Awards with Daniel Dae Kim from Lost. Grace has consistently been a strong supporter of the Asian American community’s efforts to promote the works of Asian Americans in the entertainment industry.

Tricia Helfer was on the scene earlier this week when L.A. Confidential threw a party celebrating the magazine’s current cover boy, Casey Affleck. 

Casey is among this year’s Academy Award nominees.  He is being celebrated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which played at the Toronto International Film Festival where Tricia’s film Walk All Over Me premiered.

It’s been a good year for Casey, who also gave a strong performance in his brother Ben’s film Gone Baby Gone, a work that is nominated for Oscars in other categories.

Other celebrities at the Los Angeles party included Bai Ling, Nazanin Bonaidi, Linda Thompson, Maya Hazen, Sofia Veraga, Taraji Henson, and many others.

It’s been a slow start to the SciFi Red Carpet sightings in 2008, especially with the cancellation of the Golden Globes earlier this month.  Here’s hoping more BSG stars decide to go out and about in the near future!

I was perusing After Elton’s recent list of Top Ten Gay and Bisexual SciFi Characters this evening and realized I had always assumed that Gaeta was gay. 

I know, this is not a revolutionary thought as Gaeta’s devotion to Gaius Baltar inspired similar speculation from legions on fans during the first two seasons.  His nicknames among fans include "Gay-ta" as well as "Lt. Gaydar" and many others. 

And yet, we have never learned for sure whether Gaeta is a gay man … an odd omission from a series that is otherwise very comfortable with the ambiguities of sexuality and the soul.

If you are interested in some spoilers/speculation on Gaeta on Season Four, click the link to send you to the rest of this post.

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A lot of bad news has come with the writers’ strike, and even more rumors.  But this is one of the rumors we hope turns out to be true:  with fewer and fewer scripts available for development, Caprica may have an even better chance of coming to life.

Caprica is the prequel series to Battlestar Galactica, an idea designed to look at life on Caprica around the time that the original Cylons were being created.  Back then the Adamas were famous for being lawyers, not Admirals, and the humans had not yet realized the threat the Cylons would pose to their survival. 

It’s an interesting idea, and one that was met with strong enthusiasm from many fans when it was first announced.  But after two plus years with no additional information, and the announcement that Battlestar Galactica would end after only four seasons, many fans have assumed that Caprica is DOA even as Ron Moore insisted the idea was still a possibility for the future.

Now TVSquad and Ain’t It Cool News are reporting that it is an even better possibility than fans had realized.  With the writers’ strike leaving studios and networks with a lack of new ideas, they are looking around for the best of the ideas that are languishing in the stable.  Caprica is an obvious choice, with its built in fan base and potentially grand pedigree.

No word of how the premise of Caprica would work with the increasingly complex Cylon mythology that is being revealed in Battlestar Galactica’s final chapters.  The reimagined version of the show does not simply contemplated robots that turned on their creators, but a complex spiritual mythology in which that version of events is much too simple.  Presumably Caprica would need to take this spiritual mythology into account.

Note from WatchingBionicWoman: 451 Press is still having trouble with its comments, so please be aware that if you leave a comment it will likely be marked as spam.  If you would like to make sure your comment reaches the blog, please e-mail us through the Contact form or by contacting watchingbionicwoman@gmail.com and we will be happy to post it for you. 

Calling all Racetrack fans!  The official Leah Cairns web site launched this week over at leahcairns.com, and features great photos like the one above as well as interviews, family photos, and upcoming convention appearances.

Obama is a Cylon?  Maybe, maybe not but Battlestar Galactica fans who are also political junkies will probably get a kick out of this photo of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s heads photoshopped on Apollo and Starbuck’s bodies.

GalacticaSitRep is running a contest to give away two of the Chief Tyrol dolls that were recently issued by Diamond Select Toys.  If you are a fan of the Chief, his alter ego Aaron Douglas, or just like cool toys be sure to check it out.

Speaking of Aaron, Battlestar Blog found this interesting clip of Aaron, Callum Keith Rennie, and Gerard Butler from 300 in the movie Shattered.

In other Battlestar Galactica toy news, apparently fans will have the option to buy a life sized Cylon sometime in the near future.  Perfect for that odd space in the corner where your interior decorator says you need "something tall."

If you like fan fiction, you should check out Admiral Adama’s live journal page which takes the concept to the next level.  This may be the wave of the future for dedicated fan writers, who are not satisfied with the idea of writing a story and want to explore a character even further over time.

Be sure to check out this nice note on Nicki Clyne’s blog, pondering how fans can provide positive connections in this mixed up crazy world.

Note from Margie: 451 Press is still having trouble with its comments, so please be aware that if you leave a comment it will likely be marked as spam.  If you would like to make sure your comment reaches the blog, please e-mail me through the Contact form or by contacting watchingbsg@gmail.com and I will be happy to post it for you. 

Edward James Olmos isn’t the only BSG star to appear on MTV in the past few years.  Dean Stockwell, who plays Brother Cavill on Battlestar Galactica, also played a music historian in the video for Gnarles Barkley’s 2006 song "Smiley Faces."  The video won a 2007 Video Music Award for Best Editing.

Dean was joined in the effort by his friend and fellow film legend Dennis Hopper, who played a another historian obsessed with Gnarles Barkley’s role in musical development in the past century.  The photo at the left shows the two friends working the arrivals carpet for CineVegas’ Tribute to Dean Stockwell in 2004.

Many Battlestar Galactica fans do not realize that Dean is a former child star who has been acting in films and movies for over sixty years.  He played Gregory Peck’s son in Gentleman’s Agreement, and later starred with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in the musical Anchors Aweigh. 

Dean’s hundreds of film and television roles include a memorable performance in Blue Velvet and in the scifi show Quantum Leap. 

Dean is also in the small club of Battlestar Galactica cast members who have been nominated for an Academy Award.  Dean was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for his performance as the mob boss in Married to the Mob, hitting the red carpet one year before Edward James Olmos did for his Best Actor nomination for Stand and Deliver, and two years before Mary McDonnell was there for her first nomination for Dances with Wolves.

Check out this video for Snoop Dogg’s song "Vato" which shows the rapper facing off against a somber Edward James Olmos.  The song came out in 2006 and was meant to promote unity between the black communities and the Latino communities of Los Angeles, which explains EJO’s participation since he is a very active in the Latino community.  The video shows Snoop as a gang leader making peace with a rival Hispanic gang leader, who is played by B Real from Cypress Hill.

"The influence of music on the human psyche is overwhelming," EJO told MTV as part of the promotion for the video. "You apply that to the fact that people use it to express themselves — even more impact. Then you understand we have problems and you try to understand those problems through your art form — you’re hitting a grand slam. Snoop Dogg is hitting a grand slam out of the park.

"The biggest goal that can come from this is an understanding between cultures," Olmos continued. "It’s a situation that’s been going on for a long time; it’s going to continue to go on unless we give an alternative to the youth. Right now we have children showing children how to be adults — the adults have to step up to the plate. Snoop Dogg is an adult. He walks the walk and talks the talk. He’s been doing a lot for a long time."

It’s fitting to see EJO in a music video, considering that he is an accomplished rock musician himself and spent most of the 60s and 70s playing in clubs in L.A.  Perhaps after BSG wraps he will star in a video for one of his own songs, which would be a treat.

Jamie Bamber, who plays Lee "Apollo" Adama on Battlestar Galactica, hit the red carpet tonight for the 14th Annual BAFTA Awards Season Tea Party at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  The event was smaller than usual due to the scaled down Golden Globes ceremony the next day, but the early word is that it was a lot of fun.  For more pictures of Jaime from the event, click the "more" button below.

Other stars at the Beverly Hills Hotel today included Atonement’s James McAvoy, Pushing Daisies’ Anna Friel, The West Wing’s Allison Janney, Brad Bird who wrote and directed The Incredibles for Pixar, Lauren Holly, CSI’s Marg Helgenberger, Lucy Davis from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and the British version of The Office, Elijah Kelly from Hairspray, Jurnee Smollett, and Laurel Holloman from The L Word and Angel.

BAFTA, or the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, traditionally holds a tea party to kick off awards season on Golden Globes weekend.  While much of the festivities related to tomorrow’s Golden Globes have been canceled along with the telecast, this is one event that partied on.

BAFTA is outside the realm of the writer’s strike, which means it may be one of the few entities to temporarily gain from the dispute between the producers and the writers.  With the cancellation of the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards in flux, Los Angeles is sorely in need of some glitz and the annual BAFTA awards may provide the town with a relatively uncontroversial excuse to put on a tuxedo and party.

"It’ll either be a room with no American talent, or one filled with it. But the British awards will almost certainly go ahead," one insider recently assured The Telegraph, a British newspaper, about the upcoming BAFTA awards.  Either way, we hope Jaime is on the guest list.

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A good friend of ours walked into our house the other night and announced, "DAMN YOU for giving me a series that does not go anywhere!"

He was not speaking of Battlestar Galactica but of Firefly, another household favorite.  The first (and only) season of Firefly was on sale at Target for $20.00 in December and we promptly bought multiple copies as holiday gifts for our friends, in a selfish attempt to get them to stop looking at my husband strangely when he quotes Captain Malcolm Reynolds at dinner parties.

Firefly is the legendarily short lived Joss Whedon "space western," a series that gained most of its fans after it was off the air and whose characters and stories continue to ignite the imaginations of fans three years later.  It was cut off just as it was warming up, leaving fans wondering why Shepherd Book knows more about weapons than a preacher ever should, and how River Tam’s frakked up brain will help or hurt the rag tag group of rebels.

While our friend loved the gift, and the show, he was understandably frustrated at the way the series cuts off in the middle.

So why mention this in connection with Battlestar Galactica? 

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Lucy Lawless is mentioned over on People.com as one of the celebrities in the audience for Melora Hardin’s caberet show at Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club this week. Melora plays Jan, the self-destructive executive of Steve Carrell’s Michael on The Office.

Keep it up Grace Park fans! Grace now has well over 1,000,000 votes in TV.com’s viewer contest to determine the Hottest Actress of 2007, and a nice lead on Heroes’ hottie Hayden Panettiere.

If you are a graphic artist and a Tahmoh Penikett fan, you can get on Tahmoh’s radar by submitting a banner design for Justine’s All About Tahmoh blog. Helo himself will be picking the winner.

More details on Sam Witwer’s new project, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, were revealed at CES recently. Sam played “Crashdown” on Battlestar Galactica and will play the main character in this new and highly-anticipated video game.

Alessandro Juliani, aka Lt. Felix Gaeta, is also an accomplished opera singer. Click here to listen to an audio clip of him singing at a BSG con last August.

The People’s Choice Awards were tonight, and unfortunately Battlestar Galactica got beat in the Favorite SciFi Show category by Stargate Atlantis.  

Atlantis is a spin off of Stargate:SG-1 and another popular show on the SciFi Network.  It’s cast is led by Joe Flanigan, who also beat the cast of BSG earlier this fall by commanding the most money for his autographed breast cancer bear.

The photo above is from last summer’s ComicCon in San Diego, and features Stargate actors Ben Browder (Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell) and Christopher Judge (Teal’c) from SG-1 as well as Jewel Staite (Dr. Jennifer Keller, in the yellow vest), Joe Flanigan (Lt. Col. John Sheppard), and David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay) from Atlantis.  Amanda Tapping, who plays Col. Samantha Carter on both series, is in the middle in black.  The photo to the right is of Amanda Tapping and Battlestar Galactica’s Mary McDonnell from the SciFi Channel party at Comic Con.

It’s not too late to add your vote for Grace Park, who plays various Cylon roles on Battlestar Galactica, in TV.com’s poll for the Hottest Actress of 2007. Right now Grace has 628,075 votes in a count that is steadily rising, placing her second only to It Girl and Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.

Other ladies in the running include Mary Louis Parker from Weeds and Smallville’s new Supergirl Laura Vandervoort, as well as Sarah Shahi from Life who is in third place.

The polls will be open until tonight, and voting is unlimited, so if you are a Grace fan click quickly. This is the same poll that has her on screen husband, Tahmoh Penikett, in the running for Hottest Actor and where Katee Sackhoff’s “other show” Bionic Woman is actually leading the pack for Best New Fall Show.

It’s been a good week for Grace, who was also named one of the Sexiest Women on TV - Ever, in a list that came out earlier this week.

Has Tricia Helfer’s body combined with the manipulative moves of Number Six and inspired a new male phobia of Fit Women?  This web site says "yes." In other Tricia news, check out this clip of her talking about season four.

Lucy Lawless won the top spot on LesbiaNation’s list of Top Ten Women We Love in 2007.  The list also included Stargate legend Amanda Tapping and Lucy’s Xena: Warrior Princess costar Renee O’Connor. 

In other Lucy news, she appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas yesterday, speaking on a panel about "Science Fiction’s Influence on Technology."  If you find a recap of the panel, please let me know.

Justine wants everyone to vote for Helo, also known as Tahmoh Penikett, for hottest actor in the Best of 2007 awards.  He is woefully behind right now, probably due to the unfortunate photo choice which makes him look slightly deformed.  This one is much better.  The awards also nominated Battlestar Galactica Season One (not season two?) in its Best in DVD category.

Geno points out this incredibly unflattering photograph of Edward James Olmos on Celebrity Puke, where the Admiral is compared to an ass.  The photo was taken recently as Eddie was lunching at the famed Ivy restaurant.

Crave Online has a new interview with Katee Sackhoff, where she talks about her various projects including White Noise 2: The Light which comes out on DVD this week.  The movie also stars Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon’s space western Firefly, which inspired this cute exchange in the interview:

Crave Online: Hypothetical, who would win in a fight? Malcolm Reynolds or Starbuck?
Katee Sackhoff: Who is Malcolm Reynolds? You like that? Ah, I’m just kidding. Probably me. Yeah. Maybe. He’s bigger than I am.

We have had several weeks of fans cheering actors and producers who are supporting the writers’ strike, but it was only a matter of time before fans started to look around and notice who is not on the picket lines in support of their favorite shows.

Thus this video from YouTube, which pokes fun at BSG producer David Eick for his absence and seeming lack of support for the writers during the strike. 

The young fellow in the shower captures the baby-faced slickness of Eick while also building on the popularity of the darling Bamber Bunnies clip that took YouTube by a storm a few weeks ago.

BSG head writer Ron Moore has been on the forefront of the strike efforts and helped forge a bridge between fans and writers through his blog, by helping raise the profile of fans4writers.com, and working on the famous pencil campaign.

His partner and producer Eick, however, has been noticeably silent, and it’s not much of a stretch to see him cheering the AMPTP.  As the strike drags on we will probably see more of these videos about various silent show runners, as frustrations mount and the strike drags on longer than anyone had hoped.  As always, for strike coverage with a BSG focus be sure to check out GalacticaSitRep.com.

Origin of a Joke

Scifi fans are funny folks, thriving on a digital culture that has a lust for new information.  As they anxiously await the conclusion of the writers’ strike and the start of season four, it’s easy for the Battlestar Galactica fans on various forums and blogs to develop layers of jokes even more quickly than usual.  Jokes and references develop layers that seem hysterical to the fans but whiz over the heads of the average viewer.   

Take this t-shirt for example, which is a parody of a t-shirt that was inspired by a web comic that was inspired by a prequel to a scifi movie.

There is an old saying that if you have to explain a joke it is not funny, but that saying never met a blogger … or a scifi fan.  For us, explaining the origin of a joke is part of the fun.  It’s not enough to get it, we want to know the details.  So if anyone has the specific blog or forum thread that inspired the YouTube clip above, please contact me because I would love to know!