Battlestar Galactica

Mary McDonnell was in Dublin last week for the Irish Film and Television Awards, looking gorgeous as always in a multicolored gown and copper shawl.  The awards were broadcast on the BBC.

Mary was asked to present at the awards due to her Irish roots, and was given the honor of presenting the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture.  Pat Shortt won the award for Garage.  Shortt’s fellow nominees included Gabriel Byrne for Jindabyne, Colm Meaney in Kings, Hugh Conor in Speed Dating, and Cillian Murphy in Sunshine.

The evening suffered a scandal when the organizers completely forgot to hand out the Best Supporting Actress award during the evening.  Apologies were issued later, but the damage was done.

Other stars at the event included Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Bo Derek, John Corbett, Rene Russo, Mel Gibson, MC Hammer, and Victoria Smurfit.  The event was held at the Gaiety Theatre one week ago tonight.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Edward James Olmos, or “Eddie” as he is known to his friends.  To Battlestar Galactica fans he is the great Admiral Adama, or The Old Man. 

In real life Eddie is a young and bouncing 61 years old, hopefully with many years in front of him and many great roles yet to be played.

And hopefully one of those roles will be on the red carpet this week, as the Edward James Olmos Hero for Youth Award will be presented as part of a Boys and Girls Club Gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday night. 

Add this to the long line of causes and charitable entities that the handsome Admiral supports in his rare spare time.  The man is constantly on the go, for example last weekend he was the keynote speaker at a conference about Hispanic Opportunities in Public Education.  He is also busy with the upcoming birthday of Cesar Chavez, as he is the national co-chair (along with Carlos Santana and Martin Sheen) of the campaign to make Cesar’s birthday a national holiday.

Tricia Helfer recently had another movie come out, the psychological thriller Spiral.  Zachary Levi from Chuck plays the tormented lead, and talked in an interview with IFMagazine about how much he enjoyed working with Tricia.  He also mentioned that she would be great as a character on his show (perhaps as Sarah’s spy sister), a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with:

“Tricia was a doll. She was ridiculously talented and ridiculously hot,” Zachary said.  “She was so nice. She was only there one day and it was a great day. We sat around and talked about life and Battlestar Galactica and her husband and how great life was and it was a really fun time to be making the movie. That day with Tricia was a lot of fun. I hope that our paths cross again in the future and we get to work together again, because she really is a class act.”

This photographer has a cute pic up of Aaron Douglas from last weekend’s SF Ball in Great Britain.

I watched a lot of television while I was sick, including the episode from the first season of Supernatural that featured Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) as an obnoxiously cocky hunter who gets eaten by a Wendigo.  If you are a Leoban fan add it to your Netflix queue if you have not seen it already.

Check out this interesting animation of Giaus Baltar created by Braden Poirer of Ontario.  I like the way he captures James Callis’ questioning attitude and the way his back alternately slumps and arches when he talks.

Set your TiVo for March 28, when the SciFi Channel will air two new Battlestar Galactica specials.

The first special, Battlestar Galactica: Revisited, will refresh viewers on the stories of the first three seasons and help prepare them for Season Four of the series.  It sounds similar to The Story So Far, a previous special, and will probably follow the same format of blending clips from the show with interviews of the cast talking about their characters and potential upcoming developments.  The hosts for the half hour show will be BSG producers David Eick and Ron Moore.

The second special sounds much more interesting for rabid fans.  Battlestar Galactica: The Phenomenon, will examine BSG’s impact on pop culture and will air immediately after Battlestar Galactica: Revisited.  Interviews will include Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum and self-professed geek Seth Green, country music star Brad Paisley, and the snarky host of E! Television’s Talk Soup Joel McHale.

The first episode of Season Four will air April 4, 2008.  I assume you are already planning to set your TiVo for that one, with a Season Pass just to be safe.

Various web sites are reporting that Battlestar Galactica is scheduled to go back into production next month, which is great news for everyone who is a fan of the show.  Galactica Sit Rep has a quote from The Old Man himself Edward James Olmos, saying that the stories will be completed after all and the fans will be “satisfied.”  This is a huge relief for everyone who was worried that the strike would force the series to end even more abruptly than Ron Moore planned.

According to Jane Espensen’s blog the writers are already back in the writing room hard at work on the second half of Season Four.  Before the strike ten episodes of the final season of the show had been completed, and there were approximately ten episodes remaining to be shot. 

There were a lot of rumors going around that the strike was going to make shooting those final episodes impossible, but it looks like that is one more rumor to toss into the garbage - we are getting our ending folks!  And hopefully those long hours on the picket lines only tired the writer’s feet, but refreshed their minds for this final stretch of the series. 

Speaking of coming back, thanks for sticking with me through two weeks of flu folks.  If you live in an area that is being ravaged by the nasty strain of flu-shot resistant flu that is out there please do everything you can not to get it, because it is a nasty one!

So I have been out for a while and in the process a ton of Battlestar Galactica news has happened.  It’s going to take me a few days to catch up but be sure to check back here as there will be plenty of quick links and tidbits this week.

There is a ton of great BSG news out there, and I am behind! I have been under the weather, and that combined with some serious tech issues has dragged down my BSG reporting the past two weeks. Hopefully body and blog will be back up and running soon, but until then I appreciate your patience.

Many Thanks,
Margie

It’s been awhile since we have seen Katee Sackhoff on the red carpet, so she was a sight for sore eyes to see her at the Over Her Dead Body premiere in Los Angeles last week.

Katee looked fabulous in a green sheath with a plunging neckline, accessorized by oversized gold earrings and a chic gold clutch.

Filming both Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica in Vancouver keeps the actress busy and away from the bright lights of the premiere circuit. Katee has a packed schedule between her two shows, and she also makes appearances at conventions and does promotions for her other projects.

Over Her Dead Body stars Desperate Housewives Eva Longoria Parker as a woman who is killed on the day of her wedding and proceeds to haunt her new husband from the afterlife. The film has gotten mediocre reviews, mostly because Eva’s character is apparently pretty mean.

“Unlike Patrick Swayze in Ghost, Kate isn’t focused on gazing adoringly at her beloved or trying to ease his transition into life without her,” says Mary Pols of the Mercury News. “This meanie is there to make sure he’s never happy again.”

The San Francisco Chronicle also slammed the film, saying everything from the acting to the plot was horrible and Eva was so orange from spray tanning that she looked like an Oompa Loompa. Yikes!

Eva’s sister housewives Felicity Huffman, Nicolette Sheridan and Brenda Strong also attended the party.  Geek fan favorites Zachary Levi and Sarah Lancaster from Chuck were also at the party, along with Cashmere Mafia’s Bonnie Sommerville, and Mario Lopez, Michael Bolton, and Christina Applegate.  Jason Biggs and Lake Bell, who also have roles in the movie, were at the party as well.

The movie has gotten bad reviews, but the party looked like a lot of fun.  To see more pictures of Katee at the event, click the button to go to the jump.

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