Battlestar Galactica

Regardless of your particular theory about what is going on with this season’s version of Starbuck, you can’t ignore her significance to Battlestar Galactica and the fate of its crew.

Grant Gould is a bit of a cult figure among BSG fans, as his past works of art based on the show have done a remarkable job of capturing the spirit and feel of the characters.

This past week Grant posted a new four-color work that focuses on this season’s Starbuck, which does a fabulous job of capturing her confused determination as well as the symbolism that surrounds her and her “special destiny.” To see a much larger, original, version of the drawing please click here.

Grant also has his 2008 sketchbook for sale to all folks, even those that do not make it to conventions he will be attending. The cost is $10 for the sketchbook, plus shipping ($5 for fans living in Canada or the United States, $10 for fans living outside of North America). The color cover features a Cylon and a great hybrid of Princess Leia from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica’s Number Six, and each sketchbook comes with a custom sketch of your favorite character from BSG or another well-known scifi or fantasy production.

One of the great things about Battlestar Galactica being back on the air is that we may get to see more BSG-inspired art in the next few weeks. The show has so many talented fans, it is always a thrill to see what they come up with next.

Leah Cairns, aka Margaret “Racetrack” Edmondson on Battlestar Galactica, was partying with Al Pacino last week at the world premiere of 88 Minutes at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Leah posed with Chris Carillo and Kevin Hawryluk above, and costars Alicia Witt and Deborah Kara Unger below.  Other celebrities at the event included Leelee Sobieski, who wore leather with Tricia Helfer in Walk This Way, as well as boxer Joe Calzaghe and actors Benjamin McKenzie and Marguerite Moreau.

88 Minutes has gotten terrible reviews, mostly because of its crazy plot and because people expect more from Al Pacino.  Leah plays a woman who sleeps with Pacino in the movie, and who may or may not have had a part in setting up his character for the murder/suspense portion of the plot.  Reviews of her performance are typically described as “naked” (literally) … for a chance to see why, check out the YouTube clip below.

Reviews have Al Pacino’s new movie 88 Minutes have been savagely negative, but there is one reason for Battlestar Galactica fans to go see it anyway: it features a “naked and limber” Leah Cairns. So if you liked that sports-bra strip poker scene with Racetrack and Anders in “Six of One,” then this may be the movie for you.

TV Addict got a serious scoop this week that includes serious Caprica spoilers, including some an excerpt from the words written for Joseph Adama in the current version of the script.

TVByTheNumbers.com has the ratings for the first three episodes of Season Four of Battlestar Galactica, which are looking pretty good all things considered.

Tricia Helfer (Number Six) and Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) are both nominated for Leo Awards this year. Callum is nominated for the ensemble drama Normal, while Tricia is nominated for her well-reviewed dominatrix heist movie Walk All Over Me.

Callum will be answering forum questions about his movie Snow Cake in connection to the launch of the First Weekend Club, a DVD club for fans of movies made in Canada.

Brent Spiner, aka Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Nicki Clyne had a cute exchange at FedCon last weekend:

Brent Spiner (STTNG): “I just wanted to say how proud I am of the work we do on Battlestar Galactica.” (Note: he’s not in the series and apparently doesn’t even know it)

Nicki Clyne (BSG): “It is so much fun working with Brent Spiner, the show wouldn’t be the same without him.”

Len Neighbors has posted volume three of So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival. Most of the posts focus on last week’s episode, “The Ties That Bind” and include serious spoilers so do not click through if you have not seen the episode yet.

If you have seen the episode, be sure to check out the latest strip from webcomic Frakking Toasters, which accurately displays a lot of fans’ feelings about Cally Tyrol. Thanks to Jatg of Battlestar Blog for the head’s up.

If you have not seen the beach-bunny-in-leather-styled photos of Tricia Helfer, Katee Sackhoff, and Grace Park in this month’s Interview magazine yet, then FashionArtEdit is happy to help you out.

This is an interesting list of twenty moments where Battlestar Galactica characters have contemplated suicide.

On the lighter side, check out this bizarre 2006 clip of Nicki Clyne donning elf/alien ears as part of the web series Tiki Bar TV.

The cool Cylon photo above is courtesy of Mechazilla, the obsessive fan collector’s site. Speaking of courtesy, I sincerely appreciate everyone being patient with me this week while I have been posting sparsely and falling behind, we had a family medical emergency and I have been spending a lot of time with doctors who are (probably) not Cylons.

So much happened in this episode! Some quick thoughts below, and I will be on the ShaunOMac show again this evening to talk about Battlestar Galactica if you want to call in.

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For fans who have not yet had a chance to watch the newest Battlestar Galactica episode, The Ties that Bind, here the episode from Hulu.com. Quick comments will be available here on Sunday, but until then here a few samples of the commentary taking place around the ‘net:*

TV Squad, Pop Critics, Scott EVill, Pop Media Cult, Thuderdome, Jedi Archives, and discussion at the Television Without Pity forums.

Please note this is not an endorsment of any particular review … I am at a wedding this weekend, and still trying my darndest not to be spoiled until I can watch this episode tomorrow afternoon. I am so curious, but even BSG can’t trump old friends.

Tonight is a new episode of Battlestar Galactica … if you watch the preview above and can’t wait for it to come on the air, then there will be plenty of chances to watch the episode today on the SciFi Channel web site.  I don’t know about you, but I definitely plan on checking Nicki Clyne’s blog this weekend because it looks like she has a major role in this episode.

Hulu has a new clip of various Battlestar cast and crew members talking about the end of the series, which is available below, but I would not watch it if you are actively avoiding spoilers.

There are still a few more hours to leave your questions for Michael Trucco (Anders) and Rekha Sharma (Tory) over on the scifi.com forums.  The chosen questions will be answered via video blog, in a continuation of the series of video blogs that the SciFi Channel has been releasing for Season Four of Battlestar Galactica.

If you did not get to attend the amazing concerts this weekend featuring Bear McCreary’s Battlestar music, there are plenty of recaps to be found around the Internet.  The Hollywood Reporter had high praise for the show, and anointed Bear McCreary’s blog “one of the best in the business.”

The Boston Herald has a new interview with Tricia Helfer, where she talks a bit about the final Cylon and how Head Six was her least favorite version of Six to play in Season Four.

Check out this enjoyable list from Lisa Paitz Spindler of thirteen enjoyable things about Battlestar Galactica.  Meanwhile Gaius Baltar makes this list of Top Ten Screen Traitors, and rightly so. 

And speaking of lists, Mary McDonnell and Michelle Forbes are rightfully included on Maureen Ryan’s list of amazing actresses who look their age and still look beautiful.  There have been several articles written this week about how the Hollywood obsession with plastic surgery is harming the audience’s ability to connect with certain characters and shows.  While it is not easy to make fun of someone’s efforts to improve their appearance, I am glad critics are finally speaking up about the fact that too much plastic surgery can actually harm the audience’s ability to care about a main character … it is hard to worry too much about plastic, after all.

As mentioned last week, Alessandro Juliani will be back on the stage this Spring as the actor stars in the Victoria, British Columbia production of The Violet Hour.

The Victoria News ran an interesting interview with the man who plays Gaeta today, highlighting his Battlestar background but emphasizing that Juliani’s real love is the theater:

“With all due respect to Battlestar, this is using a completely different part of my brain,â€? Juliani told the newspaper. “On the spaceship I’m often given the task of spouting jargon and gobbledygook, which trains a certain part of your mind that is disposable … what I most appreciate about this is when you’re working on a play there is just so much more time to talk about character and subtext and relationships. In television the reality of the world is go, go, go.â€?

Juliani plays a struggling Irish writer in The Violet Hour, a sprawling play about book publishing that also examines love, life, and time travel.

“It’s like the the difference between being a sprinter and a long-distance runner,” Juliani explained. “I’m enjoying the discovery of rehearsal, remembering what it was like after three years and relishing it in a big way.â€?

It sounds like he is spending a lot of time at the theater, which sparks questions about the status of Gaeta in the last ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Gaeta is many folks’ pick for the final Cylon, but if he is on stage instead of on set perhaps speculation should be pointed towards another character.

Last week’s episode made it very clear to me:  that creature is not Starbuck.  That is my theory anyway … it’s still a mystery on Battlestar Galactica, but in my humble opinion Starbuck would not do the things this thing has done.  If you have seen “Six of One” or don’t mind being spoiled, click below.

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If you were not charmed by the Adama ‘08 tees, perhaps this one is more to your liking.  Hijinks Ensure is selling a Roslin ‘08 tee that has a design as bold and uncompromising as Laura Roslin is this season.

The tees are $20s for men and $21 for ladies (smells like discrimination to me), with four dollars in shipping and handling charges for folks in United States or Canada.  International Roslin fans can still order the shirts, but their shipping is four dollars more.  For more information, please click here.

A few of the funny, odd, or strange things that happened around the pop culture universe over the weekend:

Has Mary McDonnell had plastic surgery?  Gedblog reports, you decide.  Special thanks to this blog for the screencap from “Six of One,” I tried to pick one that was not a spoiler for folks who have not seen the episode yet.

Nicki Clyne lets us know she is still around and she is still blogging … she has just been doing Euro Cons.

Lucy Lawless has been sending tons of love to Dancing With the Stars contestant Marisa Jaret Winokur, attending at least one taping of the show and Marisa’s rehearsals.  If you are a Dancing fan, be sure to give all of your Dancing votes to Marissa … it’s interesting that while Lucy is a fan of Marisa, she is not a fan of the way the powers that be run Dancing With the Stars (”Who produces this show? Satan???”)

“What the frak!” made an appearance last week on 30 Rock, which literally rocked.

Looks like John McCain is finally getting some geek cred, as folks are starting to wonder if McCain is a Cylon.  Welcome to the party, John, people have been speculating about whether Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are Cylons for months!  Although to give the guy credit, he has a better Cylon claim in the sense that he looks like Tigh and has a young blonde wife he likes to insult.

The folks over at Popnography have nicknamed the newest Cylons Pudgy, Pretty, Pouty, and Asshole . . . Anders is the pretty one. 

Apparently George Clooney’s Leatherheads is so slow this reviewer kept him wondering about Cylons instead of what the end of the movie would be .  . . and while I am not enough of a hockey fan to understand this reference, apparently Deadspin thinks the Cylons have invaded the NHL too.

If South Park did a Battlestar Galactica episode then the result might resemble these intriguing bits of fan art.  The two shows have more in common than most people imagine, as they are both the recipient of the prestigious Peabody award and the South Park creators have confessed to being fans of BSG.

My favorite is the Saul Tigh version, which looks just as down as the Saul Tigh of seasons two and three and is holding a beer and some playing cards.  While Saul probably thinks beer is for sissies, and the cards on the Galactica are octagons instead of rectangles, it is still pretty cute.

The images were posted by Aphrodite on the Battlestar Zone forums, but some of the drawings feature the tag “BSG-Online, copyright Snake56.  Leaving aside the legal issues of whether you can claim a copyright using your fictitious forum name, does anybody know the forums that are referenced here?  I have tried several versions of the name, but bsg-online is a business strategy site and those folks don’t seem too interested in Battlestar Galactica. 

Grace Park and Tahmoh Penikett appeared on Today yesterday morning to promote Battlestar Galactica in an interview that was much too short to be effective. 

The fault was not with Grace and Tahmoh, who looked great and were charming and pleasant under the circumstances.  Instead, the fault was with Meredith Viera, who was not properly prepared for the interview and seemed confused about whether she should talk about the actors, the show, or the fans, and as a result they did none of the above very well.

It opens with the amazing scene where Helo has to kill his wife so that she can rescue their child, the first Cylon-human hybrid.  It’s a great scene and could have been the perfect springboard for Grace, Tahmoh, and Meredith to talk about how this show is so much more than “sci-fi” and is better viewed as a honest and tragic look at human beings and families, a show that could easily recruit new viewers if they would just give it a chance.

Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer joined William Shatner on Jay Leno’s couch last night as a guest on The Tonight Show, giving a fun and funny interview and deftly balancing Jay and Bill’s competitions for her attention. 

She also flirted with Jay a bit, acting hurt that he did not remember their kiss from last fall’s Harley Davidson Love Ride event.

“You know you are giving me a complex, because most boys that I kiss remember me …” 

Tricia also discussed her happy marriage, her Harley, her Playboy spread, and a bit about Battlestar Galactica but nothing that even casual fans have not heard before.

Tricia did not discuss her big news from last week, her one year holding deal with Fox Television.  The network will cast Tricia in a new show, probably a drama, but no additional details are available at this time.  It’s bittersweet news as Fox is not knowing for keeping new shows very long, but Tricia is a phenomenal actress and the more people who get to discover that the better.

Battlestar Galactica has always been about the questionable choices people make in terrible circumstances, but last night’s episode “Six of One” seemed to take that to a new extreme.  If you have not watched it yet, the entire episode is embedded above … if you have watched it, feel free to add your thoughts to my first impressions below.

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One of the most popular questions fans are asking after last week’s Battlestar Galactica episode, “He That Believeth In Me,” has to do with the Cylon raiders.  Or, more specifically, a certain Cylon raider in particular and a certain moment.  For those who have seen the episode, click below.  For those who have not, beware of spoilers.

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