Battlestar Galactica

Or more accurately, Lucy Lawless wants you to vote for Marissa Jaret Winokur on Dancing With the Stars … watching is optional.  Although if you do watch, be sure to look for Lucy in the audience since she has been attending as many shows as possible to cheer on her friend. 

When Dancing With the Stars airs again on Monday it will feature the Final Four and some tough competition.  Marissa faces some formidable foes in dancing angel Kristy Yamaguchi, sympathetic heartthrob Christian De La Fuente, and the sexy duo of Jason Taylor and the often-underestimated Edyta.  If you are anywhere near a phone or a computer on Monday between 8:00 and 9:30 EST and then vote for Marissa and help make Lucy a happy woman (check the ABC.com site for the number to call or the address to e-mail.  You can send votes via text as well.

Lucy and Marissa have been photographed together on a wide array of red carpets since 2004, and they are close friends when they are not in the public eye.  Lucy has blogged several times about rushing back from a distant appearance in order to be in the audience to make Marissa more comfortable when she dances:

“I have to rush back to Los Angeles to be with Marissa, who is down to the final 5 in DWTS.  She was in the bottom two last week.  See what happens when I leave town?!  Usually I am there making rude gestures across the dance floor, like I’m pulling a noose tight, just to stop her taking it all too seriously.  Still, I want her to get through another week.  Please don’t forget to vote!  L”

Lucy’s devotion to cheering on Marissa is especially admirable since Lucy has been vocal about the fact that she is not fond of the show.  To devote this many hours to making sure your friend succeed on a show you don’t even like?  Now that is friendship!

These are the words Admiral Adama used to explain why he has never finished his favorite book, and they are a beautiful peek into the pain of a man who has had too much loss in his life. 

They are also words that describe many fans’ secret feelings about their favorite pop culture obsessions.  For a long time I thought I was the only freak who could not bring herself to watch the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.  

But I recently discovered there are millions of people out there, just like me and Bill Adama, who just can’t say goodbye to their favorite characters.

When you really love something, it is hard to watch the series finale or read the final installment because you know that after that … there is no more.  It’s like how anticipation is half the fun of a vacation or a holiday, or looking forward to a party is almost as much fun as the party itself.

But because it is an ending, there is a bittersweet element as well.  A sharp pain, like the death of someone who you admired from afar or loved from a distance.  And since life can deliver enough death and pain on its own, it is understandable that some fans do not want to face the natural ending of their favorite characters.

Sometimes it is easier to avoid the end then it is to get creative closure, especially when the characters are ones that you have grown attached to over time.  I understand why Adama would not want to read the end of his favorite book, and admire him for the sacrifice he is making by reading it nonetheless.

This looks more fun than a cabinet meeting … while Lee Adama tends to stick to the more serious side of governmental affairs, Jamie Bamber found himself at the champagne-soaked launch of BritWeek 2008 at the British Consul General’s official residence in Los Angeles.

BritWeek celebrates the numerous connections between the Great Britain and the City of Angels, and features numerous parties, screenings, events and educational opportunities.  This year’s celebrations included a Duran Duran concert, a comedy festival, and a celebrity soccer match hosted by the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team.

Other celebrities who joined Jamie at the invitation-only launch included John Cleese, Dame Judi Dench, Eric Idle, Juliet Mills of Passions, Lucy Davis of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and the BBC version of The Office, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, and Michael Keaton among others.  The photograph above shows Jamie with actor Tony Curran of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and a woman identified as Maingu Yen.

Katee Sackhoff hit the red carpet this weekend for TV Guide’s celebration of the Sexiest Stars of 2008.

These pictures are gorgeous, and they are also very unusual for Katee.  The actress is known for wearing lush solid colors on the red carpet, so the fact that she is wearing a wild print for a big event shows she is trying new things.

The party was held in Hollywood and featured a mix of talent from scripted and reality shows.  Other celebrities in attendance included Jennifer Love Hewett from Ghost Whisperer, Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski from Chuck, Alex O’Loughlin from Moonlight, Karina Smirnoff and Kym Johnson from Dancing with the Stars, Olivia Wilde from House, M.D., Scott M. Foster from Quarterlife, Rebecca Mader from Lost, and various stars from Heroes among others.

Katee will also be featured in the related magazine issue, which will be on newsstands this week.  This is great buzz for Katee, who gathered up a lot of new fans in the 2007-2008 television season.  Here’s hoping we see much more of her in 2008-2009.

Jamie Bamber is also in the issue, in the “Sexiest Sci Fi Guy” section.  You know we are at a unique moment in pop culture when “Sexiest Sci Fi Guy” and “Sexiest Nerds” are two different categories.  There is also a category for “Sexiest Smart Chicks” which unfortunately neglected to include Mary McDonnell. 

It’s great that TV Guide is recognizing that brains are just as important as beauty when it comes to recognizing sexy - now if we can just get them to expand their age ranges a bit, we could really celebrate!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alessandro Juliani, who plays Gaeta on Battlestar Galactica, is a veteran of scifi and the stage. The actor has won numerous Canadian theater awards for his set designs, and this Spring fans of Gaeta and good acting can see him on stage in The Violet Hour at the Belfry Theater in Victoria, British Columbia.

The Violet Hour is a Tony award winning play that combines time travel, romance, and an ode to great books. The main character is Jonathan Pace Seavering, a young publisher with the limited resources to only publish one book and must choose between the tome of his best friend and his lover. He encounters a magical, page-spewing machine that feeds him information from the future, and allows for the audience to explore the time-honored subjects of ambition and fate.

The production runs from Tuesday, April 15th through May 18th with plays each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights and afternoon productions on the weekends. Tickets range from $21 to $36 each, depending on the location of the seats and the night of the show.

It’s a good opportunity to visit gorgeous Victoria, a city that combines old world sophistication with outdoor charms like a fabulous botanical garden and whale watching. I spent three days in Victoria a few years ago, and truly enjoyed the town as well as its breathtaking scenery, quaint shopping, and tasty food.

Victoria is also a short ferry ride from Vancouver, where you can explore all sorts of BSG-related places, and Seattle, where you can geek out at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

Bear McCreary’s compositions add amazing layers to Battlestar Galactica, and it seems his talents are only growing in season four.

Bear recently blogged about the various pieces he composed for last week’s dramatic season four premiere, and included the translation for the haunting chant/prayer that is part of his new theme for Gaius Baltar.

The combination is designed to highlight Gaius’ new mental, emotional, and spiritual journey and the lyrics combine Cylon and Fleet sayings with images of suffering and redemption:

We gadriaþ in nihtscuan (We gather in shadow,)
Neoðan þin gledstede, (Beneath your altar,)
þin liċfæst in blode ond lieġe. (Your image in blood and flame.)
Nu þin ġebann, æþreddaþ us (By your command, deliver us)
To þæm anliċum æltæwan gastcyninge (Unto the One True God)
Gaius Baltar, ure dryhtweorþ nergend (Gaius Baltar, our divine savior)
Nu ond æfre to alder. (Now and for eternity.)
Swa we ġehwilc ġehalsiaþ. (So say we all. )

Bear also blogs about how he uses his compositions to highlight the complicated nature of the Battlestar Galactica characters, playing music that may not seem appropriate for the dialogue to increase the drama of a scene. I love Bear’s music, so it’s a damn effective technique if you ask me!

Katee Sackhoff reveals to Televisionary that she thinks Starbuck’s soul mate is a Cylon:  “If there was anyone she’d be happy with, it’d probably be Leoben,” she admits. “Anders is too weak for her emotionally. Lee’s too much of a boy scout; he makes her feel guilty for her anger and her faults just by being who he is. If there’s ever any person she can let her guard down with, and be happy with, probably Leoben.”  Check out more great revelations from Starbuck in the site’s great Katee interview.

Speaking of great interviews, if you have not read the interview with Jamie Bamber over on TVAddict.com yet then you are missing a treat.  Jamie talks about how the relationship between Apollo and Starbuck is “incestuous” and reveals his dark hope for Battlestar Galactica’s pop culture legacy:  “On a psychological level, I hope [Lee] sort of finds self-knowledge and on a show level, I just hope we really scare the hell out of the world. I think, really scare the audience and the wider public to realizing how destructive our progress is. This idea that we have of growth and economic growth and technological progress is not the path to be taken, it’s the path to destruction, and I hope Ron delivers that.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had an interesting description of the final four Cylons that compares them to a famous candy item:  “Not only had Starbuck supposedly found the mythical planet that the ragtag remnants of the human race had been on a death-march across the universe to find, but — unknown to anyone — four of her colleagues turned out to be the genetic equivalent of a peanut-butter cup: heroic human on the outside, shady alien cylon on the inside.”

Tahmoh Penikett talked about how excited he is to be part of Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse.  In other Dollhouse news, Tahmoh’s nemesis on the show will be Olivia Williams — the actress who is best known for playing Bruce Willis’ hauntingly beautiful wife in The Sixth Sense.

And last but not least, TiFaux offers this humorous and helpful guide to identifying TV nerds in the era of the nerd fetish.  It’s a helpful guide for those who are still baffled that we live in a decade where books like Vicki Lewis Thompson’s Talk Nerdy to Me are romance novel best sellers.

Tricia Helfer is going to be on The Tonight Show this Friday, April 11, 2008. She will also be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson next week, on April 15.  Fans of Six, set your TiVos!

TV Guide talks about season four of BSG in its latest issue, labeling the final journey of the fleet as a Cylon-apalooza.  The accompanying story contains some minor spoilers about what is in store for the first ten episodes of this season, and much speculation about the final model.

When the Wired story on season four resurrected Aaron Douglas’ old vow to never utter “frak” on camera, the good fans at the Chief’s Deck went back and busted the boy for the potty mouth he really is … and then redeemed him shortly after, pointing out the related quote was from Season One and the Chief did not start throwing frak around until Season Two.  Good detective work, folks, especially considering The Chief bellows BSG’s signature curse word twice before the opening credits in the season four premiere.

Scott Ian from Anthrax has posted his thoughts on “He That Believeth In Me” over on his new, official BSG blog on SciFi.com.  It’s a very enjoyable post, although I got stuck on the phrase “If I’m wrong, hire Apollo to sue me.”  I know the Colonial culture is eroding with each passing soul, but surely they still require someone to have a bit of formal legal training before they take on clients?  Or perhaps since there is still no money it does not matter either?

Adama and Roslin shippers are very happy about this episode, especially due to the background photograph that is clearly visible in this screencap up on Battlestar Blog.  Warning, do not click through if you have not seen the episode yet!

Leo Chiang, the tattooed pilot from Galactica’s reserves, may not have been there for the big battle in “He That Believeth In Me” … but he did get to eat some great food after wrapping The Day The Earth Stood Still.  Check out Leo’s pics from the party, which were kindly posted on his blog.