Battlestar Galactica

Entertainment Weekly is doing a “SciFi Showdown” this week, pitting iconic science fiction moments against each other in a multiple part poll.

Tricia Helfer’s Number Six appears in the “Pleasure Bot” category, pitted against Jude Law’s pretty performance in AI: Artificial Intelligence. It should be no surprise that Number Six is spanking Jude’s cyborg, she is getting 89 percent of the votes at this point. Go Tricia!

The poll also pits Admiral Adama’s battered Battlestar Galactica against Captain Jean Luc Picard’s Starship Enterprise NCC 1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. As of this post, the Enterprise was winning the “Warship” category 61 percent to 39 percent. BSG is also struggling in the “Snub Fighter” category, which asks voters to choose between the Galactica’s vipers and Star War’s X-Wings. So far Star Wars has almost eighty percent of the votes.

Other questions in the poll ask whether K.I.T.T. is cooler than the modern Batmobile, and whether Excalibur is a cooler sword than the Thundercats‘ Sword of the Omens.

Probably the toughest question of the bunch is the puzzler of which ship makes the better smuggling vessel: the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars or the Serenity of Firefly? While the Falcon had Han and Chewy, some serious box office mojo and long merchandising life have dimmed its reputation as an outsider choice. Serenity’s cult following and early cancellation, on the other hand, have helped it retain that criminal cache that every smuggling vessel needs to gain underworld credibility. It’s a tough call, but generations of lunch boxes should be reward enough for the Falcon … my vote goes to Serenity.

There is so much news going on right now, I don’t know where to start!

First of all, there will (probably) be two more Battlestar Galactica telemovies, but very few details are available yet.  They will be about events that have happened in the past, like Razor, but what events and who they will focus on is largely still a mystery.  I will definitely have more details in the weeks and months to come, but for now let’s just enjoy the news that more BSG is on the horizon.

Next, Ron Moore has a new interview with Wired magazine that contains this disturbing quote:

Wired: Since then, have you written yourselves into any corners?

Moore: Some of that is happening right now as we wrap up the show. It’s like, OK, what did that mean, exactly? How do we get out of this?

Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary has a long post about “Gaeta’s Lament,” the song that is very important to Friday’s episode.  He also confirms that this song, and many of the other ideas that have worked their way into this season, were ideas that were formed during after hours of drinking.

Katee Sackhoff has been cast as a doctor on a four-episode story arc of the bawdy plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck.  If you have seen that show, you know that Katee’s extensive experience doing sex scenes on Battlestar may come in handy.  Unless, of course, sister guest star Morgan Fairchild beats her to it.

The first United States promo for Life on Mars is out, and you can see a brief glimpse of Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen at the 2:06 minute mark.

Michelle Forbes brought her sexy self to the season finale of Lost, playing a pivotal role in the Oceanic Six story line.

Be sure to look for Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) in the recently released trailer for X-Files 2: I Want to Believe.

There’s a lot more to cover, but we have time to catch our breaths as there are two weeks before the next episode.  If you are looking for something to help you pass the time, check out this “Faith” recap quiz over at GeekSugar.

Oh Hulu, why have you forsaken us?  For weeks now you have faithfully shown us the new Battlestar Galactica episodes, and now you have taken away the light.  You leave us in darkness, waiting for the moment when you choose to share BSG with us again.

Is it a Fleet approved torture technique, taking away our BSG just when we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on you?  Or perhaps Leoban schooled you to find our weakness and exploit it?

Either way, you leave us without Guess What’s Coming to Dinner for far too long.  Sure, you posted a new schedule, but can we trust you now?  Has our relationship been ruined?  Or can you regain our trust and our faith?

“Guess What’s Coming for Dinner Part 1″
Airs 5/16/08 - Available on Hulu 5/25/08

“Guess What’s Coming for Dinner Part 2″
Airs 5/30/08 - Available on Hulu 6/7/08

“Sine Qua Non”
Airs 6/6/08 - Available on Hulu 6/14/08

“The Hub”
Airs 6/13/08 - Available on Hulu 6/21/08

Like the revelation of the final Cylon, I guess we will just have to wait to find out.

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.

Casting has started for the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica, and the series is sounding better and better with every detail.  The casting information contains serious spoilers, so if you want to avoid them do not click to read more below.  For fun, I have also included some suggestions about who might succeed at playing each role.

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TV Guide is reporting that the fourth season premiere of Battlestar Galactica had great ratings for a cable show.  The 2.1 million viewers who tuned in for “He That Believeth In Me” on Friday night gave BSG a nineteen percent increase over BSG’s previous season debut.

The magazine also reports an interesting statistic:  over 600,000 of the viewers for “He That Believeth In Me” were female, creating another crack in the armor of the sacred myth that all scifi fans are males without social skills.

There is no doubt that the final tally of viewers for the episode will be much higher, once TiVo and DVR ratings are accounted for and the network has more information about how many people watched it on scifi.com and Hulu.  Perhaps in recognition of the tech savvy nature of its key demographics, The SciFi Channel has always seemed wiser about weighting this data than other networks.

Today is the big day, when we finally see what happens after Starbuck returns from the dead and four of the final five Cylons are forced to come to terms with their new identity. What are your plans for watching the Season Four premiere of BSG? Are you watching it at noon online, or with a big group tonight, or in private later so you can catch every word? Or, perhaps, all of the above?

However you watch it, Galactica Sit Rep has some links to places where you can discuss the details with fans after the episode is over.

New York Magazine has some great advice for people who are trying to convince their significant others to watch Battlestar Galactica … and thanks for the link, Everett Bogue!

The magazine also has a great interview with Michael Hogan, who plays Col. Tigh on the show, where he talks about adjusting to life as a Cylon and how he may request that his children make sure “All Along The Watch Tower” is played at his funeral.

Fans of Tahmoh Penikett (Helo) and Kandyse McClure (Dee) can bid on dinner with the attractive twosome in a charity auction over on E-Bay. The proceeds go towards helping Canadian actress Babz Churla battle cancer, and Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) is helping her out as well.

Speaking of Tahmoh, he recently landed the plum role of Eliza Dushku’s love interest on Joss Whedon’s new series, Dollhouse. Readers of this blog know I am a huge Joss fan, so I am very excited about this combo … hopefully we will get more news on Tahmoh’s role in the near future.

Oh No They Didn’t has a nice roundup of the television pilots that are being considered for next year, including Michael Trucco’s new show Man of Your Dreams. And speaking of Joss Whedon’s actors, Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) has been cast in a new legal drama that may be on NBC.

With Season Four approaching faster than a Cylon raider, the SciFi Channel has revamped its official Battlestar Galactica web site to include new tasty tidbits for fans. 

There are tons of video clips, new pictures, a new blog from Anthrax’s Scott Ian (who is a huge BSG nut), an interactive version of the Last Supper photo and another version you can download to be your computer’s desktop background.  All of the recent specials are available, as well as a cute video about a couple who met and fell in love on the SciFi.com message boards and got invited to the BSG set after they got married.

The photos contain lots of intriguing scenes from Season Four, including one of Baltar with a new woman friend and Roslin standing at the head of a table occupied by lots of official folks we don’t recognize.  There are some hot photos of Helo and Anders looking sweaty, and a glimpse of the determined new version of Number Six.  As always the photos raise more questions than answers, but they are enjoyable none the less.

Most intriguing is the “Full Episodes” button, inactive for now, but certain to raise fans hopes that fourth season episodes will be available online soon after viewing.  There has been lots of speculation about whether Season Four will be available on the net, as many improvements have been made to the online television landscape since Season Three.  Networks have been busy figuring out how profitable online streaming can be, and the SciFi Channel’s parent company launched Hulu.  The closer Friday gets, the more it looks like fans’ online wishes will come true.

Even people who don’t watch How I Met Your Mother are talking about TedMosbyIsAJerk.com, the fake web site that made headlines this week after it was mentioned in Monday’s episode.  But very few people have picked up on the site’s Battlestar Galactica reference.

A twenty minute musical manifesto featuring watery vomit sounds, death threats, pleas for phone calls, and everything in between, TedMosbyIsAJerk.com also features these lyrics at approximately minute thirteen:

“I hate everything about you, and I will make sure that you die … I know the truth about you Ted Mosby, you look, and talk, and act like a real human being, but I know what you really are … You are a Cylon!  And your only goal is total annihilation of the entire human race … I talked to my best friend Dr. Baltar and he told me, so don’t tell me that you love me, don’t tell me that you have feelings, you can’t have feelings, you’re a frakking TOASTER!”

Nice! 

A bit of background:  HIMYM is about five friends living in New York City.  Barney is the womanizer, a completely immoral uber-yuppie whose outlandish ploys to bed woman literally know no boundaries.  He is disgusting, charming, unexpectedly wise, and quite a bit like Gaius Baltar.  But instead of being played by James Callis as a brilliant scientist, Barney is a mysterious businessman played just as brilliantly by Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie Howser, M.D.

Ted Mosby is his best friend, the “I” in How I Met Your Mother, and an architect who has all of Barney’s lust but none of his confidence (Ted also has a conscience, assuming he is not too drunk). 

One of the best episodes of HIMYM is a season two show where Barney attempts to prove to Ted that women think architects are hot.  Barney wants to show Ted that wooing women is often all about the attitude, so he goes around telling people he is “Ted Mosby, Architect” all night and of course causes a bunch of trouble in the process.  He also sleeps with a woman and sneaks out while she is in the shower, leaving her a letter saying not to contact him as he is a ghost who can only materialize every decade.  Trust me, it was funny.

Fast forward to season three, and the web site.  Barney as the Fifth and Final Cylon?  Nah.  It’s just a hysterical promotional item, a great inside joke, and a nice shout out to another show for smart people.  Although it is BSG, and if Tigh is a Cylon then anything could happen.

If you don’t have time to rewatch the entire Battlestar Galactica series to refresh yourself before Friday’s premiere, you can watch Battlestar Galactica Revealed and get up to speed fairly quickly.

Revealed is essentially a series of clips from the show interspersed with commentary on the characters and circumstances of the series by Executive Producers Ron Moore and David Eick.  While not nearly as entertaining as its sister program, Battlestar Galactica: Phenomenon, it is arguably more useful for fans who want to get back in the BSG groove before season four.

The best moment of Revealed is when David Eick describes Giaus Baltar as being “equal parts Stephen Hawking, Jim Morrison, and the back room side of Bill Clinton.”  Although most people would argue that the final figure in that trinity was much more interested in politics and public policy than President Baltar, who seemed mostly interested in drugs and hookers while he was in office, it is an interesting comparison. 

Moore also implies that the Six in Baltar’s head is the result of a nervous breakdown and nothing more, but he does not fully commit to the idea and David Eick implies that Six’s presence will continue until Baltar finally “learns his lesson.”

Friday night’s season four premiere will start just where season three ended, right after Kara “Starbuck” Thrace’s seeming return from the dead and right after the four final Cylons have learned who - and what - they are.  The reaction to those event reverberate through both sides of the war, and through the season to come.

If you have not watched Battlestar Galactica: Phenomenon yet, then you are missing out on a hell of a good time.  The SciFi Channel special is essentially twenty-two minutes of celebrities talking about how much they love the show and why it is so wonderful, and even though it is one long promotional vehicle it still manages to be very entertaining.

There’s television pioneer and geek god Joss Whedon, saying Battlestar Galactica is “the best show I’ve ever seen.”

There’s snarky television host Joel McHale of Talk Soup, comparing the evolution of the modern BSG to the creation of the Air Jordan.

There’s Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order, boiling down the complexities of the series into one beautifully simple statement:  “If you lived in a world that was suddenly taken away from you, and you just happened to live, how would you continue you continue to live?”

There are many more celebrities, and they all talk about the quality of the special effects, the amazing acting, the deeper themes of humanity and religion, and how much they use the word frak now that they are fans of the show.  Country star Brad Paisley reveals his band has cut a Friday night show short to go watch BSG, and Joss Whedon compares his devotion to the Battlestar to that of Dwight from The Office.

The funny clips are interspersed with intense moments from the show, leaving a heightened sense of anticipation about Season Four.  Hopefully Phenomenon will do its job and convince more people to tune in.  Phenomenon is available in many spots around the internet, including scifi.com and Hulu.

Just in case you have not seen it yet, here is a clip of the Top Ten List from last week’s Late Show With David Letterman entitled “Top Ten Reasons to Watch The New Season of Battlestar Galactica.”

Each number on the list was recited by a member of the BSG cast, appearing in their character’s costume, which added to the fun.  The actors and actresses on the list were, in order of appearance, Aaron Douglas, Lucy Lawless, James Callis, Grace Park, Tricia Helfer, Michael Hogan, Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff, Mary McDonnell, and Edward James Olmos.

If you don’t have the time or the technology to watch the clip, a text version of the List is below … it was a lot of fun, even if the audience did not seem to truly “get it.”

Number Ten, Chief Tyrol:  “In the dramatic season opening episode, we save fifteen percent by switching our insurance to Geico.”

Number Nine, D’Anna Biers:  “You’ll find out who’s in the hatch, and who gets off the island - crap, wrong show.”  In my opinion Lucy did a pretty good job with this one, which was awkward to read … and she did not even blink when Dave mispronounced her name “Diana.”

Number Eight, Dr. Baltar:  “My character creates his own line of Honey Roasted Space Nuts.”

Number Seven, Lt. Sharon Valleri:  “What else are you going to do, read a book?”

Number Six, Number Six:  “There’s a good chance you get to see me naked.”

Number Five, Col. Saul Tigh:  “There’s a good chance you’ll see me naked.”  Be sure to watch Tricia crack up behind him during the deadpan delivery.

Number Four, Captain Lee Adama:  “New FTL drives will allow the colonial fleet to better adjust to gravitational variations and achieve maximum superluminal travel to outrun the pursuing Cylon basestar - I don’t know what the hell I am talking about.”

Number Three, Starbuck:  “We engaged in a life and death battle against evil robots … you know, same $&#@ as last year.”

Number Two, President Laura Roslin:  “I take on the most challenging task of my political career - doing a lame top ten list on a third rate talk show.”

Number One, Admiral William Adama:  “Watch me lead us into war against the Cylons, without an exit strategy.”

Are you a Battlestar Galactica fan on a limited budget, or perhaps you do not get the SciFi Channel in your area? Then have no fear, for ITunes loss is your gain.

Previously fans could purchase BSG episodes from the ITunes site after they were shown on the SciFi Channel, but earlier this year SciFi’s parent company Universal removed all of its material from ITunes in order to support the launch of a new web venture called Hulu.com.

Hulu went beta last fall, and I was among the lucky folks who got to try out the site during its building period. It’s fast, easy to navigate and offers a surprising number of options that include canceled television shows and the occasional full movie. Universal, which owns the SciFi Channel, has been a strong partner and advocate of Hulu which gives fans hope that Season Four episodes will be posted there after they are broadcast later this Spring.

Currently there are five full episodes of BSG available on Hulu as well as some special features. “Dirty Hands,” “Maelstrom,” “The Son Also Rises,” and both parts of “Crossroads” can be watched instantly once you join Hulu’s membership. There are also over 83 clips of interviews, excerpts, and other material for perusal as well as the entire first season of the the classic version of the show.

There is a treasure trove of non-BSG material on the site as well. Folks who have always wondered why people refer to Joss Whedon’s short lived space western Firefly as a “masterpiece” can get their fill of Chinese curse words and gun fights by watching all fourteen episodes on Hulu. There are also full episodes of Eureka, The Office, as well as older shows like Fantasy Island and Doogie Howser, M.D.

More content gets added to Hulu every week, so it will be interesting to see how the site grows now that the writers’ strike is over and original television episodes are becoming more common on the air. The first two episodes of USA’s new show Canterbury’s Law are on Hulu, as are the first four episodes of Fox’s New Amsterdam. Let’s all hope that the new BSG episodes will be on Hulu by this time in April.

Edward James Olmos will be featured in a documentary on Discovery en Espanol on Sunday night, where he will discuss the real issues behind gang violence in a documentary called Voces de Cambio. This is a cause close to Olmos’ heart and one he has spoken about in the past, and he makes another passionate plea for action in the broadcast:

“We are all responsible for our future. This is a simple truth an honest truth. The role that ex-gang members have on society is intrinsic. An ex-gang member can turn around the lives of thousands upon thousands of people as they turn negative energy into positive - it’s enough to make one cry.”

BSG writer Mark Verheiden recently blogged about the bittersweet joy of ending his Battlestar Galactica experience, and about the cast and crew’s belief that “no spoilers” makes the show a more enjoyable experience. 

Speaking of spoilers, a clip from the extended version of “Unfinished Business” (also known as “the New Caprica shipper episode”) has been leaked on the Internet.  Or you can wait and watch the clip in context when the Season Three DVD comes out later this month.

On a related note, I recently confessed on the ShaunOMac show that I have been taking great pains to avoid watching any of the Season Four promos for the show or the cast and crew interviews, which is why you have not seen any on the blog.  The always-reliable folks at Galactica SitRep have them all, however, so if are looking for a good collection head over there.  If you really think we need to have them over here at WatchingBSG.com too then feel free to drop me a note and let me know.  Now back to the news!

Even if you are spoiler-phobic like me, you can still enjoy the new clip up on SciFi.com where the channel condenses the first three seasons of BSG into one eight-minute clip.

Some lucky fans snagged a radio interview with Mark Sheppard, who plays Baltar’s mysterious lawyer Romo, at last weekend’s MegaCon:

“When I asked Mark Sheppard to do the on-air interview he asked me, ‘What do they want to talk about?,’ and I said, ‘You!’ He replied, ‘Great! I know all about that subject.’”

Lucy Lawless’ new movie, the animated Justice League: A New Frontier, has been getting strong reviews.  Lucy’s controversial Wonder Woman joins a cast that includes Bionic Woman’s Miguel Ferrer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s David Boreanaz, and many others.

Grace Park’s film West 32nd will be featured at the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival later this month, but the early word is that Grace herself will not be able to join her costar John Cho at the screening.

The always-entertaining Leah Cairns recently did an audio interview with the folks over at Battlestar Blog, which you can listen to here.

Fans of Battlestar Galactica should tune in (or TiVo) The Late Show With David Letterman on Wednesday, March 19 for a pleasant surprise. According to various sources several BSG actors will be appearing for a star-studded Top Ten List entitled “Top Ten Reasons to Watch Battlestar Galactica.”

While it is not clear how many BSG actors will be featured on the list, confirmations so far include Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama), Jamie Bamber (Lee “Apollo” Adama) and James Callis (Dr. Gaius Baltar). If you happen to hear about more cast member confirmations, please post them below.

BSG fans who followed the writers’ strike might remember that BSG producer Ron Moore blogged in support of the special deal that David Letterman cut with the writers’ guild to allow his show to continue before a deal had been made with the studios. Whether or not that is one of the reasons BSG will be featured on the Letterman show is still a mystery, but at least we know when the Battlestar Galactica cast arrives they will be in friendly territory.