Flight Deck BSG Tech Blog # 5A
Fri 31st Mar

Source: Hollywood North Report

The LAN that Time Forgot

By Dr. Kevin Grazier | Illustrations by Eric Chu

As JMS once said to me (San Diego, July 1997), "Sit down, you're going to be here a while." There's been a major delay between TECH BLOG's #4 and #5. All I can say is, in the immortal words of Maxwell Smart, "Sorry 'bout that, Chief." What this means, though, is that I've had plenty of time to keep writing and pre-pending material. That's why this month's TECH BLOG is split into parts 5A and 5B.

So before we continue our discussion of computer networks and viruses, etc., I'd like to revisit two previous blog topics. In TECH BLOG #1, and using English 101 vernacular, we compared and contrasted kinetic energy weaponry with directed energy weapons. Since the episode "Epiphanies" has now aired (Holy frak, it HAS been a long delay), I wanted to add an anecdotal addendum to Blog #1 that I couldn't discuss when first I wrote it.

Sometimes in life you get lucky, which I did on "Epiphanies" (no, not lucky like THAT). There was a point in the episode where, during a live fire exercise, the cannon barrel on Kat's Viper exploded. Chief Tyrol later examined the Viper rounds and found that this explosion was a result of sabotage.

Originally the script said that the rounds had been over-loaded with gunpowder -- or the Colonial version of a propellant -- causing the explosion. Something screamed from the back of my memory that something wasn't quite right. Now out of sheer blind luck, the script for "Epiphanies" arrived at my home on a Saturday, and coincidentally I had an out-of-state friend visiting me for the weekend -- a friend who once worked in the testing department of an ammunition plant. BULLSEYE!

I explained the situation to my friend who, in turn, explained that the Viper muzzle would be more likely to explode were the rounds UNDER loaded -- one round doesn't have enough energy to clear the barrel, the next one comes along and BOOM.

Sometimes the forces of luck and coincidence work in your favour. On the topic of coincidence, I seem to be a "chance magnet" of late.

The issue we covered in TECH BLOG #2 was ice in the universe, and why the RagTag Fleet would look for a moon to mine for ice as opposed to, say, a comet. In that article I used Saturn's icy moon Enceladus as one example of a moon whose surface is primarily water ice. Enceladus is turning out to be one of the most interesting objects in the Saturnian system, if not the entire Solar System.

Since the days of the Voyager spacecraft, it has been suspected that cryovolcanism, or cold volcanism, from within Enceladus is the source of Saturn's outermost ring, called the E Ring (no, not the NBC series, that's the Pentagon's E-ring).

Continue reading at Hollywood North Report

Newshound: Ioraptor

Posted By Blade Runner

Sci Fi Offer programs Through Video On Demand
Thu 30th Mar

Source: IF Magazine


Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal today announced that starting in May, they will begin adding more than a dozen of NBC Universal's most-watched broadcast and cable programs to Comcast's ON DEMAND video-on- demand (VOD) service.

Through this comprehensive agreement, the companies will make select NBC Network primetime, late-night and daytime programs available in Comcast VOD markets served by NBC owned-and-operated stations, as well as hit cable programs from USA Network, SCI FI Channel and Bravo, available on demand in all Comcast VOD markets. NBC Universal on demand programs on Comcast will include:

* Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

* Law & Order: Criminal Intent

* The Office

* Las Vegas

* Conviction

* Monk on USA Network

* SCI FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica and Ghost Hunters

* Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown

* The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

* Late Night with Conan O'Brien

* Passions


"Our growing on-demand lineup of broadcast TV, movies, original content and great cable network shows gives customers access to the ultimate time- shifted viewing experience. With more than 2 billion VOD views since 2004, Comcast customers are showing their strong desire to watch what they want when they want on TV," said Steve Burke, COO of Comcast Corporation and President of Comcast Cable. "NBC Universal's programs are a great addition to our ON DEMAND service, and this agreement will make many of their most popular broadcast and cable programs available to our customers around the clock."

"We're committed to helping viewers enjoy our programs in the ways that are most convenient for them," said David Zaslav, President, NBC Universal Cable. "We're excited to work with Comcast, the country's VOD leader, to offer NBC Universal shows on a platform customers are embracing in record numbers."

NBC Network primetime programs will be available to Comcast Digital Cable customers as early as midnight following their broadcast for 99 cents each. Late-night and daytime shows will be available at no additional charge. NBC Universal Cable shows will be added to the ON DEMAND line-up in all Comcast VOD markets across the country later this year and will be available for the company's Digital Cable customers to view at no additional charge.

The new NBC Universal programs will join Comcast's growing library of more than 7,000 ON DEMAND programs per month, including more than 800 movies, music videos and specials, kids' shows, sports highlights, news and informational programs. With ON DEMAND, customers can play, fast-forward, rewind, pause and restart their choices as many times as they want for up to 24 hours after being selected.

Posted By Blade Runner

EW's Top 10 Dramas
Thu 30th Mar

Source: Entertainment weekly

10) The Shield (Spike TV, Friday. 10pm)
9) Veronica Mars (UPN, Wed, 9pm)
8) Law & Order (Franchise) (NBC, Sun. 9 p.m., Tues. 10 p.m., and Wed. 9 p.m.)
7) Gilmore Girls (The WB, Tues., 8 p.m.)
6) Everwood (The WB, Mon., 9 p.m.)
5) Lost (ABC, Wed., 9 p.m.)
4) Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi Channel, Fri 10pm, Sat., 2 a.m.)
3) CSI (CBS, Thurs., 9 p.m.)
2) The Sopranos (HBO, Sun., 9 p.m.)
1) 24 (Fox, Mon., 9 p.m.)

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

Calling all Cylons: Grace Park stands up and takes it like a robot
Tue 28th Mar

Source: The National Post

There's a lot to be said for playing an object. It makes your character really hard to kill off. Take Grace Park's character, for instance.

Park plays the role of Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii on Battlestar Galactica. Her character is a Cylon, one of the human-looking robotic creatures with whom humanity is locked in a fight to the death. And, after an attack that wiped out the majority of humans, it seems that the Cylons are winning.

So, the character Park is playing is more of a vehicle model than a person -- like a Ford Mustang. And that means the writers can do anything.

"I can die multiple times," Park says with a laugh. "Rebirth if they want. They can keep making new ones. If they don't like what I'm doing with her, they can ditch that one and write a new model. I'm kind of a puppet, essentially."

That, she hastens to add, goes for Boomer, not her.

"The writers do listen to what the actors say," Park says. "That's one really nice part of our job."

Park was born in Los Angeles but her family moved to Vancouver when she was two years old. Her South Korean parents had applied to immigrate to both Canada and the United States, but the Canadian visa came through first.

Growing up in Vancouver, Park says, she never really showed an interest in acting --that is, until she was studying psychology at the University of British Columbia and started doing commercials to help pay her expenses.

Still, she never considered taking up acting as a career until she graduated from school.

"I got out and it was, like, 'Uh-oh. Now I'm out of university. What do I do?' " Park recalls. " 'I like being on set. I'll try acting.' "

That was in 1997. By 2000, she was landing recurring roles on such TV series as Secret Agent Man and The Immortal. This led to parts in Romeo Must Die, Edgemont and L.A. Law: The Movie.

It also led to another recurring role in a series called Jake 2.0. Then she was called in to audition for the role of Dualla (now played by Kandyse McClure) for the 2003 miniseries version of Battlestar Galactica.

"It was just another audition," Park says. "But I got some coaching for the audition, and it went really well."

In fact, it went well enough that the producers called her back to audition for the role of Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.

That role ended up going to Katee Sackhoff, and Park was offered the rather strange role of Valerii, a villain who can exist in several locations at the same time -- and, in some cases, doesn't even know she's a villain.

"Some of them know more of who they are than others," Park says of her various characters.

Shooting a series like Battlestar Galactica can be a real workout. "It's hard," Park says, "unless you're playing maybe Mary's character. She doesn't have to do much of that."

Park is referring to Mary McDonnell, who plays President Laura Roslin, a former schoolteacher who was the secretary of education at the time the Cylons attacked. As the highest-ranking political official left alive, the presidency fell to her.

"For the hardcore stuff, we all have stunt doubles," Park says. "But we all do enough of the kicking and screaming and running around. But for a scene like the one when I have to run my head through a piece of glass, I definitely would freak if I had to do something like that."

As the second season of the series opened, we saw Boomer on the Galactica try to assassinate Capt. Adama (Edward James Olmos) while another Boomer, down on a planet's surface, was falling in love with a soldier named Helo (Tahmoh Penikett).

This was very weirdly complicated by the fact that the killer didn't know she was a bad guy -- even though the one who was in love did.

It got even more complicated, according to Park, after the two Valeriis were brought together in the same place.

"Directors, actors, writers, everyone gets confused," Park says. "It can be simple when they're separated by physicality -- one in a river, and one on a bridge.

"[But whenever] they're together, it's, like, 'But you've met Gaius Baltar.' And I'm, like, 'No, she's never met him before.' Having them together, all those ties are getting really muddy."

This gets more twisted when you consider that there are more Valeriis on the planet Caprica, and several in the Cylon fleet.

The love-struck one is even pregnant by Helo. However, Cylons aren't supposed to be able to reproduce the old-fashioned human way.

"It definitely has complications," Park points out. "The first season was quite simple, partly because some of the direction that was given to me was, 'For all intents and purposes, she's human. So don't play any robot stuff.'

"Then, just when you think you're doing a good job of playing a human, they go, 'Come on, Grace. She's a Cylon.' And I'm, like, 'What? Make up your mind!' "

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Phantom Dennis

iF Magazine Interviews Bradley Thompson - part 1
Tue 28th Mar

Source: If Magazine

He used to share an acting class with Richard Hatch when he landed the original BATTLESTAR, now he's Hatch's boss

Back in the '70s, Bradley Thompson was jealous of Richard Hatch. Not only did he get all the attention from the girls in the acting class they took together, but Hatch had also just been cast in the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Nearly three decades later, Thompson now has the upper hand since he's one of the guiding forces behind the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA revival on Sci Fi Channel (and Hatch's sometime boss when he guest stars on the new series).

As a producer-writer, Thompson is one of the many talented visionaries who have managed to achieve what sci-fi television should always be about – character first, hardware second.

Now that season two has wrapped and scripts are being turned in for season three, Thompson took time out from writing to talk to iF about his connection with the original series, plans for season three and the possibility of Starbuck having a Cylon lover.

iF MAGAZINE: What is the genesis for story ideas?

THOMPSON: We hit our heads with big mallets and ideas come out. I've always been a big science fiction fan. I can remember reading Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Heinlein blew my head apart, and Asimov was like, 'WOW.' David Weddle, my writing partner, was more into literature and westerns. He'd be reading CATCH 22 while I read sci-fi.

iF: Were you a fan of the original GALACTICA?

THOMPSON: The original GALACTICA happened when David and I were in an acting class with Richard Hatch, who had just signed to do the show. Everyone was in love with Richard, and there would be these big parties to come watch Richard on GALACTICA. All the young ladies in the acting class were saying 'WOW look at Richard' and they were kind of ignoring me. So I didn't really feel too well disposed to the show. [Laughs] I wasn't as self-actualized as I am now.

iF: How far ahead do you map storylines?

THOMPSON: It depends on the season. We didn't plan to kill Billy [Paul Campbell] during season two. That wasn't planned ahead of time. All of a sudden he just wasn't available to do episodes because he was shooting pilots. We were having a hard time scheduling him, and that's why he didn't go on the trip to Kobol. We found a good reason for him not to go, but in reality he was out doing a pilot so we couldn't use him. He was getting too many offers and we weren't using him to his fullest capacity, so that was the time to kill him.

iF: Do you have a bible for the show?

THOMPSON: Ron wrote a Bible back when he pitched the show, and every so often when we are looking for something in the back-story we refer to it. We all read it, and he had mapped out where all of these characters are coming from. Kara's [Katee Sackhoff] back-story that she came from a mother who was a sergeant major in the fleet and her father was a musician. All of that was in the Bible. Right now, it's more of a season-by-season mission statement of Ron saying where he wants people to go. Before we've rolled anything we've thought about and broken the shows for eight episodes. For example, eight stories already exist for season three. The network has kicked one of them back and we might do it again as part of the back ten. Then there's another four-episode arc that we think we might be doing in the back ten as well. So this one is stroked out a lot more than the first two seasons. However, there is always a monkey wrench tossed into these things.

iF: What does it mean to have a story 'kicked back' by the network?

THOMPSON: We run it by the studio and we run it by the network, and sometimes they say 'yes it's a great story but over the last six episodes you've been way too dark and we need something lighter here.' The through line of the show, the end of mankind is not a happy theme. There's an edge of darkness through the whole show and sometimes you just decided you've been way too bleak for too long. Last season when we did "Flight of the Phoenix" we decided that we needed something to give the characters hope and a challenge. The Chief [Aaron Douglas] was perfect for that. He had been through so much, in love with a Cylon, his life kind of sucks; he was on a planet and all of his friends got shot up while they were there. But he was a builder and he chose to build something. It was a story to bring the whole crew into something. They'd been on the run from the Cylons for so long, let's have something they can celebrate.

iF: The visit to Earth was at Stonehenge, a timeless location. Was there a specific reason?

THOMPSON: Absolutely. We may start human history. We may land somewhere else, call it Earth and become us.

iF: How much of a plot will the Cylon baby be third season?

THOMPSON: The baby, ooh boy how much do I give away? Let's say we're not going to drop the baby all together, because we set it up and it means a lot to the Cylons. But the baby is only about a year and a half old when we get into season three, so it's probably not going to be walking on water yet.

iF: Is season 3 picking up where season 2 left off?

THOMPSON: Part of what Ron wanted to do by jumping a year ahead, besides not wanting to do a western town like Joss Whedon did in FIREFLY, after all Joss had been there done that, was a chance to reconfigure characters and move them into different spots. We will move forward from those new spots. You will get the answers provided to most of the intriguing things that were set up. Why is Lee [Jamie Bamber] pissed at Kara? Why are Colonel Tigh [Michael Hogan] and Kara so happy to see one another? Why does Lee have jowls? This is one of those things that they teach you in playwriting. That is, sometimes good questions are much more interesting than good answers.

iF: Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) wants a Cylon lover for the next season…is this a possibility?

THOMPSON: [Laughs] Katee should be careful what she asks for! We don't really predict when we are going to pull out a Cylon to show somebody. It just seems that they just show up. We don't decide to unmask two Cylons a season or anything like that. Ron was writing "Lay Down Your Burdens Part 1" and all of a sudden Brother Cavel [Dean Stockwell] appeared to him and said it's time!

The second part of this interview will be published by iF Magazine later this week.

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Phantom Dennis

Ron Moore's Blog update
Mon 27th Mar

Source: Sci-Fi

Podcast Updates

Wanted to let you know that there's now enhanced material available on the podcasts, courtesy of SciFi.com, which consists of artwork and other images now associated with the last few podcasts.

Also, there's a new podcast available which was originally recorded last summer in the writers' room, featuring discussion of a few of the episodes from the second half of the season, including "Scar" and "Sacrifice." There are a couple more podcasts in this vein I recorded as well last season which with probably get posted at some point, so keep checking the downloads page. I'm also going to try to do some podcasts between now and the Season Three premiere, possibly with Mrs.Ron and other guests in attendance.

Okay, that's three blogs in one day. You can't say I'm not trying.

Posted by Ron at 10:20 PM

Q & A

"The plot twist [of the finale] seems to share allot in common with the DeSanto Galactica continuation story, where the humans think they are safe from the cylons and revolt against the military by deciding to give up on Earth and to colonize another place called New Caprica. Were you at least partially inspired by this earlier concept? "

No. I can honestly say that the idea for our finale was entirely home-grown. I had lunch with Tom DeSanto a few weeks back and we talked about the struggles we both went through trying to get our respective versions of the show off the ground. As he talked about his pilot concept, I shared many of the plot details from our finale and we both remarked on how some notions and ideas are simply either "in the ether" or have a certain inevitability to them. It's reminiscent of the "Babylon 5" vs. "Deep Space 9" questions I used to get. I was there when DS9 was being created and I knew for a fact that neither Michael Piller nor Rick Berman had any knowledge of the B-5 material, but when you're doing a series set on a space station, there were bound to be certain paths that writers found attractive (like having a female second officer, for instance). In terms of Galactica, the idea that the people of the rag-tag fleet might one day come across a planet and decide to settle down permanently, is an idea that would probably occur to anyone approaching the material, and it's really a question of how you execute that idea which is key.


"What happened to Adama in the season finale to change him so much? Why would a man who spent decades of his adult life standing watch for the Cylon return suddenly give in and allow the military to stand down? How could he convince himself that the Cylons weren't coming back after 1 year when the last time they waited 40 years? He knew settlement was wrong so why didn't he offer any resistance? "

I think people have a remarkable ability to convince themselves of just about anything. Adama, like everyone else in the fleet, had been constantly on the run, constantly under stress, and constantly in danger of losing his life for months on end, with virtually no break from the metal walls surrounding him day in and day out. When, finally, the people decided to end the long sojourn and settle on New Caprica, he had little choice but to comply with the results of a democratic election which hinged on that very question. And as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, people began to relax, to believe that maybe they had really turned a corner, had really found a place to lay down their burdens and start a new life. Adama was just as vulnerable to that attractive idea as anyone else, and as the men and women under him began to clamor for a new life, as the political leadership of New Caprica began to demand more and more military resources to support the civilian population, there came the point where Adama began to believe in the mirage too. He's not perfect. He never was. He couldn't bring himself to leave his ship, but as age and fatigue began to set in, he started to let down his guard just a little -- not all at once and never completely, but just enough.

There were also practical considerations. He was entirely alone out here. No Admiralty to call for reinforcements or intelligence, no Justice Ministry to prosecute soldiers who simply never came back from the surface of New Caprica, and no friendly ear in the office of the president to get needed resources for the military ships maintaining their lonely vigil up in orbit. He was alone and he was tired. It's almost as simple as that.

I remember one of my most vivid memories from the immediate post 9/11 period was opening up the newspaper and reading about a physical confrontation in the streets between members of the New York police department and the New York fire department. It was heartbreaking, it was infuriating and it was illuminating. People are people. Enormous events happen, history pivots around us and we tell ourselves that everything has changed, that we're irrevocably different from this day forward -- until the next time everything changes. Adama made a mistake. They all did. And as he is wont to say, they will all have to live with it.


"What is up with the pudgified Apollo? Too much chunky munky B&J? "

We're going to hint at some of the reasons for Lee's physical, er... changes in the first few episodes, then deal with it in more detail later. Overall, we're going to be hinting at a lot of things that happened in the intervening year over the first few episodes, then do more stuff with it later, as the season progresses.


"You have giant, steel balls. My head is still spinning from being smacked in the head with them in the form of Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2. It seems like you are operating under the philosophy that if the audience could possibly come up with a plot idea then it isn't good enough for BSG. Am I reading that right? I know I never would have guessed that we would suddenly jump 380 days ahead, but I love it. Will we get to see Tigh and Starbuck put all past hostility behind them and become a super bad ass resistance fighting duo with Anders, the chief, and Cally as their sidekicks? I'd like this not only because of the Tigh/Stabuck dynamic, but also because it would be nice to see Tigh do some good again. I loved the arc at the beginning of season two where all he could do was [censored] up while in command. However, since that point it seems that Tigh's only purpose for existing is to expose to the audience the wrong opinion or bad idea. Everything that comes out of his mouth is obviously the stupid or short-sighted answer which is invariable and immediately undercut by one of the wiser characters. He didn't like the documentary, the blackbird project... Have you noticed this theme? Personally I love Tigh and want him to be good for something again. Oh, and that first shot of him on New Caprica in that old man hat was priceless. Thanks. "

They're teflon, actually.

Anyway, I think you'll be happy to know that we've got some real meaty stuff planned for the Colonel in the first few episodes. I also felt that we didn't use Tigh as effectively in the later part of Season Two, and I was eager to get him back into the thick of things. He's got a sizable role in the initial episodes, and there are some enormous changes and shocks coming for his character next season.


"What happened to Zarek? Given his help getting Baltar elected, I would have expected him to have received a pretty nice 'reward', perhaps as VP? Did Baltar even have a VP? We never see Zarek post-election or a year later on New Caprica. Given Zarak's penchant for political mayhem, I would think that his fate would be one of significant interest. Perhaps we will see this early in Season 3? "

You will be seeing Zarek again and early in the season. He was the Vice President, but his relationship with Baltar went south relatively quickly, and he simply refused to cooperate once the Cylon occupation began.


"Speaking of Directors - I think everyone has paid attention to the remarkable work the directors do on this show, albeit subconsciously. I was wondering about some specifics on how you developed the show's directorial conventions. I believe I read in AC that most scenes are shot with two cameras running. Given what was in your mission statement regarding the script, how much of that was instigated by Rymer and the other directors in terms of realizing that style and making BSG grounded in a semi documentary aesthetic? What conventions did they establish on the show that have surprised you?"

The documentary/verite approach was in the initial pitch I made to the studio and network, and it was something that David Eick and I had numerous conversations about in the lead-up to the miniseries. It was a stylistic choice we made early on, and it coloured all the conversations about the show with the production team, including the directors. Michael Rymer then took this aesthetic approach and made it real, developed the visual language of the show and made concrete the ideas that David and I were tossing around. The series bible does discuss the documentary film approach, but as always in this business, it's up to the man or woman behind the camera to make these things happen and Michael deserves a great deal of credit for the visuals we now take for granted.


"I understand according to the podcast that you guys were way over budget on ep 2.20, but the tent city really threw me off. I try not to be one of those fans that nitpicks everything to death, but this bothered me so much that I had to register and post. If they've been on planet for over a year now and they intend to make it their home, why are they still living in tents? If I had my choice between a tent and something more permanent and weatherproof, I'd be moving heaven and earth to construct the latter."

There are some permanent buildings in the settlement, but it seemed plausible that to start an entire city from scratch would be a massive undertaking to say the least. It also seemed that without a strong leader like Laura Roslin to helm this kind of effort, that the organizational problems would add up and that the project could easily get stalled or delayed. Now, add to that various unknowns like disease and unfamiliar weather patterns as well as the difficulties in exploiting the natural resources in a completely new environment, it didn't seem implausible that there'd still be a lot of people living in tents.


"Why is the fleet so concerned [about] elections? They are running for their lives, so I would think holding elections would be the least of their problems."

I felt right from the beginning that question of who was in charge and how a democratic society would deal with this situation was one of the fundamental questions of the show. If democracy means anything, it means that people get to decide who their leaders are and what kind of life they choose to lead. And the operative word is "choose." Democracies are about choices, some made intelligently and thoughtfully, and some not so much. Adama and the Galactica were faced with an immediate question as to the role of the military in this surviving population: were they still the servants of the people, or were they the overseers? Adama's choice was to preserve the idea of their society, indeed of their entire civilization while still striving to protect them from their enemies both within and without. It was, and continues to be a difficult balancing act, but as he said in "Resurrection Ship": it's not enough to survive, you have to worthy of surviving.

If the military simply took choice away from the people of the fleet, if it simply decided that the senior commanders knew best and that was that, then the people out there in those ships become irrelevant. They're cargo. It's a military world and a military society and everything else is secondary. Down that road lies the cautionary tale of Admiral Cain and the Battlestar Pegasus. One Adama and Galactica decided not to go down that road, then the entire panoply of democracy was in play -- representation by consent and elections to determine those representatives.

Posted by Ron at 09:00 PM

Back from the GDC

Last week I had the privilege of being invited to speak at the annual Game Developers' Conference in San Jose and I have to say, it was an eye-opening experience. I haven't been an active gamer in a long time, and it was startling to see how the industry has changed and matured.

I grew up in the Classic Atari era, when a row of quarters on the Asteroids machine carried a great deal of credibility down at the bowling alley where I and the few video denizens of Chowchilla plied our trade. I had the first home consoles as well, but after college I pretty much dropped out of gaming, with periodic forays into the burgeoning computer game market over the years. My last effort involved buying an XBox a couple of years ago with the determination to get back into the game (pun intended) at last. A week spent in frustration over my inability to master the multi-buttoned controller finally put to rest my dreams of mastering Max Payne and Madden NFL, and as Terry constantly reminds me, the XBox sits beneath the TV table in my office gathering dust.

That may have to change, however, after spending a few days at the GDC getting to know the people in the gaming business. I was impressed, first of all, by the sheer brainpower which permeated the event and second of all with the maturity and seriousness of the business itself. To put it succinctly: these are seriously smart people, doing seriously smart things with a deadly seriousness of purpose. When I walked the convention floor, I was struck by the intensity of the attendees as they browsed through the various booths and displays. I'm told the event itself had discouraged the "babe booth" mentality long ago wherein scantily-clad women beckoned to the hormonally-challenged, and sadly, I saw no such relics from this storied past. Instead, I found a lot of intense concentration and discussion of the latest software applications and character-building tools, upwards of ninety-five percent of which went sailing over my head.

I was impressed with the the fact that this business was maturing right before my eyes and it was filled with people who wanted to push the bounds of their medium into new and exciting frontiers. It was especially interesting to contrast the conversations I had with people in the gaming industry with the typical conversation with people in my own industry. My industry tends toward the narcissistic, finding new and exciting ways to be in love with itself and its own hype, sometimes to the point of being in love with being in love with itself. At the GDC, I found an almost uniformly sceptical and critical attitude toward the gaming business; a sense that they hadn't figured everything out yet, that anything you might like about games today was probably going to be obsolete very soon and a frustration level with the shortcomings and limitations of both the business model and the creative results. For a business whose rise to billion-dollar status has been nothing if not meteoric, it was refreshing to see that the key movers and thinkers were restless and eager to move on, to find the next great idea and push the boundaries of the business to the next level.

I was treated well, with unfailing courtesy, and was gratified to find that many, many people there were fans of Galactica -- and more than one told me how they either were openly sceptical of the idea or didn't like the miniseries, but eventually came around to love the series. I was a complete outsider at the event, a traveller from a distant land who barely spoke the language, but I never felt unwelcome. With people like that involved in gaming, the future for video games is not only bright, it's probably blinding.

Now, if only I could figure out which button gets Dante to run the bootleg correctly...

Posted By Blade Runner

Cain is Able with Michelle Forbes
Sun 26th Mar

Source: Battlestar Galactica Magazine Year Book issue #4 Apr/May
Interview By: David Bassom

DB: How did you come to be cast as Admiral Helena Cain?

MF: When they initially offered me the role I turned it down. At the time, I had just come back from spending two months in England where I was working on [the BBC TV series] Messiah and I wanted to go home [ to Los Angeles]. I didn't know the new Battlestar Galactica at that point-I was aware of it as I had met Jamie Bamber [Captain Lee Adama] and James Callis [Dr Gaius Baltar] socially, but I had never seen the show because I'm not really a science fiction gal-and I wasn't sure that I was anxious to jump back into the science fiction genre. And my manager had told me I just wouldn't be interested because I've played a lot of authoritarian, severe roles before and I'm always looking to do different things. So I was rather dismissive of the offer at first, out of ignorance more than anything else. But then they sent me about six DVDs of the show and I started watching them and I went, "Hang on! This isn't really science fiction piece, it's more of a political/military drama." I was struck by how much humanity and soul the series had, and I really started to want to be on the show. I now shudder to think I almost passed on the opportunity to work on this wonderful group of actors and fantastic crew.

DB: What is your perspective on the character?

MF: Admiral Cain is someone who's having a really bad day. She is someone who lives by the rules. Her ship is in tip-top shape and she expects everyone to do their best. She will not accept anyone not doing their best anyone not being loyal or anyone not actually agreeing with her. She doesn't always do the most compassionate thing but she does believe her perspective is the right perspective.
I don't think Admiral Cain is a bad person but I think her perspective has been distorted due to the savagery she has been exposed to and what she's to lead her people through. The thing that really interested me about the role was the questions it raised. When you have such a big responsibility placed on you and the survival of your race could depend on your actions what does that mean? Do you become more compassionate or more ruthless? I hope my work on the show really makes people think about that.
Admiral Cain definitely grows and changes. From when we first meet Cain at the beginning, to the end of the second episode, there's quite and arc. We ultimately come to understand the toll that this destruction has taken on her heart, soul and psychology.

DB: When you did accept the role, did you know that the story had its roots in an episode from the original series?

MF: I didn't know that was the case until about four days into shooting. Up to that point, I had no idea the episodes were based on a story from the original series and that I was playing Lloyd Bridges! I never watched the original Battlestar Galactica. My only memory of it is of the hair-dos-I've always thought of it as a cheesy science fiction show with hair-dos! So when I found out I was working on a remake of an original series series story, I briefly started to rethink everything, but then I just put that out of my mind and carried on doing what I was doing. I love Lloyd Bridges, I love the entire Bridges clan, but I'm not sure how similar what we're doing is to the original. I get the impression they're very different. Looking back, I'm actually glad I didn't know about it when I started working on the show. I did a pilot last year called Global Frequency that was based on Warren Ellis comics and I was really reticent to take that on as well, because whenever you're stepping into something that fans are puritanical about, it's bit nerve-wracking.

DB: How did you fin the experience of working on Battlestar Galactica?

MF: It was very interesting ride. Whenever you guest-star on a television show, the time between the offer and the first day on set is usually very slight, so I had to absorb the entire universe of Battlestar Galactica and put the pieces of the puzzle together for my character very quickly. It was fascinating to feel my way through that, because it keeps the work very immediate and urgent. [The director]' Michael Rymer was very helpful with that. He directed both my episodes and he's just wonderful to work with. I had actually worked with him before on a film [the 2001 fashion drama Perfume]. Michael is very open to ideas and lets you try what you want to try.
The cast were terrific to work with. The dramatic scenes between Edward and I were great fun. We had a lot of staring contests. It actually felt a lot like we were in a Western because I was wearing a sidearm and I had my hand on that gun a lot! But when we weren't filming. Edward and I would just be palling around and telling each other jokes. Eddie is such a love. He's such a dear man I got lots of wonderful and extremely gifted.
One of my favourite scenes was a scene featuring Eddie and Mary. The scene was about four pages long and to that with both of them was really fun. I'm such a fan of Mary, I could just watch her all day long. She does such subtle, profound work. I also really enjoyed my scenes with James Callis, because I think Baltar is such a fascinating character and James just had me in stitches! I loved working with him so much.

DB: Were you glad that you decided to accept the part?

MF: It was a lot of fun to work on Battlestar Galactica and return to that whole science fiction realm. Throughout the years, I have been very reticent to do science fiction, because it's so easy to get typecast as a actor and be put into a certain genre. So ever since I worked on Star Trek, I've really tried to put my foot into as many different genres as I could. But I'm glad I didn't let my reticence keep me from doing Battlestar Galactica, because I had such a rewarding experience on the show and it was really wonderful to work with that cast and crew.
 

Newshound:Giorgio

Posted By Blade Runner

Stephen King: Confessions of a TV Slut
Sat 25th Mar

Source: Entertainment weekly

Why Steven King NEEDS television. The writer shares his favourite shows and blames EW for his addiction by Stephen King
SATURDAY, March 25, 2006

Click on the link to read about the other shows covered. Some excerpts:

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Not quite as good as Lost, but far better than Star Trek, in any of its incarnations — sorry, Trekkies, but you know I speak the truth. This is a beautifully written show, driven by character rather than effects...but the effects are damn good. And there's not a better acting troupe at work on television. (I get it via computer download, probably from the Cylon Empire.)

VERONICA MARS
Nancy Drew meets Philip Marlowe, and the result is pure nitro. On what other TV show could you possibly hear a fresh-faced girl detective cry, ''Hi, everybody! Say repressed homosexuality !'' (I've sampled episodes but will wait for the season 2 DVD; the major story line is too good not to be experienced in sequence.)

LOST
It's simply the best thing on network TV, okay? Mysterious story, beautiful location, attractive cast. The only trouble lately has been the puzzling paucity of new episodes. What's in danger of getting lost is any sense of forward motion. (I get it on network TV, week by week.)

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Phantom Dennis

McNiven's Battlestar Galactica #0 Cover
Fri 24th Mar

Source: Newsarama

Dynamite Entertainment has provided Newsarama with a first look at Steve McNiven's cover for Battlestar Galactica #0, shipping in May. The press release for the issue reads:

Dynamite Entertainment announced today that artist Nigel Raynor will be joining writer Greg Pak (SOLD OUT Planet Hulk AND Phoenix Endsong) on the all-new Battlestar Galactica comic book series, a license of Universal Studios Consumer Products Group, as well as cover artists Steve Mc Niven (Civil War, New Avengers) and Michael Turner (Wolverine: Origin and Civil War cover artist), with more to be announced!

"After an exhaustive search for the right artist to work alongside Greg, we're please to announce that Nigel Raynor is the newest member of Dynamite's Galactica Crew," explained Dynamite Entertainment Spokesperson J. Allen. "Nigel's a relatively new name to comics, but fans will get a taste of his exceptional art, and Pak's awesome script, in the introductory priced Battlestar Galactica #0 planned for release in May. And remember fans, this issue will be at the incredible introductory price of twenty-five cents (that's right, just a slim quarter!) featuring a photo cover of Six and a brand new cover by Steve (Civil War, New Avengers) McNiven!"

The aforementioned issue #0 of Battlestar Galactica #0 is currently available for pre-order in the pages of the upcoming Previews Magazine. Look for interior of Raynor's interior art to be released next week.

And Comic Shop Retailers are already excited about Battlestar Galactica's huge launch by Dynamite Entertainment!

" The New Battlestar Galactica Television show has been a hit since it's first episode of the mini-series, and the regular series has grown by leaps and bounds. Diving into multiple layers of military, political and personal effects of a demolished society. Greg Pak's writing is a perfect match to the intensity that this show delivers week- to –week, and thank God it's at Dynamite! They know how to handle licensed comics, and their track record with Army of Darkness and Red Sonja proves it!"

Mike Malve of Atomic Comics in Arizona!

"Battlestar Galactica is the one show I currently watch every week. It's my favourite show on TV. The quarter comic is the perfect launch, as we plan on giving these away at both of our stores in May (and with a little bit of luck these will ship in time for Free Comic Book Day!) I'm confident in Dynamite's ability to market this book. We'll be promoting this through as many media outlets as possible to bring in the Sci Fi crowd as well. And the timing is working out well, with Greg Pak not only having sold out of every issue of Marvel's Phoenix: Endsong, but now selling out of Planet Hulk! I can't wait to read this myself.

Mike Ferarro of Fat Jack's Comicrypt in Philadelphia!

"Wow! When Dynamite mentioned they were doing Battlestar Galactica, I had to do a double take. I couldn't believe it. The best show on TV finally having a comic. It's, well, DYNAMITE! Last year, we (Stormwatch) gave away Red Sonja #0's for Free Comic Book Day, and at all the shows we appeared at, with flyers for our stores. This was a nice traffic builder, and has allowed Red Sonja to consistently sell above all other publishers (except Marvel and DC), including Conan. Now, we expect that this will do even better, as the cross-over of Battlestar Galactica and comics is a natural fit, and Dynamite is THE company to bring this to comics, as they will treat it right. This is also a great opportunity for comic retailers, as the opportunity to bring Battlestar Galactica to a bigger audience is a dream come true, especially from a company such as Dynamite who will deliver the goods! Again, WOW! I can't wait to see the comic. This is a dream come true! And this time, we'll make sure we order enough, as we didn't' order enough of the Red Sonja #0 book, but on this, we'll order lots more! Like I said, it's like a dream come true!"

Bob Hoskins of Stormwatch Comics in Berlin New Jersey!

Posted By Blade Runner

Space announces the best in Sci-Fi with Spacey nominations
Fri 24th Mar

Source: Channel Canada

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, King Kong, Batman Begins, Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica are among the top nominees announced today for The 2006 SPACEY Awards. For the fourth year in a row the SPACE production team will travel the globe to track down and honour the finest in science fiction and fantasy entertainment. Featuring SPACE on-air personalities Kim Poirier, Jonathan Llyr and Natasha Eloi, The 2006 SPACEY Awards will air Saturday, May 27 at 9:30pm ET, following the much anticipated season two finale of Battlestar Galactica, airing at 8pm ET.

"SPACE viewers have demanded it, Canadian sci-fi fans can't live without it, so yes, we're poised to return to the airwaves with yet another edition of the annual SPACEY awards, Canada's only sci-fi and fantasy television awards show," says Paul Gratton, Vice President, Entertainment Specialty Channels, CHUM Television. "In a sea of television award shows, the SPACEYS avoids the podiums and boring award dinners, and takes the show around the globe to find the winners wherever they happen to be. The SPACEYS, are proof positive that SPACE continues to serve the interests of Canadian sci-fi and fantasy fans everywhere."

Viewers can get involved by voting online in seven Viewer's Choice categories from March 23 to May 8. To vote, and for a full list of categories and nominees, please visit www.spacecast.com/spaceys. This year's lifetime achievement and special achievement award winners will be announced at a later date.

Past recipients of the coveted alien head award include Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; the recently named longest-running sci-fi series ever, Stargate SG-1; horror legend George Romero; Enterprise actress Jolene Blalock; and Spiderman 2 director Sam Raimi.

The 2006 SPACEY Awards premieres Saturday, May 27 at 9:30pm ET with encore presentations Saturday, May 27 at 12:30am ET, Sunday, May 28 at 3:30pm ET and Tuesday, May 30 at 10pm ET.

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

GDC Keynote: Building a Better Battlestar
Fri 24th Mar

Source: Gamasutra

Shortly after Wednesdays Sony Keynote address, developers were treated to a slightly different session from television writing guru, Ronald D. Moore. Getting his career start working as writer and eventually producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and HBO's short lived series Carnivale. Since then he has worked on what is considered one of the best shows currently on television by publications such as Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone: Battlestar Galactica. Like the original, the new show is about the last survivors of humanity and their war against the Cylons and the ongoing search for planet Earth.

Before Ron Moore began the audience was treated to a montage of footage from both the original 1978 series intercut with the new one. What was made immediately apparent, to those who were not familiar with both series at least, was a big difference in tone. The original with it's colourful (comparatively) production design and more stationary camera work presented an image of adventure and heroism, while the darker and more subdued production design along with hand held camera work gave the new series the clear feeling of drama and impending doom.

Ron Moore began by jokingly stating his confusion at being invited to a video game convention. "Or maybe I'm here to talk about the Ron Moore first-person shooter... go around shooting network executives... ex-wives with alimony payments. Dealing with legions of disgruntled fans. The finale would be a showdown with Walter Koenig at a Star Trek convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan for ultimate control of the universe." He then conceded that he was asked to come because much like Hollywood these days, a large amount of games made now are sequels, updates, adaptations or outright remakes of an existing IP. As showrunner on what is considered to be one of the most successful updates of an existing property, the hope was that Moore could explain the decisions made that appeal to new and larger audience unfamiliar with the Galactica, as well as appeal to fans (most of them at any rate) of the original, which Moore described as "an early childhood guilty pleasure."

"The first thing to consider were the fundamentals of the original show." The inciting incident in both series is the destruction of "the 12 colonies" by the Cylons, resulting in the death of most of humanity. The first and most important decision to be made was how to portray "what is essentially genocide. Do we make genocide exciting and fun?" Ron was approached to run the series in early 2002, and the events of September the 11th were still fresh on everyone's mind. "It really made us look back at the attacks in the original differently. "The decision was made to go for a darker feel and make the attacks tragic and frightening with little in the way of action set pieces as well as leaving most of the attack off screen. "Doing it that way informed the entire style and architecture of the show, a fundamental realism behind everything."

"Who Are You?"

Concerning how to deal with the characters, Moore liked to the think of the crew of the ship as a family unit. In the original this was actual quite literal as Commander Adama actually had his three children serving under him in the original. This presented a problem for Moore as to logically do that meant creating a history for a society which would allow for such a situation, a sort of hierarchical military state, which was going too far away from the civilian run government that Moore wanted to portray. Though the commander's son, Apollo, is in the new series, he is there by circumstance rather than having been aboard the ship all along. Adama's daughter, Athena, was omitted completely since "she actually didn't have a purpose other than being romanced by Starbuck. And since we changed Starbuck to a woman..." In the original series Adama was an unquestionably noble and ideological man. Moore said that the two versions of Adama are actually rather similar in their strong ideology and conviction, but that the new Adama is not a perfect man. He will violate his own ethics if he feels he must and his decisions aren't always easy or maybe even right which "makes Adama more human and therefore easier to relate to."

Moore felt that in keeping with this family dynamic he needed a counterpoint to Adama to create a balance. In the original series, President Adar organized a peace conference that lead to the destruction of the colonies and was, as Moore put it, "A weakling." Now there is President Laura Roslin. If Adama is the father figure, then she is the mother. Because of that, there is very little sexual tension between her and Adama, "When you think of your parents you don't think of them as a sexual couple, so that was very intentional". Moore also felt that it was important to have a civilian authority figure on the show (the president in the original series dies during the destruction of the colonies) as a constant reminder that there was an entire society that has been wiped out, as well as allowing for the discussion of politics on the show, something "very important" to Moore.

One of the most startling changes that occurred for the show was the changing of the hotshot/gambler/drinker/womanizer Starbuck into a woman. Which oddly enough was a decision made without a lot of forethought, "The idea was just kind of thrown out there and we just never changed it." The only reason the discussion of changing the character came up at all was Moore was never enamoured with Starbuck as a character. "The only reason he ever worked I think was because of Dirk Benedict's performance" adding that "The character made things feel safe, which we didn't want to do". Starbuck as a woman still shares many of the same characteristics as the original, she's also a hotshot/gambler/sexually voracious person. But instead of playing up those characteristics in a charmingly roguish manner, they are used as symptoms of self-destruction. Otherwise having "someone who has a problem with authority in a military organization just won't work."

The next character up for discussion was Colonel Tigh. Here Ron Moore relied on two life experiences when writing the character. Firstly was his experience in the ROTC as an executive officer (XO). Second was his experience in the Star Trek: The Next Generation writer's room. A character he always had issues with in the series was Commander Riker, whose job as the handsome and well-liked second-in-command was mostly to agree with whatever course of action Captain Picard would decide. An XO, Moore relayed, "Is the most hated officer on a ship", and cannot simply agree with the captain because he said so, but because his order is right and falls within the law of military procedures. So, of course, it seemed natural to make Colonel Tigh an alcoholic. He has a vital job necessary to ensure that things are done the right way and yet everyone hates him for it. Of course he's going to drink. This ties into the more human Adama of the new series, one of his faults is getting too close to people, and allowing them to indulge in their weakness.

One of the most significant character changes was made to Boomer. In the original series he was simply a secondary character who was another pilot and was just kind of... there. Another gender change was done and Boomer became female, but in this case the idea was to have a secondary family unit on the ship represented through infidelity. Then one day, Ronald Moore's associate told him "You know how we can make sure this gets picked up into a series?" A dramatic pause ensued. "At the end make Boomer a Cylon." Ron Moore's reaction was a simple "That's fucking genius!". The entire original miniseries had been written at that point, and though the ending had been changed to reflect this new plot twist, all the existing scenes with Boomer remained unchanged.

"Make It More Real!"

One of the most important decisions in updating the series lay with the villainous army of Cylons. How exactly should they be portrayed? The clumsy, slow walking, and very inarticulate robots of the original wouldn't work as menacing threat these days. It turned out to be a case where "The limitation of a TV budget helped us". Doing a sophisticated suit for a human actor was not only cost prohibitive in terms of production costs, but simply shooting it on the set as a single robot was simply a waste of time. During pre-production in 2002, the idea of cost-effective CGI seemed equally laughable (though eventually turned out to be quite feasible), so the decision was made to make them human-like in appearance. The consequences of that decision informed much of the new show's history. The Cylons were no longer a menace created by an reptilian alien threat, but in fact servant machines made in the image of man who essentially began a revolt. They created their own social infrastructure, their own religion, and was an example of what Moore described as a case of budgetary limitation leading to a narrative boon.

Stylistically one of the more consistent things between the two series is the Viper combat ships. What was changed was the style of the combat scenes. Similar to the cult favourite show Firefly, Battlestar Galactica makes use of a hand-held camera style not only on set, but in the CG-rendered space combat. Something that always bothered Moore in Star Trek as well as any other film or TV show was the use of impossible camera moves. "Everyone knows how to use a camera. So the audience can tell when a camera shot is technically impossible. There's something about it that tells them that what they're watching isn't real." So his direction to the staff was to act as though "there was a guy out there in space with a camera doing every shot". The hand-held, shaky, zoom-filled action scenes "do kind of violate the film school rule of "the audience shouldn't be aware of the camera" but I think in this case being of aware of the camera, and having it always function realistically allows the audience to believe in what they're seeing."

Wrapping things up, Ron Moore said that the most important thing when updating and adapting an existing work was to "not lose the architecture that made them unique" and that despite the narrative and stylistic changes both shows are "unmistakably Battlestar Galactica".

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

Hugo Nominees Announced
Fri 24th Mar

Source: Sci-Fi Wire

The nominations for this year's Hugo awards and the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer have been announced. The awards will be given out at L.A.con IV, the 64th World Science Fiction Convention, which is being held in Anaheim, Calif., from Aug. 23 to Aug. 27, 2006. A complete list of nominees follows.

Novel: Accelerando by Charles Stross, A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, Learning the World by Ken MacLeod, Old Man's War by John Scalzi, Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Novella: "Burn" by James Patrick Kelly, "Identity Theft" by Robert J. Sawyer, "Inside Job" by Connie Willis, "The Little Goddess" by Ian McDonald, "Magic for Beginners" by Kelly Link

Novelette: "The Calorie Man" by Paolo Bacigalupi, "I, Robot" by Cory Doctorow, "The King of Where-I-Go" by Howard Waldrop, "TelePresence" by Michael A. Burstein, "Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle

Short Story: "The Clockwork Atom Bomb" by Dominic Green, "Down Memory Lane" by Mike Resnick, "Seventy-Five Years" by Michael A. Burstein, "Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan, "Tk'tk'tk" by David D. Levine

Related Book: Science Fiction Quotations by Gary Westfahl, The SEX Column and Other Misprints by David Langford, Soundings: Reviews 1992-1996 by Gary K. Wolfe, Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop by Kate Wilhelm, Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970 by Mike Ashley

Dramatic Presentation: Long Form: Batman Begins; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Serenity; Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Dramatic Presentation: Short Form: Battlestar Galactica "Pegasus;" Doctor Who "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances;" Doctor Who "Dalek;" Doctor Who "Father's Day;" "Jack-Jack Attack;" "Lucas Back in Anger;" "Prix Victor Hugo Awards Ceremony"

Professional Editor: Ellen Datlow, David G. Hartwell, Stanley Schmidt, Gordon Van Gelder, Sheila Williams

Professional Artist: Jim Burns, Bob Eggleton, Donato Giancola, Stephan Martiniere, John Picacio, Michael Whelan

Semiprozine: Ansible, Emerald City, Interzone, Locus, The New York Review of Science Fiction

Fanzine: Banana Wings, Challenger, Chunga, File 770, Plokta

Fan Writer: Claire Brialey, John Hertz, Dave Langford, Cheryl Morgan, Steven H. Silver

Fan Artist: Brad Foster, Teddy Harvia, Sue Mason, Steve Stiles, Frank Wu

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: K.J. Bishop, Sarah Monette, Chris Roberson, Brandon Sanderson, John Scalzi, Steph Swainston

This year's special category for Best Interactive Video Game appeared on the nominating ballot but was cancelled because there were too few nominations in the category to tabulate meaningful results for a final ballot.

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

Katee Sackhoff; Falling Star
Thu 23rd Mar

Source: Starburst Magazine

We meet Katee Sackhoff, the actress who has shot to fame as Viper pilot Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace

In the second season episode Resistance, Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace fell in love with Samuel Anders, a Cylon resistance fighter on the planet Caprica. She was forced to leave him behind when she returned to the Galactica, but promised Anders she'd be back to rescue him. Unfortunately, Kara has been unable to do so, and this is preying on her conscience. She's subsequently turned to drinking in an effort to deal with her guilt and this, not surprisingly, has affected her job performance. It's a real about-face for the character and one that took actress Katee Sackhoff, who plays Starbuck, a little time to wrap her head around.

"As the latter half of this season unfolds, Starbuck gets knocked off her superstar pedestal. In fact, I think she's giving Colonel Tigh [Michael Hogan] a run for his money when it comes to the drinking," notes Sackhoff. "You know how they say that you inevitably turn into the person you most despise if you don't figure out the reasons why you despise that person. Well, that's what my character is doing. We're talking head-on, full speed ahead, which is fun because it's a completely different side of her.

"At the same time I was a little worried because I wanted to make it believable. I thought, 'How can Starbuck suddenly go from being so capable and on top of her game - at least where her job is concerned - to someone who is everything she despises'. The whole thing starts in the episode Scar, and it was one of the biggest challenges I've faced yet on this show, mainly because my ego as Starbuck got in the way. I kept saying to our producers, 'Starbuck would never do this,' and they'd say, 'Yes, she would. At some point if she can't solve her problems on her own, she's going to turn to drink, drugs, something to numb the pain.'

"I just feel Starbuck has lost hope. Everyone has turned down her request to go back to Caprica to get Anders. Here's another man whose death she's going to feel responsible for because she promised to return and save him. Funnily enough, some fans have a problem with Starbuck wanting to go back to Caprica. If you read the Galactica message boards, some of them believe I'm romantically involved with Michael Trucco, who plays Anders, which isn't true. He already has the most beautiful, talented, lovely fiancée in the world. Yes, Michael is a great actor and person and we have wonderful on-screen chemistry together, but my main reason for wanting his character to return is that it would be another problem for Starbuck. She'd be caught up in a triangle where she loves Lee, and is also in love with Anders. It would be another fibre of Starbuck's being to pick away at and unravel. That's why I want Anders to come back, and he is coming back," reveals the actress with a smile.

Posted By Blade Runner

Timeframe Rumours For Season 2.5 DVD
Wed 22nd Mar

Source: tvshowsondvd

Fans of the new version of Battlestar Galactica are anxiously awaiting the second half of the second season. Not just for the episodes that would normally go with "Season 2.5", but also for the reported extended version of the episode "Pegasus". Now a rumour from TV Guide's Mike Ausiello last week is putting this release "in stores by early September". Thanks to reader Dominick Romeo for the heads-up.

Newshound: Reverend J

Posted By Blade Runner

IN-FUSIO, SCI FI Channel and BSG Mobile Game
Wed 22 Mar

Source: Yahoo Business Wire

Partnership with IN-FUSIO Marks SCI FI's First Mobile Entertainment Offering

PRESS RELEASE

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2006--IN-FUSIO, a leading international mobile games publisher, announced today that it is teaming with SCI FI Channel through an agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group to launch Battlestar Galactica Mobile. The new game, based on the popular TV series, is now available to download via major wireless carriers throughout North America.

"Battlestar Galactica is SCI FI's biggest hit so we're thrilled to use it as a platform for our first foray into mobile entertainment," said Adam Stotsky, senior vice president of Marketing and Creative, SCI FI. "We're pleased to have an industry leader like IN-FUSIO as our partner and look forward to a long and exciting partnership with them."

"Battlestar Galactica has continued to evolve since its launch in the 1970's and is one of the most beloved sci-fi franchises of all time," said Juergen Goeldner, executive vice president of publishing, IN-FUSIO. "We are very proud of the fact that SCI FI has entrusted us with such a popular brand and we look forward to adapting it for mobile."

Inspired by the classic series, Battlestar Galactica was re-imagined by the SCI FI Channel and NBC Universal Television Studio in December of 2003 in the form of a four-hour miniseries event. Capturing a new generation of fans, Battlestar Galactica became the most-watched cable miniseries of the year and led SCI FI to continue the saga through a one-hour weekly series. Redefining the space opera with its gritty realism, the new Galactica, executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, has distinguished itself by the intensity and present day relevance of its stories and the command performances of its ensemble cast. Now one of television's most critically-lauded shows, Battlestar Galactica just aired its season two finale -- an extended, 90-minute episode that aired Friday, March 10 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The show has been renewed for a third season that will begin production in April 2006.

Battlestar Galactica Mobile captures the thrill and suspense of the popular show. Starting as a rookie pilot, players take over the controls of the Colonial Viper Mark VII high performance fighter and are drawn quickly into the ongoing interstellar war. Fighting their way through 11 action packed levels and a variety of missions, players will be put to the test as they battle head-to-head with the deadly Cylons.

"The team at IN-FUSIO have truly embraced this brand and have created addictive, visually compelling gameplay that will satisfy current and future fans of Battlestar Galactica," said Jeremy Laws, senior vice president of Universal Mobile Entertainment.

IN-FUSIO and SCI FI will roll out additional Battlestar Galactica mobile entertainment applications throughout the year and as the third season of the TV series begins in fall 2006.

For more information on Battlestar Galactica Mobile, including carriers and downloading instructions, please visit: www.SCIFI.com/Battlestar.

About SCI FI Channel

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com, http://www.scifi.com) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 85 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

About Universal Studios Consumer Products Group

Universal Studios Consumer Products Group (USCPG) is responsible for global licensing and retail strategies as well as building brand recognition of the extensive catalogue of NBC Universal properties. Universal Studios Consumer Products Group is a unit of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by Vivendi Universal.

About IN-FUSIO

IN-FUSIO is a leading international mobile entertainment company, publishing games and applications for cell phones.

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Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

The Cliffhanger Awards-SciFi TV Edition
Wed 22nd Mar

Source: Bella Online

Today, cliffhangers are a dime a dozen—look at "Alias" or "Friends," for example. Ending the season in the middle of a climax simply makes people want to come back for more. The tradition isn't new; "Dallas" did it back in the '80s by letting viewers ask the question all summer "Who Shot J.R?" And then there was the infamous shower scene, which aired in the fall to explain why Patrick Duffy's currently dead character Bobby Ewing suddenly showed up alive and well in the season finale (in case you were not alive then, or living in a cave, it turned out the whole season was J.R.'s dream). But the modern cliffhanger got a huge popularity boost back when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was breaking records on syndicated TV in the late '80s and early '90s. And today, cliffhangers are everywhere. Let's take a look at some of the best and the baddest from scifi TV history.

The Best Scifi Cliffhanger of All Time

Hands down, this award goes to "Star Trek: The Next Generation"'s "The Best of Both Worlds" double-parter. Wow. Even after all these years, watching this particular episode reminds you of how great that show could be, and why "Star Trek" was the powerhouse franchise that it was—and is. "Best of Both Worlds" is about as brilliant as it could be: the antagonism between Shelby and William Ryker, the revelation that Locutus is actually Captain Picard, the sinister Borg plot—these are all elements that went into what some still call the best science fiction story ever. And who can forget that image of all the Starfleet ships, arrayed for battle? It was "TNG"'s first cliffhanger, and a milestone for the rest of the scifi TV universe to attempt to match. So far, no one has.

Best Modern Cliffhanger

It was the season two finale to the SciFi Channel series "Battlestar Galactica" that inspired this particular article. It remains to be seen if the resolution to this cliffhanger is as satisfying as it promises to be. Nevertheless, many of us who saw the season ender left the show with our jaws hanging open. One minute President Roslyn and Commander Adama are discussing why she felt it necessary to cheat during the presidential election—the next minute, it's a year later and everyone's living in tents on New Caprica, forming unions and having babies. Baltar's president and the Galactica and Pegasus are completely unready for a Cylon invasion of any kind. What? Who didn't think this was a dream sequence when they first saw it? Can you believe the show's not coming back till October?

Best Consistent Use of Cliffhangers

"The X-Files," naturally. In the first season, "The Erlenmeyer Flask" saw the death of Deep Throat and the closing of the X-Files. In the second season's "The Anasazi", Krycek kills Mulder's father, Mulder gets psychotic from poisoned water, then goes to New Mexico and disappears after finding more evidence that the government has been hiding proof of aliens. The follow-up, "The Blessing Way," introduced the Well-Manicured Man and revealed that Scully had been implanted with a microchip. In the season three finale, we learned that Cigarette-Smoking Man has cancer, that Mulder has a secret, that there is a plan for colonization, and we come tantalizingly to learning the truth. In "Herrenvolk," the follow-up from season four, Samantha Mulder reenters Mulder's life. The season four cliffhanger, "Gethsemane," ends with the possibility that Mulder has been manipulated this whole time, and at the end of the episode he's apparently dead. And then the end of season five preceded "The X-Files" movie, so of course they had to shut the X-Files down. We'll skip the last few seasons, during which the show went downhill—"jumped the shark," you might say, at least in this editor's opinion—but you get the point. Every season this show left you hanging. Heck, most of the regular episodes did too.

The Silliest Resolution to a Cliffhanger

How can you give this award to any show but "Red Dwarf?" At the end of Series 2, Lister takes a pregnancy test and discovers he's pregnant. And expecting twins, as we know from a previous episode called "Future Echoes." So, as we all waited with bated breath to watch the resolution, the series producers took the easy way out. At the beginning of Series 3, they ran a text blurb at the beginning of the show that explained 1) what happened to Lister's kids, 2) how a new character (Kryten) joined the crew and 3) that the computer decided to give himself a sex change. This text scrolled by so quickly that only viewers recording the episode on their VCRs could read the text—if they rewound and paused. As fans know, another cliffhanger ended the sixth season. By then, no one was surprised when the seventh season began with a similar cop-out.

Most Ridiculous Conclusion to a Cliffhanger-Even Worse than "Dallas"

All right, this one isn't a scifi TV show, but its cliffhanger resolution was so bad it beats everything we've ever seen or heard of. At the end of season one of 1998-2000 action/adventure series "Martial Law," Sammo Law (played by Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan's movie partner and friend) was falling out of a helicopter. At the beginning of season two, there's only a bit explanation of that scene and you never even see the helicopter again. Two new people have been added to the cast (which featured Hung, Arsenio Hall and Kelly Hu) for no apparent reason and the police chief has disappeared. Also gone, suddenly: Sammo Hung's archnemesis and any continuing storyline there might have been. From what we understand, new producers took over and made so many changes that only lip service was paid to the previous plotlines and even to characterization. The first season of this Hong Kong martial arts movie-inspired series was fun, in the vein of Jackie Chan films. And in some ways it was even groundbreaking—after the departure of actress Tammy Lauren mid-season, none of the top four actors on the show were Caucasian. The second series was not even mediocre, as you could tell from the first minute of the season's first episode—and the cliffhanger non-ending was an insult to viewers. "Martial Law" was cancelled after this season. At least when "Red Dwarf" skipped over the cliffhanger resolution, it was funny. I have to admit, I'm still bitter about this one.

Of course, there are pretty spectacular cliffhangers all over the TV these days.

Newshound: Sci-Fi

Posted By Blade Runner

Ron Moore Interview from Pegasus Galaxy
Tue 21st Mar

 

Source: Pegasus Galaxy

Ron Moore, writer and executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, appeared at Creation Entertainment's Grand Slam Scifi Summit convention in Pasadena, California. He was kind enough to give Sam's Sister, of pegasusgalaxy.com, a few minutes at the end of his post-appearance autograph-signing session for an impromptu interview. Many thanks to Creation Entertainment co-executive, Adam Malin, for arranging this. For information on other Creation events, see their website: CreationEnt.com.

Ron Moore Interview - Battlestar Galactica

PG: In general what has inspired your writing? Was there a particular show or things that you read that inspired you to think this way?

RM: I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid. I was a big fan of the original Star Trek series, which I lived and breathed in the seventies, before the first movie when it was just this forgotten show - I thought a forgotten show. I grew up in this little town in California - I didn't know there were conventions or any of that stuff - it was just this show that was on every day after school that I grew up with. ...and took in a lot of ideas from that show and a lot of ways of presenting shows and how interesting and relevant Science Fiction could be. And it was a very formative experience. And I read a lot growing up and my dad was a big reader - both my parents were - I had a library at home and I was always going in and grabbing books and reading. And a lot of things that inspired me to write were just...other people wrote, and "isn't this cool -- I'd like to tell stories like they tell stories."

PG: Are you still getting flak about the original Battlestar series? Or has that kind of died out?

RM: It depends on where you look. There's still definitely an element of fandom that hasn't forgiven me for that and probably never will. It kind of goes with the territory.

PG: Some think that it's sort of the ultimate tribute to the show, sort of like fan fiction. What do you think of fanfic, anyway?

RM: I think it's great. I stay away from it just for legal reasons - you don't want to read stuff and be accused of stealing it. But I was always fascinated with it as a phenomenon with Star Trek and thought it was always amazing the different roads that they would go down. And even when I was just a fan I was always interested with what the novels did and what other people spun out in the Star Trek universe. So I think it's a great thing and I'm glad people do it.

PG: How much of real life American or world politics informs your writing?

RM: It's in the air a lot...this is the world I live in and the show is about us more than it is about a people that don't exist. We do infuse a lot of story lines of things that happen in contemporary culture, but we don't really try to make our show a polemic: the show is not saying, "Here's our George W. Bush, here's our Al Qaeda, here's Iraq." We take a lot of these themes and we kind of mix them up and try to subvert expectations about what you think about different issues. The show's ultimately just to make you think and make you question and make you wonder; challenge long-held assumptions and make you look at things from different perspectives and then figure out how you feel about it. And the show doesn't try to tell you, "We know how the War on Terror should be fought" or "Here's the right answer to Iraq," it's just making you look at it through different eyes.

PG: It was a surprise to have them try to steal the election. You wouldn't have expected that with Laura Roslin. What made you decide to do that?

RM: Part of it was just talking about, "What do you do with an election?" We knew we were going to have to deliver an election, but elections tend to be boring things to watch on TV and they are usually sort of pat. I knew that I liked the idea of Baltar winning the election, but it seemed like if Laura really thought he was going to win it, she wouldn't just stand idly by. And I thought, there's an opportunity to do something about "What does it mean to live in a democratic society and how far are you willing to stand behind that idea?" and that Laura - given the character that she is - would do anything she could do to keep Baltar out of power, but when faced with it, she couldn't really break a fundamental idea about what it means to live in a democracy.

PG: She has an interesting relationship with Adama. He is sort of part of her conscience there.

RM: Yes, it's really interesting to see the way the two characters have come together and that their relationship has changed ever since the attack. And it's been great to watch Eddie and Mary work that out on camera.

PG: Some of that is their own?

RM: Yeah, a lot of that is their own...the kiss that Adama gave Laura at the end of Resurrection Ship was something he just did in the moment...it wasn't scripted and she was surprised and it played beautifully, but it was just like an instinctive thing on his part.

PG: A lot of people are making a big deal of the possibility that Adama and Roslin will have a relationship...and some people like it as just a very good friendship.

RM: I like it that way, too. I'm not eager to put them in bed together.

PG: Are you going to explore more about how the Cylon culture developed - about how, if they were machines, they evolved into this more human culture?

RM: Yes, we'll slowly talk more and more about their evolutionary process and where they are. One of the things we want to grapple with in Season 3 is that they are a very young civilization, a very young society - a lot of the rules and ideas that they have had are very formative ones. They have just come up with a lot of these notions and they are exploring them. Like in Downloaded, it was a culture based on homogeneity, and now they have people who are starting to break out and have differences and certain divisions are setting in, and then you saw in the finale that there are even Cylons who don't believe that there's a God, which is a fundamental tenet for the rest of them, so they are sort of starting to work those ideas out and approach those ideas for the first time.
Battlestar Galactica interview with Ron Moore

PG: What about the idea that the Cylons are individuals but that it goes against the collective mind? [referring to Six's comment in Downloaded that being heroes seems to go against the Cylon collective sensibility.] When you think of a collective, you think of the Borg, but the Cylons are clearly not the Borg.

RM: I never wanted them to be the Borg: it's not truly a mass hive mind, but it's a sort of a grey area. They have methods of communication beyond the verbal, but they choose to emulate the human form in many ways and they have made a conscious decision to be like human beings as Brother Cavil pointed out, that's in some ways a mistake, that they should be the best machines they can be, but they've chosen to go down this other route so they talk to each other as opposed to download communication to each other. Even so you see that they are machines on some level and Sharon is able to take a conduit and stick it in her arm and can communicate with the computer - so one supposes that there are other levels of understanding and methods of communication that go on within Cylon society, but they're not on the conscious individual level. It's a very grey area.

PG: Are we ever going to learn why Baltar has Six in his head and vice versa?

RM: Yeah, we'll get more into that. It's one of those things I want to tease out over the course of the series.

PG: There is a lot of speculation that Baltar is a Cylon because of that. Or it could be more a reflection that she is as hooked on him as he is on her and that the Cylons can really love.

RM: Yeah, that's closer to the idea.

PG: And where is Zarek now? We missed him in the last half hour of the finale.

RM: He's the vice president of the colonies and we'll pick him up next season. There were just so many players to have to deal with in the end that we couldn't get to him. He's down there and he's actually a bit disillusioned with Baltar and the whole administration and what became of this whole project.

PG: We wondered about that...how things got so bad in just one year. And where Sharon went, too...

RM: That's all stuff for next season.

Newshound: CylonGod

Posted By Blade Runner

Ron Moore on Season 2 Finale; Late start for Season 3
Sun 19th Mar

Source: The Great link

Unless you live under a rock, you know that Ronald D. Moore, former writer/producer for The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, is the executive producer of probably the biggest science fiction sensation on television right now, Battlestar Galactica. Moore paid an unscheduled visit to the main stage on Sunday and fielded questions about the show. People were still reeling from the recent season finale, leading to the main question, "Have you lost your mind?!"

Moore said the recent creative directions of the show were designed as "an interesting way to change up the relationships, to sort of subvert your ideas on what the show is about, to take a lot of risks with the characters, and, y'know, piss off the audience, which is always a fun thing to do."

Responding to a question, Moore took the opportunity to comment about the role of religion in Galactica. "It's one of the fundamental building blocks of the show. When I was approaching the mini-series, I started playing around with ideas of Cylon Number Six saying 'God is love,' and I was instantly intrigued with the idea that a robot or an android or an artificial intelligence would come to a notion of God or a theology on its own. And I quickly saw that the polytheistic belief system of the colonies would be interesting juxtaposed against the monotheism of the Cylons. Religion is one of the fundamentals of the human experience ... and it just felt right to deal with the Cylons in their quest of, 'What is a person, what does it mean to be a real boy' on a certain level."

Fans really weren't so