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==Spin-offs== ==Spin-offs==
On ], ], the Sci Fi Channel announced that a ] ] of ''BSG'' (known as ]) was in development.<ref></ref> It will take place over 50 years before the current series, before the original Cylon War, and will chronicle the Adama family and Caprican society as well as show the advancement of technology leading to the Cylon revolt. On ], ], the Sci Fi Channel announced that a ] ] of ''BSG'' (known as ]) was in development.<ref></ref> It will take place over 50 years before the current series, before the original Cylon War, and will chronicle the Adama family and Caprican society as well as show the advancement of technology leading to the Cylon revolt.

== Other Media References ==
In the second season of NBC's "The Office" During the episode, "Dwight's Speech". The character Dwight (who is a geek) says, "The entire cast of Battle Star Galactica will be there!(meaning a comic convention next door to a sales conference) If I see Starbuck... My heart will explode." To which Micheal Scott replies, "What are you? A 12 year old girl?"


== Tie-in novels == == Tie-in novels ==

Revision as of 20:06, 19 February 2007

2004 TV series or program
Battlestar Galactica
File:Battlestar Galactica intro.jpgTitle screen to Battlestar Galactica.
Created byRonald D. Moore
StarringSee Cast and characters
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes47 (series to date), 10 (webisodes)
Production
Production location Canada
Running time42 min.
Original release
NetworkSky One
Sci Fi Channel
ReleaseOctober 18, 2004 –
present

Battlestar Galactica is a science fiction television series created by Ronald D. Moore that first aired on October 18, 2004 in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky One, and January 14, 2005 in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel. Repeats of episodes have been shown in the United States on NBC, Bravo and in high definition on Universal HD.

The introduction to the television series is a three-hour miniseries that first aired on December 8, 2003, on the Sci Fi Channel. The series has gained a wide range of critical acclaim and has won Peabody, Hugo, and Saturn awards.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler

Main article: List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined series) episodes See also: Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)

The concept of the show, as described by the opening text in each episode of season 1:

The Cylons were created by Man.
They Rebelled.
They Evolved.
They Look and Feel Human.
Some are programmed to think they are Human.
There are many copies.
And they have a Plan.

This was changed in the second season to:

The Cylons were created by Man.
They evolved.
They rebelled.
There are many copies.
And they have a plan.

Battlestar Galactica follows on from the 2003 mini-series to chronicle the journey of the last surviving humans from the Twelve Colonies of Man after their nuclear annihilation by the Cylons. The survivors are led by President Laura Roslin and Commander (later Admiral) William Adama in a ragtag fleet of ships with the Battlestar Galactica, a powerful warship, at its head. Pursued by Cylons intent on wiping out the remnants of the human race, the survivors travel across the galaxy looking for the fabled and long-lost thirteenth colony — Earth...

Cast

File:Batstarg.png
Season three cast: (standing, left to right) McDonnell, Olmos, Bamber, Penikett (seated) Hogan, Callis, Sackhoff, Helfer, Park

Main characters

Supporting characters

Recurring guest stars

Main article: List of recurring characters in Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining)

Military rank structure

The Colonial military is organized much the same as in the original series, however since both are significantly different from any existing military organization, it is probably worth discussing in greater context. From the episodes aired, a Battlestar is the lead vessel in a battle group which normally consists of many smaller vessels. The re-imagined series explicitly places the Galactica as one of two (or three) Battlestars within battle group 75. A Colonial Fleet and Colonial Marines exist; there are very few of the latter as Galactica only had a small contingent on board due to its impending decommissioning. Also, no marines appeared in the miniseries. Security duties were handled by what appeared to be fleet officers. A distinct marine corps did not start appearing until after the television series began running.

Officers in the Colonial Fleet are given ranks that are a fusion of those presently used in western armies and navies. Ronald D. Moore outlined the rank structure in a blog entry in February of 2005, stating that he wanted to keep the "co-mingled" ranks of the original series rather than reassign ranks based on real-world naval structure.

The Colonial Fleet commissioned officers are identified as:

The ranks for enlisted crewmen are:

The Colonial Marines have a different rank structure for enlisted men: Private, Corporal, Sergeant, etc. Their officer rank structure, if indeed one exists, has not been shown and it is unknown whether any commissioned Marine officers survived or if indeed the Colonial Marines had an officer corps.(Marines on the show have only been led by Fleet officers such as Apollo, Starbuck, Tigh, Athena or Sergeant Hadrian).

The command and executive officers of the Galactica are a Commander and Colonel, respectively, and have been since before the destruction of the colonies. Dr. Cottle holds the rank of Major, as did Lee Adama prior to his promotion to Commander (this is later reversed). There are a few senior officers with the rank of Captain as well as several lieutenants. The second season introduced Admiral Helena Cain (played by Michelle Forbes), in command of the Battlestar Pegasus (mentioned by Admiral Adama as being specifically a Rear Admiral at one point).

Recurring Marine characters include Galactica's Master-at-arms, Sergeant Hadrian, played by Jill Teed. The character, however, is never explicitly identified as a Marine. Another recurring Marine character is Corporal Venner, played by Chris Shields. In addition to these Marines, numerous Privates and at least two Gunnery Sergeants are known to exist (one appeared in the season 2 episode "Sacrifice" and another appeared in the season 3 episode "Exodus Part 1").

In addition, at least two Marines have been seen with two vertical, white bars painted on the backs of their helmets, similar to the symbol used for a Captain by the US Military.

Theological references

Religion and theology flavored the original series, and they are prominent in the reimagined series.

Perhaps the most prominent religious component is the series' overarching theme: the human survivors' search for Earth. That search is motivated by ancient religious texts' references to a 13th tribe of humans that established a civilization on a distant planet called Earth. Various religious relics and ruins, both on the 12 colonies and elsewhere in the galaxy, provide clues to Earth's location.

Human polytheism

Many of the humans share in polytheism, worshipping the gods of Kobol. This appears to be the official state religion of the colonies; government oaths reference the gods and, back on the 12 planets, public museums housed artifacts of the gods.

The Kobol gods have the same names and characteristics as the Greek Olympic gods, and the show makes repeated references to Zeus, Hera, Athena, Ares and Apollo. As evidenced by prayers offered by the human characters, the Kobol gods are morally refined and are believed to watch over and intervene benevolently in the lives of the just. This is similar to the conception of the gods during the Greek classical and Hellenic periods, not the a-moral (and very human) gods of the Greek archaic period.

In another parallel to Western (Terran) polytheism, the names of the Twelve Colonies and their planets are similar to the names of the characters in the Greco-Roman zodiac. In the early days of the 12 colonies, each colony's flag showed the stellar constellation of its zodiac sign ("Home Pt. 2).

Divine Texts

The principle means of transmitting divine knowledge is the Sacred Scroll. The Scroll chronicles the early period of human existence, when people and the gods lived together on the distant (and, at the beginning of the series, lost) planet Kobol. In the opening words of the Scroll, which are occasionally quoted in the show, "Life here began out there" ("Miniseries). The Scroll tells that at some point in time, humanity left Kobol and founded the colonies — the 12 colonies whose survivors form the fleet, and a distant 13th colony called Earth ("Miniseries et al.).

So far, the show has offered little detail of the Sacred Scroll, other than that it contains the Book of Pythia, which chronicles an ancient female leader who led the humans on a dangerous trek to a safe new home, though the leader died just before the journey came to an end. President Roslin draws on the Book of Pythia as personal inspiration ("Fragged" et al.).

Schisms

So far, there appears to be no rival religion among the humans, save for atheism/agnosticism (and Gaius Baltar's silent monotheism). However, there does appear to be differences in interpretation and worship between the 12 colonies. Sagitarons, for instance, take a literal interpretation of the Sacred Scroll, avoid modern medicine ("The Woman King"), and oppose abortion.

Cylon monotheism

Many of the human-form cylons also share a religious belief -- in this case, monotheism. The Cylons' monotheism seems to share many of the characteristics as the Western monotheistic religions: belief that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, that He/She will one day deliver divine retribution, and that He/She intervenes in the secular world.

Main title

The first season's main title is divided into two segments, the first containing clips from the 2003 miniseries and previous seasons, and the second an action-oriented montage of images from the coming episode. Moore intended the montage sequence to be a direct homage to the titles of Space: 1999, which used a similar device at the start of each episode of its first season. The original Battlestar Galactica used a similar device, where clips from the episode gave a reasonably detailed summary of what was about to happen.

The Sky One version of the title sequence for season one featured a Hindu mantra, the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda. In the U.S., the music was an original instrumental piece by composer Bear McCreary called "Two Funerals" originally written for the episode "Act of Contrition". As of season two, the main title sequences in all territories where the show airs now uses the Sky One title sequence, the Gayatri Mantra version written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.

The words in the mantra are "OM bhūr bhuvah svah tat savitur varēnyam bhargō dēvasya dhīmahi dhiyō yō nah pracōdayāt", which may be translated in various ways but means approximately: "Oh all-protecting lord, please guide our intellects, so that we may proceed in the right direction towards enlightenment"

For the second season, the Sci Fi Channel eschewed Moore's "in this episode" montage until the fifth episode, as some fans complained that the sequence spoiled the episode.

The opening for all seasons, with the exception of a few episodes, lists the exact number of survivors in the fleet. The number is updated for each episode following deaths and births from the previous one.

Production

The series is filmed at Vancouver Film Studios and on physical locations in the Greater Vancouver and Kelowna areas, British Columbia, Canada.

Season one

The first season of thirteen one-hour episodes was announced by the Sci Fi Channel on February 10, 2004 and aired in the UK & Ireland between October 18, 2004 and January 24, 2005 on Sky One, which co-financed the series with the Sci Fi Channel and NBC Universal. Produced in 2004 by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore and starring the original cast from the 2003 miniseries, it was aired in the United States from January 14, 2005 and from January 15 in Canada. Moore left his position as producer on HBO's Carnivàle after its first season to concentrate more on BSG.

Battlestar Galactica's first season aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland three months ahead of the show's premiere in the U.S. and Canada. This rare example of a North American television show being aired across the Atlantic before its first broadcast "at home" was the result of Sky's partially funding the first season's production.

The time lag between the UK and Ireland and the U.S. screenings led to widespread distribution of episodes via peer-to-peer networks, such as eDonkey and BitTorrent, often within only a few hours of Sky One airing them. Although Sci Fi and Moore deplored this and publicly appealed for downloaders not to pirate the show, there was widespread speculation that its unauthorized electronic distribution contributed to the U.S. success of the show by creating a favourable word of mouth impression among key demographic groups. Perhaps in recognition of this, the first episode was later made available for viewing in its entirety and without charge from the Sci Fi website. Moore also sought to address the "Internet generation" by posting podcast commentaries on individual episodes on the Sci Fi website.

The series proved successful on its UK and Ireland premiere, attracting favourable comments from reviewers and generating considerable anticipation in the U.S. The first episode aired in the U.S. became one of the highest-rated programs ever on Sci Fi with 3.1 million viewers. Successive episodes proved equally successful. The first episode of the regular series, "33", won the 2005 short form Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Season two

Following the success of the 13-episode season one, the Sci Fi Channel commissioned a full 20-episode second season on February 9, 2005. The season premiered in the U.S. on Sci Fi Channel on July 15, 2005, with the UK, Ireland and Canadian premiere in January 2006. In the Fall of 2005, airing of the second season halted as it was part of Sci-Fi Channel's standard airing schedule normally used for its Stargate series, which was to split a 20-episode season into two parts (a "winter season" and a "summer season", to avoid heavy competition with major networks that follow a spring / fall schedule). Universal Home Video took this break as an opportunity to package the episodes aired thus far into a DVD set, calling it Season 2.0. The final episode of the first half, "Pegasus," was originally 15 minutes too long for broadcast, but according to creator Ronald Moore, the production team decided to cut the episode to time rather than pad it out to fill 90 minutes, as this was deemed impractical. The longer version of "Pegasus" appears on the Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD set, which was released in the U.S. on September 19, 2006. Sky did not contribute financially to the second season, though UK Broadcasts credit the company at the end of every episode because many of the sets from the first series were co-funded by them.

The second half of Season 2 began airing on January 6, 2006, after a three-month hiatus during which the Sci Fi Channel mounted a huge publicity effort. Battlestar Galactica picked up considerable critical acclaim from the mainstream press, including being named the #1 show of 2005 by Time Magazine, and being listed on numerous Top Ten lists by publications such as the Boston Globe. The American Film Institute also named it one of the ten best television shows of 2005. There was some criticism that a few episodes following "Resurrection Ship, Part 2" were not up to par with previous episodes, such as the episode "Black Market" for which even Ron Moore expressed dislike and embarrassment. Moore stated in his blog that he felt this was a result of the larger workload the series faced with 20 episodes instead of 13 in season 1. However, episode 15 "Scar" was thought to bring the series back up to its high level of quality, and subsequent episodes "The Captain's Hand", "Downloaded" and the two part finale "Lay Down Your Burdens", were hailed by fans and critics alike. Moore has expressed that he feels that the longer break between seasons 2 and 3 (four months instead of two) will help to ensure that all episodes are up to the high level of quality that the production team is trying to maintain.

Season 2 was released on DVD in Australia on August 15, 2006. The entire season is collected in one box set. Season 2 however began its first run on Australian television just 2 weeks prior to this on Network Ten, at 11pm on Wednesdays, meaning that the complete season became available the day before the third episode aired.

Webisodes

Ten "webisodes" called Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance were designed to focus on events that take place on New Caprica between seasons two and three of the television series, and aired on SCI FI PULSE. Because of legal issues, almost no news appeared after the original announcement , but the broadcast date was eventually revealed on August 28, 2006 on Sci Fi's website by Sci Fi's head of Internet Programming, Craig Engler. The release schedule was twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. The first Webisode was posted Tuesday, September 5, and the last posted on Thursday, October 5, one night before the first episode of Season 3.

The Webisodes themselves have caused a conflict between NBC and those involved in their development, relating to the royalties that the developers should receive. As of this time, it is uncertain whether the DVDs for Season 3 will include the Webisodes or not. Ronald Moore has claimed that he controls the copies of the Webisodes already made, and does not intend to give them to NBC.

Season three

The Sci Fi Channel ordered a 20-episode third season on November 16, 2005, which premiered in the U.S. on October 6, 2006 and in Canada on October 7, 2006 with the first two episodes being shown together. The broadcast schedule for Season 3 does not include a long hiatus in the middle of the season as with Season 2. Production began in April 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Sci Fi Channel moved the show to Sundays on January 21, 2007, the first time the show had changed nights since it began airing.

In the UK & Ireland, Sky One began screening season three in high-definition on January 9, 2007.

Season four

SCI FI Channel confirmed on February 13, 2007 that the show has been renewed for a fourth season of at least 13 episodes, with a possible premiere date of January 2008.

Spin-offs

On April 27, 2006, the Sci Fi Channel announced that a prequel spin-off of BSG (known as Caprica) was in development. It will take place over 50 years before the current series, before the original Cylon War, and will chronicle the Adama family and Caprican society as well as show the advancement of technology leading to the Cylon revolt.

Tie-in novels

In 2006, Tor Books inaugurated a series of Battlestar Galactica tie-in novels:

  • Battlestar Galactica (the miniseries), by Jeffrey A. Carver -- a novelization of the 2003 miniseries
  • The Cylons' Secret, by Craig Shaw Gardner -- an original prequel novel, set 20 years after the end of the first Cylon war
  • Sagittarius Is Bleeding, by Peter David -- an original novel, set during the time-frame of the ongoing series
  • Unity, by Steven Harper -- an original novel, set during the time-frame of the ongoing series (forthcoming)

Dynamite Entertainment also started two comic book series in 2006:

  • An ongoing series, set sometime in Season 2 between the episodes "Home" and "Pegasus". In the first story arc, the fleet finds a debris field from an earlier inter-Colony war and ends up meeting resurrected lost loved ones, such as Zak Adama. The current arc introduces a group of old-model Cylons that are still loyal to the Colonies and serve Galactica.
  • A four-issue miniseries, serving as a biography of Tom Zarek
  • A four-issue miniseries entitled Cylon Apocalypse
  • A BSG flipbook, issued on Free Comic Book Day in 2007
  • A six-issue miniseries entitled Battlestar Galactica: Year One

Awards and honors

References

  1. Ronald D. Moore (2006-10-06). Battlestar Galactica, "Precipice". R&D TV.
  2. Sky One are co-production partners with Sci Fi Channel United States of America and Seasons 1, 2 and 3 credits.
  3. Ron Moore blog - Season Two and Q & A
  4. TVShowsOnDVD.com - Universal Officially Announces Battlestar Galactica - Season 2.5
  5. TIME.com: Best of 2005: Television
  6. Hollywood North Report - Galactica Webisodes Threatened By Dispute
  7. GateWorld - Galactica set for October season premiere
  8. Variety - New 'Battlestar' orbit - Sci Fi Channel drama moving to Sundays at 10
  9. www.scifi.com announcement
  10. SCI FI Wire - SCI FI Announces Caprica
  11. "Best of 2005: Television". Time (magazine).

See also

External links

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