Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)

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Battlestar Galactica

Title screen to Battlestar Galactica.
Genre Science Fiction, Drama
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Running time approx. 42 minutes
Creator(s) Ronald D. Moore
Starring See Cast and characters
Country of origin United States
Original channel United Kingdom Sky One
United States Sci Fi Channel
First shown on Sky One
Original run October 18, 2004–present
No. of episodes 53 + 10 webisodes
Official website
IMDb profile

Battlestar Galactica is an American 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 North America 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.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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.

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 lead. Pursued by the Cylons who are 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.

[edit] Cast

Season three cast
Enlarge
Season three cast

[edit] Main characters

[edit] Supporting characters

[edit] Recurring guest stars

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

[edit] Military rank structure

The Colonial military is organized much the same as in the original series. 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[1] 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 has not been shown and it is unknown whether any commissioned Marine officers survived (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. 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.

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").

[edit] 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 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: "May we attain that excellent glory of Savitur the God / so may He stimulate our prayers."

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.

In seasons two and three, the opening intro lists the exact number of survivors in the fleet. The number is updated for each episode following deaths and births from the previous one.

[edit] Production

[edit] Season 1

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 favorable 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.

[edit] Season 2

Following the success of the 13-episode season one, the Sci Fi Channel commissioned a full 20-episode second season. 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, production on the second season halted as it was part of Sci-Fi Channel's standard production 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). The Sci Fi Channel 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. [2] 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[3] 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. Episode 15 "Scar" was universally thought to be the nadir of the entire series. However, 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.

[edit] 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 [4], 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 unsure 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.

[edit] Season 3

The Sci Fi Channel has ordered a 20-episode third season, 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 hiatus in the middle of the season as in Season 2. Production began in April 2006 in Vancouver, British Columbia.[5] The Sci Fi Channel will begin airing new episodes on Sundays at 10:00 PM Eastern/9:00 PM Central beginning January 21, 2007.[6]

In the UK Sky One will screen season three in January 2007; it had been previously reported that the show would return at the same time as the U.S. screenings.

[edit] Spin-offs

On April 26, 2006 the Sci Fi Channel announced that a prequel spin-off of BSG (known as Caprica) was in development.[7] 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.

[edit] Awards & Honors

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ron Moore blog - Season Two and Q & A
  2. ^ TVShowsOnDVD.com - Universal Officially Announces Battlestar Galactica - Season 2.5
  3. ^ TIME.com: Best of 2005: Television
  4. ^ Hollywood North Report - Galactica Webisodes Threatened By Dispute
  5. ^ GateWorld - Galactica set for October season premiere
  6. ^ Variety - New 'Battlestar' orbit - Sci Fi Channel drama moving to Sundays at 10
  7. ^ SCI FI Wire - SCI FI Announces Caprica
  8. ^ Best of 2005: Television. Time (magazine).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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