The Blot has been waiting months for this day, the release of Battlestar Galactica Season 3 on DVD. I was admittedly behind on the whole Battlestar Galactica craze and jumped on the bandwagon last summer after being persuaded by a friend to finally give it a second try. You see I loved watching repeats of the campy original Battlestar as a kid, but after watching half an hour of the show’s original mini-series I had to turn it off. I just couldn’t watch a show that would desecrate the greatness that was Lt. Starbuck by turning him into a woman. How could you do that to the A-Team’s Faceman (a.k.a. Dirk Benedict)!?!?
After a second viewing of the mini-series I realized the error of my way and the greatness that is Katee Sackhoff’s Starbuck. There is so much more to this show than the hot, evil Cylon robots or the starship battles in space, the show has actually great storylines. While many people are probably turned off by the science fiction aspect of BSG, the show really is as much about politics, political intrigue and the same types of issues facing America as another one of The Blot’s favorite shows, The West Wing. Yes I know it’s hard to compare a show about the Oval Office to a show about a spaceship, but it really does work.
Once I finished the initial Battlestar Galactica mini-series I rushed out to purchase the Season 1 box set and haven’t looked back yet. What sucked was the fact that Season 3 was going on as I was still watching Season 2 & 2.5 on DVD. So I waited, and waited, and waited for almost an entire year for NBC/Universal and the Sci-Fi Channel to get their act together and finally release Season 3 on DVD. Now that I’ve purchased the third box set I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to find the time to watch the entire season before BSG’s fourth and final season debuts Friday, April 4th at 10/9 central on the Sci-Fi Channel. Damn you March Madness!
As the final season’s debut approaches the show is doing all it can to promote its fourth season. The first stop of their never ending PR tour for the show is The Late Show with David Letterman where The Daytona Beach News-Journal is reporting that tonight several of Battlestar Galactica’s stars will be presenting the daily Top Ten list. (link) The actors rumored to appear “include Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, Tricia Helfer and Lucy Lawless.” (link) While the article doesn’t say what the topic of the Top Ten list will be, I’m sure it’ll be pretty funny with the cast sure to be making fun of the science fiction/unrealistic aspects of the show.
Another bit of exciting news for fans of BSG came out yesterday in that the Sci-fi Channel finally announced at their upfront presentation Tuesday that “it has greenlighted a two-hour back-door pilot” Caprica, “which had been in development for two years.” (link) Finally! The much talked Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica seemed to have been in limbo forever, but the show seems set to finally see the light of day. Caprica, “which is set 50 years before the events in the departing Battlestar,” sounds to be following in the footsteps of primetime soap operas of the past. (link)
The television movie and subsequent series is set to “revolve around two families: the Adamas and the Graystones. Joseph Adama, father of future Battlestar commander William Adama, is a renowned civil liberties lawyer who becomes an opponent of the artificial intelligence/Cylon experiments wrought by the Graystones, owners of a large computer corporation that builds the first Cylons.” (link) While the story sounds interesting, I don’t know how it will translate to fans of the current Battlestar Galactica since there is something to a story in which the human race is all but extinct and fighting for its existence. Nevertheless I’m sure I’ll give Caprica a shot when it debuts next year.You can purchase the two Battlestar Galactica propaganda posters seen here and other cool BSG merchandise (including official Battlestar Galactica dog tags and additional posters) at Quantum Mechanix. (link)
