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What if Battlestar Galactica was remade with a cast of Jim Henson’s The Muppets? It might look something like this.  [via /Film]

I don’t really have any complaints about last night’s Battlestar Galactica series finale.  It was wholly satisfying on a visceral and emotional level.  There’s always the fear of being disappointed, but that wasn’t the case here.  If you’re looking for reviews of the show, I suggest reading Annalee Newitz’s over at io9.

But I want to suggest that there is a counter-story here, too, which relies on the idea that any technology sufficiently advanced looks like magic. Though our “angels” and “God” come dressed in the trappings of spiritualism, they could just as plausibly be benevolent but meddlesome aliens who take a kindly interest in primitives like ourselves.

While these aliens help guide us, they do not control our destiny. In fact, BSG makes a pretty passionate case for human self-determination. The humans of the 12 colonies have all used science to create life, in the form of cylons. And although those cylons are humans’ downfall in the short term, they turn out to be humanity’s salvation in the long term. They’re the creatures humans must merge with in order to take civilization in a new direction. Looked at from that perspective, humans on Earth today are the genetically-engineered (or simply engineered) creation of an earlier species. They prove that our species is not the result of some kind of divine intervention, but is quite emphatically the result of scientific intervention mixed with a little random evolution.

Can these two accounts of humanity be hybridized, or are they simply contradictory? That we can ask that kind of question after watching Battlestar Galactica’s final episode is ultimately is lure of this series. It offers no pat answers. We must decide.

Interesting that ultimately the show was about reconciling the differences between science and religion.  Pretty heady stuff, but something you expect out of the best speculative fiction.

(photo courtesy of Shetha)

Katee Sackhoff rolled into Portland on Friday night for a lengthy question and answer session dropping curse words like a sailor and nearly causing a nerd riot outside the Baghdad Theater¹.

Sackhoff, who’s originally from the Portland-area, stopped by as a thanks for the crowds showing up week after week to watch BSG on the big screen. It helped that her mother’s birthday was the next day, so it was like killing two birds.

There were lots of “Iloveyouyou’rethebest” types of moments, but Sackhoff did reveal a few interesting tidbits.  Overall, the strength of the questions were top notch.  Kudos to you Stumptown BSG audience.

You can watch the entire session, or you can read the Cliff Notes.  Such as:

• She battled through Thyroid Cancer during the taping of the final season and was so fatigued by the end of taping.

• The ending for BSG was going to be slightly different, but costar Michael Trucco (Sam Anders – one of the final five Cylons) got into a horrible car accident in December 2007 and was nearly paralyzed.  The show was still filming, when Trucco’s accident happened, and since they couldn’t delay filming, the writers had to work with his accident.  Hence, why Sam Anders is in the hospital bed, then the Cylon gloop, his flashback was him in a sports therapy tub, etc. for the final batch of episodes.

• Sackhoff didn’t reveal how the show would have ended without Trucco’s accident.

• Sackhoff luckily passed the iPhone’s Cylong detector app and was discovered to be human.  It was probably one of the funnier moments of the night.

• Everyone is tired of Eddie James Olmos chanting “So Say We All!”

• Her future plans include a just finished Dick Wolf pilot with Brian Cox titled Lost and Found. It’s a more humorous detective show set in Los Angeles, giving her the chance to flex some comedy chops.  She’s also doing the voice for Ms. Marvel, an animated project from Marvel Entertainment.

• The scenes with her mother from the episode “Maelstrom” were her idea, but it wasn’t her idea to have Starbuck killed and then resurrected.

• Apollo and Starbuck will make out one more time in the series finale.

• She sung the praises of Doc Coddle and Saul Tigh, well the actors playing those characters.

• She had to learn to play the Cylon song on the piano, but she hates the piano from years of her parents trying to make her learn the instrument.

• She revealed how her and the Chief had a friendly rivalry to see who could work less.  Whenever Sackhoff wanted to take off and visit her boyfriend she would convince producers that Starbuck wouldn’t be in the scene or talking, etc.

• The best moment was perhaps talking about Eddie Olmos’s fascination for shooting a scene on the toilet.  All throughout the show he’s been trying to convince people to film a scene while pooping on the toilet.  He finally got Starbuck to do it in the scene between her and Gaius Balter a few episodes ago.  Sometimes it helps to be the director when you want to shoot a scene with one of the actors sitting on the pooper.

• Disappointingly, she skirted the discussion about being the new lesbian feminist icon.  Probably because she isn’t a lesbian, but it was unfortunate that she didn’t run with it when one questioner said she’s the new Xena Princess Warrior.

But enough about that.  Let’s go to the video evidence.  MORE »

Katee Sackhoff, better known to you and I as Starbuck, from Sci Fi’s Battlestar Galactica was in Portland last Friday (3/13/2009) night to help Portlanders kick off the show’s three-part series finale.  Little did she know that she would get roped into singing her mom happy birthday.

Woah. 

On March 17, there will be a “Battlestar” retrospective at the U.N. in New York and a panel discussion of how the show examined issues such as “human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faith,” according to Sci Fi.

The “Battlestar” contingent on the panel will consist of executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, as well as stars Mary McDonnell (who plays president Laura Roslin on the show) and Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama).

UN representatives on the panel are Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict; Craig Mokhiber, deputy director of the New York office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Robert Orr, assistant secretary-general for policy planning, executive office of the Secretary-General.

Double woah is that the panel will be moderated by Whoopi Goldberg, who is a fan of the show.  Also possibly the 14th Cylon. 

The invitation-only panel will take place at 7 p.m. March 17 in the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council Chamber, three days before the Sci Fi show’s series finale.

A Sci Fi representative says that the network will record the session and a transcript will be made. “Once the content becomes available, we will let the fans know,” the representative relayed to the Chicago Tribune. 

All fine and good.  I’d rather be at the Baghdad Theater in Portland tomorrow night for the first part of the Series Finale where Katee Sackhoff will be in attendance.  If you’re local to Stumptown and a fan you may want to make it over as something special/funny is in the works regarding Sackhoff’s appearance. 

Stay Tuned.

On the surface, the show seems to be a feminist coup: the president is female, the best fighter pilot is a tough-talking woman, etc.  It’s a show that seems plush with strong, female roles. 

But take a closer look at Battlestar Galactica.  There is something else at work here. 

The most retrograde character is Cally, an air-maintenance specialist on the flight deck. For years, she’s harbored a girlish crush on her boss, Chief Tyrol, to no avail, until, at last, a breakthrough happens thanks to a broken jaw: Cally wakes Tyrol up from a nightmare and in a fit of angry confusion, he beats her to a pulp. Remorseful, he visits her in the hospital, and shortly thereafter, they marry. This sends the implicit message that the way to a man’s heart is through his fist—a heartily un-feminist concept—but the strange circumstances surrounding Cally’s marriage are less offensive than her death scene. On realizing that Tyrol is a Cylon, Cally tries to kill herself along with her child. Then another Cylon comes along, saves the baby, and tosses Cally out of an airlock. Presumably the writing staff is trying to grapple with postpartum depression—Tyrol doesn’t help enough with the baby, pushing Cally over the edge. Yet they do so in a melodramatic, and ultimately nonsensical, fashion. Here we have a society that permits divorce and seems to have plentiful free day care, and yet an otherwise functioning member of that society acts like a Victorian hysteric. The take-away is not that Cally has been driven to desperation by a sexist social order but that she can’t contain her feminine irrationality.

Cally’s death is an example of a worrisome trend: The main female characters are all dying, dead, or not human. Ellen, Sharon, D’Anna, and Tory Foster—all strong female characters, have all turned out to be Cylons, and Starbuck was recently revealed as a half-Cylon hybrid. Adm. Cain, for a time the highest ranking officer in the military, was assassinated; Cally was murdered; Dee, Capt. Lee Adama’s neglected wife, committed suicide; and Starbuck’s rival, Capt. Louanne Katraine, pretty much did, too—she sacrificed herself while guiding civilian ships through a dangerous star cluster. The president, perhaps the most-talked-about example of Battlestar’s great female leads, is dying of breast cancer. In isolation, none of these cases has much significance. But taken together they suggest a troubling, if unintentional message: Women—the human ones, anyway—just can’t hack it when the going gets rough.

According to Michael Hinman at SyFy Portal, the show’s finale will run three-hours and be split over two weeks. The first hour will air on March 13 and then the grand finale will be two hours long, airing March 20. [SyFy Portal]

I wonder what sort of taste Fresh roasted Cylon has?  Perhaps slightly bitter, a crisp acidity, the aftertaste of genocide and the bonus of your carafe automatically refills itself once the last cup is poured (but only if the carafe is within distance of the coffee machine).

But it now at Split Reason for only $9.95

The final season starts in January, so now would be a good time to catch up on the show.  SciFi Channel has posted a 13-minute clip designed to get everyone caught up.  You know if you’re having a hard time remembering who’s a Cylon and who’s a human or how exactly they got to Earth, etc.  [Sci Fi Channel]

The SciFi Channel just released the first trailer for the upcoming Caprica. The show, at least from the trailer, threw me for a loop. It looks remarkably different, visually anyhow, than it’s predecessor Battlestar Galactica. Looks like Ron Moore is interested in telling a science-fiction family drama that will somehow lead into the show every geek loves. It’s almost pastoral in a way, like a scifi Rockwell painting.

There will be baggage with this show, simply because of the greatness of Battlestar. Still, the premise about two families who bond over a tragedy and help create the first Cylon model looks like it will raise some fascinating questions and moral dilemmas. We all know by now how this story turns out, well, those that watch Battlestar do anyway.

Joseph Adama (Admiral Bill Adama’s father) uses his dead daughter to build the first Cylon. That’s some heavy shit right there.

According to this interview show creator Ron Moore gave with the Chicago Tribune, “Caprica” is set 51 years before the events of “Battlestar Galactica.” According to a March press release from Sci Fi, “’Caprica’ follows two rival families – the Greystones and the Adamas – as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the 12 Colonies. Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe.”

Moore also said during the interview that Caprica is, “shot very different, and I think I was particularly attracted to the idea of doing a science fiction piece that was not built on a foundation of action adventure. It wasn’t about Vipers and it wasn’t about the Cylons attacking every other week. It was really a character piece. It was really a drama, and you can infuse with a lot of political commentary and a lot of religious overtones and really dig into a people and a society and how and why it all came unglued.”

Thank the Gods we can all put the speculation to rest.  I was getting worried that the new series Caprica might be all we got for a long, long while.  It’s also possible that Caprica may just go to series that the backdoor pilot/movie will be folded into the first season.  Essentially, the SciFi network has enough confidence in the show’s lasting appeal and quality to make a go of it.  iF Magazine has more deets about the upcoming SciFi schedule.

Collider has a review of the pilot script for the upcoming Ron Moore helmed, Battlestar Galactica spin-off project Caprica. It’s a precursor to the super-awesome sci-fi show.  We won’t give away the details here, but suffice it to say, the reviewer loved what he read. “Did you know that Dr. Frankenstein lives on in the world of Battlestar Gallactica? That is the ultimate story being told here. Someone angry at the universe defies the gods in an attempt to bring the dead back to life. There are always consequences. In this case, roughly fifty years later humanity barely hangs onto existence after attempted genocide by robots called Cylons. Still, isn’t some good father-daughter time worth that?”

Rhett Miller’s Old 97’s outfit has been on hiatus for quite some time, but the group released a new album this year and from what I’ve heard it’s quite good.  The first single from the album, Blame it On Gravity, has now gotten the video treatment starring Caprica Six, aka Tricia Helfer.

Apparently when Helfer isn’t riding motorcycles with Katee Sackhoff, aka Starbuck, she’s taking some time to star in music videos.

What I love about the video for “Dance With Me” is the song has this sultry tango vibe to it and the director and band went all sci-fi geeky on us.  Completely pulled the ole switcheroo.

So now we’ve got an uberfan of the show who’ll do just about anything to get a dance with Tricia Helfer and why not?  She’s quite beautiful.  Though I think I prefer Starbuck.

Randomly: I remember seeing a photo shoot a while ago of these two actresses wearing bikinis and sitting on motorcycles and at the time I thought that’s weird, but now not so much after reading the LA Times article.  Does anyone know where I can find that photo shoot?

Mp3: Old 97’s – “Dance With Me”