The Watcher Watches

Chicago Tribune television critic, Maureen Ryan has a really comprehensive interview with Ron Moore she conducted Friday after the TCA panel on Caprica, in which he talks about the finale of Battlestar Galactica, the future of Caprica and Virtuality, and the next BSG DVD movie written by Jane Espenson and to be directed by Edward James Olmos. Ron also touched upon the possible production of webisodes that will bridge season 4.0 and 4.5. Ryan also briefly spoke to Sci-Fi exec David Howe as well.

The proposed “Battlestar Galactica” TV movie would take place during the time frame of previous seasons, but it would air after the series finale.

Howe said the final episodes of “Battlestar” will begin airing in January.

The final set of episodes will be at least 11 hours long, and the series finale will occupy three of those hours. However, there’s a chance that the series finale could expand even more.

The “Battlestar” series finale will definitely expand on DVD. Regardless of the length of the finale that airs on Sci Fi next year, an even longer cut will be released on DVD.

Howe said that if “Caprica” gets a full series order, it will air in 2009. If “Caprica,” which was written by Moore and Remi Aubuchon, does not get a series order and airs as a standalone 2-hour movie, it could air this fall.

Regarding when the network would decide whether to pick “Caprica” as a full series, Howe said the decision would come in September. He and his team are considering two other pilots as well, “Revolution” and “Warehouse 13.” Executives will get a cut of “Caprica” in early August, then decide in September whether it will become a series.

Howe said if “Caprica” does get a series order, it will not be something that is designed to end after 13 episodes. It’ll be a regular series that could potentially go on for years, not a limited-run series.

Ryan's interview is must read, so read it here.

The Los Angeles Times has a Sunday Conversation with Grace Park. At the end of the conversation she had to kill a spider:

There's one [BSG] episode [late in season 4.5, before the finale] where everything is explained and I had to read it three times. . . . Then we had to sit down -- like, how does this guy know anything? And where was this thing orbiting? And who died? We don't want to lay it out in the script so much, because if you laid it out that way, it'd be dead boring. There's a spider on my wall I'm going to nab right now! He's a fast one -- I don't want to kill it, I'm just going to grab it. Eek! He's on the ground. I had to kill it. I'm sorry.