Off The Wireless

Artist/designer Roy Wasson Valle has a thing for cylon-ified tchotckes: unicorns... Easter bunnies… cats... even Cylon Raider Christmas lights. You can have some of it for yourself, with this tee design pictured above. Order shirts here; but according to the designer’s flickr entry, the red version will soon be discontinued. (Via Onion AV Club)

Congrats to Edward James Olmos for winning the ALMA Award this weekend for Outstanding Actor in a Drama TV Series. You can see him accept his award when the taped show is broadcast on ABC, Friday September 12th. Meanwhile, dryope has posted some nice photos of him at the ceremony. Cross your fingers for Esai Morales, who is nominated for an Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actor on a TV Series. The Imagen winners will be announced on August 21st.

Variety has pieces on Emmy-nominated Drama Series writers this week, including Michael Angeli for BSG's "Six Of One." The article discussing background research includes this quote:

With its outer-space setting, "Battlestar Galactica" is also ripe for research finds, but writer Michael Angeli notes that while science advisers ensure writers adhere to the laws of physics, his research usually involves classical literature, Westerns and history.

"Those have struggles of obsession, survival and possession, which we feel is what the show is really about," Angeli says.

"If we go to the Bible, a Western or the transcripts of the trial for Saddam Hussein -- which we did at the end of season three -- we can look for cultural differences, questions of race, gender, class, conspicuous consumption and sex," he adds. "We like to touch on the idea of what it means to be human."

* ears perk up at mention of Hussein trial transcripts *

Sci Fi Wire has a second piece from John Sullivan on the set of the VIRTUALITY pilot, focusing on the characters and plot details. The article is more spoiler-filled than the previous one; if you prefer to come to a new show without too much advance information, as a way of enjoying being surprised, you might want to skip it. Although this part is important:

The show's world is deliberately very small, very claustrophobic. The point of the show is not space adventure or gadgets or cool alien ships: It's more about straight character drama in an SF setting. Virtuality is an ensemble show that's mainly about getting to know the characters aboard Phaeton and seeing how they deal with very intense pressures and unpredictable challenges.

SciFi Wire posted the above shot of The Phaeton, which I have seen on other sci-fi sites a with a "(c) Fox TV" underneath. But I am really not sure this is an actual concept art piece from the show, or some sort of fanart...and SciFi Wire doesn't seem to be sure either. Can anyone out there confirm?

Lucy Lawless is giving a concert to benefit the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation, in San Francisco on September 27. More info here at Flawless Diva.

Folks at this month’s GenCon got to preview the new BSG board game from Fantasy Flight Games; this blogger shot some video of gameplay, and this Board Game Geek forum member wrote up both short and long form reviews.

Canada's first Olympic athlete to win a gold medal this summer, wrestler Carol Huynh, is a BSG fan. And so, apparently, is world-reknowned artist Takashi Murakami.

This curious livejournalist fan poked around Amazon UK and found a photo of the UK box art for BSG season 4.0 DVD, slated to hit the street October 8th. She also found that a season 1-4 box set is scheduled for release, and there is already a box art image on Amazon's site. One would assume that would not be released till some time in the second half of 2009. As previously posted, the latest on the US version of season 4.0 is (A RUMOR) that it will debut December 30th. As with all prior DVD releases, the US version is always worth the wait as it will be packed with extras (unlike the bare-bones international DVD versions).

Thanks to fans who post on the battlestar blog, we also learned that Canadian channel SPACE is re-broadcasting all of Seasons 1 through 4, every Monday through Thursday at 2pm and 6pm PT, starting September 8th.

Also, don't forget that the Universal HD Channel here in the states will be running season 4.0 in HD beginning August 30th.