BSG Online

Which side will you choose - Human or Cylon? The choice is yours with Battlestar Galactica Online: the free-to-play, browser-based MMO by BigPoint. Immerse yourself within the exciting universe of the hit re-imagined series from Syfy. Interact with your favorite key characters, complete challenging missions from your commanding officers, and fly a Colonial Viper or Cylon Raider - or command ships never seen before now. But first, you must decide: will you stand with humanity, or against it?

Entire series coming to Netflix Instant Watch

A few sharp-eyed fans have noticed that the entire BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series is now listed on the Netflix site for "streaming coming soon"... some of these fans say as soon as October. Everything in the series except the telefilms Razor and The Plan have streaming listings.

ETA: Netflix has officially announced this new streaming deal with NBC/Universal. The multi-year deal is happening and it begins next week, to include BSG, EUREKA, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and many other shows.

Nothing like instant gratification to poke one into a rewatch, eh?

Getting ready for CAPRICA

Syfy has posted the entire pilot episode ("Extended Cut") of CAPRICA on their player and on Hulu.



A new videoblog is out previewing the first season, interviewing Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Alessandra Torresani, and many other cast and crew.



ScriptPhD is taking fan questions for an interview with CAPRICA's head writer Jane Espenson until tomorrow.

Vice Magazine and Motherboard are cosponsoring a public screening of the pilot in New York on January 21st, with free booze. Always a good thing. The Tighs would be pleased.

Vote for William Adama

Upcoming Event at the Paley Center, New York City:

Event: Star Trek Smackdown

Thursday, May 7, 2009
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
New York
In Person

Panel of science fiction experts to be announced.

O Captain! My Captain! Who's the greatest leader in the history of science fiction on television? We're pitting Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek against your choices, based on the results of our Star Trek Smackdown poll. We're beaming aboard a panel of sci-fi experts to debate the pros and cons of all the leading contenders, but we also want to hear what YOU think, so set your coordinates for the Paley Center and come join the debate.

Bring your tricorders to help you answer some trivia questions to win some DVDs and other special prizes! And feel free to come in costume if you're planning to go to a midnight premiere of Star Trek later that evening.

This event will be free with Paley Center admission.

Be sure to vote in their Smackdown Poll, as fans of other shows have been busily stuffing the ballot boxes. So, let's get all Roslin and do some ballot stuffing of our own.

Ratings Schmatings

If you want a peek at what the real ratings are for a show with a massively tech-savvy fandom like BATTLESTAR's, take a read:

'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' SCORES BEST PERFORMANCE SINCE SEASON 2 PREMIERE WITH NEW LIVE + 7 DATA

SCIFI.COM HAS BEST MONTH EVER WITH RECORD BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TRAFFIC AND TRIPLE-DIGIT GROWTH

New York, NY February 4, 2009 Battlestar Galactica added to its stellar premiere numbers with the release of new Live +7 data. Overall, the January 16 episode, the first of the series' highly-anticipated final installment, averaged a 2.0 HH rating, 1.8 million Adults 18-49 (up +38% over the Live +Same Day ratings), 1.9 million Adults 25-54 (+35%), and 2.8 million total viewers (+32%). This was the best performance for Battlestar Galactica in total viewers since the season 2 premiere in July 2005.

Fans also visited SCIFI.COM in droves during the month of January to get their Battlestar fix online. With its robust slate of original content offerings, including the 10-part webisode series, "The Face of the Enemy," the Battlestar section of SCIFI.COM was #1 section of the site in January in page views (8.9 million, best month since April '08) and video streams (4.7 million, best month since October '06). Since debuting in December, "The Face of the Enemy" has served up 2.5 million streams.

Combine that info with the fact that BSG is constantly tracking as one of the most torrented shows in the stream, and come to your own conclusions about just how many folks are really watching our show. Nielsens be damned.

Now for something completely different: there's a new videoblog on SciFi.com, "Gone Gaeta Gone," starring Alessandro Juliani and one of his biggest fans. For some reason, this one kinda hurts to watch.

BSG episodes on SciFi.com

Pop Candy got this from the horse's mouth today:

Do you know if the Sci Fi Channel will have the new season of BSG online? -- Liz D.

Yes, and I just got the exact schedule for you: According to a Sci Fi spokesman, for the first five weeks, the Season 4.5 episodes will go on SciFi.com and Hulu at 2 a.m. ET the day after they air. They're also available on iTunes and Amazon beginning at 3 a.m. ET each Saturday, so you really have no excuse to miss 'em!

Only the first five weeks...but it's something.

The Really, Really Frakkin Important Stuff

Generally Frakking Important: Sitrep has collected a ton of info over here to take the discerning BSG TruFan far into the future.

Help Bear Curate the Season 4 CD: Bear McCreary would like all of us to comment here on his blog throughout the final season, and tell him which musical pieces we would most like to see on the Season 4 soundtrack. Pretty cool, eh?

Ron Moore podcast commentaries: Hulu and Scifi are posting full episodes with Moore's commentary track overlaid weekly. You can also download as an audio podcast from iTunes here or from SciFi here.



How to watch BSG season 4.5 on TeeVee:

USA: SciFi

SciFi is broadcasting all 10 webisodes tonight (Thursday night) during the airing of the film PITCH BLACK. On Friday beginning at 8:30am ET/ 7:30 CT, they will air an all-day BSG season 4.0 marathon leading up to the premiere.

Canada: Space

Starting at 10am ET, Space will be running 14 hours of BSG programming this Friday, including all the 4.0 episodes and a “fandom forum” discussion.

UK: Sky One

Sky 2 is running 4.0 eps this week leading up to the 4.5 premiere on Sky One on January 20th.


How to watch BSG season 4.5 on Teh Internets:

SciFi.com (free): last year, SciFi’s own site posted new episodes 1-3 days after their Friday broadcast, along with “enhanced” versions containing Ron Moore’s commentary tracks. They also streamed the full episodes for the first few weeks starting on Fridays at 9am EST – but there has been no indication that is happening this year.


Hulu (free): the final four eps of BSG 4.0 are currently on the site, and here’s a statement from Hulu on new eps…

New episodes of BSG return to Hulu 1/17. The first five episodes will be posted on Hulu the day after their TV broadcast. Subsequent episodes will be posted 8 days after their original broadcast date.

We are able to offer five older episodes from the previous season; they will be available until 5 a.m. PST on 1/31/09.

iTunes: there is already a very nifty BSG home page on the iTunes Store site, which contains pages for each season in both standard and high-def formats. They have posted the entire set of The Face of The Enemy Webisodes (in 720p HD) for free download; this is the first time any BSG webisodes have been available in HD. Also available for free are the catch-up specials. They have bundled a set of “Best Of BSG” eps from past seasons, curated by Ron Moore. In the past, new eps of BSG have appeared on iTunes the morning after first US broadcast.

Xbox Live Marketplace: the entire series is on their site, and we are assuming new eps will be there too. If you know something different, speak up. One element that makes us nervous though: as of this morning, they only have 7 of the 10 webisodes posted. Are they going to be slow to keep up with posting new series eps?

Amazon VOD: you can watch all of season 4.0 now, and we are assuming you can get new ones starting this weekend. There’s a discount for subscribing for a season pass. Their VOD system allows the following compatibilities: Mac and PC online viewing, Windows PC download, TiVo DVRs, Sony BRAVIA Internet Video Link, compatible portable video devices.


Off Topic: I’d like to also put in a plug for another TV show that begins its 3rd season run on NBC Friday night, which is FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. A lot of us FNL fan(atic)s are wondering if this will be the last season for the show because, much like BSG, the ratings have always been kinda low. FNL director/producer Jeffrey Reiner, who directed the CAPRICA pilot, directed several of this season’s best episodes (which just finished running on DirecTV). You can watch the first two seasons online here. For a nice look at some of the reasons you should watch this show, check out Tim Goodman’s piece here about BSG and FNL, and Alan Sepinwall’s piece here.


ONE. MORE. DAY.

Webisode 3 (YouTube)

With writer commentary:


h/t BSG blog.

Webisode 3 (Hulu)

[res-fanatic update o' the day: after comparing the full-screen streams on Hulu and SciFi.com again today, there is pretty much no difference now, IMHO. But sorry SciFi: Hulu still pwns -- they let me EMBED. ;-P ]

This won't surprise any of us...

...but it is all fun to read, regardless:

• Time Magazine picks BATTLESTAR GALACTICA as one of the Top Ten TV Shows of 2008.

• Newsweek reflects on how BATTLESTAR GALACTICA will be remembered as one of the great works of post-9/11 American art. [HT Verheiden.]
  

• MediaPost reports on new TV audience research that reveals BATTLESTAR GALACTICA has "a whopping 53% of its household viewing -- more than half of its overall viewing -- watching after its original episode premiere" on DVRs. The highest time-shifted viewership in all of televisionland, according to Nielsen Media Research.
  

Webisode 2 (Hulu)

[Note for resolution fanatics only: as reader Jeremy pointed out the other day, it does seem that the SciFi.com stream has improved almost to match the standard-def Hulu stream. But my money's still on Hulu, as their full-screen mode remains the larger on my Mac monitor. Fanatics unite!]

Webisode 2 (YouTube)

With Espenson commentary:


h/t tracyloowho via BSG blog.

Webisode One / Hulu

This may seem a tad picky...but for anyone else who appreciates BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's wondrous visual effects shots, let it be noted for the record that Hulu's webisode stream looks MUCH better on full-screen mode than either SciFi.com or YouTube versions. I realize none of us fanatics would wait out the 1-4 day delay for vids to show up on Hulu...but it's definitely worth a second look once it posts there. Thanks to reader redwards95 for pointing out that the webisodes are also posting to Hulu's even better-looking HD high-res 480p stream, if your connection can handle it.

[How to go full-screen on a Hulu vid: watch the ad and get the vid started. Hover cursor over vid and when vid menu appears, press the full-screen icon in upper right corner of screen. To return to small-screen view, press reduce-screen icon in lower right corner; or press the Escape button on your keyboard. The other way to do all this: click on the vid while it's playing to pop up a new Hulu window, and use it to switch to full-screen view. To get to the 480p high-res stream, you must open this new Hulu window, and select the 480p icon on the lower right corner.]

Husker badassery wins an Emmy

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA won two Emmys at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony last night.

The first went to Gary Hutzel and his amazing team for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. Second year in a row, bravo fellas! In case any of you folks missed it the first time, go back and take a look at the awesome Emmy breakdown sheets that the department put together to send to voting members earlier this summer, which VFX artist Mojo was nice enough to share with us. Awwwwwwwwwesome.

BSG's other win was awarded to "RAZOR Featurette #4" for Outstanding Special Class - Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program... which is an unweildy name for this year's "webisode"/"minisode" award. Featurette #4 is the massively cool minisode of Husker ejecting from his viper, and engaging in mid-fall hand-to-hand with the reimagined old school Cylon Centurion. Nice.

Congrats to everyone involved!

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA returns to iTunes...in HD

"NBC is coming back to iTunes." (Big cheers) "The Office is coming back, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock... and they're coming back in HD."

- Steve Jobs at Apple's "Let's Rock" press conference today
(quote via Engadget live blog)

*happy dance*

Thanks reader Trace for the heads-up!

ETA: Here's more about the announcement. Here is the update on iTunes 8. Here is the link that goes directly to the Standard-Def Season 4.0 episode page. There is a separate page for High-Def. And, for the next two weeks: THE ENTIRE EPISODE 403, "HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME," IS FREE OF CHARGE TO DOWNLOAD.

[photo: Engadget]

Finally, a Mac-friendly legal way to buy BSG episodes

[Amazon's Top TV Sellers]

Lost in the manic newsrush of the TCAs and Comic-Con earlier this summer, was the E3 announcement that Amazon was beta-testing a new online On Demand service to sell TV show episodes that would work with PC's, Macs, Tivos, and other media boxes in a way that Amazon Unbox did not.

This new service has just opened for business, offering tons of TV shows and films for rent or purchase via both streaming and downloading. You can access it via a Mac, PC, Tivo, Sony Bravia TV, Windows Media Center, or XBOX 360. (source)

Mac-using BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fans looking for a way to purchase episodes online have been out of luck since NBCU and iTunes parted ways last fall and all the eps were removed from the iTunes Store.

You can see a free 2-minute sample stream of BSG ep 401, "He That Believeth In Me" on the BSG page. It started to instantly stream onto my Mac when I selected it. The full-screen mode looks pretty darned nice on my iMac 20". Eps are priced at $1.99 each, with a season pass costing $1.89 per ep. Amazon provides info here on how to connect a computer to a TV monitor if you are interested. Here is their SciFi & Fantasy TV page.

The only downside is that they still haven't created a way for Mac users to download these episodes; as of now, you can only stream it. Here is the fine print:

When you buy a video, your viewing rights do not expire (except as provided in our Terms of Use). You can watch a video you own online and download it to 2 locations (TiVo DVRs and Windows PCs). You can also transfer a video you own to 2 portable devices. Note: Some new release movies will become unavailable for viewing or downloading for an unspecified period of time due to licensing restrictions. You will be notified about this before we process your order.

OK that is a bummer, sure...but a Mac user seeking a way to legally purchase season 4 episodes now has an option, at least.

I didn't check the Amazon international sites outside of the US to see if this works in other countries besides America...anybody out there getting results?

BSG in HD

Via Engadget: Microsoft has just announced a new deal with NBC-Universal to provide BATTLESTAR GALACTICA eps in both Standard-def and High-def, on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. This is apparently a US-only deal.

Reader Glenn just tipped us off that the first few eps of BSG season 4 are about to air on the Universal HD Channel as follows:

Saturday, Jul 19 8:00 PM
HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME (repeat at midnight)

Saturday, Jul 26 8:00 PM
SIX OF ONE (repeat at midnight)

Saturday, Aug 02 8:00 PM
THE TIES THAT BIND (repeat at midnight)

Saturday, Aug 30
6:00 PM HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME
7:00 PM SIX OF ONE
8:00 PM THE TIES THAT BIND
(repeats at 10PM, 11PM, 12AM)

ETA: Please see wisteria's helpful advice about UniHD in the comments...very important...

OK, fun's over people.

Now get back to your regularly scheduled cable viewing.

TGIF: Enhanced ep and other goodies

Some fun vids have popped up:

Part 2 of Lucy Lawless' fan Q&A, embedded below.

A new videoblog, "Space Cowboys," in which BSG "superfan" Brad Paisley and his band do a little cosplay and have a little fun with Aaron Douglas on the BSG set. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

An "enhanced" version of the full episode "He That Believeth In Me," overlaid with Ron Moore's podcast commentary. All podcasts for the first four episodes are now available.

For whatever reason, Hulu is listing "He That Believeth In Me" as expiring in 12 hours. TBD how long full eps will remain on Scifi.com. It's all a grand experiment this year.

Speaking of experimentation: there is more news this week on the NBCU and Apple/iTunes front. Apparently NBCU has begun streaming ad-free Quicktimes of some TV shows (including classic BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) that will play on iPhones and iPod Touches. Streaming only? A resounding MEH.

The Rebel Alliance

Anyone who reads Sitrep regularly knows how I feel about "new media" and television and science fiction.

So it will not surprise any of you if I wax rhapsodic right now about this piece in the new issue of Fast Company, talking with Hollywood's 1337 geeks and their ideas on the future of television. As someone who has watched with great pleasure and fear the changes in the music business since the rise of the consumer internet, it all seems exciting. My personal toe-dips into the possibilities of transmedia storytelling have been immensely positive and inspiring.

As a sidenote: Ron Moore, Tim Kring, Damon Lindelof and other showrunners lounging around in back rooms, drinking scotch bourbon, making plans and talking about how Joss Whedon Is Their Master Now? It's Nerdvana, I tell you...and for trufans, really good news. [HT Whedonesque]