No Fate But What You Make

At long last, we BSG/T:SCC crossover fans will get to see Stephanie Jacobsen on tomorrow night's new episode of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.

For those of you out there who are watching the TV show that has the second coolest set of awesome deadly femmebots, I hope you caught the first peek at Jacobsen's role in the promo ad that ran two weeks ago after episode 205 ("Goodbye To All That").

This past week, more has been revealed about the character Jacobsen is playing in episode 206:

Stephanie Jacobsen, who turned in an arresting one-off performance as Kendra Shaw in Battlestar Galactica's season 4 opener "Razor," is returning this week to small-screen sci-fi. "The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short" airs Monday, Oct. 20 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on Fox. Jacobsen guest-stars on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as Jesse, a woman with a sordid past who becomes romantically entangled with Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green). (source)

The T:SCC writers blog posted a few more clips featuring her this weekend...a newer promo:



And a longer clip:




This, plus the fantastic news of T:SCC's full-season pickup, goes a long way in helping get through the latest BSG hiatus. ETA: Bear McCreary points out on his blog that his season 1 soundtrack is coming out next month, you can pre-order on Amazon now -- or wait to try to get one of the signed copies the label will be selling directly. Sweet!

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA season 4.0 DVD out January 6

TVShowsOnDVD has the official announcement of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Season 4.0 DVD set and all the extras. The American release date is now officially January 6, 2009, and RAZOR (both aired and longer DVD-only cuts) will be included.

Back in July we reported that industry sources had passed along Universal's tentative plans to release Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0 on DVD...and that it would clock in right at the end of the year, on December 30th. This morning the studio formally announced this release, including the finalized street date. They've adjusted their original plans by a week: the schedule now shows they will put this in stores on January 6th.

You'll get a 4-disc set that's loaded with bonus material, in addition to the 10 episodes from the first half of the final season. Disc 1 will contain both the original broadcast version (88 mins.) AND the Unrated Extended Version (101 mins.) of the special feature-length story Razor, which is already available separately. The half-season's 10 episodes are contained on the remaining three discs, along with plenty of extras:

Episodes:

• He That Believeth In Me
• Six Of One
• The Ties That Bind
• Escape Velocity
• The Road Less Traveled
• Faith
• Guess What's Coming to Dinner
• Sine Qua Non
• The Hub
• Revelations

Bonus Material:

Disc 1:

Deleted Scenes

The Look of Battlestar Galactica

My Favorite Episode So Far

Season 4 Sneak Peek

Season 4 Trailer

Razor Flashback Minisodes

1. Day 4,571
2. The Hangar
3. Operation Raptor Talon
4. Free Fall
5. The Lab
6. Survivors
7. Escape

Commentary to the Razor Unrated Extended Edition with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore and Writer Michael Taylor


Disc 2:

Deleted Scenes

Ronald Moore's Podcast Commentaries


Disc 3:

Deleted Scenes

David Eick's Video Blogs

"Faith" Commentary with Executive Producer Ronald. D. Moore and Supervising Producers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle

"Guess What's Coming to Dinner" Commentary with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore and Writer Michael Angeli

Ronald Moore's Podcast Commentaries


Disc 4:

Deleted Scenes

The Journey

Cylons: The Twelve

Season 4.5: The Untold Story - Untold

The Music of Battlestar Galactica

"Sine Qua Non" Commentary with Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore and Writer Michael Taylor

Ronald Moore's Podcast Commentaries


This has only been announced for DVD; there is no Blu-ray Disc version listed. Video on this release will be presented in Anamorphic Widescreen. Audio soundtrack will be English - Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. Subtitles are going to be in English and Spanish. The cost for all of this will be $49.98 SRP.

Let's hope they add Blu-Ray as well. I wonder if "The Music of Battlestar Galactica" is the video that Bear McCreary showed at his LA concerts this spring?

The 4.0 DVD and a Seasons 1-4.0 DVD box are already out in the UK, but as usual without the American bonus features.

No sign of packaging art previews yet...but if you don't like them, maybe you can use this gorgeous fan-created box art instead.

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!

Study The Classics

Faithful Sitrep reader and eagle eyed BSG fan Wendy Towne, points to an interview with Ronald D. Moore in Agent DVD by John Latchem, about what is coming along for BSG in home video, new webisodes, and extended cuts of episodes in the second half of season 4. Excerpts follow:

The first 10 episodes of the fourth 
season recently aired and are likely to see a home video release later this year in anticipation of the final stretch of episodes, which Moore says will answer a lot of the questions raised during the first three seasons.

In the lead-up to the final episodes, Moore says the production team will create a new series of online shorts, similar to “The Resistance” webisodes that were made before the third season. Unlike “The Resistance,” the new webisodes will not take place between the episodes, but will go back and explain things that happened earlier during the course of the show. In this sense, Moore says, the shorts will serve a function similar to the Razor direct-to-DVD movie produced last year.

Also, Moore says the eventual DVD release of the final half of the fourth season should include a longer version of an episode he directed, called “The Disquiet That Follows My Soul.”

“We’ll probably do an extended cut of that with a new commentary,” Moore says. “And I imagine we’ll do a new cut of the finale.”

To follow “Galactica,” Moore is developing a pilot for Fox called “Virtuality,” about astronauts on a 10-year mission. He also has signed to do a trilogy of sci-fi movies for United Artists and is preparing what he calls a companion piece to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

But Moore is not completely abandoning the “Galactica” universe. Production is underway on a spinoff prequel, called 
“Caprica,” which delves into the origins of 
the robotic Cylons and the political rivalry between two families. The cast includes Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Polly Walker and Paula 
Malcomson.

“It’s coming together great,” Moore says. “It’s a very different time and a very different setting. It’s not about space, but about these families and their machinations.”

Justine of All About Tahmoh Penikett found a series of amazing pro photos taken of the BSG cast at Comic Con.

Crazyvictoria on the BSG Blog has an update and photos of upcoming BSG action figures, including Adama and Roslin figures, and figures tied to RAZOR.

Laura Bramley of Hamilton College reports on a new Battlestar Galactica academic study:

Texts like the Iliad may be old, but they are called classics precisely because they are timeless, turning up over and over again – sometimes in unusual places. Christopher Bouton (class of'09), a rising senior from Beverly, Mass., is spending the summer researching the connections between Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and two slightly more recent productions: "Blade Runner" by Ridley Scott and the television series "Battlestar Galactica" by Ronald Moore.

Bouton is collaborating with Winslow Professor of Classics Carl. A. Rubino on the project, which is funded by the Emerson Foundation Grant program. Created in 1997, the program was designed to provide students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty members, researching an area of interest. The students will make public presentations of their research throughout the academic year.

A history major with a minor in classics, Bouton is no stranger to research. Last summer, he won a fellowship from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, which enabled him to attend an intensive three week program along with nine students from other colleges. Bouton worked with professors to examine school integration in Nantucket in the 1840s, a project that will be the basis of his senior thesis.

This summer the work is slightly different, however. Bouton has already studied modern ties to the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid in Rubino's "Heroism, Ancient and Modern" course, and he says that studying "Blade Runner" and "Battlestar Galactica" is very different kind of research from his work about Nantucket schools. "Listening to dialogue and watching action is much more engaging than looking at microfilm," he comments. At the same time, doing research on popular media brings its own challenges, one of which is making sure that the research is relevant to others. Bouton says he was drawn to studying "Blade Runner" and "Battlestar Galactica" because of his own interest in the productions, but to pursue a research project, it was important to have a broader underlying motivation than mere fandom.

That foundation lies in thematic connections on issues such as the nature of humanity and heroism. In the classics, explains Bouton, the characters are set apart from normal humanity, the "universal us," and the figures of the Iliad seem to be superhuman. "We get the sense that this is a story, but this isn't us," he says. In the dystopian future of "Blade Runner" and the world of "Battlestar Galactica," those same questions resurface, since each production features a small population of isolated humans in surroundings dominated by human-seeming robots. The classical themes turn into a discussion of what makes humanity unique when it can be simulated almost exactly by machines.

Now beginning the writing phase of his project, Bouton says that it has allowed him to extend his knowledge of the classics, something that he will not be able to pursue after leaving Hamilton, since he plans to attend graduate school and earn a Ph.D. in history. The chance to follow diverse interests is one of the reasons he came to Hamilton, he says, and his research this summer has been an opportunity to do just that.

I'd love to see the results of that research.

Emmy nominations

The nominations for the 2008 Emmy Awards were announced this morning (full list here), and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA has six nominations as listed below.

Congrats everyone!


Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series
Battlestar Galactica • Six Of One
Written By Michael Angeli

Outstanding Cinematography For A One-Hour Series
Battlestar Galactica • Razor
Stephen McNutt, Director of Photography

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing
For A Drama Series
Battlestar Galactica • He That Believeth In Me
Julius Ramsay, Editor

Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Series
Battlestar Galactica • He That Believeth In Me
Gary Hutzel, Visual Effects Supervisor
Michael Gibson, Visual Effects Producer
David Takemura, Visual Effects Coordinator
Doug Drexler, CGI Supervisor
Kyle Toucher, CG Artist
Sean Jackson, CG Artist
Pierre Drolet, CG Modeler
Aurore de Blois, Senior Compositor
Derek Ledbetter, Compositor

Outstanding Sound Mixing
For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One-Hour)
Battlestar Galactica • Razor
Rick Bal, Production Mixer
Michael Olman, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer
Kenneth Kobett, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer

Outstanding Special Class
Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Programs
Battlestar Galactica - Razor Featurette #4
Ronald D. Moore, Executive Producer
David Eick, Executive Producer
Harvey Frand, Supervising Producer

* By the way, that last oddly-named award is for webisodes...

More Husker...

For all you Husker fans who have been voting for him in MASSIVE numbers on our BSG movie poll on the side column this month, here’s a treat: new Husker, old-school Centurion, Kendra Shaw and Gina Inviere figures from Diamond Select. Available in August.

Could you love a machine?

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Visual Effects Artist "Mojo” has blogged again about BSG - this time discussing TOS Centurions that were updated for RAZOR last fall.

Mojo tells me the BSG Visual Effects department wants us all to leave comments there about which Centurion model is our favorite - new-school, or old-school TOS?

ETA: Mojo just ran a few more goodies over here.

I know which one I'm voting for...there is nothing like a little mid-air hand-to-hand combat.

Of Ships and Centurions

Galactica.TV has three galleries of renderings and art by concept designer Richard Livingston, of material he created last year for Battlestar Galactica.

The galleries include work done to reimagine the 1978 Cylon Centurion for use in RAZOR; other RAZOR concept pieces; and ship designs for possible use during the rest of Season 4.

Off The Wireless

The Battlestar Galactica Season 3 DVD set is in excellent company this month on Amazon’s list of best DVD buys for the month of March. Call it, friendo.

Concurring Opinions has posted full transcripts of their hour-long interview with Ron Moore and David Eick about the series. This was a terrific and in-depth interview - if you haven’t heard it or read it yet, it’s highly recommended.

I've posted my impressions on the Galactica Quorum’s recent James Callis interview, over here at my livejournal. Enjoy…and as they say on LJ, "comments are love."

Wizard Universe has a short interview with Grace Park.

Mary McDonnell was in Dublin recently for the Irish Film and Television Awards. Here is a short video interview with her outside the awards; see WatchingBSG for more info and photos.



Galactica Watercooler found an interview with Richard Hatch on ComicMix Radio.

Leah Cairns’ official site has posted a new interview with the Czech site BSG.CZ, and an audio interview by The SciFi Guys. The latter was taped at last August’s Galactica Three con in London – check out the hilarious snippets at the end of the interview, taken from the live improvs done onstage at the con by Cairns and fellow guests Tahmoh Penikett, Alessandro Juliani and Rekha Sharma.

While discussing Michelle Forbes current performance in HBO’s IN TREATMENT, TV Squad takes a close look at her career to date...while TV Guide's Michael Ausiello fantasy-casts her in Joss Whedon's new series DOLLHOUSE (along with Ben Browder, love it!!). If you still haven’t caught up with IN TREATMENT, I cannot recommend it enough. Last Friday’s episode (Week 6/Friday) was an amazing look at Forbes’ character on the show. You can get some of the eps, and lots of recap footage on HBO’s brand new YouTube channel, and on iTunes.

It will come as no surprise to any BSG fan that Entertainment Weekly has picked Katee Sackhoff as one of their 30 Actresses Under 30, a list of the finest young stars in Hollywood now. Paging the DOLLHOUSE casting department!

Here’s to you, Katee…


[fanvid by latteaddict]

Frak me, this video never gets tired.

Video intro to last year's Comic Con panel "The Ladies of Battlestar"...also fun to watch again: Sci Fi Channel's full video of the panel with Mary McDonnell, Tricia Helfer, Katee Sackhoff, Lucy Lawless, David Eick and Ron Moore.

Belated Congratulations!

Better late than never: congrats to Gary Hutzel and his crackerjack BATTLESTAR GALACTICA special effects team (Mike Gibson, Sean Jackson and Pierre Drolet) for getting the most Visual Effects Society Award nominations in TV this year, and for winning one this past weekend.

BSG won Best Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or Special for BSG: RAZOR.

Well done folks!

(...and thanks to reader Laughtrack for the tip.)

More Michelle Forbes

For you Michelle "Admiral Cain" Forbes fans out there, her new series IN TREATMENT on HBO began last week. Forbes plays Kate, the wife of therapist Paul (Gabriel Byrne). Kate's first appearance was on the sixth episode (Monday Feb 4; thanks meshel73!), and according to Mo Ryan, she has a huge scene on this Friday's episode in episode 9. I've watched the first 6 eps, and am really enjoying it.

HBO is streaming the first 15 eps of IN TREATMENT for free on the show's site, as well as giving them away on iTunes.

Michelle Forbes & Gabriel Byrne

For the Endless Hiatus reading list

Galacticanews, a longstanding and highly informative livejournal community, has posted a long list of updated links and fandom commentaries to keep us all busy over the holidays.

Interviews & News

Hoyden About Town blog asks: is BATTLESTAR GALACTICA feminist or not?

Ron Moore spoke with CNN about Star Trek fandom and fanvids.

Joss Whedon posted a nice thank you note to Ron Moore on Whedonesque while discussing their recent activities on the picket line.

TV Squad has news that BSG’s Nicki Clyne, along with several other TV actresses, is starting a web site for college students.

WatchingBSG notes that Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen has been cast in David E. Kelley’s next TV project: a US remake of the UK show LIFE ON MARS.

Firefox News has posted an interview with Jamie Bamber.

Best Life magazine has posted a portion of their interview with Jamie Bamber online. The rest is in the print issue.

Jamie Bamber’s message of support for GLAAD, which premiered during the US airing of RAZOR last month, is now online.

Your Props online archive has info on the knife used in RAZOR as Helena Cain's favorite blade. If you need that for some reason.

TV Squad talks about how BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and many other shows have comic book side projects coming out while the show is still on the air.

The Guardian’s TV & Radio blog reviews the RAZOR DVD.

Here’s a podcast about RAZOR that promises to discuss 'War Terrorism Jihad and Homosexuality’ from ‘inside the Muslim mind.’

Runner Up

Maureen Ryan of The Watcher for the Chicago Tribune has published her top ten list of the best shows of 2007. Ryan names Mad Men as the best show this year. While Battlestar Galactica didn't make her top ten list, it did make her list of runner ups:

“Battlestar Galactica” (Sci Fi): Though there were some wobbles in the second half of Season 3, the final four episodes of this drama’s third season, as well as the standalone movie “Razor,” proved once again why this space series is in a class by itself. There’s nothing like a good “Battlestar” plot twist to make your head spin, but the “holy cow” moments aren’t the main point (though they’re one heck of a tasty side dish). But the show and its twists and turns are grounded in deep curiosity about human nature, and how contradictory and confounding it can be. And some of its most provocative moments spring from an abiding interest in the ways in which people fight tyranny – and in doing so, sometimes become tyrants.

To read Ryan's full list and to find out why Mad Men was the best, click here.

Band of Brothers

Here's a couple of BSG videos using music from the HBO series Band of Brothers. The second video is centered around scenes from Razor.

The Hybrid's Prophesy

Padawanmage on the Live Journal Battlestar Blog posted an accurate full transcript of what the First Hybrid said at the end of the extended version of Razor on DVD.

Let the speculation of what it means begin.

Quantum Mechanix steps up

I just received my copy of the extended RAZOR DVD in the mail yesterday. No time yet to rewatch RAZOR - but can I just say that in the extras, all those shots from various eps throughout the series looked SO GLORIOUS on DVD. The crisp amazing picture, the clear-as-a-bell sound. Ahhhhhhhh. New Caprica never looked so good!

Meanwhile, can I direct your attention today to the Quantum Mechanix ad that was inserted in the DVD box - QM is now selling a bunch of delightful new BSG items including personalized dog tags, the HOW TO SPOT A CYLON poster, and this set of Fleet Propaganda posters - which are by Adam Levermore-Rich, the artist behind QM's unforgettable SERENITY travel posters. Nice stuff. Great Xmas gifts!

The Future

Thomas L. Martin reviews Bear McCreary's Season 3 soundtrack album.

Throughout, 'Battlestar Galactica' has been a rewarding experience in writing, direction, acting and music. Bear McCreary's haunting soundtracks weave in and out of the program superbly, amplifying key moments with tense string movements, bold drums and assorted world music influences.

Season 3's soundtrack is probably the strongest collection so far. The other two soundtracks had some excellent pieces but I feel this one holds together as a CD better than those. McCreary heavily lifts the songs selected from the episodes 'Maelstrom', 'Unfinished Business' and the two-parters 'Exodus' and 'Crossroads'.

The string composition 'Violence And Variations' is a moving and dynamic piece and 'Heeding The Call' brings rock guitars into the mix with great effect. Each song has a distinctive feel that harks back to the individual episodes but the overall compilation is a good listen, too. Gaelic dance pieces, African drums and Indian sitars all feature to give this soundtrack a very diverse feel whilst never straying too far from the distinctive taut 'Battlestar Galactica' sound.

McCreary's rendition of Bob Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower' from the season finale is probably going to catch all the attention and rightly so. Lifting an Earth-based familiar song for the first time in a non-Earth based series was a bold and ambitious move. Placed amidst the huge revelations of 'Crossroads Part II' the placement of the track was jarring and surprising, shocking the viewer at the perfect moment.

Rickey Purdin interviewed Jamie Bamber about Razor.

And Buddy TV reviewed Razor.

“All of this has happened before, and will happen again.”

These are the words that echoed throughout "Razor," the long awaited Battlestar Galactica movie meant to stoke our Cylon deprived brains between seasons 3 and 4 of the sci-fi series. Creator Ronald D. Moore promised revelations that would keep us theorizing until the season 4 premiere, and I'm happy to say he didn't disappoint. "Razor" not only managed to give us a different perspective on events in Battlestar Galactica's past, but gave us insight into where the show may be heading in the future.

Best Buy Disc

Battlestar Galactica fans who bought Razor from Best Buy might be getting screwed. Best Buy has an exclusive offer of a special bonus disc inside the package with Razor called "The Making of Battlestar Galactica Razor"

However for those of us who bought Razor from Amazon or other places, or if you bought it from Best Buy and it didn't come with the promised bonus disc, there are reports that the bonus disc "making of Razor documentary" has already migrated online.

But, Best Buy and Universal Home Video appear to have a minor problem on their hands.