Video interview: Olmos

Some time before heading to DC for the inauguration festivities, Edward James Olmos gave SciFiWire this exclusive video interview, which has spoilers for ep 413:



[Embeddable video at last? Nice one SFW!]

SO SAY WE ALL: A Thank You From The Fans

Grant over at the livejournal Battlestar Blog is spearheading a wonderful fandom thank-you project: you can submit letters of admiration, thank you, or other celebratory greetings -- and it will be collected up into a PDF file that will be distributed to the show's cast and crew.

Deadline to submit for the project is SUNDAY, JANUARY 25. That's this Sunday, so hurry up and get over there!

Thanks to Grant (and his secret crew contact at Universal) for putting this together, so that fans everywhere can show a little bit more love as the series ends. Sigh.

[Did you also know Grant is a terrific artist and some of his art is actually in the BSG wrap yearbook. Here's his latest BSG art, an image of Racetrack.]

More BattleAwesome AwesomeStar

We are once again late to the party on announcing this, but Toronto's Bad Dog Theater Company is once again doing weekly shows of the improv comedy show BATTLEAWESOME AWESOMESTAR this month.

Unfortunately all shows are now sold out except the last one on January 31...so hurry up and get your tickets. Wish I could be there...or that they'd take this act on the road!

Here's a clip of one of their shows uploaded by youtuber corecorina:

413 Ratings

NBCU has released a cheerful press release on the Friday ratings for ep 413. As they should do. Bottom line: a bit better than 4.0 and very popular amongst men who hang at home on Fridays.

Meanwhile, in the Cranky Fan Department, THR Feed's James Hibberd has hit the nail more squarely on the head, for those of us who actually watch the show on air…

The first episode of the final batch of "Battlestar" episodes (2.1 million viewers, 1.3 million adults 18-49) matched the Season 4 premiere in viewers and was down just slightly in the adult demo.

The network is fortunate that's all it lost. Sci Fi has engaged in a momentum-crushing, yet budget-friendly, release schedule for this relatively pricey series. In an era when serialized shows have proven time and time again to benefit from as few breaks as possible, Sci Fi went the other direction for its final round of "Battlestar," splitting 20 episodes into a two-part season airing about a year apart (meaning the network also has to market the show twice).

After DVD sales are factored (look, it's "Battlestar" Season "4.0" ... then "4.5"), it probably all makes sense on paper. But fans get so annoyed by the network's strategy, you have to wonder if it costs Sci Fi in unfactorable ways.

You think YOU hate hiatus...

The timing is off for posting this vid...but it's so frakkin funny I can't help myself. If loving this is wrong, I don't wanna be right.


Downfall Mashup: Hitler's BSG Breakdown (Spoilers), by slumbering




[This gets even funnier if you also read this. This has always been another personal favorite. HT for vid to Mark Verheiden.]

Inauguration Day

Well, we've watched Laura, Gaius, and Lee all get sworn in as president, so why not take a moment to watch President Obama take the oath of office and celebrate the day...

Regular Sitrep coverage of BSG will resume after the inauguration.

It's The Music

Bear McCreary goes into astonishing depth and detail about the score for Sometimes A Great Notion on his blog.

It's all a great read, but the story behind Dualla's score is quite noteworthy to learn how Bear incorporated Kandyse McClure's improvised humming into the music throughout the episode when Dualla is on screen.

More Auction Stuff

Access Hollywood has this up:




Battlestar Blog found video of a Hollywood 411 piece from the Auction.


Melody Muse was blogging the auction here and posted a nice flickr set of her photos from the weekend.


Don't forget the eBay auction is up for another 7 hours...


ETA: Thanks to reader Jack for two more great auction links: a really fun video up on EW.com's BSG HQ, and this SciFi Australia article that runs down the selling prices of a lot of the major items -- apparently the auction raked in over A MILLION DOLLARS this weekend...

At The Auction

Here is a great flickr set of shots by reader Jeremy...and a few vids I shot this weekend:



BSG Auction from ProgGrrl on Vimeo.



In a Raptor at last... from ProgGrrl on Vimeo.


(Does anyone know who won Baltar's portrait?)

Quite a send off.

ProgGrrl's favorite things about going to the BSG cast and crew screening of 413, last night in Los Angeles:

• I was there. How the frak did that happen? And I got to hang out with this terrific blogger, extra double plus good.
  

• Ron Moore and Bradley Thompson praising the entire cast and crew effusively on stage before the screening.

• A SciFi exec onstage, saying "they're feeling it" for an Emmy this year. Cross your fingers.

• Bear and Brendan McCreary performing All Along The Watchtower live onstage with a guitar and an accordion.

• Finally seeing some BSG eps on The Big Screen. The detail. The intensity. Wow.

• The reaction of the audience to any scene starring Michael Hogan's Incredible Acting Eye. FTW!

• The reaction of the audience to any of Tory's scenes (lots of boos and hisses, LOL).

• Knowing, at the end, that we may be seeing a lot more of a certain somebody on the show now. I hope.

• Meeting Paula Malcomson and Esai Morales and telling them how happy I am about Caprica moving forward. GO TEAM!

• Leaving the afterparty...feeling like a fox drifting, drifting along in the river...on a strong current...

ProgGrrl's favorite things about the auction today in Pasadena (WHICH YOU SHOULD ALL GO CHECK OUT ON SUNDAY, ADMISSION IS FREE):

• Standing two feet away from all those memorable props. Getting up close with the CIC set pieces to see how detailed (and beat to hell) they actually are. TV magic at its finest.
• Finally meeting Joe from the wondrous Battlestar Wiki...and Steve from the very cool site FuturePast... two of the folks that have been working really hard on this auction for months.
• Sitting in the frakkin' raptor! (More on that soon.)

(Sorry bout the cruddy video quality...but my Mino HD didn't get here in time...)

Space promo for 414

I'm not watching the promos anymore, myself...but I heard on the SciFi boards that this one shown on Space is much more "interesting" than the one SciFi showed last night:

Commentary track for 413

Hulu and Scifi have ep 413 with Ron Moore's commentary (which you can also download as an audio podcast from iTunes here or from SciFi here).

First Reax: The Story of Job

Over the next few days, I'll be collecting, posting, and quoting the reviews of Sometimes A Great Notion as they pour in...

In the meantime we have this MUST READ from Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, who talked to Ron Moore, David Weddle, Bradley Thompson an Michael Nankin about the episode. My favorite quotes from the article are the words of David Weddle:

This is perhaps the most universal theme you can explore. For the people of ragtag fleet, the dream was Earth. For those of us here on Earth, the dream could be many other things. It may be the house you saved all your life for but now can no longer afford to make payments on. The career you fantasized about since high school, went to college to prepare for, finally landed and loved, then lost when your company downsized. The woman or man you met who seemed to be everything you ever wanted to find in a lover, who betrayed your trust or left you or died. The flood waters that swept your entire neighborhood away. The war in a far away land that took your son or daughter or husband or wife. The spot on an X-ray that now wants to eat you alive....

The day the staff finished putting the cards up on the board with Ron, and the day before we began writing, I flashed on my favorite American novel, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. It is a much underappreciated and towering work. Anyone interested in fine literature and great story telling should read Kesey’s masterpiece.

The book opens with a childish rhyme that enunciates the theme of the book and what to me was the theme of our show. “Sometimes I live in the country. Sometimes I live in the town. Sometimes I get a great notion. To jump in the river and drown.”

In Kesey’s book, the hero --Hank Stamper, an Oregon logger -- does constant battle with the river that runs past his home, a river that has claimed the lives of pets and loved ones and comes to symbolize the vast and indifferent power of the universe that both gives life and cruelly snatches it away again. In his notes to himself as he was writing the book, Kesey scribbled something that has become one of the shorthand phrases Brad and I use while writing scripts. Kesey wrote: “Try to make Hank quit.” By that he meant: take this strong, heroic character and pile one misfortune on his back after another until he finally falls. What happens in that moment? Does he despair? Does he get up and go on? For me, there is no more defining moment for a character.

Open Thread: 413 Sometimes A Great Notion

OK folks, here we go with a first for Sitrep this season - we'll put up open threads every Friday for discussion of the episode.

Please read our spoiler policy before you post on the threads.

All 4.5 open threads will be collected in an index that will sit on our blogroll rightside column, for handy access. (Here's the thread for the webisodes, btw.) If you know of other fun sites or forums that are having lively non-spoilery episode discussions, please feel free to post links here as well.

The hiatus is over forever. How are you feeling today?



EPISODE 413: SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Writers: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Director: Michael Nankin

Hulu embed:

Season 4.5 Open Thread Index

This post is the index for all our Season 4.5 Open Threads.

BSG 4.5 WEBISODES - THE FACE OF THE ENEMY

EPISODE 413 - SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION

EPISODE 414 - A DISQUIET FOLLOWS MY SOUL

EPISODE 415 - THE OATH

EPISODE 416 - BLOOD ON THE SCALES

EPISODE 417 - NO EXIT

EPISODE 418 - DEADLOCK

EPISODE 419 - SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

EPISODE 420 - ISLANDED IN A STREAM OF STARS

EPISODE 421 - DAYBREAK, PART 1

EPISODES 422-423 - DAYBREAK, PART 2


[Note that Sitrep uses the episode numbering that SciFi and BSG Production used for season 4, with the RAZOR telefilm counting as eps 401 and 402. Also, here's some really frakkin important stuff you should know about watching season 4.5.]

Staffing Caprica

Bear McCreary in studio at a “Caprica” scoring session this week!
[photo: Andrew Craig]

From various sources right now, we can confirm that BSG crewmembers Richard Hudolin, Gary Hutzel, and Bear McCreary have joined the crew of the CAPRICA series to do, respectively, the production design, the special effects, and the musical score. Great news. (That Hutzel link is a terrific interview; here's another.)


This piece discussing CAPRICA, part of Variety's special BSG edition on stands today, has some interesting perspective from Ron Moore and SciFi's Dave Howe:

"It's about a society that's running out of control with a wild-eyed glint in its eye," says "Galactica" mastermind Ron Moore, who penned the "Caprica's" two-hour pilot with Remi Aubuchon.

"You can just feel it running out of control, with its youth culture and its moral choices. There's doom in the air, but not doom in terms of the human spirit," Moore says.

...

In short, the show's stories and settings will be more congruent with Earth in the very near future than "BSG" has been.

Moore and the Sci Fi Channel are hoping that will help "Caprica's" appeal.

"We want people to come to this who've never heard of 'Battlestar Galactica,' " explains Sci Fi prexy Dave Howe, whose network has ordered 20 hours of the new series. "I think there was a barrier to entry for some viewers (for 'Galactica'), since it had the backdrop of space and spaceships."

Moore concurs, saying "We had viewers say that if they were able to trick their wives or girlfriends into watching 'Galactica,' they loved it."

But with the name "Battlestar Galactica" "screaming science fiction," he adds, "there was just such a high hurdle to get female viewers to even try it."

David Eick's Video Blog: Inserts Action & FX

All the videoblogs are here...there was another one posted earlier in the week, but it's not on Hulu.

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 View of the Apocalypse

Eddie and Mary on The View:


The clip shown on The View:


Herc of Ain't It Cool News gives "Sometimes A Great Notion" 5 stars, and does so without spoiling the episode, but does provide some interesting teases.

Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald walks the same line, praising and teasing the episode, without ruining it for us all.

Variety has a slew of BSG articles today, including reflections from director of Sometimes A Great Notion, Michael Nankin, and co-writer of the episode, David Weddle.

Variety also presents thoughts and observations from friend of the Sitrep, and Daily Show writer Rob Kutner, who imagines a Daily Show in the fleet. Others pondering the meaning of BSG including members of the military, clergy, scientists, a political blogger, and a PBS TV show host all here .

Two Fans...And A Hybrid?

I was emailing back and forth the other day with fellow BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fan Rob Kutner…and things got a bit dense, BSG-fandom-wise. We geeked all over the place, called in An Expert (his DAILY SHOW cohort John Hodgman), and then I even quizzed Rob a bit about his day job. Wasn't it nice of them to let me publish our chat. Enjoy.

-------------------------

ProgGrrl: Hey RK, what's up. Happy new year. We haven't talked in a while…how's it going these days with our chances of apocalypse? Still looking good?

I've been having some serious geekalicious happy lately, watching the new BATTLESTAR season 4.5 promos, the webisodes…and today even a cool new clip of the way-before-the-apocalypse CAPRICA series. Great stuff to tide us over till our own apocalypse hits. We BSG fans…we KNOW apocalypse.


Rob Kutner: Come on ProgGrrl, war in the Middle East? A smart Black man elected President? How could anyone interpret either of those as signs of the End Times? At the very least, that means there must still be five to go. Actually, I'm tremendously enjoying the leadup to season 4.5. Right now, the whole show is sandwiched between two apocalypses -- like the meat in an Armageddonwich. Which, if you made it out of human-cylon hybrid flesh, would be guaranteed not to give you cancer!

But yes, I'm full of questions. Like, which gender – or species – Gaeta is going to smooch next? Where on Earth is Tigh going to find an ambrosia still? And what exactly is it that – in the trailers – Kara freaks out upon seeing? I'm guessing it's the smoldering remains of a Starbucks. Talk about "There are many copies…"


PG: Mmmm, Armageddonwich.

Have you been checking out those mindbender clues over on www.YouWillKnowTheTruth.com? If you play this one backwards, it may reveal that the walrus was Adama. As for Gaeta...who knew about his thing for architecture? All that, and such a fine singing voice.

So I suppose an Armageddonologist like yourself must have enjoyed the final scene of "Revelations," the last episode from 4.0, when the rag tag fleet makes it to Earth..."Earth?"..."Earth!" (we fans aren't quite sure). What was your reaction?


RK: Gaeta truly is a Renaissance man. I bet he could talk your ear off about fine Leonis Estates wines. And a lotta good stuff in those teases. For instance, who knew that Adama actually washes his face? I half-expected all the crags to fall off and him to be the smooth-skinned Adama from Razor. Baltar seems to play a key role in the events to come -- meaning he's going to continue getting laid like a madman. Also, from the looks of it, there's a human-cylon hybrid baby born with a case of heartburn so bad, you can see it from the outside.

As far as the end of "Revelations," wow. It takes a special kind of armageddon to turn everything that precise shade of brown. Sort of Ron &co's way of saying, "Earth? You ain't found shit." And after seeing Earth, you have to imagine the humans and "good" cylons are pining for the verdant lushness of New Caprica or even Old Caprica. Speaking of which, I assume they wouldn't just hightail it back there because Sharon and the 1s, 4s, and 5s (great name for a band, btw) would find them there? It's a pity, because I love its oddly 50s-style cars. Do those come equipped with FTL drives? How cool would the new "Caprica" series be if characters were saying, "Hey baby, wanna jump with me to the drive-in?"


PG: That’s not all they’re jumping on Caprica, from the looks of this.


RK: Yowza. Based on that clip, you get the feeling if the Cylons hadn't done Caprica in, Holo-chlamydia would have.


PG: Who is your favorite character on the show? Or do you have more than one?


RK: My favorite characters... I would say Roslin, the Old Man, I kind of dig Cavil in a strange way, and I'm endlessly amused by the Hybrid. Talk about a multi-tasker! ("...shall spell the doom of all mankind 'ere his first blossoming... oil low - check engine soon")


PG: Who do you love more: funny, clever scientist Gaius, who is always hanging with cylons and getting laid…or Christ-like, suffering, guilty preacher Gaius who is being either tortured, imprisoned, or getting laid?


RK: As much as I enjoy seeing Gaius get the frak beaten out of him, I do enjoy him more when he's talking fast to save his own skin - I particularly enjoyed him in "Torn" way-too-easily blurting out how to get to Earth to the Cylons, and trying to talk his torturer D'Anna into reconciling science and faith -- while simultaneously having projected-sex with #6. No wonder he can go head to head with the Hybrid!


PG: Let’s talk burning questions. I have some, our readers certainly have even more… What are the things that keep you awake at night about this show? I come up with new questions every few days. Right now I want to know if Gaeta will begin randomly slaughtering Number Eights whenever he sees one around the ship… if Adama’s going to punch that dude who spray-painted FRAK EARTH on his wall... if Tigh will decide he wants to settle down and raise a family with Six…if Kara will ever find out why The Hybrid was throwing all those big words at her, like “harbinger,” and stuff.


RK: So, my questions: I, too, wonder whose ass Gaeta will claim next - let's not forget Sam "the leg-shooting toaster" is also on the list. If Tigh and Six do settle down on Earth, how will he be able to grow a lawn that he can yell at kids to get off of? Will Bill Adama ever be able to settle down even anywhere on land, or will he be forced to grow another "orbit patrol 'stache?"

As far as outstanding series questions (ie: Truth I Hope Will Be Known): Who/what saved Starbuck and sent her to Earth and back with coordinates and shmancy new Raptor? How could a skinjob like Tigh have been created so long ago, and with such an alcohol problem? How did the birth of cylon-human Hera spark such mystical awareness among both Roslin and D'Anna, yet his fellow cy-man (or is it "hum-lon") Nicky did not? Why were the Five separated, how is it they've "seen the way to earth" yet the lone models we know have no clue where it is, and why are they suddenly switched on now? And how did young Bill Adama in Razor come upon the original Cylon prototypes and Raiders, yet not one Daggit? (Sorry, new-BSG purists.)


PG: Good stuff, big questions...we're both pretty stumped here. My head is spinning. What we really need is...an expert.

What about your friend John Hodgman? I bet he could help us. I know he's incredibly frakkin busy with non stop book tours, Daily Show appearances, Mac ad shoots, and twittering...but...there's just *so many questions*, my gods.

[It takes a bit of time to adjust the signal here… Rob waits… I wait… then, suddenly, we received the following.]

THIS IS HODGMAN ACTUAL

Hello friends. I am writing to you from the fabled lost colony of Park Slope, where I have been catching up on all the Gaeta-sodes, and it was a marvelous experience. I got to watch the movie "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" ten times! (At least, I presume it was the whole movie. There can't be much more to it than that, can there?)

As an added bonus, I got to enjoy the BSG material itself, which as you know was co-written by Kevin Seamus Fahey and the very lovely, generous super-genius Jane Espenson. As you may also know, it was Jane who gave me something to say on my very fleeting appearance on one of those last 10 episodes. (Do not ask me about it. I would not say a word to spoil it, and I am hardly sure I will end up in the finished product anyway).

But it leaves me in a strange position. Through the palimpsest of partial scripts, I have glimpsed at least some of the answers to some of my biggest burning questions. But these answers lead only to more questions, which also burn. And so, like you, I am equally looking forward to the cooling answer-poultice of the new episodes.

Until then, I will recline, hybrid like, speaking cryptically, knowing more than I can say, but traveling with you, and bathed in glowing slime.

But I can ask these questions:

1. WHEN DID THEY DECIDE TO TURN UP THE LIGHTS IN THE CIC? Did someone just discover the dimmer switch finally? A cache of old fluorescents they forgot about?

2. WHY DID GAETA PUT A BOOT ON THE END OF HIS PEG LEG? I'm sure it aids his getting around, but it is hardly as stylish as plain old pirate gear (as Tigh figured out some time ago). And I really think it increases the chance of him tripping every time he walks through a pyramid door.

3. IF THE GAETASODES DO OCCUR AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF EARTH, where is Earth now? If they are still doing long jumps all over space to evade hostile cylons, does that mean they have abandoned earth already?

As for my favorite characters, I agree with Espenson's assessment in her commentary for Gaetasode 10. Michael does more acting with his one visible eye than a lot of people do with their whole body. Like Gaeta, Boomer8thena, Tyrol, and Cottle, these are all really amazing Canadian actors whom I probably never would have seen were it not for this show.

Another reason I am grateful almost everyone on Caprica died.

For now, THAT IS ALL


PG: Hmm…I always suspected Hodgman might be a Hybrid. Ain't it always the trouble when chatting up a Hybrid: cryptic statements, full of promise, and most of your questions remain unanswered.

So we shall have to wait and see if, where, and when Mr. Hodgman appears on BSG. Meanwhile I see he has already gone back to twittering...like you said: those Hybrids sure can multi-task.


RK: First off, I want to echo what John said about how - in addition to being a great yarn - the Webisodes gave us 10 exciting glimpses at "Underworld." As it happens, I'd been wondering what we could be, instead of being slaves. I now know the answer: "LYCANS!!!!"


PG: You know Rob, seeing as you are a writer on another one of my favorite shows, THE DAILY SHOW, I can't resist asking: are there any other TDS staffers who are BSG fans? We've heard that BSG is loved by the entire Late Night With Letterman writers' room. This summer I was waiting for you guys to make the McCain/Palin -- Tigh/Roslin connection…but no dice.


RK: I took a poll, and about half of us are into it. The rest are clearly lesser-evolved Centurions. But I resist that political analogy – even Laura Roslin knows way much more about 21st Century U.S. foreign policy than Palin.


PG: There've been a few passing mentions on THE DAILY SHOW this year of BSG…is Jon Stewart in on this? Stewart has always had a bit of geek cred. Not as much as Stephen Colbert, but not bad.


RK: Jon doesn’t watch it, but he has this eerie all-knowing sense of what’s in the ether. However, there have been legions of BSG pitches that never made air. For example, that Rod Blagojevich’s censored wiretapping remarks were actually him repeatedly saying “FRAK” – bleeped out because CNN doesn’t want to get into copyright violation territory. We tried to get Jon to ask Education Secretary Margaret Spellings if she hoped for a global nuclear holocaust so she could become President. When Biden was making those ominous remarks near the end of the campaign about how an Obama administration would get “hit within six months,” I worked with Jane Espenson to find suitably disturbing Hybrid clips to intercut with that.


PG: When are Katee Sackhoff or Tricia Helfer gonna guest on the show? I'm amazed Helfer hasn't been on yet…can you possibly make a case to your producers on behalf of BSG/TDS crossover fans everywhere?


RK: You know our show – they’d have to first write a book about Iraq. Actually, my strong preference would be Grace Park. Shouldn’t be that hard to book – there’s like a hundred of her, right?


PG: Well Rob…and John (wherever you are)…thanks so much for taking time away from Apocalypse Research, Generally Being an Expert, and skewering the body politic with the DAILY SHOW crew to talk Galactica with me. It's always a pleasure talking BSG with other addicts.

-------------------------

Rob Kutner is an Emmy-award-winning writer for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and lots of other things. His book “Apocalypse How” is available. Right now. You should buy it. He twitters too.

John Hodgman is currently a Famous Minor Television Personality, the Resident Expert on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and the author of “More Information Than You Require” and “Areas of My Expertise.” We BSG fans might recall that he wrote this, back in the day. You can also read a bit more from him about BSG here.