Mark Sheppard Talks!

He walks too, and he keeps a pretty straight face in this video interview talking mostly about BSG


It's Actor Mark Sheppard from Dick Dyszel on Vimeo

The Plan?

The 13th Colony, aka the ultimate BSG Canadian resource, just posted that the BC Film Commission has updated their current productions listing to include the working title for the 2009 Battlestar Galactica 2 hour prequel: The Plan.

Thanks 13C!



Also relevant, (don't click if you're a complete spoiler virgin fundamental extremist, but otherwise, it's really nothing you wouldn't have speculated anyway - plus, it's speculation) io9 has a piece on Aaron Douglas from Fan Expo, with some spoilerific speculation, and they caught this RGBfilter.com video (also very, very, like as in grandma style mild spoilers):

Tell me something I didn't know...

... because I already knew that for better or worse, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is the fictional female character I can relate to the most. But taking the "Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?" quiz at Buddy TV is still fun. If you take it, you can work around using your email sign in.

Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?

Created by BuddyTV

New Final Cylon Poll!

It's up! And this time with almost every possible suspect and then some. Unlike the last poll, you can vote for multiple choices in this one. There are 11 whopping days to vote. Hopefully by then you Dualla shippers will have changed your toaster lovin' ways, and hopefully some crazy spoiler doesn't get leaked by then either. Frak.

Remembering BSG Con '07

Unfortunately I never got to go to BSG Con, and even more unfortunatley, BSG Con was canceled this year. Will we ever have a BSG Con again? That remains to be seen. Luckily, there is plenty of video of BSG Con '07, so maybe this is the next best thing?

Carried over from the previous post about Tricia, here she is at the '07 Con:



Katee:



Jamie:



Interesting to hear what they said a year ago, isn't it? It's probably obvious that we're on a video rampage here at FRAK lately. Stay tuned for more spotlights with cast and crew!

Spotlight on Tricia Helfer

While surfing around to find video of Tricia at NVIDIA 08 (still unsuccessful), I found lots of other older video interviews with her. Check it out!

Craig Furguson 1:



Craig Furguson 2 (5/08):



The Hour:



mahalo.com from Comic-Con:



Chelsea Lately:



TV Guide (Do any other females out there want to stomp this host's face into the corner of the stage too?):



From Fan Expo 07 part 1:



(Fan Expo 07 with Tricia part 2, part 3, and part 4)

PETA spot:



IGN from NYCC part 1:



IGN from NYCC part 2:



Yahoo Games discussing Command and Conquer:



Tricia hosting Canada's next Top Model (see this user youtube page for pretty much the whole series!):



Clip of Tricia on Vic's Catwalk (no sound):



Finally, this one from TalkingPicturesTV didn't allow embedding, but here's a link to the video.

See next post for one other Tricia video from BSG Con 07!

Galactica News o' the Week

Interesting little write-up from The Associated Press about how Battlestar Galactica remains strong while official ratings don't, and some comments on Caprica.

This is a semi-spoilerific (but only in the most extreme sense) recap of Eddy Olmos' and Aaron Douglas' appearance at Toronto's FanExpo 2008 by TVaddict.com's Melissa Grimonte.

Speaking of the above-mentioned (spoilerish!) FanExpo appearance, there are loads of recaps pouring in on the net. BSGcast.com has 3 part video coverage of the event. Love the Baltar tees guys! Below is part one, and stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 either from their above website, the BSG Cast youtube channel, or their Veoh.com page (like the vid quality on Veoh better):


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Eddy and Aaron weren't the only ones to make a recent public appearance lately. Tricia Helfer appeared at NVISION 08 and "talked about the challenges of acting with virtual characters and took the crowd through the steps of blocking and filming some of the scenes from the hit Sci-Fi Channel series." (Nvidia blog). Still searching for more coverage and video of Tricia from this event, but she wasn't the only trace of Battlestar there - FX consultant Kelly Meyers showed off some of the tech used for rendering CG on the show. (edn.com) I'd love to see a video of that too. Maybe soon?

If you haven't checked out the official site for Battlestar Galactica props and costumes, it's a must! Battlestarprops.com is preparing inventory for an auction in 2009. They're often adding new stuff, and have lots of tips for the collector in you!

If you're a BSG collector and a guitar player, then check out this Strat signed by most of the major cast members, which is now up for auction on ebay from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation for an inordinate amount. (Battlestar Blog)

Disney toy designer Steve Thompson shows off his BSG tattoo over at Wired magazine!

Den of Geek's funny little speculation for season 4.5.

Zap2Zit has some comments about recent episodes of The Middleman, and Mark Sheppard's character. I gotta watch that show!

io9 talked to Sam Witwer at Comic Con, and posted some video and comments from him just yesterday! Why you gotta hold out on us io9? *winks*

Dualla? Really?

Gaeta	2 (18%)
Dualla	5 (45%)
Zak Adama	3 (27%)
Leoben	0 (0%)
Caprica Six	0 (0%)
Muffit	1 (9%)

Seems as though the poll is telling us people think Dualla is the fifth? Surprised I am! At least Muffit got a vote. I demand a recount. New poll with different choices coming soon.

So say... some of us!

Burn that frakkin' Cylon

This is sooo a week and a half ago, but this Cylon toaster test video at DVICE is worth the post. The soundtrack is what really makes it of course. I'm finding myself wanting one of these more and more, but certainly not for the prices. Maybe there will be another model (pun intended), I'm hoping with the Galactica crest!

BSG Con cancelled :(

The Battlestar Con scheduled for late November in Burbank, Ca has apparently been canceled. WTFrak? Not that I was going to go, but that's just kind of sad. I haven't heard any explaination as to why, but I'm guessing most of the cast will be so tied up with other projects, that maybe not a lot of them could commit? Maybe Gate Con will share again? Maybe there will be a future BSG reunion convention?

The Good News:

- Aaron Douglas is a last minute add-on to the Fan Expo in Toronto this weekend. Way to support the fans Aaron!

- Eddie Olmos will have his own panel at Dragon Con on Monday at 10am (September 1). Thanks to Battlestar Blog, and Cassie Gordon from DC PR for posting a Google spreadsheet to tide everyone over until a PDF of the DC schedule can get put up.

Frik and Frak

Poor attempt at an original headline, I know. Let's just cut right to it, shall we?

Emmy nominated BSG writer Michael Angeli talked to Variety about his research for the show. Surprisingly, it's not so much about science:

...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."

Michael recieved some well deserved kudos from Variety for his work on BSG episode "Six of One" as well.

Speaking of award snubs, Television Without Pity tells it like it is with Emmy: TWOP List of the Most Egregious Snubs, of which Battlestar gets some respect.

Sticking with the above theme of lists, EW.com, famous for lists, has a top 25 of the scifi genre (TV and film) in the last 25 years, and of course BSG is in the mix. Not quite sure how Blade Runner snuck in there, since it's actually 26 years old, but I'm okay with that! Uh, no Star Wars except The first Clone Wars series? WUWT?

Bear McCreary's Eureka soundtrack came out yesterday, and top40-charts.com talks about the composer's accomplishments. Interestingly, I've caught some recent reruns of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I'm now totally hearing Bear! When the series first aired, I didn't realize Bear worked on it (the music is waaay subtle on that show). Another duh moment was when I realized Bruce Davidson, who plays the not so ethical Dr. Robert in BSG's The Woman King, plays the also not so ethical nor sane Dr. Silverman in episode 7 of TSCC.

SyFy Portal relays the scoop on Mark Sheppard reuniting with Joss in at least (*hopes*) 3 episodes of Dollhouse. Thanks Dollverse, just for existing.

David Eick Talks Battlestar Galactica Past, Present, Future (and Caprica!) to Newsarama. No spoilers of course.

Anyone who knows what a Cylon is can confirm that this Peugeot concept car is one. :O

Shout out to Geek Sugar for using Battlestar Galactica as an example of how to use Scribd services.

I had no idea about the A-Team thing. If anyone knows the details, I would really appreciate being saved the trauma of researching the A-Team. I'm guessing it was a gag with Dirk Benedict (whom I actually don't mind researching so much).

Speaking of Starbuck (above... kind of), Den of Geek compares Shawn McCormick in Knight Rider 2K, to RDM's Starbuck gender change. Doesn't look like it helped the new Knight Rider, and I for one really hope to kidnap Paul Campbell and put him on a different show.

Edit - Thanks 'iguanamom' for pointing out the A-Team intro, and the Cylon appearance. Now, if anyone knows exactly which episode that was clipped from, that would be the rulingest!

3 fer

I had to make sure I came up with 3 things for this entry, since the first feature is the (in)famous number 3 - Lucy Lawless! If you're in the Bay Area around September 27, check out Lucy's live act at the Herbst Theater. I hear she's a great singer. Thanks to www.lucylawless.info where you can also find some pics from her recent appearance at a Dodgers game with the Children Uniting Nations group.











As usual, region 2 will be getting their season 4.0 DVD before region 1, and the cover art has shown up on Amazon.uk. Strike a Jesus pose Caprica! Interesting, but I'm hoping the region 1 version will have the blue theme like all the others. A season 1 - 4 box set is in there somewhere too, but I hope they don't really plan to release that (in the UK) on the date shown, which is the same as the season 4.0 release date. No 4.5?
















Last but not least if you like board games: The Battlestar Galactica board game isn't due out until October (says Battlestar Blog), but some folks snagged them up at Comic Con. Add that to the collection! I think I'll hold off for BSG Trivial Pursuit if such a thing is ever to be made. This looks close though.

SciFi Wire's Behind the Scenes on Virtuality Set

SciFi Wire snuck onto the set for Ron Moore's upcoming Fox show Virtuality, and caught some glimpses of the pilot in progress. Read if you want semi-spoilers!

EJO Wins 2008 ALMA

Congrats Eddy. I'm pretty sure this is the second year in a row Edward James Olmos won an ALMA for Best Actor in a Television Series for his performance in Battlestar Galactica. AP, ALMA

w00t??

Watch: Robots that are more human? (BBC)

My criticism is that I agree with the reporter that this is more unnerving than the comfort that MIT guy was talking about. Hasn't he seen Battlestar Galactica? I just want a working R2 astromech and I'll be happy.

Cylon Arts & Crafts

It's been about a month since the contest closed, but DVICE pretty much just posted the winners of the SciFi sponsored Make a Cylon contest. Check out the winners and losers here, or just continue on to the 7th place winner's Flickr page, which was the best one in my humble opinion. I'm not Grace Park or Tricia Helfer though, so neeeeeeooooowwwww, I couldn't vote. The fracking (Classic BSG spelling!) magical unicorn is mine!

Rekha Sharma talks to LA Times

Just pulled up this article from a month ago (better late than never!) with The LA Times talking to Rekha Sharma. This is post-NYCC, but pre-shooting wrap and SDCC.

Quotable:

What do you do to relax?

Shortly [after killing Cally] we had a great party at my house!

Tahmoh at IGN

Tahmoh Penikett spoke with IGN's Eric Goldman shortly after the series wrap about the final days (of course), and his upcoming Dollhouse gig with Joss. Read the interview here. Okay, Ron? Snatch up Tahmoh while you can, eh?

IGN: We've heard about the new Battlestar TV-Movie. Will you be a part of that and even if you're not, would you want to revisit Helo again at some point?

...I don't know if I'm going to. I haven't been asked as of yet. It would be speculation right now for me, but I'd be honored to be, of course.

Here's a video clip with Tahmoh at SDCC (about a week after the interview) from IGN, along with some other snazzy Battlestar video:

BSG at Dragon Con

Dragon Con is coming to Atlanta, Georgia from August 29 through September 1. The Battlestar guests are starting to slim down though. Jamie Bamber and Leah Cairns canceled as of several days ago, and the most recent drop-out seems to be Katee Sackhoff, who had reportedly said that this would be her last convention.

Fret not, since you can still expect to see Aaron Douglas, Tahmoh Penikett, James Callis, Richard Hatch, as well as NASA scientist and BSG science advisor Kevin R. Grazier.

Those of us stuck at home will be anxiously awaiting news from DC attendees!

Possible spoilers?

I will NOT post the spoilers here, only links to them. None of these spoilers are conclusive either. They only serve to paint a loose picture of what season 4.5 might look like.

I just caught this potentially spoilery Katee Sackhoff article with interview tidbits from The Chicago Tribune's Red Eye Blog. It's a potential spoiler (without giving away any spoilers here!) in that she mentions an addition to a wardrobe accessory of hers, which you could take in any number of different ways. It's only a semi-spoiler in that sense, and if you just want zero impressions for the upcoming series finale, then don't even bother following the link. Otherwise, the article includes some other words from Katee about the final days of shooting that I haven't read before.

From Livejournal's Battlestar Blog: a fan met up with Richard Hatch at a Star Trek convention, and asked the biggest spoiler question of all. Richard's answer was such a complete spoiler, that it absolutely can't be true. Or can it?

Probably the biggest spoiler of them all, yet still only a semi-spoiler in that it can't give away plot points and only tells us about a character we will see in some shape or form at the end of 4.5, is this actor's IMDB entry. I see a connection between this spoiler and another spoiler in this here entry. Of course I ain't sayin' which one!

For the sake of blogging...

This is where I throw everything together in one entry, for lack of a better way to do it. Included is an obligatory fangirl photo of Michael Trucco just for the heck of it. No, I don't have any new news on Michael (except that supposedly his sleeper-agentness will be dealt with in the upcoming prequel movie)...

Still finding some SDCC interviews out there that I hadnt caught before. Here's one with Jamie Bamber and Comic Mix.

If you weren't sure that it was officially official that we would be getting extended episodes in season 4.5, well here's the proof from TV Guide as confirmed by Sci Fi. It's still unknown as to how exactly it will be extended, and by how much.

I guess what's also official is that we will be getting two seperate DVD sets for season 4. One for season 4.0, and another sometime after the series ends for season 4.5. As much as I don't love buying more DVD sets, I don't mind if it means we get extended cuts and more bonus features. It will also make the DVD sets for season 2.0 and 2.5 not look so strange on the shelf between the chubbier complete seasons 1 and 3 DVD sets. Season 4.0 is set to be released on DVD this December. Thanks again TV Guide.

Ron Moore, along with several other industry professionals, will be having a panel discussion at The University of Southern California on September 10th. The discussion, titled In the Name of God: Terror, Torture, and Television is part of Live From L.A.: Good/God and Evil, "a series exploring the religious and ethical ramifications of 9/11 in broadcast television". See the USC announcement here. Admission is free. A plane ticket from the east coast and a hotel room unfortunately are not. Thanks for the heads-up Sitrep.

Last but not least, and certainly the most oddly interesting is that Tricia Helfer will be speaking at NVISION 08 on August 25th in San Jose. Tricia will discuss "how visual computing has affected the TV and film industries" (Neoseeker). How cool is it to hear that Tricia is doing this? Very, especially for this female blogger. We ain't no booth babes!

Grace Park joins CBC's 'The Border'

Grace is jumping in for the second season of the Canadian series The Border, where she will be playing Liz Carver, a US Homeland Security agent. Canadian Press reports.

The io9 Toaster Test

Check out the awesome shiny new Battlestar Galactica toaster they tested against "another brand" over at io9. Hilarious (yet somehow practical)!

Definitely, Yes

It's now officially official, if that wasn't clear from the news posts yesterday - SciFi has announced the "prequel" movie. But, I'm a little confused at the way they put it in this SciFi Wire report:

"

12:00 AM, 07-AUGUST-08
	New Battlestar Prequel Coming SCI FI Channel announced that it will air a new Battlestar Galactica two-hour prequel movie, set to air in 2009 following the conclusion of the series. Directed by star Edward James Olmos, the as-yet-untitled new film will be set before the events of the original Battlestar miniseries and will focus on Cylons: Number One, known as Cavil (Dean Stockwell), resistance leader Sam T. Anders (Michael Trucco) and Chief Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas). In the beginning, the Cylons had a plan, but it didn't account for one thing: survivors. During the chaotic aftermath of the nuclear destruction, two powerful Cylon agents struggle with plots and priorities on the human ships that got away and among the resistance fighters who were left behind. The film will be written by Jane Espenson and will begin shooting in Vancouver, Canada, at the end of the summer. After airing on SCI FI, it will be released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The final 10 episodes of the fourth and last season of Battlestar Galactica will begin airing on SCI FI Channel in 2009.

"

- So if it takes place before the events of the miniseries, then how will it have to do with the Cylons dealing with survivors of the attack (since the attack took place during the miniseries... at the end even!)?

Also don't get how the series Caprica has been picked up in the UK already, but it hasn't become official yet in the US where the parent company (NBCU) is based anyway - ? Granted, they are probably just securing rights, if at least just for the pilot for now.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

YES!

Judging by the wording "Shooting will begin promptly in Vancouver, Canada" used in this report from The LA Times today, I am going to take it as a confirmed "yes" that a second (to Razor) Battlestar Galactica movie event is a go. Eddie Olmos will direct, Jane Espenson will write, Aaron Douglas and Michael Trucco, as well as Dean Stockwell are confirmed, and it will be a flashback to shortly after the Cylon apocalypse (I'm thinking the general era of season 1 after the miniseries).

Expect to see the still untitled event (shortly?) after the conclusion of the series in 2009.

Frakkin' yeah.

Final Days on the Set of Battlestar

Some video footage and photos from the last days on the set of Battlestar Galactica have made it out to the intrawebs. It's spoilery since it shows the filming of the last episodes, so if you're like me and can't resist, prepare yourselves to go off on wild mental tangents as to what the end of the series will be like.

i09 has it all collected and uploaded here, or you can go straight to the source here from Livejournal's Battlestar Blog, and download the whole thing.

A little misty-eyed I am!

Backstage at Comic-Con with Galactica cast

TVGuide.com posted some video of short interviews with Katee, Michael, James, Jamie, and Tricia after their panel at SDCC. To see all the videos, click the link and navigate to Fall TV - Cable