Yay for BSG toys!

Action Figure Insider updates with news of some coming additions to the Toys R Us exclusive Minimates line with BSG Mini-Flyers! There will be both a Mark VII Viper and Cylon Raider, and look for the exclusive editions of Starbuck's Viper and Scar at comic book stores near you! Also coming - a Tigh and Gaeta 2 pack. I believe these are part of the 12" figure line, and aren't exclusive to TRU.

Sam Witwer interview from Star Wars Universe

Good old Crashdown. Okay, so maybe he wasn't so good in the end, but I think Sam Witwer did a pretty tremendous job with a relatively smaller role in BSG, and I was really excited to see him in the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Smallville after that.

Sam was recently interviewed by Star Wars Universe, a French fan site. The Force.net thankfully has supplied us with an English translation. Sam talks a lot about TFU, but gives a big nod to his days on the BSG set.

"Did you wanna be the Final fifth?
I actually did not. I felt that bringing Crashdown back would have cheapened his story and his mark on the series. Here was a guy who demonstrated how difficult these situations truly were. Most of the time you see Lee or Kara handle something. It looks tough, but our steely eyed regulars win the day. It was interesting to me to see the opposite. To tell the story of what happens when you have a good, competent man running the show, but unfortunately he's good and competent at being a Raptor pilot, not a man in command of infantry. I thought that was interesting and it was my intention to make that as real and reasonable as possible. Making him a cylon would have gutted or at the very least invalidated a very important part of that story."

Individual seasons of BSG available on Blu-ray in August

While the big shebang is coming on July 28, where you can purchase The Complete Series collection of BSG on both Blu-ray and standard DVD and season 4.5 on it's own (on both standard DVD and Blu-ray) - if you were looking to just buy one or two individual seasons of BSG on Blu-ray, or perhaps chip away at purchasing the entire series on Blu-ray rather than all in one collection at once, you can on August 4.

Right now it looks like the individual Blu-ray seasons will simply be 1, 2, 3 and 4, which presumably means that season 2.5 will be included in 2, and 4.5 will be included in 4. That's not confirmed yet, but it seems the reasonable assumption to make given the massive amount of space available on a Blu-ray disc as compared to standard DVD. We can also probably safely assume that all available bonus content will be included as well. Also in question is whether Razor will appear on Blu-ray with any of the seasons (season 4?), or separately. Razor, along with the Miniseries both have a link on Amazon for a Blu-ray version, but with no release date (which really doesn't mean much in Amazonia-land). Also, what about The Plan? The original series?? More details on the content when it's available! via The HD Room

Edit - The Amazon preorder links at The HD Room are no longer active, at least when I checked. Hmmm.

The Plan coming in November, Caprica in January tentatively

Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune's "The Watcher" blog reports that SciFi prez David Howe says The Plan is slated to debut in November, and Caprica is "likely" to debut in January. Hmmm, don't love the use of the word "likely", which could easily mean "probably April".

BTW, that sneak peek for The Plan is now on Hulu:

Tricia Helfer looking forward and back

Crave Online caught a few words from Tricia Helfer who was present for the Caprica screening at Paleyfest this April. Tricia was finally able to give some thoughts on the BSG finale, but what I found intriguing were her comments about the new Caprica series:

"Crave Online: How much would you like to appear on Caprica in any form?

Tricia Helfer: You know, I know nothing about the storyline of Caprica really. I’ve heard little snippets here and there from Ron and so forth but I’m super excited to see it today. This is going to be the first time I’ve seen anything from it, so I’d certainly show up if my character was called upon."

It doesn't seem likely that the character of Caprica Six would appear within the Caprica series timeline, but the notion revived one of those lingering BSG questions for me - How were the likenesses of the different models of Cylon skin-jobs created? Were they modeled after real human individuals, or were they the product of some sort of customization formula? If the former were the case, then perhaps the human predecessor of Six can exist in the timeline of the Caprica prequel. Neato!

But wait, she and Gauis are also some sort of spirit guide, so really they could be anywhere, and everywhere, at any time and in anybody's head - right?

Bonus - Here's a recent 2 part video interview with Tricia by cinetvbuzz.com (I don't recommend clicking that link since it opened up a barrage of pop-up ads for me) during the Festival TV Monte Carlo earlier this month. Mild spoilers for The Plan!:

Part 1


Part 2

Old School Toasters had a Vader/Samurai feel

VFX artist Darth Mojo posted an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the ancient Cylons that were excavated on "Earth I". FX supervisor Gary Hutzel worked with chief model maker and Cylon builder Pierre Drolet looked back to Samurai battle gear to fashion the ancient Cylons, but found it slightly too similar to the iconic Darth Vader, so they trimmed it back a bit:

Click the link above to read the whole article, and if you haven't already, don't forget to check out Darth Mojo's account of designing and created the original series style Centurions seen in Razor.

Here's The Complete Series Blu-ray box, complete with punctuation error

New images of the Blu-ray release of The Complete Series have made it to the web, and it appears the box set looks similar yet has additional images at the bottom of the box, and... an apostrophe where there shouldn't be one in "One of the best drama's on TV". Hee hee. I hope that's just in the promotional images and they catch it before they mass produce too many more of the whopping $300+ Blu-ray set (actual retail will be in the mid $200s, and hopefully will get price cuts later on).

via TV Shows on DVD

Of all the televisions owned by drama, it really is the best! ;)

Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 28, along with the stand-alone version of season 4.5. Bear McCreary's season 4 soundtrack is due to release a little before then on July 21!

More snippets on The Plan

SciFi.com just put up a sneak peek for the upcoming (the rumors now say September) BSG movie The Plan. Check it out below, and below that check out the original teaser. I'm hoping those outside the US can see this!

New sneak peek:



Original teaser:

Colonial Dispatch 6.13.09

Better late than never! Late spring has been a very busy time, and whenever I go to make a Dispatch update I get more and more overwhelmed. But we will put it off no longer and start to chip away at all the juicy BSG tidbits. Lots o' BSG events recently...

The LA Times Hero Complex blog brings us good chunk of video coverage from the Battlestar Panel at Hollywood & Highland that took place on June 4, which was a sort of follow-up from the BSG UN Panel earlier this spring. There is some talk of The Plan, so if you want to be completely spoiler-free watch out! Apparently attendees screened a new trailer for The Plan, but it's not out for public view just yet. We'll be keeping an eye out for other sources that attended the event.

Here's Sci Fi Wire's report on what Eddie said about The Plan.

On Friday, June 12 a Battlestar-centric Robotics panel took place at the 92nd Street Y in NYC as part of the World Science Festival. Mary and Michael were there along with a host of robotics and science experts, one of them being Dr. Hod Lipson whom Sam J. Miller interviewed for Galactica Sitrep previous to the event. Still waiting on reports from the event, so stay tuned!

Did someone mention robots? The Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh has just opened the Roboworld exhibit, which features many of our favorite famous bots in the Robot Hall of Fame. I've been looking into what Cylon presence there may be there, and I'm hoping that either or both Caprica Six and Scar get inducted!! I just wrote in a nomination for Caprica Six, and if it gets accepted it will be listed here, so check back at some point and see if she shows up, and vote! I may also try to nominate Scar (since he's the only real character representation of either the centurions or the raiders), but I don't know if he's quite famous enough. Hopefully Six doesn't have too much skin to be in the Robot Hall of Fame!

The picture of Six to the right is the June picture for the Battlestar Galactica 2009 calendar hanging above my desk :)

Richard Hatch has had some thoughts on the proposed Battlestar movie which Universal recently had some "quiet talks" with original creator Glen Larson.

Bear McCreary kicks off his summer season tours today with a performance in downtown Los Angeles as part of their Grand Performance Series (which is also kicking off the season with Bear!). The event is free and outdoors, so if you're in the area you MUST go, and take lots of pictures for us more distant fans! Bear will also be performing at San Diego's House of Blues and all three nights at SDCC, which will at the same time be the launch for the season 4 soundtrack! Yeay! Check out Bear's blog for all the dates.

Bear's soundtrack for Caprica comes out on Tuesday, June 16 and Film Music Magazine gives it the top grade!

Also, check out this Sci Fi video clip of Bear and the orchestra recording tracks for season 4.5! (Hulu version below) You may note that the beginning of the video mentions that more behind-the-scenes stuff will be available on the complete series DVD set, which is scheduled to be released on July 28 along with season 4.5 on it's own. I have to wonder if there will be different bonus content in the complete series DVD release than what we have been getting in each season DVD set - ?



Canada East's Times & Transcript reports on Ron Moore's appearance at the Banff World Television Festival. Moore says that webisodes are probably a passing fad and mentions the shooting schedule and progress for Caprica.

Speaking of RDM, not only is he hard at work with Caprica, but Virtuality has also been making a buzz in the news and it's looking more like it will become an actual series, as /Film reports. Wired.com's Underwire blog recently posted a feature about Virtuality also (and don't forget to check out the "see also" links at the bottom of the story!). io9 also has some more details about Virtuality.

Virtuality has also been bumped up to air on June 26th, rather than the dreaded July 4th event it was scheduled for (dreaded because most people would be out watching fireworks instead of watching it!) - via SF Universe

Getting back to Caprica, IGN had a chat with Moore and Eick and reveals some ideas on what to expect from Caprica when the series airs.

- Remember, for all the links that discuss unaired shows or movies it should be assumed that they will contain spoilers!

If you haven't heard the big news already, Katee Sackhoff has been signed on for season 8 of 24. She will be playing CTU data analyst Dana Walsh. Dang. I had given up on 24 way back in season 2 because I missed a whole bunch of episodes. By the time season 5 or 6 rolled around, it seemed hopeless to catch up. I'd like to ask any 24 fans if I really have to watch everything, or can I just jump back in to season 8 and figure it out from there? Starlog

Ooh ooh ooh! Action Figure Insider has gained confirmation that the Battlestar Minimates line will be revived as a Toys R Us exclusive!

Battlestar has been nominated for Program of the Year form the Television Critics Association. It's main contender for the award is probably going to be Lost, but lets hope they give the win to BSG since it won't be able to receive this particular award again! Airlock Alpha

I can't believe I ever missed this SciFi.com video of Aaron Douglas interviewing fans after a BSG season 3 finale screening! I know it's old stuff, but I adore Aaron.

Just for fun - Cylon Detector iPhone/Touch app video ad:



Phew! That should be enough for one Dispatch post for the day!

A little extra snippet about The Plan.

I come here at my peril as I am still only at the beginning of Season 2...

Yep - shoot me now.

Hope the linky in the title works for ya.

Nob X

Colonial Dispatch 5.12.09

IGN cited Hollywood Reporter as the source for news that NBC will decline Katee Sackhoff's latest project Lost and Found.

Michael Trucco chats with Sci Fi Wire about The Plan and mentions other possibilities for Sam Anders - spoilers!

I saw the new Star Trek movie and absolutely loved it. What a treat, especially for us sci-fi nerds who have a huge hole in our hearts since the end of BSG. The one part that left me a little unfulfilled was the lack of female presence. I mean, Uhura was rather awesome in this, but we needed more of her, or at least some new female presence, and there needed to be more female awesomeness. Uhura's main utility in the movie was to create sexual tension and as a love interest, and much less so about her genius equivalent to Spock. Maybe I'm spoiled by BSG, but I was releived to find at least two articles that expressed the same feeling: Melissa Silverstein of the Huffington Post - Star Trek's Gender Problem, and Tara O'Shea at Firefox News - Opinion: Women in the New Star Trek Movie.

Haven't won a BSG Zune yet? Well, Eclipse Magazine is the latest with a contest to win one!

The second (and last?) BSG auction concluded this weekend, and Monsters and Critics has some great photos featuring Grace Park posing with some props during the preview day at the Pasedena Convention Center.

Don't forget to catch James Callis guest-starring on the Numb3rs season finale this Friday at 9pm on NBC (and Leonard Nimoy on Fringe tonight!!). Television Blog


I forget if this was posted in an earlier Colonial Dispatch, but no harm in posting it again! Lucy Lawless is cast in a new Starz series due to air in January 2010 called "Spartacus: Blood and Sand". The series is styled after 300 fame, and will also be supplemented with a companion graphic novel series. Monsters and Critics, MTV

BSG's finale listed in Entertainment Weekly's Top 16 Classic Series Finales.

A couple of other slightly older news items:

The Face of the Enemy BSG webisodes won the 2009 Streamy Award for it's category for Best Dramatic Web Series.

From Jamie Freedman of SF Music Examiner - An interview with Battlestar Galactica's composer Bear McCreary: looking back and life after BSG

Virtuality coming to Fox July 4th

Saturdays at 8:00pm ET&PT / 7:000pm Central, starting on July 4th, is Fox's air date for Ron Moore's new series Virtuality. Sci Fi Wire and Futon Critic

"Co-created by Michael Taylor and Ronald D. Moore ("Battlestar Galactica"), the sci-fi drama revolves around the crew of the Phaeton, Earth's first starship. To endure the 10-year journey, the astronauts use virtual reality modules which allow them to assume avatars and explore self-created scenarios. But just as the mission is about to enter its critical go/no-go phase, a virus begins to infect the system and puts all of their lives on the line."

The not-so-secret life of Katee

It's no secret how she feels about bees, LA traffic, alcohol and rehab :P

From Crackle: Katee Sackhoff & Dante's Inferno

Found at the Katee Sackhoff Myspace fan page