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Edit - The Amazon preorder links at The HD Room are no longer active, at least when I checked.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

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!

Sneak peek at the complete series box set

Movie Web (and other various sites) have some images of the box design/ cover art for the complete series set. Sweet! It has a cool looking pop-up feature giving you a cast-in-the-box. Click the above link for more.

Battlestar on DVD

Mark this date, and start putting aside some extra cash now - On July 28 (2009), not only will season 4.5 be released on DVD in North America, but the entire series will be available in one humongous box set on both standard DVD as well as Blu-ray. Amazon is taking pre-orders for all of them now (check here at HD Room for direct links for Blu-ray on Amazon).

The Blu-ray version of the complete series will contain 20 discs, and the standard DVD version will be 25 (you'd figure they could slim down the amount of Blue-ray discs considerably?), and the MSRP is $349.98 (244.99 on Amazon) and $279.98 (181.99 on Amazon) respectively.

There aren't a ton of details for the complete series release, nor is it set as to what extras will be in the 4.5 set, but Buddy TV has some speculative information. I'm wondering if we'll get "The Plan" in 4.5, like the way "Razor" was included in 4.0, but that doesn't seem likely since the release date for "The Plan" has been set back to well after July 2009.

Here's a place marker for battlestargalacticadvd.com, which is currently still only set up for season 4.0. They should probably be updating it at some point between now and July ;)

Also useful - Amazon.com's Battlestar site

Season 4.0 on DVD: Frak Yeah

It's finally here for region 1! I went for the Best Buy exclusive which includes a set of Starbuck's dogtags, the unrated extended edition of Razor (the case says it includes the same bonus content as the stand alone "exclusive" release of Razor from Best Buy, but since it's one disc instead of two I can't see that happening - we'll have to see), and a nice little collectible character book "Battlestar Galactica: So Say We All":


The case for this DVD set is also different from the regular version of the 4.0 set which instead has a picture of Apollo, Bill, and Starbuck with the obligatory pensive stares. Even though I love that the BSG "Last Supper" is on the exclusive cover (albeit only partially), it doesn't quite match all the other season DVD sets thus far.

At first look through the character book, I thought it was merely a reproduction of the cast profiles on the Battlestar site at Sci Fi, but it's not. The booklet includes a nice little story set up, and two page spreads with profiles of all the main characters with lots of great photos (promo shots that we have moslty seen before anyway).

Before the season 4.0 marathon begins, I'll be digging through the bonus materials and deleted scenes right off the bat. (Edit) - After a run through of the bonus content, the absolute winner is "The Music of Battlestar Galactica" which is an extended version of the bits that got out during Comic Con right before Bear's big concert. This feature is absolutely hilarious! The rest of the bonus content, aside from the deleted scenes, are mostly regurgitated bits from David's video blogs.

____________________

I also recently scored the "official" Battlestar Galactica 2009 wall calendar. I say official because it's the same one listed at the NBCU store, even though another version also seems to be available with a different cover (I definitely prefer the "Last Supper" cover) and slightly different photos. Some of these photos have to be the same though, since they are obviously from the same batch of promos as the formerly mentioned calendar. Grace and Tricia, as pictured in the Amazon link, are wearing the same clothes in both calendars, and even the "official" calendar features different shots of cast members wearing the same clothes. Kind of lame if you ask me, especially since a lot of these promotional shots are obviously dated from even as far back as season 1 (you can tell by the hairstyles mostly).





"Official" version photos:



Even so, I'm glad to have these shiny pictures of the prettiest group of humans ever to trek across the galaxy to find their true home. And what a nice way to start off the new year with a spread of the boyz of BSG for January (I also wasn't disappointed to find Helo as the hunky poster boy for April - my birthday month). As you can see below, I might have gone a little overboard on wall calendars this year. It's not my fault calendars go for 50% off after the new year!

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.

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!

Season 3 DVD

I know that the official release date is supposed to be March 25, but Best Buy has it advertised on their site that it will be released tomorrow (3/18)!! And their advertised price is only $39.99! May want to check it out!!!

I'm going to Best Buy tomorrow as soon as I'm able, and I'll let you all know if I scored or not. Best Buy usually has their dates correct, so I guess we'll see!!!

Season 3 DVD release date confirmed!

Wow! I've been a little out of the loop. Apparently a few days ago (December 31) it was announced that season 3 of Battlestar Galactica will be released in North America (Region 1) on March 25th, 2008. Ha! I scoured the web for news just about every other day until recently for this, and it finally comes up while I gave up and wasn't looking. We had heard some loose confirmations for "Spring 2008" before, and I'm pretty sure I remember March and April being thrown around. Thankfully it's not April (but pretty frakking close).

From dvdactive:

The six-disc package will be available to own from the 25th March, and should retail at around $59.98. All 20 episodes will be presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround tracks. Extra material will include an exclusive DVD version of the "Unfinished Business" episode with 25 minutes of never-before-seen footage, deleted scenes, podcasts, behind the scenes featurettes, and more.

Nice! But there still seems to be no mention of the Resistance webisodes being included. That's certainly one of the points of contention with the current strike, so I'm kind of doubting we'll see it on the DVD set. C'mon NBCU! How hard can it possibly be to attach some proper credits to the webbies, throw them on the DVD (it's under 30 minutes total for all 10 together), and kick back to the writers? So sez the naive Hollywood wannabe.

Anyway, now we can lay back and relax a little now that we finally have a date and some info.

BSG Razor on DVD

I was just perusing the bestbuy.com site and noticed that Razor is scheduled to be released on DVD on 12/4/07!!! Woo-hoo!

Strange that it will be released before Season 3 on DVD?!?!?? WTF! ;)

It'll be great to have Razor anyway. :)

Season 3 on DVD within our lifetime?

This from digitalbits 10/17/07:

"When's Battlestar Galactica: Season Three coming out? When is Universal going to announce the third season of Battlestar?" You know, aside from "When is this format war going to be over?" I don't think we get asked anything more often.

Well, folks... it just so happens that we're Battlestar fans around here at The Bits too. So we asked our friends over at Universal. The long answer is (of course) that what follows is unofficial, as the title hasn't actually been announced yet and production is still underway on the special features. However... their short answer is that it's tentatively penciled into their release schedule for next Spring, specifically April 2008.

Yeah, I know that's a fracking long time. Don't kill the messenger. I'm just telling you what they told me. There's no specific word on why they're taking so long to get it done, other than presumably they're just trying to get all the extras finished. Perhaps they want to give Battlestar Galactica: Razor plenty of time by itself on the DVD shelves, so that all you fans will make sure to buy it. Maybe they want to have another DVD product to sell during Season Four's mid-season break. Maybe they're working on an HD-DVD version as well (that's not official or anything, but it seems a likely possibility). Anyway, as of now, April 2008 it is.

Stay tuned...

The studios need to get their act together. Either they are totally oblivious to the fact that their money-making ploys through delayed releases are useless since anyone can download this stuff if they want to, or conversely, they know too much about that and are freaking out to desperately try and get what they can from a DVD release. Well, not me. I'm going to refuse to purchase Razor on DVD as a new release, and maybe not at all unless it's dirt cheap or I get it used. This is an act as a matter of principal by a fan and a consumer. Of course, any bad DVD sales could be read by the companies as Razor being unpopular. But who really cares, since Galactica is ending after season 4 - and perhaps if they see it as unpopular (which is unlikely since it's already made a claim to fame), they won't feel compelled to spread season 4 out so long. But then again, it could deter any movement on the possible Caprica series as well. It's a hard life being so conscientious. I'm just a leeetle perturbed right now *sigh*

The one valid reason for a delayed DVD release is that they are working on special features. They better be worth the wait, and they better include the Resistance webisodes and all the "exclusive clips" and bonus scenes that were aired after season 3 episodes first aired, and which are now no longer available to view on the website - save for a few.

This is my rant. No news is... still no news ;)

Finally... some Battlestar NEWS!

It seems almost everything reported about Battlestar Galactica - the upcoming season 4 possible split, the season 3 DVD set, the fabled Caprica series - has all been heresay with little or no follow-up confirmations. What gives? Well, there is a little trickle of info about all of the above issues reported on TV Guide.com today. One would think it's a pretty reliable source, but then again, they could easily have a lot of facts wrong (and who can blame them, since it's all so frakking confusing). I'll just copy and paste the whole thing, or you can follow this link for the story from the source...

Will Galactica Split Season 4? Plus Spin-off, DVD News

Michael Trucco and Jamie Bamber in Battlestar Galactica by Eike Schroter/Sci Fi Channel Photo

"Sci Fi Channel execs continue to be at odds over whether to cleave the final season of Battlestar Galactica into two 10-episode chunks. As one source tells TV Week, "the money people" are itching to amortize the pricey series across two half-seasons. Showrunner Ronald D. Moore, however, tells the trade it might be better to run all 20 at once, "so [the fans] don't have to wait" — especially since viewers reportedly will "freak out" when they see the ending of Episode 10. A decision on the game plan may not come until January.

Elsewhere, Sci Fi is said to be pondering a two-hour standalone Caprica spin-off movie that, if successful, would serve as a pilot for a new character-driven, less-action-heavy series.

Also, TVGuide.com has learned that the Season 3 DVD set isn't due out until spring 2008. "

Good: RDM seems to be putting his two cents in about keeping season 4 together for the shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifake of the viewers. Also, especially awesome is the hopeful news about the Caprica series, which I would personally love to see.

Bad: I hope they aren't confusing the Caprica series with the Razor movie, as some other media sources have done, but I don't believe they are. The really bad news is the push for the season 3 DVD set. Spring 2008? Gah!

The way they worded this also implies that a possible season split really is for the money, although this report could easily be hyping up non-information anyway. It does make sense if they are considering a Caprica series though, since if Sciffy let BSG season 4 play itself out without a long hiatus, their main attraction would be gone sooner. Therefore, the promise of more Battlestar in some shape or form would make up for the loss.

Edit - Another article on the same subject, but a little more in depth and closer to source.