LA Times and Battlestar

Today's LA Times features a "Sunday Conversation" with Jamie Bamber, which interestingly took place on a Friday:

"What was it like on, say, the last day of shooting "Battlestar Galactica?" Did you all think, 'What now?' Or -- 'Oh, thank God, my life is back'?

The last day of shooting was a crazy day. We'd gone a week over already. Two units shooting, everyone on call the whole time. There was not time to reflect. It was just getting across the finish line. There was a lot of whiskey drunk in the camera truck at 4 a.m. but I was still going in the second unit scene, or on my own with a bunch of extras firing guns."

_______________

Also featured in today's LA Times is Sciffy prez David Howe, who adamantly acknowledges the success and audience Battlestar has brought to SciFi. Howe hints at a mysterious "Holy Grail" multimedia event by 2010 which will embody the future direction of the network.

_______________

Back on December 4, the LA Times Hero Complex blog gave us a heads up and intro to a Sunday edition article discussing the recent wave of scifi remakes and resurrections. Here it is, and BSG is definitely part of the discussion.

"The "Terminator" and "Robocop" franchises are being revved up now for more mechanical-man mayhem, and classic films such as "Forbidden Planet" and "When Worlds Collide" are in the remake pipeline, while the new take on " The Day the Earth Stood Still," starring Keanu Reeves, opens Dec. 12. Even " Battlestar Galactica," which began as a small-screen "Star Wars" knockoff in the 1970s, has been revived with spectacular results and will break new ground in 2009 with the TV movie "Caprica" on Sci Fi, with a series to follow."

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 4 sit-rep

Some news is starting to trickle in from the Battlestar Galactica panel at Dragon-Con, and some really ominous rumours to boot. Word has it that Jamie Bamber and Aaron Douglas had a little roast at the expense of Sci Fi Channel politics, and supposedly "joked" that season 4 was to be split into two stints of ten episodes each, the first half being aired in February 2008, and the second the following February. I've checked around some of the forums and it seems that this truly is a false alarm by attendees of the panel who accepted Bamber and Douglas's gesture as a joke. Many others are skeptical. It's not like we haven't heard "slips" from the actors before that were later confirmed as truth. Nor is it so far fetched to believe the Sci Fi channel would do this, since the second season of BSG was similarly split along with other scheduling catastrophes for other programs.

First report from Ain't it Cool

Rumor catches on at Buddy TV

The fan-world goes nuts, and is undecided as to the validity

Frown not fans. Here's a wonderful thing that came from Dragoncon: An interview with Jamie Bamber. Some great words in there!

Other recent S4 stuffs:

In the span of a week, we thought Kevin Smith was going to guest-direct an episode of BSG in season 4, but it looks like that's a no-go. I stated my feelings on this previously, and I really have respect for Kevin Smith in his own right. He actually, and very humbly, describes in his own blog what happened, and the reasons why he was hesitant himself are exactly the reasons I was hesitant to be enthusiastic about the prospect of a Smith directed BSG episode.


In the meantime, I'm sitting on my hands until an official statement is made concerning the season 4 split.

Here's some news for fans of Ye Olde Tyme BSG... BSG 1980 on DVD rumors!