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.

Hero

After a long break, my wife and I finally watched another season 3 episode last night, Hero. It was a pretty cool look back at pre-war Adama. The flashbacks added some nice information to my understanding of the state of affairs before the Cylon attacks. As a self-contained episode, I enjoyed it. I'm still not entirely sure what's up with the existential crisis that Xena Cylon is having. I'm sure that will become clear shortly.

Season 3 half mini-marathon end of November

I falsely reported awhile back that season 3 would be rerun again through October. This was an assumption based on the fact that the Sci Fi Channel had been rerunning season 3 in a continuous loop, and after finishing one season 3 rerun in early September, it had continued right along again with scheduling the first two episodes of season 3 for the final two weeks of September.

Of course, I made that assumption before schedule-bot had October's schedule up, which was instead jam-packed with Halloween programming, and neigh a trace of season 3. Well, we got Razor Flashbacks at least.

... and speaking of those Razor Flashbacks. As the 8 total minisodes lead up to the double episode Razor event on November 24, Sciffy has scheduled a kind of half mini-marathon of season 3 in the wee hours for the night before and the night of the big event. It looks like first they will be picking up right where they left off (episode 2 "Precipice") at the end of September, with episode 3 of season 3 "Exodus Part 1" starting at 1:30am (EST?) on November 24th (however this actually appears on the November 23rd schedule, in true schedule-bot form). They will air 4 epsodes in a row through the wee hours of the night/morning, and commence the following evening after Razor is aired twice almost in a row with only a few more episodes. At the end, we will be at epsiode 10 of season 3, and my hopes are that they will continue in December with the last 10 episodes, and perhaps we will get another actual full marathon before season 4 starts (which apparently "early 2008" is definitely not January, and could be as late as April).

Here's another thing - either there is a flaw in the scheduling, and actual airing will be different, or Sciffy is messing with us again... or it's still early and they haven't cleaned up the scheduling yet. Maybe I'm the one who's messed up. Noted below *

Confused yet? Either refer to the link I posted above, or look below. I'm just posting the relevant stuff:

November 23, 2007 on SciFi:

9:00 - 10:30 PM - Star Trek Enterprise w/ BSG minisodes
(looks like they will be airing them all together after STE?!)

November 24, 2007:

1:30 AM - Exodus Part 1 (S3 E3)
2:30 AM - Exodus Part 2 (S3 E4)
* S3 E5 "Collaborators" is not scheduled to air!?
3:30 AM - Torn (S3 E6) * Sciffy calls this part 1!?
4:30 AM - A Measure of Salvation (S3 E7) *Sciffy calls this part 2!?

9:00 PM - RAZOR

November 25, 2007:

1:00 AM - RAZOR (again!)
3:00 AM - Hero (S3 E8)
4:00 AM - Unfinished Business (S3 E9)
5:00 AM - The Passage (S3 E10)


That's it for the rest of November. At this point, December's schedule-bot hasn't kicked in yet, so we'll just have to see if they finish it up. If you type in a search on schedule-bot, it tells me "12/07/2007 08:00 AM DAYTIME ROTATION - BATTLESTAR GALACTICA" so hopefully that means season 3 continues in December :D

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.

Season 3 rerun reboots in September

Not many people may know that Battlestar's season 3 has been rerun late nights on the Sci Fi Channel ever since the actual season finale this past spring. The show time has consistently been at 2:00 am EST on Saturday mornings (or Friday nights, depending on your lifestyle - read below for notes on Sci Fi's schedule-bot scheduling), with some exceptions. The exception this week will be a Stargate marathon. However, on September 7/8 the Battlestar reruns will continue with part 1 of the season finale Crossroads, followed by part 2 the following week on September 14/15.

The good news is that the Sci Fi channel will start right back up at the beginning of season 3 with the season premiere The Occupation, the very next week; September 21/22 at 2am EST, then continuing on with the rest of season 3 once again, same time as usual.

That's plenty of time to get some blank VHS tapes, DVD-RAM, or to clean out the good ol' DVR. Of course we could make every Friday night a Frak party, and stay up until the wee hours watching each episode. Of course what I think we're all waiting for is the DVD release of season 3, but who knows when the hack that will be.


Notes on Sci Fi's schedule-bot:

- It's a good idea (in my geeky opinion at least) to bookmark Sci Fi schedule-bot main index page in your browser so every time you open it, the schedule for that day will come up. The daily scheduling is listed from 6:00 am to 5:00 am the following morning. You'll see the listings for Battlestar when you click on Fridays (in the monthly calendars at the bottom of the page), even though it's actually scheduled for 2am on Saturdays. Set your recording devices accordingly, and lock s-foils in attack position. :D

Don't forget the webisodes!

Before starting watching season 3 from the beginning again, don't forget to first watch the 10 part series of short webisodes titled Resistance. These minis cover what happened on NC right before the first episode of season 3 begins. They can be viewed here on the Sci Fi Pulse site, as well as all together in one cut here.

The link to Battlestar Wiki's season 3 episode guide is now available in the sidebar as well.