New Battlestar Galactica, what do we know so far?
In case you were unaware, there is a new Battlestar Galactica coming out. At some point. But no one really knows much about it beyond a few details.
So what do we know?
A brief bit of background. Is this Battlestar Galactica version going to be a reboot?
The original Battlestar Galactica came out in 1978 and only ran for just under a year. I remember watching it as an excited six-year old, wanting something vaguely like Star Wars and not caring if someone was blatantly cashing in (which was utterly on purpose and caused debate). There was a Galactica 1980 show where they made it to Earth but I have largely been successful in suppressing the memory of it. It was not good.
25 years later, it was rebooted by Ronald D. Moore on the Syfy Channel. I remember it vividly as I was working for the Syfy Channel in London at the time. I was mostly open minded about the whole thing. Happily, I didn’t have a website back then because while I was willing to give it a go, I was pretty annoyed that they made Starbuck a woman for no reason. Starbuck was supposed to be a hard drinking, cigar smoking, gambler type. Then the miniseries started and I was totally fine with Katee Sackoff in the role (she was perfect) and thought the series was frakin’ brilliant.
There have been a few spinoffs and movies and a prequel show called Caprica. Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome was available on Youtube at one point and will be findable somewhere (and was great). All of these were linked to the reboot.
In answer to question posed above, this is not a reboot. Like everything from 2004 onwards, this is all set in the universe of the Ronald D. Moore reboot. Which is a good thing.
What do we know about the new one then?
So far not a lot. It was first announced last year with Sam Esmail being named as the executive producer. He did Mr. Robot and the first series of Homecoming, so he seems like a safe pair of hands. It will be written by Michael Lesslie who wrote The Little Drummer Girl.
Where will it air?
It was also announced that it will be on Peacock, the streaming service from NBC Universal that that launched in July 2020. I don’t know much about the service but if Star Trek Discovery is anything to go by it may be exported to more popular platforms later.
What format will the show take?
It won’t be like the 2004 version with fixed episode lengths and so on as it is streaming and doesn’t have to. Most likely, guessing by previous output by Esmail, it will be a 10-13 episode series with varied lengths. Esmail said recently:
“There might be episodes that are longer than others. There might be a three-arc episode that could stretch along three episodes. There might be a standalone episode that’s a half-hour long. We want to play around with all forms.”
When will it come out?
Well, that’s the million dollar question. The new Battlestar Galactica is currently in pre-production. An executive said a few months ago that the show was “progressing nicely”. Which means bugger all but is a hopeful sign. As yet, there is no cast but a script is expected soon. The pesky global virus might slow things down but even so, nothing was likely to appear before the end of 2021. It seems way more likely that we will first get to see it in 2022.
It is hard to be overly excited by something that hasn’t even started filming yet but I love the Battlestar Galactica universe and most of its series. So bollocks. I’m excited. I will update when I find out more.
If you somehow missed the Battlestar Galactica 2004 reboot, it is rather predictably, on Amazon. You can watch it here. (Yes, that is an affiliate link but I need to eat and it costs you nothing. Thank you!)