Ron Moore walks the picket line

Battlestar Galactica’s head honcho is walking the picket line, too. He tells an anecdote:

“I had a situation last year on Battlestar Galactica where we were asked by Universal to do webisodes [Note: Moore is referring to The Resistance webisodes which ran before Season 3 premiered], which at that point were very new and ‘Oooh, webisodes! What does that mean?’ It was all very new stuff. And it was very eye opening, because the studio’s position was ‘Oh, we’re not going to pay anybody to do this. You have to do this, because you work on the show. And we’re not going to pay you to write it. We’re not going to pay the director, and we’re not going to pay the actors.’ At which point we said ‘No thanks, we won’t do it.'”
[…]
Moore, like most of his fellow writers, was extremely bothered by the studios attempting to designate content shown on the web as “promotional,” even when that content has sponsors and advertisers. “Their position continues to be that this is ‘promotional.’ That they can have it promotional material, free of charge and they can make you do the work and they don’t have to compensate you for it and they don’t have to credit you for it. It’s undercutting everything that the writers have built up in other media. The notion that just because it’s on your computer as opposed to your television set is absurd. It’s an absurd position for them to take, but, you know, if they can pull it off, they’re at the moment of a watershed change of how your media is delivered to you. Your television and your computer are going to become the same device within the foreseeable future. That reality is staring us in the face.”

Also worth mentioning is Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski’s explanation of what is at stake, and this anecdote about “profits” which is really quite eye-opening:

I have a share of the net profits of B5. But by the terms of the deal that was made, WB takes 60% of all monies in overhead, and can charge almost anything they want against profits. If a stage used on some other WB project being shot in Bolivia burns down, they can charge it against B5. Consequently, B5 has never shown a profit even though it’s made half a billion dollars just in DVD sales, leaving out foreign sales, syndication, merchandising and so on.

Battlestar Galactica Razor: Flashbacks 1-4

Galactica: RazorSciFi has a series of seven “flashback” teaser webisodes that they are revealing each week in the runup to the broadcast of Galactica: Razor. There have been four flashbacks aired so far, and while they appear sporadically on YouTube, the best way to view them is directly on SciFi’s website. Here are links and brief description of the four flashbacks so far:

  1. Day 4,571. “William “”Husker”” Adama prepares for his rookie combat mission as a Viper pilot.
  2. The Hangar. A moment in Galactica’s hangar rattles young Adama’s nerves before his first combat flight.
  3. Operation Raptor Talon. Vipers and Raiders face off in a brutal firefight above a remote world defended by the Cylons.
  4. Free Fall. Losing his Viper is just the start of rookie William Adama’s problems today.

Intriguingly, these flashbacks are set during the First Cylon War, and center on Bill Adama as a young rookie. The plot of Razor however will center on Lee Adama’s command of the Pegasus. So it will be quite interesting to see how these elements tie together. Incidentally, the DVDs are also available for pre-order on Amazon.

Galactica season 4 delayed to April

suck it up, meat.

Ronald D. Moore, the executive producer who runs “Battlestar Galactica,” is gearing up for the long goodbye by taking on a new task. He will step into the director’s chair for the first time next season as his dramatic reinvention of the hokey 1970s’ space opera treks toward the end. The final 20-episode run will kick off in — you read it here first — early April.

at this point i am resigned to the idea that season 4 will probably indeed be stretched out to 2009 to milk every last drop from us. Moore directing the final arc doesn’t really do much for me.

Galactica season 5… sort of

Buried in a story about how the dreary “Caprica” spinoff series is not as thankfully DOA as it should be, comes the astounding news that Galactica season 4 might get chopped into two mini-seasons:

SciFi is contemplating holding back “Galactica’s” final ten episodes until 2009 – a move that would apparently please NBC Universal’s accountants, even as it infuriates the show’s rabid fan base. TV Week’s source says SciFi will decide in January.

Under this plan, two hours of the series’ final 20 hours would arrive in November as the “Razor” TV-movie, eight would begin unspooling in January 2008 and the final ten would reach their audience in 2009.

Take that, Mr. Moore and your whole “end the series at the peak of our creative energy and storyline integrity” !

the TV Week story that is quoted by AICN above also has this to say:

With “Battlestar” fans already waiting about a year for the return of the series — not counting the two-hour “Razor” stand-alone movie coming this fall — returning with only 10 episodes could spark a revolt.

Moore’s storyline also could make fans demand rapid closure, one person close to the project says, since “when people see the ending of the 10th episode, they’re gonna freak out.”

maybe, but not like we’ll freak if they force us to wait an extra year to see episode 11.

so say we all?

Contra Edward James Olmos’ assertion a few days ago that Galactica would end after finding Earth in season 4, comes this from producer David Eick:

Contrary to comments by Edward James Olmos (Adm. Adama) at the Saturn Awards on May10, no end has been announced for the award-winning show. Battlestar Galactica is preparing to film its fourth season, one that will include 22 episodes, rather than the previously announced 13.

“For those of you who have been paying attention over the years, this is not the first time Eddie has made an announcement about the possibility of the show’s end,” chuckled Eick. “I promise you that when [executive producer] Ron [Moore] and I make a decision about Galactica’s future, we’ll let you know.”

The plot thickens. Note that Ron Moore has not weighed in himself, as yet. Also, I think that it’s significant that Eick didn’t bother to address the fact that they are finding Earth next season. I think we can safely assume that to be the case regardless of whether the powers that be decide that Galactica needs a season 5.

However, given SciFi’s track record on canceling shows, the expensive nature of production for Galactica, and the fact that Galactica almost had no season 3 or a half-season 4, I think Eick is just blowing smoke here.

UPDATE: From a SciFi Q&A with Ron Moore a while back:

I think our show has a definite beginning, middle and end. There’s a story to be told here that moves toward a definite conclusion and I think our biggest mistake would be to just try and continue to churn out episodes for as long as we could get them on the air. Certain stories need an ending, and this is one of them. I’ll miss it more than you can know, but you gotta be true to the tale you’re telling.

I think that pretty much settles it. Incidentally, the rest of that Q&A is worth reading, particularly for this nugget:

Q. Do you already know who the fifth cylon of the final five is? If so, have you already left us some clues?

A. Yes and yes.