GALACTICA

It looks like the Sci Fi Channel has gone ahead with the new Battlestar Galactica series, and it’s going to air in 2005. There will initially be 13 one hour episodes.

Richard Hatch, who played Apollo in the classic series is going to make a guest appearance as a “Nelson Mandela-like character” named Peter Zarek.

"It's a character who's been held prisoner," Moore said in an interveiw. "We established in the miniseries that there was a ship of prisoners that are along in the ragtag fleet."

Moore added, "Somewhere in that group of prisoners is a character who's been essentially a prisoner of conscience, who's been in jail going on 20 years. It's possible the character could recur, but that is to be determined."

Back in February, producer Ronald Moore suggested that he may adapt some of the original classic episodes for the new series. He specifically mentioned the Pegasus episode (“The Living Legend”) and the ship of lights (“War of the Gods”).

My commentary here is that there is a definite desire to tie in the new series to the original classic series, and there are two reasons for doing this that have nothing to do with Ronald Moore’s love for the classic series. The first reason is that he wants to give fans of the classic series more reasons to tune into the new series. And the second reason is that creativity is tough work, so it’s easier to reuse old ideas than it is to invent new ones.

The two episodes mentioned are among the most important ones of the original series, and there’s a strong probability that Moore won’t recreate the spirit of those episodes. This is especially likely with the ship of lights episode, because that one was strongly tied in with the Mormon philosophy of the series, and I don’t think that Moore wants to promote that agenda.

“The Living Legend” is the easier episode to translate into the new series because at its heart its just a story about finding a lost battlestar. The conflict between Commander Adama and Commander Cain will work well in the new series, because Moore is mostly interested in showing the bad in humanity. And Cain turned out to be extremely flawed.

“The Living Legend” also presented an opportunity to show the love that Apollo had for his father, as well as the love and respect that the other senior officers had for Adama. Although there were many in the fleet who took Cain’s side because of his legendary status, those who knew Adama well were staunchly loyal to him. In the new Battlestar Galactica, everyone hates and disrespects everyone else, so this theme of loyalty will surely get lost in translation.