Heard the news? Apparently on Mar 18th, Scifi channel announced they’d picked it up as a two-hour backdoor pilot and depending on ratings, might make it into a series. It’ll have BSG’s current producers as well as “24 writer Remi Aubuchon, who is writing the pilot and is set to be the show runner.”
You can google the news yourself or read the wiki article.
I’ll watch of course. It sounds very soap-opera and I’m not convinced Ron Moore can do character-driven soap opera. Bring in Whedon.
BSG has left me caring more about the story than the characters, so it’ll be interesting what he makes of the Caprica series. We already know what happens, basically, so the characters would have to be pretty compelling.
Why is David Eick on board? Didn’t he screw up Bionic Woman?
I suspect that it would be like the Star Wars Prequels, where everything is just politics and run-up to the actual events. I’d distrust that the BSG crew would be any more successfull than Lucas at creating a compelling story about political maneuvering and corporate clashes. And yeah, they tend to not write the most interesting characters.
Now, if they brought in David Wingrove (author of Chung Kuo) or someone like that to come up with the overall story and oversee the script writers, that’d be worth serialising.
(I’ll just note that I’d recommend the manga, Desert Punk, to anyone interested in such a thing. Haven’t seen the anime, so I can’t vouch for it.)
The problem with setting this project up as a back door pilot is that it’s ability to be a one-off movie will be strained. The writers have to leave a bunch of loose ends, in case there’s a series. If they treated it as a pure stand alone movie or mini-series, they could actually tell a complete story. Either commit to a damn movie/mini-series, or commit to a damn series. Sci-Fi’s half assed treatment of it’s most valuable property just burns me.
If Sci-Fi was so interested in the BSG property in the first place, they could have green lit the 2 seasons Moore & Eick asked for. This reeks of Sci-Fi finding a way to keep BSG viewers with a cheaper product. I’ll watch, because I’m that kind of geek, but my expectations will be far from great.
That being said, my life currently revolves around Friday’s premier.
I’m going to disagree: I’ve yet to see Season 3 (so please don’t spoil it for me!) of BSG but Season 2 had episodes which majorly sucked. I expect S3 has the same. Now they’ve got a definitive wrap-up date, I expect much less suckitude from Season 4: they simply won’t have the time. However, brief excursions into other eras may well be very interesting.
The episodes that sucked are usually due to the network mandate of ‘stand alone, accessible’ episodes. You want to disagree with me, but I think in reality we’re on the same page. We want good stuff that doesn’t suck. I’m hoping that we’re in for a hell of a ride in season 4.
Now go and get the season 3 dvds. Now! What are you waiting for?
OT, sorry, but you might be the first person I’ve come across who knows about Chung Kuo. Have you ever seen the final book? I’ve been looking for it for 6 years with no success. I have heard it sucks but I need the closure!
No, I’ve only gotten through to about the 4th, maybe 5th book. Darn things are so complex that if you set it down for a month, you forget what was happening, so I’ve read through about twice to somewhere midway in, but never had a couple months to just sit and read through them without breaking.
[spoiler]And killing off the main bad guy just to clone him back was a bit silly, even if he did set it up with the finger.
Of course that always made me want to say, “Well obviously the author chose that particular body part because he wanted to give naysayers the finger!”[/spoiler]
Reading through the reviews it looks like the final book is significantly different. Sounds to me like a manga series I once read where it had about 15 volumes about a young couple meeting and falling in love, to finally happily get together in the end…oh but wait that wasn’t the end. Unlike most things you’ll ever read, the series went on the faithfully depict the couple’s one-night fit of unprotected passion leading to pregnancy, a sudden marriage, and having to deal with balancing having a family with trying to find a living that fulfills their dreams for life. So 15 books were basic man meets girl, and 15 or so were OMG REAL LIFE. The switch was unsettling to say the least, but in the end interesting enough to continue on. I’d probably only read up to the switch over or from the switch over if I was to go through it again. But I could see that it would be rather less reasonable if it was 8 books one way and 1 the other.
Say what now? Do you mean the premiere for Season 4? I thought that wasn’t being broadcast until later this year?
As for Caprica, I have to say I’m a bit meh about it as it has the capacity to do for BSG what the Star Wars prequels did for the later films - come up with a history that is lamer than what people had made up in their own heads (disappointment ensues).
Yeah, but the Star Wars prequels had lots of action and special effects and scifi goodness in general. Caprica sounds a bit like Dallas with maybe the occasional spaceship flying by overhead.
No, you only have to wait a few weeks (I say two but it may be more, but I know it’s not long). For me personally it’ll be even longer to see BSG as it shows here on the Sky channel which I can’t get with my cable provider, so I have to wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it. Which sucks as the cliff hanger at the end of S3 really needs resolving for me - say one thing about BSG they know how to do end of series cliff hangers, each one gets bigger and badder than the last.
