The cast and exec producers of Battlestar Galactica droppedmere crumbs of real info about the final 10 episodes of the series at their Comic-Con panel, but no one in the capacity audience seemed to mind a whit. Thehour, in fact, concluded with a spontaneous standing ovation that surprised andclearly moved panelists Katee Sackhoff, James Callis (pictured, right), Tricia Helfer (pictured, left), MichaelTrucco, Jamie Bamber (a surprise, unlisted addition), exec producers David Eickand Ronald Moore, and last-minute drop-in Tahmoh Penikett — and they stood andapplauded right back.
In between, the BSG panel was mostly a chance foreveryone on the stage to crack wise (in both senses of the term), about theircharacters and the show itself, with moderator Kevin Smith, who introducedhimself with his trademark coarse wit: "I have nothing to do with this show,which is probably why it is so f—ing good." (No fraks for Mr. Smith.) Thepanel began with a trailer of the coming season, which featured a frisky,kissing Adm. Adama and President Roslin (Adama to Roslin: "If I’m a Cylon,you’re really screwed"); what appeared to be a President Tom Zarek; and lots ofguns, fighting, blood and misery. Yep, as Moore put it, "things aren’tpretty."
Otherwise, the cast mostly just fielded Smith’s pointed(lyfunny) questions. How does Sackhoff feel about being a female, and gay, icon?(Mostly, speechless.) Does Trucco, who started as a guest star on season 2 andbecame one of the fabled final five Cylons by season 3, believe himself tobe the luckiest bastard on the planet? (Absolutely.) Instead of ending thefirst half of season 4 (FRAKKING SPOILER ALERT!) reaching a barren,irradiated, and abandoned Earth, why didn’t they make it a battle between our Earth and the BSG fleet instead, as that would have be way, way cooler? (Eickpunted and instead joked about deciding whether to cap off the first 10 epswith the discovery of Earth or the revelation that Baltar was the finalCylon — whoops! I’m pretty sure he was kidding, folks, but the real mind-frak iswhether this means Baltar isn’t the final Cylon.)
After Smith asked thepanel about their favorite bad-ass moments on the show, we did get a peek at thefinal episode, when both Helfer and then Callis talked about finally enjoying thechance to shoot guns in a BSG firefight in the final episode. "I’m not spoilinganything, I promise," Helfer said. But when Callis started likening making thefinale to Apocalypse Now, it was pretty clear the show would be going out with abang. And, according to the earnest testimonials from Bamber and Penikett, asupremely satisfying bang. "The ending is an ending," Bamber said. "It’s utterlysublime. It does everything and everyone justice." Added Penikett, "You guys aregoing to be blown away."
And, all kidding aside from Eick, there wasn’tmuch in the way of hints about the great unanswered question of the show: Whois the final Cylon? Smith tried to goad the cast to spill the goods — "F—these dudes! Your jobs [are] over! Tell us!" — but they wouldn’t budge. There waspractically no time for audience questions, but someone did plead for any hintat all as to who this last frakking toaster may be (to some grumbles of protestfrom spoiler-averse audience members), but all Moore would say is it is someonewe’ve previously seen on the show.
Finally, after the standing O, thehour concluded with a first look at the trailer for the BSG prequel series, Caprica, starring Esai Morales as an Adama ancestor whose loss of his youngdaughter prods a scientist (Eric Stoltz) to experiment in creating…an exactreplica of her. Like, say, the humanoid Cylons perhaps?Innnnnnteresting.
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Frisky Adama? Man, it sure is going to be hard to wait until 2009 to see that…
oK…So Adama & Roslin kiss but what about STARBUCK & APOLLO??
Pleaseeeee, tell me there is hope for those two!!!!
“which featured a frisky, kissing Adm. Adama and President Roslin”
Is dead…
some people says that the trailer shows a Kara/Kee kiss too, btw.
Roslin and Adama KISSING? Frisky?! OMGs *dies of squee*
I.can’t.wait.
Who cares?This show was so slow for the first two years,it’s no wonder it was canceled..You needed a map just to try and follow the plot..
Who cares?This show was so slow for the first two years,it’s no wonder it was canceled..You needed a map just to try and follow the plot..
tom vire – it wasn’t canceled, they let NBC universal know that they had an end to the story in sight and wanted to end it with a definite time frame. And it’s a brilliant show.
Adam, you rock! Thanks so much for doing such a fantastic job reporting this. I am very excited to find out how the show will end. It’s good that all involved are so confident about the ending. After all, even though they are in the show, they are also fans of the story. I can’t wait!
I was lucky enough to see this panel (it came right after Dollhouse so I stuck around). Whedon and Dushku were a tough act to follow, and I am not a huge BSG fan, but I have watched a few episodes, and I thought this might have been the best panel I saw all weekend. The audience was so into it and the panel took every question very seriously. The guy who plays Balthar had amazingly thoughtful answers, and the woman who plays 6 seemed really intelligent also. Actually everyone was pretty impressive. The moderator gave Lee Adama a hard time for some of his glib answers, but I thought he was funny. Starbuck told a great story about the director telling Helo he shoots guns like a girl, then Helo (who had not been onstage) came on and seemed to dispute that. Seemed like a cast that really appreciated being on such a great show. The audience clapped after some of the responses, they were so good.
I think Starbuck’s exact line, describing Helo shooting guns, was “He looked like Blue Steel meets Xanadu.” The room loved that, so I thought readers might too.
Any one ever think it might be an animal- The lawyers cat, or maybe the Daggot????
HAHAHAHAHA
I wanna see STARBUCK AND APOLLO KISSING!!!
Can’t wait for the last 10 episodes! Gotta say I was dissapointed by the first 10 though…too much Baltar and not enough of everyone else!
Thanks for the report, Adam. The quote you have from Adama to Roslin (“If I’m a Cylon then you’re really screwed”) Is interesting because it’s almost word for word from season 1. When they recycle quotes (“I’ve never seen him (you) at the Cylon parties”) it usually turns out to be true. *frets for the Old Man* At least we’re getting a bit of making out between Adama and Roslin. Maybe they’ll reveal Adama with a glowing spine…
Any word on when the season 4.5 teaser trailer will be made public?
Also, I’m re-watching BSG from the beginning during this hiatus. I recommend everyone do that. It really has been the best show on tv for the last few years.
When I heard that the sneak peek of season 4.5 included Starbuck/Apollo kissing *squee* (which to me is why hotter than mom & pop’s but to each their own) I got so excited and went to look on youtube but no one had posted it yet. Hopefully someone got it on video.
It’d be interesting if Adama was a cylon b/c Lee would then be a hybrid. I still think it’s Helo though with Hera being the first true cylon offspring.
Did anybody ever think that the last Cylon could be the Daniel Novecek guy from the Episode “Hero”? They tortured that guy for a long time, if Dee Anna was gonna say sorry to somebody it would be him. They kept him like a pet. And he was actually able to get away which would be quite a feet for a mere human.
Great recap, thanks!
And I, too, hope that new promo shows up soon… (Oh, and Starbuck and Apollo kissing should have been mentioned, btw—fans of that ’ship were really cheated in 4.0! I’m all for Roslin/Adama, but K/L are my number 1)
Just as I wrote on my blog at Sci Fi Scoop, I’m going with Lieutenant Gaeta as the final Cylon.
my pick is either ellen tight, yeah we saw her die but was she really dead we never saw if col tigh got rid of the body or just left her in the bunker!!! and next would be Dee somthing about her has always been sus most cylons alliang theselves with someone in power first it was billy then lee…but in the long run I know who ever it is would rock as long as its not starbuck, laura, adama or laura I am gonna be happy/shocked and just loving the twists it better than “who shot Jr” god I am old.
there is no doubt in my mind the best possible cylon would be laura rosalyn. leaving starbuck to lead the good guys to earth. the real earth.
with every thing else being taken off the air please keep the battle star on make as many series that you can make like a life of it’s own if you know what i mean, keep the stry going and make it strong, i love it, besides when they took off the x-files they did wrong??
please don’t do that make it a shocker for the star buck, and adama surely make his a life shocker also.
The last cylon is Billy, it’s freakin’ Billy! I don’t know why Tigh saw Ellen on Earth, though I think it probably has something to do with some bigger revelation in the last couple of episodes (everyone’s a cylon, or something, or time’s gone crazy and the Earth-Ellen was the copy…or suchlike). But given the way the cylons deployed themselves, Billy was attatched to Roslin; he died, Tori took his place (yes, I know she didn’t know, but something in her programming compelled her).
God I’m obsessed with this show.