Comic-Con: Want to know who the final Cylon will be on 'Battlestar Galactica'?
Jul 26, 2008, 09:56 PM | by Adam B. Vary
Categories: 'Battlestar Galactica', Comic-Con 2008
The cast and exec producers of Battlestar Galactica dropped
mere 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. The
hour, in fact, concluded with a spontaneous standing ovation that surprised and
clearly moved panelists Katee Sackhoff, James Callis (pictured, right), Tricia Helfer (pictured, left), Michael
Trucco, Jamie Bamber (a surprise, unlisted addition), exec producers David Eick
and Ronald Moore, and last-minute drop-in Tahmoh Penikett -- and they stood and
applauded right back.
In between, the BSG panel was mostly a chance for everyone on the stage to crack wise (in both senses of the term), about their characters and the show itself, with moderator Kevin Smith, who introduced himself 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.) The panel 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 of guns, fighting, blood and misery. Yep, as Moore put it, "things aren't pretty."
Otherwise, the cast mostly just fielded Smith's pointed(ly funny) 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 and became one of the fabled final five Cylons by season 3, believe himself to be the luckiest bastard on the planet? (Absolutely.) Instead of ending the first 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? (Eick punted and instead joked about deciding whether to cap off the first 10 eps with the discovery of Earth or the revelation that Baltar was the final Cylon — whoops! I'm pretty sure he was kidding, folks, but the real mind-frak is whether this means Baltar isn't the final Cylon.)
After Smith asked the panel about their favorite bad-ass moments on the show, we did get a peek at the final episode, when both Helfer and then Callis talked about finally enjoying the chance to shoot guns in a BSG firefight in the final episode. "I'm not spoiling anything, I promise," Helfer said. But when Callis started likening making the finale to Apocalypse Now, it was pretty clear the show would be going out with a bang. And, according to the earnest testimonials from Bamber and Penikett, a supremely satisfying bang. "The ending is an ending," Bamber said. "It's utterly sublime. It does everything and everyone justice." Added Penikett, "You guys are going to be blown away."
And, all kidding aside from Eick, there wasn't much in the way of hints about the great unanswered question of the show: Who is 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 was practically no time for audience questions, but someone did plead for any hint at all as to who this last frakking toaster may be (to some grumbles of protest from spoiler-averse audience members), but all Moore would say is it is someone we've previously seen on the show.
Finally, after the standing O, the hour 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 young daughter prods a scientist (Eric Stoltz) to experiment in creating...an exact replica of her. Like, say, the humanoid Cylons perhaps? Innnnnnteresting.
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