Battlestar Galactica is many things to many people. To those of us of a certain age, it is a short-lived show where an entire race recovered from genocide by visiting a 70s style disco casino planet, and then Barry Van Dyke ruined it for everyone.
To others Battlestar Galactica is a seminal sci-fi show from Ron Moore starting in 2003, perhaps one of the best, where even now at least half the fans would have to admit they still aren’t 100% sure they have figured out the ending.
For a minority it may be an exceptionally good, but ultimately ill-fated rollercoaster at Universal Studios in Singapore that led to a five year legal battle and an engineering challenge.
Either way, it’s about to get reborn for a new generation. Back in 2019, before the dark times, before the ‘rona, Universal wanted a reboot for Peacock with Mr. Robot and Homecoming creator Sam Esmail in charge.
Warning bells already sounded when, shortly after the announcement, Esmail stated that it wasn’t a remake and will:
“…explore a new story within the mythology while staying true to the spirit of Battlestar.”
Caprica, anyone? Esmail has now given more details to Collider recently in a recent interview:
“We’re still working on the pilot. Look, it’s a big universe, it’s a big world, I want to respect the Ronald Moore ‘Battlestar.’ I spoke to him before I even took on the project to make sure that it’s all kosher with him, because the last thing I want to do is step on his toes, and the one thing we both agreed on is that it won’t be a reboot of what he did. Which I think we both wanted.
It’s still in the early phases of trying to figure out the world via the pilot. I think we’ve got the basic construction of the type of story we want to tell, the part of mythology that we’re gonna explore – because ‘Battlestar’ does have a rich mythology and again I have to give Ron a lot of credit for that – and so now we’re sort of closing in on what that pilot’s gonna look like.”
Esmail also spoke about streaming release strategies and declared himself flexible, binge watch or weekly release is all the same to him. Personally after spoiling myself with binge watching I now find weekly releases frustrating, but I understand the business logic behind them.
