Skip to main content

Sci Fi Announces Autumn "Battlestar Galactica" Movie; ABC Locks Up its Lineup

Want more Battlestar Galactica? Your wish is my command.

Following its upfront presentation yesterday in New York, Sci Fi announced that it would significantly augment the episodic count for the previous announced fourth season of the show, increasing the installments from 13 to 22 episodes. Season Four of Battlestar Galactica is currently slated to launch on the cabler in January.

If that wasn't enough good news, Sci Fi also announced (I'm sure in an attempt to sate fans' appetites for BSG until 2008) that it would be airing a two-hour Battlestar Galactica movie sometime this fall, bridging the gap between the series' third season (wrapping up on Sunday with an incredible twist) and the fourth season.

However, Mark Stern, EVP of original programming at Sci Fi, said that, while the two-hour BSG flick (which will be released on DVD, separate from the box sets) features the entire Battlestar cast (read: Starbuck) it will won't necessarily relate to the current storyline. Meaning that it could be a flashback story, fleshing out some of the character's backstories or could be a specific storyline set in the past. Curiouser and curiouser.

In other scheduling news, ABC locked up most of its real estate yesterday, when it gave early full-season pickups to a whopping 11 (yes, you read that correctly, 11!) series for the 2007-08 season.

Early pickups include full second seasons for freshers Brothers & Sisters, Ugly Betty, and Men in Trees. Those series will return next season to the schedule, along with returning series Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and Boston Legal.

On the reality side, returning in 2007-08 are The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and late night talkshow Jimmy Kimmel Live. ABC had previously granted additional season to unscripted series Supernanny, Wife Swap, and America's Funniest Home Videos (which apparently will never, ever die).

With 14 of its possible 21 primetime hours already locked up, I'm extremely intrigued to see which pilots ABC ends up ordering to series and how it structures its lineup, following the debacle it created in the poor scheduling this season with Lost.

Has ABC learned its lesson? Will it be January before we see Season Four of Lost? Stay tuned as the May upfront presentations loom ever closer...

Comments

Anonymous said…
While not at all a surprise, I am very happy to see the pickup for B&S. While even less of a surprise, I am also glad to see the official UB pickup.
Another BSG season plus a movie? You just made my day!
Anonymous said…
I can never get enough of BSG. January is way to long to wait.

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns