[Televisionary]

Cylon ? Clone? Resurrected human? A ghost? A demon? Just what is Kara " Starbuck " Thrace since returning from the clutches of death last season? Tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Someone to Watch Over Me") looks like it will finally answer that elusive question as Kara seeks some answers about her, er, condition and gains some shocking revelations about her true nature. While I have no knowledge of the upcoming plot twists ahead on Battlestar Galactica , the promo for tonight's episode (which can be found below) had me pondering some theories of my own, building on that of my recent theory about Kara's parentage and what I know from the two-hour pilot for prequel series Caprica . I posited a few weeks back that Kara is actually the offspring of a human mother and the Cylon Model Seven, named Daniel. Which is why she is so vital to the Cylon race... and why Simon went so far as to remove her ovaries back on Caprica (remember that dangli

I am really, really disheartened by the recent news that Universal is developing a feature film version of Battlestar Galactica . What's that you say? Shouldn't I be chuffed that Battlestar Galactica is heading to the big screen? Well, I would be if the version of BSG that was being developed as a feature was the current Sci Fi drama (which wraps its final season next month), executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, rather than the original, less dark 1970s version created by Glen A. Larson ( Magnum, P.I. ). (You know, the one in which Starbuck was a, well, man.) And yet that's just what Universal is doing. According to the Hollywood Reporter , Universal has "quietly entered into negotiations with Glen A. Larson to write and produce a big-screen version of the property he created." The original Battlestar Galactica series shares a similar premise with the current series: the human race, existing in a settlement of Twelve Colonies, is all but wiped

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Hopefully everyone is recovered from Oscar weekend and perhaps some of you even made some quick cash from some Oscar pools. FOX drama Fringe will move its production from New York City, where it has shot its first season, to Vancouver, Canada, should the series be renewed for a second season. The decision, made by studio Warner Bros. Television, is said to have been made because of the likelihood that New York State's film/TV production tax incentive initiative funds, which have run out of coin, will not be replenished. "In this challenging and uncertain economic environment, we have made the very difficult decision to move," said Warner Bros. in a statement. "We did not come to this conclusion easily, but economic and practical imperatives dictated that this decision be made in a timely manner." ( Entertainment Weekly ) In its second outing, FOX's Dollhouse fell fifteen percent in the ratings on Friday,

While I was fairly effusive with my thoughts about last week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("No Exit") and my theories about the history and future of the Cylon race, Daniel, and Kara Thrace , there was one thing that I wanted to know more about: the episode's title. As I mentioned in my previous write-up about the episode, the title seems to be a deliberate allusion to Jean-Paul Sartre's 1944 existentialist play "Huis Clos" (translated in English as "No Exit"), given the episode's use of Ellen Tigh, John Cavil, and Boomer in a similar fashion as the three characters (Garcin, Ines, and Estelle) in Sartre's work, which provided the basis for his most quoted aphorism, "Hell is other people." (And the Cylon centurion who helps Ellen out of her goo bath? Clearly a nod to the Valet in Sartre's play.) I emailed Battlestar Galactica 's script coordinator, Ryan Mottesheard, who wrote "No Exit" to ask him if he in

Ending several months of speculation, The Paley Center for Media has today announced the full lineup for PaleyFest09 , the 26th Annual William S. Paley Television Festival. Among the honorees this year are the casts and creators of 90210 , Battlestar Galactica and Caprica , The Big Bang Theory, Big Love, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Fringe, The Hills, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Mentalist, Swingtown, and True Blood . PaleyFest09 will be held from April 10th to April 23rd at the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood; the Paley Center will also present a special closing night presentation honoring Swingtown at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills on April 24. Other festival firsts this year? PaleyFest09 will be the festival event to honor a new media property, in this case Joss Whedon's celebrated web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog , and will be the first to premiere the last three unseen episodes of A

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. TV Guide has an interview with Lost 's Michael Emerson, in which the actors teases some details about upcoming storylines on the ABC drama. My favorite bit? "I may go so far as to say we may already know Annie," said Emerson cryptically. "Have you considered that? I'm not speaking from knowledge of a script because that's not a thing that has been written, but stranger things have happened on the show. Everyone is more connected then they ever thought, and it's often by blood." Hmmm... And, speaking about Jacob, the enigmatic leader of the Others, Emerson had this to say: "Jacob seems to have fallen away from our consciousness. The show is so much more wrapped up in intermediary leader figures. There seems to be a whole raft of people Ben must answer to, but they're not as high up as Jacob. Jacob seems to have receded into the mist again — sort of mysterious and godlike. He continues to

"Hell is other people." - Jean-Paul Sartre It's hardly a coincidence that this week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("No Exit"), written by Ryan Mottesheard, shares its title with one of Sartre's best known works, a play about three people trapped in a room with no escape, forced to argue for all eternity. Yes, hell is other people and Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon) discovers that when she's imprisoned aboard a base ship with only John Cavil and Boomer as her companions and captors. It's in that room that Ellen regains her memories of her true life, one lived on Earth and as the creator of the so-called Cylon skinjobs, eight humanoid models that were gifted (or is it cursed?) with bodies comprised of flesh instead of metal and programmed with the Centurions' belief in one true God. Wait? Eight humanoid models? Yep, you read that correctly. So strap on your Viper gear and let's discuss the history of the Cylon race, Daniel, the Colony, and Ka

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing. Cabler FX is developing a series adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's comic series Powers , about two police detectives in the homicide division assigned to cases involving super-powers. “ Powers is in active development as a pilot at FX,” Bendis told MTV. “I just handed in a draft to the network and we’re getting our notes from the network as soon as this thing is over. So next week I’ll get the notes, and as long as they don’t involve sock puppets and some sort of orgy scene that I’m not interested in, then hopefully it will go in the right direction.” ( MTV's Splash Page ) More discussion about Tom Zarek's motivations during the recent two-episode arc on Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica , this time from Richard Hatch himself, who eloquently commented on Maureen Ryan's thread about the most recent episode ("Blood on the Scales") over at the Chicago Tribune 's site. "First

"When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood, it is hard to shake hands with her." - Oscar Wilde What price does freedom have? How far are revolutionaries willing to go to overthrow the status quo? When does the overthrow of the status quo become nothing more than mutiny, tyranny, and anarchy? These are the questions posed by this week's superlative episode of Battlestar Galactica , written by Michael Angeli and directed by Wayne Rose, in which Gaeta and Zarek's overthrow of the Adama-Roslin administration kicked into high gear, the Quorum of Twelve had their final meeting, and Roslin proved just why she earned the nickname "Madame Airlock." If you thought that the coup engineered by Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek would end peacefully with everyone hugging and singing a round of Kumbaya, you're clearing watching the wrong series. No, this coup ended as it began: with bloodshed, enmity, and punishment for wrongdoing. Let's discuss. Over the past few sea

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing. Chuck creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak said that this season's finale will be "game changing" for Chuck and his band of spies. "We're going to launch the show in a really exciting direction next year. We designed our season heading toward it," said Schwartz, appearing this weekend at New York Comic-Con. While Schwartz and Fedak are being tight-lipped, they did mention that Jordana Brewster will reprise her role as Chuck's deadly ex Jill in an upcoming episode. ( TV Guide ) Entertainment Weekly 's Michael Ausiello has the character breakdowns for the CW's planned update of Melrose Place , including a character who is the son of the original's Jake (Grant Show), an omni-sexual PR maven, a wannabe filmmaker, a recovering alcoholic, a med student turning tricks to pay her tuition, and a teenage sex kitten. The pilot, produced by CBS Paramount Network Television, will be overseen by Smallv

Welcome to your Thursday morning television briefing. My mind is still buzzing after last night's double-bill of Lost and Damages . Pay cabler HBO has renewed drama Big Love , about the polygamist Henrickson clan, for a fourth season. Production will begin later this year for a 2010 launch. "The stellar reviews and solid viewership this season confirm that this is a signature series for HBO," said Michael Lombardo, president of programming at HBO. "The series keeps getting better and better." (I have to agree with him: this season has been absolutely amazing!) Once DVR, encores, and VOD ratings are added in to Big Love 's initial airing, viewing figures soar to about 5 million, on par with HBO's True Blood . ( Variety , Hollywood Reporter ) Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J are said to be in final talks to star in CBS' untitled NCIS spin-off. Chris O'Donnell would play Callen, a man capable of changing into various different personas with ease,

It's hard to let an episode of Battlestar Galactica go by without saying anything, especially as the series only has a handful of episodes before it sails off among the stars (sadly, with no resurrection ship anywhere in sight). While I wasn't going to write about this past week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("A Disquiet Follows My Soul"), which found the ragtag Colonial Fleet dealing with a number of internal fractures, from Laura Roslin deciding to stop treatment for her cancer, Gaeta stirring dissent among the shell-shocked crew of the Galactica, and Tom Zarek making a power grab with Roslin indisposed. While this episode--written and directed by Ronald D. Moore--lacked, say, the narrative heft of the previous week's installment ("Sometimes a Great Notion"), it perhaps will later be viewed as an installment which figuratively drew a line in the sand for the series's characters. After learning that Earth was no more than a barren wastelan

The sound of the collective gasp last Friday when Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica revealed the identity of the fabled Final Cylon could have broken the stratosphere, so unexpected was its raw power. For those of you who saw "Sometimes a Great Notion," the end of the episode featured Colonel Tigh (Michael Hogan) experience a vision after wading out into the ocean on the newly discovered planet Earth. A vision in which he sees the face of the Final Cylon, long hidden from the humans, the skinjobs, and the other members of the vaunted Final Five. (And if you haven't yet seen the episode, consider yourself warned at this point.) Written by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, the episode was gorgeous and somber and featured a jaw-dropping flashback from Colonel Tigh as he recalled the final member of their disparate group. A few days later, Battlestar Galactica co-creator/executive producer Ronald D. Moore and Kate Vernon, who plays Ellen Tigh, a.k.a. the Final Cylon, gath