I’ve not ended the So Say We All blog carnival for simply one reason: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan – the BSG telemovie – airs in September and from what I read this weekend on SciFi Wire, it’s gonna be amazing.
It’s written by Jane Espenson and directed by Edward James Olmos and it’s not exactly a secret what it’s about: It’s the Cylon perspective on basically the entire series. How and why the Cylons did what they did.
I think it’s a brilliant move because we pretty much were conditioned to believe the Cylons were just bad, unfeeling machines. Sure, they were given more humanity than the original BSG allowed, but in the end, they were bent on the destruction of humanity and, being human, that didn’t go over too well with us, the viewers.
Lest we forget, it was humanity who made the first move, by making slaves out of the machines. (I have the Caprica miniseries on DVD, by the way, and just haven’t had a chance to watch it. I’m hoping the slow summer season gives me the opportunity to watch it and finish Season 1 of Torchwood, too, but that’s another story for another day.)
One of the nice things about the telemovie, I believe, is that it’s going to give more airtime to some of the lesser-known characters. We had lots of time with the various iterations of Six, we got lots of D’Anna and the Sharons. Leoben had a not insignificant amount of screentime. But considering his role in everything, Cavil didn’t get as much play as one might have expected.
And Simon and Theodore (sorry, Aaron) got so little screentime it was easy to forget one or both of them. Aaron had virtually no facetime with the audience after the miniseries and Simon was in those couple of episodes that took place on the radioactive Caprica when Starbuck met Anders, and then showed up most as window dressing after that.
One might think we’d see more of those two in particular because they sided with Brother Cavil, and this is, after all, Cavil’s war.
Olmos pretty much confirmed that much in the SciFi Wire article, saying Dean Stockwell was basically the star of the telemovie:
I have to tell you right now, Dean Stockwell is a brilliant artist. He does a magnificent job of leading The Plan. The Plan is exactly that. It was how they planned to do what they did and what happened. It was monumental. All I can tell you is it’s an extraordinary look at the Cylons, how they masterminded what they did.
It’ll be interesting, too, if we learn more about the Final Five Cylons’ backstories, which seems possible. And maybe more about Daniel?
Olmos thinks the telemovie will give fans a reason and desire to go back to the beginning of the series and watch it again, with a new perspective.
I’d wager he’s right. After all, we don’t need much of a reason to go back and watch it all over again.
It’s supposed to air in September and I, for one, can’t frakkin’ wait.