Sci Fi Upfronts Delight and Depress Battlestar Fans

• Mar 19, 2008 03:46 PM ET
• by TV Guide News

Tuesday's upfronts for the Sci Fi channel brought both good and bad news for fans of Battlestar Galactica.

The channel has finally given the greenlight to Caprica a prequel to Battlestar, in the form of a two-hour movie/backdoor pilot. The movie is expected to head into production this spring for a fall airing, and if picked up as a series, could be seen by mid-2009. The prequel will take place 50 years before BSG, and executive producer Ron Moore tells TV Guide it will be very different.

"It's not action-adventure," he said. "In fact, it's more like a prime-time soap opera set on a planet. I really like this new world we've created. It's a radically different approach to the sci-fi genre."

While the "past" looks bright, Moore wasn't as optimistic about the future of Battlestar beyond its final season. When asked if the end of the television series could be the beginning of a movie franchise, the answer was a pretty resounding no.

"The honest answer is that I think the series works best an ensemble television piece," he said. "I think if it was translated into features, it would have to become a different animal. Part of the special quality of the show is all these complicated storylines where you embroider and embroider on all these characters. Feature films have different expectations." - Adam Bryant, with reporting by Illeane Rudolph and Michael Logan

What's your take? Do you think Battlestar could work as a movie? What do you hope the producers explore on Caprica?