The Battle Over Galactica Update

Now this is boldly going. Not only is the Sci Fi Channel mounting a lavish remake of Battlestar Galactica, but the cable network is trying to do so without the aura of doom and gloom that hung over ABC's 1978-80 series like a dark cloud. "We're going for a very stylistic, non-apocalyptic look," Sci Fi prez Bonnie Hammer tells TV Guide Online. "It isn't going to be that kind of grey battleship again, and it isn't going to be Star Trek-y, either."

For that matter, neither is the update going to spotlight leading men who are quite as long in the tooth as the original's Lorne Greene. Rather, says Hammer, Sci Fi's Battlestar will be "much more human and a bit younger. It's going to have a different kind of style and sensibility." In other words, the show will set its phasers on "fun" and try to cast the next Hayden Christensen, not another Richard Hatch or Dirk Benedict.

Hammer knows that she and her cohorts have undertaken a mission: seemingly impossible. But if Sci Fi wants to put stars in the eyes of the next generation of Star Trek groupies and appease disgruntled fans of the canceled Farscape, they must give it a shot. "We're trying to reinvent the space opera," she explains. "They're very hard to do right now. As you know, [Fox's recently-axed] Firefly had a very tough time.

"What was wonderful about Farscape, in its day, was that it was fresh," she continues. "It was a different kind of space opera, and it didn't feel like any other space opera that was out there. What we need to do here is reinvent it yet again."