A SERIES OF 'GALACTIC' PROPORTIONS
By DON KAPLAN
February 17, 2004 -- THE new "Battlestar Galactica" - despite a lot of special-effects - will be character driven and much deeper then the original '70s show that inspired it or the recent miniseries that the new show is based on.
"Some of the dynamics between Laura [Mary McDonnell] and Adama [Edward James Olmos] are going to be different than I think people are expecting," executive producer Ronald D. Moore told SCI FI Wire.
"I think people are expecting a very sort of simplistic 'she's the dove, and he's the hawk, and they're going to knock heads together . . . and then they'll work it out.' It's going to be more complicated than that."
On the "Battlestar," Olmos plays the commander of the one surviving warship after a massive thermonuclear attack by a race of machines nearly wipes out the human race on a system of far off worlds.
The machines utilize all sorts of weapons in their campaign to destroy the human race. The arsenal includes an assortment of sexy, but deadly androids who can even trick humans into betraying each other, as Tricia Helfer did to James Callis' character in the miniseries.
Olmos and McDonnell's character - a lowly education secretary who becomes the president when the rest of the government is wiped out in the attack - lead the surviving fleet of "rag-tag" ships on a search for Earth.
"They've got this collection of ships," Moore said. "Some are going to be in better shape than others. And who is on these ships? And who's in charge exactly in some of these cases? And I think there will be a lot of stuff that will be fun to play."
The "Battlestar" miniseries was the most watched miniseries on cable - both basic and pay - of 2003.
Production in the new series is expected to begin in April, and the show is slated to hit the air in late fall or early next winter.
