Comic Con: BSG Panel Soaks Up The Love

I attended a lot of panels over four days at Comic Con (although, like God, I rested on Sunday.) In all those panels and with all those rabid fans, only one of these mutual love fests ended in a standing ovation. That was the Battlestar Galactica panel on Saturday in the packed Ballroom 20 of the San Diego Convention Center. Having not previously seen the show (although I was a faithful watcher of the original), I was a little surprised at the response. Sensing I didn’t have quite the insight a true believer might, Head Honcho Josh Tyler sent his wife (and fellow hard core fan) Leanne along to take pictures and point out to me when they were saying something “really important.” Most of those really important nuggets are available here. It wasn’t a particularly revelatory panel (the producers went out of their way not to give away too much about the final 10 episodes,) more focused on remembrances of the stars and creators and an opportunity for their fans to give thanks.

The panel included stars Jamie Bamber (who had not been announced), Tricia Helfer, James Callis, Michael Trucco, and Katee Sackhoff, along with creator/producers David Eick and Ronald D. Moore. Once he finished Dollhouse interviews, Tahmoh Penikett stopped by as well. The moderator was famous fanboy Kevin Smith who ignored the “no swearing” edict from the organizers and kicked off the introductions with "I have nothing to do with this show, which is probably why it is so [frakking] good." Only he didn’t say frakking and repeatedly didn’t say frakking for the next hour. He also joked that when his name was rumored to be attached to the show, Ronald D. Moore was quick to squelch it so everything he worked for wouldn’t be ruined in one fell swoop.

While the panel ultimately took questions from the audience, a lot of the questions came from Smith himself. His genuine love and enthusiasm for the show helped move things along as he broke off lines like “this show is so good it’ll get you pregnant.” This was so much better than some studio flack lobbing softballs at uninterested actors saying they loved the script, as was the case in many panels.

One question that Smith threw out that ended up taking a big chunk of time and causing the stars and producers to run down a few rabbit trails was the “most bad-ass moment on the show.” It was clear from the chatter around me that every fan has their own answer to this (making it a great question) but Smith and a few of the panelists noted when the Galactica dropped into New Caprica. Moore said that his favorite was when Baltar drops his head on his desk and then picks it up and it’s one year later. Moore felt like that was a bold move by the show. Sackhoff, who looked amazingly hot in a tight white shirt that had it’s top button somewhere down around her navel, said she got to fire two cool guns in an upcoming episode and that was pretty awesome. Helfer, as we noted before, also gets to shoot a gun in the final episodes and thought that was pretty cool.

Many of the comments and questions involved the wrap up of the show and the identity of the fifth and final Cylon. Fans are lucky, according to Moore, as if the writer’s strike had continued, the show may never have come back and then the ending would be their bleak discovery of Earth. Or, as Moore put it, “they get to Earth and it was really bad. The end." It doesn’t sound like it will be all that much better, at least for awhile. Every hint or off hand comment (and there were not many) said that it will be a bad few episodes with some sort of huge gunbattle involved in the finale and a comparison to Apocalypse Now by Callis. Bamber, who didn’t say much during the panel and sometimes seemed a little irked by Smith’s attitude, summed it up with "the ending is an ending. It's utterly sublime, the perfect way to end the show... It does everyone and everything justice." Guess you can’t hope for more than that. The fans seemed satisfied.

Of course, there were lots of jokes about the fifth Cylon. At one point Eick joked that Baltar was the fifth Cylon and everyone laughed. Of course, the speculation was if that meant there was no way Baltar could be the Cylon. Smith just flat out asked if Sackhoff was the fifth Cylon, saying “are you the final Cylon? Come on, [frak] these dudes. You're done! Tell us! They can't fire you!" She refused to budge but said she wouldn’t want to be one since it is harder to film. Of course, since filming is over, (three months ago, according to Moore) that’s sort of an odd statement if she is the Cylon. Or maybe it was misdirection twice over! See, this is complicated. A fan asked Moore for a hint and Moore basically said “no hints” but noted that it wouldn’t be someone brand new, which most of the fans seemed to take for granted.

The panel started with a trailer for BSG and ended one for the BSG prequel show Caprica. The BSG clips had some past material and then a few new scenes, including a lot of kissing and shooting. The Caprica showed Esai Morales as an Adama forefather who lost a daughter and had a new one built by Eric Stolz. The Caprica trailer didn’t jazz the fans all that much, but overall this was a fantastic goodbye from the show to their loyal following.