Comic Con Recap Day 3, Part 4: Battlestar Galactica
After the Dollhouse panel, I came down with a serious case of the jitters. Battlestar Galactica, I thought. From the eighth frakkin row!
Kevin Smith was the moderator and he said some obscenely funny things. Every other panel member during the con tried to abide by the request to keep things somewhat clean because “there could be children in the audience.” Kevin Smith has no ability to censor himself, however, so he was dropping F-bombs like crazy. It was great!
He introduced each member of the panel as they came on stage, and it was clear from the audience noise level that nearly everybody was a rabid fan. The panel consisted of Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama), Michael Trucco (Sam Anders), Katee Sackhoff (Kara Thrace), Tricia Helfer (Number Six), James Callis (Gaius Baltar), and executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. Tahmoh Penikett (Helo) also came on stage as a “surprise”a little later in the panel. Richard Hatch was apparently not invited to the panel even though he was upstairs signing autographs. No love for the former terrorist/VP of the colonies/holdover from the original BSG series!
They opened with a preview of the upcoming second half of Season 4, which looks bitchin’ to say the least.
Kevin congratulated the panel on getting past censors with the word “frak,” but he did ask “Will we ever hear the Caprican equivalent of cocksucker?” The producers basically said no. And they just finished filming the 4th season a few weeks ago, so I would believe them (sorry, Kevin). But they did mention something about the possibility on their new prequel Battlestar Galactica spin-off series, “Caprica,” for which they screened this preview:
Exciting! It will hopefully help BSG fans to not suffer too much from withdrawal after the series ends in the spring. (*sadface*)
Back to the panel… There were a lot of funny moments and interesting tidbits about the actors and the show. Katee Sackhoff didn’t know how to respond to Kevin’s question about how she felt to follow in Xena’s footsteps as a major lesbian icon. She did enjoy telling a story about how, during the shoot for the stand-off on Caprica between Starbuck/Helo and Sam Anders & company, the director told Helo to stop shooting like a girl. Tahmoh Penikett came on stage later and rebuffed, but I believe Katee’s side of the story.
Oh, also: James Callis = hot. I dislike his Baltar character most of the time because he’s a frakked up nutter, but as an actor, Mr. Callis gets my vote. I’m soooooo jealous of Liz and Josh, who ran into him on the street later in the day and took pictures with him! His son was also there, wearing a storm trooper mask I believe, but he understandably didn’t want a photo taken of his son.
The Scifi channel actually has a video of the BSG panel on scifi.com (with spotty audio when panel members didn’t speak directly into the mic) so you can see all the moments yourself if you have 50 minutes. Well, all the moments except the preview for the second half of BSG Season 4, which I’m sorry to report that I can’t find a video of anywhere online. How far away is January? Very much looking forward to it!
