Battlestar Galactica made for excellent sci-fi TV.
The two spinoff series Caprica and Blood and Chrome?
This article contains spoilers forBattlestar Galactica.
So why in the world did theBattlestar Galacticaspinoffs flop so hard?
For Eick, the answer is simple: Poor planning and lack of vision.
And I think there were maybe some questionable casting decisions with that one.
The first of the spinoffs wasCaprica, a prequel set 58 years before the events ofBattlestar Galactica.
Subjects ranged from the effects of capitalism to immigration to advanced technology to religion in the Twelve Colonies.
Just like, What are you talking about here?
So we ran into that buzzsaw.
Embarrassing as that failure was, the next prequel did even worse.
Dont have any illusions about it.
We could make huge changes in our scripts.
It was encouraged to veer off the outline, add something, recalled writerJane Espenson.
You could kill a character if its the right thing to do.
The other writers coming after you will have to adjust what theyre doing.
That led to some surprising story beats, which did not all get resolved or explained within the show.
Starbucks sudden return raised the, very reasonable, suspicion that Starbuck was yet another Cylon in disguise.
Sackhoff insisted that wasnt the case.
So we knew that we were not Cylons.
So, its like, Well, how do we have Cylons as a character?
These happy accidents and midstream surprises madeBattlestar Galacticainto a series that captured the imagination of the times.
