Talented composer and all-around nice guy Bear McCreary, along with his BSG band compadres, is once again hitting the road with a live show of Galactica music.

The group will be doing three performances at the House of Blues in downtown San Diego on July 23, 24, and 25, right during the peak of Comicon craziness. Tickets are either $55 or $145 for VIP (which includes a backstage meet-and-greet, free copy of the new Caprica score CD, and a signing).

Personally, I think the VIP tickets are the way to go. Since the House of Blues is just blocks away from Comicon, it’s a good bet that other folks from the Galactica cast and crew may drop in.

Readers of this blog may remember my previous post about the BSG Season 2 CD Release party. These concerts promise to be equally awesome.

If you’re lucky enough to live near San Diego, this is definitely something you should thing about attending.

My favorite is this portrait of Roslin and Adama. (Holding hands… awww.)

But the rest of the bunch are pretty awesome too.

(Thanks to “someone” for this clip.)

SCI FI Channel’s award-winning series Battlestar Galactica will move to a new timeslot starting Jan. 21, 2007: Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, following the premiere of the new original series The Dresden Files at 9 p.m.

Is it me? Or does this seem pretty stupid?

In general, moving a show to different timeslot in the same season is a recipe for disaster, and often a sign of that something isn’t working (and even impending cancellation).

Now I’m sure BSG isn’t at risk of being cancelled, but it seems like SciFi would do better to bolster up their Friday evening programming, and move BSG back to 10pm.

One suggestion… how about re-airing Heroes in the time slot before BSG? Now that would be a Sci-Fi Friday!

UPDATE: Variety explains the motivation behind the move:

Sci Fi exec VP of programming Mark Stern said there are two reasons for moving the series.

“Broadcast and cable networks realized Friday was not such a bad timeslot, so it’s not the easy lay-up it once was,” he said.

In addition, he added, Sundays have bigger HUT levels and will be less competitive come January when football leaves the sked.

Frosh one-hour “Eureka” showed that “we can launch a show successfully on a new night beyond Friday,” Stern said. “Sunday is the home for premiere programming and for us, that’s ‘Battlestar.’ ”

Sci Fi Channel also will debut its detective drama “The Dresden Files” Jan. 21 at 9, where it will lead into “Battlestar.” Stern said the cabler is hoping that “Dresden” will bring in a new and broader audience to the latter.

BTW, HUT levels = households using television. My final thoughts: it’s a risky move, but let’s hope SCI FI rolls a “hard six”.

Doug says:

Actually, I’m not sure if it’s news… but I found it
interesting! YouTube’s got a new video featuring
Dirk Benedict playing himself as if he’s auditioning
for a new show called Battlestar Funtopia. I can’t
really explain it better than that. It’s very funny.
Dirk is hysterical. Thought you’d want to know.

Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZKA3S_lTco

kirinqueen says:

This is the modern centurion rather than the old-school one that’s been going around recently. This one doesn’t have lights, either, of course.

This year, Sarah and I decided to throw my birthday party at our house. We weren’t sure if anybody else was going to bring cake, and there were around 25 people coming, so that meant several cakes.

Naturally, the first thing that popped into my head was “colonial fleet”.

Thanks to my lovely wife Sarah for helping me bake and decorate these all day!

Full photoset on Flickr. Via BoingBoing.

I love Doc Cottle. He’s like Switzerland, but with balls. He never chooses sides but seems all the stronger for it. I’m just saying.

…from Bringing Up Baby, Entertainment Weekly’s take on last night’s episode.

I often end up playing bartender when we all get together to watch BSG. This past weekend’s frak party was no exception, and in honor of the season 3 premiere I came up with what we decided to call the Callymotxo.

BTW, this drink is inspired by the Kalimotxo, pronounced /ˈkæliˈmotʃo/, which is a wonderfully refreshing Basque mixed drink made by mixing cheap red wine with Coca-Cola. Brilliant!

So here’s how to make one:

1. Two parts tequila
2. One part triple-sec
3. One or two parts cranberry juice
4. Fill with Coca-Cola

N.B.: substituting Diet Coke (or even Caffeine-Free Diet Coke) is perfectly A-OK.

It was a smash hit with our crew (though you’ll have to take their words for it as I can’t stand tequila myself).

Share and Enjoy! So say we all!

This year’s Comic-Con will be another chance for many Galactica fans to see their favorite BSG cast members in person.

There are two panels of interest. On Thursday at 1:00 pm, Richard Hatch and Bear McCreary will give an informal talk about both Galactica series. And on Friday at 2:00 pm, Ron Moore and David Eick will join the cast for a one hour presentation.

I’ll be at Comic-Con this year — if any BSG fans want to meet up, drop me a line!

Thursday

12:00-1:00 Richard Hatch: Battlestar Galactica Forum and Q & A

Join actor Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek, new BG series, original Captain Apollo), and special guests Bear McCreary (composer and arranger, new BG series), Dr. Kevin Grazier from JPL (science consultant, new BG series), and writer Brad Linaweaver (co-author BG novels) for a provocative discussion of Battlestar new and classic, along with an intro to Richard’s The Great War of Magellan graphic novel and role playing game with Blam Ventures and DG associates. Room 6B

Friday

2:00-3:00 SCI FI: Battlestar Galactica — “The #1 television show of 2005″ — Time magazine. “One of the most original and provocative programs on television” — New York Times. “The toughest, smartest show on television” — Rolling Stone. “A wildly intense gem . . . riveting . . . not to be missed” — TV Guide.

If you’re not watching it, you should be. See what the buzz is all about. Be sure to stop by the SCI FI booth for a chance to win the ultimate BSG prize packet! Panelists include stars Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama), Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin), James Callis (President Gaius Baltar), and Lucy Lawless (D’Anna Biers), Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol), plus executive producers David Eick and Ronald D. Moore and SCI FI VP for original programming Erik Storey. Moderated by Lisa Chambers, features director, TV Guide

I’m a huge fan of both shows… so this is a tough one for me.

Tasty Buffalo Design has uploaded a funny widget for fans of the original Battlestar Galactica show. It even has a moving cylon eye!

Thanks to Greg Perkins for this one!

I’m just sneaking in to say I’ve been continuing to watch BSG, the wife and I are about halfway through season one and gushing isn’t gonna cover this one. You guys have heard me gush, so it won’t have any real meaning. You have to imagine Pauline Kael bursting into song, Lionel Barrymoore In “Wonderful Life” jumping up and jitterbugging with George Bailey, the Grinch’s heart growing three sizes… you gotta start down there to explain what it feels like up here. I’ll put it simply. The show is humbling. Not since the Matrix (the first one) have I had such a strong desire to go to writing school. I think it’s so passionate, textured, complex, subversive and challenging that it dwarfs everything on TV. Or in theaters. Or boho perfomances spaces. Stuff hanging in the Tate? Not as cool. I’m not gonna go on, because I have to get back to work and because if I really start, this post will crash the internet from sheer length. Only downsides are a) I was already having a crisis of confidence, thank you very much and b) I can’t go near any Sci-Fi mags for fear of spoilers. Apart from that, life is to be loved. The Gods are to be praised. Back to the job. -j.

And, btw, if you somehow missed the greatness that is Firefly, get thee to a videostore and rent the series DVD.

(Thanks to Ted for this one!)

Battlestar Galactica may be in-between seasons after one of the most daring cliffhangers in TV history, but that doesn’t mean the characters are just hanging around waiting for Ron to call.

I may be one of the few people out there who’s a member of both the Battlestar Galactica community of nerddom and the Tiki Bar TV support group, but I couldn’t help but notice that Galactica’s Specialist Cally (aka Nicki Clyne) showed up on the most recent episode of Tiki Bar TV as the adorable Spock-eared girl from space.

To see it for yourself, read the full blog post from Derek, then subscribe to the Tiki Bar TV podcast.

So, when Lt. Gaeta was forced to network Galactica’s navigation computers to do an emergency FTL jump during ‘Scattered’, fans knew there’d be repercussions.

But, given BSG’s heavy geek fanbase, the resulting Cylon virus plotline — where a virus infected Galactica’s networked computers and immobilized the ship — seemed a bit contrived to many fans. Responding in a recent SciFi Q&A, Ron Moore gave his two cents:

We strive to keep things realistic without getting bogged down in too much technobabble or detail about it. We do have a very good, very knowledgeable technical advisor, who usually flags down errors of this sort, but in the end, it’s my call when to stay with the dramatic beat or change things around to keep it scientifically accurate. It’s a very subjective call and basically I listen to my own instincts as a writer, so if we’re doing something that pulls you out of the show because you know better, it’s probably a result of me taking the dramatic rather than the accurate path.

Makes sense to me, but the Hollywood North Report digs a bit deeper into this issue in this week’s BSG TechBlog.

Most of this podcast centers around how ‘Resurrection Ship’ — which was originally conceived as a single episode — became a two-parter.

Here are a few of the more interesting highlights:

• The original version of ‘Resurrection Ship’ was 20 minutes long… a huge amount of extra footage, which eventually became part of the 2nd episode.

• RDM almost says “Picard” when talking about Adama’s motivation in a scene

• The ‘Case Orange’ codeword refers to a Navy battleplan during World War II

• The ‘Downfall’ codeword refers to a movie about the last days in Hitler’s bunker. (He’s probably referring to this film.)

• The “terminate Adama’s command” is an homage to a similar scene from Apocalypse Now where Harrison Ford gives instructions to Martin Sheen’s character.

• RDM reveals that Number Six was originally present when Baltar gave Gina some clothes, but they eventually cut her out of the scene because it muddle the emotional intent of the scene.

Well, you’re in luck. Fan-favorite Dark Thoughts has uploaded 15 shots from ‘Epiphanies’, the Caprica flashback episode.

‘Epiphanies’, which will air week after next, will show us Laura Roslin’s life on Caprica before the attack.. which means we’ll get to meet President Adar (in whose administration Laura Roslin served as Education Secretary) and see what life in the Colonies was once like.

(Thanks to Hober for the link!)

To celebrate Friday’s new Galactica episode, we’ve added a Yahoo Widget version of our popular Galacticaa Dashboard widget.

The new widget is cross-platform, so it will work on both Windows and Macintosh computers that are running Yahoo Widgets 3.0 and later. (Mac users can use either the Yahoo Widget or our original Dashboard widget. They’re identical.)

Download the Galacticaa Yahoo Widget

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who’s downloaded the widget. We’ve had almost 1000 downloads since the new widget was released!