The Two Scenes That Saved Battlestar Galactica
These days, Battlestar Galactica is considered a sci-fi masterpiece and certainly the best original program that SyFy ever had (sorry, Eureka). However, after the miniseries came out, the network was hesitant to order the show to series because they feared it might become a more traditional science fiction program like Star Trek.
According to executive producer David Eick, two sets of scenes basically convinced SyFy to give Galactica the green light: the Caprica scenes inside Baltar’s mind and the scenes of Helo trying to survive on that same planet after the Cylon attack.
33 Was A Silver Bullet
This information first came to light in the DVD commentary for “33,” the premiere episode of Battlestar Galactica’s first season. In that commentary, Eick remembers SyFy (then called the Sci-Fi Channel) as being on the fence about picking up the series. He called this first episode the “silver bullet” that convinced the network, but he felt they wouldn’t have been convinced without the aforementioned very surprising scenes.
SyFy Wanted Something Outside Of The Box
At the time, SyFy was very interested in having original programming that was…well…original. As such, they were a tad worried that despite the Battlestar Galactica miniseries being so refreshingly different, the series proper might eventually just become another science fiction show in the vein of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Considering that showrunner Ronald D. Moore got his start writing for TNG (and then Deep Space Nine, and then Voyager) and would be writing much of the new show, the network’s worry that they might be getting a Trek clone seems relatively reasonable.
The Mind Palace
According to David Eick, SyFy’s fears were assuaged by two very unexpected sets of scenes in the first Battlestar Galactica episode. The first is the scene inside Baltar’s mind palace where he argues with a version of Six inside his old home in Caprica. This proved to be a narrative curveball and set up a mystery–specifically, the mystery of who or what this version of Six was and why it was so fascinated with Baltar–that would endure until the end of the series.
Surviving On Caprica
The other scenes that apparently won SyFy over were the ones set back on the devastated Caprica, with Helo trying to survive on a planet overrun with Cylons. While Eick didn’t fully elaborate on what the network liked about these scenes, we can speculate they enjoyed Battlestar Galactica fully exploring the consequences of major events from previous stories.
The devastation of Caprica wasn’t just some inciting event for our characters…instead, the planet helped us explore the cruelty of humanity’s attackers while giving us small-scale personal drama (one man versus the world) that contrasted nicely with Galactica’s larger-scale space drama.
33 Launched The Franchise
Whatever it was about the scenes that SyFy loved, it was enough to convince the network to order Battlestar Galactica to series, effectively changing the television sci-fi landscape. The show’s success was a rising tide that lifted everyone: SyFy got to establish itself as the home of killer original science fiction even as Ronald D. Moore proved himself one of the greatest architects of modern sci-fi storytelling.
Now, with Peacock working on rebooting Battlestar Galactica yet again, only time will tell if the new show can “roll the hard six” and match the quality of its predecessor.
