Battlestar Galactica Moving to NBC?
A prominent Battlestar Galactica fan site reports that the show will be moving from the Sci-Fi Channel to parent NBC:
Word has begun to circulate that NBC’s acquisition of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ is in the “waiting for the ink to dry” phase at this moment, and an official announcement could be days away. The program, which returned for its third season last friday, continues to delight fans and critics alike. With Universal’s involvement in the big reimagining, it was always a possibility that the program could be pulled to the network if it proved successful enough, and with the lashing NBC is taking over its fall line-up so far an ace-in-the-hole couldn’t come at a better time.
The show will make the move to NBC as a mid-season replacement, possibly taking the slot currently occupied by “Studio 60” which would make sense given the genre-centric lead-in of heroes.
The question is: will NBC be tolerant of the quasi-political themes that BSG seems to take from the most controversial page of world events? In recent episodes, BSG has examined the flip side of insurgency, terrorists as freedom-fighters, and any number of edgy themes. In the small arena of cable, it is easy to get away with forays into these troubled waters; cable shows are expected to push the envelope to maintain any kind of viewership. On the big network, however, it may be seen as a statement of NBC’s political alignment and in polarizing times such as these the concern may be that these themes could bring about the kind of controversy that drives viewers away. Of course, it could do just the opposite.
NBC is fiercely denying it, however. TV Squad’s Anna Johns made a call and reports that “Jessica Nevarez in the publicity department tells us, ‘It is an online rumor that someone started and it is absolutely false.'”
As commenters at the latter site note, as logical as it would seem to move a hugely popular show to the flagship network, the reality is that BSG is a niche show on a niche channel and would likely not be able to survive on a network that required broader appeal.
And some, apparently, haven’t forgiven NBC for killing off the original Star Trek 27 37 years ago.
Make that 37 years ago.
We are getting old.
And quickly moving past “getting.”
This is worse than the N. Korea news. Please, don’t bastardize BSG. You can almost guarantee that “frap” will be turned into “donuts” or something to appease the sponsors. That would be a terrible move, like ABC purchasing the Sopranos.
Word. If Firefly had been on Sci-Fi instead of Fox, it would probably still be going.
This would be an awful mistake. It would move to NBC, not find an audience big enough for the NBC beancounters and be canceled in less than 10 weeks. The ‘Firefly’ comment above is entirely correct. I pray this doesn’t happen. I believe all the people watching it are all the people who would watch it. SciFi Channel is not hard to find. Moving it to NBC is not going to make it more accessable.
Maybe it’s Stargate SG:1 to NBC?
Since Sci-Fi decided to kill that one for no apparent reason.