Talking to Newsarama, Eick admitted that webisodes are definitely part of the plan for Battlestar's final season:

Yes, we are doing webisodes but when they are premiering I am not positive. Like the webisodes we have done before, they will continue on the story threads that don’t make the cut. I don’t want to give too much away but they are going to follow the same paradigm as we’ve done before.

That paradigm would presumably be The Resistance, the 2006 online-only 10-part lead-in to Galactica's third season, and the Razor "flashbacks" that trailed last year's one-off movie. Does this mean that you'll only get the full story behind why this has all happened before and will all happen again if we tune in online?

David Eick Talks Battlestar Galactica Past, Present, Future [Newsarama]

Many issues are facing the BSG TV movies. First is the fact that the actors from the series may be busy after filming the finale, and NBC/Universal may not be able to afford them any more. These movies could begin production as early as July this year, but we'll know in the next few weeks if they get greenlit.

What these movies would be about is anyone's guess, but most importantly, sources tell Ryan these extracurricular activities won't change the direction of the series in any way, or make the show's ending any less final. The movies would take place in the show's past, probably during the first few seasons, similar to Razor's filling in of backstory.

Ryan explains that while the TV movie rumors are only chatter at the moment, but there will definitely be a set of webisodes that will play a large role in bridging the gap between the two halves of season four. These episodes could premier as early as July this year, and the second half of season four may debut as late as early 2009.

I'll watch the BSG made for TV movies because every single bit of Galactica I get helps me through the day. Still, I'm wary of anything that will cheapen my original love for the series. Razor was fun and had moments of awesomeness, but all in all was a lot of filler. But as long as they don't tamper with, or withhold, any plot lines from the series finale to service their need for more TV movies, I'll be content. [Chicago Tribune]

• The "Ian Levine" syndrome. The BBC's Doctor Who was still a runaway success in the mid-1980s, partly thanks to the return of old monsters like the Cybermen and the Daleks after years in retirement. Producer John Nathan-Turner started going to conventions in the U.S. and England and listening to fans' questions about whether the giant-ant Zarbi would ever meet the giant spiders of Metebellis Three. Soon, he hired "superfan" Ian Levine as a "fan consultant." All of a sudden, you had stories with plots like, "The scientist from 1974's "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" tries to stop that sock monster we glimpsed briefly in 1964's "Dalek Invasion of Earth" from eating the cricket player from 1982's "Black Orchid," and we won't bother to explain what's going on. It'll be awesome!" Here's the "We Are The World"-style record which Levine produced to try and save Who after he'd helped put it on the verge of cancellation:
• Manny Cotto, savior of the universe. Star Trek: Enterprise was already on its last legs when Manny Cotto took over as show-runner, and started running episodes that answered lingering questions left over from The Wrath Of Khan, or finally explained why the Klingons didn't always have weird foreheads, or resolved inconsistencies between the different shows' portrayals of Vulcans. It was like the Discovery Channel for Trek maniacs. And the fans loved it. Everybody else? Too busy watching Iron Chef. To be fair, though, Cotto's fanservice* overkill was a symptom of Enterprise's fatal illness, not its cause. Here's Brent "Data" Spiner, playing the great-uncle of Data's creator, who it turns out created Ricardo Montalban by coincidence:
• "Dog-whistle" fanservice. When George Bush wanted to reassure conservatives that he wouldn't appoint any Supreme Court justices who supported Roe v. Wade, he used coded phrases that didn't mean much to most people, like "Dredd Scott." (These are called "dog-whistle" appeals, because they're only audible to some people.) In the same way, media SF sometimes slips in little nods to the fans that go over most people's heads. In Battlestar Galactica: Razor, you have Starbuck saying "I love it when a plan comes together," which is Hannibal's catch-phrase on former Starbuck Dirk Benedict's show The A-Team. Oooh, instant fangasm! (Weirdly, David Eick's Bionic Woman also had a gratuitous A-Team reference in its final episode.) More obvious fan-gifting was the inclusion of "classic" Cylons in Razor. And a recent Doctor Who episode turned a generic monster into the Macra from a 1966 story, but the reference was so vague that only fans would catch it.
• Shippers! Let's be clear here: romance subplots are a sign of a healthy book/TV/movie series, because you don't want your characters to be sexless robots. It's only when two characters get together because the fans demanded it (I'm looking at you, Mulder and Scully) that it becomes a problem. Sometimes, romantic/sexual tension is better kept tense. And sometimes, it doesn't actually exist. (I still love the Mary Tyler-Moore episode where she and Lou Grant finally kiss — and realize two seconds later that it's a dumb idea and they have no sexual chemistry.)

• Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: Spielberg sure knows how to milk it. We've already had a Special Edition of this come out, complete with new footage. However, not content to just swim in pools full of thousand-dollar bills, he's now putting out the 30th Anniversary Collector's Edition. Okay, it's the best the film has looked, and it has all three versions of the movie in the set. Just, enough already. We get it. Don't make us go Richard Dreyfus loco.
• Battlestar Galactica: Razor: This just aired on TV a couple of weeks ago, but you can now own it without the annoying Quiznos commercials, plus there's a frakload of extra features, deleted scenes, and flashbacks on here for you to spend your time with while you hide from Aunt Mildred and her holiday fruitcake. You can also put it under your pillow and rock yourself to sleep at night while you wait for Season Four.
• Battlestar Galactica: Season One: While both the original miniseries and Season One have already been available in DVD sets, this one gives you both in high-definition. Once you make the jump to HD, you'll never go back. So say we all. This newly-available set includes all the extras from the previous editions as well. If you have been waiting on trying this show out, stop waiting and learn to start loving the Cylons.
• Heroes: Season One: This is what started it all, and it's filled with a load of extras. The commentaries on these discs are great, especially the ones with Jack Coleman, Greg Grunberg, and Sendhil Ramamurthy, who basically joke their way through the whole thing. But some of the extras are just plain dorky. There's one where Grunberg "Reads Your Mind." Young kids might find amusing, but why not just dump some of that content from the NBC.com site onto the discs? Okay, enough bitching. The episodes look amazing (especially in the high-def version), and it's a great way to catch up on or try out the show while the writer's strike keeps it off the air.
• Blade Runner: The Final Cut: Warners really scraped the bottom of the tank on this one to make sure they satisfied every Blade Runner fan on the planet. If you go for the briefcase version, you get all of the versions of the film, plus a ton of extra junk, including a scale model of one of the "Spinner" flying police cars, a replica of the origami unicorn that Gaff (Edward James Olmos) makes, and a lenticular motion card featuring Harrison Ford encased in carbonite... crap, we mean lucite. It's not all just fanwank toys either: there's a ton of new material about the movie, including a feature length "Dangerous Days" documentary about the making of the movie. Yes, it includes new interviews with Harrison Ford too.
• X-Files: The Ultimate Collection: This is your ultimate gold-standard fanjob edition that other studios should set the bar by. It features all nine seasons of the show, plus the feature film. It's also housed in a cool black box that has a slide-out drawer on the bottom containing a comic book, a guide to the series, trading cards, a poster, and your dignity. This monster contains over 9,000 minutes of television, so make sure you clear a little room on your holiday calendar. The only thing that makes us sad is that they didn't toss in the complete The Lone Gunmen spinoff series, which only ran for 13 episodes. We're sure they'll release another version of this to bleed dry the remaining fans out there, but until then, have at it.

Heroes

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• There's going to be a fairly high body count when Season Two: Volume Two ends next week, including one of the main characters. Although if we've learned anything, it's that no one stays dead on Heroes.
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• Looks like Naomi isn't dead, despite having a knife hurled into her back by Locke at the end of last season.
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• Remember that mysterious freighter we told you about? It'll be bringing in a slew of Naomi's friends, which she phoned up on her walkie talkie at the end of last season.
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• If you remember the end of last season, then you recall that the show had jumped forward in time a great deal. A heavily-bearded Jack was living a life of booze and oxycontin addiction, and had been off the island for some time. According to some insiders, we'll be jumping both forward and backwards in time not only all season, but until the series wraps.
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• The first ten episodes will be all about the newly discovered Cylons, there were a few hints about that during the season four preview at the end of Razor, including Colonel Tigh leveling a gun at Admiral Adama on the command deck.
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• There's going to be a new Six named Natalie, although it's unclear if that means she'll be another actress playing a replacement Six, or simply another Six. The problem is, everyone knows what that famous face looks like around the fleet, so that would make it hard to have Tricia Helfer in some new Six boots.
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• We'll see who the final Cylon is before the end of the season. Can we issue a collective "duh" on that one? If they didn't give that up, there would probably be some minor rioting, millions of angry internet threads, and Ronald Moore's house would probably be reduced to ashes.
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Spoiler Chat [E! Online]

The revelation that bad-assed Admiral Cain was not only a lesbian but a lesbian into sexy blonde Cylon Gina, was apparently underscored in the next commercial break by a sting courtesy of snack food supplier Quizno's. And it's that hot-girl-on-girl-action/sandwich combo that's upset fans on Sci-Fi's website:

I could care less who does what with whom, as that is not why I watch this show. My complaint is that the existence of a GAY relationship became so forced, after obvious—and I mean OBVIOUS—funding by Quizno's and glaad, that anything else in the show, including the modicum of an attempt at a storyline, were blasted into oblivion. Is this what we're all going to be subjected to now? Sexual preference is now pandered in BSG, paid for by third parties. Reminds me of a tobacco company strategy. I say 'now' not referring to the more common hetero content one sees on regular tv, but to the amount of paid advertisements during a show to express that the hetero relationships were specifically paid to be placed there. Basically, I'm offended that one of my favorite shows could not just include a relationship in the show like any other show we see, but had to take the time to show us it was bought and paid for.

Who made this episode? This was the worst BSG I've ever experienced.

it was...hmm...how do I put this politely....a good "solid" episode. But a jaw dropper? - what...that there are lesbian lovers on another planet? Anyone watching a promo commercial for Teens Gone Wild can see girls kissing, so Six and the Admiral's shoulder squeeze is a yawner...

The gay thing .. eh.. I don't see a point for it ... so yeah i agree it was a stereotype thing.. don't really see the point.... maybe just that tough bull dykes who "sorta" still look/act like a traditional stereotypical straight woman (sorta) .. the only thing missing from Cain's personality was a guy'ish short spikey military haircut and maybe an earring and a rainbow tattoo somewhere.

Too bad they had to shove the radical liberal gay agenda down our thoats.

We just finished watching Razor. And all we have to say to the producers is 'how dare you!"... seriously, how dare you leave us like this until March. And to show us previews to boot. It's rude, evil and now we know who the cylons really are.. YOU. You are ******* cylons and we do not appeciate it. As Melissa Linden, head of the Ghandi Group says, "Dont be the evilness in the world." No really... think about it...you entice us into your web, drain us of our vital life-blood and then spit out the remenents... we are those remenents.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor [Sci-Fi Forums]

• Everything You Need to Know About Razor. Here's the crucial background from season two episodes that shed light on the plot twists in Razor.
  
  
• Everything You Need to Know About the Flashback Webisodes. SciFi has aired a series of two-minute webisodes that flash back to the first cylon war. Here are the ones you must watch.

• Gay Cylons Can Be Your Allies and Friends. Will you still think so after tonight's episode?

• Leaks from Starbuck's Mouth for Season 4. Here's what Katee "Starbuck" Sackhoff told fans at a recent convention. You'll want to know after Razor.

Razor Flashbacks: The Sci Fi Channel has been airing original "flashbacks" in a desperate bid to get people to watch Flash Gordon. Er, we mean a thinly veiled marketing ploy to see what you'll get if you buy the DVD. Frak, actually we mean in an effort to bring the fans a little backstory about the First Cylon War. These short episodes can be seen on the Sci Fi website, and will also be part of the longer Razor which goes on sale December 4th. So what do these six clips tell us?

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• Day 4,571: Young rookie "Husker" Adama gets some action in his rack, and we find out that the familiar "What do you hear? Nothing but the rain" exchange came from his own commander. He fears that with rumors of a Cylon surrender on the horizon, he won't get to see any action in this war. Movie watching veterans know that's usually when the roof caves in.
• The Hangar: Husker's wish comes true as he prepares to launch out on his first combat mission. However, he spies his girlfriend on the floor of the flight deck, having just returned from her own patrol with half of her face blown off. He growls out "Let's do this" while waiting in the launch tube.
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• Operation Raptor Talon: One of the best battle scenes ever on BSG, webisode or not. Husker and his wingman shoot down several old school (yep, they look just like the ones from the old TV show) Cylon Raiders before witnessing the destruction of the Battlestar Columbia. An angry Husker chases two Raiders into the atmosphere of a nearby planet, which results in a catastrophic collision and his Viper plummets to the surface.
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• Free Fall: In a bit of a ridiculous scene, Husker bails out and goes toe-to-toe with a Cylon (old school too!) in mid-air while they both free fall. Remember the scene in Moonraker where Roger Moore's James Bond and Jaws fight in mid-air? You get the picture. Adama and his toaster-buddy crash through the ceiling of a building on the planet's surface and Adama goes medieval on the Cylon's ass (well, his face really) with an iron rod and "kills" it. Then he realizes he's in some sort of a Saw-like torture chamber and grabs the Cylon's gun.
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• The Lab: With gruesome Cylon/Human body parts hanging all over the place like a perverted flesh fair, Adama tries to figure out what he's stumbled into. He sticks his arm into some murky water in what looks like a Cylon birthing chamber, and of course something grabs him from underneath. A creepy looking man floats to the surface and looks at Adama before vanishing. Was he really there? A disembodied voice tells Adama "All of this has happened before, and will happen again.
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• Survivors: Adama struggles to free a group of humans from Gemenon locked inside the Cylon laboratory, but only succeeds in opening the door a few inches. As the room starts to come apart around him, they urge him to save himself and to remember them. He flees the collapsing laboratory, leaving the humans trapped behind.
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• Escape: Stumbling out of what turns out to be a Cylon ship, Adama watches as it takes off into the atmosphere with the humans still aboard. He tries to call in support, only to hear that the war is over: the Cylons have surrendered. Cut to an older Commander Adama on the flight deck of the Galactica, two days before the decommissioning ceremony. He surveys the museum-ready ship and reflects, standing in front of an old-school Cylon encased in lucite, not knowing that he's about to revisit the past in a big way.
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While these clips show us some cool scenes from the First Cylon War, they unfortunately show very little. Plus, isn't it a little coincidental that Adama just happens to be the one who discovered the first hybrid Cylon/Human and didn't see fit to mention it until now? But, there are a lot of coincidences in the BSG universe, so we'll take it in stride.

One thing to note: all of these flashbacks take place 41 years in the past, which means that Adama has to be about 60 years old or so by now, which sounds about right. Kudos to Nico Cortez, who plays a fairly convincing (and relatively smooth-cheeked) young Adama. He even gets the raspy voice right.

• Midway through Season Two, the Galactica encountered another Battlestar that survived the Cylon attack: the Battlestar Pegasus. It's a much newer ship than the Galactica, is twice as big, has a ship-building facility onboard, and superior firepower.
• Pegasus is commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, an iron-fisted woman who defines the term "hardass." She's skeptical of everyone and everything, and doesn't tolerate anything less than perfection.
• Cain's Executive Officer is Colonel Fisk, who serves as the whip for Admiral Cain. He drunkenly tells the Galactica's Colonel Tigh that Cain killed her previous XO for not following orders. It's unclear if he's joking or telling the truth.
• The Pegasus has a Cylon Number Six model in captivity in their brig. This model is later freed by Baltar, and she executes Cain with a point-blank shot to the forehead.
• Colonel Fisk assumes control of the Pegasus after Cain's death, but is later killed by a man running a large black market in the Colonial fleet. After he dies, Chief Engineer Barry Garner assumes control, although he quickly proves that while he's a whiz at solving engineering problems, he's not much of a commander. He dies saving the ship, after which Admiral Adama promotes his son Lee to commander, and gives him the Pegasus as his first command.
• Commander Lee Adama sacrifices the Pegasus in order to save the Galactica and the Colonists fleeing from New Caprica. The ship is destroyed in a massive firefight, although the crew is able to abandon ship.
• Razor takes places between seasons Two and Three: Lee Adama is the commander of the ship, but through a series of flashbacks we're told how the Pegasus evaded destruction during the initial Cylon attack, and what happened to them up until their encounter with the Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica: Razor — While you won't see these clips when Razor is televised on November 24th, but they'll be a part of the longer DVD release that you can pick up on December 4th. Verdict: not too shabby, and they show us some sneak peeks at the first Cylon war.

Lost: Missing Pieces — These unique Lost webisodes may be the only thing you have to comfort yourself with if the writer's strike continues and the show gets pushed until 2009. Verdict: hammy, cheesy, and it isn't even a sandwich. It's this sort of over schmaltzy storytelling that killed season three for a lot of the fans. Did we learn anything of substance here? It just seems like a variation on the Pulp Fiction watch scene, except without Christopher Walken. Just because they're new doesn't mean they're going to be good.

Heroes: Video Overload — Heroes is fond of inundating people who visit their website with sensory overload, but there's some good stuff in here. Skip the semi-lame "Zeroes" spoof video, and check out the character profiles, which feature new and unseen footage, and the impressive Takezo Kensei documentary on the Yamagato Fellowship page that is leaps and bounds better than the actual "Hiro in Feudal Japan" storyline. Verdict: some of this stuff is better than season two has been.

Turns out there's a separate Cylon faction that wants to protect something called The Guardian. We'll be seeing more of this Cylon civil war in season four. And a Cylon "God guy" makes some dire predictions of what will happen if the humans follow Kara Thrace, who is referred to as "the harbinger of the Apocalypse for the human race."

Battlestar Galactica: Razor Is Amazing [Eclipse Magazine]