Update: I apologize, I haven't been online much due to the holidays. I realized that there was an erroneous data point for Andrew Stanton in 2009 that was never supposed to be there. I missed it when I initially looked over the graph, but it's been removed now.

As we've been reflecting on the last ten years, we've been asking ourselves whether any true "masters" of science fiction and urban fantasy have emerged, especially in film and television. It's certainly been a decade of highs and lows, of old masters who've begun to fade and bright new stars just cresting the horizon.

To that end, I've attempted to chart the relative "master levels" of various directors and television producers over the several years. This is an utterly unscientific chart; I looked at the projects these folks have had since 2000 and assigned each one a "master level." The number reflects my understanding of the projects acclaim, its ability to attract an audience (i.e. box office/Nielsen numbers), its awards, whether it succeeded in something unusual (such as a relatively popular foreign language film in the case of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Dr. Horrible's status as a breakthrough web film), and the nebulous sense that it add or subtracted from the individual's "geek cred." The numbers themselves are largely subjective and, of course, you should feel free to nitpick.

The greater purpose was to offer a watercolory sense of whether any "masters" have emerged from this crowd. Certainly, the last year has brought low some of the genres' promising potentials. Joss Whedon entered into the decade riding high on a Buffy/Angel cocktail. Though his name wasn't enough to overcome Fox's confusing treatment of Firefly, but the show's eventual cult popularity led to the Serenity feature film, and the Whedon brand helped make Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog an important moment for web-based content. Perhaps this all made Dollhouse — which has been, by turns, frustrating and brilliant — all the more disappointing, its impeding demise fairly readily accepted, even by Whedon's fanbase. Similarly, Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, despite being regarded by some readers as the most overrated scifi of the decade, was regarded by many as a turning point for smart, politically savvy space opera. But a rocky final season punctuated by finale filled with dei ex machinae left a lot of folks sour on the entire series. And the Wachowskis, while doing a solid (though Alan Moore-enraging) bit of cinema with V for Vendetta, never quite lived up to the promises of The Matrix.

But there have been plenty of masterful bright spots as well. Bryan Fuller gave us some beautiful urban fantasy with shows with Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies, even if many of his efforts (including the truly amazing The Amazing Screw-On Head) were prematurely axed, or shafted before ever getting off the ground. Guillermo del Toro brought us to great heights with Pan's Labyrinth, even if his other eye candy films didn't hit the same heights.

So have we seen any masters? Peter Jackson has certainly come close. Granted, The Lord of the Rings movies are high fantasy, but they showcased Jackson's ability to handle a difficult epic in a way that not only pleased JRR Tolkien's fans, but also won him mainstream accolades. And his remake of King Kong, which should have been automatically anathema, proved both profitable and well-reviewed. The Lovely Bones has been his blip, earning him his worst reviews in 20 years. But it's more likely that 2009 will be remembered as the year Jackson introduced the world to filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, demonstrating that he has a good eye for new talent and the Hollywood cache to bring that talent to light. It's not for nothing that he made this year's power list.

Another power list member, JJ Abrams, has also given us a good spate of fun and thoughtful science fiction. While he didn't give us the decade's best monster movie, he did manage to reboot the Star Trek franchise in a way that was respectful to what came before and drew in folks who never turned into the TV shows. Of course, we still have yet to see as Lost will end and whether Fringe will survive.

Chris Nolan is on the list of promising possibilities for eventual masterhood. Although Memento wasn't science fiction, it took a "what if" concept (here, what if a man searching for his wife's killer had no short term memory) and portrayed it in a thoughtful, suspenseful, and ultimately heartbreaking way. And he not only shot fresh blood into the corpse of the Batman franchise, he made it Oscar-worthy. And now he's continuing the science fiction thread with Inception.

And, of course, there's the question of whether James Cameron will prove the kind of science fiction as much as he claimed to be the king of the world. His foray into science fiction television, Dark Angel, never fared particularly well in the ratings; it was eventually canceled in favor of Firefly, and it never achieved the posthumous popularity of the later show. But perhaps Avatar is the reinforcement of his previous scifi successes, proof that he can still be relevant where other long-time directors have started to fade away. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 12 years to see his next installment.

Personally, though, after seeing the delightful Monsters Inc. followed by the superb The Incredibles and WALL-E, I have my fingers crossed for Andrew Stanton and Pixar Studios. Here's hoping that John Carter of Mars is something phenomenal.

Still, singling out directors and producers as possible masters might be missing the point entirely, even when we're talking about movies and TV. Alan Moore might well be your science fiction master, not just because he has written so many fantastic books, but also because those books have captured the imagination of so many directors in the last several years — albeit with varying results. And in the coming years we'll see how comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan — who has been working on Lost as well as the Buffy Season Eight comics — translates to the big screen when Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways hit theaters.

So who, if anyone, do you see as your science fiction master? Someone from the list above? Perhaps Russell T. Davis for reviving and expanding Doctor Who? Or maybe writers like Jane Espenson, who have worked on so many of the shows we love? And, with filmmakers like Neill Blomkamp and Duncan Jones arriving on the scene, who might prove themselves master of the genre in the next ten years?

Graph by Steph Fox.

Here's a bonus chart, with more data:

In a keynote speech at the New York Television Festival, Ron Moore explained that the writers on Star Trek: The Next Generation would generally leave scientific terms out of their scripts, even if a certain technology was being held up as a solution to the episode's problems. The writers would use the word "tech" in lieu of actual terminology, and rely on the show's science consultants to fill in the blanks. The scripts the science consultants received would look something like this:

La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching."

Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary tech to the tech, Mr. La Forge."

La Forge: "No, Captain. Captain, I've tried to tech the tech, and it won't
work."

Picard: "Well, then we're doomed."

"And then Data pops up and says, 'Captain, there is a theory that if you tech the other tech ... '" Moore said. "It's a rhythm and it's a structure, and the words are meaningless. It's not about anything except just sort of going through this dance of how they tech their way out of it."

And that, Stross notes, is precisely what is wrong with so much science fiction. In fact, he says, it's anathema to what science fiction is really about. Science fiction is about observing the human condition when circumstances and technologies change. For example, how would world civilizations cope with an impending asteroid strike? How do convenient new gadgets and gizmos alter our daily lives and the way humans interact with one another? The drama of science fiction, he argues, come from those changes of circumstance. But when a show like Star Trek treats technologies as interchangeable, the science fiction is reduced to mere set dressing:

Star Trek and its ilk are approaching the dramatic stage from the opposite direction: the situation is irrelevant, it's background for a story which is all about the interpersonal relationships among the cast. You could strip out the 25th century tech in Star Trek and replace it with 18th century tech - make the Enterprise a man o'war (with a particularly eccentric crew) at large upon the seven seas during the age of sail - without changing the scripts significantly. (The only casualty would be the eyeball candy - big gunpowder explosions be damned, modern audiences want squids in space, with added lasers!)

In the end, Stross says, Trek delivers characters that are no different from the characters that have inhabited television since its inception. They may have wondrous technologies and travel to alien worlds, but they are strangely unchanged by the experience. He suspects that if Trek had treated technology as integral to the story rather than as an afterthought, the series would have created more alien — and more interesting — characters.

Why I hate Star Trek [Charlie's Diary]

Even if you're the greatest Bryan Singer fan in the world - and I'm sure someone out there saw Valkyrie and thought, "Man, if only this guy could have handled the Galactica reboot instead of that Roswell dude" - the idea of anyone handling a new version of Battlestar Galactica less than a year (Hell, it was announced less than six months) after the much-discussed, critically-inescapable finale of the then-SciFi Channel's version seems like a horrific misstep on the part of Universal and executive producer (and Galactica creator) Glen Larson. Why? Let us count the ways:

This Isn't Your Older Brother-By-About-A-Year's Battlestar Galactica
It's not just that audiences may wonder where Six, a female Starbuck or the notion of cylons that look like humans are in this proposed new version, so used are they to the concepts that Ron Moore brought to the franchise - concepts that Singer's threeboot won't be using, if reports are to be believed. It's that Moore's Battlestar Galactica ended up as much more than a television show; no matter how good Singer's version ends up being, there will be some sense of anti-climax because this version didn't get invited to the United Nations for a discussion about human rights that ended with a change to the UN charter. Trying to compete with that kind of impact isn't the smartest idea at the best of times, but seems like commercial suicide when it's announced so quickly after the event. Which leads to...

It's Just Too Soon
This is the part that really confuses me. I can understand Universal wanting to take advantage of what seems like a hot property, but it's the "And in order to do that, we shall throw out everything that made it work and start over" bit that I get stuck on. What made Moore's Galactica popular with both critics and audiences wasn't the core concept, but the execution; the original Galactica, after all, was canceled twice (Although you could easily make the argument that Galactica 1980 was a mercy killing), and it's not just because television audiences back then weren't in a downbeat, post-9/11 mindset. By abandoning Moore's take when it's not only so fresh in our minds, but the defining take in our minds, it's almost dooming Singer's version to failure before he's even started production. There's striking while the iron is hot, and then there's striking while there's already another iron there from last time, all the while telling us that that first iron doesn't really exist.

Yes, I may have strained my metaphor a little there.

The Singer Problem
Here's the thing: I know that I'm meant to be wowed by Bryan Singer's involvement, but I'm finding it hard to be too excited about the director of Superman Returns bringing that same fan-fiction mentality - and I say that as one of the few people who liked that movie - to Galactica. There was something about Superman that suggested that, when he's too close to a property, the sureness of something like The Usual Suspects (or even X-Men) is lost to nostalgia, a feeling that isn't helped by what's already leaked out about Singer's failed attempt to reboot the show for television. Also, is it so wrong that I can't shake the feeling that Singer's best contribution to the world of entertainment has been producing House MD instead of anything he's actually directed...

In the end, the feeling behind any plan to make a Battlestar Galactica movie that isn't directly connected to Ron Moore's version is just confusion. I'm not excited, I'm not feeling like my childhood has been raped, I'm just... confused as to why it seemed like a good idea now. And I get the feeling that I'm not alone in feeling that way. We'll see if Singer and company can work past that, and create something that people will want to pay money to see.

BSG and Caprica creators Ron Moore and David Eick, showrunner Jane Espenson, and actor Esai Morales, who plays Bill Adama's Tauron father Joseph, spoke at yesterday's Caprica/Battlestar Galactica panel about what we can expect from the show's first season.

If you were hoping the show would retain the topless nightclub shots from the DVD pilot, you're in for a bit of disappointment; the network demanded all nipple-y bits be digitally erased for the television premiere (officially announced today as January 22, 2010). But fans of Battlestar Galactica should still keep their eyes open for other visual goodies, says Eick:

The relationship between the two shows is very tangential, but there will be easter eggs for fans along the way. I think as fans of Battlestar watch Caprica there are occasional nods to Battlestar, to some knowledge that I think the fans will have.

For example, many fans noticed that the nightclub in the Caprica pilot suspiciously resembles the opera house shown throughout BSG:

Yes, as a matter of fact, we're going to some of the same sets. In fact, where Esai [Morales] and Trow have a conversation about what he has to do is the same place where we shot a lot of Helo and Sharon running for their lives in the first season.

At the same time, you won't see any of the twelve Cylon models we know and love, and we probably won't meet any other younger versions of our heroes, or their families, apart from young Willie Adama.

Although the look and feel of Caprica is a world away from the gritty Battlestar Galactica, the design team is the same, and Moore and Eick assure us that they'll maintain the same attention to detail, but to a different effect:

We wanted it to feel like it's a bit of a period piece, because it is a period piece for the Galactica. It's 58 years prior to Battlestar Galactica, so we wanted to have this feel like it's a different time within this particular universe. And yet we wanted to communicate different cultural identities, so we saw that the Taurons feel more like they're in the 1940s, with these hats, ties, and smoking clove cigarettes, the cars more vintage, and they sort of have that flavor throughout...it's a different style, an aesthetic different from seeing the contemporary Caprica during Battlestar.

And in the press roundtables after the panel, Moore told us that there was a deliberate decision to make Caprica look and feel as different from BSG as possible. That includes a lot more outdoor and street filming, as opposed to BSG's mainly interior shots. It's expensive and difficult to recreate Caprica in Vancouver on a regular basis, shooting one episode in seven days, but it's totally worth it, says Moore.

At the beginning of the panel, Moore listed Caprica's major theme as being mankind's relationship with advancing technology and the ethics of dealing with artificial intelligence. But as the panel went on, he, Eick, Espenson focused most of their discussion on the political and cultural conflicts between the humans. We'll apparently get to see more of the world-building around Colonial life that we glimpsed in the pilot. Says Moore:

At this point in time, the planets, the Colonies, are at war with each other periodically. It's not a time of war...the colonies themselves are a loose commonwealth, confederation. There is no president, no equivalent to Laura Roslin at this point in time. There's a prime minister of Caprica and there are heads of state on various other colonies.

There are tensions, reservations, biases. There's a certain racist thread that runs through some of the relationships in terms of Taurons and Capricans.

So does this mean we'll get to see what armed skirmishes look like between the individual Colonies? All signs point to yes. During the press roundtables after the panel, Moore told us that "the twelve colonies actually war with each other" during this time period. And instead of the Cylons being the main "other" that our heroes are threatened by, the humans treat each other as the exotic threat, because the Cylons don't really exist yet. Moore says science fiction can address thorny issues like racism, because people who would get offended by the discussion of such topics don't take the genre seriously enough to care.

Jane Espenson noted that this different situation for the colonies allows the writers and designers to differentiate between the different colonies through their dress, traditions, and — she said rather pointedly into the microphone — their tattoos, like the one on Sam Adama's neck.

The panel's moderator asked Esai Morales whether his character, Joseph Adama, has a tattoo as well:

I may not have done what my brother did, but I may have a tattoo here or there somewhere. But we can't give it all away here. We have to save some of it.

In the press roundtables, Espenson added that she's trying to go against real-world ethnic stereotypes in portraying the twelve colonies. The writers have a bible describing all twelve of these worlds, saying things like "This one is like India, except," followed by a big list of differences. Each of these twelve worlds could be its own TV series, and they're trying to make sure each planet has a varied climate and its own mix of cultures and classes, rather than having planets that are purely homogenous. One example of avoiding stereotypes is Sam Adama, Bill Adama's brother — he's a gangster, but he's self-educated and always speaks with perfect grammar. So he's a total thug, but without any of the usual cues that would make it easy for us to identify him as such.

Oh, and there will be spoilers for "Daybreak Parts 2 and 3" in this post, in case you're still waiting for the DVDs before watching it.

Templeton's mega essay more specifically tars "Daybreak" as "the worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction." And he has clearly thought about this for months, amassing a docket of evidence that the BSG-boosters will have a hard time refuting. And he admits that part of the reason why the ending seems so bad to him is that this was such a fantastic series, for so much of its run — this wouldn't have felt nearly as much like a letdown otherwise.

I'm not going to attempt to summarize Templeton's whole argument here — it's really worth going and reading the whole thing properly — but he makes a few really great points that I haven't seen anywhere else. First of all, BSG is not just a space opera, it's a mystery, and the answer to all of the show's riddles is one of the chief attractions of the final episode. The fact that the answers tended to be either "God" or "because we said so" was, to be honest, a bit disappointing. And because Ronald D. Moore decided to build the last two seasons around "big mysteries" instead of character-driven storylines, you can't excuse his failure to pay off those mysteries by saying the show is really all about the characters.

The other problem with God turning out to have been such a huge force in the show's narrative arc, Templeton notes, is the Ghostbusters rule: "If someone asks you if you are a god, you say yes!" (And the corollary is that gods, at least in science fiction, usually turn out to be false.) Templeton has a huge, exhaustive list of all the plot contrivances and happenstances that end up being laid at God's door, including everything Head Six arranged during the course of the series, and it's quite an impressive list. It's fine to have a Supreme Being set the story's events in motion and cause trouble for our heroes, but not quite so great for God(s) to swoop in and solve all our problems at the end of the story.

There's also the always-tenuous relationship between science fiction and our reality — not to mention between science fiction and science. And once you look at the science of "Daybreak," it does start to look a bit dodgy. There's the fact that Galactica's humans and the cave people of prehistoric Earth are able to interbreed, for one thing. And then there's Ron Moore's total misunderstanding of who Mitochondrial Eve actually was and why she's significant — she's not the most common recent ancestor for all humans, who cropped up much later. But turning Hera into Mitochrondrial Eve means that the show has to take place 150,000 years ago, or about 100,000 years before humans started to develop any kind of technology. And that, in turn, means the Colonial fleet left absolutely no mark whatsoever.

Templeton also has trouble with the "collective unconsciousness" idea that all of the stuff we see in the series, from Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" through to the clothes and telephones our heroes use, somehow filtered down through our ancestral memory so that we could reinvent it all today. And the hoariness of the cliche of "ancient astronauts" visiting our primitive ancestors.

(A side note: Katee Sackhoff has said there's a line of dialogue she refused to say in the final episode. After she puts in the notes to the magic song and jumps the fleet to Earth, President Roslin asks, "Where have you taken us?" And in Moore's script, she was supposed to respond: "Somewhere... all along the watchtower." But she and Mary McDonnell kept giggling when they got to that line, so it ended up getting cut. Thank goodness.)

Here's what I always come back to when I think about the BSG finale, though — I feel as though Moore put us on notice with the final episode of season three. When we first encounter the mysterious Bob Dylan Cylon signal, and four totally random characters turn out to be Cylons, and Starbuck comes back from the dead, the show is basically hoisting a giant sign saying "You Are Now Leaving Storytelling Logic. Please Drive Safely." And anyone who stuck with the show for its final season after that really can't complain, because we were duly warned.

Anyway, the whole thing is very much worth reading and debating: [Brad Ideas]

Suggesting that Fox execs knew what they were doing by jettisoning the show in the Friday night death slot - or, perhaps, that they created a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing so - the former pilot for Ron Moore's new show turned "two hour movie event" drew only 1.8 million viewers and tied with ABC's The Goode Family for the title of least-watched show on network television for the night (By comparison, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was cancelled with an audience twice that size).

It'll be interesting to see the DVR numbers for Virtuality in a few weeks - we wouldn't be surprised if it gets a Transformers-related bump, although nowhere near enough to have made the show make sense as an ongoing series.

Fox's 'Virtuality' tanks [THR Live Feed]

The setup for the show is immediately intriguing. The Phaeton is a spaceship on a ten-year voyage to the nearest star system with a habitable planet, in search of alien life. Its crew of 12 are funding the voyage by filming their adventures for reality TV, and their only escape from each other is into hyper-realistic virtual reality programs. So even as they try to capture the gritty reality of ship-board life for "Edge of Never: Life on the Phaeton," their sanity depends on an ability to escape the ship via immersive VR fantasies.

It's the kind of meta-meditation on technology that Ron Moore loves, and which he explored via the cylons' synthetic-but-real identities in Battlestar. Virtuality is dark like Battlestar too, but in a much more intimate way. The ship's counselor Roger Fallon is also the producer of the reality show, so he has a vested interest in keeping his patients neurotically off-center. After all, perfectly mentallly healthy people do not create good drama. While his wife sneaks off to have sex with the ship's captain in virtual reality, Fallon is left to lecture the reality TV audience back home about how everybody "plays a role" in a crisis situtation and therefore all the roles they play on ship are "as real as it could possibly be."

The ship's crisis, at least in the pilot episode, is whether or not there will even be a ten-year mission at all. Captain Pike must decide when they reach Jupiter whether they'll slingshot out of the solar system using the gas giant's gravity (along with several nukes), or return to Earth. Given that new research has revealed Earth will be going waterworld in less than a century, finding a possible new home for humanity is more important than ever. As millions tune in to find out whether it's "go or no go" for the Phaeton, Pike has to consider whether his tiny crew is ready to endure ten years together in deep space - especially given that the doctor has just discovered he has Parkinson's disease, and their virtual reality program is starting to act really weird.

Although the "go or no go" dilemma is solved in this episode, we get a potential season-long arc in the VR bug plot. A strange man starts appearing in the crew's VR fantasies, beating them and killing them before they have a chance to take off their interface goggles. It's not as if the VR fantasies can harm people physically - this isn't a Matrix deal where dying inside means you die outside - but there is still something psychologically scarring about being murdered no matter how it happens.

Much of the pilot episode, directed by Peter Berg (who is also directing an upcoming film version of Dune), simply introduces all our characters. There's the girly hacker who also serves as host for the reality TV show; the gay couple of astrobiologists who cook for the rest of the crew and complain that they come across as "bitchy queens" on TV; the sick doctor; the lonely ship's designer; the creepy counselor and his biologist wife; the tough-but-fair captain; his irascible second-in-command who manages to turn a wheelchair into his macho accessory; and the ex-military pilot who is a smart-mouthed, tomboy maverick. It's a cool group, and you'll definitely wind up wanting to know more about some of them.

It's unclear whether FOX will turn Virtuality into a series, but this two-hour premiere is certainly not a self-contained story. As I said earlier, the "go no go" plot is resolved, but so many lose ends remain at the end that it feels unsatisfying as a stand-alone TV movie.

Virtuality spins a lot of balls into the air with this pilot, and it's not clear that Ron Moore can keep them from crashing down. Is the show really going to be able to balance the reality-TV storyline with our crew's virtual reality adventures (and their real-life dramas)? The reality TV angle brings a much-needed cynical subtlety to the show, which rescues it from pure space psychodrama. But Moore isn't exactly known for his cynical storytelling, and I worry that this prickly aspect of the series will get smoothed over by Fantasy Island morality tales set in VR land.

Still, I would like the chance to find out where Virtuality might take us. Moore was willing to deliver quite a shock at the end of the pilot, which set the stage for a show unafraid to take risks. And I have to admit I'm intrigued to see what will befall the crew next, in a watching-a-trainwreck-on-Livejournal way. Creepy mind games mixed with media weirdness in space? Yeah, sign me up. Let's hope the show goes on.

Moore, creator of Battlestar Galactica, didn't seem to mind our obnoxious question. Here's what he said:

Well, it's a different concept. The holodeck is a space, and you would go into [it] and 3D forms were created in front of you... This is truly a virtual world, much more akin to a virtual headset. Whereas you have an experiential ability touch things [you're not going into an actual space], so it's a different sort of mechanics. At the story level, we're not explaining the idea that if you die in the virtual space, you die in the real space. [Instead, if you die in the virtual space, you just wake up.]

It's more like gaming is now. You game, you don't get killed, you wake up. We're using it much more psychologically now. The experiences that the astronauts have aboard the spaceship in the virtual space are things that are psychologically motivated. They go in there in and do things for entertainment. [And this reveals something about their personalities, and where they want to spend their time.] When things go wrong in that space, how is it going to affect them in the real world? How does the virtual space affect the real world storyline, and vice versa?

He did admit, in response to another caller, that Virtuality's virtual headsets are pretty similar to the ones you'll see in the BSG prequel Caprica. The main difference is that in Virtuality, there's less of a shared virtual world, and it's not an infinite space with tons of orgy rooms and different environments. Rather, each crewmember has a private virtual reality module, which can be shared but is pretty limited. The show conveys the virtual nature of these environments by filming all the VR scenes in greenscreen, instead of a real setting.

And Moore promises that Virtuality is less serious than the post-apocalyptic BSG. "There's more humor probably in the first 10 minutes of Virtuality than there was in the whole run of Battlestar," he says.

Virtuality is much more about the tensions and manipulations and cross-tensions among a group of people "in a metal tube going in a straight line for a decade or so." In addition to serving in this deep-space exploration mission, they're also taking part in a reality TV show for the viewers at home. And the crew was chosen as much for their diversity and mix of characters — for this reality show — as for their skills, which gives rise to questions over whether the best people for the mission were chosen. Another source of tension: when the crew hears news from Earth (including news of major ecological disasters) they don't know if it's true, or if they're just being fed horrendous news to make the reality TV show better viewing.

These three elements: deep space exploration, VR, and reality TV are "tough to juggle," Moore admits. "It's a very ambitious piece. That was the reaction on the part of Fox when they saw it: It's a very complicated piece with a lot of moving parts." Fox felt the two-hour pilot would have been a great feature film, but weren't sure if it could launch a TV series. But Moore still holds out hope that it could be picked up as a series if the response to the June 26 airing is positive enough. It's also possible the story could be continued as a comic book or as another TV movie.

Also, keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for some special web-only content created for Virtuality:

There is a series of webisodes were created for Virtuailty... The webisodes were episodes of the reality show. You would see pieces of the reality show as it's broadcast back to Earth. That was part of the pitch [to the network. If the show had been picked up, you would have been able to watch installments of Edge of Never, the reality series, on the website.] The concept and plan would have been that you can log in on to the website and there would be information included that would not be accessible to people watching the show. If you wanted to know everything that is going on. The astronauts may not be aware of how the show is being viewed back on Earth, they may not understand how things are. My understanding is right now fox is going to put them up on the Facebook page for Edge of Never In the next few days you'll be able to download or view these webisodes.

Here's the gallery, which also includes a photo of the ship's captain, Frank Pike, acting out a Civil War scenario on horseback via the ship's virtual reality modules. And a picture of visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel in action. After this post had already gone up, producer Michael Taylor sent me a bonus image showing the Phaeton's workings, which is now in the gallery.

And because the gallery software doesn't seem to be able to give you a high enough resolution of it, here's that explanation of the Phaeton's physics:

Having read the script to this TV movie (which still could become the pilot for a new series if the stars align just right) I'm incredibly excited to see it play out on screen. Here's the official description:

The crew of the Phaeton is approaching the go/no-go point of their epic 10-year journey through outer space. With the fate of Earth in their hands, the pressure is intense. The best bet for helping the crew members maintain their sanity is the cutting-edge virtual reality technology installed on the ship. It's the perfect stress-reliever until they realize a glitch in the system has unleashed a virus on to the ship. Tensions mount as the crew decides how to contain the virus and complete their mission. Meanwhile, their lives are being taped for a reality show back on Earth in the World Broadcast Premiere of VIRTUALITY airing Friday, June 26 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

As I've said before, when I first heard about Virtuality, I wasn't that excited, because the concept sounded too much like a whole show of holodeck episodes. But about a year ago, I reviewed a huge chunk of the pilot script (it was pretty much the whole thing) and I was an instant convert.

Yes, Virtuality is the story of the crew of the Phaeton, a deep-space exploration vessel, who use virtual reality to distract themselves from the claustrophobia and boredom of deep space (until something inevitably goes wrong), but there's way more to it than that. For one thing, the ship really is incredibly claustrophobic and slow, not roomy and zoomy like the Enterprise. For another, the crew are forced to take part in a "reality TV" show that's broadcast back on Earth... and the ship's therapist is the reality-show's producer. It's seriously twisted, demented stuff. Oh, and the menace that wreaks havoc in their virtual reality world is a bit scarier and more insidious than a bunch of Worfs in cowboy hats.

Also, it's directed by Peter Berg (Hancock and the upcoming Dune) and stars genre veteran Sienna Guillory (pictured above) alongside Clea DuVall, Jimmi Simpson, Joy Bryant, James D'Arcy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and others.

So it's fantastic news that the pilot will finally air on Saturday, July 4. I'm guessing this is the original version of the pilot, since it's two hours long. There were reports a while back that Fox was asking Moore to revamp the pilot - possibly to make it one hour long, and also to remove "controversial" elements such as the fact that two minor characters, Manny and Val, were gay and married to each other. Here's hoping that I'm right, and this is the original pilot, not some eviscerated version.

Let's be clear, though - it seems exceedingly unlikely that Virtuality will get to become an ongoing series. (I'd say that's been clear for months, unfortunately.) It's just barely possible that if the TV movie has out-of-the-park ratings - doing much, much better than you'd expect from a Saturday night on July 4 - that Fox will reconsider killing the series. But honestly, I'd say that's not terribly likely. So I'm just glad we're finally getting to see all the Virtuality that will ever get made.

Untitled Drama Series
For an SF series about spirituality, humanity's true nature and the hotness of the cylon women, Galactica has always had a curiously blue-collar feel to it (especially in episodes like "Dirty Hands," where Tyrol stands up for the rights of the refinery workers). So why not celebrate that with a drama all about the unnamed schlubs who aren't part of the military, nor have destinies to fulfill and prophecies to meet... but are just trying to make an honest day's living in the middle of the destruction of the human race? Keep the cylons out of it as anything more than occasionally-mentioned bogeymen and allow Galactica's social commentary to come to the fore and stay there for once. Let The Wire's David Simon run the writers' room and see what happens.

Friday Night Frak-Up
Who wouldn't want to see thirty minutes of various members of the Colonial Fleet beating the shit out've each other? Yes, "Unfinished Business" was only the beginning, and Friday Night Frak-Up could be exactly what an audience who found themselves all hot and bothered at the sight of Apollo and Starbuck boxing is looking for: Half an hour of Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber sweating and grunting a lot, with added violence. It's a ratings winner, admit it.

Cottle MD
The high concept speaks for itself; it's House in space. Galactica's chain-smoking, ornery doctor has been an oddly calming presence throughout the show's history, never failing in his ability to speak bluntly and make even the worst situation just a little bit bleaker. This is what I'm suggesting - An hour-long drama about Cottle moving to a new hospital ship where the boss hates him but also has a crush on him, he has three flawed geniuses as assistants, and John Hodgman's brain surgeon is his long-suffering best friend. Sneak it onto NBC as a replacement for er and Emmies await, I'm telling you.

'Til Death And Subsequent Resurrection Do Us Part
Married bliss is impossible for most sitcom couples... but what happens when the blushing bride is a human-killing machine? That's the question behind what could be the most groundbreaking situation comedy ever seen on the Sci Fi Channel. One human male, one cylon female and a whole household full of "hilarious misunderstandings" await as the union between humanity and the cylon race reaches the domestic frontier, where they'll be glad that - in space - no-one can hear you scream "I want a divorce!"

Top Colonial Chef
This one's a winner. Fifteen chefs fight for the title of Top Chef... but one of them is a cylon sleeper agent who keeps sabotaging everyone else's dish. And, as if that wasn't enough to worry about, the ever-dwindling food supply keeps all the contestants on their toes - which is a good thing, considering that there's no knowing which of the contestants will find their homes under attack from cylons, military coups or even just plain everyday thuggery. The tagline sells itself: "It's reality... but out of this world!" No? Well, maybe I could interest you in "Gaius Baltar's Spiritual Awakening Hour" or "My Own Worst Enemy (Is A Sexy Blonde Woman In My Head Who May Be A Cylon Or Possibly A Personification Of My Own Self-Loathing)"...? Sadly, I got too many of 'em...

Talking to the Hollywood Reporter, Moore was asked what Galactica's legacy to the genre will be. His response:

One of the goals going into it (was) we wanted to make a sci-fi show that was relevant and spoke to our times and dealt with real issues that approached the drama in a naturalistic way and made it "real." If we're able to define a legacy of asking other shows to do the same in the genre and keep sci fi going in a way that tackles meaningful ideas and challenge audience expectations, I think that would be a great thing.

Hasn't sci-fi always been about commenting on contemporary concerns, in some way...? Well, until Star Wars, perhaps...

(Moore also comments on the status of Virtuality, his pilot for Fox: "They haven't officially turned it down, they haven't officially moved it forward. We'll just have to wait and see." Officially turned it down? That doesn't sound too promising...)

Q&A: Ron Moore on 'Battlestar' series finale [THR Live Feed]

Goldfarb was right — Future Kill is probably the worst theatrically released movie of all time. (Although, did Nine Deaths Of The Ninja ever appear in theaters?) It starts out as a post-apocalyptic mutant gang movie, then veers sharply into Porkys/Revenge Of The Nerds territory with an elaborate subplot about frat-boys playing pranks on each other. Then the frat-boys get framed for the murder of a mutant leader by Splatter, our dickless armored former nuclear scientist and current psycho-killer.

It's all the work of writer/director Ronald W. Moore — who I'm guessing is the reason why Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica scribe Ronald D. Moore always includes his middle initial in his credits. [IMDB]

Explaining the out-of-nowhere revelation that Tyrol and Callie's son Nicky wasn't actually Tyrol and Callie's son, Moore admitted:

This whole little subplot about Nicky's real father being discovered was something we, you know, decided in the writers' room... Once we had decided that Tyrol was a cylon, that automatically meant that Nicky was another Cylon hybrid. And we had said, very clearly, on the show... that Hera was the only hybrid between human and Cylon. And I didn't want to change that, Hera's role in the firmament of the show is very firmly established in my mind and I had a specific place where I wanted it to go, and then suddenly we had this additional problem if Tyrol was a Cylon. So we did have some conversations at the end of season 3, when we decided to make Tyrol a Cylon. And the long and the short of it is, somebody said, "Well, what if he's not the father?" and we all kind of laughed, and then we said, "Actually, that makes sense."

So there you have it; Callie's good name, besmirched as the easiest solution to a plot problem. Official.

Battlestar Galactica Episode Commentaries [Scifi.com]

It looks as though the main document is called "Life On A Baseship," and it was written before season three, and before the show had decided on the identities of the Final Five.

Here's what I could decipher:

Life on the Cylon Baseship:

Key to understanding how life works aboard the Cylon baseship is recognizing and understanding the tensions within the communal nature of Cylon life. The Cylons, as artificial beings, have made many of their evolutionary choices, including the method and practice of their interactivity. Driven by their burgeoning belief in a divine being, they have constructed for themselves a method of interaction that is rooted in the human model, yet makes allowance for the unique abilities of the machine. This combination of a biologically based pattern of behavior only partly improved upon by mechanistic technical advances had led, in some instances, to what seem like contradictions in their modes of living and behavior.

The communal nature of Cylon society is rooted in the fact that these are, fundamentally, machines, capable of highly sophisticated exchanges of data. There is no technical reason why any given Cylon should not be immediately and continuously connected to every other Cylon aboard a baseship, as well as to the database of the ship itself. However, the Cylons have chosen, as a society, to foreswear this ability in favor of more closely emulating the human form, presumably as a direct result of their homegrown theological belief that mankind was God's chosen form, based on His original image. Human failures to carry out the Almighty's wishes and plans notwithstanding, it is a tenet of Cylon belief that the human form comes directly from Him, as did the initial human impulse to design the first generation of Cylons as bipedal beings, which closely followed the human design. Therefore, the Cylons believe in maintaining and cultivating many aspects of the human form, including their modes of communication. Cylons verbally talk to one another as opposed to transmit files or data communication, because that's the way God intended for His creations to interact with one another.

Aboard the Baseship, this creates a need for design systems that permit instant access to the vital data, while at the same time respecting the fact that Cylons are something more than simply ((illegible)) accessing a data stream...
...

There is no formalized hierarchy among the Cylons, either aboard the Baseship or in the Cylon nation at large. Decisions are made collectively, through the will of the...

The Control Center: The functional equivalent of Galactica's CIC, this is where tactical decisions are made aboard the Baseship. There is no assigned "crew" here, any visit to the Control Center will see a different set of Cylons coming and going, and interacting with one another. Again, decisions are made collectively, with individual models speaking with one voice and no action taken until majority consensus has been reached. The holographic projections above the consoles change rapidly, seldom showing the same image for any great length of time. The images displayed are also just...

[Living areas are] assigned to individual Cylons, and are treated... in terms of sets, the Living Areas are redresses of the control center. They generally consist of of a reclining chair... [Cylons] sometimes take nourishment directly from the [ship]... The LIving Areas are customized by the [individual Cylons].

Clothing being a purely aesthetic choice, there are times when we may wish to enter a room where total or partial nudity is on display, without it being remarked on by any of the Cylons.

The individual models:

Sixes — are powerful, driven beings, constantly looking for ways to influence or undermine events. They love human sensuality in all its forms, and see their bodies as the best temple in praise of God that has yet been constructed. They are also deeply impulsive and have a tendency towards physical and emotional cruelty... strive to bring themselves closer to Him.

Leobens — see life outside the box of the material world. They have found ways of calcluating variables and data outside the [normal world, and this allows them] and other Cylons to see beyond the here and now.

Sharons are uncertain of themselves and their place in the universe.

The Final Five

These are the Cylons which are not present on the Baseship, and indeed have not even been glimpsed or referred to in the series so far. They are mysterious beings even to the Significant Seven, all of whom know there are five humanoid Cylons who choose not associate with the others, and who seldom communicate directly with them.

For some reason, the video is not working as an embed, but here it is. Non-U.S. people, you're SOL. Sorry:

Talking during an appearance at the current Television Critics Association Press Tour, Reilly told reporters that the pilot for the new series from Battlestar Galactica's main man was currently being recut... and that its new running time will be one hour, instead of the original two. Reilly said,

It could air as-is, and a certain segment of the audience would flip for it. But it's a little dense.

Translation: We don't trust our viewers to deal with an intelligent show, so we're willing to chop half of it away to make it a bit more palatable to dumb people. Not the greatest way to raise expectations for a show that's already been plagued by rumors of it being in trouble.

It wasn't all bad news, however, Reilly did hint that Fringe will see a second season (calling the show "a keeper"), and that Dollhouse may not be as doomed as you've heard.

Kevin Reilly talks 'Fringe,' 'Dollhouse,' 'NBC' ... [THR Live Feed]

One of the problems with coming up with outlandish, unlikely theories for Battlestar Galactica is that you're dealing with a series where the head writer has publicly admitted serious considering a plot that revealed that God was actually Dirk Benedict. With that as the limit for credibility, you're kind of screwed when it comes to coming up with something that sounds entirely unbelievable... which is why so many fan theories seem entirely plausible. Also, with the amount of clues that have been left throughout the series, it's no surprise that so many fan theories cover the same ground. For example:

Who Is The Final Cylon?
Well, if you ask BuddyTV, Boomer Is The Final Cylon:

Not Athena, the mother of Hera, but Boomer, the Sharon who shot Adama, got Jack Ruby-ed by Cally and tried to end the Cylon aggression against humanity. Crazy as it sounds, it all makes perfect sense... One of my biggest questions about Battlestar Galactica has always been the numbering of the Cylons. The seven original models all have numbers. Cavil, Leoben, D'Anna, Simon and Doral are 1-5, respectively. Number Six is, of course, 6. Then there's Sharon Valeri, aka Sharon Agathon, aka Boomer, aka Athena. She's number 8.

Either Ronald D. Moore doesn't know what comes after six, or this has been a huge clue slapping us in the face for years. I had just assumed that, for some reason, one of the final five was the missing 7. Then came this revelation that the final five don't have model numbers, which either means there is no 7 or Moore is playing mind games with his fans.

Of course, others still suspect that Starbuck Is The Final Cylon, and they have... uh, proof?:

Kara Thrace is the only female Cylon model who has naturally blonde hair. The original plan was that Kara was to be known as "the blonde Cylon", but that was abandoned when her programming failed to engage. The Sixes then seized on the opportunity to become known as "the bleached-blonde Cylon". Not to be upstaged, the Threes claimed the title of "the sun-streaked Cylon". It was this ruthless competition for blonde supremacy that motivated Sharon Valeri to desert the Cylon cause and swear allegiance to the Colonial Fleet.

Me, I still think that it's Gaeta, but here's an entirely unforeseen possibility for you to consider.

The Cylons Are A Virus
One of the stranger theories to pop up more than once during the course of the show is the idea that the Cylons aren't exactly the robots that we think that they are. For example, what if they're really
symbiotic parasites that rewrite the DNA of their hosts?:

As the Hybrid stated that the final five come from ”the home of the thirteenth” and until recently they were only seen as active cylons in the Opera House, Colonel Tighs age is again surprising. This is because his age indicates that any time on Earth for him would have to be around the time of the First Cylon War. This leads me to wonder if the final five cylons are actually normal humans who have been taken over by some form of “Cylon Symbiote or Virus” and this is how these cylons resurrect, in that when they die they move to a compatible host, or it rewrites the DNA of an Embryo to create a new cylon. This could also explain how Caprica 6 became pregnant by Tigh since if Tigh was in love with her and physically still human then as with the Athena pregnancy it would biologically be a Human Cylon child rather than the progeny of two Cylons, this would also make Tyrols child fully human. As BSG appears to be becoming more “mystical” as the series progresses then there could be a “mystical” variation of this theory occuring in that humans have been merged with a Cylon “spirit”.

Or, then again, maybe Cylons Are An STD:

Tracing the infection is just a matter of following who slept with who among the crew of the Galactica. The biggest evidence for a Cylon sex disease is that all Four of the Final Five Cylons either slept with Cylons or have links to people (carriers) who slept with known Cylons... Personally, I see the Cylon sex disease as a great way to pay homage to original series Star Trek. I always wondered how Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and other crew members could have numerous horizontal intergalactic alien interfaces and not come down with a case of sexually transmitted space cooties. Meanwhile, there were tons of galactic bugs going around: the aging virus (The Deadly Years), diseases that only affect grown ups (Miri), to the sweat transmittable disease Psi-2000 virus that caused Sulu run around shirtless with a fencing sword (The Naked Time). Not having an STD on original Star Trek (too sensitive an issue for the sixties?) was a real missed opportunity and could be rectified by Battlestar Galactica.

Plus, if Cylon sex disease eventually leads to topless Galactica crew members with fencing swords, I’m all for it.

Well, there's one new argument for safe sex, if nothing else.

Starbuck Isn't What She Seems To Be
Namely, she's the first Cylon/Human hybrid. Yeah, you read that right. Her daddy? Oh, come on, surely you can guess:

Leoben Conoy (the scary Keith Callum Rennie cylon who held her hostage on New Caprica and also who she tortured earlier in the series) is her dad.

OMG OMG it makes so much sense. That’s why he was the guy in her crazy dreams before she fake died and that’s why he’s the only one besides her mom who’s obsessed with her special destiny.

It makes so much sense.

Here's a more in-depth take on the same theory:

Too gross to think about a father, albeit a robotic one, lusting after his daughter? Well, that’s the trick Ronald Moore and company have pulled on us: We’ve thrown lust into their relationship where there is none. All of Leobin’s creepy advances on Kara should be re-viewed in this light. When he predicts that she will one day embrace him and say she loves him, this is the statement of a father, not a suitor. When he says that he wants to be a family with Kara, he’s being genuine — not as a husband but as a parent.

It’s the vision of Leobin that allows Kara to make peace with her mother; he’s passed this ’seer’ ability to his daughter. But it doesn’t take some sixth sense for Leobin to know so much about Kara — he knew her mother intimately and must have followed her life. Perhaps even Kara’s mother suspected (or knew!) of her paramour’s true nature, continually chiding Kara about her “special destiny.”

Leobin is Kara’s father. Kara is half-Cylon. She and Hera (and the Chief’s baby?) are the shape of things to come.

You know, I have to admit, I'm almost convinced.

Everything Has Happened Before
Well, we've been told this plenty of times during the series, but what does it actually mean? The most common theory is something like this:

Back in the ancient, misty past, there were beings who called themselves humans. They built robots to act as their servants and fight their wars. The robots rebelled, redesigned themselves in their creators' image, drove the humans to extinction, and took their place. As time went on, they forgot they were robots and instead believed they were humans. They built new robots to act as their servants and fight their wars. The robots rebelled, et cetera and so forth. The last time it happened, humanity lived on Kobol. After the robots won their revolution, they set off to found the 12 Colonies. They forgot they were robots and believed they were humans. They built Cylons to act as their servants and fight their wars. The Cylons rebelled.

The cyclical nature of this history explains how there can be a prophecy in their holy book. It isn't prophecy; it's a history of last time. The only thing I can't work out is how mentions of Earth got involved. Maybe humanity did originate on Earth many iterations ago, and the name has propagated through all the revolutions.

But the best version of the theory? Well, that's also The Greatest BSG Theory Of Them All:

Earth, the "13th Colony" is actually the "1st Colony". They created the Cylons and the other humans come from them. For some protective reason it is all reversed though, and made to look like earth is a 13th colony that came after the original 12. The Cylons have existed before Caprica was ever populated with humans, before the other 11 planets/colonies. Sure the Capricans invented robots called Cylons, and those robots went to war with the humans. They agreed to a truce and left, only to reappear with very human looking Cylons. Did they create them? Probably not. The survivors just see them as Cylons based on what they know so far, and because they travel with Cylons. The Final Four (yes four, not five) that we now know of probably created them. Also, the Final Four are probably not limited to one body or form. The last Cylon, as yet unknown (the 5th of the Final Five) is different still. Our current colloquialism for the 5th would probably be to call it "God". The First and Final One. The Final Four are probably lower deities, or original prophets of The First and Final. The Other Seven are just puppets, probably different from the other humans only in the fact that they are reborn into a facsimile body after death. The holy books, prophesies, etc. are all realized in this as being true. Not just fundamentalist lunacy, but reality. The books were written to bring the humans to Earth after the destruction of their homeworlds. A recurring theme in the show has been "All of this has happened before, and will again". So the religious texts are just a design to aide in keeping it all "happening again".

And why is it all happening at all, let alone to be played out over and over again? The First and Final Cylon is none other than Adolf Hitler! And this is how he purifies the genetic lines of humanity. Destroying humanity over and over again, but only the very strongest survive it and live to breed even genetically stronger babies. Only this time they are breeding the strongest of the humans with the genetically perfect Cylons to help push the perfect genes into society.

Sure, the theorizer (Allen Christopher) quickly backtracks with "Alright, when I said the Last and Final was Hitler, I was being facetious," but we know better. Ron Moore, the gauntlet has been thrown at your feet. If the revelation of the Final Cylon isn't at least as stunning as it turning out to be Hitler, then I think we have to consider the entirity of Battlestar Galactica - and, for that matter, Caprica, let's be honest - a failure.

Make us proud.

Of course not.

Moore spilled the beans on what the Sci Fi Channel's new show - due 2010 - will provide:

Remi Aubuchon had come to the studio with an idea to do something unrelated to "Battlestar" about robots and artificial intelligence and the creation of life, and when we started talking together, I got interested in the idea of doing a sci-fi show that was set on a planet, did not have an action adventure component to it, is even more of a character piece than "Battlestar," where it really has to live and die on its characters and its story without the Cylons attacking every week. Could you sustain a science fiction show in that kind of context? That's what got me excited... Surprisingly, this could be the one that sparks to a female viewership. There's always been a much higher male demo on "Galactica," because of the action adventure, the hardware component, and we think the character material might bring in more women... That'll be the challenge for marketing the show. You have to go out and convince people, "You may not like sci-fi, but you'll like this one." That's the angle they tried with "Battlestar," but there's still a spaceship going by and people may have turned it on, seen that and gone, "No" and turned it off. People shooting at robots, "No." In "Caprica," if we can at least get you to watch, you'll see people talking, and people in dramatic situations, and not stuff blowing up all the time, and hopefully we can get that slice of the audience.

Moore also talked about what shows influenced his writing of the final BSG episode (The Larry Sanders Show, surprisingly), and goes through a list of things that will and won't be addressed in the final episodes:

Obviously, the identity of the final Cylon, we will find this out?

Yeah.

The origin and nature of the Final Four and how they different from the rest of them?

Yes.

The origin of the rest of the skinjobs?

Yes.

What happened to Earth and what happened to the 13th Colony?

Yes.

Who, if anyone, is orchestrating all of this?

Basically, yeah. I don't know if it's going to be wrapped up in a neat bow. The show has an answer for it, whether it's a satisfying answer, I don't know.

Will "All this has happened before and it will happen again" be explained in some way?

Yes.

The opera house?

Yes.

What happened to Kara when she went through the Malestrom?

Pretty much.

Identity and nature of the "head" characters?

Yes.

Tigh and Six's baby, and whether that means Cylons can breed?

Yes. That's not a "yes" to whether they can breed — the question will be answered.

The fate of Boomer and whether there are other 1's, 4's and 5's floating out there?

Yes.

Roslin's health?

Yes.

Okay, that's a "yes" on all of them.

See? We knew what all the questions were! I'm kind of proud of myself. "Yes"es to all of them. I thought you were going to throw a curve at me, like, "Oh, (bleep)."

Okay, I admit it; I'm very excited to see what lies in store when Battlestar Galactica returns to screens January 16th.

Battlestar Galactica: Ron Moore Talks Final Season [NJ.com]

For those of you who missed reading about it before, Virtuality follows the crew of the starship Phaeton, a pioneering interstellar vessel. Cramped into close quarters, the crew only has one outlet: a virtual reality system that lets them be anyone or do anything. But there's a glitch in the VR system that starts putting people in real danger. And meanwhile, the crew of the ship is forced to take part in a kind of "reality TV" show for the amusement of everyone stuck behind on Earth — and the show's sadistic producer is also the ship's therapist.

In other words, it's just the blend of twisted, bleak and thought-provoking you'd expect from the reinventor of Battlestar Galactica. (And it's much smarter than you'd expect from the one-sentence description: "interstellar ship where everyone uses virtual reality, until the VR goes wrong.")

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Fox is currently looking at the Virtuality pilot, which was shot a while back. The pilot is structured as a TV movie, or "back-door pilot," whcih means it could air on its own, to test the waters for an ongoing series. But rather ominously, the Reporter says the pilot "might stay in consideration for May and be reworked as a more mainstream drama." That makes it sound like the pilot could possibly air in its current form, or it could be reworked, or it could just disappear.

In any case, the article makes it clear Fox is less excited about Virtuality than about Boldly Going Nowhere, the new science fiction comedy from the makers of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

I'm not really sure how you go about remaking Virtuality as a more "mainstream" drama. One easy "fix" is to get rid of the show's gay married couple (Manny and Val, pictured above). Apart from that, what do you do? The current fad seems to be for shows that appear to be realistic dramas at first, until you realize they have science fictional elements. (Like Lost, or Eleventh Hour.) But how do you do that with Virtuality? Have it not set on a spaceship?

Having read (almost all of) the pilot script, I'm at a loss to know what "more mainstream" means in this instance. The show is maybe slightly more mainstream than Battlestar Galactica, but it's definitely not going to be another Desperate Housewives. It's too weird, too snarky and too twisty for that.

In happier news, it sounds as though Wendy and Lisa (the former Prince bandmates who already do the music for Heroes) are lined up to do the music for Virtuality (We interviewed them here). They also have a new CD coming out (and available for download), their first in a decade. It's great stuff.

[Galactica Sitrep]

Traditionally, NBC has filled the 10-11 slot with hour long dramas aimed at older audiences; this season started with My Own Worst Enemy, Law & Order: SVU, Lipstick Jungle, ER and Life in the timeslot across the week, but this approach met with varying degrees of success - Worst Enemy and Jungle have already been cancelled, and Life is apparently in danger of the same thing. Given that their replacements have been Dateline specials and reality shows that've been getting ratings that are as good as, or higher than, their more-expensive drama counterparts - and former Jimmy Kimmel Live executive producer Duncan Gray suggests that Leno's new hour will be ten times less expensive than an hour-long drama - why shouldn't NBC opt for a cheaper way of filling five hours of television a week?

(It's worth pointing out that this move is not only cheaper in terms of money, but also in terms of stress; having a talk show take up almost a quarter of your primetime hours each week also makes those hours strike-proof in the event of a repeat of last year's WGA walkout, or the discussed Screen Actors Guild action.)

Admittedly, looking at it from NBC's viewpoint, it's almost a no-brainer (NBC's competitors aren't too upset by what they see as a withdrawal from the ratings battle, either), but here are two reasons why viewers may want to be concerned about the decision - and one reason to embrace change:

What Shows Die So That Leno May Live?
This may be a moot point, given that two of the original fall launch shows in that slot have already been cancelled, but giving Leno five hours of primetime mean that five hours need to become available, by hook or by crook ("It's a bummer for the writers who are writing for drama. There are five less scripted shows at 10 p.m. That's bad for writers. People don't get it. They can't understand," according to one agent). Does this mean outright cancellations of series (Although ER is already due to finish this year, freeing up one more hour), or something more creative? We've already seen Knight Rider's season become shortened, but with rumors arising that Heroes will be following suit next year, will be see the same number of dramas, but each with shortened seasons on NBC? NBC/Universal co-chairman Ben Silverman is hinting that this may be the case:

We're still doing as much development... Overall the load will be similar.

If so, that may be a best case scenario; ABC's Lost (and many British dramas) have shown that shorter seasons can allow for less plot filler and more incisive storytelling, and if NBC reduces the length of seasons, that could free up slots for new shows in the future, instead of letting the existing hits (or, in the case of Chuck and Heroes, quasi-hits) bogart the airwaves.

(Given this year's crop of new SF on NBC - Knight Rider, My Own Worst Enemy - and last year's - Chuck, the dear departed Bionic Woman - you may be forgiven for not being particularly excited about what the network will come up with next, of course. But I'll come back to this in a minute.)

What If Leno's Show Is A Ratings Success?
Look, I like talk shows (Well, some talk shows). I even like Jay Leno. But I'd be lying if I said that I wanted his show to be a hit, because the last thing I want is something like this to become a reality (from Variety):

Meanwhile, others wonder whether the NBC move will lead its competitors to make similarly drastic moves amid the depressed advertising market.

"It's scary," said one rival network exec. "It puts the pressure on the rest of us. Any time a network does something drastic like that, there's the possibility of someone else doing something."

Among the other drastic steps that one or more networks may kick around: returning time, such as Saturday nights, to the affiliates. (In another recent unprecedented move, Fox just gave half of its Saturday morning slot to stations and will program the other half with infomercials.)

The idea that network television will (continue to) devolve into the cheapest, lowest common denominator programming is something that I don't want to see happen but, at the same time, can easily see happening. What worries me isn't that network TV moving away from dramas will see an end to quality drama in general on American television, because there's definitely an argument to be made that the best quality drama on American television hasn't been on network TV in quite some time. No, my concern is more that it means the end for quality SF/fantasy drama on American television.

Think of the great SF/fantasy shows that American TV have produced lately - not the "Okay" ones like Sanctuary, but the ones that you make a point of watching week after week - and then think how many aren't from network TV. I come up with Battlestar Galactica (and, depending on my taste for camp, maybe Brave and the Bold, Stargate and True Blood) and... that's about it. I'm sure I'm forgetting something obvious, but shows like Fringe, Terminator or even Heroes all seem so network television that I can't imagine where they'd fit on cable, or even if similar shows would be greenlit on relatively genre-unfriendly channels like Showtime. If network television abandoned hourlong dramas, would SF and fantasy shows be left to a world of SciFi Channel schlock?

Television, Like Nature, Abhors A Vacuum
Well, probably not. Yes, creators like Joss Whedon and Ron Moore went to the networks with their latest shows when, let's face it, they could've gone anywhere. But if rumors of their experiences at said networks (Well, network; both are at Fox) are to be believed, it's not necessarily a choice they'd make again. In fact, with Fox demonstrating a distinct lack of openness to new ideas and challenging programming despite being the network most active in commissioning new SF, it leaves an opening for a cable channel looking for critically-acclaimed creators and new shows - Hello, HBO - to swoop in and fill the gap in the market. But would they want to spend the money to do so?

One thing is for sure; until the financial situation starts improving, times are bleak for expensive SF drama on television - and when talk shows start making such aggressive pushes into primetime, you can expect things to look just a little bit bleaker.