| By Maureen Ryan,
on 20-07-2007
|
Favoured : 130 |
Date: July 16, 2007
'Battlestar Galactica' slices off some 'Razor' bits for 'mini-sodes'
Speaking of online content – and frankly, here at press tour I'm getting a little tired of the concept, and would like to publicly state that I'd don’t want to hear the words "digital," "platform," "Web," "online," "content" and "cross-platform" or "distribution" again – there’s news of that sort on the "Battlestar Galactica" front, as there is on the "Farscape" front as well.
In the eight weeks leading up to the Nov. 24 broadcast of the 2-hour “Battlestar Galactica” film “Razor,” 2- to 3-minute long “mini-sodes” will be shown on air on the Sci Fi Channel. They’ll form a separate story that will provide background and context for the “Razor” film.
[An aside – I’ve heard of Web-isodes and mob-isodes, but “mini-sodes”? Oh, the names for trendy online content just get goofier.]
Mark Stern, executive vice president of original programming for Sci Fi, said that “there was a whole through-line in ‘Razor’ that they had to strip out” of the film, but that story will now live on in the mini-sodes.
“It’s part of a backstory of some of our characters in ‘Razor,’” Stern said.
Did those backstories relate to regular “Batttlestar Galactica” characters or guest characters appearing in “Razor”? “It’s a little of both,” Stern said.
Here’s Sci Fi’s description of the “Razor” mini-sodes, which will debut in October: “Written by Michael Taylor [who also wrote ‘Razor’] and directed by Wayne Rose and Felix Alcala, these shorts will provide a sneak peek into the original Cylon War, when a young pilot named William Adama (Nico Cortez) discovers a dangerous Cylon weapon that will come back to haunt him and his crew 40 years later.
“‘Razor’ tells the story of Lee Adama’s first mission as commander of the Battlestar Pegasus and will reveal the story of how Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes) served her ship during the original Cylon attack on the colonies.”
The channel had a good reaction to the Webisodes it put on scifi.com between Seasons 2 and 3 of the show, but Stern said these new minisodes were always envisioned as an on-air entity first and foremost, though they will be available online and also on the “Razor” DVD.
Were the new batch of mini-sodes created as a primarily on-air entity in order to get around Writers Guild objections to its members creating Web content? Stern said that wasn’t the case.
“The last thing we want to do is do anything perceived to be underhanded especially in this atmosphere,” Stern said, referring to the possible writers’ strike that could occur this fall.
“When we decided to do a 2-hour episode and it was going to be separate and apart from the rest of the season, and it was going to be a standalone [movie] unto itself, I went to [executive producers] Ron [Moore] and David [Eick] and said it would be great to do something on air,” Stern said. The idea was to have something for fans to watch on-air in the run-up to the Nov. 24 premiere, “so it wasn’t just all the sudden, here’s ‘Battlestar Galactica.’”
featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com
Last update : 20-07-2007
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