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Landing Galactica and Launching Caprica with Ronald D. Moore and David Eick
by Troy Rogers
After a long break in between its fourth and final season, Battlestar Galactica returns to the SCI FI airwaves on January 16 to begin the 10-episode countdown to the end of the series. Although four seasons have almost gone by since Ronald D. Moore reinvented Battlestar Galactica, it still feels like yesterday when all of the pre-air buzz rocked the online sci-fi universe. Although the new incarnation of Galactica has become one of the most popular sci-fi TV series of all-time, both Ron Moore and executive producer David Eick decided to go out on top after defying the odds to give fans a remastered series that exceeded everyone's expectations. Now, as the Colonial fleet is about to reach its end goal, Moore and Eick are already looking to the future with the Galactica spin-off Caprica.
 With Battlestar Galactica about to wind down with its last 10-episodes, we hopped on the phone line to join creator Ronald D. Moore and producer David Eick on a conference call to talk the end of the Galactica run and what's on the future horizon with Caprica.
How will our favorite sci-fi series close its doors? Launch when ready!
THE DEADBOLT: With the final four, what can fans expect for the remainder of the series?
RONALD D. MOORE: Well, they’ll certainly be heavily into the storyline. What can I tell you about that? The discovery of Earth and the discovery of what Earth is, it certainly throws everyone’s life into question. And I think where we wanted to get to in the mid-season break was, what if you took everyone’s fondest hope and dream away from them, then what happens to these people? So the final four is sort of in the same boat with everyone else. They’re having to sort of reevaluate, ‘Well, where do we go from here? What does this mean for us?’ And I guess most profoundly for the final four is - What are our specific origins? How did we come to be? What is our relationship with the rest of the Cylons? And what does this all mean for us, specifically? And those storylines will definitely play out in a very large way over the last ten episodes.
THE DEADBOLT: When we get into Caprica, how do you think the fans will receive the Cylon thread since we already know how that plays out in the future?
 DAVID EICK: Well, hopefully they view it as it’s intended, which is a period piece. You know, we’re doing a period piece and in any period piece you kind of know what lays in the future. If you’re doing Mad Men, you know the sixties are a comin’ and you know that that whole world is going to collapse. If you’re doing a WWII piece, you know the Nazis are going to lose. But you are still able to tell fascinating and compelling stories as periods, and I think that’s what were doing for this as well. I mean, that’s at least the intent.
THE DEADBOLT: As you guys are coming up on the finale, is there a sense of relief, sadness, or excitement?
MOORE: [laughs] All of the above.
THE DEADBOLT: Why did you choose to end it now instead of drawing it out over a few more years? Also, was there any pressure to keep it going since it’s so successful?
EICK: The truth is, we both just have too much money [laughs] .
MOORE: [laughs] Yeah, I just don’t know what to do with all of the money I have.
THE DEADBOLT: What is the status of The Plan? Will that air between the finale and Caprica?
 MOORE: I don’t know that we have an air date for The Plan yet, and I don’t know that we have an air date for Caprica yet, so I think those are probably up to Sci-Fi. The Plan has been completed, it’s shot, it’s being edited. I haven’t seen the cut yet but it is done. Or it’s "in the can", as it were, and I don’t know what their plans are for air dates yet.
THE DEADBOLT: Ron, what's the status on The Thing?
MOORE: I’m just working on some rewrites and it hasn’t been greenlit or anything. Bigger than that, the future just runs on its own pace, much slower than the TV pace, and I’m working on a rewrite of the draft right now. And if they still like it, and everyone is still happy, we’ll just kind of wait and see if and when it happens.
THE DEADBOLT: So you’re just going to be bouncing between Caprica and The Thing?
MOORE: Yeah.
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