The Battlestar Galactica coming to NBC's new streaming service, Peacock, will reportedly take place in the same universe as Syfy's reboot of the classic sci-fi series. The original Battlestar Galatica show ran on television from 1978 through 1979 when it was canceled by ABC. In 2004, Syfy rebooted the series and it ran for four seasons until 2009. This version of Battlestar Galactica also included some webisodes that take place between seasons, two TV movies (Razer and The Plan), a web series which also aired on TV as a two hour movie (Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome), and Caprica, a prequel spinoff series that didn't make it very far.
In Syfy's Battlestar Galactica, humans live on twelve colonized planets where they invent a line of robots named Cylons for slave labor. The Cylons soon rise up and a war breaks out, but eventually the Cylons retreat and stay away for more the fifty years, until one day they return disguised as humans. The show follows Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos), captain of a military space ship Galactica, as he and his crew try to recover from the surprise attack and infiltration.
Now, Variety is reporting that the new series being produced by Mr. Robot writer/director Sam Esmail is set in the same universe as the 2004 Battlestar Galatica reboot. The new comes via writer Ronald D. Moore, the creator behind the 2004 reboot of the series, who shared with Variety that Esmail had reached out to tell him "he wanted to do something in the same universe."
One could argue this makes this Battlestar Galactica series less of a reboot and more of a continuation or spin-off, but for fans of the show who have been waiting almost 10 years for more, this might be splitting hairs. The new series should premiere this year, and it will be going up on NBC's new streaming platform Peacock, along with a lot of other new shows in the coming years. For those who are interested in something else, though, there also a Battlestar Galatica movie adaptation in the works at Universal, but there have sadly been few updates on that project.
Battlestar Galactica has a devoted fan base and its 2004 reboot series received much critical acclaim, for good reason. The cast was strong both individually and as an ensemble, and the plot twisted in exciting if sometimes unpopular ways. The show's concepts of hidden enemies, artificial intelligence, and the complicated relationship we have with technology make it almost inevitable that Battlestar Galactica would be revived again someday, and it isn't at all surprising that a new series would want to play in the same universe as the celebrated Syfy series.
Source: Variety