Cinefantastique Online

Actress Katee Sackhoff, who stars as Starbuck in Sci Fi Channel’s revamped BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, gave a conference call interview about the show last week, in which she stated that the strength of the program is that it eschews science-fiction:

We never relied on the science fiction of the show,” said Sackhoff, who probably reached more viewers playing wacko villain Sarah Corvus on NBC’s failed Bionic Woman reboot than on the Sci Fi Channel’s underwatched gem, which begins its fourth and final season Friday.

“Most science fiction shows rely way too much on the bells and whistles,” she added, speaking to journalists last week on a conference call. “It kind of opened doors in science fiction to realize . . . it’s just a setting. . . . It’s not, (and) it should never have been what the show is.”

Jason Sanford begs to differ:

Sackhoff is correct that the show’s amazing character development is a major factor in why BG is so successful, but she’s wrong to imply that the show’s setting is irrelevant to this success. If Battlestar Galactica had been set in present day America, the show would have simply been an over-wrought soap opera. Instead, the space setting, combined with the desparate race for survival by this last group of human survivors, allows the show to explore complex issues with a depth and resonance that other TV dramas lack. Yes, the characters make the show great. But without the setting, no one would care about any of that character drama. Great science fiction is a merging of setting and drama and character. And it takes all three of those legs to support a great story like Battlestar Galactica.