The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the final season will premiere not in January, but in April. At least “Razor” is still on for later this month, though one two-hour movie is precious little solace.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the final season will premiere not in January, but in April. At least “Razor” is still on for later this month, though one two-hour movie is precious little solace.
Conjectures on the delay?
Would the most obvious reason be time required for post-production (i.e. CGI) or could there be other reasons involved? Might the strike be affecting it? It just seems so strange for it to be getting so late.
Damien
Re: Conjectures on the delay?
I’m 100% sure this is 100% motivated by marketing concerns, mostly over sales of DVDs. Same reason they want to split the last season in two half seasons aired a year apart.
Re: Conjectures on the delay?
This decision came first. The decision to delay the release of the third season on DVD and HD DVD was a result of this. (ie. those of us following on disc instead of broadcast have to wait until April for the third season.)
Re: Conjectures on the delay?
It may have something to do with the impending writer’s strike as well.
argh
dammit, the system worked! I got Battlestar Galactica, and when that was over, I got Doctor Who.
Now they’re gonna pit the two agains each other or something? Stupid hollywood suits. Oh how we hates them.
Re: argh
One word: TiVo.
Can’t be the writers strike
I can’t imagine that this is because of the writers strike threat … the 4th season must be completely written by now, they started production in the summer … in a ComicCon Q&A video on scifi.com, several of the actresses make references to things they know about events and how characters are different in season 4 — implying that they had already read through the scripts (if not filmed them).
(Wasn’t there a production podcast Moore was doing about episodes as they filmed them? any clues in there about how ‘done’ the 4th season is?)
If anything, it seems like a writers strike would push the start date earlier (or at least remove the hiatus from the middle of the season) to fill in holes where they had originally been planning on showing episodes of other shows don’t have a full season of scripts finished yet.
Re: Can’t be the writers strike
There’s written and there’s finished. Once they have a script written, that’s one thing. But when they get around to filming an episode, they’ll often find that one scene doesn’t quite work, or they need an extra bit here or there. With the writers on strike, they cannot make those changes right now.
It could also be that the first two episodes are finished, or maybe they skipped ahead and started with episodes four and five because those are going to need lots of CGI and they want more lead time. Regardless, the entire season is definitely not done. This could be a tactic to make sure they can air the whole season at once instead of giving us two or three eps and then having to go on hiatus.
Re: Can’t be the writers strike
Except that according to that article, not only are they planing on waiting until April 2008 to start the season, but they have already decided there will definitely be a mid-season hiatus — possibly not airing the second half until 2009.
If that option was under consideration, then they probably would have made sure to film all of "season 4A" before "season 4B" right?
Besides: a writers strike is something people have been talking about happening since before the 4th season was even announced … every network has been making plans for what they would/will do if/when it starts, i can’t imagine scifi didn’t scramble to get the first half of the season in the bag right away (since they historicaly always break the seasons in half anyway)
Re: Can’t be the writers strike
Hey I know why they’re doing this. They want to name the last season "Galactica: 2009". :-)