How wrong I was. Amongst all the announcements, previews and sneak peaks at last month’s San Diego comic-con there was one panel that stood out above the rest and which many dedicated fans queued throughout the night to be a part of. Hosted by Kevin Smith the BSG cast and crew sat down to talk about season 4.5, the final 10 episodes that will conclude the hit sci-fi series after the writers’ strike stopped production for what seems like an eternity. So let’s look at what fans can expect when the final episodes land in 2009. So they’ve found Earth, what next?The midseason cliff-hanger ended with the uneasy coalition of the human fleet and renegade Cylons finding Earth, but not the utopian planet they had imagined during their long voyage but a scorched land spotted with ruins. It’s a harsh landscape and according to producer David Eick the first couple of episodes will focus on the crew having to deal with terrible living conditions and the emotional turmoil of wanting to leave the place they have dreamt of for so long. So who’s our money on? Starbuck was an early runner with her as yet unexplained return from the dead and bizarre relationship with the Cylon model two. But with Katee Sackhoff telling panel-goers that her character ‘finds peace’ in the series’ finale you have to wonder if our favourite cigar chomping female pilot will die and sadly I’m starting to think she might. Other candidates could include Dr Baltar and even President Roslin herself; but one character who is sure to be in the mix judging by the 4.5 preview is the old man of the fleet Admiral Adama. The comic-con trailer showed glimpses of this with clips of Roslin asking the Admiral directly if he was a Cylon before the scene cut to a Galactica airlock where Adama facing the camera and with a white cloth tied round his eyes looked set for execution, but whether it’s a Cylon or a human carrying out the sentence we just don’t know. My tip for the fifth Cylon (and it’s worth me pointing out here I’ve been wrong about every other model) is Apollo who spent a lot of screen time in the early part of season 4 climbing the greasy political pole and elevating himself to a position where his revelation will have the most impact, he was also a noticeable absentee from the mission to rescue Diana, the Cylon model who has seen the faces of all of the final five. So will the season and indeed the show’s finale see a return to action? Well with James Callis (Dr Gaius Baltar) describing one of the show’s final battles as epic; saying that it felt like Apocalypse Now and Tricia Helfer (Number Six) admitting she got to shoot some of the biggest guns the show has ever seen, it certainly looks that way. So if the promise of groundbreaking revelations, tragic deaths and battles on an epic scale has got you as pant-wettingly excited as me, then the only bad news is that you are going to have to wait at least another five months before you can get your grubby little hands on it. Bah. Check out our chat with Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff here.
