UPDATE, 5/4/2020 – Back in the very distant past of late 2019, NBC announced a forthcoming revival of the modern classic science fiction series Battlestar Galactica, to air on its likewise forthcoming streaming service Peacock. The latest news on the project, via Deadline, is that the program has found its showrunner in one Michael Lesslie, whose notable projects to date include the Assassins Creed movie and the 2015 film adaptation of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. On the small screen, Lesslie has written for The Little Drummer Girl, a thriller series about an actress infiltrating a terrorist ring to take it down from the inside.
9/17/2019 – If you travel in certain circles (the sort of circles that frequent publications like Nerdist.com, for instance), you can’t go very long before playing audience to a wistful mention of the good old days when Battlestar Galactica was still on the air, ten years back. For the past decade, BSG devotees have been ruminating on the highs and lows of Ronald D. Moore’s genre-defying reboot, debating the merits of its finale, and hoping against all odds that we might someday get to return to its vast, imaginative universe.
And now, in a wholly benevolent effort to turn our wist into whimsy (it’s definitely got nothing to do with money), NBC is now planning to bring BSG back again (again) by way of its new streaming service, Peacock. The platform won’t merely play home to old episodes we’ve enjoyed time and again; NBC is developing a new reboot of Ronald D. Moore’s 2004 series, created by Mr. Robot mastermind Sam Esmail.
Details are scant at present; we only know that Esmail’s take on the BSG mythology will be inspired directly by Moore’s 21st-century reboot and not Glen A. Larson’s 1978 original. That said, there has yet to be any suggestion of whether Esmail’s Battlestar Galactica will carry over any of Moore’s extant story lines or characters. Esmail was quick to scuttle the “reboot” tag, however. In a tweet, the creature reassured fans his show would “explore a new story” within the mythology.
BSG fans, this will NOT be a remake of the amazing series @RonDMoore launched because… why mess with perfection? Instead, we’ll explore a new story within the mythology while staying true to the spirit of Battlestar. So say we all!
— Sam Esmail (@samesmail) September 17, 2019
If you’re not familiar with Esmail’s work, the Mr. Robot writer/director has also worked on the Julia Roberts-starring Amazon Prime thriller series Homecoming, and is launching a separate series for Peacock: Angelyne, per The Hollywood Reporter. This project will tell the story of the eponymous L.A. billboard icon whose identity was, for ages, shrouded in mystery. Emmy Rossum will star in the limited series.
Esmail will produce Battlestar Galactica; the project has yet to lock down a writer to bring the longstanding franchise to life anew for the 2020s.
Image: NBCUniversal