[peter noble]

What happened to Cain and Sheba?

When the Pegasus rejoined the Galactica and the fleet, Sheba went back to serve under her father. So did Bojay and the rest of the Pegasus crew. Then the Pegasus was lost once again. One of the storylines I had worked out was the return of the Pegasus. Each Battlestar would have thought the other one had not survived. Cain would have died in battle, like there was any other way, and Sheba would have assumed command of the Pegasus. I did speak to Anne about my plans for her character and she could not have been more accommodating over the phone and was into reprising her role.

What happened to Cassiopeia?

Laurette was one of the only original cast members I did not have the pleasure of speaking with. Originally, the writers and I thought about matching her up with Starbuck and having them married. But I think I would have changed that and not have Starbuck being able to make a commitment. Cassiopeia then would have left him for Bojay. She would have gone aboard the Pegasus with Bojay and was considered lost until the return of the Pegasus around episode eleven. Starbuck would see her with her children and being happily married, and Starbuck would regret the road not taken and what could have been.

Where is Athena?

Athena would have raised Boxey/Orin after the loss of Apollo. She and Orin's wife were killed in the massive Cylon attack on New Caprica. Understand, many of these histories would be story points and would not have been apparent in the first episode. In the series, it would have been a mix of the new characters (Orin and his family) and the older characters (from the original series).

Is it true Jane Seymour would have returned as Serina?

The first week we were open on the Universal lot, Dan Angel got a call from Jane expressing interest in the idea of returning. When I got back from lunch Dan told me she had called and it got me thinking on how we could bring her back. We all thought it was great that she was open to the idea, but she was killed in the original series. I knew I wanted to reintroduce the lightships and what better way to reintroduce Serina then to have her come back as a creature of light, as an angel. She was going to be the catalyst for breaking the Cylon control over Apollo; it would have been a great moment to reunite Richard and Jane.

How did the new series come together?

When I was working in retail during college, I would get bored, so I would write different story ideas or do designs on the back of cash register tape. One of those ideas was Galactica and what happened to those characters. I never thought I would have use of those ideas or the redesigned Vipers and Raiders, but I kept writing regardless. When I moved out to LA to get into entertainment one of the things I wanted to work on was getting Galactica up and going again.

While developing the script for X-men in the late 90's I contacted Universal several times about Galactica but the answer always came back that the rights issues were not clear. When X-men was in post, I thought about what I wanted to do that as my next project and that thing was Battlestar Galactica.

I found my old notes and started calling Universal again. Fortunately, I was with Bryan on a plane to NY for the premiere of X-men and I had the Galactica DVD with me, I was going to rewatch it on the flight. Bryan saw the box and said he loved the show as a kid and I told him it was the project I wanted to do next. He said he thought that was a great idea and asked if he could he watch it, I said sure. After he watched it, Bryan said he would love to be involved, which was great, I was happy to be working with my friend again.

With Bryan involved and X-men's $54 million dollar opening weekend, our agency William Morris was able to solve the rights issues that had blocked me for over three years in about two weeks. The rights ended up being at Studios USA, which had purchased the former TV arm of Universal.

Well we started to get into preproduction with Studios USA and FOX on a two-hour TV event movie that was a back door pilot for a potential series for the fall 2002 if the ratings were good. We brought on Dan Angel and Billy Brown as writers and Guy Dyas as our Production Designer; by the way, I promise you Guy will win the Oscar sometime soon. The storyline was developed into a script with Dan and Billy and Guy put together an amazing look for the show, his artwork was just beautiful. Costumes for the movie were developed. With the help of the fan network, I was able to track down the original Galactica model and several of the old rag tag fleet. The person who owns them had painstakingly restored them and he was kind enough to let us go out and photograph them. We were going to stay in continuity so those details of the Galactica and the fleet were important. One major change was to put big battleship-style guns on the Galactica.

Why did production stop on the two-hour movie?

We were building sets, the full size vipers in two versions and the Cylon armor, when the tragedy of September 11 struck. It understandably delayed production by about a month. Everything was delayed and pushed back. We were one month off schedule and that caused a conflict with Bryan's scheduled shooting of X-Men 2. Therefore, Bryan had to drop out as director, which was difficult for him because he was so excited by the potential of Galactica.

Why did FOX pull away from the movie after Bryan left?

We actually had commitments from three feature directors who loved the script and wanted to do it, but Fox seemed to lose interest. Then when Firefly was announced, I knew we were done at Fox, because that was the sci-fi show they were going to get behind. Therefore, we shut down everything, but I was determined to find another way to get the project started again. I spoke to Studios USA and they said they wanted me to continue with the show as we searched for a new network. I suggested that we take a new approach, do a four-hour mini-series, and distribute it through the Sci-fi channel, in the same formula that had been done with Dune. They thought it was a great idea, but that we would wait until spring. I continued to meet with the studio several times, but in spring 2002 they decided to go in a different creative direction and do a reimagining, not a continuation. However, there are many similarities between our show and theirs.