Cast from the Past: Battlestar Galactica

From time to time, a show comes along with a cast so stacked with talent that it actually hurts a little to think about. Deadwood was one (Ian McShane is the heavyweight scenery-chewing champion of the world), as was The West Wing. More recently, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica was excellent and entirely underappreciated. What made BSG all the more impressive was that it came from the SciFi network (back when the name made sense), the people responsible for SciFi Movies of the Week, which (in my experience, at least) are patently terrible.

Admittedly, I didn't start watching until the series was already over, in part because I knew how agonized my friend and roommate, hereafter known as J, was when she had to wait for new episodes. I wasn't going to put myself through that torture voluntarily. I still haven't seen Battlestar Galactica: The Plan because 1) I don't get SyFy (oy) anymore and 2) Blockbuster is kind of far away, man, get off my back. Once I did start getting the DVDs from my public library, I was immediately hooked. Not only was the series way better than anything on SciFi had a right to be, but the entire cast was, in a word, perfect. Of course Edward James Olmos is the world-weary, trustworthy commander -- what else could he be (apart from a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, of course)? Jamie Bamber played his son, Lee Adama, with the perfect self-righteous, whiny, holier-than-thou tone and, eventually, a passable American accent. You'd never know that Katee Sackhoff is a girly-girl in real life after watching her the reckless, hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, completely unstable pilot, Starbuck. It's interesting to take a look at what the actors have been doing since hanging up their guns and (spoiler alert) sending their ships into the sun.

A few of the higher-profile actors from the series have landed on different TV series on a long-term basis. Tahmoh Penikett (Karl "Helo" Agathon) is an FBI agent on Fox's Dollhouse, which just got the axe. Much as I loved Helo, his mere presence wasn't enough to pull me in. The only episode I've watched was the one with Jamie Bamber (AKA Prissy Lee Adama), which I watched because Helo and Apollo were going to share the screen, however briefly. Grace Park (Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Sharon "Athena" Agathon, Number Eight, etc.) was first on The Cleaner and now on the Canadian series The Border. The aforementioned Jamie Bamber is busy playing the Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth circa 1990) equivalent on Law & Order: UK over in Britain (which is fantastic, from what I've seen). Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol) stars as a union leader in a Canadian series, The Bridge, debuting in 2010, while Katee Sackhoff (Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, of course) will be on 24.

As for guest appearances, the last few weeks have been unusually busy for ex-BSGers. The second episode of ABC's V featured President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell)'s onetime assistant, Tory (Rekha Sharma), wandering through as an FBI agent (unfortunately, because of Tory's arc on BSG, I'm already suspicious of her FBI character being a secret underground alien -- but there's always hope that they won't typecast). Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben Conoy) was on FlashForward, playing a shady SOB (again, sigh, CKR) involved with the mysterious Blue Hand group. The always enjoyable Mark Sheppard (unscrupulous attorney Romo Lampkin as well as Firefly's Badger) was a Russian lit professor/pimp on the concluding episode of the much-hyped CSI "Trilogy" crossover, though his Russian accent -- by way of London -- left a little something to be desired. It's always nice to see them pop up on shows that have nothing to do with space or robots or aliens -- not because I don't enjoy sci-fi, but because it's always a little jarring to see them out of what I think of as their natural environment (but is really just the only setting in which I have seen them).

We haven't heard much from some of the major players: the Admiral himself, Edward James Olmos, hasn't been around much (his last major non-BSG credit is...Beverly Hills Chihuahua? That...that can't be right), while Michael Hogan (Col. Saul Tigh) has popped up on Dollhouse and Warehouse 13, apparently (and using both his eyes, I assume). Madam President Mary McDonnell is on The Closer, I guess? I don't watch it. Crazy Ellen Tigh, Kate Vernon, is due to turn up on Heroes, according to Greg Grunberg's Twitter, where she will undoubtedly pwn everyone in sight. So...could Michael, Mary, or Kate please coax Olmos out of whatever semi-retirement he's pretending to have so we can see Adama strolling across the small screen (or the big screen!) again? (Or better yet, kicking ass and taking names.)