There’s just wayyyyyyyy too much stuff about Battlestar Galactica that’s been coming out in this off-season and I’ve been completely remiss in blogging on it.

Part of it is that I’ve been trying to avoid any serious spoilers and part is that the info’s been coming so fast and furious that every time I’m about to blog, I discover two or three more things I could/should blog about.

So consider this post a catch-up, though if you’re a true fan, you probably know about all this already. So I’ll share my thoughts on the various pieces of news rather than just telling you what it all is.

First, and perhaps most importantly, almost everything I have learned has come from SyFy Portal, which has fast become one of my favorite go-to sites for any tv-related news, as much of what I enjoy to watch is either sci-fi or related enough to the genre that the Portal covers it (i.e., Jericho). So unless I indicate otherwise, know that all the info I provide below comes via the Portal and imbue them with appropriate credit.

• The fifth and final Cylon might not be revealed until the very last episode. Frakkin’ A!
• There will be a struggle of some sort between the Centurion and Humanoid models of Cylon. Turns out that the Centurion models also have an intelligence that has been surpressed by the Humanoid models—much as the Cylons’ ability to learn and evolve intially was surpressed by the humans who created the robotic race.
• D’Anna Biers (Lucy Lawless) will return. Remember, she was boxed last season after she saw the faces of the Final Five.
• Attorney Romo Lampkin could make a return late in the season; showrunners are trying to get actor Mark Sheppard signed up for a return engagement.
• The decision to end the show with Season 4 was made because David Moore and Ron Eick couldn’t get a guarantee from the Sci Fi network that they would get two more seasons for the show. Given that, they decided to map out the show’s finish in one season rather than risk not getting a fifth season and therefore not ending the show the way they wanted.
• Why did Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes) hate Gina/Number Six (Tricia Helfer) so incredibly much? Not just because she was a Cylon pretending to be human. The pair were lovers, and Cain saw this as the ultimate betrayal.
• Original Cylon models from the 1970s series will be portrayed, along with their ships, in the Razor telemovie.
• Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) will be quite different than she was in the first three seasons. In fact, she won’t even be the same as she was supposed to be in Season 4.

Sackhoff told fans at Comic-Con International in San Diego that the original plan was for Starbuck to be more serene, since she has seen the face of god and had also seen Earth. However, that just didn’t work out, and now Starbuck will have moments of clarity, but will operate at an emotional state so much higher than what she had before.

Also, at Comic-Con, they explained the origin of the title of the fall telemovie, Razor:

The title Razor is taken from the movie Patton in which George C. Scott looks over his troops and says, “We’ll turn these guys into fanatics. We’ll turn them into razors.” It’s a scene that Ron Moore and David Eick said they return to often when thinking about the Battlestar series.

All of this is great stuff.

The thought of the Humanoid models of Cylon thinking themselves superior to the Centurion models is another in the long line of “Everything has happened before and will happen again,” which is the theme of the series. The rebellion of the Centurion models could conceivably be on the scale of the first Cylon rebellion, against the humans.

The dynamic between Cain and Gina casts everything that happened in Season 2 into a new light. The astounding anger Cain for the Cylons seemed far beyond that of anyone on the Galactica, and they’d really been through the same thing.

It also raises the question as to how many of any model Cylon was there? Caprica Six and Gina couldn’t have come into contact, or else someone would have noticed them, one would think. Number Six is really not a subtle presence. Was her model designed to use sex as the ultimate weapon? Did Gina develop the same sort of attachment to Cain that Caprica Six did with Gaius? And if so, that can explain the extreme pain she felt and her desire to escape resurrection—“mere” torture couldn’t have caused her to feel that way, one would think.

Then, the thought of having the original, “By your command,” tin cans is awesome! They were so clunky and tacky; they were fabu. I’d love to see how they’re used.

As for Starbuck, Sackhoff’s a revelation whenever she’s on screen. At once vulnerable and invulnerable, she’s one of the most complex characters on television. What her operating at a “heightened emotional state” really means, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’ll be good.

So, what do you all think out there in blog-land?