November 17, 2005

Good news/sucky news

So it's definite, I'll be doing a "Battlestar Galactica" novel (I say it's definite because I got the contract in the mail.)

I figure I must be on the right beam because two of the story elements I wanted to explore were nixed by the BG folks on the basis that it's stuff they're planning to explore in season 3.

On the downside, "Night Stalker" has been canceled. Now, honestly, I'm not THAT choked up since I'd seen an episode or two and wasn't all that impressed. However, the annoying aspect is that Mira Furlan was talking up her guest appearance slated for December 8th...except the series is being pulled with this week's episode. Talk about "Lost."

PAD

Posted by Peter David at November 17, 2005 04:22 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: Joshua Parsons at November 17, 2005 04:53 PM

Ooh, can't wait to buy that one!

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 17, 2005 05:04 PM

Excellent news!

Posted by: Gary at November 17, 2005 05:30 PM

PAD
any tiny hints about the plot of the novel?
not that i wouldnt read it anyway

Posted by: Kelly Hoose at November 17, 2005 05:37 PM

I know the show has been redone. But the old was bad 70's, I only remember the silver one eyed robots. I've been unable to get into this show, and I'm not sure why. It's a shame because there isn't much sci fi on the air waves. Best of luck however on the book!

Posted by: James Meeley at November 17, 2005 05:51 PM

I just hope they put Night Stalker on DVD, including the three unaired epsiodes. Last week's ended with a major cliffhanger and now we'll never know the outcome. Nice going, ABC.

Posted by: Brian at November 17, 2005 05:57 PM

PAD + BSG?

I think I just...er, nevermind.

Posted by: George Turner at November 17, 2005 06:23 PM

Wonderful news!

I've doodled out some long BSG story arcs, or more appropriately arcs of arcs, and the BSG format is very difficult to anticipate, because it's not episodic. If I head in the wrong direction many of the arcs would be useless, and I'm wondering how they deal with the issue in terms of script submissions. A conventional episode script would almost like trying to submit a scene in a movie, so what would you even throw over the transom?

Posted by: Goodman at November 17, 2005 06:39 PM

Cool, one of my favorite writers working on one of my favorite series. Glad to hear that the creators of the show are involved with this to some degree.

PAD, does this mean you've chatted with Ron Moore about your plans? Do the Galactica folks intend to pay more attention to the novelizations that the Star Trek folks did?

Posted by: Jay at November 17, 2005 07:08 PM

Whoo Hoo! Yet another novel to add to my "PAD Must Buy!" list

Posted by: Chadwick H. Saxelid at November 17, 2005 07:20 PM

Wonderful news!

Posted by: DF2506 at November 17, 2005 08:06 PM


PAD writing a book off of the new Battlestar?! Cool! I'm there! That should be great! :)

The new Battlestar is such a GREAT series. Definitly my favorite sci-fi show right now!

As for Night Stalker, I liked it. It wasn't great, but it was, imo, much better then the old Night Stalker. Had a kind of X-Files vibe to it (which is ironic, since the orignal Night Stalker is what inspired the X-Files). I also thought it was getting better and better. Part 1 of the two-parter was really interesting and I WAS looking forward to part 2..thank you very much ABC....*sigh*

Anyway, I guess it'll come out on dvd eventually. I'll have to buy it when it does come out.

DF2506
" Well, Night Stalker is the first new show I watched this season that got canceled..."

Posted by: Karen Williams at November 17, 2005 08:29 PM

That's great. I love Battlestar Galactica.

Posted by: Jason at November 17, 2005 10:00 PM

On the one hand, I, too, liked Nightstalker. Thought it was getting better with each episode, and I really liked the vibe of the show. On the other hand, thank God I can take a show off of my already too long must-watch list. Ironically, though, Nightstalker was one of the few shows I watch that you could skip an episode here and there and not be left wondering what the heck was going on when you came back to it.

Posted by: Jess Willey at November 18, 2005 07:09 AM

As for Night Stalker, I liked it. It wasn't great, but it was, imo, much better then the old Night Stalker. Had a kind of X-Files vibe to it (which is ironic, since the orignal Night Stalker is what inspired the X-Files). I also thought it was getting better and better. Part 1 of the two-parter was really interesting and I WAS looking forward to part 2..thank you very much ABC....*sigh*

I was a few of the old ones (and one of the movies) and they were good. You could really tell why this was Chris Carter's favorite TV show that he didn't work on.


This time around... I already figured out who killed Kolchak's wife this time anyway. Agent Fain... sounds like Feign... which means false. As in big fat liar. The only thing I hadn't figured out was why. They had an afair? He was actually a demon/vampire/werewolf? Both?


Posted by: Bill Myers at November 18, 2005 08:21 AM

Overall, I enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica. Although I thought the show stumbled a bit during season one and the beginning of season two. IMHO, too many episodes were padded with "atmospheric" scenes where characters wandered around spouting unecessarily cryptic dialog that did nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters in any significant way. I mean, how many scenes do we need to see of Baltar acting goofy because he's reacting to Number Six? He's a mercurial coward -- I get it already!

I also think the show suffered from some directorial excess (and to some extent still does). As season two progressed, though, I think they did a much better job of moving the story along.

The other thing that strikes me about BSG is that it is relentlessly dark. Granted, the premise of BSG is very, very grim, and doesn't leave a lot of room for lightness. But for me, the uglier aspects of BSG are starting to lose their impact because they're not balanced by enough lighter moments. I'm not suggesting they devote an episode to musical comedy! But I think they could vary up the rhythm just a bit.

Which is why I'm very interested in seeing your BSG novel when it comes out, Mr. David. You have a gift for varying the tone of a story, injecting humorous moments at perfect intervals. I can't wait to see how you apply your style to the BSG mythos.

Posted by: Den at November 18, 2005 08:55 AM

Congratulations, PAD on the BSG gig.

Bummer about Nightstalker. No, it wasn't that great. In fact, it really failed to rise above the mix of spooky shows this season (Invasion, Surface, Supernatural). In fact, I suspect there will be a few more genre casualties this year.

Posted by: Bob Jones at November 18, 2005 10:01 AM

Night Stalker got canked already? Who does ABC think they are? Fox?

Posted by: Bill Myers at November 18, 2005 01:19 PM

Forgive my curiousity, but if you've proposed storylines that are similar to what's going on in season three, you obviously have a damn good read on the pulse of the show. Any chance you'll be writing for the television series? (And if that's a dumb question, forgive me -- I'm new to this board and haven't been reading it for very long.)

Posted by: gene hall at November 18, 2005 11:20 PM

What's that?

Shelby's really a Cylon?

Posted by: Jeff Alan Polier at November 19, 2005 12:51 PM

Good news/sucky news.

The good news is that PAD is writing a BSG novel. The sucky news is that it is the new BSG, which I don't like. Oh, frak. I'm just gonna have to skip this one.

On the other hand, my brother and his wife LOVE the new BSG and Greg enjoys PAD's other novels. This'll make a good present for him.

Posted by: Luke K. Walsh at November 19, 2005 01:18 PM

Hey, nice to read someone else who prefers the old Battlestar to the new. Yeah, it had its bad moments - Cowboys? A castle with an "army" of kids dressed like refugees from a fantasy novel? Mid-way through the FIRST season? They seemed to get way too desparate for story ideas way too quickly (though budget constraints may have played a part, too) - but watching the show today, it still stands up as an interesting piece with some legitimately interesting/entertaining moments which actually work better than some of the other stuff I enjoyed as a kid (Buck Rogers, anyone?). (As for Galactica '80 - YUCK. This series I never saw until MUCH later on Sci-Fi - when I learned I hadn't missed much ;) It is telling, though, that the one really good episode of that show was the one with Starbuck in it.) Not to dismiss the new BSG - as I mentioned in the giant BSG and Firefly digression on the "Erik, you ignorant ... " thread, I haven't been able to get into it myself, but I haven't seen enough to totally critique the show - but it is nice to see a little support for the original.

Posted by: Chuck May at November 19, 2005 02:37 PM

Oh, man... my favorite author meeting my (current) favorite TV show. This is exciting.

I disagree with Bill Myers above - I don't think the show is too dark. If anything, all things considered, it's not dark enough! Here you have a group of 50K humans, the (as far as they know) only survivors of several billion humans over 12 planets. The only amazing thing is that more of them haven't gone nuts! I think there are a LOT of stories in this thing, personally - particularly with the religious tilt that RDM is putting into the show.

Posted by: Baerbel Haddrell at November 19, 2005 03:32 PM

That is great news! (The first part, I have never watched Night Stalker) I wasn`t fond of the original Battlestar Galactica but I am a big fan of the new version.

I will most definitely buy that novel!

Posted by: Bill Myers at November 19, 2005 04:31 PM

[i]Posted by Chuck May at November 19, 2005 02:37 PM
Oh, man... my favorite author meeting my (current) favorite TV show. This is exciting.

I disagree with Bill Myers above - I don't think the show is too dark. If anything, all things considered, it's not dark enough! Here you have a group of 50K humans, the (as far as they know) only survivors of several billion humans over 12 planets. The only amazing thing is that more of them haven't gone nuts! I think there are a LOT of stories in this thing, personally - particularly with the religious tilt that RDM is putting into the show.[/i]

Actually, I agree that the premise of BSG demands stories with a dark tone, a hard edge, whatever you want to call it. In fact, one of the reasons why I like the new BSG is because it [i]doesn't[/i] shy away from such subject matter.

IMHO, though, the relentlessly high intensity of the show causes it to lose some of its dramatic impact. I simply think the more intense aspects of the show would have greater dramatic impact if there were brief periods of lower intensity to provide contrast. In fact, given that the majority of the time the characters seem to be at an emotional "Defcon One," I, like you, wonder why they all haven't completely snapped by now. A few more scenes here and there where the characters have some quiet moments, laugh a bit, or otherwise do something other than fight for their lives or seethe with inner turmoil that is barely held in check would help make the more intensely dramatic scenes all the more dramatic in my view.

As far as the show not being "dark enough," I felt that the season cliffhanger, where an officer from the Pegasus unbuckles his belt and prepares to rape Sharon as part of an "interrogation" was plenty dark. And I'm not asserting such scenes don't have their place on a show like this. I'm simply asserting that the show could vary up the rhythm just a bit more than it does.

This is not to say that I'm right and you're wrong, Mr. May. I don't believe in "right" and "wrong" when it comes to opinions about art, but rather differences in tastes. I just thought I'd try to clarify what I was trying to say.

Having said all that, I'm really very excited about Mr. David's upcoming BSG novel. I think Mr. David is one of the finest writers around in any medium, and I can't wait to see what he does with the BSG universe. In fact, I'm betting I'll like his novel even more than I like the show!

Posted by: Bill Myers at November 19, 2005 04:35 PM

Whoops! I meant to use italics to set Mr. May's post apart from my response. I guess if I want to use "HTML tags for style," however, it would help if I used them correctly...

Posted by: Huelya at November 19, 2005 05:40 PM

Great news. I love your Star Trek novels and really enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica show.

Greetings from Germany
Huelya

Posted by: ArcLight at November 19, 2005 08:06 PM

Well, I'm not really gonna miss the new "Night Stalker" at all. I thought it was just bland, through and through. Fell asleep for a few minutes during the last aired ep and didn't even feel like going back and seeing what I'd missed.

On the other hand, this biz of killing a show just weeks into it's debut (and killing it in the middle of a two-parter without showing the second part) kinda chaps my hide just on general principles.

Posted by: Bob Jones at November 20, 2005 04:27 PM

What was Sucky News for me was when I picked up the latest Incredible Hulk and saw that it was not written by that well-known disease, PAD!! WTF!?!? I'm sure that you announced somewhere in these pages but with a full-time job, playing in a rock band and doing the Masters in Writing thing, well, somethings have to fall by the wayside...like my brain cells. BTW, My wife wants to know if parts of your BG novel will be humorous. I told her to attend your panel(s) at FarPoint and ask away.
Anyone else remember the Mad Magazine parody of the original BG? I think it was called "Cattlestar Overactica".

Posted by: Josh Pritchett, Jr at November 20, 2005 04:50 PM

1About BSG Novel: Could you have Tigh die a painful death?
Actually, I've been carrying around an idea: Somehow Bruce Banner ends up on BSG and befriends Sharron. After ONE slip up, EVERYONE is suddendly very nice to Sharron.
Seriously though, Sharron is my favorite character on BSG and she sort of reminds me a little of Hulk. Thow whole idea that she has a dark side to her that she can't control. Of course just once I'd like to see her pick up a viper and throw it at Tigh (AGGG Sharron Smash!)

Posted by: Goodman at November 20, 2005 07:31 PM

Hey, let's give Tigh a break. They've actually shown over and over that he's a fabulous second in command for Adama (most recently he was the first to see that Admiral Cain was bad news). As a leader he's about as bad as they come, but in fairness he's aware of that and never did seek out command. :-)

Posted by: Rat at November 21, 2005 01:19 AM

One of the things that really works for me with the new Galactica is the depth that they've given the Cylons, in a lot of ways they're deeper than the colonists. That, and the fact that when someone screws up it has a lasting impact.

Now for Rat's soapbox. The problem with Night Stalker is a problem that a LOT of shows have, a lot of movies, too. Over-atmospherification, not enough character. Really developing your setting and backgrounds is a marvelous way to start, but then you ALSO have to really develop your characters, so that the people watching actually care about what happens to these people. I LOVED the original Night Stalker, and the ubiquitous sense that Kolchak was never REALLY sure of what the hell was going on. This one, Kolchak seemed a little too Mulderific. But with Spotnitz as a producer, that was to be expected. It takes a lot of talent to paint the landscapes, yes, but it takes something extra to populate them. Something our host seemed to have learned really early on.