Continuities and continuations

After the cancellation of the Original Series, the former cast and crew of the 1978 show as well as others attempted to revive or relaunch new Battlestar Galactica television shows or motion pictures.

Spin-offs

A spin-off is a buzzword for an officially-recognized continuation series utilizing either some or all of the original cast of a series and/or using the same premise and/or set in the same town / country / universe as television series already (or recently) on-air.

Spin-offs are frequently financially driven by the success of a parent series, and extend the marketable life of the series to the point of becoming a saga that spawns a series franchise.

Spin-offs are commonly produced by the same production company / team responsible for the originating series. Spin-offs can generate spin-offs of their own.

Spin-offs can be set in contemporary time relative to its parent, or occur before or after the events of the parent show.

While spin-offs on TV in recent history are commonly science-fiction related, writers such as Norman Lear, Aaron Spelling and Garry Marshall dominated spin-off efforts in the 1970s and 1980s of American television.

Production costs involved in making the Original Series, as well as the network's desire to create a family-friendly show led to the Original Series spin-off, Galactica 1980. The attempt failed after 10 episodes.

The creators of the Re-imagined Series proposed a spin-off series to the Sci Fi Channel: Caprica, which depicts life over 52 years prior to the Re-imagined Series. This project has yet to be greenlighted by the network.

Continuations

A continuation is a movie or series that utilizes a majority of the same situations, ideas, story, settings, characters and, consequently, the cast. Continuations are usually done after a long hiatus of a series and are not considered to be a spin-off.

Examples of this occurance in the genre include:

• Serenity, which is a movie-based continuation of the one-season television series Firefly.
• Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, a made-for-TV miniseries that continues from the events depicted from the fourth year of the TV show Farscape.

Efforts to create continuations of the Original Series of Battlestar Galactica include:

• The Singer-DeSanto TV series project in 2001
• Richard Hatch's Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming motion picture project in 1998
• Glen A. Larson's Battlestar Atlantis moribund motion-picture continuation effort

Re-imagined shows

A re-imagined show (also called a "reboot") is a buzzword used to describe a film or TV show that bases its storyline and characters from a prior work, but may drastically change the overall storyline, characters, situations and locales to the point where it is neither a spin-off or continuation of the original work. In some cases, major story elements and characters are discarded entirely.

The 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries is a strong example of a re-imagined story concept. It formed the basis of the 2004 series. Reboots are most common in the comic book universes, where a major story arc is used to add or remove characters, change their histories, or add or dispose of entire universes in the story altogether.

Re-imagined shows may revise story arcs from its original parent. The battlestar Pegasus from the Original Series makes its way into the Re-imagined Series as a more advanced ship, complete with a commanding officer named Helena Cain, mirroring Lloyd Bridges' character, but with a higher rank and a grim view of her subordinate officer.

Re-imagined television and motion picture projects are frequently met with criticism by fans of the original work, who may feel that the re-imagined work will taint the original or eclipse it completely. As shown by licensed novels and comics currently in publication for both Original and Re-imagined continuities, as well as DVD sales of the both series, the Battlestar saga appears to maintain a notable readership and viewership in both continuities.

Re-makes

Hollywood frequently makes updated movies known as remakes. These shows usually, but not always, attempt to reintroduce younger audiences to older works by creating a new teleplay that is often fully duplicated from the original work. A recent example of a true remake is Poseidon, a remake of The Poseidon Adventure.

Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, in contrast, is both a continuation and re-imagining as it bases its storyline from events from the popular Superman and Superman II movies, but dismisses all events from the financially unsuccessful Superman III and Superman IV films.

As yet, there has been no reported attempts to remake the Original Series.

See also

• Retroactive continuity
• Continuity errors (RDM)
• Continuity errors (TOS)