'Battlestar Galactica': Say it ain't frakkin so!

Sad but true: "Battlestar Galactica" will end its run next year after its fourth and final season.

After weeks of speculation, the end is in fact near. According to a high level source at Sci Fi Channel parent company NBC Universal, the show will dock after its next 22-episode season, slated to kick off in early 2008.

Sources say the decision came down from executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, who are said to feel creatively like this upcoming arc will be its last.

Rumors began circulating this month when two "Battlestar Galactica" stars, Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff, referred to the next season as the show's swan song while attending the annual Saturn Awards.

“It’s the final season, so it’s definitely going to be the most vicious,” Olmos told reporters.  “As far as we know, in respects of the way we have this show constructed, this is the final season.”

Sci Fi Channel is expected to announce the news as soon as this afternoon.

UPDATE: Minutes after this was posted, Sci Fi Channel sent us the press release confirming the show is ending. See what Eick and Moore have to say after the jump...

"This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and finally, an end. Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end and we've decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms," Eick and Moore said in the statement. "And while we know our fans will be saddened to know the end is coming, they should brace themselves for a wild ride getting there –- we're going out with a bang ."

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy NBC Universal)

Comments

[Travis]

BSG is an amazing show, but all shows should be so lucky as to end on their own terms. It's not always about ratings, advertising and money. For truly creative people it's about telling the story they want to tell and being proud of what they've done. BSG can soon join the ranks of intelligent shows created by intelligent & creative writers who knew to stop before it became hokey.

[Kax]

This show got really bad and boring in the last season. worse then a soap opera.

A space show with no space, no starts no explosions, no battles
WTF!!!

Hopefully the last seasonb is better

[jordon]

four seasons is a good run. the creators are right that the show does seem to be wrapping up thematically. think about it this way, at 22 epsiodes per season and 4 seasons, that's 88 episodes. plus the 3-episode miniseries, that's 91 episodes. the sopranos, which finishes up in a couple of weeks, only had 13 episodes per season for 6 seasons, totalling 78 episodes.

i may be off on my math by a few episodes, but battlestar had a great run and is wrapping up where it should.

[Smokey Necrosis]

Let it have a legitimate end and not jump the shark, which some believe may already be too late with that season 3 ending. Otherwise, it just gets beat to death until they audience will not even care about the ridiculous gimmicks just to keep those last die hard fans coming back.

[Smokey Necrosis]

Let it have a legitimate end and not jump the shark, which some believe may already be too late with that season 3 ending. Otherwise, it just gets beat to death until they audience will not even care about the ridiculous gimmicks just to keep those last die hard fans coming back.

[Sum0belly]

Say it aint so .... wiping a tear from da eye ... It's great to see from all the comments that some people still know a great show when it comes around. I really enjoyed this show and got wifey hooked on it too. We need more shows like it. I haven't even watched BG because I've learned to wait for the whole season on DVD. Wifey and I just stay up late watching episode after episode until we're too tired or other activities take over ...Its such a great show!

[Sum0belly]

Say it aint so .... wiping a tear from da eye ... It's great to see from all the comments that some people still know a great show when it comes around. I really enjoyed this show and got wifey hooked on it too. We need more shows like it. I haven't even watched BG because I've learned to wait for the whole season on DVD. Wifey and I just stay up late watching episode after episode until we're too tired or other activities take over ...Its such a great show!

[Jason]

jordon,

Just to clear things up, the first season had 13 episodes and seasons 2 & 3 each had 20. That plus the 22-episode fourth season gives you 75 episodes.

Add in the "miniseries" (which is, lengthwise, the equivalent of 4 episodes), and you can call it 79 episodes, the same length as the run of the original Star Trek. I'm sure it's not intentional, but it's kind of cool in a geeky sort of way.

Personally, I think it's great to see shows setting end points well enough in advance so as to allow for a solid ending without overstaying its welcome. BSG and Lost are my two favorite shows right now, and I'm glad they've both set these end points. I'm excited for the ride that's coming!

[Adam Rakunas]

As sorry as I'll be to see it go, I'm glad they're going to wrap things up. All stories need to end (do you hear me, LOST?), and it's better to end it with a bang.

[Adam Wachsmann]

All good things must end. It is sad that they wont make any more seasons after the next one but usually this sort of thing tends to make that last season better. It means that they can set a goal and reach it, and not languish about and drag out the story to the point where they could loose the audience, or worse yet the actors. (x-files) better to go out in a blaze of glory than to fade into mediocrity.
Also i have to say that it is a good thing that BSG is allowed to finish. I know the Jericho and Carnivale fans out there would agree with me on that one. better for the writers and the producers have time to plan out an ending rather than to have the show cut down on a cliffhanger.
I will miss bsg but at least i won't be annoyed by an unresolved story line.

[Tim]

Never got into this show. I don't care what they claim, the show was going nowhere and i think they knew it and that's why it's going. The writers don't even know what's going on any more.

Sort of like what happened to chris carter and X-Files.

So B-5 still rules all it surveys.

[WildMike]

I guess SciFi will replace it with whatever crap they can churn out of Casper Van Diem or Stephen Baldwin... Damn, that channel eats it young. I can barely stomach watching it.

[Leonel A. Umana]

I am completely at a lost here. This is the worst and best news I heard from any tv show I heard since ever. This show is at least ten times better than any crap out there. It is good they want to keep their edge and momentum but just one more season?!! There got to be at least two more season of material out there. I hope to god they try to make a good spinoff from the shrapel when this show come to its explosive end. You know it would be a unbelievable with most not surviving.

[Lee Vieira]

This is SAD... but not wholly unexpected.

The show's quality, while incredible early on, started to slip not long after they went to the 20-episodes per season format. This started to happen late in the Season 2, and became really obvious in the course of Season 3.

Still, a better solution for the show would've been to go back to the 13-episodes per season format that served them so well in Season 1. There was enough time to make every episode 'special'. Sure, there were still a couple of misfires, but not nearly as bad as what came later on. Much of Season 3 is almost unwatchable, because it's such a letdown compared to how the show was through the Miniseries, S1, and much of Season 2.

With 22 eppys to do in Season 4, I am NOT confident that they'll 'get it right' down the stretch. They'll have more story to work with, but the time pressures will be worse than ever.

It's just really sad that it had to go down this way, but the writing was on the wall two years ago. Ron Moore and David Eick are very talented people, but they should have gone back to the way things were before the show became 'broken', rather than just killing it off after what's going to be a rushed S4.

[Brian]

frak

[Lee Vieira]

>So B-5 still rules all it surveys.

You're kidding, right?

[Andrew]

I'm glad these people are showing some brains and ending it before they run out of story. It may be disappointing, but they still have that spinoff series in the works with Adama's father. I think it was called "Cylons".

[Patrick]

I was a huge fan of the show, and I havent missed a single episode since the miniseries, but it was time.

Season 3 was awful. there was hardly any of the cool space combat that got me into it the first season. this was a show that was a space drama with combat. season 3 was just ridiculous drama and no combat. the edge was lost and nothing meaningful happened until the last 15 minutes of the final episode.

being a huge farscape fan, im glad the creators are getting an entire season to finish, instead of a movie where every 15 minute block could have been better done as its own episode.

[Marc Nugent]

ITs over?!?! Greatest show since Firefly and poof its gone :( And crap like Stargate goes on for decades? Where is the justice?!?!

[LP]

Let's face it, folks... the show has been on life support since the middle of Season 3. The story began to wander with "The Eye of Jupiter" and didn't regain focus until the end of "Crossroads, Pt. 2." It's good that they will wrap things up sooner rather than later. Bring on Season 4!