By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot set the standard for sci-fi television, and fans have been clamoring for more of this universe ever since the final episode aired in 2009. That fan desire has only heightened among failed efforts to resurrect this venerable franchise into another television incarnation. If you’re one of those Battlestar Galactica fans who has been wanting more content, we’ve got some good news: a kind of miniature prequel is hidden in the special features for the episode “Scattered.”
The Secret Battlestar Galactica Prequel From “Scattered”
“Scattered” is the first episode of the show’s second season, and it opens with Commander Adama reeling from Boomer’s surprise gun shot and Colonel Tigh having to take command as Cylons close in on our heroes. Originally, though, Battlestar Galactica’s producers wanted to make the entire episode into a prequel flashback, faking out fans who were hoping that “Scattered” would quickly resolve the life-and-death cliffhanger ending of Season 1. Once they ditched that idea, they still filmed plenty of flashback scenes that showcased how Adama and Tigh first met.
If you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan hungry to check out a prequel’s worth of flashbacks, you simply need to check out the special features for “Scattered.” Several different scenes set in the distant past were filmed, and all of them were intended to show how the surprisingly tight relationship between Adama and Tigh formed over time. These scenes go very far beyond the limited flashbacks that we see in the finished episode, which are there solely to flesh out Tigh’s character.
So, you’re probably asking a simple question right now: if the Battlestar Galactica producers filmed enough flashback sequences to create a bite-sized prequel, then why did they ultimately leave them out of the finished “Scattered”? It all started with the fact that nobody was keen to cast younger versions of our favorite characters, so we have Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan playing versions of their characters who are supposed to be decades younger. This was accomplished by putting the actors in terrible wigs, and the producers ultimately decided not to torment viewers with all of the flashbacks they had filmed.
Of course, as hardcore Battlestar Galactica fans know, the final episode still teases at the prequel we could have had because “Scattered” does include the most effective flashback. In a particularly dark scene, we see that a younger Tigh was about to commit suicide and was only stopped from doing so by the discovery that Adama had reinstated him into military service. Moore saw this scene as an homage to Apocalypse Now, and as in that film, this serves as a bleak revelation of just how tormented the protagonist really is.
Obviously, we’re huge Battlestar Galactica fans, but while we’re grateful for its miniature prequel full of deleted scenes, “Scattered” is a better episode for keeping the flashbacks to a minimum. The final episode does a better job of maintaining the momentum from Season 1, and we get just enough flashbacks to flesh out our understanding of Tigh as a character. If we had to stare at the awful flashback wigs any longer, though, we’d happily save Laura Roslin the effort and flush ourselves out the airlock.
