BSG prequel series Caprica is officially a go at Sci Fi

I know we've been hearing about Caprica for the last nineteen years or so (exaggeration, save your comments), but it's been one of those TBD projects, where network execs would say, "Someday we'll get to it depending on how the ratings go for Battlestar Galactica's final season, and if we need to make more room for wrestling or gimmicky game shows like Estate of Panic and Cha$e. See, those shows cost us about twenty-six bucks apiece to make and this show could be costly."
It makes sense to be cautious. Despite high critical praise, the parent series has slipping ratings and continues to be snubbed by major awards. But it looks like the powers that be at Sci Fi have finally decided to greenlight the Caprica series. Considering BSG isn't on the air at all right now, I'm not sure what helped them commit to this decision today. Maybe they looked and they just realized that their latest two major projects were Cha$e and Estate of Panic and it put them in ... well ... a state of panic. "This is Sci Fi," they may have declared. "How about we try that kind of programming?"
The new series won't be airing until early 2010 to give the parent time to wrap its run and hopefully settle nicely in our stomachs. The most important part of the article was that part of the reason for this lag was so the producers could regroup the core of BSG's writing staff, who apparently blew to the four corners of the world when their series commitments wrapped. This, my friends, is good news indeed.
Even though Caprica is being billed as a family drama set 50 years prior to the events of BSG, the fact is that this is an amazingly talented crew of writers. If anyone can handle a sci fi family drama and make it compelling and amazing, it's these folks. That's reason enough to believe that Caprica is going to be good. They didn't crap out and say, "Eh, we'll just get the writing staff from Knight Rider to do it. They should all be out of work by then."

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