When it comes to the point where a show has run it’s course and show creators, viewers, and producers all decide the time has come to finally culminate all of the stories and characters you’ve seen over the seasons to an end, its a beautiful thing. As an example if you look at the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop, you’ll find that the it is relatively short but ends exactly where it should, without dragging on the story to the point where you’ve lost interest or creating some kind of spinoff series with one character from the show. All too often your favorite show is cut out early, left forever in stasis in your mind, and you’re stuck wondering how it would have all turned out in the end.

Certainly Battlestar managed to do present a number of parallels between the future and the present. The idea of living in fear certainly resonates with viewers in a post-9/11 world. Of course on top of that we also got plenty of adventure and great action sequences. Watching an everyday Joe Schmo morph into a hardened veteran of war was enlightening, and the series constantly skirted the line of good and evil. Even characters we were thoroughly convinced of being villains suddenly turned out to be acting out of sincerity.

If you’re interested, check out the first part of the finale and gear up for the second. If the first half was any indication, it may not be all that uplifting of an ending. Expect to see some of your favorite characters fall in the name of humanity. One author believes that we’ll likely see some sort of human/cylon coexistence, but I’m not so sure.

Yesterday, we took a look at the mid-season premieres ABC has lined-up this month. Here’s a look at what we can expect from NBC.

Southland is a new cop drama about Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie), a rookie cop who’s being shown the ropes by his partner, John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz). The young cop struggles with the cost that comes with his new profession, like the difficulty he has with shooting a man dead on his first day. The show has a perfect time slot, it will take over ER’s Thrusday night position on April 9th, which is fitting since its executive producer, John Wells, was also the executive producer of ER.

Amy Poehler’s much hyped new show, Parks and Recreation also premieres on April 9th. Parks and Recreation is a mockumnetary about a local government public works office brought to you by the same folks who are running The Office. Critics love it, positioning Poehler to be the next Tina Fey, but hopefully Amy will have better luck finding an audience than her friend Tina has had with 30 Rock.

NBC’s third mid-season show is their biggest gamble. Kings premiered last night to so-so ratings. The epic drama is set in an alternate-universe monarchy in which a peasant prince is groomed to become the king. Fans of epic tales, like Battlestar Galactica, will most likely love Kings but the rest of us will probably pass it by.

Fox is premiering yest another prime-time animated series, Sit Down, Shut Up, about a high school as seen through the eyes of the demented teachers and administrators who run it. The twist in Sit Down, Shut Up is that the characters are animated but the background is live action. Even if that doesn’t sound appealing, The stellar cast makes up for it. Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Kristin Chenoweth, Cheri Oteri, and Tom Kenny all provide voices.

The final season of Battlestar Galactica premiered on Friday night and it’s already creating a lot of controversy amongst fans. I was expecting some of our questions to finally be answered but surprisingly we got more answers than I think a lot of us were prepared for. Now that the Galactica has found Earth, the first episode kicks off with a ground expedition the planet and what we find is nothing less than shocking.

This episode which is entitled “Sometimes a Great Notion” is a lot darker than previous episodes, so dark in fact that even Commander Adama seems to be hitting the bottle as a way to deal with the harsh realities of the fate of mankind. The Galactica seems to become completely demoralized by the find on Earth. The Final Five start to piece together their past, however they still have no idea how they came to be on Caprica and embedded in the fleet. We also find out who the final Cylon on the Galactica was.

I guess the biggest shocker of the episode comes near the end when we find out that Starbuck is really a…well.. no one, including Starbuck really knows. In classic Galactica style, this episode answers some of our questions only to leave us with even more questions.

What are your thoughts on season 4.5 so far?

I’m always sad to see a good old science fiction series go, but I’m certainly glad they decided to give Battlestar Galactica a proper ending and went out on top while it remained true to form. Many shows (ER anyone?) tend to just keep on producing more episodes until they run the series into the ground and they’ve explored just about every story arc and plot twist there is to find, to the point that no one really cares what happens anymore, but they want it to end.

A recent article over on Zap2It interviewed one of the main characters from the show, who’s played by Tahmoh Penikett (points for an awesome unusual name) who didn’t give away any details about the final episodes but did talk about some other stuff. Most interestingly he did speak about the final story arc in broad terms:

I’ll tell you this — it’s not going to be predictable. I’ve heard a lot of speculation about what’s going to happen with Helo and Sharon and their family. It won’t be predictable — it’s going to surprise a lot of people, blow them away. It’s good, though, it’s good. You know what’s great too? There are some questions. Not everything is completely answered.

The final chapter in the Battlestar Galactica saga finally debuts on the Sci Fi channel on Friday at 10/9c and if the trailer is any sort of indication, the show is definatly going out in style. You can watch the trailer for season 4.5 below.

Will the crew of Galactica finally find Earth? Will there be some sort of a treaty with the Cylons? Will Gias Baltar hook up with more women? For fans of the show like me, the question we have been teased with for years now may finally be answered.

There is also a 10 part web series on the Sci Fi website entitled “The Face of the Enemy”. This series is only available to watch online right now, but maybe be bundled with the season 4.5 DVD or Blu-ray disk when they are released in a year or so (Just a guess).

Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 (whoever came up with this season numbering system sucks), premieres on January 16th at 10/9c. For those of you who haven’t been following BSG closely, the show will be coming to and end this season, and we are all anxious to see what the wonderful writers have in store for us.

Although I have mixed feelings about the show ending this season, I’m really looking forward to Caprica which is looking very promising. Although the writers usually keep the BSG format pretty fresh, I think that transitioning to a new show and “platform” is a smart move. As long as Caprica is done right, it should bring us even further into the world of BSG by giving us a brand new perspective on things.

I tend to be the type of movie watcher that watches a movie once and never touches it again. For this reason I’ve had a growing disdain for ever purchasing a dvd..ever. After all if I’m going to buy a TV show season or movie, then watch it, then let it collect dust on my impressive but expensive movie collection..what was the advantage in comparison to buying it? None, is the answer. But with that in mind, Battlestar Galactica was one of the few shows I could go back and rewatch without feeling like I was wasting my time. Season 2 was particularly enthralling.

Suspense was such a key emotion to the second season, it felt like watching 24: Jack Bauer Saves Space. The end of each episode seemed to have a strategically placed cliffhanger, and as a result I burned through the second season even though I was rewatching it in no time flat. Action may be at the forefront of the core of the show, but the political story lines and maneuvering are also part of what makes this series so great. Blending action and story can be hit or miss (ever watch Gundam Wing?) as too much political can bog down a good show and leave you wondering what the hell just happened to the last 30 minutes of my life. Instead season 2 continued to build in pressure with each passing episode right up until the last..which was a startlingly entertaining conclusion.

The formerly black and white lines between the conflict of Cylon and Humanity were cleverly blurred as well as a seemingly new faction of the Cylons emerged, one that isn’t quite so bent on genocide. Definitely one of the series stronger showings, and certainly an improvement over an already stellar (see what I did there?) season one.

While I’ve always been a fan of science fiction, I’ve mostly shied away from anything TV-related to the genre. Battlestar Galactica actually changed this trend for me and I’ve slowly grown into an avid fan of the show, and as a result I was more than happy to see some recent news as we wind down to the final episodes of the series. Show Tracker recently offered up some suggestions for any questions fans may have for the cast from the show. Even with the end of he series coming up, there’s still plenty left behind the curtain. The holidays are winding down and you’ve already gotten your Christmas presidents..but here’s a few stocking stuffers worth of information.

Show Tracker plans on tracking down some of the original shows creators as well as whoever happens to be available from the rest of the cast. Some of course have moved on to shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Law and Order: UK, but we need our Galactica fix..and I hope Show Tracker delivers on that front. Of course if you can’t wait, there’s still the small hit webisodes available from Sci Fi’s web site. The webisodes star Grace Park and Allesandro Juliani, and much like the Heroes side of things, they’re actually well worth watching.

Other than that I guess we’ll just have to hunker down and wait for the end to come..even if it seems like an eternity away right now, I guarantee it’s closer than you think, and like any good show, I’ll probably be a bit dissapointed when it comes to an end, no matter how awesome the ending. Of course a new prequel spin off is right around the corner too, so always a silver lining..right?

I’ve always been a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy TV series, but unfortunately quality ones are just not easy to come by. Either the acting is so terrible or the budget is so low that a typical sci-fi show comes off as ultracheesey at worst and impossible to watch at best. The reasoning for this is pretty simple: If you see a main character of the show to scream “oh noes!” and then flee from a rampaging, horribly done, CGI monster/robot/killer cyborg, then you’re going to have a heck of a time believing them that their fear is both palpable and warranted. Of the many shows that I’ve tried out and didn’t have a taste for (looking at you Legend of the Seeker), Battlestar Galactica had a compelling story line, acting that was quite tolerable, and special effects with just enough money behind them that I could put aside minor awkwardness or quirks.

Unfortunately, it’s also winding down to it’s final season.

Good news, however, is on the horizon for the show..or at least the universe in which the show takes place. The Sci Fi Channel has officially given the go-ahead for a spin off of the series, aptly named “Caprica.” It’ll be set 50 years before Battlestar Galactica and will follow two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas. It’ll also star Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, and Polly Walker. The show will be heading into production next summer on location in Vancouver, and Sci Fi has already ordered about 20 hours for season one, which includes a two-hour pilot. It’s estimated that the show will begin in 2010. I can only hope that it has at least as good a run as it’s parent series did.