Several months ago, I was contacted by editors Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin to contribute an article (or maybe two?) to the latest entry in Open Court's Popular Culture and Philosophy line. Open Court has published such popular treatises as The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer (2001), The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002), and even James Bond and Philosophy: Questions are Forever. For the 33rd volume of this series, the subject was going to be...Battlestar Galactica.To my delight, the editors were not only asking me to contribute to their book, but they were going to focus on the entire Battlestar Galactica franchise going back to the Glen Larson original of 1978, not merely the current RDM re-imagination on the Sci-Fi Channel.
In other words, this was an offer I simply couldn't refuse. And as I began to craft my work, in particular an article that gazes at the original Battlestar Galactica in the historical context of the Cold War ("SALTed Popcorn," it's called...) I quickly found Josef and Tristan to be amongst the most thorough and supportive editors I've had the good fortune to work with during my ten year writing career. They pushed me as a thinker, made me re-consider and validate my arguments and all the while made it seem as though I had come up with the re-edits and improvements myself. Must be Cylons...
Anyway, Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? is now in print and I felt this would be a good opportunity to interview Josef and Tristan about their fine work, about the nature of the book, and about Battlestar Galactica in general.
JKM: How did you both come to this project? 
JOSEF STEIFF: At about the same time that Open Court had been hearing about the show and was starting to wonder if it might be a good fit for their Popular Culture and Philosophy Series, I was talking with Series Editor George A. Reisch about a couple of possible science fiction-related book topics I was interested in editing. Though I am a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, I assumed the topic was already taken. When I found out that no one was editing a Battlestar book for Open Court, I immediately asked to do it. Because my background is primarily in film (theory and production), I thought it would be good to have a philosopher co-edit the book, and I asked my friend Tristan.
TRISTAN D. TAMPLIN: Even though I'd left academic philosophy, the project was intriguing to me, both with regard to the aims of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series in general as well as the specific focus of the book. I'd taught a course called "Philosophy and Film," and I enjoyed the experience immensely. It allowed for philosophic engagement by focusing on something that the students were already interested in, and this book appealed to me in much the same way. Philosophy is always the most interesting to me when it engages our day to day lives and our actual experiences of the world around us.
JKM: Were you already admirers of Battlestar Galactica, or was there a steep learning curve as you solicited participation and began editing the collection?
JS: We were both big fans; it seemed the perfect first book for us to co-edit for that reason. We could now talk incessantly about Battlestar Galactica and rightfully tell people, “we're working.”
TT: That's right. And, moreover, it was obvious from the very start that the show was rife with opportunities for philosophic inquiry.
JKM: Can you provide our readers with a general idea of what kind of analyses they'll find in the book, and who, specifically, is involved in the writing of them? Did you seek out a certain "model" (to coin a series phrase) when deciding on the content of the book, (for instance film studies experts, philosophy experts, whathaveyou)?
TT: We never did an open call; we began by contacting people we knew personally who we thought were well-credentialed but also had a prior interest in the show. We didn't really have a model in mind for contributors as much as we did for the approach we wanted them to take. We thought that it would make the book much more interesting if it involved people from a range of backgrounds engaging the show philosophically.
JS: And our approach was that first and foremost, the book was to be about the show. Philosophy and theory were to be the tools used to more fully analyze and understand the ideas within the show, not the other way around. As we were reading the first drafts of chapters, I heard about the first BSG academic conference held in England. At first I was bumming because I couldn't go, but I contacted the organizer, Ewan Kirkland, who ultimately contributed the chapter about Galactica being "A Dangerous Place for Women," and he sent me the conference abstracts. From there we invited several presenters to contribute chapters to our book. A few people like Louis Melancon and Isabel Pinedo contacted us after hearing about the book on Open Court's site or through friends. And then, near the end, when we saw that there were several areas that might be interesting to round out the collection, we sent out a small call for very specific topics.
JKM: This is a book about TV and philosophy, with an accent on making certain philosophical concepts are discussed accurately and fully. While writing for the book, I found your editorial suggestions and standards excellent, but also quite rigorous. It was a rewarding experience for me to be involved in it. So can you tell us a bit about how you encouraged the shaping of a piece from start to finish for this Open Court series? How tough was it for you to corral all these writers like me? How many drafts di
d the typical article go through?
TT: While we had some sense of the kinds of issues that BSG would give rise to (for instance, personal identity), we never really had a laundry list of topics we wanted to see covered. Instead, we initially let the process be driven in large part by the particular interests of the contributors, and primarily concerned ourselves with guiding them to develop and pursue the sort of approach that the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series generally strives for.
JS: If we had told people from the start, “these are the topics we want you to write about,” the book wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is. Though we didn't do an open call, word gradually got around that we were editing this book, and the number of people who contacted us wanting to contribute was so many that we had to turn people away. Clearly, we fans have lots to say about this show, and our contributors suggested areas that neither Tristan nor I could have anticipated. So reading the proposals and submissions was inspiring and fun. The authors worked incredibly hard and took our suggestions to heart, and we were all working towards the same goal, to make this an exceptional book about an exceptional television show.
TT: And because BSG itself involves such philosophically rich material, we always sought to make sure that the contributors stayed focused on the show during the course of their analyses, so that their chapters didn't end up simply shoe-horning some issue or concept into a discussion of the show.
JS: I have to say that for me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the process was our email exchanges with contributors during the rewriting process -- discussing various aspects of the shows, speculating about future developments and talking about their chapters. Everyone who contributed to the book loves the show. As we began reading early drafts by individual writers, we began to see ways in which certain chapters might link or reflect different facets of a similar topic. And sometimes a writer would mention something that we knew no one else was tackling, so we’d encourage them to develop that idea more fully. Or if two chapters were too similar, we’d ask the writers to take different stances on the topic. As a result, many of the chapters went through several drafts.
JKM: As an admirer of the original BSG, I was quite gratified to see that this book gazes at all facets, incarnations and generations of the franchise. This alone grants it distinction amongst other scholarly works on the series, in my opinion. How did you arrive at the decision to be all-inclusive, and did this distinction make your job, as editors easier, or more difficult? Were you familiar with the original Galactica too? Galactica 1980?
JS: I remember watching the original Battlestar Galactica at my cousin Howard's house. I loved it. I did see a couple of episodes of Galactica 1980, but that series did not register as much in my memory. In fact, I came to appreciate it more after reading your book. Part of my original pitch for editing this book was that it should include all three TV series and as many of the other versions as possible. I love that we have chapters that deal with the video games, comics and novels as well as the movie Razor. Of course, our main reference point and focus is the new series, but in the same way that the series builds on the idea that "all this has come before," it seemed that an analysis of the re-imagined series would be even more interesting when we look at all the different versions of the story, regardless of their format or era.
TT: I actually was a fan of the original Galactica as well, and often intoned "Cylon Raiders: Attack!" as I rode my BMX down a particularly steep hill.
JKM. I always appreciate it when form reflects content, and Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy takes an interesting form in that five (mystery!) article writers are actually designated "Cylons." Can you more fully describe this conceit for the readers? How did you come up with this novel idea? How difficult was it to execute? Have you had any feedback on this? Are people accosting you with guesses on Cylon identities yet?
JS: Our series editor, George Reisch, encouraged us to be creative, to think about ways in which the actual experience of reading the book could be like watching the show.
TT: We talked about a variety of methods, including the idea of "intrusions" into the text much like Number Six intrudes in Baltar's head. And while, in the end, we didn't represent those intrusions graphically, most of the footnotes in the book operate in that way, providing counterpoint, sidebars, digressions or additional ideas.
JS: One of our favorite ideas was too expensive to actually do – cutting the corners of the pages like the books in the show – so instead we used the modified octagon shape as a border on our divider pages. Even calling the different divisions within the book "models" rather than sections reflects the series. So the idea of a Final Five was an early decision and grew out of this freedom to fully express our love and admiration for the show and its conventions or elements.
JKM: Let's go over some of the chapters in the book. In broad terms, tell me about Model One ("Some Are Programmed to Think They Are Human..."), and the kind of articles included there...?
TT: As I mentioned before, because issues of personal identity are such a central theme to BSG, Dan Milsky's essay seemed a good place to start our philosophic journey because it engages the reader in a very real way, and raises issues that we can't pawn off on the characters in the show because they actually implicate us.
JS: As the book progresses, the chapters lead us more and more fully into the world of the TV series, until we come full circle in the final Model (or section) and look back at the show as a TV show.
JKM: Model Two ("They Look Like Us Now?")
TT: Where the focus of the first section is on more subjective aspects of personal identity, this section shifts the focus to the body in particular, thereby raising somewhat more objective issues regarding our identity and self-conceptions.
JS: Model Two is also where we first encounter a bonus chapter available as a podcast. There's an easter egg in the book letting readers know about bonus materials available for download at iTunes and Open Court's website at http://www.opencourtbooks.com/. Drawing on the physical body, emotions and memory, Caroline Ruddell addresses the difficulties in differentiating humans from the new Cylons in her podcast, "What Lies Beneath? Distinguishing Humans from Skin Jobs."
JKM: Model Three ("We Became What We Beheld?")
TT: The scope of inquiry becomes much broader here – we’re no longer looking just at our own conception of self, but at how we interact with one another. Questions of ethics, morality, and social organization come into play and are addressed to Cylon and human culture alike.
JS: And like the previous model, Model Three has a bonus chapter podcast, in this case, a comparison of the Galactica with the Pegasus, and in particular, Adama with Cain, that is written by Thomas Fahy (and like Ruddell’s, is available on iTunes and Open Court's websites). Fahy’s chapter is titled "'By Your Command:' Leadership, Civilization and the Limits of Violence."
JKM: Model Four ("Battlestar Iraqtica")?
JS: When we first asked for proposals for the book, Dan Dinello submitted one that alluded to and actually used the term “Battlestar Iraqtica.” We loved it, though at that time, we debated how much to examine the resonances between Battlestar Galactica and world events, and whether such an analysis should be a single chapter or a section. But as the book kept evolving, this seemed to be an important part of the discussion and analysis of Moore's vision, worthy of an entire section. The perfect cap for that section was to go back and look at the original series in much the same way, to see if it was as resonant with the world events of its day as the current series is in ours. And I think you [John Muir] make that point convincingly.
TT: Like issues of personal identity, the analogy between the occupation of New Caprica and the situation in Iraq seemed almost a mandatory component of the book. The show and its creators are explicitly invested in these themes, so a discussion of them felt nearly required.
JKM: Model Five ("Finding Purpose in the Void?")
TT: While much of the show is focused on crisis situations both chronic and acute, this section looks at issues of day-to-day life under truly unique circumstances. Sure, we need to avoid the annihilation of our species, but we still need to cook dinner and do the laundry. Trudy Millburn and Jean-Paul Martinon and the other authors in this section address issues of how we manage to go on with the business of living in the absence of much of what formerly gave value and meaning to our lives.
JKM: Model Six ("Near the End of Our Journey?")
JS: "Nearing the End of Our Journey" actually comes from the opening narration of Galactica 1980 and it seemed fitting for the final section. As a final section, we're sending our readers back out into the world around them, and it made sense that these chapters should address issues of the show itself as a phenomenon.
TT: This section completes a philosophic journey that parallels the narrative journey of BSG. We started by looking at issues raised by the show and how they implicate us, then immersed ourselves in the show itself and critically analyzed various characters and situations in the universe it creates, and now we've returned to the perspective of our own world and look back and consider the show as a show.
JS: For example, Richard Berger tackles head on the question of whether the new Battlestar Galactica is GINO or not, and even if you aren’t persuaded to share his viewpoint, what’s clear is that there’s more to say on all of these topics, and that’s part of our goal, to keep the conversation going. In that sense, our final chapter is the perfect re-entry back into the world around us: what’s important are the things Battlestar Galactica makes us think about and want to talk about.
TT: And, as a final send off, we have an interesting array of appendices, where you can find clues as to the identity of the book’s Final Five but also learn more about various aspects of the BSG universe.
JS: Andrew Dowd did a great job researching and compiling the appendices, with some great suggestions and information by several of our contributors.
JKM: The schedule for Battlestar's fourth season changed radically during the preparation for this text. When the end now comes, and all the secrets are revealed (or not revealed), will it necessitate an update of this text? Just as a side-note -- how do you think the series will resolve? Any guesses?
TT: I'd love it if they pulled of the same sort of thing that "Newhart" did in relation to the earlier "Bob Newhart Show." That second series ended with Bob Newhart waking up in bed with his wife from the original series and describing the strange dream he had. So I'm hoping that after we find out that Starbuck really is a Cylon and really does somehow lead mankind to it's destruction, she wakes up in her bunk with an apparent hangover and stumbles into the bathroom to see the face of Dirk Benedict staring back at her from the mirror.
JS: I think our contributors did an amazing job of anticipating certain developments in the fourth season, for example, Hal Shipman’s “Some Cylons Are More Equal Than Others,” but obviously there were some things we didn’t know when the book went to press. So who knows? Maybe we’ll have to publish a second volume. My fantasy is that the Final Cylon is one of the Sixes. Just think -- we’ve been witnessing the identity crises of four characters who thought they were human only to discover they’re this unique type of Cylon, and they’re having a tough time of it. Imagine what would happen if a Six found out she wasn’t just one of thousands (or millions) but rather unique and different – imagine what her identity crisis would be like!
JKM: Tell us a little bit about your next projects...
JS: I am about to start shooting
a short film of my own, and then I hope to dive back into editing another Open Court book.
TT: I'm thinking about maybe trying to figure out how to use my oven.
JKM: Finally, let my readers know where they can order the book...
JS: Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? is at major book retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders throughout the USA and Canada now, and it will be available on the shelves in Europe, late June.
TT: You can also order the book directly from Open Court http://www.opencourtbooks.com/ or from any of online book stores like Amazon.
JKM: Thanks, guys.
JS: Thank you! Great questions. We have had a great time watching the show, working on this book and meeting contributors just as enthusiastic as we are (if not more so). And we get to keep talking about Battlestar Galactica – what could be better?
JOSEF STEIFF: At about the same time that Open Court had been hearing about the show and was starting to wonder if it might be a good fit for their Popular Culture and Philosophy Series, I was talking with Series Editor George A. Reisch about a couple of possible science fiction-related book topics I was interested in editing. Though I am a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, I assumed the topic was already taken. When I found out that no one was editing a Battlestar book for Open Court, I immediately asked to do it. Because my background is primarily in film (theory and production), I thought it would be good to have a philosopher co-edit the book, and I asked my friend Tristan.
TRISTAN D. TAMPLIN: Even though I'd left academic philosophy, the project was intriguing to me, both with regard to the aims of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series in general as well as the specific focus of the book. I'd taught a course called "Philosophy and Film," and I enjoyed the experience immensely. It allowed for philosophic engagement by focusing on something that the students were already interested in, and this book appealed to me in much the same way. Philosophy is always the most interesting to me when it engages our day to day lives and our actual experiences of the world around us.
JKM: Were you already admirers of Battlestar Galactica, or was there a steep learning curve as you solicited participation and began editing the collection?
JS: We were both big fans; it seemed the perfect first book for us to co-edit for that reason. We could now talk incessantly about Battlestar Galactica and rightfully tell people, “we're working.”
TT: That's right. And, moreover, it was obvious from the very start that the show was rife with opportunities for philosophic inquiry.
JKM: Can you provide our readers with a general idea of what kind of analyses they'll find in the book, and who, specifically, is involved in the writing of them? Did you seek out a certain "model" (to coin a series phrase) when deciding on the content of the book, (for instance film studies experts, philosophy experts, whathaveyou)?
TT: We never did an open call; we began by contacting people we knew personally who we thought were well-credentialed but also had a prior interest in the show. We didn't really have a model in mind for contributors as much as we did for the approach we wanted them to take. We thought that it would make the book much more interesting if it involved people from a range of backgrounds engaging the show philosophically.
JS: And our approach was that first and foremost, the book was to be about the show. Philosophy and theory were to be the tools used to more fully analyze and understand the ideas within the show, not the other way around. As we were reading the first drafts of chapters, I heard about the first BSG academic conference held in England. At first I was bumming because I couldn't go, but I contacted the organizer, Ewan Kirkland, who ultimately contributed the chapter about Galactica being "A Dangerous Place for Women," and he sent me the conference abstracts. From there we invited several presenters to contribute chapters to our book. A few people like Louis Melancon and Isabel Pinedo contacted us after hearing about the book on Open Court's site or through friends. And then, near the end, when we saw that there were several areas that might be interesting to round out the collection, we sent out a small call for very specific topics.
JKM: This is a book about TV and philosophy, with an accent on making certain philosophical concepts are discussed accurately and fully. While writing for the book, I found your editorial suggestions and standards excellent, but also quite rigorous. It was a rewarding experience for me to be involved in it. So can you tell us a bit about how you encouraged the shaping of a piece from start to finish for this Open Court series? How tough was it for you to corral all these writers like me? How many drafts di
d the typical article go through? TT: While we had some sense of the kinds of issues that BSG would give rise to (for instance, personal identity), we never really had a laundry list of topics we wanted to see covered. Instead, we initially let the process be driven in large part by the particular interests of the contributors, and primarily concerned ourselves with guiding them to develop and pursue the sort of approach that the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series generally strives for.
JS: If we had told people from the start, “these are the topics we want you to write about,” the book wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is. Though we didn't do an open call, word gradually got around that we were editing this book, and the number of people who contacted us wanting to contribute was so many that we had to turn people away. Clearly, we fans have lots to say about this show, and our contributors suggested areas that neither Tristan nor I could have anticipated. So reading the proposals and submissions was inspiring and fun. The authors worked incredibly hard and took our suggestions to heart, and we were all working towards the same goal, to make this an exceptional book about an exceptional television show.
TT: And because BSG itself involves such philosophically rich material, we always sought to make sure that the contributors stayed focused on the show during the course of their analyses, so that their chapters didn't end up simply shoe-horning some issue or concept into a discussion of the show.
JS: I have to say that for me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the process was our email exchanges with contributors during the rewriting process -- discussing various aspects of the shows, speculating about future developments and talking about their chapters. Everyone who contributed to the book loves the show. As we began reading early drafts by individual writers, we began to see ways in which certain chapters might link or reflect different facets of a similar topic. And sometimes a writer would mention something that we knew no one else was tackling, so we’d encourage them to develop that idea more fully. Or if two chapters were too similar, we’d ask the writers to take different stances on the topic. As a result, many of the chapters went through several drafts.
JKM: As an admirer of the original BSG, I was quite gratified to see that this book gazes at all facets, incarnations and generations of the franchise. This alone grants it distinction amongst other scholarly works on the series, in my opinion. How did you arrive at the decision to be all-inclusive, and did this distinction make your job, as editors easier, or more difficult? Were you familiar with the original Galactica too? Galactica 1980?
JS: I remember watching the original Battlestar Galactica at my cousin Howard's house. I loved it. I did see a couple of episodes of Galactica 1980, but that series did not register as much in my memory. In fact, I came to appreciate it more after reading your book. Part of my original pitch for editing this book was that it should include all three TV series and as many of the other versions as possible. I love that we have chapters that deal with the video games, comics and novels as well as the movie Razor. Of course, our main reference point and focus is the new series, but in the same way that the series builds on the idea that "all this has come before," it seemed that an analysis of the re-imagined series would be even more interesting when we look at all the different versions of the story, regardless of their format or era.
TT: I actually was a fan of the original Galactica as well, and often intoned "Cylon Raiders: Attack!" as I rode my BMX down a particularly steep hill.
JKM. I always appreciate it when form reflects content, and Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy takes an interesting form in that five (mystery!) article writers are actually designated "Cylons." Can you more fully describe this conceit for the readers? How did you come up with this novel idea? How difficult was it to execute? Have you had any feedback on this? Are people accosting you with guesses on Cylon identities yet?
JS: Our series editor, George Reisch, encouraged us to be creative, to think about ways in which the actual experience of reading the book could be like watching the show.
TT: We talked about a variety of methods, including the idea of "intrusions" into the text much like Number Six intrudes in Baltar's head. And while, in the end, we didn't represent those intrusions graphically, most of the footnotes in the book operate in that way, providing counterpoint, sidebars, digressions or additional ideas.
JS: One of our favorite ideas was too expensive to actually do – cutting the corners of the pages like the books in the show – so instead we used the modified octagon shape as a border on our divider pages. Even calling the different divisions within the book "models" rather than sections reflects the series. So the idea of a Final Five was an early decision and grew out of this freedom to fully express our love and admiration for the show and its conventions or elements.
JKM: Let's go over some of the chapters in the book. In broad terms, tell me about Model One ("Some Are Programmed to Think They Are Human..."), and the kind of articles included there...?
TT: As I mentioned before, because issues of personal identity are such a central theme to BSG, Dan Milsky's essay seemed a good place to start our philosophic journey because it engages the reader in a very real way, and raises issues that we can't pawn off on the characters in the show because they actually implicate us.
JS: As the book progresses, the chapters lead us more and more fully into the world of the TV series, until we come full circle in the final Model (or section) and look back at the show as a TV show.
JKM: Model Two ("They Look Like Us Now?")
TT: Where the focus of the first section is on more subjective aspects of personal identity, this section shifts the focus to the body in particular, thereby raising somewhat more objective issues regarding our identity and self-conceptions.
JS: Model Two is also where we first encounter a bonus chapter available as a podcast. There's an easter egg in the book letting readers know about bonus materials available for download at iTunes and Open Court's website at http://www.opencourtbooks.com/. Drawing on the physical body, emotions and memory, Caroline Ruddell addresses the difficulties in differentiating humans from the new Cylons in her podcast, "What Lies Beneath? Distinguishing Humans from Skin Jobs."
JKM: Model Three ("We Became What We Beheld?")
TT: The scope of inquiry becomes much broader here – we’re no longer looking just at our own conception of self, but at how we interact with one another. Questions of ethics, morality, and social organization come into play and are addressed to Cylon and human culture alike.
JS: And like the previous model, Model Three has a bonus chapter podcast, in this case, a comparison of the Galactica with the Pegasus, and in particular, Adama with Cain, that is written by Thomas Fahy (and like Ruddell’s, is available on iTunes and Open Court's websites). Fahy’s chapter is titled "'By Your Command:' Leadership, Civilization and the Limits of Violence."
JKM: Model Four ("Battlestar Iraqtica")?
JS: When we first asked for proposals for the book, Dan Dinello submitted one that alluded to and actually used the term “Battlestar Iraqtica.” We loved it, though at that time, we debated how much to examine the resonances between Battlestar Galactica and world events, and whether such an analysis should be a single chapter or a section. But as the book kept evolving, this seemed to be an important part of the discussion and analysis of Moore's vision, worthy of an entire section. The perfect cap for that section was to go back and look at the original series in much the same way, to see if it was as resonant with the world events of its day as the current series is in ours. And I think you [John Muir] make that point convincingly.
TT: Like issues of personal identity, the analogy between the occupation of New Caprica and the situation in Iraq seemed almost a mandatory component of the book. The show and its creators are explicitly invested in these themes, so a discussion of them felt nearly required.
JKM: Model Five ("Finding Purpose in the Void?")
TT: While much of the show is focused on crisis situations both chronic and acute, this section looks at issues of day-to-day life under truly unique circumstances. Sure, we need to avoid the annihilation of our species, but we still need to cook dinner and do the laundry. Trudy Millburn and Jean-Paul Martinon and the other authors in this section address issues of how we manage to go on with the business of living in the absence of much of what formerly gave value and meaning to our lives.
JKM: Model Six ("Near the End of Our Journey?")
JS: "Nearing the End of Our Journey" actually comes from the opening narration of Galactica 1980 and it seemed fitting for the final section. As a final section, we're sending our readers back out into the world around them, and it made sense that these chapters should address issues of the show itself as a phenomenon.
TT: This section completes a philosophic journey that parallels the narrative journey of BSG. We started by looking at issues raised by the show and how they implicate us, then immersed ourselves in the show itself and critically analyzed various characters and situations in the universe it creates, and now we've returned to the perspective of our own world and look back and consider the show as a show.
JS: For example, Richard Berger tackles head on the question of whether the new Battlestar Galactica is GINO or not, and even if you aren’t persuaded to share his viewpoint, what’s clear is that there’s more to say on all of these topics, and that’s part of our goal, to keep the conversation going. In that sense, our final chapter is the perfect re-entry back into the world around us: what’s important are the things Battlestar Galactica makes us think about and want to talk about.
TT: And, as a final send off, we have an interesting array of appendices, where you can find clues as to the identity of the book’s Final Five but also learn more about various aspects of the BSG universe.
JS: Andrew Dowd did a great job researching and compiling the appendices, with some great suggestions and information by several of our contributors.
JKM: The schedule for Battlestar's fourth season changed radically during the preparation for this text. When the end now comes, and all the secrets are revealed (or not revealed), will it necessitate an update of this text? Just as a side-note -- how do you think the series will resolve? Any guesses?
TT: I'd love it if they pulled of the same sort of thing that "Newhart" did in relation to the earlier "Bob Newhart Show." That second series ended with Bob Newhart waking up in bed with his wife from the original series and describing the strange dream he had. So I'm hoping that after we find out that Starbuck really is a Cylon and really does somehow lead mankind to it's destruction, she wakes up in her bunk with an apparent hangover and stumbles into the bathroom to see the face of Dirk Benedict staring back at her from the mirror.
JS: I think our contributors did an amazing job of anticipating certain developments in the fourth season, for example, Hal Shipman’s “Some Cylons Are More Equal Than Others,” but obviously there were some things we didn’t know when the book went to press. So who knows? Maybe we’ll have to publish a second volume. My fantasy is that the Final Cylon is one of the Sixes. Just think -- we’ve been witnessing the identity crises of four characters who thought they were human only to discover they’re this unique type of Cylon, and they’re having a tough time of it. Imagine what would happen if a Six found out she wasn’t just one of thousands (or millions) but rather unique and different – imagine what her identity crisis would be like!
JKM: Tell us a little bit about your next projects...
JS: I am about to start shooting
a short film of my own, and then I hope to dive back into editing another Open Court book.TT: I'm thinking about maybe trying to figure out how to use my oven.
JKM: Finally, let my readers know where they can order the book...
JS: Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? is at major book retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders throughout the USA and Canada now, and it will be available on the shelves in Europe, late June.
TT: You can also order the book directly from Open Court http://www.opencourtbooks.com/ or from any of online book stores like Amazon.
JKM: Thanks, guys.
JS: Thank you! Great questions. We have had a great time watching the show, working on this book and meeting contributors just as enthusiastic as we are (if not more so). And we get to keep talking about Battlestar Galactica – what could be better?
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