TV viewers are used to broadcast shows doling out new episodes once a week, or streaming services dropping a whole season on a single day. However, the upcoming Peacock reboot of Battlestar Galactica may chart a third course, according to executive producer Sam Esmail.
"When I spoke to Peacock about it, and Mike Lesslie who's an amazing writer -- he's the one who's showrunning and writing the pilot -- the one thing we got excited by is, do we release an episode a week, [release all at once]?" Esmail said in an interview with Collider. "For me, it was like, 'Let's get in there and tell the right story and it will tell us how many episodes.' We may dump three episodes in a row because it's a three-episode-long battle sequence that needs to be dropped in a row even though they're three signifying chapters, and maybe each chapter is switching a point of view within that battle sequence. There may be a 20-minute episode that's the backstory of one of the characters that gets dropped right after that."
This unconventional approach extends to the episode total, according to Esmail. While he did not divulge the number of episodes the show would have, he stated that an episode count might be "meaningless" because the show will not always be chronological.
"...I think we're gonna look at it as sort of like a spider web where we can plot and point and say, 'Well, this isn't chronologically after Episode 1 or Episode 2, it's the backstory of someone, but let's release that so audiences can check that out if they want or they can just jump into the battle sequence,'" Esmail said. "We're really gonna experiment with form in that way, and again I think with a property like Battlestar it lends to that."
It was announced in Sept. 2019 that the show would not be a reboot, though comments from Lesslie later hinted otherwise. The original Battlestar Galactica ran for one season on ABC from 1978-1979, followed by sequel Galactica 1980, which lasted 10 episodes. SyFy (then the Sci-Fi Channel) revived the concept with a 2003 miniseries and then a regular series that aired from 2004 to 2009.
The Peacock version of Battlestar Galactica does not have a release date.
Source: Collider